Observing Hermann...

Just three days following the gruesome discovery of twenty dead sheep near a derailed train in a tunnel near Fulda, German police in Thuringia have now reported finding a number of dead cows near a rail crossing in their area, too.



“We don’t want to jump to any conclusions or anything,” said one country bumpkin cop near Erfurt. “But after talking with our colleagues in Fulda, it is pretty clear to us that the killer’s method of operation during both killing sprees is practically identical.”

A massive nation-wide search has now begun for the mysterious killer, his description having been given to police by several dazed passengers who had been travelling on the derailed Fulda train and who just happened to be looking out the window when the killings took place or something.

According to them, the killer is between 7 and 10 feet tall and is completely covered with dark brown and reddish hair. His round and somewhat crested head appears to sit directly on his neck-less shoulders and boasts a pronounced brow ridge with a large, low-set forehead.

Should anyone out there have seen this person, please contact your local police immediately, especially if you have farm animals and live near the train tracks.

It is 11:00 p.m. Do you know where your cattle and sheep are?

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It was democracy in action again yesterday in Berlin, and it all went terribly wrong. Well, in my view it did. We all know that a government is only as good as the people who elect it (or vote it out of office), but if anybody ever had any doubts about referendums, well, here we have it. The same holds true for them, too.



Let’s do the numbers: Although opinion polls before the vote indicated that 60 percent of Berlin’s population was in favor of keeping Tempelhof open, only a mere 21 percent of those eligible even took the trouble to vote. Unfortunately, a 25 percent turnout was the minimum needed for the referendum to pass, the first such referendum in Berlin’s history, by the way.

But hey, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of a century-old chapter of heroic aviation history and the “Mother of all airports” (Sir Norman Foster). And who knows? Maybe something good will come out of this, other than all the cool new graffiti we’ll be able to enjoy on Tempelhof's walls starting this October, I mean.

New ideas are being sought for what to do with the monstrous facility, after all. I just hope nobody suggests putting any of these new ideas up to a vote.

If it wasn’t for disinterest, I wouldn’t have no interest at all.

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Anyway, I had this strange dream last night. It went something like this:

Hermann: Now, you've got to listen to me! Do you have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?

Louie (the shady French cop working in Berlin for some inexplicable reason): I’m afraid Mayor Wowereit would insist.

Tempelhof airport: You’re saying this only to make me go.

Hermann: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor, whoever that is. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that last Tempelhof plane leaves the ground and you're not on it with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Tempelhof airport: But what about us?

Hermann: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we lost it until you came to Casablanca, wherever that is. We got it back last night.

Tempelhof airport: When I said I would never leave you.

Hermann: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Tempelhof, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of four million people and the Mother of all Airports don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid.

A kiss is just a kiss.

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Tired of continually being asked “Where was the wall?” by all of those countless tourists who come to visit the city every year, a Berlin company called Mauerguide has “like had it totally up to here” or something and will start handing out hand-sized minicomputers next week which will show these annoying Quälgeister (nuisances) just where the damned thing stood already.



They’ll be handing them out for a hefty fee, of course, but this being a way cool and high-speed new economy type technology, everybody will understand and shell out the bucks, they hope.

Linked to global positioning satellites, these handy little Handy-like devices (a cell phone is called a Handy here) will show anyone with a need to know not only where the infamous Cold War monstrosity once stood (practically all of it is gone today, that’s why everybody keeps asking), they will virtually be able to take a virtual tour along the near 100 miles of virtual thing. Which, of course, virtually no one with any sense will do.

It’s not a bad idea as far as gadgets go, I guess. But while they’re at it, why don’t they offer a plug-in virtual guide to other frequently asked about location stuff? You know, like a Hitler’s bunker or forgotten tunnels module, or a “Doesn’t Heidi Klum live here anywhere?” unit. Who knows? Before too long they might even offer a “Where was old Tempelhof airport?” plug-in.

“After fifty feet, run into the Sony Center. Then turn right.”

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So like here’s the latest and greatest only-in-Germany, help-me-because-I’m-a-victim-too-industry startup. Starting today, a group of business-savvy Berlin psychologists are opening Germany’s first advice bureau for stalkers. These guys are going to make a killing, too.



I know what you’re thinking: An advice bureau for stalkers? What, advising them how to stalk better or what? Nichts da (no way). This outreach center is actually designed to help cure those poor and unfortunate victims who have even poorer and more unfortunate victims that are still out of reach for them. At least for now, huh, huh, huh.

You know, explain to these guys, in this case during the course of 16 well-meant and emotionally-bonding counseling sessions, how it is that most people don’t consider stalking to be very polite or nice and how their obsession, although certainly no fault of their own, is often even perceived as being socially unacceptable and socially irresponsible behavior (or misbehavior if you prefer) and maybe even, as some would say, socially criminal, or criminal, at the very least.

Anyway, other countries have attempted similar anti-stalking programs in the past - in my country, for instance, we call it “jail” - but none have addressed the wants and the needs of the stalker himself with anywhere near the depth and efficiency that this one does, or should.

It’s called The Stop Stalking Office or something, by the way, but I couldn’t find their link anywhere. I do think I know where they are located, though. And now I am going to go out there and find them and observe them, long and hard, no matter what, again and again.

Neue Lebensinhalte braucht der Mensch.

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It’s bad enough for a straight-A wind energy Musterschuler (model student) like Germany to suddenly fall back to fifth place in class (at least when it comes to the number of turbines installed last year, that is), but to be passed up in the process by the Mother of all Umweltsünder (environmental sinners), the United States of America herself, well, that’s about enough to knock the wind out of you, as in them, which is of course what it did.



It seems that new turbine installations in Germany have dropped a full 25 percent in the past few months, primarily due to subsidies that the government doesn’t want to pay anymore. So you see, for all of the loud talk about new breakthrough technology and wave of the future and the next big export industry thing and saving the planet, blah, blah, money, it seems, makes the turbine go round after all. If these windmills don’t get subsidized here, they don’t get built. At least not for now, they don’t.

But I have confidence that Germany’s wind ideologues will be back up on their feet to be blown off them again in no time. After all, when it comes to energy policy, there is only one thing Germany has more of than wind, and that’s hot air.

“Wer Wind sät, wird Flaute ernten.”

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PS: Thanks for the global change link, EuroYank.

Think the old Pink Floyd “we don’t need no education” line only replace it with democracy and that’s what you’ve got here in Germany, folks. If you trust these latest survey results, that is (which I don’t, nicht wirklich). Hey, that was from The Wall, wasn’t it? How ironic.



Anyway, according to the Leipzig Institute for Market Research, only 60 percent of Germans surveyed have confidence in the democratic system as it is practiced today in the Federal Republic of Germany (in the eastern part of Germany it’s less than half at 44 percent). But when it comes to authority, the survey says that 85 percent of Germans trust authority figures, like their police.

Don’t get me wrong, I think trusting the police is a good thing. But how does all of this fit together? On the one hand you’ve got this perpetual gebetsmühlenartig (repeated like a mantra) “Nie wieder Krieg!” and “Nie wieder Faschismus!” and down-with-authority chant going on 24/7, while on the other hand the same people seem perfectly prepared to toss their tried and true democratic system out the window (the only system that has ever really worked here, by the way) and maybe even make themselves comfortable for a while in the next police state experiment while they’re at it. Or what else does this mean?

And these are the same Germans who want a permanent seat in the UN, too? Like I said, none of this fits together. But how do those other old lyrics go again? "You don’t miss your water until your well runs dry."

Democracy schmockracy!

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