Imagine there was as much outrage about the treatment of old people in our society as there is about the abuse of young children. After all, both are dependent and often equally helpless.
Imagine there was as much outrage about the treatment, about the abuse of persons with severe acquired brain injury. Because leaving someone lying in a bed without the appropriate care, without badly needed therapies, allowing them to acquire additional injuries, is abuse.
It was a woman on RTÉ this morning who made the first point about old people. The second point follows on logically, doesn’t it?
You already know that we did not make it to Tating this weekend. There were weather warnings being published every other hour. So today, we went again for a walk around the block. Only on the other side of the street.
I had seen the shop before but had never been close enough to actually see the exhibits in the store window. It’s a shop selling ‘fun t-shirts’.
So here are some funny Germans t-shirts.
It’s difficult to translate jokes, if not impossible, and won’t try it here. My two favourites were the one about being overweight (Ich bin dick. Du bist hässlich. Ich kann abnehmen. Was machst du?) and the one about know-alls (Wenn man keine Ahnung hat, einfach mal die Fresse halten). They both made me laugh, for different reasons.
It’s good to have a routine. It re-assures, it’s predictable. That’s why I like it. But where is the fun in that? So, next time, I’ll walk a different way again, and if it’s just on the other side of the street. Who knows, I might discover more fun things.
This afternoon Pádraig did what we had been doing every year, except for the last two years: we watched the really exciting, beautiful final of the Tour de France. A nice, relaxing end of a good day.
Lastly, and I almost forgot to mention it, today is Mick Jagger’s 72nd birthday (check out Wild Horses) and the second anniversary of J. J. Cale’s fatal plane accident (check out this long and brilliant video recording with Leon Russel)
Today’s German Music Tip
Max Mutzke, Welt hinter Glas. This song was posted just over a month ago. Though it didn’t become an instant hit, the Germans commenting on it think it’s an “Ohrwurm”. It’s not bad, neither the typical, unbearable, mainstream German Schlager, nor rap.
What’s hot
Wild Horses
What’s cold
No music
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Selten so gelacht!
An Saol Live your Life , An Saol eile
Hospi-Tales 
You are right with your comparison, Reinhard, it is abuse what is happening to quite a lot of old people. And it is also abuse if you leave a person with a severe acquired brain injury without appropriate care and therapy. I wish there was an outrage. These people are as helpless as children and most people only seem to think about the problem at all when all of a sudden their family or friends are affected. In my case, it is my mother with Alzheimer’s. Anyway she is 86 and Padraig is so young. That makes his situation so much more unbearable. Thank God he has you and Pat and you have achieved so tremendously much for him so far. I can see so much admirable progress.
Thank you, Gisela! – The thing is, I always thought over 50s was old:) We said to an old lady once that we had heard babies born today would live to 114 and that that was incredible, her answer was: ‘not so incredible when you’re 92!’.
Abuse is abuse is abuse. Everybody, every person no matter how old, or in what state of health has a right, a right to be treated with respect and dignity. The idea that some have less of this right than others, just because they are old or sick or both, is outrageous.
What would your mother do without you!