Today, after having spent some considerable time thinking about the issues mentioned in my last entry (here) and after realizing that our politicians still do their job the way they used to since the founding of the FRG in 1949, and nothing changed since the massacre in Winnenden last Wednesday, I am just puzzled.

Puzzled about the fact that, even after such a catastrophe, nobody really seems to care for what’s really important. Like I wrote earlier, politicians of every party of the Bundestag  blamed different people, laws or even the school for it. A German psychologist worries that the students are coming back to school too early (Hanover’s “Neue Presse”) and even that the school should be closed permanently for public schooling  - WELT online.
Is there nothing else they could wonder about? Is there nothing else that needs to be done? Is it not time to ACT, or at least RE-ACT after such a crime? Is it not time to CHANGE something?
But rather than changing, we Germans start what we’re second best at after complaining. Discussing.
Media started to cover that topic rightaway, showing every single bit of the “Last seconds of the Murderer” and interviewed little school boys (thanks, YouTube) who apparently were absolutely proud to be on TV but appeared a little shocked nonetheless. They discussed it over and over and over and over, and everyone said basically, “There is no so-so solution for that problem. It’s many areas that would need a complete makeover.”
Great. Now, what do we do with that? Right, you guessed it already. Start discussing why there is no easy solution to that problem and who failed when to do the right thing so there is someone to blame and to point a finger at.

Now, it seems most of the happy discussion people found that certain something in blaming the – Internet and Media. PC and other Video Games, to be precise. Again, like everytime when a school kid kills other people in his education facility, the games most blamed where the same. Counter-Strike (I wonder if they still mean the original 1998 (was it?) version or at least the updated Source thingy…), Crysis (and, BEWARE, this was even developed in GERMANY! Can you believe it?) and UT. Why UT, you might ask? Yeah. Exactly my point.
Why not blame the likes of Doom, Quake, Stalker, even FEAR or Bioshock (hey, you can kill there too!)?  Anyone remember Cate Archer in the No One Lives Forever Series? It was a little blood there as well! And Hitman! And Lara Croft! And Super Mario! And Pokemon! You see, the perfect victim.

To come back to my point: Where’s the acting? Where’s the “We need to do something about this right NOW”-attitude? Teachers start complaining that they would consider being paid extra money as a reward to withstand the possible danger in class – here.
Politicians start arguing about whether or not Germany should implement a blocking system against child pornography.

The only thing you hear now, a week later, is: Don’t draw conclusions too fast, you might punish the wrong people. Says the Commisioner of Data Security of Germany, the politicians even needed to review the security laws made in the post-9/11 era.

Now how about raising money for educating the children better? How about spending some bailout (I love that word, you know^^) money on schools? Teachers? Kindergartens? Early Education Facilities (aka KiTas?)? Why not just let some bank get down?  Infrastructure investments? But alright. I’m just a normal guy knowing nothing of that stuff.

——

Our pope. You know Mr Ratzinger? Pope Benedict XVI?
He told the world condoms would increase the risc for AIDS. Come on. (tagesschau.de)
It would rather make the problem worse. Solution for it all would be a “healthy relationship towards each other in a trusty environment”. Yeah, right. Go ahead. Tell that to the people buying porn w/o condom (–>bareback), tell that to people who want to be devirginized by just some stranger, no matter what, tell that to guys and girls wanting to have a baby. Right.

So much for today.
Think about it, will you?

Thanks.

I feel like I really need to write some things about the massacre in Winnenden in south Germany.

CNN.com
“If an unassuming youth like Kretschmer can turn into a mass murderer, and if this can happen in a quiet place like Winnenden, it can happen anywhere in this country which, for two generations, has striven with immense success to recast itself as a peaceful democratic nation, but whose violent past still has echoes and still has the power to unsettle today’s Germans.” <– is this the NEW view of Germany in the world? If so, thank you…

Youtube.com
Anyone able to understand German should (!) go through the comments. What’s it gonna be like to live here in 15 years? Who did fail when (not) doing what?

Politicians here, like always, are really fast at hand with some answers to my question. Action games (German: “Killerspiele”), social insecurity, no future for the lower-educated youth, immigration policy failed, parenting went wrong, I could continue this list forever. Oh, did I mention that the murderer was on psychiatric drugs the day he killed 16 people? So it’s the medicine, too.
In my opinion, nobody really knows what’s going on. At least and certainly not the people who could possibly change something. When was the last time those highly-paid politicians with all their extra salaries from lobbyist work took a look down at Mr and Mrs Ordinary? When was the last time they really cared about us, the PEOPLE?
Alright, we’re gonna make the sale of PG-18 games even harder.  Alright, we’re gonna be fine, just go and raise some taxes. Alright, give us the new all-in-one-wonder-card making it so much more easy to go see the doctor. Alright, go ahead and give us extra money to buy some cars and at the same time try to educate us about being environmentally cautious. Alright, come on, go ahead and give us some more Ritalin. We’re really in need.
Something’s going wrong here. FUNDAMENTALLY wrong. Seriously wrong.

Walking around in Berlin, you see a Turkish 10-year-old boy calling a coloured 15-year-old girl to go and leave his (!) country. You see other, mostly young people pondering the streets, molesting others, drinking, smoking and enjoying themselves by accidentally hitting  some stranger in the face because he took a too close look. It’s a fine line between being treated as not-existing and being THE hate object. You have to walk that line carefully these days, I can tell you.

Ever heard of the country of Hitler? Ever heard of the Third Reich? Yeah, that’s us about 70 years ago.
My parents weren’t born then, and I wasn’t even taken into consideration, I guess, but before Hitler came to power, we had a shockingly similar situation. Ever took a look at election outcomes these years, especially in the Eastern parts of Germany? Ever wondered why the extremists, left AND right, were able to regain some tiny, but saddening amount of power?
I don’t wanna say that it’s likely for another Hitler to come back. But it’s gonna be hard work for our society (if it is only a single society we live in, probably there are LOTS of them…) to regather and face the problems with unity and the strength we could find in ourselves.

Change we can believe in? Not in Germany, Ms Merkel, sure not. Unfortunately.

Fact-fiction.net

Actually I feel this is gonna be a bilangual entry again, somehow I just can’t decide now which language to use…. Let’s start with German, usually I’m gonna change into English after some (short) time

Heute war wieder einer der Tage, die man am liebsten schon morgens abhaken würde. Einmal im Bett umdrehen, weiterschlafen, die Wärme genießen, das Gefühl, nichts machen zu müssen außer vielleicht Einkaufen, und abends dann schön Fernsehen. Erst der nächste Tag geht dann wieder weiter mit Terminen, Besuchen, Anrufen, Kommunikation, all diesen alltäglichen, menschlichen Handlungen und Bedürfnissen.
In der Pflege werden diese Dinge, die menschlichen Bedürfnisse, in 13 Hauptteile eingeteilt, die quasi die Basics fürs Überleben darstellen. Grundbedürfnisse, um einigermaßen respektvoll, würdevoll und gesund leben zu können. Bitte hier gucken, da gibts die 13 Dinge nach Frau Krohwinkel aufgeschlüsselt und erklärt.
Ich fand es sehr interessant, über diese Dinge zu erfahren, da doch schon mehr zum Leben gehört als Essen, Trinken, der Toilettengang und Schlafen… Kommunikation, Umgang mit anderen Menschen, Interaktion, Respekt erfahren, eine Person sein, all das macht einen Menschen aus und lässt ihn sich erst komplett fühlen, wenn er all dies (und hoffentlich noch viel, viel mehr!) immer wieder erfahren darf und andere erfahren lässt.

Ich habe mir letzten Mittwoch durch einen sehr unglücklichen Zufall beide Knöchel verbrannt und laboriere nun an Verbrühungen des Grades 2a herum… Wieder so eine Erfahrung, die man einmal macht und daraus für sein Leben lernt. Wenn man mein letztes Jahr betrachtet, hätte es eigentlich besser da hinein gepasst, aber naja, eventuell gehts ja dieses Jahr so weiter mit lehrreichen Erfahrungen, immerhin würde ich es mir sehr wünschen. Nur müssen diese Erfahrungen zum Glück ja nicht immer nur negativer Art sein
Mein Doktor war heute verschnupft, als ich meinen Verband wechseln lassen wollte. Ließ also seine Sprechstundenhilfen die Arbeit machen, die wusste teilweise noch nichtmal, wie man eine Brandblase richtig eröffnet, ohne mich abzustechen… Er stand, Taschentuch als Maske über die Nase gestülpt, in der Ecke und gab das von sich, was meine Mutter wohl “unqualifizierte Kommentare” nennen würde. Eine sehr interessante Situation, die ich gern weiter beschreiben würde, wenn es nich doch etwas schmerzhaft war, um weiter auf die Interaktion (siehe oben, dieser Verweis macht mich grad glücklich!) zwischen dem Personal und dem Chef einzugehen, aber allein die Kommunikationsebene war schon sehr klar gesetzt, man merkte deutlich, was der eine vom anderen hielt. Gibts auch nicht oft, dass das so offen und unverhohlen gezeigt wird. Mag auch daran liegen, dass bald Mittagspause war, wer weiß…

On my way back from the med aid to my home I thought about what I needed to buy, you know, like the real urgent stuff. So I went to Schlecker, a local drug store, got myself some (in fact, some more) vaseline which I shall apply on the damaged parts of the ankles if I follow my doctor’s advice.
After that the pain started again and I was more than happy to be home again, but nonetheless had this little voice inside telling me “You URGENTLY need bread and vegetables and some other food”…
So I motivated myself again for 4 long hours and got up again at 6pm to go to the local grocery store. Before, I had to swallow some little pain killers called Ibuprofen, otherwise I wouldn’t have stand the pain and needed to return home with nothing but myself…
Luckily the pain was relieved a little and I was able to get the stuff I needed. I felt like a little superhero when I returned home, just for standing the pain and being able to manage it mostly myself.
It’s the little things that make you (and me and everyone else) happy, isn’t it?

Now, lying in bed and letting the day pass by again, I feel like I made something out of this day and that makes me feel a tiny little bit proud of myself. But so much for my ego. Should be enough, right? I know.

Tomorrow’s gonna be a very, very lazy day, the burnt areas are gonna smell fresh air again and maybe get some watering as well, though I don’t know yet if I really feel able to do it, somehow I’m afraid of the pain that might occur…
Let’s take the night to rethink it and see what tomorrow brings.

Stay tuned and stay safe!