Ways and Words- Thomas Pichler -

Visiting Austria – Thomas Wedding Edition

So I thought I would make a quick guide for all of the foreigners coming to the wedding. So first up all the infos to the location and accommodation, then a guide to public transport in Austria generally, and finally a best of Vienna in two or three days. I’d love to show everyone around just before or after the wedding, but that might not be possible.

The wedding ceremony starts at 13:00 Central European Time, end time is very open 😉

The Location: Burg Lockenhaus

The entire wedding is taking place in Burg (Castle) Lockenhaus. Here’s their website. EVERYTHING will be taking place here, including ceremony, reception, dinner, etc. Lockenhaus is a relatively small town about 1:20 by car from Vienna/Vienna Airport, so I would advise you to spend the night (maybe even the night before) in the castle itself. The rooms are in the castle itself or the walls and are quite reasonable. They have enough rooms for all our guests and the rooms are all blocked off for the wedding. Unfortunately we can’t cover accommodation for all 80+ guests, so please organize your own rooms by the end of January. There are three types of rooms, please note that the “castle rooms” are reserved for close family. You make your reservation by emailing here: rezeption@ritterburg.at, just mention that you are attending the Pichler-Unterberger wedding. We hope to see everyone at breakfast the next day 🙂

GETTING THERE

Address:
Eugen Horvath Platz 1
7442 Lockenhaus

47° 24′ N , 16° 25′ O

The closest airport is Vienna International Airport (Wien Schwechat). While trains and other public transport in Austria are generally really good, the castle is a bit hard to reach. Hiring a car from the airport or central Vienna is probably the way to go — there is also free parking at the castle. There are quite a few people coming from overseas, let us know if you are looking for a lift club.

Travelling in Austria

Arriving from the airport:

Assuming you are not renting a car — A taxi or Uber costs around €35-€50, so I would recommend taking the normal train. Just follow the signs down the ramps to trains and find the ÖBB ticket machine, a trip costs around €4,50 per person. Looks like this:

If you enter your nearest bus or subway station, then the ticket also includes switching lines. The CAT train is a premium line and is NOT included, all of the other trains will either go to either Wien Hauptbahnhof (Main trainstation) or Wien Mitte (central Vienna). Google maps or the ÖBB website are great for finding connections. Vienna has its own public transport network (Wiener Linien), but the airport is just outside the zone, so you have to take the federal train ÖBB. (More about that later)

Cars: Austrians drive on the right! Take care when turning and especially when entering traffic circles. Also interesting, the green traffic flashes green 5 times before turning orange. Red lights also briefly turn orange before turning green.

On the Autobahn (highway) your car will need a vignette, but all rentals should have one. Austrian Autobahn is unfortunately not the same as the unlimited German one, max speed 130 km/h. Other roads are generally 100, and cities are max 50.

Vienna is unfortunately quite the headache with parking, there is NO free parking in the entire city between 9:00-22:00. (Between 22:00 and 9:00, weekends and public holidays are generally free). The inner city is mostly a pedestrian zone anyway, so I would recommend leaving the car at the hotel or else finding parking garages.

Trains and Vienna public transport:

Vienna has its own public transport network and tickets, all managed by Wiener Linien. Tickets allow you to go with ALL subways, buses, trams and even bigger trains within city limits. Basically only taxis and tour buses are excluded. Single journeys cost €2,40 and are valid for 80 minutes after validation, which means that you can take any route to your destination. (Validation is either done when buying from the machine or you stamp it yourself in one of the little blue boxes). The 24- and 48-hour tickets are quite worthwhile. Tickets machines are located in subway stations and in the trams (the trams sometimes only accept coins). I think that bus drivers also sell tickets. Wiener Linien also lets you rent bikes and drop them off at different stations. Vienna is very pedestrian friendly, particularly the inner city. There are no ticket checks in Vienna, instead have “undercover” conductors who go around checking tickets. While you can obviously risk going without a ticket, the fine is over €100….

If you don’t want to leave Vienna, then you can skip this part.

Almost all intercity trains are run by (or at least can be booked though) the ÖBB . This includes international trains. Almost all reservations are valid for an entire day and are NOT limited to a specific train! A seat reservation costs extra and is then obviously restricted to a specific train connection. Still, it’s always a good idea to check which connection is faster, some trains are much slower or have more stops. Most trains have free wifi and charging ports.

Trains have gotten quite pricey if you don’t a Vorteilscard (costs between €66 – €100, but can quickly be worth it if you’re taking a very long journey). The Westbahn is another train company that is occasionally cheaper. For longer journeys it might be worthwhile to try booking over their national train network or just take a bus. Flixbus has super cheap tickets to Prague, Bratislava, Italy, etc. They also travel between Austrian cities.

Sightseeing in Vienna

May/June is a beautiful time to visit Vienna. The city has 23 districts which are all quite different (we live in the third). So the first district is the old town and probably where you will want to spend most of your time. The Ring street is a oneway road surrounding the first district and links most of the most exciting sights. So you could walk from the Opera along the Ring to the Hofburg, Parliament, City Hall, and University in about an hour. Churches in Austria are generally all free, unless there is an exhibition or something similar.

Quick German guide:

This ß thing is a double s, is pronounced like the s in skate.

These dots above letters ü,ö,ä are called umlauts and are pronounced differently, as if you tried to combine the letter with an eh sound.

Straße, Gasse, Weg = street, road, way

Dom = cathedral

Kirche = church

Platz = square or place

Must sees in Vienna:

Stephansdom: The “main” church in Vienna. You can hike up the (very long, tight, and windy) stairs up the main tower. (Fun fact: Stephansplatz is pretty much the center of Vienna.

Graben and Kärtner Straße: The two fancy shopping streets of Vienna. Both start at Stephansplatz, the Kärtner Straße goes all the way to the opera house. Lots of shops, boutiques, etc.

Hofburg and Heldenplatz: The Hofburg is a HUGE building complex where the imperial court was held. A lot of official business and offices are still located here. (President and Chancellor amongst others). The Hofburg houses the national library, the imperial treasury museum, the Spanish riding school (where the famous white Austrian Lippizaner horses are kept and perform), and some other museums. The Volksgarten is a very pretty garden on the end of the Heldenplatz (the huge ceremonial square in front of the Hofburg).

Oper (Opera house): Standing tickets are not as expensive as you might expect, but they might be closed during summer.

Karlskirche: Connected to the opera house by a subway station. One of the only churches which requires you to pay for entrance. The Vienna Museum was constructed next-door. Karlsplatz is the largest transport hub in Vienna.

Museumsquartier: Very hip complex with lots of different museums, galleries, open-air exhibitions, and cafes. The twinned museums of natural history and art history are just in front and opposite the Hofburg.

Mariahilfer Straße: The central shopping district. It’s a long street (about 1,8 km) connecting the Hofburg/Museumsquartier to the west train station and is filled with shops, cafes, etc.

Parliament: Freshly renovated, you can also go into the visitor area for free. You just need to register through a QR-code and go through a metal detector.

Rathaus (city hall): Probably my favourite building in Vienna. There are often big events and festivals in the square in front of it.

University of Vienna and Votivkirche: Definitely worth going through the front door. Walking around the arcade makes you feel very clever indeed. The gothic church next door spent the last 10+ years being renovated and is finally open again.

Schönbrunn: The old summer imperial residence. The palace is inspired by Versailles and is worth at least seeing from outside. Schönbrunn has a huge flower garden at the back and an enormous park with the oldest zoo in the world. Might be worth taking a carriage through the gardens.

Belvidere: Two palaces with a flower garden in the middle. The palaces are also art exhibitions, the upper building is the main Klimt painting exhibition. The botanical gardens are also next door.

Naschmarkt: Open-air market with lots of fresh food and fun restaurnats.

Donaukanal: The Danube was a very feisty river and kept moving around and flooding everything, so the emperor (and then later city administration) split the river into different channels. The canal is where the oldest branch of the river used to flow. Walking along the canal you see a lot of street art, clubs, bars, etc. (Schwedenplatz is a good start location, is a 10 minute walk from Stephansplatz)

Prater: There are two parts to the Prater, first of all an enormous park with a 4,5 kilometer tree-lined pedestrian boulevard. The second and more important part is the so-called Würstelprater (sausage Prater), which is basically an amusement park. Entry is free, and you pay for the rides separately. The Schweizer Garden is probably the most famous traditional Austrian restaurant/beer garden in Vienna.

It is possible to visit all of these places in two days, but three might be more reasonable. Vienna also has many museums and art galleries, the Albertina and Natural history museums are strong recommendations.

Some of my favourite Viennese restaurants or cafes:

Cafe Gerstner (fancy cafe opposite the opera house)

Schweizerhaus (traditional Austrian beer garden)

Kleine Steiermark (traditional Austrian beer garden)

Stöckl im Park (traditional Austrian beer garden)

The 7th district is the hipster area and also has a lot of really fun and quirky shops and restaurants.

Review: The Social Dilemma

We live in a digital world, but we are fairly analogue creatures.
Omar Ahmad

Netflix‘s new documentary is a startling exposé of the dangers of the internet, particularly social media. Director Jeff Orlowski works together with a group of experts to reveal the intrinsically predatory nature of our newest technologies. These experts are primarily members of the tech industry, ranging from Tristan Harris, who was a Design Ethicist at Google, to Tim Kendall, Facebook’s former Director of Monetization. Their concerns and interviews are voiced against the backdrop of a dramatized family that is struggling to deal with their technology addictions. Let’s start with a brief review of the film before we analyse the points it raises on the dangers of social media.

Review: 4/5

Something is very wrong with our technology. This is the basic premise behind The Social Dilemma. Jeff Orlowski (you may know him for his films on global warming, Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral) has gathered a rather diverse group of experts who are all worried about the psychological, societal, and financial toll that modern technology is taking on us. Minimalist visuals and dramatic music quickly prime the viewer for the revelation that our friends at Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. may not be so friendly after all.

The Pros: The editing is commendable – interview snippets, portentous sounding quotes, and the occasional illustrated statistic allow Orlowski to approach very broad concerns one step at a time while making a compelling case. While a lot of the “damaging” material may only be anecdotal, the fact that these concerns are raised by people who left the tech industry on moral grounds speaks for itself.

The Cons: Underlying the interviews is a fictional dramatization of a family coming to grips with its technology addiction. This is a bit of a mixed bag, though I will say that I understood the necessity on a subsequent viewing. While the acting is by no means stellar, it allows us to see the “real world” impact that the experts are warning us about. Particularly jarring is a series of cut scenes portray a personified version of the social media algorithm: how it is continually forcing us to interact with the app while selling advertisements and, most chillingly, creating an ever more lifelike model of us.

The final negative is the paradox the film creates. It warns us of how technology is exploiting our fears to change our behaviour while essentially doing the same thing. The fact that most people will only watch the film because it is recommended by Netflix’s algorithm is a perfect example of the influence the film is warning against.

Critique aside, the documentary is definitely worth watching. A perfect film to introduce us to the dangers of modern technology.

Analysis: What is the problem?

This is the first question raised by Orlowski and simultaneously perhaps the most difficult to answer. The last 20 years have seen an evolution in technology that is unprecedented in human history. A teenager with a smartphone now has access to possibilities of communication and transport that an emperor could never dream of. On the other hand, our moralities and societies have only received small “updates” in the last decades, while our psychology has remained almost unchanged. In other words, we are developing potentially harmful products at a far greater rate than we can possibly regulate them. Many internet platforms have a user-base larger than the population of most countries (Facebook alone has 2.7 BILLION users), yet their digital and international nature means that they often face less regulation than a roadside lemonade stand. At the same time, the digital world is having a greater influence on our real lives. As Tristan Harris from the Center for Humane Technology says,

“Never before in history have 50 designers, 20 to 35 year-old white guys, in California, made decisions that would have an impact on 2 billion people. 2 billion people will have thoughts that they didn’t intend to have because a designer at Google said that this is how notifications work on that screen that you wake up to in the morning.”

This is perhaps the heart of the matter: our technology is rapidly dominating our day-to-day lives. Internet platforms are having deep and concerning effects on the psychological, social, and even political levels. Most alarmingly, these platforms are controlled by a tiny group of developers and they are using a business model that promotes the collection of personal data and exploitative psychology. In other words, this technology is dangerous because of how we use it, the effects it can have in the real world, and the people controlling it.

Am I addicted?

“Do you look at your phone before you pee in the morning or during?”

How strange that many of us can only decide between these two alternatives. The internet has deeply integrated itself into modern life, and smartphones allow us to have the internet available every second of the day. It sometimes feels almost impossible to put that little screen down, and that’s no coincidence: our technology is designed to be as addictive as possible.

We think of technology as a tool, something which allows us to be more effective. We use a tool to save time. Social media is not designed to save us time, but to use our time. It is engineered for us to use it, and every app on your phone and computer is fighting for a larger share of your attention. These platforms are continually tweaking their look to see what works and how they can influence us to use their product more. When the brain is positively stimulated it releases dopamine, the feel-good hormone. Much like a slot machine at a casino, these apps use happy chimes, flashing lights, and other effects to give us a hit of dopamine. We crave another hit, so we open the app to see what’s new.

This is where The Social Dilemma shines, by allowing the designers to explain how our social media came to be. They unravel how they engineer psychology into the technology itself, playing off our deep-seated needs for social approval, our curiosity, our fears, and our anger. Photo-tagging forces us to view the photo because we need to know if a potentially compromising photo has been published. Push notifications “helpfully” alert us to new content, but in reality they are just a façade to get us to open the app again. Infinite scrolling is essentially a slot machine: every time we reload the page, something new appears, and maybe, just maybe, the new content is interesting and gives us that dopamine hit. The inventor of the feature, Aza Raskin, ironically talks about how he had to write his own software to externally limit the time he spent on Reddit. This reflects an unfortunate feature of human psychology, that we cannot change our desires even when we are aware of the unhealthy influence. As Sean Parker, a former President at Facebook, says, “It’s exactly the kind of thing a hacker like myself would come up with, because you are exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

These are intelligent, mature people who struggle to stop using their own creations. How much more dangerous are they for children and teenagers, who are still developing mentally? These new apps and features are not without risks, and even the most well-meaning ideas can lead to disastrous results. When the “Like” was released, it was meant to be a means of spreading positivity. Instead, likes (and especially the later “dislike”) became a simple metric to compare yourself to others. It is no secret that young people, particularly teenage girls, often feel pressure to taking revealing pictures of themselves simply to get more likes.

This problem is compounded by data collection. As the AI behind our technology becomes more advanced, it can exploit these vulnerabilities more efficiently. As Harris says, we are holding up a mirror to ourselves and using that information to exploit ourselves better.

Ignore it, it’s just online

The internet is often an unforgiving place. The anonymity and physical distance allow us to forget that we are dealing with real people with real feelings. Trolling and cyber-bullying have become serious problems, and shutting down your computer is not enough to protect you. The youth is particularly integrated in the digital world, and to exclude yourself from a specific platform is to distance yourself from your peers. Orlowski paints an alarming picture of how digital media is negatively affecting us, particularly the youth. Using data gathered from the US Center for Disease Control, we see that hospitalizations due to self-harm have skyrocketed from 2010. (62% increase in females aged 15-19, and 189% in females aged 10-14).

These two groups have also seen a marked upturn in suicide since 2009 of 70% and 151% respectively.

The use of filters in photo-sharing apps has given rise to “Snapchat Dysmorphia”, which leads many to receive plastic surgery so that they can look like their doctored photos.

Putting the social in social media

While you can argue that social media may not affect you as an individual, we can no longer ignore the effect it is having on our society. From Russian hackers and Cambridge Analytica pushing Trump’s election in 2016 to the Arab Spring revolutions in 2010 and 2012, we see that social media is being exploited to affect real political change. What was once foreign propaganda is now domestic fake news, a collection of dubious facts and half-truths prefaced by a click-bait title. Many of these sites are pushing a specific agenda, many others are just fabricating stories purely to generate views, which in turn generate ad revenue. These are some of the challenges facing modern journalism, both for consumers and publishers.

Reliability: Being first is more profitable than being right. There are hordes of websites and “news outlets” looking to generate clicks. Whereas old media needed you to believe them (to ensure that you would continue to buy their newspapers), new media often just looks for that first click. They don’t care if you even read the article, as long as you see their adverts.

Speaking of reliability, we are also seeing a truly bizarre consequence of fading trust in old media. As people start to mistrust the big news centers, they are happy to believe the conspiracy theories of real people on social media, especially if the article is shared by someone they know and trust. The fact that these “real people” are as fake as their accounts seems to worry no one.

Echo chambers: News feed algorithms are designed to supply you with the content you tend to engage with. Have you ever noticed how you find a flurry of content agreeing with your current stance? You wonder how people can believe anything else when there is so much information verifying your viewpoint? Are those people on the “other side” not seeing all this? No. They are not. Instead, they are seeing a mountain of content agreeing with their viewpoint and disproving yours. This is an echo chamber, a digital room where we only see the thoughts and views we share. There isn’t even necessarily malicious intent behind it: the AI just follows what you view and supplies you with it.

Outrage farming: The flip side of this coin is what I would call outrage farming. Assume you believe strongly in animal rights. A headline about saving koalas from a bush fire will generally garner a like. A video of a cow escaping a slaughterhouse will elicit a view. But a headline about Japanese whalers hunting endangered species? How can this be? You have to see this. Infuriated, you lash out in the comment section and share this unbelievable wrong with all your friends. Is the story true? Irrelevant. The computer chose it for you because it knows that anger and rage will cause you to interact with the platform for a longer period and more intensely than anything else. On the one hand, you have a host of information agreeing with your world view, on the other, you have content demonizing those who agree with you. It is no wonder that we struggle to find common ground for a meaningful discussion. In the 2020 US election, both Twitter and Facebook attempted to combat the flow of misinformation by flagging posts claiming results as premature and posts which made unverified accusations against the election process. Is this actually a good thing? We are effectively allowing a company to become our Thought Police, and we have no idea WHO is actually sitting behind the keyboard.

During the election, these tweets were hidden: one had to click on the post to open it.

This brings us to our final point…

Growing by leaps and bounds

On February 4, 2004 Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates set up an online student directory for Harvard Students called The Face Book. 14 years later, Congress is holding Facebook and Zuckerberg accountable for influencing the presidential election. How did we get here?

Neil Armstrong described walking on the moon as a giant leap for mankind. If that’s true, then Facebook and other internet platforms represent a rocket-propelled flight, potentially off a cliff. How can we expect a young programmer to defend democracy? Even the most responsible developer can become overwhelmed when his company triples in worth every week, yet we believe these companies when they claim to respect our privacy.

The effects of social media are only amplified by how quickly new technology can spread. As a rule, technology has a habit of propagating its own use before the side effects are fully understood. X-rays were invented in 1895, the first death due to overexposure occurred in 1904. People were ignoring the effects of x-ray overexposure well into the 1950s, a litany of painful and obvious effects such as blistering and hair loss as well as the heightened cancer rates. Radium was being used in glow-in-the-dark paint, make-up, and even “vitamin” tablets for almost 40 years before legislators accepted the link between radium paint and factory workers losing their teeth and dying. Why do I mention these chilling examples? I merely wish to point out how it can take up to 50 years for legislation to catch up to the danger of a new and potentially deadly technology. After a string of controversial data leaks and privacy issues, Facebook still boasts 2.7 billion monthly users. Even if only half of the accounts correspond to actual users, Facebook alone is currently “affecting” close to 17% of the entire global population.

What should we do?

Orlowski ends his film with a call to action. While the viewer is probably planning to defenestrate his phone by now, most of the experts still believe that social media can be a tool for good. Their solution is tighter regulation, particularly with regards to protecting children. I don’t think anyone disagrees that we need a strict set of rules going forward, but the question is what these laws should be. A possible start is a data tax: a financial incentive to stop gathering ALL of our private data. But this is just a start. The international nature of the internet and these tech companies only exacerbates the difficulties in finding a unified solution. Maybe the theme of Orlowskis’s next documentary?

What You Need to Know About the 2020 US Election

It’s the 3rd of November, and millions of Americans are lining up to vote in the midst of a global pandemic and escalating racial unrest. As with everything this year, the election has been foreshadowed by rising tensions, tribal partisanship, and a flood of misinformation. While the US political system is obtuse enough to confuse even the most informed citizen, it is even more bizarre for those on the outside looking in. Here’s a brief overview of everything you need to know before the spectacle begins.

1. What is being decided?

US elections are always presented as a duel between the presidential candidates of the two political parties. The president rules for a period of 4 years, and can serve a maximum of two terms. Today, the left-leaning Democrats are being represented by Joseph “Joe” Biden.

Age: 77
Career Politician, former Senator and Vice-President under Barack Obama

His opponent, the incumbent President Donald Trump, is representing the right-wing Republicans.

Age: 74
President of the United States, Property Mogul, Reality-TV Star

Matching the tone of 2020, the campaigns (and particularly debates) have been anything but civil. Trump has also indicated that he might not accept the results of the election if he loses and has also been propagating rumours of voter fraud. In other words, the final count may not be final.

In the light of this geriatric duel of fates it is easy to overlook the other half of the election. Congress, the legislative branch of the United States, is also being chosen. 1/3 of the Senate is facing re-election, as well as the entire House of Representatives. What is the difference between Congress, Senate, and House? I’m glad you asked.

Congress is essentially a parliament, a group of politicians representing the American people. As the legislative branch, Congress is responsible for drafting and passing federal laws which are then enforced by the executive branch. Congress is divided into two parts, the aforementioned Senate and the House of Representatives.

The famous west end of the Capitol Building. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives meet here.

The Senate is composed of 100 senators who represent the States of the Union. There are 50 states, ranging from Alaska to Florida, with two senators each. 35 of these seats are being decided today, the others are decided in off-year elections, which take place on even-numbered years.

Current division of the Senate. The Democrats (Blue) have 47 seats while the Republicans (Red) have the majority with 53.

Where the Senate represents the states as separate entities, the House of Representatives represents the people living in those states. A state is divided into certain voter districts based on population. These districts then each select a representative by direct vote. The largest State, California, has 53 districts/representatives, while seven states, such as Alaska and Wyoming, have only 1. (There are also 6 seats without voting rights, which represent special districts such as Washington DC or foreign territories such as Guam.)

Current division of the House of Representatives. Democrats have the majority with 232 seats, the Republicans have 197, the Libertarians have 1 seat (Yellow), while 5 seats are currently vacant.

To be effective, a president requires cooperation from both branches of Congress. A divided government (or split Congress) occurs when different parties hold the two branches. Both Trump and Obama had to compete against a split house (or divided government) and had great difficulties passing any laws. A split Congress can also lead to problems with the federal budget, which can result in a government shutdown.

Finally, the US is also electing its vice-president. The Vice President serves many functions, the most important of which is to assume the presidency in the event of the president’s death — a fact which should not be ignored considering how both candidates are already over 70 years of age. Biden’s VP would be Kamala Harris, currently the Junior Senator of California. Trump would be keeping his current VP, Mike Pence, in office.

2. Two-parties are better than one?

There are a lot of misconceptions regarding the US political and voting systems. The most surprising of all: the United States is not a democracy. In the legal sense at least. The hallowed Founding Fathers were terrified of mob law, i.e. that the uninformed and uneducated could be manipulated into voting against their own interests. The answer was representation on the political level (choosing one person to represent the will of many) and the electoral college on the voting level.

In the 2016 election between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump won by large margin even though Hillary received 2.87 million more votes. This confusion is caused by the electoral colleges. The presidential election is ultimately decided by the states, not the citizens directly. Each state has a certain number of “electors”, proportional to its population. These electors are selected by public vote and are the ones who later choose the president. All the states except for Maine and Nebraska use a winner-take-all system: the candidate with the majority receives ALL the votes. A brief example of how this works:

California has 55 electors. The public vote (what the citizens individually vote for) is read. Let’s say that results were 51% – 49% for Biden. Biden then receives ALL 55 of the electors’ votes, even though he only received 51% of the public votes. The system was designed to ensure that states and particularly rural communities are not excluded by virtue of their low populations, but every election sees rising criticism.

Most states are quite clearly in favour of one particular party, so candidates often spend the majority of their time campaigning in “swing states”, the states whose majority could be changed by a small swing in votes. For those interested, this is the current projected division by CNN:

Yellow designates a Swing State. A victor requires at least 270 votes.

The second misconception is the two party system. There is no law limiting the country to two parties, and there is also nothing preventing candidates from forming new parties or even running independently. So why is the vote decided between Democrats and Republicans?

The answer is not theoretical, but practical. The combination of the electoral colleges and the winner-take-all system means that a smaller party has almost no chance of ever achieving a majority. No victory means no votes and no chance of becoming a representative. Furthermore, the strength of the two parties means that a vote for an independent candidate is essentially “wasted”, as he or she has little chance of winning.

3. Voting Vocab

Some of the terms used by political commentators can be (purposefully) confusing. Knowing a few concepts can help you ignore the sensationalism and make your own judgements:

Ballot: The sheet of paper containing the vote. Used to preserve the anonymity of the person voting. Most districts also allow ballots to be delivered by post.

Polling station: An official location for registering voters and gathering ballots.

Polls and Polling: An estimate of how people will vote. This estimate is generated by interviewing voters and can vary greatly from the final result. Remember: most polling does not disclose how many people were questioned.

Exit Polls: Related to our previous point, an exit poll is a poll taken of people who have just finished voting. While this tends to be more accurate than the general poll, this still does not reflect the final tally because it does not include the mail vote. Beware: many commentators present the exit polls as the final result so that they can be the “first”.

Election Night: The greatest spectacle of an election. Most polls are closed by 9:00 PM, many much earlier, meaning that the first ballots can already be counted. Election night is essentially a media marketing ploy; there has never been an election where all the votes were counted by midnight, and some election results were open until December. Furthermore, the majority of Republican voters tend to vote in person while the majority of mail voters are Democrat. By calling for the final results on election night, Trump is attempting to portray any factor leading to a possible defeat as illegitimate.

Postal Fraud: Due to the Corona-pandemic, a record number of US citizens are expected to vote by post. While there have been cases of fraud caused by postal ballots, the actual rate of fraud is less than 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.

4. Who’s going to win?

Depends on whom you ask. CNN is currently predicting a 52% victory for Biden. Fox News, ardent Trump supporters, are also predicting that Biden will reap 52% of the votes. As stated before, polling is at best an educated guess. This is further exacerbated by the electoral college system: in 2016 multiple broadcasters were predicting an almost certain win for Hillary. Trump’s victory came then a double-shock for the liberal media, a surprise only slightly alleviated by the fact that Clinton did actually win the popular vote.

An interesting point to note is that Trump would be only the 13th president not to win his reelection.

Regardless of your own political views, 2020 has been dark enough already. I’m sure that everyone is hoping for a peaceful and legitimate election, and we can only hope that that is what we will see tonight.

Covid-19: Stories from the Quarantine

It is the smallest thing to ever cause such a global reaction: the Covid-19 Coronavirus.

About 6 weeks ago, most countries enacted some form of quarantine or social distancing. The efforts seem to be paying off: the rate of new infections appears to be dropping. That being said, there are still almost 3.5 Million confirmed cases as well as over 240,000 deaths.

For many people, the consequences of the quarantine and the economic shut down are enormous. Companies are being forced to shut down and millions have lost their jobs. This is where the media have predominantly set their attention: on business owners and middle-class workers. For the poor and those living in poverty, the effects are felt much more directly.

As an example we look to the townships (slums) surrounding the South African town of Knysna, where volunteers have been delivering food to those in need. Ways and Words foreign correspondent Caroline Pichler has talked with many of those facing not only unemployment and debt, but starvation.

The typical South African paradox: living in squalor while having a gorgeous view of one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has reaped both praise and scorn for his strict efforts to contain the virus. Bans on alcohol and cigarettes and the closing of nonessential shops and businesses are currently fomenting growing unrest. The townships normally run an almost parallel economy, reliant on wages brought from outside. Many of the citizens are uneducated or untrained, leading to a reliance on short-term work such as gardening, painting, or cleaning. The lack of public transport means that the majority of people rely on “taxis”, vans and minibusses often run by mafia-like cartels. While the taxis have now resumed operation, there was a time where the nearest groceries were an hour’s walk away.

To buy one needs money; many of those living day-to-day have lost their entire income.

While the government has programs to handle food handouts, the need has greatly surpassed the supply. Private citizens are gathering donations and attempting to find those in need.

The situation is already desperate: many of the ladies worked as hairdresses and are wondering how they can feed their families in the coming days. One man and his son were down to eating a single portion of maize porridge a day. Another man lives all alone and couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten.

One woman was beaming with pride because her son had just graduated high school. He cannot pursue further education or even a long-term career because he is the only one who can care for her. Before Corona he used to do odd jobs around the township; the shutdown has closed off his income entirely.

The elderly have been hit particularly hard. The story of a sick lady unable to shop for herself or pick up her medicine from the government clinic is unfortunately not unique.

People are at their best when they work together, unfortunately the Coronavirus has only made this more difficult. While first-world countries bemoan the lack of masks and medical supplies, there are places desperate for the most basic essentials of life. Cyril Ramaphosa is caught in a vice – the quarantine is driving his people to the brink of starvation, but the conditions in the townships would cause the virus to run rampant. The only option remaining is to rise to the challenge and help those suffering the most.

For those interested, you can donate to the food drive in Knysna here.

The „Best“ News 26.04

„As sickness grows and doubt sets in,
Economies crash and savings grow thin.
But hope arises and science proclaims,
The world will survive this darkest phase.”

I. Corona: Current Information

Between January and March, the threat of the Covid-19 Corona virus leapt worldwide from a distant worry to a global and intimate catastrophe. Media coverage has been total; governments are walking the knife-edge between protecting lives and economic collapse. Almost every country has enacted some form of quarantine or at least social distancing. These measures range from forcing citizens to wear masks to boarding people in their homes. Some of the measures are less conventional, such as South Africa’s ban on alcohol. The reactions to the measures have been equally diverse and are often backed up by ludicrous conspiracy theories and misinformation. (The idea that 5G-cellphone towers spreads the virus is particularly noteworthy.)

Before we continue our analysis of the effects of the Corona virus, let’s look at some global facts.

As of today, there have been 2,804,796 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 193,722 deaths. (Source: World Health Organization) Over 89 countries have been infected, but the number is suspected to be much higher due to lack of testing. But the situation is not as dark as many believe. 822,000 people have already recovered. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that a survivor cannot become infected again. The WHO estimates the mortality rate at between 3-4%, disproving claims that Corona is “only a flu”. (The seasonal influenza only kills around 0.1% of patients) While the mortality rate is much higher among the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the fact remains that even the young and strong can be affected.

Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have been at the forefront of handling the crisis badly. Johnson is currently recovering from the infection, only a few weeks after proclaiming that he would not stop shaking hands.

The disease is believed to have originated at a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and it is no secret that the local and federal government tried to keep the outbreak under wraps. While many have criticized the early reaction from the Chinese government as criminally negligent, other organizations (particularly the WHO) have been quick to sing China’s praises for its later lockdown effectivity. And if you believe the official numbers the Chinese government has published, you can see why. According to the Chinese, the country has only 84,338 cases left, and has officially discharged all patients in Wuhan. It takes a particular measure of naiveté to believe that the totalitarian Chinese government would now decide to deal in honesty, but that’s up to you.

II. Understanding the Numbers

Reporting on the Corona virus has often been confusing at best. One of the most common misconceptions regards the death toll. Many media outlets have placed the national death toll higher than the official statistics. Yet neither are necessarily false. It all boils down to the question: did the Corona virus kill the patient, or was he only positive for the virus? As mentioned above, the majority of deaths come from one demographic: the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. This means that, although a person infected by Covid-19 has died, it does not necessarily mean that the virus was the cause of death. In positive news, the total Corona death toll may be lower than previously estimated.

This brings us to our next statistic: testing. We must understand that the tests are not fool-proof and are not yet able to be universally applied. For the foreseeable future, the number of confirmed cases will be much lower than the actual number of infected. The fact that around 20% of infected are asymptomatic, i.e. show no symptoms, only exacerbates this problem.

III. The Effects: Our Black Swan?

The two objects which define the Corona Era

Sidenote: of all the things to hoard, why was toilet paper so high on the list?
Photo by engin akyurt

Even if we are able to keep the death toll to a minimum, Covid-19 will have deep and lasting effects on our lives for the foreseeable future. Both small and large businesses are going bankrupt, and millions of people worldwide have lost their jobs. Many governments have proposed stimulus packages, but it is impossible to alleviate all effects. Looking back, it seems that the Corona virus came from nowhere with the express purpose of ruining our lives and was completely unforeseeable.

But was it?

Throughout history, mankind has faced one disaster after another – the majority of which were completely unforeseeable. Natural disasters such as volcanoes, floods, and earthquakes often wiped out entire civilizations to say nothing of man-made and biological events such as wars and plagues. In other words, while a specific event such as a new disease or a world war may be unforeseeable, the fact that something will occur is extremely likely. The 20^th century say two defining world wars and countless other disasters, yet we all live as if nothing could ever happen to us. Instead of preparing for these events, banks, businesses, governments, and even citizens all function assuming that the growth will never stop, that the conditions tomorrow will be the same as today’s. Instead of saving for a rainy day, we are encouraged to spend what we have and trust that tomorrow will be even more profitable.

Of all the worldwide disasters to occur, disease is possibly the most likely. Previous outbreaks such as SARS have shown us how quickly infections can spread through our connected world, while globalization means that each country is reliant on international goods. (Travel and transport bans due to Corona led to acute shortages of medical supplies in many countries) Covid-19 has just shown us how unprepared the world was for something which we knew could come at any moment. While the odds of a global pandemic happening now are very low, the probability of it happening eventually are almost certain. And if it wasn’t Corona, it could have been something else.

(The statistician and philosopher Nassim Taleb has been arguing against this reckless behaviour for years. The Black Swan and Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder are fascinating reads.)

IV. Moving Forward

The world after Corona will be both drastically different and distressingly similar to our “normal” lives. While politicians and companies are quick to praise healthcare and other essential industries, these efforts will be quickly forgotten once the disease is abolished. Few of the truly rich, the “1%”, will suffer any losses besides a decrease in profits, while the middle and lower classes will be dealing with the aftermath for years to come. The average salary is likely to drop due to high unemployment. While scientists are enjoying their time in the sun, celebrities who are famous for being famous will soon again dominate the headlines.

Unless we do something. Remember those who tried to profit from disaster – those politicians who postponed the warnings until they could liquidate their assets. Remember those who work to save lives – doctors and nurses pulling double-shifts only to be rewarded by pay cuts. Remember the celebrities complaining about being quarantined in their enormous mansions while others are starving on the streets. The crisis has put our global society to the test and we have been found wanting. Let’s be better.

Vom Winde Vernäht

Wenn man durch Niederösterreich durchfährt gibt es vieles zu sehen: üppige Wälder, fruchtbare Felder, schon gepflegte Weingüter….

und Winzendorf.

Mit einer Bevölkerung von knapp 2.000 Seelen scheint Winzendorf ein typisches Kleindorf zu sein. Der Zug hupt als er um die Ecke fährt um die Fußgänger zu warnen und ein kleiner Fluss murmelt zwischen der Hauptstraße und der alten Steingrube. Nichts also was die Realität über Winzendorf verraten würde: das Epizentrum des illegalen Schutzmaskenhandels.

Im Herzen von dieser charmanten kleinen Ortschaft ist ein dunkles Geheimnis verborgen. Jedes einzelne von diesen süßen Holzhäusern ist nicht nur ein Familienhaus, sondern auch ein Haus der Industrie. Jeden Tag werden Tausende und Abertausende Mundschutzmasken in Winzendorf geschnitten, genäht und verschickt. Im Keller baut der Durchschnittsösterreicher seinen Weinkeller; der Winzendorfer lagert dort seine Nähmaschinen, immer bereit um die unersättliche Nachfrage von Mundschutzmasken zu sättigen. Als die Sonne sich hinter dem Berg versteckt gibt es jede Nacht ein feierliches Abendessen. Danach wird der Tisch abgeräumt und das Wohnzimmer kann wieder seine wahre Gestalt annehmen, denn Maschinen und Nähzubehör werden für die Nachtschicht vorbereitet.

Die Arbeitskraft ist genau so fragwürdig wie die Arbeitsmethode. In Winzendorf arbeiten die Volksschullehrer nur halbtags, denn die Kinder müssen um 12uhr bereits wieder an ihren Nähmaschinen sitzen. Eine ganz ungewöhnliche Art der Hausaufgabe.

Noch schlimmer sieht es bei den Besuchern aus: ein zweistündiger Aufenthalt reicht gesetzlich um einen Gast in einem Gastarbeiter zu verwandeln. Nicht umsonst fahren die Züge im Dreistundentakt….

So wurde ich in das illegalen Maskengeschäft verwickelt, als ich am Bahnhof damals betäubt und entführt wurde.

Eine Stunde später wachte ich auf und erblickte einen scheinbar unendlich langen Tisch, der mit Nähmaschinen und Stoffen fast überfüllt war. Eine Eisenkette hing eiskalt an meinem rechten Fuß. Links und rechts von mir waren dutzenden Männer und Frauen in einem ähnlichen, jämmerlichen Zustand. Ihre blassen, bleichen Gesichte deutete daraufhin, dass die nackte Glühbirne über dem Tisch auch das einzige Licht im Raum war.

„Herzlich willkommen!“ ertönte eine tiefe Stimme aus der linken Ecke des Raumes. Der Ruf stammte von einem bärtigen Mann der an einer Zigarette zog. Der Vater, nannten ihn die anderen Arbeiter.

„Die Regeln hier sind sehr simpel: wir verlangen von euch 50 Schutzmasken am Tag. Wenn wir diese bekommen, gibt es für euch Essen und einen Schlafplatz. Wenn wir zum Beispiel nur 40 Masken bekommen, dann wirst du den Hunger am nächsten Tag spüren. Und wenn wir weniger als 30 Masken bekommen…“ hier nickte er ominös in die Richtung einer alten Dame, die in einem Schaukelstuhl mit einer Peitsche über den Knien saß. Die Großmutter.

Verblüfft fragte ich ihn, „Was ist das hier für ein Sweatshop?“

Mit einem schallenden Lachen riss er das Fenster auf. Eiskalte Bergluft strömte hinein. „Ein Sweatshop? Wenn die Temperatur einen zum Zittern bringt, kommt doch niemand ins Schwitzen!“

Vor drei Wochen passierte das. Drei lange Wochen von Messen, Schneiden und Nähen. Als ich diese Geschichte mit einer gestohlenen Nadel unter dem Tisch einkratze ist dies meine einzige Hoffnung: möge die Wahrheit entkommen, auch wenn ich das niemals schaffen werde.

One-Way to Winzendorf

While travelling through the idyllic province of Lower Austria (Niederösterreich in the native tongue) one sees lush forests, fertile farmland, endless vineyards…

and Winzendorf.

With a population just shy of 2,000, Winzendorf is one of those “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” towns with one grocery store, two churches, and no petrol station. The train hoots when it comes around the corner to warn those crossing the tracks and a river burbles between the main road and the old stone quarry. In fact, there is no visible evidence that would reveal Winzendorf to be the epicentre of the European trade in illegal surgical masks.

In the heart of this charming little town nestled between the mountains of the “Hohe Wand” (directly translated, the High Wall) lies a dark and frightening secret. For each and every one of the delightful wooden houses is not only a family home, but a center of illicit industry. Every day, thousands and thousands of surgical masks are cut, sewn, and shipped out of Winzendorf. Where the average Austrian builds a wine cellar, the Winzendorfer sets up his array of sewing machines, ready to sate the world’s desperate thirst for medical equipment. After dinner, the table is cleared, the dishes are washed, and the dinner table once again assumes its industrial pall: sewing machines, lengths of cloth, needles, thread, scissors, and other arcane tools are prepared for the night shift.

The source of labour is as questionable as the means of production. The teachers at the primary school are only paid for half-days, because the children must return to the sewing machines by 12:00. A very different definition of homework. Visitors and travellers are not excluded –any person spending more than 2 hours legally changes from a “guest” to a “guest-worker”. The fact that a train leaves every 3 hours is the result of a long-standing agreement with the national railway service.

So it is that I became involved in the underground mask business – drugged and kidnapped after waiting for a train that would never come.

I awoke an hour later, chained to the end of a seemingly endless table almost overflowing with sewing machines. On both sides were men and women in a similar predicament. Judging by their pale skin, I could tell that the only light they ever saw came from the harsh, naked lightbulb hanging over our heads.

“Welcome!” called a voice from the corner of the room, and I turned my head to see a bearded man puffing on his cigarette. The Father, the other workers called him.

“The rules are simple: 50 masks a day in return for three meals and a bed. Less than 40 masks means the next day will be a hungry one, and less than thirty…” his voice trailed off as he nodded ominously to The Grandmother sitting in her rocking chair, a whip lying across her knees.

“You’re running a sweatshop from your basement?” I asked incredulously.

The Father laughed raucously and threw the window open, filling the room with freezing mountain air. “It’s not a sweatshop if you’re too cold to sweat!”

Still chuckling, he turned around and drawled, “50 masks!” as he left the room.

That was three weeks ago. Three long weeks of “Measure, cut, and sew!” as The Grandmother is fond of cackling. It is my only hope that this story will somehow break free into the free world, that no one will suffer my fate. But what if I deserved this? What if this is all punishment for some egregious sin against the textile industry?

As the sign hanging over the doorway reminds us, “As you reap, so shall you sew.”

The “Best” News 21.11

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke

1. Close Encounters of the Cryogenic Kind

When I was at school, I remember hearing a rumour that Walt Disney had frozen himself before his death and was waiting to be thawed out once society had advanced enough. Thus began my introduction to cryonics – the “science” of preserving human beings by freezing them. The practical aspect of the theory is somehow even more disconcerting; a body can only be successfully frozen AFTER death. (In the US, at least 250 corpses have been cryopreserved since 1966. They are now basically chilly mummies hoping for a future resurrection.)

The secret of immortality is just to chill?

The field has been regarded with scepticism since Robert Ettinger proposed it in The Prospect of Immortality. Doctors have however found a possible application in the medical field.

At the Maryland School of Medicine, patients suffering from severely traumatic injuries have been placed in suspended animation and then woken up. The procedure is called emergency preservation resuscitation and involves replacing the patient’s blood with an ice-cold saline solution. The body is rapidly cooled to between 10-15 °C. Normally, depriving the brain of oxygen for 5 minutes is enough to cause irreversible damage or death. By cooling the body, the brain and other organs can last for much longer before suffering damage, giving doctors more time to treat life-threatening wounds. In Maryland the doctors were able to “freeze” a patient (the heart had stopped and brain activity was barely able to be recorded), treat the injuries, and successfully perform the resuscitation.

Now this could be a huge breakthrough for trauma wards, but the possibilities for further cryonics are even more exciting. People suffering from cancer and other currently untreatable diseases could be frozen until a treatment is found. Long term space exploration could also become a viable possibility: by placing themselves in suspended animation, astronauts could survive the long journeys between the stars. (And by long I mean long, with our current technology, a journey to the nearest star system would take between 1,000 and 80,000 years.)

Further Reading: (Independent; Science Alert)

2. Protest Season

The protests in Hong Kong have dominated the news cycle for months, but the small island off the coast of China is not the only area experience massive unrest. A revolutionary wind is blowing through many countries, and people are taking to the streets to protest for their rights. Here’s a brief overview of the current situation:

Hong Kong

5 months ago, the local government of Hong Kong attempted to pass the infamous extradition bill – a piece of legislation which would allow Hong Kong citizens to be tried on the mainland by the central Chinese government. One step too far for the citizens of Hong Kong, who have long chafed under Beijing’s rule. While the extradition bill has finally been tabled, the reaction from the authorities and particularly the police has only served to inflame dissent. The latest rounds of protests have seen escalating violence from both police and activists.

Lebanon

The people of Beirut have been revolting since October 17, when the government proposed harsh new taxes. The protests quickly evolved into a movement against Lebanon’s post-war rulers and the entire political system. (In Lebanon, political power is divided between different religious and ethnic groups.) Activists claim that the political elite is trying to distance themselves from the common people, a notion reinforced by government hosting an invite-only parade on Independence Day instead of the normal celebrations.

France

This week saw the one-year anniversary of the yellow vest movement in France. On 17.11.2018, millions took to the streets wearing yellow safety vests to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s new fuel tax and the general high cost of living. Every weekend, the mouvement des gilets jaunes, consisting primarily of members of the working class, gathered to protest the increasing taxation of the lower- and middle-class French citizens. While the mass demonstrations have scaled down in both size and violence, there are still those calling for the resignation of Macron’s government and the end to austerity measures.

Marseille, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

Iran

While Iranians have been striking and protesting against the current political situation since April 2018, the demonstrations took on a new dimension entirely when fuel prices surged. Tens of thousands had had enough of the oppressive rule of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and took to the streets in a series of violent rioting. The government crackdown was brutal and quick – thousands have been arrested and the internet has been effectively shut down in the entire country. According to Amnesty International, at least 100 people have already been killed.

Protests in Teheran, Courtesy Nazanin Tabatabaee via Reuters

Bolivia

The winds of change have been blowing most strongly in South and Central America. The Bolivian president Evo Morales was always one to bend the constitutional rules. After reaching his legally restricted third term in office, Morales tried to change the constitution through a referendum. When the referendum failed, he secured a court ruling allowing him to run again anyway. After an election riddled with irregularities (and possibly outright fraud), Morales declared a landslide victory. This did not go down well with the Bolivian people. Together with the military and the police, Morales was finally forced to resign.

Protesting against Morales, Courtesy Ronaldo Schemidt via Getty Images

Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, the people have been protesting against the social reforms of President Daniel Ortega since April 18^th 2018. After nearly 30 people were killed, Ortega cancelled the planned reform. But the protests didn’t stop, even when Ortega declared political demonstrations to be illegal on 29 September 2018. The government has resorted to escalating authoritarian methods – revoking the licenses of human rights organizations and confiscating unfriendly media such as newspapers and broadcasters. Accusations of torture and illegal executions have been rampant and between 325 and 568 people have been killed.

Columbia

Columbians have had enough of President Ivan Duque: his approval ratings had sunk to 26 %, and his proposal to cut pensions was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In Bogota, thousands marched through the streets protesting against his violent regime. A second point of contention has been the slow roll-out of the 2016 peace treaty with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. This accord ended five years of civil war that killed 260,000 people. The protests have been mostly peaceful, but many indigenous leaders fear being illegally tried and executed.

Chile

As the protests in Chile enter their fifth week, the death toll rises to 23. Chileans have been protesting social and economic equality since October 18, raging against a political elite consisting of a small number of wealthy families. While the demonstrations have shaken the capital of Santiago to its core, similar unrest has gripped many cities throughout the country. Rioting and looting have become commonplace; a proposed new constitution has done little to calm the violence.

3. Solar Heating

Every aspect of our day to day lives requires energy. Until now, mankind has scraped by on fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas. But this has to stop. Even ignoring pollution and damage to the climate and ecosystems, fossil fuels are a finite resource. A resource which is rapidly depleting. Renewable sources of energy are therefore the only long-term possibilities. Unfortunately, wind and water cannot be also be effectively utilized. Nuclear power is another option, but unfortunately not without its own risks. There is however another option….

“I am a big proponent of harnessing the power of fusion — from 93 million miles away. Fusion is done by our sun really, really well and for free.”
Joe Romm

Solar power! Harnessing the power of the sun is not as easy one would think. At the moment, photovoltaic cells are very costly and not particularly energy efficient when viewed throughout their entire life span. A lesser known application of solar power is possibly more effective. By using mirrors to focus the sun’s rays, it is possible to generate huge amounts of heat. A company named Heliogen claims that it has created a “solar oven” capable of generating a temperature of over 1,000 ° C, almost double what was previously available commercially.

Why is this relevant?

When we think of power, we think of energy in the form of electricity. But the fact is, electricity accounts for only 25% of our total energy needs. More often, we need energy in the form of heat. Smelting, cooking, and transportation are just some of the processes which require immense amounts of heat. Being able to use the sun to purify steel, for example, would save enormous amounts of electricity each year.

A further application is the creation of other fuels. Both hydrogen and syngas are carbon neutral fuels which can only be generated at high temperatures. These two gases could be used to replace many of our current fossil fuels.

While it is a great idea, it still faces many of the problems that solar energy currently faces, particularly the storage on energy for (literal) rainy days.

The “Best” News 16.11

” Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge

1. Swimming at San Marco‘s

The City on Water has become the City under Water. The second-highest tide in history has left almost 70% of the city underwater. Residents and tourists have been wading through thigh-high water as the lagoon rose to 187 cm above sea level on Monday . Many storied and precious buildings have been severely damaged, including the famous Saint Mark’s Basilica. It is the sixth time that the church has been flooded in its almost 1,000-year history. The mayor of Venice says the damage in the city might add up to 1 Billion Euros.

How does water rise 187 cm above sea level?

The infamous acqua alta is a yearly phenomenon which sees strong winds blow immense amounts of water into the Adriatic Sea. When this high water coincides with a particularly strong astronomical high tide, the effects can be devastating. The geography of the area serves to amplify the effects: creating mini-tides and holding in gathered water. Once the soil becomes waterlogged, the water levels rise inexorably, eventually bursting the banks of the low-lying city.

In typical fashion, the Italians are not ones to let a natural disaster spoil their fashion and have invented stylish boots to allow them to continue their day-to-day lives (and shopping).

While this flooding is not directly linked to rising sea levels or global warming, the fact remains that Venice’s problems are indeed largely man-made. The area around many small islands has been filled in to make room for the airport and other industrial facilities; these islands were responsible for absorbing much of the incoming water. The second issue is the deep channel connecting the lagoon to the ocean. The lagoon is mostly shallow, so a deep channel was dredged to link the port directly to the deeper sea so that oil tankers could reach the city more easily. This channel allows water to flow in much faster than previously possible.

Further Reading: (The Guardian, Euronews)

2. Australia’s Wildfires

The Land Down Under is no stranger to massive fires. Which is why many have not taken serious notice of the gravity of the situation. The worst ever fires occurred in 1974-1975, when 4.5 million hectares were immolated. For comparison, the entirety of Switzerland is only 4.1 million hectares. These devastating fires raged through the entire dry season. The current bushfires are currently still burning in over a million hectares of land – and fire season has just started. Unpredictable winds are driving the fires further throughout all of mainland Australia, with New South Wales and Queensland being hit the hardest. A drought has left large portions of the country dry as tinder, and the temperatures are still rising.

The “Best” News 9.11

„To leave or stay, to fight or remain,
The world stands on the brink,
While Trump corrupts, Hong Kong erupts,
The EU may finally shrink.“

The hiatus is over! The „Best“ News has returned for good. Before we begin following the breaking stories, I thought it might be worthwhile to review some of the most important events that we have been covering. (Which in themselves are often already breaking news.)

Our first stop: The USA

1. Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump

Even before he took office, people have been calling for Donald Trump’s head. The public opinion of Trump has not improved since then; he and his cabinet have leapt from one scandal to the next. These events have had little effect on Trump’s voters, the majority of which are all too happy to categorize all negative coverage as fake news. The latest scandal may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and finally throw Trump out of office.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Bane of Trump’s Presidency

What happened?

After Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, Hunter Biden, the son of former US-Vicepresident Joe Biden, accepted a position on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. Jump forward to 2019: Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko alleges that Joe Biden tried to get the former Prosecutor General fired to stop a ciminal probe that involved Hunter Biden. Lutsenko later states that Hunter had broken no rules.

In July 2019, Donald Trump blocks money earmarked by Congress to support Ukraine. A week later Trump calls the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. A whistleblower then claims that Trump pushed President Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. Reading between the lines of the (non-verbatim) transcript, many claim that Trump promised to release the funding only if the investigations were reinstated.

There are two reasons why this quid pro quo may be illegal. First of all, Trump may have used his Presidential powers to attack a political rival. Secondly, by doing so, he implicitly allows foreign powers to interfere in American politics and elections. (Trump later doubled-down and asked both China and Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.)

Trump and Gordon Sondland (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

What’s happening now?

The Democrats have now officially launched a formal impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives. The House (primarily controlled by Democrats) voted to begin the investigation. Members of Trump’s parliament have since flip-flopped on whether a quid pro quo actually occured. Just this week, the US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, revised his testimony and recalls telling an aide to President Zelensky that the US security aid was indeed contigent on performing the political investigation demanded by Trump. The coming public hearings will determine whether the conversation truly constitutes an impeachable offense.

2. Brexit’s Brexit Battle

The 31st of October came and went, and the United Kingdom has yet to leave the European Union. Without a majority in parliament, Premiere Minister Boris Johnson was forced to concede a No-Deal Brexit, forcing him to negotiate an extension. What followed next was a series of panicked discussions with the EU, with Johnson trying to arrange new Brexit-Deal and as secure the extension. Surprisingly, he succeeded on both counts: the EU agreed to his new proposal (which also guaranteed that the border in Ireland would remain open) and moved the Brexit date to the 31st of January.

Flush with success, Johnson called for elections, hoping to resecure a majority in parliament. The Labour-Party, the largest opposition party, at first resisted the idea, but later agreed to the proposal. Parliament has therefore been dissolved until election day on December 12. The campaign promises to be short and intense.

3. Iran and the Nuclear Agreement

The brewing conflict between the US and Iran has not escalated to further violence. After President Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, back in May 2018, Iran has slowly been responding in time. Tensions have been rising, both sides have issued threats. The US has saddled the Iran with crippling economic sanctions – Iran has responded by attacking oil tankers and Saudi oil reserves.

This week, Iran has decided to withdraw from another section of the nuclear agreement, potentially putting them on the way to producing their own nuclear weapons. A thousand more centrifuges in a previously hidden facility have sprung to life, allowing the Iran to further enrich it’s new stockpiles of low-grade uranium. While Trump has been preoccupied with the impeachment proceedings, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called the alarm, and has been trying to gather international support to curb Iran’s ambitions.

Further Reading: (Al Jazeera, New York Times)

4. Hong Kong protests

The protests in Hong Kong have shown no signs of abating, and both police and protesters are resorting to violence to secure their goals. Protesters from each Hong Kong district have been eager to show their support for the cause – holding fast to their 5 demands: 1. Withdrawal of the extradition bill, 2. An inquiry into alleged police brutality, 3. Reclassifying the “rioters” as protesters, 4. Amnesty for arrested protesters, and 5. More equitable voting rights.

The police have been heavily criticized for their use of tear gas to break up the mostly peaceful protests. Just this week, a young man died after falling in a parking garage. The protester was allegedly trying to escape the heavy concentration of tear gas. Two other cases has been heavily criticized: one involving a nurse who was blinded by a rubber bullet, and another protester who was shot in the chest by a live round.

Marco Leung Ling-kit on scaffolding at Pacific Place before he fell to his death on 15 June. By 立場新聞

Both sides are becoming frustrated by the current stalemate. One group of protesters has decided to use violence to draw attention to the demonstrations. During one of the latest conflicts, this militant group came equipped with petrol bombs. The danger of reprisals from the mainland government grows day by day.

Further Reading: (Channel News Asia; BBC)