Kinderhymne - Bert Brecht, 1950

So far, 2010 has started well. I met christycorr and Bá in Paris, which was great, and I'll probably see them again in Bamberg and if that doesn't work out, there's still Rome, or Venice, or London. Yay!

For something completely different, this is getting a lot of attention on German Twitter accounts and news media. I am cringing so very, very much right now:


(Don't be scared by the German, something like English starts after 30 seconds.) Warning: Extremely high cringe factor, multiplied if you are German, speak German, or have any connection to Germany at all.

*sobs* This right there is the new German member of the European Commission. Way to pick a respectable international representative for this country.

Oh, and please laugh all you want, this man is a) dumb as fuck and b) completely despicable. As in, he holds revisionist funeral speeches for Nazi criminals.

( So today is November 9, which is definitely the craziest day in modern German history. )

My first political memory is of 9.11.1989. I was four years old then, and we were baking the first Christmas cookies (they were jam-filled). I had this huge pot of jam that I was licking clean, and my father sat me down in from of our tiny black and white TV screen, which showed people standing on the wall and crying and hammering holes into it, and he explained to me the significance of it all -- the GDR, socialism, democracy, . I remember this so clearly. [It's very likely that this actually happened a couple of days after 9.11., because I remember the pickaxes, and that part came later, but still, the sentiment counts!]

What's your first memory of a political/historical event?

German federal elections were held today. Results are in now, and my worst fears were confirmed -- the two parties on the right (Liberals and Christian Democrats, but "Liberal" means something completely different in Germany and most of Europe than in the US and the Christian Democrats are actually no longer particularly Christian) gained more than 50% of seats and will form a coalition. I'm actually really afraid for this country -- like the rest of the world, we are in an economic crisis and I think that the policy of the new government is not the one that will lead us out of there safely.

I have to remind myself of the one positive thing about this election result: Our next federal government will be headed by a female chancellor (Christian Democrat Angela Merkel, who has been in office since 2005) and a gay vice chancellor (Liberal Guido Westerwelle). That's remarkable in itself. What I find much more remarkable is that nobody ever made their gender or sexual orientation an issue during this campaign. Nobody in Germany even mentions it. Most people don't even realize (I mean, they obviously know Merkel is a woman and most people also know Westerwelle is gay, but they don't really think about it). I guess I am only thinking about this because I have so many friends in countries where such things are a major issue.

I disagree with Merkel and Westerwelle politically, and I also think Westerwelle is a major douchebag. Being gay or being female doesn't make anybody a better person or a better politician. In fact, it doesn't necessarily have to say anything about the political agenda of a person, and that's why gender and sexual orientation as such shouldn't play a role in an election. I'm glad that the German media and the voters agree with me on that, at least.

I have a paper due tomorrow, so of course I'm doing my best to procrastinate.

I've been watching the men's high bar gymnastics final. On national German television. It was painful, to say the least. Before the start of the games, somebody has obviously decided that the main star is going to be Fabian Hambüchen, the high bar world champion. For the last month, every single gymnastics news was either about Hambüchen or at least mentioned him, however far-fetched the connection to the actual topic. I understand that they have to focus on German athletes, but this is just ridiculous. When Oksana Chusovitina won silver for Germany in vault, they didn't even show it. The woman is 33 years old, she has competed in five Olympics for three different nations, she has an amazing life story (she became a German citizen because her son, who had leukemia, was treated in Germany)--the German media ignore her almost completely. I've read and heard more about her from foreign media. Hambüchen, on the other hand, is featured extensively every fucking day.

But today was just too much. In the final, I swear they didn't even mention the names of all the other athletes. Not one sentence that didn't start or end with Hambüchen. Even during the others' performances--"Hambüchen does this flip, too", "He is a little more dynamic than Hambüchen" etc etc etc. Seriously. Dear ARD: I care for gymnastics. I want to see the world's best athletes do some spectacular stuff, and I want you to acknowledge them and honour their performance. At least for the one minute they occupy the high bar.Can you stop your fucking Hambüchen show for just half an hour? It makes me sick.  guess it makes him sick, too. He looked white as a sheet these last days, he fell down twice and was lucky to make third place today. Cut it out. I can't believe I'm the only one in this country who has a genuine interest in the sport, and not just Fabian's favourite pizza recipe (vegetarian, with red peppers and broccoli).