It seems that most of my blogs turn into some kind of rant against what happens on the subway here in Berlin, but I can't help it if the thing is a serial offender.

Like I've said, there are small television screens on all of the subway cars that serve the purpose of advertising about 80% of the time and spouting biased, poorly researched 'news' the other 20% of the time. They also have a photo of the day, cartoon of the day, album of the week, musician of the moment and a quote of the day that play between all the rest.

The quote of the day, is always, without fail, something utterly disheartening and negative about mankind. The kind of stuff that would make a child who is just coming to terms with the world around him cry in hopelessness.

Today's quote was: "If you really want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

Every day they spew depressing rhetoric like this. I can't help but look around and notice all the sad sullen features staring emptily through the subway car and wonder if the people behind the Berlin subway are intentionally trying to demoralize their customers. The quotes actually come from famous and respected authors, but I usually don't get far enough to notice who penned the phrase because I'm always so taken aback by the condescending nature of the quote. I tend to immediately look around the train in the hopes that someone else has been miffed by it. I always seem to be the only one.

I'm going to start posting the quotes of the day here and let you be the judge of whether the Berlin subway system is mocking its patrons or not.

4/15/08: "An idiot always manages to find someone stupider than him to make him feel empowered."
4/27/08: "All politicians are the same: they promise you a bridge and then they go and build one where there isn't a river."
7/14/08: "Any amount of nonsense can be made palatable with some slick political spin."
7/15/08: "Fame is a poison that slowly eats away at all those who seek it."
7/17/08: "Words are like foliage: where there are too many, no fruit is to be found." (It must be understood how private Germans are to get that one)
7/20/08: "Parting words should be brief like declarations of love." (Again, the brevity of human contact thing)
7/28/08: "It's wrong to regard critics as murderers. They merely deliver the death certificates."

NOTE 12/23/08: That's clearly not a long-running compilation of quotes, but I'm back in America now, so this blog post is dead.