Kevin's Watch

It's been 20 years now since we (the free Western part of Germanistan) bought the former GDR for a chocolate bar, a pound of filter coffee and a pack of Marlboros. Since then we have tried to civilize the East German aborigines, gave them real money and taught them to vote (not always successfully, of course). Our chancelor from back then promised to turn commie Germany into blossoming landscapes within 4 or 5 years and who would in hindsight accuse him of a lie?

In honor of the 20th anniversery of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov 9 1990) here's my favorite joke - especially for all the Turkish people living here:

What is the difference between Turks and East Germans? Turks have jobs and speak proper German.

FREUNDSCHAFT!

Congrats on your country's big anniversary, Vader!

--A

Now there is something worth celebrating the anniversary of!

Is it true that it was caused by a minor bureaucrat making an announcement that the east germans totally misunderstood but then it was too late to rectify?

Oh, and 'Was tut ein Osterreicher mit...' oh never mind!

wikipedia wrote:Günter Schabowski (born 4 January 1929) is a former official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party during most of the existence of the German Democratic Republic. Schabowski gained worldwide fame in November 1989 when he improvised a slightly mistaken answer to a press conference question, raising popular expectations so rapidly that massive crowds gathered the same night at the Berlin Wall, forcing its opening after 28 years; not long after the entire inner German border was opened.

When more and more citizens left the GDR via Hungary and other "socialist brother states" and the pressure from the streets grew stronger, the SED decided to relax the laws concerning the departure from the GDR. Schabowski, a high official of the SED obvioulsy did not attend that meeting but had to make a press conference. Not knowing that the SED planned to announce the new law later he announced it on the spot, thus making the masses storm the borders and leaving the border guards without real instructions. It was simply a matter of luck that it didn't end in a bloodbath.

Oct 3 1990 - Reunfication Day.

Twenty years. Can I have the wall back, please? Ten feet higher and this time let us install the spring guns to make sure they really work.

Sorry, no. Returning the Wall isn't going to work. It's been parceled out in chunks around the world. (There's a chunk of it here in DC at the Newseum.)

aliantha wrote:Sorry, no. Returning the Wall isn't going to work. It's been parceled out in chunks around the world. (There's a chunk of it here in DC at the Newseum.)

They were selling chunks of it, at least it was allegedly from the Wall. A friend of mine has a bit on his desk.

And if you put all the "pieces" together again you'd end up with a wall that would go three times around the equator.

Vader wrote:And if you put all the "pieces" together again you'd end up with a wall that would go three times around the equator.

COOL! One piece for every person who claims to have been at Woodstock!

Same with splinters of the Cross as relicts in the Catholic Church - if you put them together the Cross would have been even larger than the Berlin Wall.

heh...same with fingerbones of the saints...put em all together you could poke the moon.

--A

My friend's dad has a piece of fence from some civil war battle. (Pickett's charge lol!? Probably not, I dunno which one it was.)

hoping to get tickets for roger water's wall show. is that on subject enough?