1. Good boy
“Do-gooders,” the guy hisses, and beep, beep, beep, he’s out of the subway. Inside: men in hats, women in scarves, children in snowsuits with demonstration posters, "We are more" is written on one of them. Around 100,000 protesters took to the streets in Hamburg alone on Sunday against right-wing extremism and the AfD, millions in the past few weeks, from Munich to Flensburg. All do-gooders?
The expression has long been a right-wing fighting term, the bad word of the year 2015, a literal indictment of, yuck, political correctness, closely related to brownish defamations such as “emotional kitsch” or “consternation prose”. “Do-gooder,” that sounds malicious, supposedly superior: There they are, the self-righteous ones, going to demonstrate and feeling good about it, holding hands, and then they immediately start singing.
And yes, what exactly? What exactly is the core of the right-wing accusation? If not good, then what?
I know, on a Monday evening you're already happy to have survived the beginning of the week, so here's just a roughly abbreviated philosophy dip: In order to be a good person, Aristotle recommends, among other things, moderation, using reason, and becoming politically active . The short version: you don't care about what happens to people who live in a community with you. In a city. In a country. On a continent. You care. Do something when something goes wrong. At least try it. Do you like Kant better? “Sapere aude” – “Have the courage to use your own mind.” There will be another demonstration next Saturday in Berlin. It is set to be the largest rally yet.
If you want to do more than demonstrate, social scientist Daniel Kubiak has a few suggestions: In the East, visibility means threat
2. Frontwoman
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Participant in the civilian military training “Ukrainian Valkyrie”
Photo:
Alexander Kauschanski / DER SPIEGEL
“We are incredibly lucky to be born in Ukraine and incredibly unlucky to have a neighbor like Russia,” says 26-year-old designer Katja. She wears red lipstick on her mouth. In her hand is a Kalashnikov. Katja is one of the “Ukrainian Valkyries,” women who meet every week in Kiev and train: shooting, throwing grenades, dismantling rifles. They are practicing for war. 900,000 people serve in the army, 43,000 of them women, of whom about 5,000 are fighting on the front lines, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Previously, a woman in the army could only work as a cook or accountant. Today as a sniper or tank commander. “I want to be prepared for anything,” says Katja, then the training continues: reload the magazine, remove a jammed cartridge, then fire, standing and kneeling. My colleague Alexander Kauschanski from the foreign team met the militant group in Kiev: "In Soviet times, Ukrainian women were supposed to be 'superwomen,'" he wrote to me. »Mother, housewife, worker, communist. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian women slipped back into traditional role models.
But the Ukrainian troops are exhausted, supplies are stalling, and the years of war have exhausted the army. They urgently need reinforcements at the front. So should female recruits also be drafted? So far they can only volunteer. The storm of women – not everyone likes it: “Women are our Ukrainian sanctuary,” says one of the soldiers, Alexander. "I'm fighting at the front so that our women can live in safety and look after our children." The front is not just in the East.
Read here what the “Ukrainian Valkyries” had to learn first.
3. Taylorgate
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Pop star Swift: Anyone who typed “Taylor Swift” or #taylorswift into the X search mask received an error message
Photo:
Natacha Pisarenko / AP
If you try to search for Taylor Swift on X, that graveyard of social media, you'll find: nothing. “Posts cannot be loaded at the moment” it says. Why? Fake nude photos of superstar Swift circulated on the platform last week, one of which was splashed across timelines 45 million times. Far too late, X began deleting the motifs. “And even that went wrong; to this day some of the photos can easily be found on X,” writes my colleague Patrick Beuth from the Netzwelt team.
This was followed by a block in the search function, which also suppressed all other posts about Swift. For Patrick, the troubleshooting by Musk's company is not a solution, but a declaration of surrender: "The person who should actually be protected is being ignored by X and even punished as a result. After all, visibility on social media is a currency.« And Elon Musk? Since taking over, he has fired 30 percent of the Trust and Safety team, 80 percent of the associated technical staff and 52 percent of all content moderators. Protection against troll campaigns? The Swift case shows what could lie ahead in the many election campaigns this year. “Content moderation is time-consuming, expensive, complicated,” Patrick writes to me. »But an absolute basic requirement if you want to operate such a large social network. Musk doesn’t seem to care that he’s not living up to his responsibilities.”
You can read what could happen in X here.
What else is important today?
Ver.di is calling for warning strikes in public transport in almost all federal states
: There will be restrictions in local public transport almost across Germany on Friday. The Ver.di union called for the action.
AfD denigrates mass protests as “the last stand”
: Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Germany in recent weeks against right-wing extremism and the AfD. The party is now trying to downplay the protest.
Berlin calls the idea of Israeli repopulation of the Gaza Strip "completely unacceptable":
On Sunday, thousands in Jerusalem demanded the return of Jewish settlers to the Gaza Strip - including ministers from Netanyahu's government. The federal government has now strongly condemned this demand.
E. Jean Carroll wants to use the Trump millions for “something good”
: A second trial, a second victory – with an unexpectedly high amount of damages. Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll describes the verdicts against Donald Trump as a victory for women and wants to use the money wisely.
My favorite story today: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Imagine you're sitting in a meeting full of men and women in suits, and the boss looks at you sadly and says: "Unfortunately, we can only pay you 2.5 million euros." Sniff. But: in three to five years, there will be “serious money”. This is roughly how our financial columnist Nikolas Braun describes a scene at a listed real estate group that is currently incorporating a start-up. 2.5 million. Suddenly rich. And now? Nikolas gives tips for a serious investment strategy just in case. I don't want to give any spoilers, just this much: There are three pots, I like the first one best: »A pot in money market ETFs for short-term expenses. The most important of these: a six-month break with your girlfriend." Huh. Admittedly, 2.5 million is as realistic as the spontaneous onset of summer in February (in Hamburg). But Nikolas made me dream, maybe you too? This way: Suddenly a millionaire – what now?
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
Thai co-owner wants to take over KaDeWe completely:
The luxury department stores around Berlin's KaDeWe are insolvent - but according to SPIEGEL information, rescue was within reach. Signa's Thai partner is still interested in taking over the group.
Lotte, Lou and Lütte:
Luckily we were already married when we decided to become parents. Otherwise the fertility center would have rejected us. Because we are two women. And that's just where the madness begins.
This man could become China's next foreign minister:
The signs are increasing: Liu Jianchao could become China's defining foreign policymaker of the coming decade. But he has a quality that is rare in the Chinese apparatus: a sense of humor.
Are you making people addicted to your weight loss injection, Mr. Yuffa?
Eli Lilly is the second pharmaceutical company to bring a weight loss injection onto the German market. Here, board member Ilya Yuffa says why he is fighting for health insurance reimbursement - and wants to build a new plant in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Which is less important today
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Actor Hunold as public prosecutor Bernd Reuther: age limit for lawyers in “real life” has been exceeded
Photo: Andrea Enderlein / ZDF
Silence in the hall
:
Rainer Hunold
,
74,
stops - if you're now frowning in irritation, I'll add: Hunold has been playing Bernd Reuther in the ZDF series "The Public Prosecutor" since 2005. But now it's over: "I want to prevent the inevitable age limit for lawyers in 'real life', which I have long since exceeded in my private life, from damaging the credibility of the character I love at some point," the actor said. Now Hunold wants to devote himself to his second great passion: sculpture. His farewell to the TV screen seems, cough, carved in stone.
Mini concave mirror
You can find the entire concave mirror here.
Cartoon of the day
And tonight?
Brown temptation:
"The air was wonderfully warm and humid and smelled of frangipani flowers." I had to google it too: it looks something like this 🌺.
By the way, that's not the first sentence of an EL James novel, no, our cooking columnist Verena Lugert begins her recipe for "Death by chocolate" like this, saying it's the "most lush chocolate cake" she's ever seen. And believe me, Verena has already seen a lot in her life, which is extremely rich in culinary delights. Best of all, there are only two ingredients! You can guess one, I'm sure, but for the other, read it here: try it out, enjoy it, et voilà: (petite) mort.
Have a nice Monday evening,
Your Jens Radü, head of duty