Friday, July 14, 2023

Five German News Stories

 1.  Odd piece by ARD (public TV, Channel 1) on increasing numbers of German juveniles checking into clinics.....mostly for depression or mental illness.

For 2021....around 81,000 German kids (10 to 17) checked in for some reason.  Out of this group....roughly 12-percent of this group came in for alcohol-related problems (deemed alcoholics at a early age).

In my period living around Kaiserslautern, we had some 14-year old local kid who ended up being shipped off for about 90 days to 'clean-up' and detox....he was drinking a serious amount of alcohol weekly.  

2.  The Kinder-Eggs chocolate company....Ferrero....announced a salmonella outbreak and shut down the factory.   

3.  Last Generation activists are saying big protest is planned for today (Friday) across Germany.

4.  About an hour's drive SE of Berlin is the Spreewald area.  Some story developing where two of the local teachers are leaving the area....saying that students in the school are demonstrating right-wing extremism, homophobia and sexism.  Drawing a lot of national attention.  

5.  WELT had two significant pieces today....talking about violence/brawls at public pools across Germany.

Something that does appear to attract attention...most of the 'problem-folks' are young men of a migration background.  

Some pools have reacted and even closed....to lessen tension.  Some politicians are more police action (increased numbers) to counter the problem.  I noted that the chief of the German police union said 'no'....this was their function to be pool-guards.  

In the end, I suspect a number of the highly urbanized areas will start to make pool-ID's and people that end up on the bad-boy-list...won't get entry into a public pool.  

But this makes you wonder....does this problem exist generally in society, and is not just a pool violence issue?

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