Überlin is the name of REM’s new single. The video is intriguing but as our friend Pino commented on FB, the sound is a bit déjà vu? In terms of Berlin music videos I still find quite exciting Everything counts…
And looking at more recent stuff Peter Fox’s Kopf Verloren graphic video is definitely superior! Halt mich fest weil ich mich sonst verlier!! 
Yesterday I discovered a nice bookstore-café specialized in bande dessinée. I found here the 2 volumes of Jason Lutes’ “Berlin” published by the Italian Coconino Press. So far I’ve read the first volume covering the events from Fall 1928 to the May 1st 1929 police killings or Blutmai. After having visited the exhibition at the Deutsche Historische Museum, reading this novel puts flesh and blood on the mood of different portions of the Weimar Republic society in that turbulent year.
I read the graphic novel partly because of my interest in German history but mainly because of the events now unfolding in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt. Economic crisis fuel protests and that can lead to positive or autoritarian developments. Velvet revolution. Jasmine revolution. The Maghreb turmoil has been a writing on the wall for so many decades. Everybody would hint to those “masses” of unemployed and desperate youth as a fire waiting for a match to happen. But at the same time it seemed as though the status quo could not change.
In Italy you can buy scratch-and-win cards whose prize is a pension. Something like 4,000 Euro per month. Gaining a pension at 20, 30 or 50, what a dream…many people buy these cards in bars and shops. But this won’t solve our social security problems, though.
In a society where 30-somethings are forced to share the house with their parents because of insufficient income, with declining birthrates and where the theme of ageing workforce is not managed at all neither by Companies nor the State, the necessity to raise the retirement age is a wall against which a merry train hosting a cheerful party is going to crash. A society who doesn’t value neither skills nor experience and uses them only as a smart exclusion criteria (“you don’t have the necessary experience”) is not very well placed to deal with the fundamental issue of having a more productive workforce, longer term.
Watch Mrs Merkel’s video on the German social security and welfare. Because neither free lunches nor scratch-and-win cards will solve the welfare equation.
One of those Roman nights in which you can imagine that Spring is not that far away. A walk along the Tiber, from the office to Saint Peter’s, which always looks hyperreal as though it was the backdrop of a theological video game. Continue reading ‘etre a la hauteur’
Tomorrow, another 27 January. Holocaust memorial day. Or more precisely, Tag des Gedenkes an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus.
Marco Paolini focuses on the extermination of the disabled persons which took place from 1934 to 1945 with Ausmerzen.
Even respectable people can accept, can get distracted, can sell themselves solutions. And this did not regard only civilized Germany in the aftermath of 1929. Any society under pressure, in a crisis, can produce – at any time - solutions which can easily become acceptable to the public opinion.
We must remain vigilant. Because society is drifting, in many aspects, and this is dangerous. Especially dangerous in those countries who – differently from Germany – did not even try to analyze and investigate the banality of evil, and are systematically removing facts from history and prefer weaving a tangled web of “controversial opinions” to confuse future generations and escape responsibility. Continue reading ‘Ausmerzen’
Today Repubblica published an article by Andrea Tarquini hinting to Germany’s Golden Decade and the needs of its blue chips Siemens, Lufthansa and VW to hire, hire, hire. Qualified but unemployed? The German corporates need you!
If you google the article – because Repubblica.it’s search engine is useless – guess where the article pops up? In Mr Tremonti’s revue de presse. So uncle Otto needs you, and uncle Giulio pushes you to go.
The full article (in case Tremonti changes his mind) has been pasted here below. New immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Far East, Portugal and Spain – and a higher participation rate by women to the job market these are the envisaged solutions. More than ever, aunt Angela needs you. Continue reading ‘Uncle Otto needs you!’
Quelle horreur. Mothers, brothers, sisters and fathers encouraging and congratulating their daughters for having intercourse with the dragon. How disgusting. If a girl chooses to be a sex worker in a brothel (maybe in a country where she even pays the taxes) she is a whore, a cause of disgrace and the family doesn’t want to know about her ever. But if she prostitutes herself to the premier she’s a benediction for the family. The usual (catholic, yes) double standard. But even more a huge education problem. Because as Lorella Zanardo writes – also in German – being an adult does not necessarily mean being responsible.
The answer of Der Spiegel to the attacks of the Anglo press to Europe, the Euro and the German economy:
- First, let’s stick to our ideas. Let’s not think that we should follow Anglo fashions. The last time we did follow fashions (pensions, Deutsche Bahn wannabe IPO) we went wrong.
- Second, the Irish real estate crash is more Iceland-UK style than Europe-style.
- Third, Germany produces real products, not tangled financial products.
Read the article by Christoph Schwennicke. And then ask yourself: is Italy self-centered or the princess of all fashionistas?
BerlinRomExpress meets SayAgain,Please? and indulges a bit on idiomatic expressions. In Rome, gufare (behaving like an owl) means consciously bringing back luck. In German Schadenfreude means being happy of someone else’s bad luck or disgrace.
This week both The Economist and the Financial Times are doing a little bit of gentle gufare on the German economy, maybe hoping to be switching soon to Schadenfreude?
As per criticising the Italian economy, the UK financial press probably feels that it would be like preaching to the choir, not worth it. In the meantime the Italian establishment thinks dur comme fer that also this time the fattore C will help, so they they only care about the lato B. And with ognun per sé e dio per tutti ma i cocci sono suoi we’re done today on idiomatic expressions
