This text seems to me curiously mild.

I got to Checkpoint Charlie just as Die Partei’s show was ending.

I’ve got to say I found the 2017 Die Partei much funnier before my 2018 trip east.

 
This man made me take the red star off the cap I’d happily purchased at Tito’s tomb. It just didn’t seem funny anymore. KGB prisons can have this effect.

But what is the message sent when on cue two dozen people obediently chant without enthusiasm for 20 seconds before falling silent to listen to a speaker tell them once again why they have come across town to block this particular intersection?

FAZ:

Guardian:

This has got to be one of the funniest headlines I’ve ever seen.

Keiner der politisch Verantwortlichen im Westen greift ein. Vor allem aber rollen die Panzer der Schutzmächte Großbritannien, Frankreich und Amerika nicht, wie es sich so mancher Berliner in diesen Tagen wünscht. Die einzige Reaktion der Westmächte auf den Mauerbau ist, mit drei Tagen Verspätung, eine schriftliche Protestnote.

—Ulrich Chaussy, »Rudi Dutschke«, (München: Droemer, 2018), 46.

Und als sein Vater, dessen Bruder und seine Mutter von der Inquisition verhaftet wurden, habe er beschlossen zu flüchten. »Du wirst mich jetzt natürlich fragen, ob ich sie im Stich gelassen habe? Jemanden im Stich lassen, das kann man doch nur, wenn man auch die Möglichkeit hat, ihn nicht im Stich zu lassen, oder?«

—Robert Menasse, »Die Vertreibung aus der Hölle«, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001), 288.

Henry Giroux, CounterPunch:

Manufactured catastrophes and historical amnesia—and with them a generalized sense of manufactured helplessness—now reign supreme in the new interregnum of late modernity, a kind of liminal space that serves to neutralize action, derail the challenges posed by real social and political problems such as the threat of nuclear annihilation, and substitute the escape into fantasy for any attempt to challenge the terrifying conditions that often accompany a serious crisis. Such retreats from reality blunt civic courage, dull the radical imagination, and dilute any sense of moral responsibility, plunging historical acts of violence such as Hiroshima into the abyss of political indifference, ethical insensitivity, and depoliticization.

BBC:

Apple has announced details of a system to find child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on customers‘ devices.

Before an image is stored onto iCloud Photos, the technology will search for matches of already known CSAM.

Apple said that if a match is found a human reviewer will then assess and report the user to law enforcement.

However there are privacy concerns that the technology could be expanded to scan phones for prohibited content or even political speech.

„there are privacy concerns that the technology could be expanded“?? Without expanding any technology this system as it stands declares that „your“ phone now vets each image you „own“ and notifies state authorities if you attempt to store a photo which is on the list of corporate-forbidden images.

BBC:

A Turkish social media influencer says she’s being prosecuted in her country for posting „joke“ photos inside the world-famous Sex Museum in Amsterdam.

Merve Taskin, 23, shared pictures of sex toys she bought at the museum during a birthday trip to the Netherlands in January last year.

A few months later she says she was arrested in Turkey, where sharing obscene content is considered a crime.