Observing German(s)…

But then again, anything that has to do with touchingly romantic notions about revolutionaries “toppling the German state” in the 70’s and 80’s when their parents had their chance but failed to do so in the 30’s and 40’s is always big medicine here. This kind of stuff sells wie warme Semmeln (like warm rolls, as in hot cakes), at least with the German 68er crowd.

And that’s what it’s all about here again, again and again. The psychological need for Germans to compensate for something they can’t compensate for, the childish wish for the next utopia that never came and never will and, of course, the burning desire to make lots of money with a film like this.

Hollywood will love it, too. Especially today, I find, in this day and age of ours. This type of timeless study is right on the money, so-to-speak. Now, more than ever, we need to understand how terrorists think, how they feel, realize what motivates them and then empathize with them. Before they, well, ride off into the sunset, I mean.

“Mehr Heldenverehrung geht nicht.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

Neither irritated nor annoyed at Germany’s accusations of “playing for time” or its calls for “measures to restore lost trust” and give a “constructive answer” to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s demands that Iran halt uranium enrichment and provide missing information, the crafty Iranian diplomat feigned consternation (just like the German one does), although not very well, thus causing subdued giggles and smirks among the rest of the Iranian delegation, and then suggested that the two countries meet as soon as possible to discuss the matter once again.

“Our offer is serious,” Mottaki said, not very seriously. “Seriously,” he insisted.

„Ich denke nicht, dass Sanktionen eine Lösung sind.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

“It does look a lot like the HAL 9000, don’t you think?” said one wary information technologist. “And we all know what happened there, don’t we?”

“And who is to say that if we start using this thing it won’t enslave us and place us in the Matrix or something and start using our bodies to generate electricity for that ever-growing malignant and imperialist network of surveillance, repression and world domination, huh? No, not Washington. I meant Google this time,” said another concerned citizen scientist.

But German reaction to the new browser within the German scientific community has not been negative all across the board. “I mean, it is free, after all,” said a third security expert. “So like how dangerous can that be?”

“Chrome ist nur ein erster Schritt.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Anyway, vividly remembering those terrible years of hyperinflation
I guess, way back when during the Weimar Republic about, oh, fifty,
sixty or seventy years before their birth(s), when they used to have to
pay upwards of 80 quadrillion bazillion Reichmarks for a loaf of
freakin’ bread, Germans have now once again put inflation on the
top of their all-time-top-ten-wish-list-of-angst (I could mention here
that Germany has the lowest Lebensmittel (food, groceries) costs
in Europe if not the world, in fact I just did, but what would that matter?).

This is at least what 75% of those asked said during a recent survey.
But it didn’t stop there of course. After the inflation angst came the
economic downturn angst, natural catastrophe angst (remember that
last big German tsunami, I mean German earthquake, I mean German
asteroid impact here?), landing in a retirement home angst, sickness
angst, “politicians asking too much of us” angst and then unemployment
angst. But strangely (no, complexly), terrorism, that abstract danger that
can’t happen here, doesn’t show up on the angst radar screen anywhere.

Like I said, this angst stuff is pretty complex over here. But calm down
already and try and look at it this way Germany, the only thing to fear is
angst itself. No, wait a minute. Let me rephrase that. Oh never mind.

Lieber Angst als Schiss haben.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

“We are shocked and dismayed,” said the shocked and dismayed left-wing German parliamentarians in a chore although nobody asked them. “Nobody told us that there was actually a friggin’ Krieg going on down there. As you know, the German army is prohibited by law to ever take part in warlike activities of any kind with or in other countries, much less or including our own, and we don’t even want to talk about some awful place like Afghanistan, otherwise we would have never agreed to such an irresponsible and foolhardy military adventure.”

And as if to add insult to injury, a recent shooting “incident” at a German checkpoint in Afghanistan, analog to the “atrocities” committed at American checkpoints here and elsewhere, only on a more regular basis, has left practically no one in Germany particularly concerned much about it at all.

And in typical German fashion, being that there can never be any “losers” in anything, particularly or especially in “a war”, this unpleasant misunderstanding has been discreetly cleared up and rectified, sort of, and more importantly, without the uncaring German public having seen, heard or read a word about it anywhere, much less here.

The concerned parliamentarians were at least pleased to hear this, and that this humanitarian payment made to the victims’ families was “no admission of guilt”, as the guy making the payment guiltily pointed out to them. But this doesn’t change the fact that there is still “a war” going on down there people and they, concerned as they are, are going to make damned sure that they do absolutely nothing about it right now.

Krieg ist voll der Stress, Alter.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

“Like, what is that?” said one near-speechless German. “Everybody knows that Hitler was an unspeakable monster and megalomaniacal maniac with the blood of millions on his hands, but is that any reason to compare him to the wrong American presidential candidate? Especially when it’s one like, well, you know who. I refuse to even pronounce his name. I’m never going to another Madonna concert again.”

While opening her “Sticky and Sweet” concert tour in the UK, the 50-year-old pop princess, more sticky than sweet as of late, actually had “the cheek” to run a video sequence in which Hitler was provocatively placed along side the unspeakably old and horrid anti-Obama himself. “This is like so totally unfair,” said another seething German upon seeing the unbearable images. “Hitler’s dead and has absolutely no chance in hell to defend himself. And I mean that literally. That Madonna is a real bitch.”

But quite possibly predicting the outrage to come, Madonna then cleverly attempted to cool things back down a bit by following up the first video sequence with one placing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama next to other great world-leader-savior-types like John Lennon and Al Gore. And this seems to have done the trick.

“Well, she is an artist after all,” said another German after seeing the second video. “Albeit a bit old. And we don’t want to start restricting the freedom of speech just because she went a little overboard with her first clip. Then we’d have American conditions or something. Um, can I see that second video again?”

„Abscheulich und inakzeptabel. Ihre Musik, meine ich.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

“This is an outrage,” said one outraged German, sunning himself
while reading a Bildzeitung at an undisclosed Baltic beach location.
“Our high quality and highly profitable weapons are only sold to nice
people who never use them, never to rebellious thugs like these.
Otherwise somebody might get hurt, you know? I’m outraged, like
I said. Let’s see what else is in the news.”

According to German law, all German arms export sales must be
kept as secret as Germanly possible and never discussed openly
or questioned or even seriously addressed in public before they
are then approved by mysterious and nameless black-dressed
elements within what they call “the government”. Those occasional
exports not approved, like these, then later find themselves in the
country in question anyway. Then everybody gets outraged for a
few minutes, as Germany’s political correctness and aggressive
pacifism might otherwise be called into question. It’s a complex
law.

“I’m outraged, too,” said an overweight nude lady sunning next to
the first outraged guy. “Me, too,” said the outraged guy selling the
ice cream. “Anybody want a Magnum?”

German gun control in action.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Yeah, I’m doing Sylt again and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. Sure,
it’s snooty here and there and overpriced in places but you don’t have
to be snooty or pay those over prices at those places if you don’t want
to. And you can still have a great time here, I mean. Even though it’s the
rainy season right now (it’s often the rainy season when I come up here,
no matter when). But I don’t care. I ‘m going to have my maatjes and eat
it, too. And enjoy watching all the snoots get rained out in the process.
Let them eat cake.

And I even came environmentally-friendly this year, too. No Autozug
adventure this time.

Ich war eben reif für die Insel.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.