German 4 Dummies: Prebake

It is the end of 2014, and the K-Landnews TheEditor awoke from sugar and fat induced stupor and proclaimed: I am changing my monicker of the year!

After a very un-TheEditor like pause for effect, it* bellowed: From Year of Double Standards to Year of The Numbnut!

The invective laced explanation for the change is too much for any civilized reader, so we reworked it into a palatable form. We'll get to prebake, too.

The ire of the K-Landnews IT-person was very much directed at the two issues under the Twitter hashtags #YallaCSU and #Pegida.

#YallaCSU was the Twitterati reaction to the Bavarian conservative party convention call on foreigners to speak German at home. The Germans have enshrined the requirement for foreigners who move here to learn German. If you have any inkling of German culture, you know how that has panned out.
They make you do it. There was even a high profile court case, where a court upheld a mandate to a 60 year old woman to learn German. A higher court threw out the government case, but not because of her age or because she had raised two well rounded German speaking children. The case was thrown out because she was Turkish and an agreement signed in the good old days of easy immigration between Turkey and Germany nixed the bureaucratic interpretation of the law.
What passes for logic in Bavarian conservative minds made to call for German at home seem very reasonable.
So, after pushback, they changed the wording of the resolution from "demand" to "suggest", mirroring all the sincerity of the "Thank you for not smoking" signs.

If you feel suicidal, stand next to one, light up, and then explain that you agree people who don't smoke deserve a heartfelt thank you. You have been warned.

#Pegida was the second movemen which riled TheEditor. A movement against the islamization of the occident, started in the East German city of Dresden a few months ago, gathered enough steam to worry the media and politicians. With around 5 million muslims in a country of 82 million, any threat of islamization beggars credibility but the major political panic attack named ISIS plus some boneheaded youngsters putting on vests saying Sharia Police and marching through a German city had their effect.
There is more than enough blame to go around regarding who kindled the beliefs expressed by the demonstrators. Media articles with screeching headlines from stalwarts like Bild Zeitung to Der Spiegel deserve some. Politicians deserve more.
What took TheEditor out of its ranting comfort zone, however, was the description of the movement as "non-radical middle class".
What does a radical German middle class look like, TheEditor mused.

Prebake, finally. Go to any German super market these days, and you will find a bakery section advertising freshly baked bread, rolls, and croissants.
It is anybody's guess why they call it prebake when there are more than enough words for freshly baked goods to choose from. Not only do you have standard German terms but every local dialect has its own set of words for exactly the same thing.
You have about ten words for the simplest of plain rolls, yet you go out of your way to call the things prebake, growled TheEditor.

We hope to have succeeded in explaining why TheEditor switched to Year of the Numbnut. If not, accept our apology.

We'll retire from the computer with a latte (German word) to munch a prebake with crushed peanuts on top (peanut butter is an illegal label here) and wish you a happy new Year.

* TheEditor insists on gender neutral treatment and will only go by it.