This is going to be a rather mild rant, compared to the usual stuff here, but I’m not that experienced a ranter.
A weekly supplement to a large German daily paper includes a column entitled Question of Conscience. You can write your question about what would be the morally/ethically correct conduct in a given situation, and the author of the column, Dr Erlinger, will tell you what he thinks ethics want you to do.
I liked this a lot when it started, since it was a rather unusual Q&A column, but recently the questions have gotten increasingly ridiculous and banal, even considering that there can be moral problems involved in inconspicous situations. But the question in the current issue really took the cake. It came from a reader who’s using the subway every day to get to work, and always when the train stops at the platform and the doors open, there’s an announcement saying “Please use all doors.” And this reader actually asked whether this order obliges him to get in, and get out immediately so he can get in through another door again! And Dr Erlinger answered the question over half a page (his answer, thankfully, was no.)
OK, that announcement was not totally unambigous. OK, Germans are somewhat used to do what authorities tell them to do without asking. But given the obvious purpose of that order and given that there’s hardly anybody profiting from the reader getting in repeatedly, this is just silly.
I thought it was a Karneval thing they had put in there as a joke. Being of the non-Karneval persuasion myself I ignored the absurdness and went on to the crossword puzzle.
It’s carnival. In many, especially Catholic, regions that’s the time before Ash Wednesday (the day Lent time starts) when otherwise reasonable people freak out, wear freaky costumes, attend freaky carnival events where bad jokes are made, and bevhave like lunatics. At least that’s the German way to celebrate carnival; for other variants, see Venice or Rio.
Einmon: I hadn’t thought about this possibility, but it sounds plausible.
What laws? The US has no law against importing pictures of frauleins gone wild. I’d be stunned if Germany had laws against exporting pornography.
Unless, . . . has the meaning of fraulein changed? Oh crap. I think it may have changed from meaning ‘unmarried woman’ to ‘young girl’. In which case, I should be clear.
Schnitte You WILL send me pictures of topless women, who are 18 or over. Und shokolade. I want some German chocolate.
As with some other things, like prostitution, German law is inconsistent with regards to pronography. It’s not strictly forbidden, and you can buy magazines with colored pictures of nude women everywhere, but then again you should be careful since there are some limits (drawn in section 184 of the penal code, if you want to look it up), and it requires some attention to keep within those limits.
The chocolate I can do, however (although importing chocolate to the US seems more difficult than importing pornography, judging from the forms you have to fill in when arriving). Whole milk, bitter, nuts, which sort?
