A lot of people took to the streets the past weekend, protesting against the AfD and their plans to transport us back in time to the Nazi era. Which is a very good thing! You can read a little overview about the rallies here. At least that did go quite well, with lots and lots of citizens standing up and making it clear that we do not want right-wing fascist idiots and arseholes in our government.

It is really, really uncanny to see the parallels between the rise of the AfD now and the rise of the NSDAP back not even a hundred years ago. But apparently, humans are very, very good at forgetting things, especially shitty things. We had a really interesting discussion with some of our friends on the weekend about this. Approximately two generations, one of our friends said, would be the timespan that big impact events would be remembered. Such as, say, World War II.

I was the youngest in the group, and because my gran lived a very long time, I did get to hear some of her stories from wartime, and from after the war. My granddad died when I was five, and I don't remember him talking about the war (he was a soldier, and only did not end up in Stalingrad due to some crazy good luck - he brought his new wife home to his parents, as her family had been bombed out, and when he was supposed to meet up with his company afterwards, he was unable to find them. They went to Stalingrad.) My grand-uncle talked a tiny little bit about his time on a submarine during the war when they visited us, but his wife didn't like that and tried to put a stop to it as soon as she heard it - so there were not a lot of stories from him that I heard.

Even with my own close or close-ish relatives talking about their own experiences, they are very, very far removed from what I can imagine. Some things you just can't conceive of unless you've had a similar experience - and luckily, I've grown up in times of blissful peace and abundance.

And as we chatted about this, the Most Patient Husband of Them All realised that most of the wartime and post-wartime stories that he had heard were from my gran as well, as his grandparents either did not talk about the time, or died too early for him to actually get the first-hand accounts. 

So to me, it's very understandable now that events get forgotten in the third generation, and even the second generation after the first-hand witnesses may have gaps in their knowledge. Because, let's face it, you also need to have an interest in the (hi)stories, and sometimes they are so far removed from what seems important, or worthy of attention, to a child or teenager or young adult with their own problems and troubles and social obligations that they might just not be remembered.

I'm just hoping now that enough of a memory remains here in Germany to stop a repetition of the Third Reich... at least the rallies are a good start, and a good sign. Hopefully the politicians who got the utterly stupid idea that they'd get more voters if they also copy the fascist talk and right-wing strategies are now realising that this is not the case, and they'd better take a clear stance against this inhumane bullshit. 

The next elections, coming up soon, will show us more. We're certainly living in interesting times.

If you listen to what certain extreme right-wing parties have on their agenda, you could feel like we've all been transported back in time. To about, hm, a hundred years ago? Approximately?

Mind you, I'm an archaeologist and as such I do datings just roughly. I won't attempt to pick an exact year to set into a parallel with today, but it definitely feels like the NSDAP has been re-born, and there's unfortunately plenty of people who are on board, and think that going back a century would be the solution to all our modern problems.

I really can't understand how this is happening, and part of me just wants to "disbelieve this illusion". But unfortunately it is no illusion, there's actually politicians saying things about deportation and firing squads out loud, and they are still on their posts and still active. I freaking cannot believe that this is happening here IN GERMANY! Of all places in the world. Goodness, the last survivors of the Holocaust aren't even all dead yet. We still have contemporary witnesses alive. (Oh, by the way, what they are saying is "yes, that's how it started back then".)

So today's work day will be cut short because I'll spend some of it going demonstrating against this fascist right-wing shit. Thank you very much.

Oh, by the way, you can sign about a gazillion of petitions to stop the AfD, and of course if you're in Germany, you can add your warm body to the group on a demonstration near you. There will be quite a lot of them this weekend (Erlangen is a little early, but who cares), and you can find them on this handy map from zusammen-gegen-rechts.org

Please stand up and protest. Write to your Abgeordnete. Say something. Protect our democracy. Because if we're time travelling back to the Nazi Era... we'll all be fucked.

This morning I found a link to an article in my news digest - about how free-ranging cats are a danger to species diversity, and may be to blame for species going extinct.

Well. WHAT?

I'm aware that there's been a discussion about cats hunting, killing, and (not always) eating all kinds of prey animals, and that this should be curtailed to give the birds and whatever other species more of a chance to survive. Yes, cats are fierce predators with a very strong hunting instinct, and yes, I can see that this may pose a problem. I'm also not thrilled about cats killing birds.

However, I'm also not convinced that keeping cats indoors all the time is the perfect solution. It's definitely safer for the cat in regards to traffic dangers (rarely do cars go inside of living spaces, after all) - but having seen how our old lady lived a second spring when she discovered the Great Outdoors, keeping cats penned up inside, even if it's a rather large place, is also not the best thing that can happen to them. (There is a lot of pros and cons for indoor vs. outdoor cats, but all the cats that I have had in my own life were outdoor cats, and were very fond of their freedom. And I am talking about Germany here, which had the wild cat before the house cat came, so it's not really an invasive species here. Things are different for areas where cats are not more-or-less native predators. Also - feral cats are a problem everywhere, and they should be caught and at least neutered so they cannot breed without restriction. There's enough cats around already.)

To get back to the main topic though - in my firm opinion, free-ranging cats may today pose a problem for animal species that are in their prey spectrum, and are already struggling. The reason for that, however, is not the fact that humans keep cats as pets and companions, or else we'd have lost a lot more species since the Middle Ages or even earlier. Species diversity is endangered because humans have been very good at making bad decisions, at impacting the habitats of a lot of species, and reducing biodiversity overall through the use of monoculture, pesticides, herbicides, and general other Stuff That Is Very Bad For The Environment (TM). And it really ruffles my feathers to have that blamed on cats now. Because it's much easier, obviously, to say that cats are to blame for this or that going extinct than our ruining the planet.

Interestingly, the article itself, from what I've read of it, is not blaming it all on cats as much as the news digest snippet that I got sent does. If you're interested, it is open access in Nature and you can find it here. Linked within is another, equally interesting article about "Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss" where, interestingly, not only cats are listed - but also foxes, rodents, and other imported invasive species. And also interestingly, rodents have played at least as large, if not a larger, role than cats. In any case, the main culprit for importing these species is... the human.

Well, maybe not completely - we took a little break this noon to watch one of our friends give a presentation. But otherwise - it's cold outside these days, and there's even some snow, as is fitting for this time of year. The little cat likes to hang out on my desk, lying on my right arm and occasionally "helping" by adding a lot of empty spaces, or äääääää, or whatever her paw happens to hit as she stretches (or walks off, across the keyboard, of course). 

While she is chilling, I am trying to keep up with the things on my list - wrapping up Forum stuff and working on the museum projects that I have in the pipeline. And, of course, the shop. As November is almost over, it's high time to send the monthly newsletter... and in theory, being a good shopkeeper and marketing person, I should (have) put in there a lot of things to animate people to buy stuff for Xmas. 

But... well. Just a few days ago, there was all this "Black Friday" and "Black Week" madness, with ad bombardments everywhere and gazillions of "great deal!" newsletters, and I'm already being bombarded as well with reminders that Xmas is coming up and I might want to buy this or that as a present. And frankly, I'm quite sick of all this demand to be a good consumer and buy, buy, buy. It's just too much. 

So I did decide not to do the usual pre-Xmas-extra advertising this year - the newsletter is mostly like any other one during the year. I've never been very good at tooting my own horn for the stuff I sell, but my hope is that it will speak for itself well enough to keep things going. And maybe I'll feel more like "hey! go buy this!" next year again, when the consumerism craze of the end-of-year has passed... 

"Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it". And at the moment, it looks like a lot of Germans are about to repeat... well... the Era Of Brown Shit. In some places, the AfD has become second-strongest party, and oh my goodness, I don't want to live in a country where Nazi assholes reign (again).  

That is possible in Germany if the party is a danger to democracy, and the AfD is that, very obviously. So if you live in Germany, please sign here for a petition to ban them from the political landscape. And, well, you know, spread the word. As usual.

Because brown is not a good colour for Germany. Not shown openly, and not hidden under a thin veneer of blue, black, or orange. It's still shit, and it stinks, and it should be gone forever.

...are condemned to repeat it.

People, I'm scared. When I look at the news, I'm really, really scared.

My gran, who is now 101 and a half year old, grew up in Nazi Germany. She has told some stories about people sitting in their hallway, waiting to get some food. Her father being active in the church, and her mother being afraid of Bad Things Going To Happen (because of the church involvement, and because he was semi-openly against the Nazi regime, and supported people who suffered from it). Of people being shushed when chatting on their balcony. Of people in their acquaintance disappearing. These are a child's memories, so they are a bit vague, and some things she did not understand back then, which you can clearly read out of her tales... but if you hear these stories today, well. You know exactly what was happening, and why the mother was afraid, and that my great-grandfather was doing dangerous things.

Unless, you know, you'd be a person who chooses to ignore all knowledge about how dictatorships and extreme right-wing politics tend to go bad, and cause harm to many, many people - including those that are supposedly "proper human beings" or whatever the diction of the fascists is.

Part of Germany is going right-wing again, with a bang. A guy from the AfD, which is more or less the new NSDAP, has become District Administrator in Sonneberg, in Thuringia. How, how on earth can anybody living in a country that had the Holocaust get the idea that this is a good idea? (Well, if you ask me, probably it's because they are afraid (which in the current state of things everywhere is quite understandable), and one outlet against fear is aggression, and then you just need some scapegoat to be aggressive against. Because of course you are not afraid, no, because that would be weak. The AfD provides plenty of ranty talks about random people or institutions to blame for things going bad, and the corresponding aggressive talk against them, which makes them probably very appealing to a lot of people who are, in their hearts, afraid of stuff and looking for scapegoats, and an outlet for their frustration and aggression about things Not Going Well. And I can totally get this, as a reason for lashing out against someone defined as "the others". Note, please, that being able to understand how something happens does not mean finding it okay. I can completely understand a lot of things that I still find utterly shitty and horrible.)

I really, really hope that there will be enough people hereabouts to stand up, when it's necessary, and vote middle or left or green or whatever, just not right-wing... which these days, unfortunately, is not only the AfD party, but also CDU/CSU, which used to be slightly right of the middle. These days, however, even though the "black" CDU has done their best to turn more brownish than black, and have done so for years, it looks like those used to be going for the brown component in the black party are now preferring to vote for the openly brown "blue" AfD. (Political) brown is not a good colour. Especially not in Germany.

(Blue, in my personal life, is my favourite colour, so I'm extra miffed about their using blue as party signature colour. Blue, which is the colour of Mary (Mum of Jesus), and the colour of purity, and of woad and indigo.)

In a society where aggression is seen as fine, and where violence (only against the Bad People, of course) is seen as acceptable or even good, nobody is safe. I do not want to live in a world like that. 

In a society where fear rules, and aggression is seen as fine, you basically have two options: Shut up, be quiet, and go along hoping you will be spared, or stand up and fight. If you shut up and accede, you're supporting the system, and the injustice, and the acceptance of violence, and you are thus part of it - and that's not a good thing, and it does not guarantee you at all that you won't be one of the victims. If you stand up and fight, you are making yourself visible, and that's dangerous, of course, because then you may make yourself a target, and a victim. (Theoretically, there's a third option, which is to actively play a part in making society more aggressive and more filled with fear, but I hope that this is not really an option for anybody reading this text.)

I have had history lessons in school. I've read "Lord of the Flies" and Bert Brecht's plays ("Arturo Ui" especially) and I've watched a play about "Die Welle" (The Wave) when I was in my late teens. We went there with the school, and to this day I remember the fear I felt when at some point a group of actors went off the stage to stand in the auditorium, two in front of each door leading out. 

I watched that play, and it made me aware of, and afraid of two things at the same time. The first thing is the realisation of how easy it is to establish totalitarian structures and a regime of fear and inequality if you go about it in the right way. And the second thing is that I am not sure I would have the guts to stand up against it if it starts happening in my time, and life, and region. 

Germany used to be a relatively nice and safe place to live in. I do hope, fervently, that it will stay this way, and that we'll manage to keep the right-wing fanaticists in check. That enough people realise, soon enough, that talk about burning down refugee homes and re-establishing concentration camps and lining up people on a wall and shooting them (and yes, these are actual things that AfD politicians said, in public!) is Not A Good Thing, and that rampant violence will not care about details like whether this doctor with a migration background might have saved your life later on, when you need a heart bypass, but since he was killed due to his skin colour, or eye colour, or pick-whatever-stupid-reason-instead-here-to-get-a-scapegoat, well. Dead doctors don't operate.

Brown is not a good colour. Fear is not a good feeling. Violence is not a good solution. A society based on the Might Makes Right hurts everyone. 

Nobody should have to suffer from any of these. Here's hoping we'll manage to not repeat our Nazi history. Here's hoping I'll be strong enough to do my part in preventing it.

I've recently gotten a heads-up about a funding possibility for citizen science. Well, funding in the sense of you have to win the competition, but still, it's a possibility! 

Here's the description, with links: 

€100,000 prize fund for new EU citizen science competition

The EU is holding the competition for citizen science researchers annually from this year on. The closing date for submissions is 13 March.

As part of a bid to get the public involved in science research, the EU launched a competition 10 January with a grand prize of €60,000 and an overall prize fund of €100,000. The European Union Prize for Citizen Science competition is being overseen by Ars Electronica, an Austria-based scientific and education institute. There is no entry fee.

This is the first time the EU has held a citizen science-focused contest on such a large scale. The EU's aim is to celebrate and reward ordinary people doing extraordinary things in science. Lay people who dedicate themselves to scientific research outside of their regular professional lives are often referred to as citizen scientists.

Many of the world's most famous discoveries and breakthroughs have been made by citizen scientists. Professional scientists often rely on and collaborate with lay scientists, particularly when it comes to solving problems. Over the past few months in Ireland, citizen scientists have been called on to help with projects ranging from red squirrel revivals to air quality monitoring . In May 2022, the European Space Agency called on the public to help astronomers spot changes on the surface of a comet they had studied for some years.

As well as the grand prize of €60,000, the new EU competition will grant two other awards. The Diversity & Collaboration Award is worth €20,000, as is the Digital Communities Award. There will also be 27 honorary mentions made as part of the competition. The awards will be made by a jury, who will meet in April to review the submissions. Those interested in entering this year's competition can do so until the final closing date of 13 March 2023. The awards ceremony will take place in September, following the winners announcement in June.

From now on, the competition will be held annually by Ars Electronica, with funding provided via Horizon Europe, the EU's research and innovation fund.

More information about entering the European Union Prize for Citizen Science is available on Ars Electronica's website.