Observing Hermann...

A school director in Bonn has suspended two 18-year-old Muslim students for wearing burqas in school. These veiled garments cover the wearer’s entire body as well as the face except for a small “net curtain” near the eyes.

Clothing like this makes non-verbal communication like eye contact practically impossible, the director says, and is therefore inappropriate attire for school.

And we don’t even want to start with the separation of church and state and the clash of civilizations discussion, so don’t go there. And they look weird, too, those burqa-thingies. Or at least that’s what the director is thinking and he’s also had run-ins with these two pranksters before but he didn’t mention that part and what if one of their brothers or aunts or somebody is actually hiding under there and I’m pretty sure that the one wearing the glasses (I think) just stuck her tongue out at me so that’s it meine Damen (ladies), you’re outta here.

The young women have now hired a lawyer to represent their cause, oops I mean case.

Schon wieder eine Pro-Schuluniform Diskussion?

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Hungry and irritable after only being offered a little bread and salt upon her arrival, a visibly disappointed Angela Merkel did her best to gracefully cut short her visit to ethnic Germans in the Siberian tundra town of Tomsk and get the hell out of there big time.

“They look kind of German,” one advisor noted. “And they wear those goofy Trachten and stuff, but like I can’t understand a word these people are saying. What the hell kind of German is that? It’s like they’ve got a different word for everything out here.”

Merkel is currently visiting Russia to put a little more umpf into her stormy (not) relationship with Vladimir Putin. And no, her husband isn’t with her this time, either! She has stated clearly that the time for Kumpanei (buddy-buddy friendship) with Putin is finally over this time for sure really and she is going to now speak about their differences openly and provocatively and, well, if you ask me it looks like she’s got him up against the wall and he’s now going to have to finally decide between her or his wife.

And that’s another reason why she went way out of her way to visit these so-called ethnic Germans that used to be real ethnic Germans before Stalin shipped them out to the deep freeze zone of no man’s land a zillion years ago. That kind of stuff bugs Putin, you see, and women just love doing that kind of stuff sometimes just to piss a guy off.

Die Liebe kennt keine Grenzen. Und Zeitzonen auch nicht.

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According to a current study “put out” by a curious condom company, the natives have sex 104 times a year. It was not revealed precisely where these last 104 acts of sexual intercourse took place, however.  I personally know of two, no make that three, that have taken place in Berlin alone, so like, this town is hopping dude.

Here are some more “numbers”: The average native changes sex partners six times during a lifetime. Unless, of course, he or she is a big city native and then it’s around seven and one half times. Half a sex partner? Don’t ask. One-night-stands are also more prevalent in big cities, with Berlin (44%) and Hamburg (43%) being “on top” of those surveyed.

But “on the other side”, sex doesn’t seem all that important to a lot of the Germans surveyed. Well over a third said that they would prefer going out with friends than staying home and having sex with their partner. Almost a quarter of the men but nearly half of the women feel this way, it seems.

Nobody had the nerve to release the numbers about those who would prefer going out with the friends of their partners instead of staying home and having sex with their partners, however. There’s enough “tension” in the air out there already, I guess.

Wie die Karnickel sag ich euch.

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In a sickening attempt to crack down on violence in Berlin schools, innocent non-German mother tongue elementary school children are being subjected to equally violent German fairy tale shock therapy.

Immigrant children slow in developing their German language skills are being singled out and punished by having to repeatedly listen to professional actors recite Gruselgeschichten (horror stories) about ravenous wolves, brutal stepmothers, orphaned children, sadistic kings, blood-thirsty ghosts, kinky bondage and spanking sessions and even animals that talk but only tell lies and sometimes even dress up like women.

These grim stories, written by the Grimm brothers, are already beginning to show results, it seems. Teacher absenteeism at the school in question has shot up dramatically, for instance, these hardened professionals obviously sickened by the senseless brutality of it all.

It is unclear as to whether or not the children’s linguistic progress is actually being promoted, however. A slight increase in vocabulary has been observed on the school grounds, though, one teacher reports. Words like “butcher knife”, “servant-girl”, “prison”, “needle”, “master” and “poison” are being heard much more frequently than before the shock therapy program began.

Habt ihr auch den Struwwelpeter gelesen, Kinder?

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While the six leading native economic research institutes warn of a break in economic growth once the planned increase of the value added tax from 16% to 19% takes place next year, the designated SPD (Social Democratic Party) boss Kurt Beck has determined that German tax rates are in fact much too low and need to be raised in other areas, as well.

“A caring social state shouldn’t begin worrying about its citizens when they are poor,” he says. “It should see to it that they never become poor in the first place.” I see what he’s getting at, I think. Poverty is relative, you see. So if you make everybody poor now, then that’s one less problem to deal with.

You know, they’re all in the same boat then and there’s no more Neid (envy) anymore and there will be peace on earth immediately and forevermore and they can all fly off to Mallorca again to recover from the stress of it all etc.

Oh yeah, here are some of the gory details: The experts claim that the value added tax increase will decrease the predicted growth rate of 1.7 one full percentage point. And oops, I almost forgot. An increase in retirement insurance payments is also planned, as is the striking of a big commuter write-off tax benefit. They just got rid of a federally subsidized home owner assistance plan, too.

So you see it’s not like the natives aren’t getting anything for their money here or anything. When it comes to the current financial policy, I mean.

Steuern hoch, Hose runter!

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The human rights commissioner for the intergovernmental Council of Europe CoE has announced that the European Union’s racism and xenophobia monitoring center will now be turned into a human rights agency provided, of course, that the various other EU human rights agencies and humanitarian missions under supervision of the European Commission and the Council of Europe, being signatures of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and not to mention the European Court of Human Rights, can all come together and agree upon this unanimously as stipulated in the various human rights clauses of thirty or forty EU treaties (could be more we’re not sure) that all of these governmental and judicial bodies must adhere to.

Say that ten times really fast.

“CoE spokesmen have said their organization already suffers from the public often mistaking it for other EU bodies, such as the European Council and the European Parliament. A European Union human rights agency would just add to the confusion, they said.”

Confusion? What confusion? Nobody even pretends to have the slightest idea of what the hell is going on there anymore.

But some people believe that the addition of yet another institution to the already over-bloated and over-duplicated European Union bureaucracy will make things run more smoothly and efficiently. But, then again, some people also believe that monkeys sometimes fly out of the Easter Bunny’s butt.

Die EU? Das ist dieses Dingsda in New York, oder?

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It’s Spargel (asparagus) season now again and this is a good thing. The natives love asparagus. They prefer native asparagus, too. They love their pointy little heads and the hollandaise sauce and the Katenschinken or Schnitzel on the side and basically just eat the hell out of this stuff for a month or two during the early spring every year. They don’t particularly care to pick asparagus, however. And that is why this type of work is usually left up to Poles who are more than willing to come over here by the thousands and knock themselves out for an hourly wage of 5 euros an hour.

Sound familiar? You know, like the migrant Mexicans who harvest all the produce in the Southwest of the US for us? But now a new law has taken effect that will radically change everything (not) and the German employment office (they call it the Job Agency now) is seeing to it that only 80 to 90 percent of last year’s foreign seasonal workers will be hired again. Unemployed Germans are supposed to pick up the slack.

You read right. Unemployed natives doing back-breaking work for a meager 5 euros an hour? Sure, for about an hour or so. Or do you know anybody in California who would harvest lettuce for 6 dollars an hour? Anybody who hasn’t just escaped Mexico, I mean? No, I didn’t think so.

It’s a good idea, I suppose, unemployment being what is is these days and all, but this is another one of those good ideas that are more, well, symbolic in nature, theoretically sound but a flop in practice. So it’s time to send this one back to the drawing board again, I would say. And with any luck, the guys who’ll be working on the next plan will be wolfing down asparagus in their cafeteria for lunch tomorrow.

Bloß nachher riecht es so komisch, wenn man aufs Klo geht.

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The Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Supreme Court) will be deciding next week just how destitute the city of Berlin really is. The city government officially gave Berlin the status of being in an “extreme budgetary emergency” back in 2002 in a ploy to get the high court to officially recognize its plight and through this gain the legal leverage it needs to finagle some cash from the federal government for refinancing purposes - it’s claim being, of course, that it’s financial distress was not of its own making. So I guess “poor but sexy”, as Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit once referred to his city isn’t really the proper term to use here. “Broke but still breathing” is much closer to the mark when it comes to describing this city’s finances.

Berlin has a long tradition of not worrying about where the money comes from. It was heavily subsidized all throughout the Cold War and although these subsidies were soon cut after the Wende (the turn, as in historical turn, as in the fall of the Wall), Berlin politicians continued to keep spending money as if there were no tomorrow. I guess being the new German capital and all that brings a certain sense of invincibility along with it. They’re not going to let us go broke or anything, right?

Anyway, they are going to let them go broke now doch (after all) and it looks like the party is finally and truly over. Berlin operates today under a monstrous 60 billion euro debt, spending 2.5 billion annually just to cover the interest. It only has an operational budget of about 20 billion, and up until very recently it was spending up to 6 billion more each year than it had on the plus side.

None of the city’s politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, believe that Berlin can climb out of this hole on its own anymore. But the federal government certainly has no intention of helping and the other Länder (federal states) see no reason in giving the city a break, either. They claim and can prove, most agree, that the city only has itself to blame in this matter and that they still have some room to maneuver. Sure they do, but all the maneuvering will be in a downward spiraling motion, and everybody knows that, too.

So whatever the decision may be next week, the situation is fatal, but certainly not hopeless.

Berlin bleibt doch Berlin!

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In a blatant failure to recognize which country and day and age she is living in, native Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen has actually had the audacity (or is it just naiveté?) to propose a Bündnis für Erziehung (Alliance for Upbringing) between the German government, the Catholic and the Lutheran Churches with the expressed intent of exposing innocent young children to innocent old Christian values. This diabolical plan was immediately attacked by the usual suspects, oops, I mean powers-that-be as being an unsupportable “signal for alienation”.

And of course it is, if you don’t share these values, that is. Let me list just the few of the offensive values she mentioned, so you can see exactly what I mean by that: “Respect, reliability, trust and decency”.

That Frau van der Leyen sees this as just a humble beginning and openly plans to later involve other religious communities and related organizations, as well, made no difference to anybody pretending to have listened. The door which “is wide open” as she said, was promptly slammed in her face. And then she stumbled again and made the fatal observation that the culture we live in here in Germany is one based upon the very values she would like to see boosted and, well, let’s face it. That was the last straw – the last one she had been holding on to, I mean. She must have resigned herself to her fate after that because then she says, check this one out, then she actually says “But values don’t just grow on their own, they have to be demonstrated.” And that’s when all hell broke loose because the last few supporters she had (a few parents) suddenly realized that they would have to be getting involved here and do something, too.

This one apparatchik guy from the Union for Upbringing and Science (upbringing and science need a union in this country, I guess) summed it up best when he said that her initiative got off to a colossal false start because all the important people (like him) had been left out of the process. You know, every other religious and religious organization in existence, teachers, pre-school teachers, the pedagogues, the pedagogues’ dogs etc. (just the kind of folks who can sit down on one table and really get the ball rolling with something like this, right?). And one of the best lines came from some family expert from the FDP: “It is intolerant and dangerous to use a crowbar to implement Christianity as the leading set of values in a state in which so many non-Christians live.” Hmmm. Maybe in Saudia Arabia it is. But here? In G-E-R-M-A-N-Y? No joke. Educated people actually say stuff like this here.

But this is neither here nor there. Nor even over there. It is everywhere. Everywhere where Christianity forms the basis of the dominant culture, that is. You know, “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy…” To “get it right” in the West, you have to be willing to apologize for being what you are, whether good, bad or ugly. Why that is, I can’t say. But here in Germany, where the natives are so efficient and all, nobody does it better.

And that is why Frau von der Leyen’s initiative is doomed to failure. It is unapologetic, see? It is not doomed to failure because it is flawed or alienating or irrational or intolerant or even ill-conceived. It is doomed to failure because she has had the guts to take a stand on something for something. And if you “respect” yourself enough to have the “decency” to “trust” your instincts and prove yourself to be a “reliable” leader by doing so (the values she mentioned, get it?), I mean, how can you not fail here?

Kirche und Staat müssen getrennt bleiben. Vom Kopf, meine ich.

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Nobody knows why for sure, but when it comes to giving monstrous passenger ships a warm and truly heartfelt welcome, nobody does it better than the Germans. Well, nobody does it better than the Hamburgers do, I should say.

The world’s latest largest cruise ship, the “Freedom of the Seas”, docked for some final touchup work at the famous Blohm + Voss docks in Hamburg the other day and thousands were already on hand there, patiently waiting to cheer her arrival - at six o’clock in the morning.

Hello? At six o’clock in the morning? I mean, the crew isn’t even up by then, is it?

Anyway, they do this all the time up there it seems. Last year the Queen Mary II came in at some God awful hour, too and sure enough, there they were, cheering and screaming like crazy as if it were Beatlemania all over again or something. I saw an interview they did later that day with the QM2’s captain and he said that Hamburg was the only place where people went ape like that. He obviously couldn’t explain it himself and even seemed a bit pensive and troubled and soon got visibly nervous, you could see it. And I think he had a gun with him and he just wanted to get the hell out of there that moment and was about to flip big time but that was probably just a purely subjective impression I was having right then so never mind.

Be that as it may, all I really wanted to say (I think) was that the natives really love to holler at big ships like these so if you ever feel the need to be welcomed as if you were the Queen of England or the Pope or something just book a cruise on one those babies and make sure that it stops in Hamburg. And go to bed real early the night before.

Auf der Reeperbahn, morgens um...

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