Jan´s Blog Spot

Upfront: just a short post that is above all for all Germans who might read this, but what probably is behind all this is simply the fact that there are a lot of elections coming up in Germany this year. As everybody knows this is the time where politicians try to get as much media coverage as possible and do not always do things that are in the best interest of anyone but themselves.

That is annoying but something we have (sadly) gotten used to. Still there lately was one thing I found to be particularly disturbing, which is why I’d like to draw your attention to it.

Our dear minister of family affairs has gotten a lot of press coverage by announcing to get tough on child abuse, above all explicit material found on the internet. A very noble cause that I fully support. The big problem I have is that the one means she/the ministry is trying to install is not only utterly useless to the cause but also against the German “Grundgesetz” (constitution), as it means simple censorship. If you read German and want to know more, I recommend you have a look at this article.

Abusing a noble cause for campaigning and weakening democracy

One small thing that everybody can do is sign this online petition against the current version of the law, in the hope that it will not pass and there will be measures taken that actually help. If you’re German, please have a look at the petition and consider signing it – it won’t take more than three minutes of your time.

If you’re interested in even more information, there are two more articles (again in German) I found interesting one interview on the issue and an article about how parts of our government do their PR.

And finally, more there also is more satirical imagery available.

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Living abroad usually comes with quite a few new experiences and if you’re lucky the locals will let you in on, well, local stuff if you’ve been around for a while. One thing that normally makes up for a good start for an intercultural discussion are prejudices – er sorry – the image that people from one country have about the others.

When you ask me what the cliché of a French person for Germans looks like I’d say that the drawing on the cover of a short language guide that teaches you how to swear in French is pretty accurate:

But the good old rule that a picture speaks a thousand words also works the other way round – in this particular case it ts thanks to an ad campaign of the SNCF (French railways). They are advertising their fast train connections to Germany which gives a bit of insight on how the French see their neighbors.

The posters put a smile on my face, so here you go:

Germany, as seen from a distance

and one more:

In case you were wondering, the ad text translates to: Germany from EUR29. Now is the time to go and see what's behind the platitudes.

And on a loosely related note, the connections really are pretty fast, Paris to Frankfurt or Stuttgart in 3h49 and 3h39 rsp.

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Well, I hate to say it but the fail of the month for April would be an “update FAIL” that goes to yourstruly, for not having updated my blog, i.e. it has been once again way too long since I wrote anything new.

That being said, I also have a candidate for May’s FAIL of the month (technically it’s two, but they’re kinda the same). I’d call them anti-theft FAIL:

This is why you always want to chain your scooter's/bike's *frame* to some fixed object

This also brought back a few memories of about two years ago when some bastards stole my motorbike and all I found back then was half of a link of the chain I had used. In the end I’m not even sure if the owners of the chains on the pictures above are better or worse off than I was…

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