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DER BLOGGER
Are the Boomers Are Heading for the Barn?
When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing. While the unemployment rate had fallen from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, 342,000 workers had stopped looking for work. They had just dropped out of the labor market. Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in thelabor force, the lowest level since December 1981.
WANDERLUST
Eurostar Eyes Frankfurt Link
Eurostar is to extend its high speed rail service to link Frankfurt and Cologne via the Channel Tunnel to London within the next five years, according to a British newspaper report on Monday.
GERMERICANA
Digging into German Culture in Pennsylvania
By Chris Sholley
During the past year, a group of Lebanon Valley College students poured over German documents at the Lebanon County Historical Society of Pennsylvania as part of an advanced course in the language. They made interesting discoveries about the lives of German immigrants.
AKADEMIA
Learning and Teaching German
With the free German courses from Deutsche Welle, you can choose the learning style that suits you best: e-learning at the computer, with short videos, audio courses or podcasts, or with texts and worksheets you can print out. For DW's website, please click HERE
GERMERICA LINKS
RSS FEED
German "Weiner" Scandal Rocks the Nation
Mon, 08/15/2011 - 10:52 —
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party has suffered a setback when a politician tapped to be the forerunner of a regional election was forced to quit over sex with a teen.
The politician, Christian von Boetticher, immediately announced that he was stepping down as party chairman in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, after the affair with the 16-year-old came to light.
The 40-year-old Boetticher, who is single, had been designated to run for state premier of Germany's northernmost state in May in place of retiring current Premier Peter Harry Carstensen. It was later learned that he had secretely married in New York.
In June 47-year old Anthony Weiner quit his job as a New York Democratic Congressman and possible candidate for New York City mayor following news of a sensational 'sexting' scandal that began when he accidentally posted a link to a sexually suggestive picture of himself on his public Twitter account.
The difference is that Weiner, a married man, never actually met with the woman with whom he had carried on a lively email exchange, while Boetticher admnitted to actually having had sex with the girl.
"Yes, it is true, in the spring of 2010 I fell in love with a young women and we were together for several months," Boetticher confessed at a news conference.
Boetticher said his relationship was not an "affair" because at the time no other woman was in his life. "It was love, plain and simple." But he said he ended the affair because of the potential of blackmail.
Under German law sex between minors and adults is legal so long as the minor is over 16 years of age and is acting consensually.
It is the morality of it, however, that seems to have led to Boetticher's resignation. "I apologize with all my heart to all those whom I have disappointed with my actions and who had high hopes in me," a tearful Boetticher said.
After a crisis party executive meeting in the state capital of Kiel, officials of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) said he would remain CDU parliamentary floor leader in the state assembly. But Boetticher said later he would relinguish that post as well.
"Christian von Boetticher said he had misjudged the moral component [of the relationship]," said deputy CDU leader Angelika Volquartz after the crisis meeting.
Welt am Sonntag/Deutsche Welle/germerica
WAS IST LOS?
KULTUR
Celebrating Gustav Klimt
Vienna's art trade will be marking the 150th anniversary of Gustav Klimt’s birth in style. A series of special events in 2012 will pay tribute to the artist, who was a leading light in the Vienna Secession movement and a pioneer of modernism.
DAS KINO
Portrait of Wally - The Movie
A documentary about Austrian painter Egon Schiele's famous portrait of his mistress "Wally" opens Friday, in New York's Quad Cinema III. It traces the legal and emotional drama surrounding the oil painting. The following review is by Chuck Bowen of Slant.
DER STAMMTISCH
Gertrude Stein's Strange Views
By Mark Weber
Scholars of the life of Gertrude Stein were recently startled to learn that in 1938 the prominent American writer Gertrude Stein had spearheaded a campaign urging the Nobel committee to award its Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler.
FUSSBALL
