Authorities

A kid riding his bike on the walkway, encompanied by two young men, is being stopped by a policeman – you can't ride the bike on the sidewalk, you're supposed to walk the bike there. The kid is a little nervous, and the police guy tries, friendly but intensely, to make the boy understand the situation and the gravity of potential consequences of this misbehavior. One more child lost to fear of the authoritarian system, and one more to eternally obey any given rule.

It makes me think of an old TV-show “The hidden camera”, in which situations were manipulated to confuse people while they were, unknowingly, filmed. In one show a traffic light was installed in the middle of a 2-mile long straight street in the middle of far-stretching fields – you could see miles of flat land. You were able to tell a car was approaching long before hearing it. Worse, this street had not seen more than 20 cars a day since years. Yet, now it had traffic light. And the light was set to red.

The average driver waited about 15-25 minutes for the light to change. Some got out of the car to shake and kick the traffic light.

After waiting for 20 minutes, one driver backed up, turned around, and took the longer route through a neighbor village.

That is *very* german.

- People watching at Cafe Reinhard, corner Ku'damm & Fasanenstrasse -