Today’s technology-oriented, media manipulated civilization has succeeded in imposing a degree of hyperreality capable of obscuring whatever remnants of reality still remain within the average person’s field of perception. This requires a permanent effort to deviate attention from hyperreality...
Until recently, France appeared to be on the way out, the Australian-American betrayal on the submarine deal the coup de grace, the ultimate humiliation for what once was known as the grande nation. Grand no longer, a nation at risk, collective psyche in the dumpster: autumn in France. Things...
Michael Jackson has been named the "king of pop" for his timeless hits as a member of the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist. His lyrics have brought individuals across the world together as one. "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" are some of his best-known songs, but it is "They Don't Really Care About Us"...
In a discussion concerning a new law that restricts the attribution of French visas to North Africans, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Algeria’s leadership of the crime of using the history of French oppression during the colonial period as an excuse for fomenting what he deems an...
Between September 17 and 19, Russians went to the polls to elect the State Duma. The voting period was officially increased to three days and introduced electronic voting for the first time due to measures intended to contain the spread of COVID-19 currently raging across the country. Third...
July 2021 was marked as the hottest month of the year in Tbilisi, Georgia. While the temperature outside hit around 33˚C at 10 am on July 5, the day when the pro-LGBTQI+ “March of Dignity” was scheduled to take place, it was a counterprotest by conservative and radical-right actors that...
Earlier this month, the US, UK and Australia announced an unprecedented agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to the Australian Navy. The move provoked outrage from France, which had been negotiating the sale of conventionally-powered submarines to the Australians. French ire led to...
Whether financial crisis, migration or the coronavirus pandemic, the past decade has shown that Germany cannot easily implement its international goals without the European Union. This fact is hardly taken into account in the German cybersecurity strategy adopted on September 8. Is Big Tech...
In recent months, I have had the privilege of helping curate an exhibition, “This Fascist Life: Radical Right Movements in Interwar Europe,” which is running from October 2021 to February 2022 at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London. Just as the Science Museum’s new show, “Our Future...
A news story that falsely claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine caused the death of an American doctor was the most viewed article on Facebook in the US for the first three months of 2021. Instead of going public about the platform promoting such misinformation, Facebook held back on publishing the...
Friedberg is an inconspicuous town with roughly 30,000 inhabitants in a rural district in the middle of Germany. It lies at the hinge of the metropolitan region of Frankfurt/Rhein-Main, where the European Central Bank is headquartered. In recent years, this town where urban and rural life collides...
