Aren’t these the kind of people who’d get mad at immigrants in the US if they don’t speak English? Why don’t they learn proper Russian and integrate?

I noticed that a lot of people who turn right-wing are extremely cynical. All politicians are the same, they are all lying which means that their favored right wing party is of course also lying about the horrible stuff, they just vote for them to shake thinga up a bit. Everything is fake, nothing is real: climate change isn’t real, housing crisis isn’t real (because they have an appartment). Any societal problem is either made up or has always been this way, so lets just support the people that tell us it’s all made up. Right-wing politicians spewing hatred against minorities, left wingers, environmentalists are the only authentic ones 'telling it as it is".

It’s such a lazy cop-out.

When I was small my parents just didn’t bring me to hotels that weren’t explicitly for families. Those normal boring grown-up hotels just weren’t for us until we were old enough, so we went to the fun hotels with playgrounds. Why can’t we go back to that?

And people wouldn’t be so annoyed by children if the parents didn’t insist that they should be allowed to run around and do whatever they want. It’s not just “let me go everywhere with my kids”, it’s “let me bring my kids and then let them yell and smash things and cry as much as they want because they are kids.” There’s a nice café in my city where I don’t go anymore, because it’s full of mothers with their toddlers from the nearby playground who just continue playing as loudly as ever. Last time I went I ended up with sand in my coffee when some kid waved around his toy car that was full of sand from the playground. The mother refused to buy me a new coffee because “he’s just a kid”. A beach bar by the river actual changed their policy and now refuses entry to children under 12, because it had become too expensive for them to keep replacing food and drinks every time a kid threw the sand around. And of course the parents usually refused to pay for what their kids destroyed.

If parents can’t be trusted to make good decisions like “My 4-year-old who can’t sit still for more than a minute should not be brought to a spa where people come to relax.” or at the very least feel responsible for what they destroy, this is what happens. And if too many parents refuse to pay up when their kid destroys something, owners will prefer to ban kids.

People who say they don’t like children are being hated on, but 99% of the time they just don’t like children who are allowed to do whatever they want whereever they are and parents who take zero responsibility under the guise of it’s just a child.

Typical pork cycle. By the time everybody was pushed towards IT/Coding and all the hundred ways to get into IT popped up, there were already too many people wanting an IT job. You were basically called stupid if you didn’t “just learn to code” to get a well paid, stable job. It’s your own fault for chosing a manual labor job instead of applying yourself and learning some coding skills! So everybody was pushed towards IT and made to feel stupid if they didn’t try to learn coding.

Is that so in France? I’ve only ever been there on holiday but I can’t imagine that “lots of places don’t allow children”. Museums were full of kids and you could see many in restaurants. As long as they are behaving I don’t think they are excluded much except for some hotels, spas or saunas. It’s ok to have some “adult-only spaces” just like there are kid-spaces like playgrounds, children’s museums etc. But I don’t have kids in France so I don’t know how many kid-free zones there are. I just noticed a lot of museums having tours or areas for kids.

I’d argue that the drop in conference and other professional visitors could be even steeper. There are still enough people who’ll privately take the risk or aren’t informed or think “I’ll be Ok if I comply with the laws”. Companies or universities however have HR departments and people in charge of travelling and compliance. They would risk a lot more money and possibly secrets if the devices are searched and employees are detained. I think they’ll be even more careful and restrict trips to the US. I could imagine a lot of conferences offering online participation and many opting for that rather than risking it.

And if enough international speakers can’t get in even more conferences will opt for moving the entire conference to a different country.

There are still too many people who are either uninformed or think this won’t happen to them. Surely the tourists that got detained did something wrong. As long as they follow all the rules it won’t happen to them. Etc. It’ll take a couple of more cases in the media for it to go down more.

So creating quiet places for relaxation is not allowed anymore? Because a child “shouts, laughs and moves” and that’s just how children are, no need to try and teach it to be quiet in certain spaces. But you are also not allowed to exclude them. These childfree places mostly exist because too many parents think children need to be loud and disruptiv everywhere they go and they can’t possibly teach them to be quiet for an hour or two.

That’s why I started writing a diary. On the same day I can still remember very well how things happened, but weeks or moth later I might not. So I write a diary every evening with everything that happened.

I’m German and I worked in an office with managers and engineers who had a background in construction or related jobs. There is a very strong attitude of “We didn’t need that bullshit back when I was an apprentice.” There is a lot of scoffing at people who wear saftey gear and follow the rules. Corners are being cut and safety rules ignored because “we didn’t need all that bullshit back then and losing a finger or two is just part of the job”.

Some German news articles mention that the company in charge of the project had a bad track record when it comes to following safety regulations and the very same construction site had to be stopped before due to broken bolts in the bridge.

It doesn’t say that he’s anaphylactic though, just that he sought out medical treatment. I mean he could have been, but as far as I know anaphylaxis from onions is rather rare. Medical treatment could mean that he had diarrhea and got medication for that.

That being said, I wouldn’t step into a burger place with an onion allergy. Especially since the onion allergene can be airborne. I have a soy allergy and you won’t see me in an Asian restaurant.

NRW. Rheinland, um genau zu sein. Hier gibt es auch seeehr viele “Wir haben das schon immer so gemacht”-Leute.

You know what the worst thing is? He wasn’t the only one by far. Later at a different company another Teamleader told me I have to go out to eat with everybody. When I said the restaurant isn’t save for me (lots of nuts on the menu), he just said I HAVE to come and that’s what the Epipen is there for. I complained to HR and the HR lady asked why I don’t just do a therapy against allergies. Told me about some esoteric bullshit that’s supposed to cure all allergies and advised me to do that so I can better fit in with the company culture.

Just looking at the people around me (mostly colleagues, I’m not friends with this kind of people) it’s no surprise, when just about anything triggers them to vote AfD. Some actual examples:

“We have a vegetarian day at the cafeteria now. Stupid Greens forcing me to not eat meat one day a week. I’m going to vote AfD next election.”

“They built a new bicycle lane on my way to work. Now I’m forced to stick to the speed limit because of all the bicyclists on MY road blocking me. It’s a straight street, I should be able to go 80 even though it’s inner city. I’ve always been going 80 there! Stupid Greens, I’m going to vote AfD next election.”

“Supplier X stopped issuing their bikini model calendar. Everything is forbidden nowadays! Noone ever cared for bikini model calenders, but the Greens want to forbid every little piece of fun. Stupid woke culture. I’m going to vote AfD.”

And let’s not forget that one boss who told me that my life-threatening nut allergy was woke nonsense, because back in his day “everybody just ate what’s on the table and noone died, but nowadays everybody has to feel special by making up things they won’t eat.”

They just want to go back to 1950s culture, when gay people, trans people, allergies, ADHD, autism, veganism, climate change and anything other than straight white dudes and straight white housewives “didn’t exist”, because how dare the world be more complex than a Rosamunde Pilcher movie.

I have no trust in the current coalition to make that happen…

Soon we can translate all the GDR jokes and use them for the US.