Less Violence! I remember one of our key topics in teaching English was on violence. I would ask my crowd of students every year anewly if they thought that violent videos games generally made people become more violent, and the overwhelmingly unanimous answer was Yes. I came here and was pretty surprised to encounter a rather non- chalant way among young folks of dealing rather naturally with stunningly brutal and quite drastically graphic video war games. I even stumbled across a couple of national surveys claiming that there was no connection whatsoever between violence displayed and conveyed by means of such war games and an increasingly high inclination as far as violent behavior among teenagers and adults. Really? Get alive people! Why is it then that here of all the countries there are far more violent incidents on a daily base than anywhere else? Just last night the news reported about a white naked man somewhere nearby Miami, Florida biting chunks out of another white male's face! Don't tell me things like these happen because they just occur naturally! I recall someone saying on TV that he couldn't possibly tell the difference anymore between those so scaringly realistically designed war games and real battle scenes. That guy had served in Afghanistan twice. I also remember another documentary in which students were interviewed about their video watching and gaming habits. One kid said that he loved those games where he could shoot off people's heads because that way he could rid himself of his aggressions. He also said that he was wondering if shooting someone for real was that easy! Another teenager bragged about holding the record in shooting all his enemies in the game thinking of all the teachers he couldn't stand. Well, HELLO! So, if watching violence on TV and playing violent video and PC games does not influence and mould young people, why do kids and teenagers here create school massacres like nowhere else? I really don't care what those supposedly valid surveys claim. Instead I rely on having asked many young people throughout quite a number of years as well as on what reality in fact proves to be. Take all that violence filled garbage off the shelves, and keep it out of kids' reach at least until they are old enough to handle fictitious violence.
Buy small and local Hi everybody! - Coming from a tiny country like Austria, one might assume that globalisation is just a phenomenon tailored for larger nations, but no, it has also been affecting us all across Europe. Globalisation itself is of complex nature, and even though I'm not planning to write about globalisation per se today, it somehow dictates our overall shopping behavior by bringing in more and more big box chain stores worldwide which sets the general trend for methodically and eventually putting local small family- run as well as individualists' shops out of business. In the 70ies I remember mom and dad taking us along to a wide range of stores from the baker to the butcher, the grocer's, the florist, the hard ware place, the electrician, the tobacco store, etc. What great memories our weekly trips to the market created for us. There we would hand- pick fresh fruit, produce, and other delicacies. Sometimes we would even get a piece of fruit or a carrot fo...
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