Martin Luther King with Robert Abernathy, overlooking the site at the Berlin Wall where a shooting had just taken place (the freedom-seeker fleeing the German Democratic Republic was hit, but survived).
Lies mehr, über diesen Besuch -- auf ENGLISCH, HIER:
Did you know that Martin Luther King's father's MIDDLE name was self-selected? He officially changed his name from Martin King, after a lengthy stay in Germany, during which he became highly impressed with Martin Luther's life and work. Thus, we celebrate the famous German Reformer's name as well on this holiday.
Cross-eyed opossum Heidi sits in her enclosure at Leipzig zoo in eastern Germany. Heidi, who is not yet even on public display, has become an Internet hit, winning more than 65,000 "friends" on the social networking website Facebook.
Das Opossum = die Beutelratte cross-eyed = schielend
BERLIN (Reuters Life!) January 11 2011 by Eric Kelsey
She's middle-aged, gray-haired and stays up all night. Still, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum is Germany's biggest media sensation, and she has not even made her debut at the Leipzig Zoo.
Yet Heidi appears to be the next in a line of animal celebrities in Germany. The 2-1/2-year-old opossum has a growing Facebook following pushing 80,000 fans, sparked a popular song on YouTube and will soon star as a plush toy. However, the public will not get their first glimpse of the opossum until July, when the zoo opens its tropical wildlife exhibit.
The zoo had no inkling of what a cause-celebre the cross-eyed opossum would become when Heidi along with her sister, Naira, and a male opossum arrived from a zoo in Denmark in May.
"The Heidi sensation was surprising and unplanned," said Leipzig zoo spokeswoman Maria Saegebarth. "It's great that there has been a lot interest, but we had nothing to do with the media hype."
Heidi first appeared in Germany's mass-circulation newspaper Bild last month. The zoo has no plans to change its upcoming tropical exhibit because of Heidi's ticket draw.
"We understand that Heidi has become so popular and that people will want to see her," said Saegebarth. "But that will not change the zoo's strategy with the exhibit -- she's one animal of many."
Still, Heidi is the most recent example of animal celebrities in Germany in recent years, which includes Knut the polar bear in Berlin and the recently deceased Paul the octopus in Oberhausen, western Germany.
Knut became internationally famous as a cub when the Berlin zoo hand-reared him after he was rejected by his mother in December 2006. The zoo earned 1 million euros ($1.30 million) along from marketing Knut products in 2007.
Paul the octopus was an international sensation this past summer when he correctly predicted the results of each of Germany's World Cup soccer matches and accurately tipped Spain to top the Netherlands in the final.
Demand for information about Heidi has been so high the zoo has dedicated a portion of its website to answering Heidi-related questions, such as why she is cross-eyed.
Zoo officials believe that Heidi's crossed eyes could come from a poor diet when she was young, causing fat deposits to develop behind her eyes -- neither of which causes her pain or poses a health risk, the zoo said.
Poor vision is not much of a problem for Heidi, the zoo said. As a nocturnal animal, opossum's rely heavily on their sense of smell instead of their sight to get around.
Und das hat mit ihrem singen die Lorelei getan . . . . .
AP – Tug boats secure a tanker carrying 2,400 tonnes of sulphuric acid after the barge capsized at the river …
AP Associated Press Thursday, January 13, 2011 Acid-laden tanker capsizes on Rhine in Germany
BERLIN – A tanker loaded with sulfuric acid capsized on the Rhine river in Germany on Thursday, and special cranes and more than 100 rescuers struggled to right the vessel and find two crew members who remain missing.
There was no immediate word on why the ship capsized, the shipping office in Bingen said. Two other crew members were rescued from the ship, which overturned near St. Goarshausen, in western Germany, early in the day.
"Suddenly the ship just disappeared from the radar," said Martin Mauermann, the head of the Office of Water and Shipping in Bingen, adding that could mean the vessel submerged completely before turning on its side and floating to the surface.
"It's an abstruse case," he said.
The 360-foot (110-meter) long tanker was carrying 2,400 tons of sulfuric acid. There were no indications that the load was leaking and initial measurements carried out downstream from the scene showed no abnormalities, the shipping office said.
Yet given the difficulty of righting the vessel, leakage of the chemicals cannot be ruled out, Kurt Beck, governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state, told reporters.
"It is possible that we won't be able to right the ship with the cranes," Beck said.
Authorities closed a stretch of the Rhine to shipping. The river, swollen from melting snow caused by a recent spate of unseasonably warm weather has flooded the Rhine and its waters were running fast.
The German-owned ship was on its way from the BASF chemical company in the southwestern German city of Ludwigshafen to Antwerp, Belgium. The accident happened on a picturesque stretch of the Rhine near the famed Loreley cliff, where the river runs 370 feet (113 meters) wide and 82 feet (25 meters) deep, making it one of the most dangerous bends in the river.
Legends of a beautiful maiden on the Loreley singing to sailors passing on the waters below are told to have cost countless men their lives.
68%! This figure is so fascinating to me, since I'd be thrilled if even ten percent of our NKHS student body were clever enough to find their way into our German program. (Numbers like twenty percent; forty-; sixty-; nearly seventy percent seem-- radical!)
Furthermore, since the Japanese also learn English (making German their third--or so--language), their world is certainly worthy of our curiosity. They're on to something. These are the kids who will be some of your chief competitors. After all, interest in all things Asian is breaking the lock on the world's pop culture, which the US has enjoyed since post WWII.
Are Asian teens so very different from us?
Maybe you'll enjoy this peek into an Asian (South Korean) boy's band, TVXQ. They incorporate an English chorus. Let me know what you think of their choreography; sound; message.
Purple Line:
Did you see elements of the Asian society, which might eclipse the current fascination there is with Times Square?
Meine kleine Prinzessin (acappella)
Diese Band scheint (=seems) DBSK in Asien zu heissen.
Hier: Noch eine Band aus Süd Korea, SHINee. "Nur" 12 Millionen HITS auf diesem Lied: LUCIFER.
PUBLISHED Jan. 4, 2011, in GARNET VALLEY PRESS: NEWS (with several edits by rsb)
German exchange students spend three weeks in Garnet Valley
On Sept. 22, German students from Städtisches Gymnasium Straelen came to Garnet Valley to learn about all things American. Strälen, Germany is a nice town a couple minutes away from the Dutch border. Naturally, like practically everyone else in the world, the German exchange students wanted to experience something new and their school offered them that opportunity. Twenty exchange students arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport, where many of them shared their first hugs, handshakes and smiles with their American hosts, whom they would live with for the next three weeks.
When the Germans came to America, they did not only step into a different country—they stepped into a country full of people with a different lifestyle. There are many similarities between German and American culture, but there are also plenty of differences. Before the exchange, not a single one of the Germans had ever ridden a school bus. Before they entered our homes, the German students had to ask adults for rides to various places only occasionally. Germans usually travel by bike or foot or train as their daily source of transportation, and it’s very common for young people to utilize these methods of transportation. Several of the Germans had never had a Philly Cheese Steak, and convenience stores such as Wawa were altogether unfamiliar to them. What is typical in an American’s daily life is different from a German’s way of life and so does it go for any country that is ever compared to another.
When in Garnet Valley High School for their school days, the exchange students followed their hosts from class to class, observing how American classrooms work. In Germany, students do not have their major classes every day, and they usually don’t have class every period. When they don’t have class, they can go home; they are not required to stay in school and home is just a bike ride or short walk away. At Garnet Valley, the Germans got to experience life with block scheduling, school buses, and classes all day, every day.
Frau Robinson, GVHS’s German teacher, and the two teachers who came with the exchange students organized trips to enhance the guests’ learning experiences. The trips arranged for the German exchange students were to Valley Forge, Washington D.C., New York City, Lancaster, and Philadelphia. Their biggest trip was to New York City, where they spent three days in “The Big Apple”(WOW!--rsb) shopping and sightseeing. In Lancaster, they learned about old German settlers in America, especially the Amish. For the trip to Washington D.C., both the Germans and the hosts walked from the Lincoln Memorial, quickly stopped by the White House for pictures, and then spent the rest of the day in the vicinity of the National Mall. They also got to see what a real D.C. rally is like. For the trip to Philadelphia, both the Germans and the hosts visited Independence Hall and walked down South Street for a very memorable last day of their American experience.
Well before the end of their visit, the hosts and Germans had become great friends through a number of experiences provided by their teachers and their families. The Germans are not the only ones who learned from the exchange; the hosts learned from it as well. To say the least, they came, they saw…and then they left: to prepare for the return visit by the Garnet Valley Exchangers in Strälen next Spring! It will be hard to wait.
This article was written by GVHS student Suezette Waals and appeared in the GVHS newspaper.
While our GAPP Exchange is the only one like it in Rhode Island, there are hundreds of such exchanges around the USA (with over 25 partner schools in each of these stats: California; Illinois; Indiana; Massachusetts; Minnesota; New York; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Texas; Washington; Wisconsin).
Ohrwurm --- Musik/Text: Daniel Dickopf, ------------Arrangement: Erik Sohn ------------Leadgesang: Clemens
Hallo, hallo, ich bin //: dein Ohrwur :// x2 Ich summ' den ganzen Tag das immer gleiche Lied, es sitzt in meinem Kopf und geht nicht weg. Hab' alles ausprobiert, damit es sich verzieht, doch leider hat das alles keinen Zweck. Ich renne durch die Straßen, konzentrier' mich auf den Krach, ich dröhne mir die Ohren voll mit Beethoven und Bach, die Fünfte Sinfonie verklingt mit viel "Tata!", mein Ohrwurm sagt, "hallo, ich bin noch da!" Hallo,...Ohrwurm (X2). Weil ich in deinen Ohren steck, u ich geh' hier nie mehr weg.
Ich geh' jetzt tanzen, vielleicht lenkt mich das ab. Doch plötzlich gibt es eine Schlägerei! Die Gläser fliegen, doch ich entkomme knapp und lande schließlich bei der Polizei. Meine Freundin holt mich ab und zahlt die Kaution Und fragt mich auf dem Rückweg nur, wo ich ab morgen wohn'. Sie sagt: "Ich hab' genug. Ich verlasse dich!" Mein Ohrwurm sagt: "Was soll's? Du hast ja mich!"
Hallo,dein Ohrwurm,... Ich bin zwar nicht grad virtuos, doch du wirst mich nie mehr los!
Vier (4) Uhr nachts, Freundin weg, ich krieg' kein Auge zu, hab' immer noch das blöde Lied im Ohr. Ich wälz' mich hin und her und finde keine Ruh und komm' mir langsam ziemlich fertig vor. Allmählich dreh' ich durch! Wenn ich nicht sofort schlafe, dann bin ich morgen tot! Ich zähle jetzt mal Schafe... Es funktioniert. Ich merke, dass ich müde werde. Doch plötzlich singt die ganze Herde:
Hallo, hallo, ich bin dein Ohrwurm, dein O (x2) Ich bin ziemlich penetrant, sonst wär ich nicht so bekannt!
