The Failures and Successes of German TV

I try hard not to complain or really dump on German TV.....at least on the commercially-run business.   They are selling some type of product and try to do a better job than the state-run TV thugs.

This week, I came to observe a major success and a major failure.

First, RTL delivered a two week "Jungle-Camp" show, which surprised me.  I will admit....I'm not much into reality-TV or the fake starts dug up for this.  But RTL took an odd group into this year's Jungle-Camp show and surprised you with the absolute underdog winning in the end.

Menderes, the Turkish guy with no singing talent (as he's proven for a number of years)....got invited to the camp and most people would have said that he'd be gone by fifth day.  The thing is.....Menderes was such a genuine nice guy and always positive on dealing with people in the camp....that you came to like him.

So in the end.....the underdog won.  Something rare in life, I will admit.  Even one of the moderators of the show dropped a tear or two when it was announced.

The other show came from RTL as well (Friday night).....the Puppet Stars.  I came for a brief twenty minutes to watch the show and there came this guy with his puppet....a talking "willy" (a manly part of the anatomy which I will leave to you to guess).

Yeah, this guy had crafted a fabric puppet to look like a talking "willy".  I had to admit.....I sat there in a state of shock.  The guy was creative....but a talking "willy"?

What would a talking "willy" say?  It's best not to ask.

It's hard to say what RTL and it's production team were thinking with this show, or how this would pan out with the pubic.  Good taste?  Well....skip that topic.

The odds of public-run TV ever producing a puppet show with a talking "willy"?  Zero chance....their President of operations would resign before he'd allow a show like that to run on ARD or ZDF.

The Fake Nature of Being Green

I read a good bit each morning.  Some items are worthless in nature but cause you to sit and ponder.  So it is with this topic.....Berlin (the city itself) will sell around 170 million "to-go" coffee cups each year.

With a population of 3.5 million residents, and around 28 million guests who stay at least one night.....someone actually sat down and counted up coffee cup usage.

Why does this matter?  Normally....it wouldn't be worth discussing.

The Green enthusiasts pondered upon this and the terrible waste of these 170 million papercups going into the trash bothered them.

So, they will have this open forum on 8 Feb with coffee house owners and managers.....to discuss ways to ease the 170 million papercups being thrown away.

First, they want the coffee houses to volunteer and try to ease the customers away from this terrible sin of throwing papercups away.

Starbucks and most of the big-name companies operating coffee shops in Berlin will stand and just admit that they already sell real mugs and coffee cups to their customers....at a discount rate.  They've been doing this for several years.

What the Green enthusiasts want to do if matters can't change.....is invent a tax.

I know.....you almost spilled coffee on yourself when I mentioned the possible coffee cup tax.

The general suggestion is that there would be a Berlin city tax of 20-cents on each papercup of coffee sold.....which would go into a Green pot of money.

What would the city do with this money?  Let's say that the people didn't change any habits and the 170 million coffee cups had the tax....it'd amount to a 34 million Euro pot of money.  I naturally read through as many sources of news on the topic and came to this one interesting detail missing.  No one asked the Green enthusiasts what the money would be spent on.  Not one single detail.

Typically, tax collected money goes into one massive city pot, and I suspect that the city managers would be very eager to collect 34 million Euro on a simple coffee cup tax.  Legal?  Most people think that German law allows for this.

I pondered upon this and came to this realization.

Let's say the law goes into effect and a tax is now effective.  If you typically bought fifteen cups of coffee to go each month.....your tax would amount to 3 Euro.  Per year, 36 Euro.

But most people are smart.

So, they'd go and order this big box of coffee papercups via Amazon, and it'd arrive at your apartment.  Each morning, you'd retrieve one papercup out of the box and walk by the coffee shop to buy your coffee....handing your papercup from home and walking out with it.

Smart people would start to make customized papercups with your logo......your name.....some picture of a cat....slogan-type cups....etc.

The coffee shop would have a discounted rate for this type of buyer because there's no tax on the guy and no cup provided by coffee shop.

As months would roll by....more people would do this.

The Green people would pat themselves on the back because coffee shops would report the normal yearly average of 170 million papercups have now dwindled down 20 million papercups.  Success.  The Greens will say they did a wonderful thing for Berlin.

Oddly, the garbage guys will note one afternoon for the news people.....there's no cut in papercups appearing in trashcans around the city.  It's the same number as before.

Great honor will be bestowed to the Green folks for reshaping and fixing a terrible problem facing the fine city of Berlin.  Tax revenue will increase.....which will make the city managers happy.  And people will continue drinking via their papercups with the feeling of happiness.....mostly through fine coffee and the effect of screwing the government out of tax revenue money.  It's rare that Germans feel happy, but this will be one such occasion.

I should note....my trust in the papercup number mentioned by the news folks?  Well, I just don't have confidence that the 170 million number is right.  Personally, I'd take a guess that it's five times that number and some folks aren't being honest on the numbers business.

The Five Billion Euro Solution?

A number of weeks ago, there was a big highlighted trip for Chancellor Merkel to Turkey.  This was mostly to shake hands with Erdogan (the elected head of Turkey's gov't) and discuss the immigration crisis in Germany with the Syrians and Iraqis.

At the time.....national news in Germany played up this great theme that Turkey would be willing to host and hold back the refugees packing up and leaving via Turkey.  I should note....at the time that this story was being told....I just sat there and wondered what device or gimmick would Turkey demonstrate....to hold back the refugees.

The deal talked about with Merkel was a EU deal....not so much a German deal.  I think she had to portray that way because it was a heck of a lot of money.....three billion Euro.

One could review this offering and some hope that the EU would invent some payment scheme, which the twenty-odd members of the EU would all put money into this pot, and maybe Germany's contribution would only amount to one billion of the three billion.  At the time.....no one in German news media circles wanted to guess how much Germany's share would amount to.....which I thought was kinda strange but then I'm not German or EU.

This week....Turkey came back and said that three billion offered was all fine and dandy.....but it'd have to be five billion Euro instead.

The problem here revolves around two central themes.  First, they are in a negotiation stage presently and this deal needs to progress quickly before the spring comes, and suddenly another 100,000 start walking up to some beach in April and getting access to the Greek isles, and then onto the march toward Bavaria.  You can stomp around for maybe four weeks.....but time is wasting away if you don't conclude this deal by early March.

The second issue is that no one is sure that the twenty-odd members of the EU will agree to cough up contributions.  If this whole thing is about a German problem....and the best you can hope for is that France offers to front 20-percent of the five billion, and the remaining members offer to front 10-percent.....Germany is left to come up with vast bulk of the five billion Euro.  Note.....this only covers 2016.

How will Turkey prevent hundreds of thousands to migrate via the normal pattern?  No one has suggested any idea over this.....other than having cops along the beach fronts and blasting any rubber boat they see leaving near vicinity of the coastline.  You can imagine the German news media with cameras out and capturing video of rubber boats being pursued and sunk, and people flopping around on the water or screaming about their liberty and rights.

For some reason, I see the EU just getting into the whole division of the five billion Euro, and Germans shocked that they have to come up with the bulk of this.  At some point...enough division will occur.....that the whole deal falls apart.  The spring rush then? Well....it'll bother Germans if 400,000 new refugees arrive by end of June.

Discussing Amerophobia with a German

Amerophobia is the irrational fear of Americans and their culture.

Some Americans and non-Germans residing in Germany....after about six months of living here....will amusingly note that they've seen this slight hint of the phobia when dealing with some Germans. 

It'll be a comment here and there.....mostly over some criticism, opinion, or judgement.  You will stand there for a minute....thinking that you might have started this by insulting your associate or friend.....going back over the past hour and what you might have said to get them disturbed.  Eventually, you will realize that you never crossed that line and never insulted them.  So you stand there....wondering what the heck happened or if this was some psychological problem with your associate.

As time passes, Amerophobia comes out occasionally.

The majority of Germans could live their entire life and never exhibit a single episode of Amerophobia.

It is my humble opinion, that this only affects around ten percent of German society....mostly people who profess some intellectual capability or great insight.  These are people who will utter Xenophobia at least once or twice a month.....but when you ask them what the irrational fear of Germans is (Teutophobia)...they will mostly stare at you and think there is no such irrational fear of Germans.

So at this point, you drift into an education phase with your German associate.  You note that the US Institute of Mental Health says that roughly 18-percent of society (across all spectrums of society....rich and poor, educated and uneducated, etc) in general suffers anxiety and phobia disorders.  You also note that such people (those with anxiety/phobias) are three to five times more likely to go to a doctor over anything (true, perceived or fake) health-related.

You can chill-out your German associate with the Amerophobia by letting them know that this disorder comes from a general list of items: genetics, brain chemistry, stress, personality, and actual events in life.

You might ask about their drug habits (if they were a weed-smoker), their personality trends, or if they had been harmed by American beer, American food, American television (Knight Rider, Bonanza, and ALF regularly run on German TV), American music, American politics, etc.  You could ask if they've been under a lot of stress lately....maybe love went south, their cat ran away, or a immigrant family moved into their building.

Let your German associate know that you are praying for them, and would be eager to help them through this rough stage (thus showing you have no Teutophobia....no irrational fear of Germans or the culture of Germany).

The best way is to invite them to the local pub, and buy the first round of beer for them.  Let them know.....together, through a number of beers.....you can help them wipe out this irrational fear of Americans and American society.

One or two things will happen at this point.  Either they accept your offer and their Amerophobia starts to lessen (after the beers of course), or they grit their teeth to such an extent.....that they have a dental problem and have to visit doctor at the earliest possible opportunity.  In the second case....it's now possible that they will develop a new phobia....Dentophobia (fear of dentists).....which is much worse than Amerophobia (at least in my book).   

Ten Rules over German Politics

This is my general list of unique rules of German politics and how things typically work.

1.  Debate, debate, debate.  Even in a non-election period, there's around ten hours each week on public-run TV (ARD, ZDF, and the dozen oddball minor networks) which offer up some journalists, intellectuals, and political figures.  The typical German might admit that he catches an hour or two per month.  If they are really enthusiastic about some subject or topic....they might be catching fifteen hours per month.  The debates can be rigged where there's only one person to represent one side of a topic and four others to represent the other side.  That's part of the moderation control and transparency problem.

2  Scandals rarely occur.  These days, divorce won't be handled as a scandal item for any German politician.  Even if you get caught with a fair amount of meth on you or some perverted sexual stuff....it'll get dragged under the rug by the press, unless you are a CDU political figure with a rigged up thesis for your master's degree from twenty-five years ago.

3.  The party rules.  The message comes from the party and it's agreed upon by each layer of politician.  If you stepped 180-degrees away from the party message.....they'd likely ask you to leave the party.

4  Because of the fifty-percent rule to get into the Bundestag or any of the sixteen state assemblies.....plus at least five political parties operating at the big-time level....it means that you really can't go and claim some very negative message against one particular party.  You might have to come up in a year and negotiate a coalition government.  This issue forces everyone to control their temper, their rhetoric, and their messages.

5.  Because of financial rules and past scandals.....it's hard for any political party to get money under the table for 'favors'.  It might be accomplished at the local level where a mayor or city council member triggers property changes or eases rules for certain parties.....but that's usually as far as this will go.

6.  A major political player will step through the local scene, the state scene, and advance to the national level.  It is impossible for some guy to appear out of nowhere and suddenly be considered a national party player with no prior experience.  Some will try to say this was advanced after Hitler and the 1932 election.....but the truth of the matter is that they were already going this way prior to 1920.

7.  If you have marginal debate skills.....you don't advance past the local level.  It's pretty simple....you need to stand up in a forum, talk over a topic, and deliver some position.  Without that ability, you are doomed for advancement.

8.  City, state, and federal-level voting all occurs on a different schedule.  Cities and states run a five-year program.  The national level voting pattern is every four years, unless a crisis occurs and provokes a call for another election.

9.  Germans aren't hyped up on politics like Americans.  Until this immigration crisis came along, Germans weren't hyped twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year on politics.  Immigration is a singular issue which has churned up attention on all different levels.....local, state, and national.  Every single German has some opinion about it.  But beyond that, there just isn't any other topic which demands that much attention.

10.  A national poll from late 2015 indicates that almost sixty-percent of all Germans have little to no trust in the public-run news media (Channel One and Two).  As much as they were key in helping project a political message prior to 2015.....they have burned various bridges to reach the stage of today, and the majority of Germans have a problem in watching their news and their message.  To help in a political crisis?  A major tool has been lost.....across all fronts.

Discussing Xenophobia

During an average week of Channel One (ARD) viewing.....if you watched eighteen hours a day of the offerings there.....you'd hear the word Xenophobia uttered at least two-hundred times for the entire week.  The news journalists will utter it.  The intellectual crowd will utter it.  And the politicians will utter it.

If you were playing the whisky shot game (one shot per utterance of Xenophobia)....you'd have to have at least eleven bottles of booze per week (assuming eighteen shots per bottle).

What's the actual real meaning and history behind Xenophobia as a word?

Around 1903, some intellectual folks who'd studied Latin in college were writing up critical summaries over racism.....particularly in Africa.  There is some belief (not a lot of evidence I will admit) that W. E. B. Dubois (the scholar and essayist) may have used the word first.

What the Latin enthusiasts did was simply take two Latin words and connect them.  Xeno meant foreigner, and phobia mean an irrational fear.

It was an intellectual way of taking the discussion to the next level and having some word to fit their dialog.

If you examine phobias......they have a fascinating trail.  Phobias were first discussed around 470 to 410 BC.....by Hippocrates....the Greek guy with a great fascination of medicine and the human mind.

Phobias were supposed to be a packaged deal where you had something wrong with you and for most folks....it was irrational.  For example.....you went nuts if a spider were on the way ten feet away.  Or you went crazy if you had to cross a bridge with water running under it.  These were all irrational or deemed so by the smart guy in the bunch (the intellectual).

By the late 1800s......we were up to the Sigmund Freud era.  Here....phobias were simply classified as conflicts of the mind.  They could be discussed and worked out into a fixable solution.  If you were afraid of tall women, electricity or cats....well....a good long discussion and mental notes in your mind would help you overlook those tall women, electricity outlets, or cats standing there by the door.

The problem with Xenophobia is that it generally means you have an irrational fear of foreigners or things of a foreign nature.

The fact that you come from England and easily associate with Russians or Chinese people....would create an issue in using Xenophobia.  The fact that you can eat just about any food of a foreign nature (except perhaps Asian food)....doesn't exactly make you Xenophobic.  The fact that you like just about every kind of alcohol or booze out there except for Italian or French wine....doesn't make you Xenophobic.

Phobias were created in a way to be used by medical personnel to describe an extreme condition that existed upon irrational behavior.  An example would be a person who goes into fits over fog, and runs into a building whenever a fog episode occurs.  Another example would be a person who who has a fear of failure....to the extent that they will not take any risks or chances in life and eliminate any hope of a career or success.  Another example would be the person who has an irrational fear of hospitals, and can't possibly enter one for any reason.....even if for a life-threatening situation.

These are treatable phobias....well.....at least the doctors will tell you that these are treated by some experts with positive outcomes.

Xenophobia being treatable? Experts will say that it's a step by step process.

You get the guy with this irrational fear to explain what the irrational fear really is.  It helps if he's confused, non-intellectual, and naive.  If he's not confused, naive and seems to be fairly intelligent....then layers his response with actual answers....you can't readily conclude that it's an irrational fear.

In this case.....when the accused Xenophobic delivers five to ten reasons why this cultural or this group doesn't fit into common society....it's more difficult to note this as being illogical or irrational.

Typically, the specialist or intellectual in this case.....will try to utter the phrase....well...."you are wrong" or "ethically, you've attached yourself to a bad position".  Things usually don't go well after that point between the two individuals.

The use of facts?  This helps.....unless of course the person accused of being a Xenophobic also has facts.

Having someone from the feared group come to the meeting and try to make them appear happy, cheerful and a valued member of the community?  The person accused of being a Xenophibic will pull out a picture of the foreigner who tried to sell him heroin this morning at the train station.....or the foreigner who tried to rob him on the street this morning....or the numerous pictures of a ghetto area of foreigners which exists now on the west part of town.

Shuffling over to food situations of the foreigner helps to some degree.  The Xenophobic guy might suggest an Italian pizzeria.....which he has no issue with....or the Greek place where he has no issue, or even the Mexican place with no issue.  Maybe he'll agree to the Syrian restaurant with no issue. Food is usually meant to be eaten and not transformed into some psychological phobia session.

The thing you need to worry about....is that this person who've you accused of being Xenophobic will eventually read up on Latin.....get smart....and then invent some phrase like Nazi-phobic.....which will up being defined as a person so fearful of their cultural past....that they might attach themselves to a fraudulent lifestyle to appear nice, cheerful, diplomatic, open and pleasant...in a fake way to be seen as normal.

Being Nazi-phobic would eventually cause you to accuse others not sympathetic to your lifestyle.....as Xenophobic.

Two phobia freaks in a head-on collision?

Well.....yeah.  These two can't sit at the same table, or participate in normal discussions.

Is Nazi-phobic treatable?  Well.....they (the accused) say no.  Frankly, I think if you use the same methods as were being used on the Xenophobic guy.....it ought to work.  Well....maybe if this is part of some drinking game at the bar while watching Channel One's political chat forums and seeing how many times Xenophobic gets uttered and downing a drink each time between the two with issues.  Maybe the two can reach a drunken state, and things all come out even.

What.....me cynical?  At least I don't have Teutophobia (an irrational fear of Germans).

Three More Safe Countries

If you watched the German news from last night.....some meeting occurred in Berlin where both the CDU and SPD political parties came to a mutual agreement.  Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia got put on a list of "safe countries".

That means if you arrive in Germany and try to use the excuse for asylum or immigration of it being too dangerous in your home country (one of those three).....it's a virtual zero chance that you will be accepted.  You might be able to draw things out for six months waiting for the Germans to fumble this along.....but they will reach a point and just say no visa will be granted.

What if you say you are a gay Muslim from Algeria?  Well....that will get a different type review for a social excuse, and your odds then go up in nature.....at least above zero where 'safe-status' would be declared currently.

The guys already in Germany from these three countries?  No one says much.  If you were here on a visa, which had a time limit attached to it.....it means that it'll come to an end and either it'll be extended or converted into citizenship.  But if they pull out the safe-status of Alteria, Morocco and Tunisia.....you'd think that no extension would be allowed and you'd be given the hint to plan on leaving Germany.

The effect of this?  Well, it's an odd thing when you look at drug empire sales (illicit of course) in urbanized cities of Germany.  The Turks used to control most illegal drug activity.....then in the 1990s....the Africans came to corner part of the market.....and in the past decade....a number of North Africans came to dominate the drug empires of Germany.  An aggressive police routine.....aggressive prosecutors....and aggressive asylum officials could use this updated situation given to them from Berlin to carve out a major crime element affecting big cities throughout Germany.

The question would be.....will they use this opportunity or just stand from the distance and watch things unfold at a natural pace?

Germany's 67,194-Issue

N-24, a German commercial TV news network.....brought up the topic of refugee and immigrant unaccompanied minors this morning.

It's a short piece which drives home the simple statistic of a lot of kids in the refugees crossing the border.....having doubled in one single year.  The word "phenomenon" was used on two or three occasions in their description of the issue.

Right now....there are 67,194 total unaccompanied minors in Germany...under the welfare system of the government.  This means they have to appoint a guardian....cover the kid with all the necessary requirements in life....and closely supervise them.  No one says the total cost of this....but you can figure it's a home-like structure with one or two adults trying to monitor a couple of the unaccompanied minors.  You can do the math with every eight such minors, and come to realize that the government has to employ at 8,000 Germans in some capacity of a minor-home-supervisor.

N-24 suggests in their commentary that by the time you figure up the total costs of this situation....each single unaccompanied minor will cost a minimum of 40,000 Euro a year.

How the situation develops?  No one is saying these are Syrian or Iraqi or North African.  These sort of statistics don't get tossed around in public....for whatever reason.  My guess is that a 12 or 14-year old kid is standing there.....in a lose-lose situation, and boldly makes the decision to leave.  He gets the info....the route...and somehow comes up with the cash to make the trip possible.

What if the trend continues?  That would be a curious thing to ponder upon.  If you had another 20,000 such minors arrive in 2016....that's another 800-million Euro that the Germans would have to dig up....on top of the 2.6-billion Euro that they have to spend on non-German minors presently.  Just finding competent people to work the home environment itself will eventually become a problem.

So, it's another one of the one-hundred odd complexities added to the immigration and asylum deal....which make it more and more impossible to resolve or feel happy about.