The Topic of Fake News

Germans are often preoccupied and worried about 'fake news'.  They look at America, the 2016 election, Trump, and worry about fake news spreading and affecting Germans as well.

American intellectuals and wannabe-journalists also worry about fake news and the effect on Americans.

I've sat and pondered this point a good bit.  My German wife wants to hype fake news and that everyone believes fake news. 

The problem for me, is that I grew up with this weekly magazine that was published from 1979 to 2007 called the Weekly World News.  Basically, it was 100-percent fake news. 

Hundreds of thousands of Americans read the magazine at various points and came to grasp the legacy of WWN (Weekly World News).  Just because something is written down....does not make it a legitimate fact or a news item.

In a way, WWN trained me to be more observant of the real news, or the manipulated news, or the constructed-to-appear factual news.    If someone said something....what did they not say?  If the slant of an article went in only one single direction....what was missing?  If the reporter seemed to constantly name unnamed sources....did they really exist?  Who were they? 

Germans?  They don't have a vehicle like WWN.  They are told over and over....journalists are clever, brilliant individuals, who only desire to deliver the facts. If they need to really win over the public....have a forum of five individuals, with four telling one story and only one telling the opposite story.  It's an easy gimmick and you often see it in German public TV.

We are almost fifteen months now into the fake news era, and it's still brought up occasionally in Germany.  My guess is that when Trump finally leaves DC....the fake news era will end.  They will work day and night to convince people that the era ended and that you can now rest comfortably knowing that only real news exists in the world.

Even the World World News crowd couldn't make up a story like this. 

The Teacher Problem?

Focus brought this up today....it's a topic which gets mentioned to a limited degree about three or four times a year by public TV forums....the lack of teachers in Germany.

In round numbers, the nation (16 states) is right now (today) missing around 32,000 teachers.  The vacancies exist....they'd hire the folks, if they existed.

By the predictions of the German Civil Service....this issue only increases over the next decade or so....with a need for 1.5 million folks required for public healthcare, teachers, instructors, firemen, cops, the tax office, customs, Job-Centers, etc.

To fill the gap, they've gone and done something that was supposed to be impossible (at least a decade ago)....they've opened the door for people who simply have a university degree but they haven't completed a teacher certification course/internship.  They even admit that some of these situations aren't full-time...with some people filling in as part-time teachers.

How many?  The article states just under 10-percent of teachers are now 'newcomers'.

State by state?  It's different.  Some are finding enough teachers....some aren't.

Different from 'real' teachers?  Well....yeah.  That topic comes up.  The real teachers are still paid by their noted skill-level, and the newcomers are paid to a lesser degree. 

My humble guess is that this will last five or six years, and when the newcomer crowd gets near 35-percent of the total force....they will pop up for a strike, and the whole balance of pay-scale will have to change.

So in the middle of the article, they get to the key point....are parents skeptical of the solution?  Yes.  No one.....not the parents, the real teachers, or the political folks....think that this is really the best deal for students. 

Few Germans remember this, but in the 1990s....schools in the US reached a stage where they were desperate for science and math teachers.  Two resolutions were created.  One....they went and recruited retired military members who had degrees in these areas....sometimes even taking people who had any kind of degree.  But the second resolution was to recruit German teachers, and bring them into the US.  No, there weren't lots of them but it was noticed by the news media and discussed at some levels.

Are the shortages really legit?

Here's the thing...most folks anticipate the population of Germany to shrink from 82-million to around 70-million within twenty-five years.   As much as the migrant population might stall that....one has to ask if all the migrants and immigrants will do a long-term stay, or pack up when peace comes to Iraq and Syria.  Will you really need these 1.5-million folks to fill government jobs in the next fifteen years? Probably not.  This teaching shortage?  Is it really long-term?  People say yes, but will you really need the teachers in twenty years?  I'd have some doubt.

It's a curious problem.  Jobs that exist and recruitment going on, but no one to fill the jobs. Adding to this....would you even have the stamina to handle young German punks? 

The Analysis Report

Three Germans sat down in 2017 and analyzed a ton of data.....mostly all related to crime and immigrants in Germany.   It's hard to figure why the government did this, because you'd just go and anticipate it being negative in some way and slamming both the CDU and SPD parties, and their coalition government. 

In the last week, the report was wrapped up....published, and the writers....Soren Kliem, Dirk Baier and Christian Pfeifer have started to go around and explain the report to the general public.

What they did.....which makes it hard for journalists to slam or intellectuals to hype against....they went to statistical data....mostly from the state of Lower Saxony. 

So, right off the bat, yes....they admit that crime numbers are up and you can connect the dots back (to a reasonable degree) to the incoming refugee crowd.

But they go one step further, mostly because they spent the time to analyze 'who' was the problem-children and why they were doing the bad-behavior situation.

The solution suggested goes to three central themes: (1) female influence, (2) the need for more education, and (3) activities to keep them busy.

The logic here?

Female influence.  Basically, this core-crowd is made up of young men from various countries and they don't have any women interested in casual relationships.  German women for the most part have marginal interest, and there just aren't women from their homeland in Germany....to make up the difference. 

More education.  After the Syrian crowd, the education level goes drastically down, and you find a lot of young men with no skill....no craft....no university degree, and no real job potential. 

Activities.  I'm reminded here of the effort that US military made in my two decades associated with them to have sports and recreational opportunities.  In some way, they kept us busy on weekends, and occupied in constructive ways.  You find different activities existing in most German communities but there hasn't been any real outreach to bring people in and involve them in the sports. 

In Lower Saxony, the numbers can show an easy 10-percent growth pattern....of which more than 90-percent of the growth.....leads back to migrants or asylum-seekers. 

The problem now?  How exactly do you take the Berlin leadership machine and crank up these three problem areas to be resolved?

Do you go and recruit 25,000 young women from North Africa to migrant into Germany....mostly to come and meet similar people from their country?  And if they were given visas and entered....would they even socialize with their guys.....or start to date German guys?

If you did start more educational programs.....would the core problem-kids (really just young men in their early 20's) get into this and follow through?

If you did offer more sports opportunities....would it interest them enough to spend more of their free time there instead of getting into trouble?

I look at this list of actions required and admire the logic to it.  Yes, I would agree with the issues and resolutions.  But getting the Berlin-leadership to funnel action into this?  How?  I can see everyone laughing over the idea of bringing 20,000 young ladies from Libya, Tunisia and Morocco into Germany, and how the program would work.  The dimwits leading the country might even be stupid enough to bring the majority of young ladies in....then put the bulk of the young ladies in areas where there is no real migrant men in population (like deep into Bavaria). 

The leadership might even be stupid enough to try and make training programs which have zero pay-back for jobs later.

The effort of the three to explain the problem is positive but beyond that....now what?

The Jobs Stories

There's been two reports from public TV in Germany which had bits and pieces to do with the current employment or unemployment scene in the country.

First, ZDF (Channel Two) chatted a fair bit over the lack of skilled labor in the country.  The problem here is that there are a couple of regions which have a fair amount of unemployment, and two states (Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg) which are in desperate need of more potential employees. 

It's a curious thing when you examine Germans....they tend to concrete themselves down to one city or one area.  The suggestion that you might be from Potsdam and be out of work for an entire year, then find several responses down in Karlsruhe....but you just won't move. 

You would think the German government would get involved and look for people unemployed and living in apartments, and find some way to pay for the guy to vacate this apartment, and move 500 kilometers away, and he'd be happily employed.

Adding to this issue is a problem I noted last year....in that a large segment of the migrants that came into Germany....were attracted to the northwest (the state of NRW).  Unemployment numbers are growing higher each quarter in that region, and it was already difficult for a German with skills or a background to get a job.  At some point, the German leadership in Berlin should have realized the problem they were creating, and tried to pressure the migrants into moving into Bavaria....to increase the job possibilities.

The second report, via ARD (Channel One, public TV)....concerned this amazing problem....a lack of government employees.

Germany-wide, they say there are 185,000 openings for state/federal jobs, and they are having issues in filling these.  Part of the problem is finding people with skills or certifications....part of it is simply the regions don't have the numbers to apply for the jobs.

According to the data presented, over the next fifteen years....there's 1.5 million public-sector jobs (gov't jobs) which will become open because of retirements.

One part of this report noted that around 32,000 teachers are simply missing.  They would hire the people....if they showed up with the right degree. 

The cops?  Right now, they need 8,500 folks to fill the jobs.  It's not exactly a profession that most kids dream about.  A crisis period?  No, not yet.

The firemen around Germany?  They need 4,000 folks to fill the vacancies.

Using the migrants?  Well....they'd need to be skilled and have the certifications.  You could be talking about tens of thousands and at least two to four years to get someone to point of filling some of these professions.  If you were looking for a roadmap which would take these people to this point.....well, it doesn't really exist to the degree required. 

Jobs becoming a top ten issue in Germany?  You can look forward in four years and forecast that this will be a major issue for the next national election.  But trying to build some political agenda around this?  It's near impossible. 

Schorfheide Documentary

I sat last night and watched a 90-minute documentary piece off RBB (the Berlin public-TV network).  The topic?  "Die Schorfheide" (The Hunting Ground of the Powerful).  You can click on the link and go and watch the video.  It is entirely in German (I wish they'd put sub-titles on it and ship it to the History Channel).

So, here is the basic story.  As WW II came to a close and Germany was divided up, East Germany was saddled up with the Communist Party.  The Party elite are strangely made up of....hunters.

About an hour's drive north of Berlin lays this heavily forested area....referred to as Schorfheide.  Size-wise...the region is about half the size of the entire city of Berlin.  You could probably stand in the middle of it (at least in 1965) and walk in any direction for three miles and not see much in terms of civilization.

Back prior to WW I....it was the official woods of the Kaiser (Wilhelm II).  He'd take groups of people out and hunt for an entire afternoon.

After WW I, it became the hunting region for the Nazis....well, mostly for Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.  Most of the Nazi crowd weren't into hunting.  Goring kept a major house on the hunting grounds and spend a fair amount of time there.

After WW II.....it became part of DDR's state-supported hunting property, with Erich Honecker and Günter Mittag being noted a great deal as guests.

The documentary piece from RBB covers this period from the late 1940s, until the late 1980s, when DDR ended.  A lot of video covers the 'hunts' by the leadership of DDR.

At some point, it just kinda hit me....here were the top dozen leaders of DDR (Honecker in the middle), and they were all in hunter's clothing, with hunting rifles, and on a hunt.

It's an odd thing.  You can go to almost every country in the western world for the past sixty years and line up the top dozen leaders of that country....for any period....and the odds of all twelve being hunters?  Zero chance.  Yet, here was DDR.....run entirely for a forty-year period....by hunters.

If you look at most European leaders over the past fifty-odd years....some were golfers.....some were into swimming.  Some were into fishing.  Some had a passion for cars.  Some had a love for horseback riding.  But you just don't find anyone much that have a passion for hunting, except here in DDR, and with Erich Honecker and his crowd.

The video clip at the link is 90 minutes long and strictly in German, but is worth reviewing for the landscape and the historical video attached to it.  I find it odd....they had some PR guy with them and made video of the hunts, and the interaction of the hunters.  It's almost something out of a Nazi-propaganda rule-book.  It's worth watching.

The Knife Assault Story

This is a page three-type story which won't get mentioned much but it drives home a point.

Around the subway area in Berlin of Bayerischer Platz on New Year's Eve.....some Syrian immigrant guy went 'nuts' with a knife and attacked a couple of folks around the station.

At least one guy was cut enough to show some blood but he refused medical care.

So before you run off and try to make some fake Jihadist-story out of this....one particular note.  The guy is apparently known, and has been labeled 'mentally unstable'. 

Cops noted the ID....then came to some conclusion after talking to the guy....that he's simply not capable of rational thought.

Even when I went through the visa process back four years ago, I quickly noticed that there was no physical or mental exam.  I could have had TB, some serious disease, or been a total nutcase....but the Germans weren't interested.

I've sat and often wondered why. 

You would think that they'd be all hyped up to require a physical....some blood test....TB test, and do a brief 15-minute mental exam to just prove I wasn't a threat or needed to be put into a facility.  Being from Alabama, and having a high population of nutcases....I would have thought they'd be rather quick on checking my sanity or my crazy-factor.  But no.....that just wasn't on that priority list.

How many migrants might have slipped in who were a bit crazy?  There's no way to really say.  Depending on the doctor doing the exam....who knows, maybe I would have failed the mental exam as well.

Course, the flip side of this situation is....would you go and test Germans on their crazy-factor as well?  This is probably why it's not brought up because there's probably 100,000 Germans who ought to be locked up in some facility. 

As for this attack?  The knife guy apparently did ask if the victim guy (slightly cut) was a believer....typically in Islam-chat, that means something of a religious nature.  Did the victim guy understand the question....or did he infer believer meant something else entirely?  This....you will never know.  It's just simply luck that the older guy stepped into this subway area and got noticed by the deranged guy and became the target. 

The Tram Story

My local German town....Wiesbaden....has reached a stage where they are fairly serious about adding a tram to the city. 

The city has survived since WW II with no trams (unlike Mainz).  Public transportation in Wiesbaden is mostly tied to buses, and a few trains that leave the train station for major suburbs that surround the city.

The current plan?  There is this connecting point between the cities of Wiesbaden and Mainz....the Kaiser Brucke 'tent'.  This bridge area connects Mainz-Kastel (on the north side of the river) to Mainz (on the south side of the river).

The city planners say the tram (being the only one planned right now) would run from the 'tent' over to Bebrich (a suburb of Wiesbaden) and head north to the train-station, and onto the Marktplatz area, and then head further north.

Various arguments come up via folks around town.  Some question the necessity of this tram.  Some question the price-tag....300 million Euro (probably escalating to 400 million very easily). Some question the usage by the general public.  Some even suggest that this is only phase one and that there might be four of these routes around the city within fifteen years.

A public magnet for the city....to attract more people as residents?  Well, that factor comes into play as well.  One of the proposed routes is through all Mainz-Kastel where a old Army installation is in some period of planning for more apartments and condos.  Where the tram heads on the north side of Wiesbaden?  Well, I'm guessing real estate speculation is at play here and more neighborhoods might be planned. 

The need to connect Wiesbaden to Mainz?  Well....it already exists.  Almost every hour between the two cities (about a 12 minute ride by train), there's four trains making a trip.  By bus?  There's three to four buses that cross between two cities and there's probably eight trips per hour made.  You can ride a bike from the Mainz city-center to the Wiesbaden city-center in twenty-five minutes.  I would take a guess that forty-thousand Mainz folks work somewhere on the north side of the river, and probably forty-thousand Wiesbaden folks work on the south side of the river (my wife is one of those).

The big negative for most folks about this whole topic?  There's a two to three year construction period discussed, and traffic would be fairly screwed-up during this period for various parts of Wiesbaden.  Things are already fairly stressed already....this only adds more 'pain'. 

At this point, it's going to happen.  Nothing can stop it. 

Part II: German Constitution (1 January 1871)

This is the second part of a series, where I chat about German Constitutions.

Toward the 1870 era, Prussia had finalized consolidated Hessen, and the areas around Hessen into the new 'land'.  They had to settle some difference and slightly change the old Constitution.

Note, this did not settle the Bavarian or Wuerttemberg situation.

This 1 January 1871 Constitution would be called the "Verfassung des Deutschen Bundes, or Novemberverfassung".

The thing about this one brief episode was that it was simply a quick-fix or band-aid approach.  The
real 'new' Constitution would occur roughly 100 days later.