Loos of Control

Has it ever happened to you that the main boom suddenly hits with full force from one side of the ship to the other? Or that you experience anxious minutes when the gust reaches into the sail and the certainty comes that the thought of reefing came in time, but the implementation of the idea was once again neglected. Or that the boat begins to surf the wave and the rudder effect diminishes more and more. Whether one calls it a accidental jibe or great stupidity, they all have one thing in common - loss of control.

It's a shitty fucking feeling and you'd do well to be proactive in avoiding such situations. Whether it is a lazy guy, reefing on time or speeding the boat down, are examples of how to avoid a loss of control. But what do you do if this loss of control comes suddenly and unexpectedly, you had taken all the precautions and it happens anyway? Horror, shock, panic spreads, you slowly realize what has happened, fear of not being able to cope with the situation, quarrelling with yourself, tears in your eyes, sometimes anger at everyone and everything, most of all at yourself, then take a deep breath, reflect on your strengths and slowly regain control.

7 May, day 58 of our protective custody, I slide on my knees over the deck and try to remove black stains caused by the soles of my shoes with the root brush, using many a miracle cure. The industry is always very imaginative and praises many a remedy, but when you don't know for sure afterwards, it was muscle power, a lot of water or rubbing on the spot for a long time, in order to actually get the stain off. For a few days now I've been obsessed with cleaning and since then I slide over the deck and scrub. That has something relaxing about it and you can think about many things. At the hatch on the port side, not far from the bow where we stow our sails, I remembered the article from "tagesschau.de" about a WHO study that criticized the massive travel restrictions of many countries. According to this study, closing the borders does more harm than good to fight the Corona Pandemic, in fact the study goes so far as to see no benefit at all. Despite questions from the WHO in the Ministry of the Interior as to why or who recommended the border closure measure, there has been no response so far. The Robert Koch Institute answered the same question of the WHO, this would go beyond the competence of the RKI and would be a matter for politics. Thus, the attempt is being made to regain control with measures that have demonstrably had no positive effect on the pandemic, and neither proportionality nor fundamental rights are being observed; on the contrary, by closing the borders, necessary protective equipment is being withheld, thus even increasing the risk of infection. Quite apart from the fact that there are other viruses floating around the world and that the necessary vaccinations for children have fallen by 70% worldwide because the closure of the borders means that the vaccination serum cannot be transported. But the German "Michel" is not interested in that, the main thing is that we are once again the "best", this time in coping with the pandemic. Well, morality is a nice thing, if you can afford it and who knows what it is good for, the loss of "a little bit" of basic rights. I remember hearing once again that who has rights has duties, but who wants to take responsibility for dying children who could not be vaccinated in time. Yes, I know I had a difficult childhood. 

In the meantime I have arrived on the starboard side, here too there is a hatch under which the anchor chain is located. Such an anchor chain makes quite a mess, I tell you. Especially when the ground is really muddy brown and all the rot is pulled up from underneath with the anchor chain. If you don't remove that right away, you'll have brown spots on the white non-slip deck that you can hardly get rid of. Unfortunately I discovered a few of these brown spots and was now with my root brush when I remembered our chancellery minister Helge Braun. Asked this week about the Corona rulings, he replied: "It had been legally unproblematic to close everything for infection protection reasons, but when opening step by step, there could not always be absolute equality of all areas of society, because our approach is step-by-step". Obviously, Mr Braun has not yet overcome his loss of control. What has Mr Braun told us now? First of all, it is completely unproblematic for him to restrict or completely abolish rights that are protected by the constitution for reasons of protection against infection, as he says. However, the restitution of these rights is certainly problematic. So the result is that the restitution may be delayed and whether the status quo can ever be restored is at least problematic in Mr Braun's view. Obviously, one can probably become Minister of the Chancellor's Office with any legal opinion. Who Mr. Braun meant by "our action..." remains open, the Chancellor can not have meant the State Constitutional Court, according to him. At least the Constitutional Court has contradicted him. At least a ray of hope, although with all due respect, the statement of the State Constitutional Court that the Chancellor probably did not know about the statement does not exactly suggest that control has already been completely regained. A rogue who believes that Mrs Merkel's white vest should be protected from brown spots. The state constitutional court as a stain remover, so to speak, for brown stains on white vests. I could use it on deck right now. 

The materials that the industry provides are not the least bit good. But maybe you should not think so much about it, just paint over it with white paint. That is what has now been done at the ECB. The ECB is our European "bad bank" to take over the jargon from the financial crisis. What the ECB has to do with our fundamental rights, I'll tell you next time. Our deck is big and there is a lot to scrub and we have time, so much time to get our loss of control under control again. But it could also be that Italy lifts the travel restrictions again, then we sail again and then the ECB has to wait until the next lookdown.
In this sense, as always, fair winds and keep a stiff upper lip.