This is what I come to ET for.  I mean, growing up in the US I watched a lot of School-House Rock on Saturday mornings (short cartoons that taught such things as civics, how a bill is passed [I am just a Bill, lonely on Capitol Hill...] and US history) and I had the old crank as a civics teacher in high school, but his crankiness ended up teaching me a lot about my duties as a citizen.  But now I need something of the sort to teach me about civics in my newly adopted land, and these types of diaries really help (and Dodo's diary on Ypsilanti).

I am a Left Party member here, but still learning the political system as it were.  I live approximately half-way between Essen and Kassel on your map above, but still in NRW.  However, I do support the SPD in Hesse, God I hope they win today!

Thanks again for the diary, I hope you write more on these topics because diaries can be so much more than personal opinion or news delivery, they can also be very educational as a whole.

"Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"