In the News - 29. Jan 2019

I'm one of the hold-outs who still subscribes to the local printed newspaper. Some poor soul drops it off around 4:30 each morning, and M brings it in before he heads to the office at 8:00. There is so much in the paper every day that is useful, helpful, and informative, and I know I would miss out if I were only relying on online news and headlines that look click-worthy.

Our paper has four sections during the week (more on Saturdays with the extended job and want ads plus a special general knowledge section): Main news, sports and economics, Horb-area news and Sulz-area news. Each section is 8 or 10 pages long. There are no coupon or store ad inserts in the paper; those come separately once a week and usually travel straight to the Altpapier. There are also no cartoons (except for one nation/world political cartoon and one local one). Almost every day there are articles related to history and/or culture, gardening tips based on the season, and notifications or articles about local activities, lectures, and presentations.

For heavy political news from the English-speaking world I tend to look to the internet to read about what's going on in English, so the articles that most catch my eye in the local paper are German politics, little quirky ones, plus topics I'm otherwise interested in: Immigrants, hunting, what German reporters have to say about the clown show going on in the U.S., wildlife, history, facts and numbers about life in Germany...  I am not interested in celebrities or sports (except for equestrian news involving Michael Jung), so I use the sports section to line the Biomüll container.

These are the articles or blurbs that caught my eye today.

Kopf oder Zahl?

There were 3.34 million flights in Germany skies in 2018, more than ever before. For the past five years the number of flights has been increasing and topping that of the previous year, and flights across German airspace from other countries also increased by 4.6%.

Vier Milliarden Euro für Kaffee

In supermarkets and drug stores between the beginning of December 2017 and December 2018, Germans spent 4 billion Euros on coffee. That's almost €50 per person and doesn't include the coffee they drank in cafés and restaurants.

I contribute to that with 1-3 cups a day, and M probably drinks 4-6 cups between home and the office. Coffee is one of the five things this household never runs out of.

Na sowas: Safer Sex

I love how this blurb starts: "Safer Sex sieht anders aus." (Safer sex doesn't look like this.) At the wheel and while the car was in motion, a 70-year-old man and a 34-year-old passenger in Duisburg were reportedly having sex. They crashed into another car at an intersection where the traffic lights weren't working. Figuring out what happened was complicated, according to police, especially the question of who was driving. The 34-year-old said she was sitting on the lap of the driver, and they were sharing the duties of steering, braking, and shifting gears. Neither of them had a driver's license, and they were fined for endangering road safety and driving without a license.

Dänen lügen nicht

Apparently that's a line from a deutscher Schlager (80s-style music), but I don't know the song. The point of the article is that Denmark has begun building a fence along its southern border to Germany. I can't wait for the tweet when the potus gets ahold of this news! What he won't realize is that the fence is not a barricade against migrants, refugees, foreigners, or brown people, but rather against Wildschweine (wild pigs). There's a frequent danger in Europe of ASP, or Afrikanische Schweinepest (swine fever), and Denmark wants to reduce the risk of infected pigs crossing the border into their country. The measure is controversial, though, because many say the expense is not worth the small gain it might bring. It won't do anything against, for instance, the people who bring the virus over unknowingly on their hiking boots.

Another source referred to it as a boarder wall.  Hehe.

Jeder dritte Flüchtling hat einen Job

"Every 3rd refugee has a job." A new study shows that integration of the refugees who came to Germany in 2015 from Syria, Afganistan, and Iraq is going better than expected. The IAB and Bamf interviewed several thousand refugees in October 2018 and 35% of them were employed. Nearly 75% are taking or have taken language and/or integration courses. A third of those interviewed speak German well or very well, another third speak at a middle level (my guess is A2, equivalent of 2 or 3 years of American high school German), and the last third speak very little or no German. 

The hurdles immigrants and refugees face include: PTSD, insufficient basic education (from their home country), lack of German language ability, and uncertainty about their prospects of being able to stay in Germany. In families with young children the integration of their mothers is more difficult, though efforts are being made to support and encourage more women to participate in courses.

Betrunkene Lkw-Fahrer erwischt

This is a bit scary. Police controlled/checked 1200 truck drivers on Autobahn rest stops in Hessen (state to the north of Baden-Württemberg) and discovered 190 of them had alcohol in their systems. Several had more than 2.0 Promille (I've forgotten how Americans say that - "2.0 blood-alcohol level"?). 79 of them had a high enough blood-alcohol level that they were not allowed to continue their drive at 22:00 on Sunday evening at the end of the Sonntagsfahrverbot (trucks are not allowed on the Autobahn on Sundays until 10:00pm).

The police went through parking lots where trucks were parked to wait for the end of the Sonntagsfahrverbot and knocked on the cab doors to check the drivers. Many drivers and their trucks were from other countries.

I have to admit, I like to think the truck drivers 

on this road are all sober; this is the sidewalk 

I use to get home from the butcher.

The law in Germany for car drivers says they are allowed up to 0.5 Promille. It's not actually illegal to drink a beer while driving - as long as your blood-alcohol level doesn't go over 0.5 Promille (but it's a very bad idea, so don't do it). But for drivers at the wheel of Lkws (trucks & semis), the law allows 0.0 Promille. They are allowed to drink during their Pausen (breaks), of course - but only if their BA level is back to 0.0 when they drive off again. The 79 drivers mentioned above had a level too high for it to sink back to 0.0 by 10:00pm that evening, so the police issued them a Fahrverbot and slapped on the wheel clamps.

The good news from the article is that accidents involving Lkws don't happen often. But they followed that with saying there were 22,700 accidents in 2017 caused by Lkws! Of those, "only" 382 involved truck drivers who were drunk. They also mentioned that those were only the ones involved in accidents who got caught - not all the Lkw drivers who have too much alcohol in their system while driving. Thank you, Debbie Downer.

I don't even want to see statistics for drivers of cars.

Lust auf das "grüne Abitur"

Interest in obtaining a hunting license in Germany is growing. There are more and more signing up for classes and pursuing the "green Abitur," including an increasing number of women.

[The Abitur is the graduation test in Germany that a student must pass in order to be eligible to study at a university. There are written and oral components, and I've seen the English test. Only about 4 students I can think of from my 16 years teaching English in private schools in Wisconsin would have a shot at passing that portion of the test. It is serious business.]

The "green Abitur" is the test for earning a hunting license. I've written already a bit about this test, so I don't need to repeat it here. I'll just share some info from the article in today's paper.

In 2018 20,060 candidates sat in Jagdkursen (hunting classes) around Germany, twice as many as ten years ago. A quarter of those were women. Hunters have their own special language, the Jägersprache. There is a list of about 400 terms future hunters need to learn (only 400?!? It looks and feels like many more to me! There are at least 5 different words for "tail", depending on which animal is wearing it!) The class and test cost about €2000. And one in every five examinees fails the test.

I will not be one of those "1 in 5," damn it!!

My Schwiegermutter gave me the Wörterbuch Jägersprache in the photo above for Christmas. That is a dictionary of German hunter's terms and phrases explained in layman's German. Yep, because the German language isn't already difficult enough.

So then, that's what caught my eye in today's paper. What news has come across your radar lately?

In the News V

Goodness, it's been more than a year since I wrote one of these posts! Today, though, M told me about a story he heard on the radio that reminded me of this thread.

"I imagined Europe Differently"

A 31-year-old man from China had his wallet stolen while in Stuttgart, and instead of going to the police, he mistakenly reported to "a different office". The officials there couldn't speak Chinese and he couldn't speak German or English. They sent him to Heidelberg to a registration center - for refugees! At the center he followed the officials' instructions gestures and filled out an application for asylum. From there he was brought to Dortmund, and finally to the housing facility for refugees in Dülmen. He had to surrender his passport and visa. 

Only in Dülmen did someone happen to notice that he was very well dressed, and something didn't seem right about his situation. A helper with the German Red Cross saved the day by going to a Chinese restaurant for help. Someone there recommended they try a language app to translate between German and Mandarin. Wah-Lah*!!

It turns out he was a tourist and had planned to travel further to Italy and France to see places of interest. After two and a half weeks and additional confusion with the horrifying jungle that is Germany's bureaucracy, the man's asylum application was canceled and his passport and visa were returned to him. 

Eventually he was able to resume his trip.

8. August, 2016

Go Home, Hedgehog, You're Drunk

In the Netherlands last June a hedgehog nearly met an untimely end. The prickly fellow came upon part of a broken bottle with a fair bit of egg liqueur in it, and apparently attempted to quench his thirst by lapping up the spirits. Someone noticed the hammered little tramp lying in the road, so drunk he couldn't roll himself into a ball - which is how hedgehogs protect themselves.

The passerby notified the humane society, and Mr. Hedgehog was taken to a cell to sober up.

Sudwest-Presse, 2. June, 2015

And Speaking of Hedgehogs...

More recently the noises of two amorous paramours irritated an Erlangen resident so much that he called the police: he was hearing heavy panting somewhere outside his house. The authorities showed up and discovered a pair of love-crazed hedgehogs under the man's front steps. The little couple had been going at it in the cozy spot for twenty minutes. A hedgehog expert reported: they commonly hiss and snort loudly during their hours-long coitus ritual, and the male makes the most noise of all.

Südwest-Presse, 30. July, 2016

Have you heard any good stories in the news lately??

*My husband, whose French teacher once said to his mother that he just needed a kick in the arse once in a while, tells me it's spelled voilà.  :-)

Debo's Story

This is a plea to anyone who sees this. Please choose compassion over fear, understanding over intolerance, and empathy over hatred. I do understand fear, but please do not reject an entire race or religion because of the very bad apples. Find and read stories of individual refugees and families, and compare them to your own story, your children's lives, and your parents. Try to imagine in their place you and your children, siblings, parents, nieces, nephews, and cousins - having to choose between abandoning your home and fleeing for your life or staying put and being killed or forced into service for an evil army because you weren't lucky enough to be born in America.

I'm not asking you to donate money, and I'm not asking you to get physically involved and help. I'm only asking that you not publicly reject or applaud the rejection of fellow human beings who are not so different from you - young people who want to study and find good jobs to support their families, parents who want their children to live in safety and be able to walk to and from school without fear of being killed by bombs or rockets, people who don't want to be forced to serve a corrupt government or a terrorist organization.


In our local newspaper the other day there was an article about a young man who fled his war-torn homeland after imprisonment and brutal abuse and made his way to Germany. With the editor's permission, here is my translation and summary of that article.

The real brutality of the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011, is not shown on TV in the interest of piety. Persecuted and in constant mortal danger, injured and traumatized, millions of Syrians have fled their homeland with nothing but the clothes on their backs and precious few worldly possessions to escape the violence and destruction. The journey itself is dangerous as well and arduous, but leaving their homes was the less awful of two unacceptable choices.

Abdulkalik Debo is one of these millions, and since October he has been living in the town of Weitingen, not far from Horb. Though he is only 19 years old (one year younger than my son), he has witnessed atrocities most people his age will never know.

Debo (because his last name is short and easy to pronounce, everyone calls him that) was born in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, where he also attended a school which has since been destroyed by bombs. Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria and was named the "Capital of Islamic Culture" in 2006. Its old town was ranked a Unesco World Heritage Site. Since then the city has been mostly destroyed, especially the quarter in which the rebels fighting against Assad have hunkered in.

in Aleppo
source

One day several years ago the war came to the Debo family with their six children. One of Debo's cousins was severely injured by shrapnel from a rocket attack on his way to school. Debo (15 at the time) and a friend called for a taxi to take his cousin to the hospital. They were sent from one hospital to another because the injuries were too severe for regular care - eventually they ended up at the university clinic. During the drive they complained about the Assad regime and the brutality of his troops and the militia, not knowing that the taxi driver was an Assad supporter. He reported these teenagers, and the friends were arrested and turned over to the security police. Debo didn't have his i.d. papers with him and resisted being "recruited" by the government troops - he was much too young anyway, but he looked older because of his strong build and growing beard. His parents were summoned because the police didn't believe his reported age.

Debo was kept under arrest with 200 other prisoners in a room so small that it was impossible for anyone to lie down. They could only lean on each other, half sitting and half collapsed, and sleeping was impossible. During his parents' interrogation Debo was handcuffed and forced to kneel with a sack over his head in the next room. He could hear his parents, but they did not know he was so close. Remember, he was 15 years old.

During the time of his imprisonment Debo - like all the other prisoners - was badly abused, frequently beaten with clubs, kicked with combat boots, and burned. There was very little to eat. Debo doesn't remember anymore how long he had to endure these conditions.

On the day of the massacre in 2013, in which 200 opponents of Assad who had had high hopes about the "Arab Spring" revolution were murdered, Debo should have been among the dead. He remembers the day. Groups of prisoners were marched outside and one by one slaughtered with meat knives or shot when they refused to recognize Assad as their "god". By the time it was  Debo's turn, blood was already flowing through the yard like a river. A soldier shouted at him, and Debo answered, "My god is Allah." He was stabbed and beaten like the others and lost consciousness. His body was tossed into the nearby riverbed, where several kurdish villagers found him a short time later. Debo was one of four men they found still alive. He only regained consciousness a few days later in the villagers' home.

When he had recovered somewhat, he wanted to return home as quickly as possible. But no one was there. His family's house was partially destroyed and the home of his brother and his wife and child was deserted. Then the next shock. A neighbor told him those of his family who were still alive had all fled to Turkey and thought Debo was dead. Two of his siblings (ages 24 and 26) were killed when the house was destroyed, and Debo's twin brother was killed by a rocket on his way to a shopping center.

Debo made his way to the container camp just over the border with several thousand other refugees, where he was able to find the surviving members of his family. They hadn't heard from him in five months and had assumed he'd been killed. When his mother first laid eyes on him she fainted. She hardly recognized him - he'd lost 125 pounds (56 kg) during his ordeal and now weighed only 132 pounds(60 kg).

The family was able to stay together for two years, and even grew by one when a granddaughter was born. Debo found work as a specialist repairing mobile phones and was able to save enough to get to Germany - a journey that cost several thousand Euros.

His mother has suffered from the whole ordeal and has health and heart problems. Debo himself still suffers from the trauma and wakes frequently from horrible nightmares. Because of the physical abuse he has stomach problems and difficulty keeping his balance.

They are safe now, but because the family arrived in Germany at different times, they were separated and sent to different housing facilities in opposite ends of Germany. His parents and remaining siblings are near Flensburg in the north.

Debo will be allowed to visit the rest of his family for ten days over the Christmas holidays. In the mean time Debo is learning German and hoping to eventually work as a medical devices technician.

refugees from Syria and Eritrea learning German
One of these men was one test away from finishing his higher education and medical degree
when his university shut down. Now he's in Germany learning German and basically starting over.

Please have compassion. And perhaps speak up in the name of mercy when people around you rage against offering shelter to those who are fleeing from war, corruption, violence and terrorism.

We are all members of the human race, and we have more similarities to each other than differences.

In the News IV

Other than the usual news about past, present, and pending train driver strikes, kindergarten personnel strikes, bus driver strikes, postal worker strikes, and injuries and deaths due to traffic accidents, there hasn't been a lot of stuff to report that you folks haven't heard about yourselves. For this thread I like to find unique blurbs that make me think, "Huh. Well that's new."

These are the stories that caught my eye recently.

High Dining

Did you know that a town in the Schwabenland - Baiersbronn - has more chefs with Michelin stars factoring for population than any other place in Germany? One of these star chefs has recently created several menus for Lufthansa! His name is Harald Wohlfahrt, he is one of Germany's best chefs, and apparently the New York Times counts him as one of the ten best chefs in the world*. He runs the Traube in Tonbach, and although M and I have been to Baiersbronn a few times, we have not yet eaten there. 

Passengers flying long distance with Lufthansa in May and June can enjoy his creations, which should be a real treat!

The only catch is that you have to fly first class.

*Kienzle, Ulrich. Ulrich Kienzle und die Siebzehn Schwaben. Sagas.edition, Stuttgart, 2012. Page 52.

Schwarzwälder-Bote WOM; 8. May, 2015

20 Year Anniversary: Stuttgarter Roßbolla

The "Stuagerder Roßbolla" is a tasty treat whose name translates to Stuttgart Road Apples, or Stuttgart Horse Turds. This should surprise no one who knows that another Swabian sweet is called Nonnenfürzle (little nuns' farts) and thick Swabian noodles are called Buabaspitzle (little boys' tips). These Roßbolla - chocolate-covered candies made of nougat, vanilla flavoring, hazelnuts, and more chocolate - were created  in 1995 by a Swabian confectionary and were intended to remember the days when steaming piles of horse dung were scattered all over Stuttgart's streets.

Ah....the memories.

source

23. May, 2015

Wanted: Executioners

Lately in Saudi Arabia there have been so many death sentences handed out (85 so far this year - almost as many as in the whole of 2014) that the country's six executioners are overwhelmed by the work load. The kingdom has advertised in its online job portal for eight men who are interested in being commissioned in the name of the religion to carry out the growing number of beheadings and chopping off of hands and/or legs in accordance with the Scharia laws. About half of those executed were foreigners, and about 40% of the executions were the result of drug offences.

No special qualifications are required of applicants (except, I guess, the willingness and ability to chop off another human being's head or limbs).

20. May, 2015

Dirty Germans??

According to a recent study, these days Germans are spending 2.5 fewer hours cleaning every week than they did ten years ago. While I have to doubt this is also the case in the Schwabenland, the question is whether German homes are dirtier or if there is some other meaning behind this strangeness. Four theories were offered.

1. Demographics: Perhaps the older generation spent more time cleaning, and since Oma is now in her 80s, she's spending less time with the Putzlappen (cleaning rag) and more time resting. Plausible.
2. Technology: The average German is more modern than his reputation. Max Mustermann* has bought a vacuum cleaner robot and he mows his lawn on Saturdays with a remote control mower. Among those who have money to burn, perhaps.
3. Cleaning Agencies: Modern Germans just don't have the time anymore, so they hire someone to clean their homes. Unlikely in the Schwabenland, but plausible elsewhere.
4. Young Helpers: A new generation of cleaning freaks is taking the work load off the older generation. When teenagers get bored with their smart phones and tablets, they grab the Putzlappen and help out their parents. Uh...possible, but unlikely.

It can't possibly be that German homes are dirtier, can it? If that's the case, I haven't seen the evidence. But, as former Schlagerstar Roberto Blanco crooned back in the 80s, "Ein bisschen Schmutz darf sein!" ("a little dirt is allowed!").

*Max Mustermann is the German name for Mr. Anybody - like John Doe in the U.S..

20. May, 2015

And thus endeth another installment of "In the News".

In the News III

Time for another round of "What's been in the local paper lately?" 

Toads on Tour

It's still too cold at night, but soon the local frogs and toads will begin their annual migration across roads to...get to the other side, I guess. In areas with heavy frog and toad populations, commuters will have to reckon with traffic restrictions such as lowered speed limits (often 20 km/h, or 12.4 mph) and stop-and-go traffic as conscientious drivers attempt to squash as few of the slimy or warty beasts as possible. These road restrictions are expected to last until the end of April, when all the hoppy critters are either deceased or on the other side of the road.

26. Feb. 2015

Haben Sie....Kabelbinder?

The British builders' supply chain B&Q dramatically increased their supply of Kabelbinder (cable ties), Seile (ropes), and Klebeband (tape) in the first half of February, not because of a building boom in the U.K., but because of the release of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. They want to be able to assist their customers who want to reenact various scenes from the film. To this end management also ordered hundreds of copies of the book to loan to their employees so that they can give good advice to customers' "sensitive questions".

12. Feb. 2015

Big Brother is Listening

The NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ used hacker methods to steal the codes to millions of Sim-cards manufactured by the Dutch company Gemalto, allowing them to listen in on private telephone calls of cell phone users worldwide. It sounds like this was done several years ago. Gemalto is one of the main producers of Sim-cards (the little device inside your cell phone usually under the battery that allows the phone to connect to networks), but there are others as well and the manufacturer is not identified on the device. Only about 50% of Sim-cards are made by Gemalto, and I'm sure the NSA/GCHQ didn't steal the codes to all of them, so don't worry. Your phone probably isn't one they're listening to. Besides, if you're not talking about something illegal, what difference does it make?

Hey, it's all in the name of national security and our safety, right?

21. Feb. 2015

I Lost My Key!

About a week after the Kabelbinder story above appeared, we got another peek behind a door most of us would rather not open. This one takes us to London, where the police have reported an increase in 9-1-1 calls (to the emergency center) since the release of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. It seems many would-be Greys are not able to free their partners from the Handfessel (hand cuffs) they bought to use in their sex games. Each incident costs British taxpayers about €400, according to the London fire and rescue chief.

The writer of the article, D. Leibbrand, went on to say that Brits may have a reputation for being stuffy, but clearly they are more loose and casual than we pietistic Swabians are. The Stuttgart rescue squad has not been called to any such emergencies despite the movie having been released in Germany more than a week ago. Perhaps it's because of the price - here in Baden-Württemberg the handcuffed sex kitten or her partner would have to pay the cost of the rescue.

Ms. Leibbrand also suggests that the order-loving Stuttgarters - keyword Kehrwoche (weekly sidewalk sweeping) - probably simply make a point of remembering where they laid down the key...

21. Feb. 2015

Local Reminder

Hedges, thick bushes, and large trees may not be cut back after March 1st, so get it done this month. The purpose of this rule (I think it's a law) is to protect the Lebensraum (living space) of the local feathered community, who may have already taken up residence in such prime locations. On March 1st they start scoping out where they will build their nests, and it is unfair - not to mention unchristian - to reduce their options once they've started looking. The poor little bahstards have a hard enough life, so do them a favor and cooperate. You'll save yourself paying a hefty fine, as well.

That just about covers it for this round.

In the News II

Several gems came up this week in both the newspaper and on an alternative news program we watched on Saturday evening.

First, from the local paper on Wednesday, 21. January...

Geisterfahrer* wegen Navi / Wrong-way Driver because of GPS

A truck driver near Bingen in Rheinland-Pfalz turned around on the Autobahn-60 to go in the other direction because his GPS instructed him to "Bitte wenden" ("Please turn around"). The Highway Patrol reported that no one was injured - it's probably a good thing the incident happened during the night. An on-duty police officer happened to see the manoeuver and pulled the 42-year-old driver over shortly afterward. He was not drunk, but rather just blindly trusted his GPS (called a Navi over here).

Under supervision of the police, the driver turned his truck around, but during this manoeuver he bashed into a guard rail and caused €1300 in damage.

*The Germans have a word for a person who drives the wrong way on an Autobahn, road, or street - Geisterfahrer, which can translate to "ghost driver." This is unfortunately a somewhat common accurance, according to the frequency of such reports in the newspaper and on the Verkehrsfunk.

Fünfjähriger tötet Bruder / Five-year-old Kills his Brother

You know this one had to come from the U.S., and I'm not making light of it. I find these reports tragic and absurd.

A young boy in Elmo, Missouri shot and killed his nine-month-old brother with the loaded 22-caliber pistol he found lying on a bed in the home. He picked up the pistol, shot it, and the bullet hit the baby, who lay in a playpen, in the head. No charges will be filed - of course not against the boy, but also not against the parents - because in the U.S. there are no regulations regarding proper storage of loaded or unloaded weapons. It's perfectly legal (though a little stupid) to leave a loaded gun lying around anywhere in one's home whether small children are present or not.

But to end on a positive note...

AirPnP

You've heard of Airbnb, right? People who have unoccupied apartments or rooms in their homes can register with Airbnb and rent the space to travelers, often for less than what a hotel would charge. I haven't tried it out yet but want to and know of plenty of other travel bloggers who have used it repeatedly.

Well! Now there's an app called Airpnp for people who are out and about and find themselves in urgent need of a toilet. The original idea was mainly intended for women, but anyone can use it. Those with toilets to offer register with the site and indicate how much they charge for use, and travelers who find themselves in sudden, urgent need can use the app to find the nearest private toilet. Some charge $1 or more, but believe me, I myself have been in a state where I would have happily paid more if only I could find a pleasant place to...uh...sit for a few moments. 

Although the program did specifically mention a few Airpnp spots in Stuttgart, the app doesn't yet have a big following in Germany. In the Netherlands and Belgium, however, there are tons of people offering their loos for hire.  The idea will probably never catch on in the U.S. because there are public restrooms all over and in pretty much every store. Besides that, except in the big cities people are rarely about without their cars, with which they can easily get to a place with a restroom.

What's been in your news?

In the Local Newspaper 1

We subscribe to our local newspaper - in print. It arrives every morning that is not a Sunday or a holiday, and an extra fat edition arrives on  Saturdays. I'm one of those old-fashioned types who still likes to page through the things I read rather than scrolling and clicking. This paper is three times the size of the local paper in my hometown in the U.S. and contains all kinds of articles of local interest after the sections devoted to Germany, Europe, the world, the economy, and sports.

Quite often I come across an article that I think would be fun to share and comment on, and so I'm going to try out a new thread called "In the Local Newspaper." I even got M to play along by setting up his fancy photo tent and taking some pictures for me!

I'm finally starting this thread because an article that appeared on Friday is just too good to skip. And it's about something from my homeland. Not really my homeland - this news comes from the fair state of Alabama whereas I am from Wisconsin in the North. Might as well be two different countries. But I digress...

Apparently a principal in a middle school in Alabama has recommended that parents send their children to school with cans of vegetables to use against intruders who might enter the school. To be fair and not to discriminate against canned fruits, the term "canned food item" is used in an English article I found.

In Germany various sizes of canned goods are readily available.
This is what we found in our pantry.

In case of an Amoklauf (shooting rampage) in their school, the 11- to 13-year-old students would be able to grab the canned food items, which would be stored in each classroom so the kids don't have to carry them around all the time, and hurl them at the intruder thereby catching the killer off-guard and perhaps even knocking him out.

The German article says parents should give their kids canned food items so that they can be prepared in case one day something awful happens (my translation). It also says (and this is not in the English article) that the students would be taught to throw various objects - basically whatever they can get their hands on - to defend themselves as a last resort if they were not able to escape from the building.

The German reporter goes on to say that it's probably true that a crazed shooter wouldn't be able to shoot freely all around him with a group of children pelting him with chairs, books, staplers or canned vegetables. "In a country where an average of 14-34 students die in school shootings every year, it seems futile to hand a child a can of vegetables" (my translation). Indeed it does, but perhaps there's something to the idea of giving kids an idea how to defend themselves and the training and means with which to at least try.

Heck, Nick "Crocodile" Dundee uses the same technique to down a purse snatcher in New York City (fast forward to 1:22)...

I'm happy to see that no one has yet suggested that we arm American middle or high school students with pistols, rifles, or semi-automatic weapons, though it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that suggested sometime in the next decade or two. It's already been suggested (and is in practice in some schools) that teachers be armed with guns and trained how to use them. Let's definitely not look for a way to get guns out of general circulation and dangerous people out of schools; that's simply unrealistic. Just make sure school children are at all times armed with cans of beans.

The German reporter did get one thing wrong. He called the vegetable-wielding students tenth graders. Tenth graders are 15-16 years old, attending high schools, and (in the U.S.) driving. The students at this middle school, who would/will be trained to hurl canned food items at intruders, are in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

We don't have young children, but I went down to our pantry to see what I could offer them if we did. The cans of peas and corn are pretty small and wouldn't be very effective. The pineapple would be better as it's slightly larger than a Campbell's Soup can. But the can of lentils and soup greens! That sucker weighs 970 grams (2 pounds). I wouldn't be able to throw it with much accuracy, but then I lack the training.

At the end of the school year, unthrown canned food items will be donated to a local food pantry.