Your new Tony Maserati Video is here

That´s what the latest mail in my Spam-File says. Rather original, I thought. Not the usual, lotsa-dough, you-won-the-BMW, CHEAP VIAGRA or PENIS LARGER NOW YES stuff.
 Somewhat unexpected. Still something I would never fall for.

Just the exact opposite of the whole story in Egypt. Muslim Brotherhood trying to impose the law of Sharia? Not a big surprise. Another Dictator replacing the former ageing Dictator? What´s new?
The Counter-Revolutionists of the Mubarrak Regime joining the original, liberal opposition all of a sudden?
History repeates itself, huh?
But when the first vote came in, I still bought the whole "Oh, we´re gonna be the nice kind of fanatics!" act, swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Damn. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!

Conservative arseholes, pardon my french, never make this type of mistake. If the other guys win, they never say "Well, let´s make the best of this." or "Maybe they really aren´t the devil after all." or "Maybe they do have a point."
Liberal fuckwads and dickweeds, however, can´t seem to help to see all the aspects and all the sides and try not to condemn but to comprehend and in the end the ones who are unwilling to change in any way win, because time and again we are willing to change our ways, think differently et cetera ad nauseam et ad infinitum while the unflexible bastards are having the time of their life complaining about how "nothing ever changes." and "whatcha gonna do?"

Grrrrrblashnavoomboulaa!

Sorry about this.

So, last weeks promise was about more celebration and less pontification. Ok, time to make up on this.
I have this dress, which is striped in such a way that the pattern makes your chest look flat and your belly big.
I think that is pretty damn hilarious and damn fitting for these days. Or any days.
So, put on something silly that you love dearly, make yourself a nice stiff drink - maybe a chinese martini? - fill the tub with hot water, add some pure lavender oil, put on a japanese movie sans subtitles on your laptop, lite up some cambodian special cabbage in your pipe and just LET IT GO !

There. Is easy, ey?

This is as good as it´s going to get, no fooling.

A little more than two weeks until Armaggedon, and you´re in a hot tub, feeling pleasantly woozy, and, possibly, still wearing an absurd garment. Never mind. For a few moments, there will be bliss. That should be enough. Amen.

Yeah, it´s not much of an entry, but then again, this is not much of a blog. Just the crazed ravings of a psychotic fiend, a girlish soul in the body of an elderly souse, Just another leftover from the Summer of Love '91.

Never, never, never mind. As a true friend once told me at a time of great distress: "Don´t worry about it. It´s all on Monty Pythons anyways."

So, no matter how many times the Knight with the rubber chicken wacks you over the head, you will have to get up straightaway and yell THANKEE-SAI!


Namaste.

S.

Enough is never enough for some of us

Yes indeed. My beloved Wife is on a so-called business-outing (oh these young rascals!), which means I´m alone at home for the night and the remainder of the day, which means I´m sitting naked (nekkid!) by the laptop, sipping chinese Vodkatinis (dry Vodkatini with tangerine juice - the rage in Hamburg these days) watching my monday cartoons and smoking egyptian cigarettes. Just another monday afternoon, really.
Nothing out of the ordinary, one might say.
But in the middle of this weeks Simpson episode (grab the torrent at eztv.it, it's really good!) when I had a good laugh at some good Homer-and-the-kids stuff I suddenly realized where this Blog was heading and I did not like it.
I never wanted to explain stuff about China (free market is not equal to democracy) or why the UssR helped to keep Capitalism more humane -the Sovjet´s only working piece of propaganda was that everybody had a job and nobody starved, so we had to invent ways to keep people from starving and we also had to take care of the unemployed, make it look less bad, and in Germany which was centerstage these social security standards used to be the highest of the world, except for the scandinavian countries, but they had to work more and also the booze was more expensive and oh my god I´m right in the middle of doing it again!
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!
My therapist was right! I do need more therapie, and, possibly, a straightjacket.
 Too bad she killed herself.
As I am writing these lines I am itching to explain to you that Germany during the Kaiserreich, which ended in World War I, was the first fully functional modern capitalist Country.They weren't the first to try -  England and  it´s rebellious little colony are the pioneers, but Germany really got the horrorshow to roll, and I´m doing it again.
Damn you Tom Robbins, damn you Hunter Stockton Thompson and damn you Aleister Crowley!

Damn your for always pontificating and damn you for tempting me into it!

This was supposed to be a celebration of the final days, a decent way to go down, a final salute before all is lost, and all we get is nagging, hindsight and boring speeches?
Oh no.Nooooooooooo!

Ok. Time out.

We obviously need to rest and regroup here. To look on the bright side, this entry is not a complete loss.
It does contain the recipe for the Chinese Vodkatini, so you got something to raise your status at the local speak-easy or Fluesterbar, as we say in Hamburg. (Actually, it´s not ue but the u with the little dots on top, but your codepage can´t handle it. ü ä ö <- See? Dotted u,a and o.)
Never mind. Go out, buy some dry Vermouth, triple distilled Vodka and some tangerines. Fill the shaker with 3 parts vodka, 2 parts dry Vermouth and 2-3 parts Tangerine juice. Add ice, stir, sieve into a Martini glass.
Squirt some Tangerine peel at the surface of the drink. Add one marschino cherry if you are a lady or a poof.
Enjoy.

Counting down

Well, it´s been a while, hasn´t it? Israel has actually sent a declaration of war to Hamas via Twitter (No fooling! Check it out!) and I assume their relationship-status on Facebook is currently on "It´s complicated.", thus fueling the hopes and anxieties of the Dystopian-Mystical Community. Just the other day I received an Email asking for my professional opinion concerning the correct time-zone for the end of the World on December 21. Mexican time? Greenwhich time? Oriental? Occidental?
Now, to some people these are really important quetstions! Will the world end before I get to finish my birthday party on the 20th? Should I wait until the rest of the world has crossed the dateline before I slaughter the lamb and smear its blood on me?
All those questions. Never mind that it never says anything about the end of the world in those Mayan Texts. What it does say is "End of Calender", nothing else. But never mind that.
What all of you are waiting for is, of course, an explaination for my prolonged absence.
In a nutshell, I just couldn´t stand the whole presidential election nonsense anymore and just kind of switched myself off. I really wanted the whole damn thing to be over, one way or the other. Even when Romney got so lost in his own speech that Obama happily encouraged him by saying "Please continue, Governor." I did not enjoy it. On the one hand it felt like a lazy cat playing with a stupid mouse, and on the other hand one was painfully aware of the fact that almost half of the voters were behind this sad excuse for a politician. So, finally, one night my brain began to hurt as I sat down to type out another column and I realized that I just couldn´t do it anymore. Watching the Daily Show had become a substitute for watching the news for me, which in turn began to feel like cheap comedy. I mean, isn´t it scary to think that an aging comedian like Jon Stewart is one of the most important and intelligent political commentators these days? I spoke to several Expat-Americans a couple of weeks ago who felt exactly the same, with one of them even saying that the only news he was watching these days was the daily show and maybe Bill Maher every once in a while.
Typical behavior for american liberals, all well adapted to their environment and therefore no big news you might say.
Yeah, I guess so, to a certain point that´s true.
Just like you could say that it´s no news and no surprise that Foxnews has become the
21st centuries Version of the Reichspropagandawochenschau of the US.
The big difference is that none of the watchers of Foxnews think that it´s a joke, even though they are fed nothing but crude, cheap lies, while in the liberal camp the problem is that the fantastic humour of Jon Stewart is based on the greatest joke of all, the truth.
So, you have stupid, but intense people having their fears and anger fueled on one side and intelligent, mellow people who can see the truth and think its very funny on the other. Plus, the angry people own and love guns and still think it´s ok to do things if god´s tv-guy tells you it´s ok to do it, while the other side tends to shy away from all confrontations on the enemy´s  turf and prefers to withdraw into virtual liberal habitat cocoons instead, leaving the playingfield to the bad boys club.

Ugh, my brain is starting to hurt again. I was still going to explain why Capitalism has nothing to do with political freedom and how the demise of Soviet Communism damaged social equality rights in the western world and later discuss the example of modern, so-called open market China.

I hate cliffhangers. But what´cha gonna do, ´ey?

Yours Sincerly,

S.


Quote of the week:
                                 -"Burma!"
                                  -"Why´d you say ´Burma´?"
                                  -"I panicked!"

                                  Graham Chapman/John Cleese


 

Lowering the bar

Hi-Ya Friends! Ke Aloha nô!

Don´t you just love the Hawaian Language? Aloha means both hello and goodbye, and I can´t even bloody begin to tell you all the things Mahalo means. Just Google it, lay back and explode with joy, nô! Or contact Starchild Alias JupiterOnKâui Alias Beloved Astrid, and she´ll set ya right up.

Anyways, an exciting week and a lot of good games for all of ye Dystopians out there !(and Counterdystopians as well)

China is gearing up to take on Japan, the Bundeswehr discovered a Nazi amongst their ranking Officers (Oh no!) and finally Turkey rang the NATO´s alarm bells by viciously retalliating against Syria after yet another disoriented shell accidentally landed in Turkey, only this time it killed a mother with three children. And some guy, whatever, mother, 3 children. Ka-blamm. Can ya say GODBOMB? Hallebaba.
 NATO recognized this infraction of the integrity of a member (namely Turkey, in case ye got the alz..alzmeyer? alz...homer?) and assured Turkey of a lot of potential support, you know, should they need it, just give a ring, treaty says and all, North Atlantic and all of that shit.
And, of course, really hoping for this to just pass and go away. Up until now we could at least pretend to want to intervene in Syria, but darn, those sneaky Chinese and Russians wouldn´t let us. But now, it´s a bloody NATO case. What´cha gonna do? We could pull out the old Cyprus card (bear with me) and say (really, bear with me, I´m going somewhere here!) that we do not want to piss off Greece again. Because, you see, when Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, Greece was already a part of NATO, and we all know that NATO pretended to be on the Toilet the whole time and didn´t offer jackshit to Greece, as Turkey was also a member of NATO.
The whole mess was left to be sorted out by the UN, and if you were on the loo, too, well, then you´ll have to google the rest of the mess on Wikipedia.
So, to cut a long story short, we could try and say that turkey has still got an open debt with NATO and tell'em to sort it out by themselves this time. Or we could argue that Syria isn´t anywhere near the bloody North Atlantic and leave the rest to the lawyers.
Because we really, rea-hee-hee-heely do not want to get involved in that mess down there.
Not because it really is a religious war between different sects of Islam, that´s the case in most of those places , like the Sunnites and the Shiites in Iraq, only this time it´s the Sunnies and the Alewites. Big Woop.
Not because all of us already have enough shit on our hands. That never stopped us. And also not because our other interventions in Afghanistan or Iraq went terribly sideways from day 1. No, it´s simply because there is no oil or other type of resource or any type of strategic advantage to be gained here. To keep it Simple&Stupid, ain't no Dollar to be made, so screw it.
This, by the way, is also, in a Nutshell, what the whole silly China and Japan Biz is all about. It's not about some desolate Rocks in the Pacific, it´s of course about the fishing grounds and the other deep sea resources surrounding them rocks. Quelle surprise, excuse my french. Sela.
And the Nazi in the German Army, currently on duty in Afghanistan? Oh come on, did you really think any thinking, easy going, smooth type of a person would ever voluntarily sign up for the Nutjob of Nutjobs? Of course there´s Nazis in the Army, and not hippies. It starts with the hairdo and ends with the senseless killing of unknown  people in far-off places. Who do you think will most likely be attracted to this kind of Job?

Exactly. The Nutjob. And the Nazi, why, he's the Primo of Nutjobs.
Quod erad demonstrandum.
Tune in next week when we will turn Wine into Spaghetti and also prove beyond a doubt that Jesus invented Karate.

Ke Aloha nô, me ka mahalo kâua.

A burning man

Much to my surprise I just watched an interview with the Monarch of Jordan, Abdullah II. bin Hussein. The King spoke a rather pleasant outside version of Oxford, UK English. In his answers you could feel that old, often misunderstood, time and again unsuccessfully copied but never mastered art of british imperial understatement. Don´t try and tell me that you really understand understatement; even if you are a Brit, you may own the bloody thing, but that don´t mean you understand it, as my friends from the old home would say. Nobody understands it.
Never mind, all of this is completely besides the point. This man, carefully choosing his words, watchful eyes and a face that would put even a veteran poker player to the test, yet with an Aura of ..... damn it! I have to admit that I, for once, can´t find the proper words to describe this ruler of
the constitutional monarchy of Jordan, the home of the ancient city of Petra, the greek word for stone. Petra is the famous city that was carved into a canyon, a city of stone indeed. If you never heard of it, you should seriously google it. It´s amazing.
Rambling, again. Ok, with an air of benign authority the King reminded me - and anybody else who happened to be watching, that the so called Arab Spring started with a young man in Tunesia setting himself on fire because of the desperate economic situation of his country. The King carefully proceeded to say that the original spark which started the civil unrest in the Arab World was nothing that was limited to this region, but a world wide crisis of finances gone awry.
He added that really there was no Arab spring, a phrase coined by the western media. Let´s face it, we were all caught by surprise when Arab countries went into chaos and religious rebellion without us bombing them first, nice and proper.
No, the king said that it would take 10 to 15 years for this process to complete, and that it would be different for each and everyone of these countries, but that it all started not because of a sudden hunger for liberal values and western style democracy, but because of our so called world wide financial crisis.

To quote Roger Waters "Oh Maggie - Maggie, what did we do?"

Yes, friends, the edges are getting rather frenzy. Sela.

We still pretend like this is happening to someone else, when we publicly discuss what to do about Syria, as if we ever had or now have any control over this civil war. All we do know is that the opposing  sides stem from two different sects of the islam. Hallebaba, what a surprise, Abrahams best friend is once more involved. But the point is, we do not have any power or influence over these wars, and there are more civil wars on the verge of breaking out all over the world, like in Greece, in Portugal or in Spain for example.
And I´m just naming the ones that have already seen massive civil unrest over the past few months, I don´t even want to think about the potential of unrest in places like Russia, Lithuania or the US. Or bloody Germany, for that matter.
No.
Wait.

Hmmmm.
So, bear with me here. What if, theoretically, the Nazis came back to power in Germany and casually provoked England, ridiculed America, threatened Poland and nuked France?
I think it´s safe to say that everybody would be really upset about most of this and kinda glad that it was just France getting nuked. And then we would finally have a common enemy again, and a familiar one, too, one that we can all agree upon, DER DEUTSCHER NAZISCHWEINHUND!
I could spend the entire war tucked away in my panic room, reading Zettel´s Traum and drinking my neighbour´s Brandy. I might even publish an Anne Frank style diary later on, only I wouldn´t end up dead in a Vernichtungslager, but with a bad headache and a rather annoyed neighbour.
Sounds like a plan.

Tune in next week when we will use a fascists uprising to better the world.

...does it get any better...?

Apologies and Libya

I want to apologize for leaving y'all standing in the rain without a even as much as a note from me, while the news were exploding with violence, doom and embarrassment, the latter for Mr.Romney. Those darn camera-phones!
But let´s not stray from the subject, which is my sincere apoplogy for not being there for you. On the first day of the muslim riots I unfortunately received an obscure Email suggesting that my poem about the dystopia to come was the sole cause of all the religious unrest in the muslim world. I immediately retreated to the security of my panic room, expecting a horde of raving and jabbering assassins to kick down my door any minute. After a few days in solitary confinement I finally received a message from my wife, saying that my poem didn´t cause any civil or religious but rather digestive unrest in some of my readers and also that we didn´t own any type of panic room and that what I was mistaking for a panic room really was our neighbour´s winecellar. This did explain the rather unusual supplies of the room, consisting mainly of wine, old brandy, ritz-crackers and quite a disturbing collection of pornography. Since I agreed not to mention the latter to his wife, my neighbour only ground his teeth after seeing the amounts of brandy and wine that I had consumed and refrained from calling the police.

So, Libya. Did any of you ever wonder how things went after the killing of the Colonel? One moment the news were filled with the civil war in Libya, then they killed the Colonel, and then? Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not even one bit of news. Who's in charge now? What about the tribal rivalry? Who´s in control of the oil? What about the Colonel's family? I´m pretty sure they killed his sons, but whatever happened to his daughter? And, more importantly, what happened to all his money?
So, for the most part I was glad to get any type of news from Libya. Obviously, the people of Libya are far from happy, and not just because of that silly video. No, there has to be more to this attack on the embassy, since the authorities were not sure whether the attacks were related to the video or just an unrelated attack commemorating the attacks of 9/11, which in turn suggests an atmosphere of general hostility in the country. Which, of course, is not much of a surprise.
Another question that remains a mystery is the correct spelling of the Colonel´s name. Gaddafi was the first version I ever saw, back when Reagan decided to bomb Libya. The american media insisted that it was Ghaddafy, which looked distinctly more mysterious than the german version. Some german newspapers suggested that it really was Khaddafy, but that version never stuck. Then, with the arrival of Al Quaida it suddenly was Quaddafy, and even Al Quaddafy but the latter turned out to be a mistake by a drunken editor at the ------- Network(deleted at insistance of the editor). One Blogger from Athens insists up until today that everyone has got it wrong and that the Colonel wasn´t even a Libyan but a greek con-man named Stelios Kontos, but I will not perpetuate any such rumours by spreading them even further, so please do ignore that last bit.
Still, after that single bit of news about the dead diplomat it became quiet again and nothing else transpired from the desert lands. An american diplomat was brutally murdered, for crying out loud, and there isn´t even a hint of a reaction from the White House, apart from a few empty phrases? The US have bombed places for a lot less, Libya amongst them. Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to assess the situation in the country with the news focussing on the rest of the muslim world. Again I find myself writing down a lot of questions with no answers. But I never promised you any answers. I only set out to describe and maybe even celebrate the last days of the Western Liberal World, no more and no less, and this is exactly what you are getting. And if you still have any doubts about the dystopian character of the whole bloody mess, well, then you obviously haven´t been watching any news lately. Maybe you decided to spend some time in your panic room. Maybe you don´t have a panic room, but still decided to spend some time there by yourself.
Don´t worry about it. It´s ok.
I understand.

The Story so far

Well, the comments, questions and complaints are legion at this point. I responded to the public comments on site, and answered some of the questions and complaints in person, some via Email. But one question was unique and it turned out to be the hardest and at the same time the most important  question asked. It wasn´t just a question, it was also a bit of a complaint. M´Lady Eliza of Afrique, also known as Madame Faride asked about the Dystopia. ( She also asked/complained about the lack of solutions, but that´s a story for another day.)

Of course I made some references to well-known works of fiction concerning the subject. But where´s my outlook, my view, my understanding of the Dystopia that I said I was going to write about?

Ach! This will border on both Nonsense and Pretentiousness, but there is no other way. Bear with me. To some, a secret is something they will not tell. To me a secret is something that cannot be told.
Not because it´s forbidden, but simply because its impossible to describe it, to put it into understandable words.
There are, however, alternatives, but the path is narrow and slippery.

Nevertheless, this is too important for us to hesitate even for a moment, so be strong and enter the dysmal world of "Konkrete Poesie".
This is the only way I can even begin to try to tell you. Paragraph 3 and 4 are about the Dystopia itself, the last one is about the hope in the aftermath. Good luck, or rather, good hunting!

She's flower units about the lad herself.

I forgot how different it was. Being female.

I haven't been one for over eighty years.

All this attention.

It's lovely. I almost hate to eat it.

Major, larks true pepper. Let birds go further loose maybe. Shout easy play.

Round the turbulent quick. Well, close the reverse! Ankle try sound.

Reset gleaming. Dinner to bug.

Flame the dark true, salt way link.

Complete strike limits victory.

Frosted wake, simple hesitation.

Strike limits. Flame the dark true salt. Way link complete. Way link!

Victory strike limits frosted wake. Simple hesitation!

I'm sorry, Benjamin. I'm unable to foolish assembled regal controlled weather.

Night, the flow trade again. View lost pile luck. Away tunnel back the garden.

Left, become better, control, entire hope.

Roll linger when life. Roll linger when.

Other support. Strong courage. Open way long. Open way.

Computer, replay morning.

Glass lunch judge a bin to let it.

All right. You can cross barrels. All job appalled.

Bread the arrive seen earlier. Dog fellow distance.

A Thousand Years of Darkness

Chuck Norris´ wife, Gina O´Kelley said these words on a nationwide TV-spot a few days ago. A thousand years of darkness are waiting for us if we dare to vote for Obama again. Of course, the natural and healthy impulse of anybody in their right mind would be to laugh about it. Mrs. Chuck has recently also told the world that Maria would have aborted little Jesus under Obama care, which really says more about Mrs.Norris´ opinion of Maria that about Obama care.
Still, it is not funny. This rise of religious madness is slowly but surely leading us back into the middle ages. These two christian maniacs aren´t just a couple of dingbats that happened to stumble across a TV Studio and then went on the air for our amusement. This was an expensive, professional piece of republican propaganda, and the fact that it makes intelligent people only laugh makes things even worse. This laughter allows us to forget that 60 % of all Americans believe in angels and that god hates homosexuals, sex before marriage and abortion. For these people this speech makes absolute sense and a lot more sense than all that mumbojumbo about unregulated financial markets. We´re worried about religious fanatics declaring Jihad on all infidels, but we only laugh at the religious madness going on in our own backyard. And I don´t think that  all those potsmoking doom-mongerers going on about the end of the Mayan Calendar are any better. For the last time, strap on your sandals and check the local library. The complete transcription of the calendar is located at the University of Dresden, and their top experts on the calendar will tell you that it doesn´t say End of the World on the last page but End of the Calender. In other words, you start back on page one. Or giant stone wheel one,  if you´re actually using the original gizmo. But I´m wandering off here.
So, to get back to the point, please don´t try to tell me that most people know better that to listen to Mrs.WalkerRanger. They don´t. If people did know better, we would not have a conservative Government in Germany and Mitt Romney wouldn´t stand a chance against Obama.
Germany was wrecked by 16 years of conservative dictatorship under Helmut Kohl. Still, after only two years of the new Government the majority in the 2nd House ( like the Senate) was already crumbling. Of course, at this point the new Government had only just begun to pick up the pieces, which naturally involved a lot of painful decisions. But people had already forgotten who had wrecked the country for 16 years. After 4 years they still managed a reelection, but were de facto unable to make any decisions without the opposition, which blocked all of their motions in the 2nd House. These days were are under the second reign of Our Good Lady Angela and facing a possible 3rd reign under her gracious wing.
America is facing the same situation these days. Even though the new Government began in the middle of a crisis left behind by the republicans, only 4 years later the republicans behave as if they had just come back from a four year vacation during which they had entrusted the Democrats with the wellbeing of the country, only to come back like outraged, dissappointed parents who find that their kids wrecked the house with excessive partying. And people believe this. It´s like that old australian popsong "Short memory must have a short memory". Not very witty, I know, but still quite fitting.
Some democrat, I think a member of congress recently said that he was sure that people would understand that we are in the middle of a financial crisis which is not the current governments fault. Well, I think it´s very optimistic of him to take that for granted. People understand that if they buy ten smoothies they will get a free smoothie. People understand that you better not mess with the big kahuna in the sky. And people understand the threat of a thousand years of darkness, especially if the warning comes from the King of KungFu and his beautyful wife Mrs.KungFu.
Please do not force me to quote Dylan Thomas again. Just read those words aloud to yourself every night before you go to sleep, please, promise me. There may not be much we can do, but we can at least try to stay aware of what is happening. And maybe even make a little noise before we lie down and sleep.

And please try not to laugh about religious fanatics threatening us with the end of the world.

Sol in Virgo, 69 days until Eshaton.
Kidding!!

Post scriptum :"It´s only funny until someone gets hurt and then it´s just hilarious" - Faith No More

For Sale

So, it´s official. The Constitution of Germany is up for grabs, no holds barred. It actually happened about a week ago, but I just could not believe it, I researched the facts with a thoroughness that scared me, really wanting to make sure that I had this right.
Unfortunately I am correct. The Supreme Court of Germany changed the Constitution with only one negative vote and one lousy, demented, bloodless TV-commentator telling the truth, that only the legislative branch gets to actually make new laws or change existing ones. The judicative branch interprets them and puts them to use. The constituional court may tell the government to change a law or declare a law unconstitutional.
But they cannot make the new law, or change the existing ones, especially not if it´s part of the motherfrakking Constitution, hot fucking damn!
Why am I telling you all these well known facts? Well, because my fellow citizens either do not know these things or they just don´t give a rat´s arse anymore. These scurvy fucking bastards really did it, and up until today, only me and stupid old Heiner ´bad breath´ Bremer have protested against this outrage. Heiner Bremer is probably senile, his teeth look like a collection of brown sugar lumps and he used to be famous for the frown on his face when the teleprompter on the night news froze up again, making him a complete fool with nothing to do but stare angrily at the camera.
Still, old Heiner went to school, he can read and at some point when he was out of toiletpaper again he must have come across the German Constitution by accident and there he must have read that according to that piece of soon to be used paper the german army may NOT operate within the borders of Germany in times of peace. Even in times of war it may only operate within Germany if enemy troops or partisans have invaded the country.

The rules are very clear about this. This has never stopped us from using the help of soldiers in times of crisis. Whenever a flood or a storm hits, the German troops will provide airlifts and rescues, build sandbag barriers and tend to the injured. They do not do this in their function as soldiers. They do the same thing as any citizen who is able and about at times of crisis, they simply pitch in. And they leave their guns at home.
Now, with the new laws invented by our corrupt judges the army can be used to the full extent of it´s capacity if the threat of an event of catastrophic dimensions is imminent.

Oh, excuse me, but could you be any more wishy-washy? A threat? Like, the imminent, even permanent threat of a terrorist attack? Or the escalation of the financial crisis, hm? Anybody who grabs power now can immediately turn the army into its police force just by declaring an imminent catastrophic threat and can you say dictatorship?
And don´t tell me that we are a democracy with rational, democratic parties in the majority. The obscure Pirate Party has made it up to 9 % in the most recent election, with some garbled message about a sort of Facebook-Piratebay-free-download society with lots of citizen participation-always provided you own the right brand of smartphone (hint:check for a used piece of fruit on the back of you product)
Anyways, when they were first put to the test it turned out that they did not even have a programm or some sort of base line. Quite a few members turned out to be good old fashioned racists, and one of their leading figures is currently petitioning the party members to finance his lifestyle, as  he is feeling tired of living off of wellfare.
Friends, I am not making any of this up. Ok, to be precise, when I said the court allowed the army to do pretty much whatever they felt was necessary to avert the hypothetical catastrophy I wasn´t entirely truthful with you. There are two restrictions that the court laid down very clearly.

Rule #1 : No shooting at protestmarchers
Rule #2 : No shooting down of civilian aircraft

Again, I´m not that drunk yet and I´m definetely not making it up. You might say that these rules aren´t really rules but things that most people would take for granted. But when you´re dealing with a bunch of fucked up, gun-crazy, unpredictable nutjobs like the army, it´s better to be safe than sorry.

So, if martial law gets declared next week I´ll just join the protest march to the Airport and take the next flight to Toronto.

Please, no, pretty please with sugar on top, do take this seriously! The current gang of rasberry flavoured arseholes known as our government has already pushed for additional legislation to make army operations inland easier.
This time, at least some of the milk drinking opposition got their thumbs unstuck from their arses and haltet the madness from progressing any further.
But make no mistake about it, the most powerful woman in the world is gearing up for a civil war in europe.
The fat is so in the fire. No fooling. And sooner or later the hog will finally stick it's ugly head out of the tunnel. Will you be ready then, big bag of rice on one shoulder, shotgun on the other?

We'll see you there.

Mahalo.Ke aloha nô!

Apologies

You shouln't read blogs that start out with something like ´After the third Martini´.
You should not, in fact, write things like that.
The outcome is inevitably the same.
Hurt feelings and apologies.

My Apologies. Heartfelt. What in the name of three chinese monkeys was I thinking?
Well, it seems I wasn´t thinking at all there. Anthropophagia? Plain old Cannibalism?
Ooooohh, eeewww, little ol´ me was feelin´ so terribly peckish, yer Honour?

We all know that there is no decent excuse for shooting and eating your Indonesian catholic gay neighbour, no matter what the circumstances, so I shall apologize. Right here and now, I throw myself at your mercy and I´m begging you to please believe me, even if the financial crisis does spin out of control, I will not succumb to the eating of my fellow men, no matter how annoying or tasty they may be.
Personally, I´ve always loved Asian, allthough you usually wind up being hungry again after an hour or so.
But this is completely besides the point. There will be no eating of people. Unless these people strongly indicate really wanting to be eaten. It´s possible. And if they turn out to be something other than People after all, well, that´s a no-brainer, too.
And nobody will blame a conscious non-cannibal gun owner if an unfortunate gun accident happens at a time of distress and crisis and if that acccident provides some accidental meat, well, it will sure be a shame to let this perfectly good if not kosher meat go to waste? Won´t it?

In a time of crisis, many things are possible and possibly acceptable. Only time will tell.


We´ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Hallebaba. And a double Mahalo to all of you out there. Food comes first, morals follow.

We´re all going down...

I´m on my 3rd Martini, and I just realized that these are the last days of the Western Liberal World as we know and enjoy it. I was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Brian Williams was his guest, and at first they were just playing with each other, tempting and daring, but all of a sudden Jon  just said it and Brian agreed - that our system for solving problems has completely broken down.
Yes, I´m well aware  that y'all are professionell cynics these days and y'all can´t just believe how naive I must be, and that's just so obvious and anybody who knows anything knows that.
I know. And the feeling, the realisation, the epiphany is fleeting and fading already. But for a second or two  I could sense that Cormack McCarthy´s ´TheRoad´ is just around the next corner.
A few weeks from now we all might be protagonists in a version of that country of last things that Paul Auster once wrote about.
And it is, no fooling. I can see myself right now in this perfect, 14th floor, UN-World Architecture Heritage penthouse style apartment, expensive psychedelic wallpapers all around me, fine furniture and a beautyful, sleepdrunken, halfnaked lady in the door frame who is my wife,a martini in my hand and I´m looking out  the panorama window facing west, amidst the worst financial catastrophy since the invention of money.
Well, how´s that for vivid symbolism? Hot enough for ya?
The german government under UNSERE GELIEBTE FUEHRERIN ANGELA MERKEL is currently aiming for a hyperinflation to annihilate all debts and push the rest of Europe back into submission. They did it before, in the 90´s, with Russia. Over 100,000 people starved or froze to their deaths as a direct consequence of the hyperinflation triggered by that last big financial crisis. (Google Hegdefonds, junkbonds, 1990´s and you should find it, Try the Archives of The Economist)
And our beloved Chancellorette believes that only a few foreigners and poor people will starve and freeze in Germany, and that our discipline and police force are strong enough to stopp any madness along the way short of a civil war.
Of course, some places in Europe might not be so lucky. They will, once more, have to listen to their strong and disciplined neighbours, after they´ve picked up their shattered reamains from the rubble. And if they won´t, well they can just go fuck up and die. Which is, of course, just fine.

Woah. How did we get here? That third Martini really took us beyond the gravity well.
Still. It´s been just three weeks since I stumbled across a year-old documentary about how the food industry eliminated all government control over their products and produce and how the increasing numbers of infections with deadly E-coli bacteria and the continous rise of food scandals are direct and well known side effects of that loss of control; and then two weathered, experienced political junkies like Brian Williams and Jon Stewart just blurt out the obvious - that the western liberal system of democracy has been smashed beyond reproach by greed, opportunism and populism - that old immortal belief that there are simple solutions to complex problems. Halle-fucking-baba.
Selah.
Call it a drunken man´s rant. Call it obvious. Tell me that there´s nothing you can do. Tell me it´s gonna be all right.

I know that you know that this is bad.
In Germany the extreme right wing is on the rise again. Yes, it´s the Nazis! In some places in former communist Germany they are already providing social services like kindergardens and sportclubs.
And why not? These are the new times. History never repeats itself. Nu-uh!

In Greece there are strong votes for both the communists and the fascists. Since Greece is both the cradle of modern democracy and of liberal values, at least as far as gay rights and general intoxication go, I dare say that this has to have some meaning, if not a lot.

Ok. Time to calm down. In exactly 5 hours and 30 minutes my alarmclock will go of, mercyless and powerful. I will once more get up at the unholy hour of 2:15 a.m. to take care of the public transportation needs of my fellow citizens by driving the subway.
I will enjoy it, knowing that soon this will all be over and then I will find myself gnawing on the bones of my useless, weak and, most importantly, unarmed neighbour.
I might be a poof, a weakling, a coward and bald. But at least I have a gun. Hallebaba.

Sela. Mahalo. Ke aloha nô, me ka mahalo kauâ !

Ps : If you haven´t read any of the above mentioned books yet, do yourself a favor and don´t read them. Ever. And if you do, take some Valium or some Vodka first, preferably both. You might even want to hit yourself over the head with the Vodka-bottle, too. Just to be on the safe side.