The picture shows her with her adoptive son, Lama Aphur Yongden, disguised as beggar monks.

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.

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…

That’s what people have been saying for years and yet the AfD is already the second strongest in the last election…

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

Yeah, that’s my main reason for not going to the cinema. I like the atmosphere and I can afford it, but why would I spend so much money just to have the experience spoiled by a bunch of brats jumping around and being annoying.