Sunday morning thoughts – November 5, 2023

Mixed bag, trigger warning, totally ranty

Woke up with a splitting headache. I guess I slept with my head 1 mm too far to the right or something. Or it could be the state of the world that’s on my mind. I mean that would make any head hurt, wouldn’t it. And just in case it’s from not drinking enough yesterday, I’m hydrating as well.

It’s stormy outside and will be raining all day. I also saw the first snow pictures from areas a bit higher up. Out weather forecast always tells you how high up there’s snow (Schneefallgrenze) and how high up you need to go to see the sun on foggy days (Hochnebelgrenze). Very useful information. And I just realized what my headache is. It’s due to this fun type of wind called Föhn. Look it up – I think “Foehn wind” should work for you. Remember all German words with an umlaut can also be spelled with ae, oe, ue if you don’t have äöü on your keyboard– just like my last name. Of course, the German word Föhn also means hairdryer. A name that works well for a warm, dry wind. Isn’t language fun?

I guess the storm is in my head as well. Then I also got majorly triggered by a picture that will feature in the second newsletter of today about plastic pollution in the ocean. Apparently, the Philippines are to blame as they are responsible for 356,371 of the 1 million tons of plastics floating in our oceans and the rest of the world are only responsible for 176,012 tons. So, basically we can point the finger and say “look at them, we’re not that bad” and keep polluting. Rant over for now. I’ll be talking about this in my podcast later today where the main topic will be chemical recycling. It’s at noon Eastern – 6 PM here.

What else is on my mind today? Well, I couldn’t write about this last week as I needed time to process. ***Trigger warning for all types of child abuse at the hands of parents. Here’s what they did. They ASKED parents “do you hit your children?” and then “do you hit your children with objects?”. Right … does anybody else see a problem in asking the abusers? What kind of a study is that? Oh, and by the way, 32,000 children in Switzerland (that’s about 2 %) were beating with objects. If we’re taking into account who they asked we can assume that the number is much higher. In Switzerland there are still different views on whether corporal punishment harms children. Almost 40% of the parents in that study said they used a form of corporal punishment. Many of them probably belong to the “well, I was beaten up and I turned out okay” group – I can just feel my blood pressure rising at that one. Why that’s just not true will have to be a separate newsletter. The WHO published something on corporal punishment and health. Well worth reading.

Anyway, did I have a point here? Ah yes, beating a child with an object is premeditated as you are getting that object specifically to hit a child. How is that ever okay? How was/is society okay with this happening? I might just have to join the campaign that wants a new law to protect children in Switzerland. Looking at other numbers in that study, I can tell that it’s much needed. 60 percent of parents said they used degrading punishments such as humiliation, name-calling, insults, or confinement. That’s more than half the parents. And that’s psychological abuse at its best. Another favorite that didn’t make it into the article on that study is withholding food as a form of punishment. End of trigger warning ***

This week was also Halloween – that’s doorbell-off night for me. It was nice and quiet. Then there was the annual carrot market. I had to work that day, so I have no pictures; but I managed to sneak in shortly before closing to get a carrot Bratwurst. A carrot Bratwurst? You ask. Well yes, it’s a regular Bratwurst with small pieces of carrot mixed in. It is soooooo good. If you’re ever in Aarau on the first Wednesday in November, this is an absolute must. For pictures look up “Rüeblimärt Aarau” – use the rule I gave you above for the umlauts. Have I mentioned that I used to be a teacher?

Then there was a classic social media moment. I’m never going to fight the urge to reply with “Easy – and I’m not German” whenever somebody says “You’re Germans if you can pronounce tschechisches Streichholzschächtelchen”. Come on people! German is spoken in countries other than Germany. And yes, I can name all countries where it is an official language. Here we go: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. If we’re talking official language on a regional level, I’d add Italy here too. Not sure if I got them in the right order in terms of number of native speakers without looking it up. There are also other countries where it is spoken as a minority language. I won’t be able to name them all just from memory, but there’s Denmark, France (although the situation is complicated there), Italy and Poland for sure. Somehow Namibia and Argentina also come to mind. Sticking to my not looking stuff up rule here - feel free to look them up yourselves.

I’m gonna leave you with a relive video of yesterday’s walk from home to Aarau. I love that walk. It was nice and peaceful. That bridge at the end was just completed. It’s called Pont Neuf which is French for “new bridge”. Not sure why we’re using French here, but I guess it’s because we can.

They are making extra sure you know where you are.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone and maybe I’ll see some of you listening to my podcast later on.