Aygül Özkan’s next Big Thing

So sorry, prime minister.

After Aygül Özkan’s initative for the removal of crucifixes from Lower Saxonian classrooms (that would be basically five or six classrooms in the south of  Oldenburg Land) has failed, her latest initiative, one for culturally sensitive language in the press, has failed, too. Lower Saxony’s prime minister David McAllister said today that he hadn’t been informed about the contents of the “media charter”, and that his state chancellery, not Özkan’s ministry of social affairs, was in charge of Lower Saxony’s media policies. “There is no way that a government could instruct journalists how they have to report.”

Özkan was appointed minister of social affairs by former Lower Saxonian prime minister Christian Wulff, shortly before Wulff himself chose to become Germany’s top empty shirt & tie, probably after learning that his state’s financial situation was fairly rotten.

Now poor Özkan is in the lion’s den. McAllister, the new boss, is a bad guy.

But Taide has learned from usually well-informed circles that Özkan is already preparing her next big thing. She plans to have all Lower Saxonians (who are, after all, very Hanoverian) collectively apologize to prime minister McAllister, son of a Scottish father, for the Battle of Culloden. Besides, a minute of silence shall be obeyed on 16th April next year.

Too Beautiful to be Published

Margot Kässmann, material celf-censored by Tai De

Given that I’m a civil servant, and that freedom of expression in Germany is more limited than in the U.S. of A., I will not publish this beautiful (fictional) story about former Bishop Kässmann, who will indeed spend some time abroad.

But not in Afghanistan.

The German Schools are Ready

I felt tempted to say that they are ready from day one, but Hilary Clinton said she was, and her day didn’t come. But anyway: we, the teachers are ready, and the schools are ready.

Many questions are asked about the schools. In most cases, they are asked by people who should ask questions about themselves instead. By parents who are glad to send their kids to school, not because they want their children to learn something, but because they are glad to see the back of them, at least for a while. Politicians who put parents’ voliton first, and neglect teachers’ expertise, because there are many parents, but only few teachers in their constituencies, should ask themselves questions.

And if parents or teachers – or both – start asking themselves question, day one will be here.

That’s haughty, right? But you see, teachers have constantly asked themselves questions during the past ten or fifteen years. And teachers have studied, been trained on the job, and twenty or thirty years ago, as a student, I would have survived even the worst of my colleagues of today. Compared to my teachers decades ago, they are geniuses.

It’s time that others start asking themselves questions now.

Margot Käßmann goes to Afghanistan

Breaking new ground: Margot Käßmann (picture: tanks to JR)

Bishop Margot Käßmann, the German equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury (The Times), resigned this week after police found her drunk at the wheel of her company car. She now intends to work as a parish priest, writes the Times. However, Taide has obtained information that she has reported to duty in Kunduz, Afghanistan, as a military pastor.

“She’s having a helluva time here,” says Colonel Heinz Krauthammer. “She’s absolutely thrilled about riding a Panzer once in a while. Unfortunately, she’s squashed the only traffic light here in Kunduz which had been carefully built by a girl’s school a month earlier, sponsored by Hornbach, but there isn’t much motor traffic here anyway, except hers.”