communication, law, mental health, Police, true crime, YouTube

I’m ORDERING you to RELAX right NOW!!!

It’s Friday, and that means it’s PARTY time! Well… not really. Bill and I aren’t big partiers. But there will be a special fest in our little village this weekend. It starts tonight and will consist of live music, a wine stand, AND a beer stand! There will also be a food truck. Hopefully, it will stop raining, so we can enjoy the fun and stay dry.

This week, I’ve been watching more cop videos on YouTube. The ones that end up on YouTube are usually somewhat interesting on some level. Like, the uploaders aren’t going to just put up a video of someone getting a speeding ticket without complaint. Most of the videos that make it to YouTube involve some misbehavior or attitude of some sort.

I have a few favorite body cam channels. I like the ones where there’s a good narrator, even if the narrator is AI. If the AI isn’t super obvious, I don’t mind it that much. I just like a good story, although some of the stories are tragic. Code Blue Cam usually has good body cam videos and a compelling storyline. Their most recent upload is quite the doozy. Just a warning… this video is definitely NSFW, mainly due to the extremely profane language the woman uses as she’s being busted for DUI. I’d share it here, but it’s age restricted.

One of Code Blue Cams less “adult” videos… I offer it just for the sake of an example.

The below video comes from Real World Police, which is another one of my favorite YouTube body cam channels. As I was watching it, I had to pause and ponder…

This dude is very profane, and it’s clear the cops aren’t on his side. They order him to “calm down”.

In the above video, the older man is very upset as he’s speaking to the police officers. He uses a lot of foul language. One of the cops says, “Calm down!” And it occurred to me, when I’m upset and someone orders me to “calm down”, it usually has the opposite effect. I asked my friends on Facebook if they are ever able to calm down when someone orders them to calm down. Almost everyone responded with a resounding “NO!”, including my former shrink– a psychologist with over 50 years of experience. He said, “It doesn’t work for anyone.”

Please note… I’m not talking about speaking to someone calmly and encouraging them to calm down. I’m talking about ORDERING them to calm down. I see this all the time in the cop videos. The police are wrestling someone to the ground, screaming at them to “stop resisting”, “calm down”, “don’t pull away”, and my personal favorite, “RELAX!” Yeah, I’m gonna relax with guys in uniforms with guns, tasers, pepper spray, and handcuffs are screaming at me and my adrenaline is pumping. Not.

I liken the order to “relax” and “calm down” by police as the same as a gynecologist telling someone to relax while they have their fingers in one of their patients’ orifices. I’m sorry if that’s shocking to some readers, but in all seriousness. One of the main reasons I’ve only had two exams done in my 51 years of life is because when I had my first “female” exam, the doctor was awful and ordered me to relax as she was hurting me. When she hurt me, I cried out, and almost fainted. She basically told me to shut up, or she wouldn’t finish the exam. I needed the exam to join the Peace Corps, so I gritted my teeth.

Then, when the OB-GYN from Hell finished the exam, she said “Well, everything looked okay, but I didn’t get the world’s best exam, because you weren’t relaxed.” Duh… I wasn’t sexually active; it was my first time getting an exam; and she was hurting me in a place where the sun doesn’t shine. And then to add insult to injury, she fat shamed me, too. 😉 How relaxing! NOT. As you can see, that experience really had a traumatic effect on me.

Dang… this one was filmed in Fayetteville, Georgia. Bill and I lived there for about sixteen months after our last Germany stint ended in 2009. I liked that town. The house we lived in was on 8 acres and it was super private! The house in this video is owned by Rick Ross, the rapper. There are many mansions in Fayetteville, Georgia.

The woman in the above video– name of Precious– is completely out of touch with reality. She asks the cops to let her walk “sexy” as she’s wearing handcuffs. She claims she’s pregnant with Rick Ross’s twins and is his wife. She also says she’s a model. This video is pretty funny, too, because as I mentioned in the above caption, I used to live in Fayetteville, Georgia, where this video was taken. This brings back some good memories for me. I did enjoy living in Fayetteville, but that was before Trump fucked up small town America.

Anyway, the woman in the video isn’t relaxed, but I give kudos to the Fayetteville Police for handling her professionally. We only had one interaction with them. It was when we brought my now 14 year old Mini Cooper– then brand new– to be inspected by the police before we could register it with Fayette County and get new tags. The cop who dealt with us was very efficient and pleasant. I can see from the many cop videos on YouTube that they aren’t always that good.

Last night, for instance, I saw a video Ring of Fire did about MAGA supporter and former Obama and Trump White House physician, Ronny Jackson, who is an actual emergency room doctor, being cussed at, thrown to the ground, and cuffed. Why? Because he was trying to help a teenaged girl in medical distress at a rodeo. I’ve seen many videos where cops have seemingly endless patience and compassion. And I’ve seen other videos where they aren’t much better than the people they arrest, and in some cases, they’re even worse! I’m not saying I like Ronny Jackson is the greatest doctor, but he’s certainly qualified to help a teenager with hypoglycemia. He shouldn’t be thrown to the ground and cuffed for helping someone.

WHAT?!! Those cops need firing, now!
“You pull away from me, you’re gonna hit the tub!” How relaxing. Then the cops yells at her, while she’s hysterical. Not saying she isn’t deserving of being arrested, but the cop shouldn’t be screaming and cursing at her. It’s understandable, but not helpful.

The above video is also a good example of why our mental health system in the United States needs a complete overhaul. That woman is in need of psychiatric care. It sounds like another cop is being more gentle with her. I can understand that dealing with someone like that is very frustrating, but screaming at people doesn’t calm them down. When they arrive at the police station, you can hear the one cop screaming at her to “calm the fuck down”… but it’s really not effective at all. People who are that “amped up” are not in the frame of mind to calm down. The best you can do is put them in a safe, quiet place and wait for them to simmer down. Barring that, Ativan works pretty well… but again, you kinda need a medical person for that.

It always fascinates me to see people ordering people to relax and calm down. That sort of defies logic, doesn’t it? When people yell at me, it makes me want to respond in kind. I never calm down when someone demands it of me. All that does is piss me off anew. When I was younger, I used to get really upset and hysterical, even to the point of hyperventilating. I haven’t had a good, full-blown anxiety attack in years, though… thank God. It’s not a nice feeling. The woman in the above video, especially, needs some compassion, even though she’s clearly broken the law and needs to answer for that. I suspect she’s mentally ill, and needs care.

One of the cops in this video says she used to be a mental health counselor. I can tell. She handles panicky Ellie very compassionately (at around the 11 minutes mark), although in her case, it didn’t work out too well. She had to get “wrapped” like a burrito.

But I also know that the police, especially in the United States, have a difficult and dangerous, yet very necessary, job. It’s not work that always attracts the best and brightest, nor is the training that great, especially in some areas. It seems like cops are trained to be very authoritative, instead of de-escalating situations. One thing I have noticed over here in Europe is that cops are more interested in non-violent interactions, and they work hard to keep things peaceful, as they also keep the peace. It helps that there aren’t so many guns, here.

I’ll leave you with this old video by Beau (Justin), of Beau of the Fifth Column, who used to train law enforcement. He makes a lot of sense, and the video isn’t distressing or violent. If you watch any of the videos in this post, I highly suggest watching this one, simply because he brings up the state of mind of the person being arrested, which is an important key point that I think a lot of people miss.

Beau (aka Justin King), once again, making a lot of sense.

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celebrities, dogs, funny stories, Germany

“Won’t you be our neighbor?”… My inner Mister Rogers

At about four o’clock yesterday afternoon, the doorbell rang. Since it was Martin Luther King Day and Bill was home, he answered the door. He was soon faced with a grim faced German man he’d never seen before, who started speaking to him. Bill said the man was a bit odd and even seemed slightly out of it.

Our older dog, Arran the beagle mix, started barking, as he always does when strangers come to the door. Bill couldn’t hear our unexpected visitor over the barking, nor could he really understand what the guy was saying, as Bill’s German skills are somewhat basic, but less basic than mine are. One word he did hear and understand was “Tierschutz” (animal protection), which immediately caused us some concern.

Bill told the guy that he speaks only a little bit of German. The guy got pissed and went to our landlord’s house next door. Bill then came up to our bedroom to tell me what happened. As he was explaining the bizarre scenario, the doorbell rang again. Thinking maybe it was the landlord coming over to tell us what was wrong, Bill answered it, and it was the same grumpy guy. This time, he seemed somewhat apologetic, although he didn’t actually apologize. He said something along the lines of “Your dogs are always inside.” Then he gave Bill a dismissive wave and stalked off.

I always get agitated when someone presumes to yell at me, or at Bill, for that matter. Especially if I’m in my own home, minding my own damned business. I told Bill that he should have borrowed my Mister Rogers cap, which is a bizarre Chinese creation that was offered for sale on Amazon.de last summer. I see that it’s now no longer available. Small wonder.

I bought the cap on a whim. I’m wearing it in the featured photo, which was taken right after I got out of the shower yesterday, hence my slight resemblance to Nick Nolte coming down from a GHB bender, circa 2002. One of my friends said I am better looking than Nick Nolte is. I was flattered by that, since Nick Nolte was People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1992. When she reminded me that 1992 was thirty years ago, I replied that, just like Nick, I was also sexier thirty years ago.

That photo of Mister Rogers has circulated quite a lot around the Internet. I once even made a meme of it, which I posted below. Mister Rogers was almost surely unaware of what his two middle fingers were indicating when that photo was taken. I see from a video on Dailymotion that it comes from a song he did with little kids, back in the day…

Hee hee hee!
Actually, I think this image is even funnier than the one with both middle fingers. I wish the enterprising Amazon.de seller in China had offered this, instead.
I made this meme years ago… The quote is by George Carlin. I think Mister Rogers and George Carlin would have made a hell of a team!

Bill and I handle these types of intrusions very differently. Bill is much more polite than I am, and he always attempts to speak German. When someone uninvited rings my doorbell and starts speaking rapid fire German to me, I usually interrupt them in English and tell them I don’t understand them, even if I do. Nine times out of ten, the people who do that stuff are either trying to sell me something or looking for odd jobs… or in a couple of unfortunate situations, they were people up to no good, casing the house to see who lives there and if they’re home.

Upon considering what the guy said, his strange demeanor, and the sort of half-assed non-apology the guy later gave Bill, we eventually determined that maybe the fellow is someone who lives in the neighborhood, but isn’t someone with whom we’ve ever interacted. We think he was upset that our German next door neighbor, who lives in the house on the other side of us, was leaving her adorable, but loud, Labrador dog, Tommi, outside. Tommi barks a lot when he’s outside. It is definitely noticeable, but it doesn’t bother me much. It’s not like he’s out there all day or anything. I think she or her mother puts him out there for a short time once or twice a day. While he’s out there, he lets everyone know he’s bored, lonely, or whatever.

It’s actually against the law in Germany to leave dogs home alone for long periods of time, and if they make excessive noise, some folks will call the police. We have been pretty lucky, as our neighbors have all been relatively dog friendly, even though we have usually had beagles, and beagles can be very loud. Now that we have Noyzi, it’s really only Arran who raises hell on a regular basis. Noyzi usually stays pretty quiet, unless he’s watching pet grooming or fox hunting videos. But I’m usually home with the dogs, and they aren’t allowed to be outside unsupervised.

Bill dresses down Arran for counter surfing. See? We do discipline our dogs!

Bill said he was sitting on the toilet and heard the man speaking to someone before he rang our doorbell. Perhaps it was the people who live across the cul-de-sac from us. Maybe he asked them who has dogs and they pointed to us. I don’t know if he knew we’re Americans and maybe figured we don’t know the rules here, or he just wanted to yell at dog owners who might be the culprit of his annoyance. But it was still a weird situation, as Bill didn’t understand him for three reasons– Arran was barking, the guy was rambling, and he was speaking German. And the cranky guy didn’t give Bill a chance to step outside to talk to him without Arran’s input.

Then, after he got frustrated trying to talk to Bill, the guy spoke to our other neighbors, who also happen to be our landlords. My guess is that our landlord, or someone in his house, told the guy that we never leave our dogs outside alone. So when he rang the bell the second time, he said “Bei Ihnen (unintelligible) immer”, which confused Bill, until he later translated it to “Bei innen (unintelligible) immer” (something like, “your dogs are always inside”). Then the guy gave him a resigned wave, and left.

It’s true that our current landlords are pretty laid back, and they get paid well to let us be their neighbors, but they’ve actually told us that they rarely hear our dogs. When we still had Zane, they were louder. Zane would go out in the middle of the night to pee and get on scents, which caused him to bay on occasion. But Noyzi doesn’t bark a lot, and Arran really only barks when someone rings the doorbell. He doesn’t even bay a lot when we walk him anymore. Tommi, on the other hand, is only around a year old. He’s young, energetic, and adorable, and yes, he barks like a big guy. I’m not surprised the sound carried.

Tommi was adopted after our neighbors lost their very sweet elderly Labrador, Levi, whom they adopted from an American who couldn’t take him with him when he moved. Levi was a WONDERFUL dog… very friendly, well-behaved, and a perfect citizen. I think our neighbors fell in love with Labradors, which aren’t necessarily popular over here. Unfortunately, Levi got very sick with cancer and died while he was having surgery to remove some tumors in his stomach. I’m sure Tommi will eventually become as sweet, obedient, and adorable as Levi was, but he’s still very young and rambunctious. Even our wonderful beagle Zane, whom I think had some Lab in him, was a holy terror when we first got him. After about six months, he morphed into the most wonderful family dog. It was like magic. I have every reason to assume that will happen for Tommi, too.

I suppose I should, in part, thank the pandemic for yesterday’s chance meeting with an apparently angry neighbor. COVID-19 has really altered our lives. Most of the years we’ve been in Germany, we’ve taken every opportunity to travel over long American holiday weekends. Nowadays, we’re more inclined to stay home, mainly because travel has become so complicated and annoying, even though Bill and I are both thrice COVID vaccinated. This year, we also need to get Noyzi updated on his vaccines, which will happen today.

I shared this story on Facebook and people loved my Mister Rogers hat. But only one person wanted to know where I got it, and NO ONE seemed interested in why I have it! One friend, who happens to be German, said it was because she’s no longer surprised by the crazy shit I say and do… and wear. For the record, I was inspired to buy the hat because of my dad. I’ve already shared the story about my dad and his middle finger woes.

The short version, for those who don’t want to click the link, is that my parents took me to visit the Waterside Marketplace in Norfolk, Virginia, back in 1984 or so, when it was still new. The Waterside had a really cool hat shop that had all of these funny baseball caps. I wanted one that had a little felt dog on the brim and a plastic fire hydrant. You could pull a string and the dog would lift its leg on the hydrant. Sadly, I didn’t have any money and my parents didn’t want to indulge my proclivities for being obnoxious.

Dad did make a purchase, though. It was a black baseball cap that had a bright yellow stuffed felt hand with the middle finger raised, big as life. My dad, who was never one to swear and was unaware of what the middle finger meant, bought the cap. He said he was going to wear it to his next Rotary meeting and say, “I don’t agree with ANY of you.”

My mom said, “You are not going to wear that, are you?”

“Sure! Why not?” Dad said with a laugh.

“You are NOT going to wear that in public!” my mom said, her voice edged with resolute firmness.

“Yes I am.” Dad argued.

“Do you KNOW what that MEANS?” Mom demanded.

“Doesn’t it mean ‘go to Hell’?” Dad asked, somewhat chastened.

“Uh uh.” Mom said, leaning over to whisper in his ear.

Dad kind of blanched sheepishly, and that was the end of his big idea to shock his conservative business friends and pillars of the community in Gloucester, Virginia.

Meanwhile, I thought it was funny that my mom didn’t want to define it out loud, since even at age eleven or twelve, I knew what a middle finger stood for, even if I didn’t know what “getting laid” meant. So I said, “Hey guys, I know what it means.”

The profane middle finger hat was kept under the driver’s seat of my dad’s car for many years, never to see the light of day. I wish I had stolen it from him. I thought it was hilarious, and I haven’t seen one like it being sold anywhere since the 80s. When I saw Mister Rogers’ middle finger on a hat, though, I figured that was close enough. And since it’s no longer available, I guess that hat was just meant to be mine…

Incidentally, my dad also suffered from PTSD, which was brought on by his time in Vietnam. Sadly, he almost lost his middle finger to injury when he had a nightmare and jumped out of bed one night, punching the wall. He didn’t take care of the injury properly, and came very close to needing an amputation. Yikes!

For an update on this post, click here.

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musings

Dying to be right…

It’s almost noon and I haven’t done any writing yet. That’s because I am not inspired. Ever since we left the hotbed of crazy that is Stuttgart, I’m finding it harder to write stuff. I’m no longer a member of most of the Facebook groups in the Stuttgart community, so I don’t get exposed to some of the crazy shit that inspires me to opine. I do run an annoying Facebook group, but it’s for winos and foodies in Wiesbaden and Stuttgart. It rarely gets dramatic in that group, because we mainly post about our indulgences.

I had a neighbor in our first village who had one of these…

Actually, this morning, Bill was telling me about someone in one of the Stuttgart groups who got bitched out by a local. His dog escaped the house and took a crap in the neighbor’s yard. The guy was trying to apologize to the neighbor and asked where the crap was, so he could clean it up. German neighbor wasn’t having it and said next time, he was calling the cops. Wow. Really?

A lady in the Stuttgart Facebook group said that a woman stopped her car, leaned out the window, and yelled at the Facebook lady for letting her dog pee in the street. She said the dog should hold it until it was out of the housing area. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had much success in preventing my dogs from peeing outside when they need to go. Moreover, having spent a few years in this country, I have seen PLENTY of evidence that they don’t have that much of an aversion to public urination. I have lost count of the times I’ve seen people pissing on the side of the road. Granted, it’s usually at rest areas, in rural areas where there are no restrooms or, when there’s a traffic jam, on the side of the Autobahn. But seriously, I have seen a lot of public whizzing… especially from men and children.

I do think it’s important to clean up dog crap when it happens, especially in areas where people are walking. I am very good about cleaning up after Arran. Generally speaking, I usually clean up his dumps just after he does them. Sometimes, I make exceptions if it’s pouring rain, as it was this morning, or too dark outside to see. Then I wait until the sun is up and the rain isn’t so heavy. But sometimes, I am not the one who takes Arran out and I miss a dump.

I remember being chewed out by ex landlady a couple of times because there were landmines in the back yard. I hadn’t seen them because they were covered by the tall grass it was her job to cut. Bill would take the dogs out in the middle of the night and they’d poop. I wouldn’t see that they pooped, because I was in bed and it was dark out there anyway. And although I always did a check in the morning, sometimes I wouldn’t see where they went, mainly due to the dumps being hidden in the tall grass or bushes. She would also show up whenever she felt like it, so it’s not like I’d ever know when she was coming so I could do an extra check. It drove me nuts. I would try to explain this to her, but she was never one for listening or being reasonable. Instead, she would simply tell me off, and with each ass chewing, I would have that much less respect for her. You might guess how much regard I have for her now. 😉

Fortunately, at our current residence, I don’t have to worry about the landlord showing up willy nilly, nor is he responsible for cutting the grass. He lives next door, yet I can count on one hand the number of conversations we’ve had. All of them have been pleasant. He respects our privacy. I don’t think he even knows we lost Zane last month. I still try to clean up the poop pronto, though. And if I happen to step in a pile, that’s life.

I guess that’s one thing about living in Germany that I can’t get used to. People seem to have no compunction about scolding others. I mean, they tell off perfect strangers for everything from crossing the street against the “red man” to driving a moving truck the wrong way down a one way street (because it’s the only way the truck can reach a residence). I find it very rude and disrespectful; it offends my southern sensibilities. Besides, in the United States, it’s not a good idea to yell at someone because they might be packing heat and in a bad mood. Maybe you won’t be yelled at by an American in the United States, but you could very well get shot by someone who is a bit unhinged.

I remember during our first tour in Germany, I frequently got yelled at by strangers all the time for doing things “wrong”. It took a long time to get used to it. I mean, sure, it’s not a bad thing to correct me when I’m wrong, but do you have to be so fucking nasty about it? One time, in the first week of our first tour in Stuttgart, I got screamed at by some lady because I walked the dogs through a playground. I didn’t realize that it was “verboten” to take dogs in play areas. I remember going back to our shitty hotel room at one of the worst hotels in Stuttgart and having a good cry. I was very frustrated, especially since I didn’t understand her. It wasn’t until later that I found out that dogs aren’t allowed in playgrounds.

I don’t get “told off” so often anymore, especially since we moved. In fact, a lot of people think I’m a local until I open my mouth to speak. And even then, sometimes I get mistaken for German. It happened yesterday. Some American guy thanked me in German for letting him pet Arran, even though I spoke in perfect American accented English the whole time. But then, a lot of Germans speak in perfect American English, too. Too funny.

I find the older I get, the less inclined I am to tolerate being scolded by people. I’m 47 years old and could be a granny. In fact, I actually am a step-granny. I figure I have earned the right to be given a modicum of respect from other people. However, I have not yet gone back to screaming at them in kind, as I might have before I got therapy. Maybe that would be the best way to deal with it, although in Germany, a person can get in trouble simply for flipping someone off or calling them a name. Some insults are worse than others. For instance, it’s never a good idea to ever tell a German that they’re acting like a Nazi or a member of the Stasi (East German secret police). Double that for a police officer or court official. However, I do think it’s kind of sad that instead of speaking calmly and reasonably to the other party and handling things at a low level, oftentimes shit has to escalate to the point of involving the police or taking someone to court. Sometimes, I don’t think Germans have a concept of win/win. There simply has to be winners and losers here, and many Germans seem all too willing to “die to be right”.

I do still love Germany, for the most part. In many ways, it’s a lot better than the United States. At least I don’t worry that my life is in my hands when we go to the grocery store. Also, Germans are always good for a fest. Yesterday, we went to an apple fest that was pretty epic. I know down near Stuttgart, it’s onion cake season and there will be festivals celebrating onions, of all things. There’s always something going on, and Germans love zany, slapstick humor. I love that about Germany. And I have also found that many Germans, once they know and trust you, are sincere friends. Germany is a beautiful place with many fine traditions. But sometimes, it’s nice to get out of the country for a few days and be around people who aren’t quite so tightly wound. Fortunately, I still have many friends… and some of them even live in Europe.

I look forward to planning our next trip. At this point, it appears that we’ll be going to France for Christmas… visiting friends. Yes, I still have people who like me enough to spend a holiday with me. Imagine that!

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