Month: April 2023

Greece Set To Ban Nationalists From Elections

The ultra-Right National Party is regarded as the heir to the banned Golden Dawn party and will be blocked from advancing to May elections. The decision is likely to help moderate nationalists.

Ireland: EU Veto Sends Housing Plans into Disarray

Brussels counters Ireland’s plans to regulate Airbnb as lacking evidence, as the Irish government faces challenges from the Left and a rising populist sentiment against asylum seekers.

Resisting the Simulacrum

The Back Rooms, a popular bit of Internet folklore, reminds us of the recurring horror motif of a reality adjacent to ours, familiar but uncanny, whose real-world congealment we may soon be facing.

Rescue Underway After Easter Marked by Migrant Crossings

The Monday rescue followed three others over the Easter weekend, which saw the deaths of at least 50 migrants, and the arrival—on the Italian island of Lampedusa—of 26 boats carrying 974 migrants on Easter Sunday.

EU Countries Investigate ChatGPT

Even Microsoft, OpenAI’s main investor, admitted it does not “have access to the full details of [ChatGPT’s] vast training data.”

Three More Countries Join in LGBT Lawsuit Against Hungary

Three More Countries Join in LGBT Lawsuit Against Hungary

Fourteen member states stand with the Commission in accusing Hungary of discrimination, including France and Germany, joining the lawsuit hours before the deadline.

April 7, 2023
Bach’s St. Mark’s Passion: A Reconstructed Gem

Bach’s St. Mark’s Passion: A Reconstructed Gem

“Whereas the Matthäus-Passion and Johannes-Passion are extremely well-known and have long and well-established performance traditions, the libretto of the Markus is largely unknown, even to Bach scholars.”

April 7, 2023
Introducing the Iliade Institute: An Interview with <strong>Walter Aubrig</strong>

Introducing the Iliade Institute: An Interview with <strong>Walter Aubrig</strong>

The best weapon for dealing with decline is integration into a community that offers an alternative to the artificiality and isolation that are increasingly affecting younger generations.

April 7, 2023
Creating the Circular Economy: The Devil Is the Details

Creating the Circular Economy: The Devil Is the Details

The detailed product design requirements of the ESPR are intended to serve as a lever to bend the entire value chain into a circle, though who or what will yield is still being worked out through negotiations in the EU Parliament and the Council.

April 7, 2023
RN Deputy Resigns After Supporting Turkish Mosque

RN Deputy Resigns After Supporting Turkish Mosque

The deputy’s entourage sought to minimize the facts, maintaining that there was no ‘ideological’ dimension to this inauguration.

April 7, 2023
Germany Designates €3B To Unintendedly Slow Internet Access

Germany Designates €3B To Unintendedly Slow Internet Access

While offering €3 billion to the cause of internet access for every household in Germany would seem excellent support, private industry warns that such lavish public funding may be counterproductive.

April 7, 2023
Tatarsky Murder: Anti-Putin Group Claims Responsibility

Tatarsky Murder: Anti-Putin Group Claims Responsibility

As was the case in the murder of Darya Dugina, the alleged group failed to offer anything in the way of concrete evidence that they were in fact behind Tatarsky’s assassination.

April 7, 2023
The Glory of the Cross

The Glory of the Cross

The transformative and hope-filled message of Good Friday is that our hate can be “turned to pity, and our pity to love.”

April 7, 2023
Primary Suspect in Brussels Bomb Case Denies Knowledge of Plot 

Primary Suspect in Brussels Bomb Case Denies Knowledge of Plot 

The primary suspect in the case, Salah Abdeslam, aged 33, claims he had already been arrested before the planning of the Brussels bombings took place.

April 6, 2023
Macron and Xi Call for Starting Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks

Macron and Xi Call for Starting Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks

The heads of state stressed that Moscow and Kyiv should engage in talks “as soon as possible.”

April 6, 2023
Turkish FM Compares Sweden to Nazi Germany After Court Ruling

Turkish FM Compares Sweden to Nazi Germany After Court Ruling

The Turkish foreign minister’s remarks do not bode well for Sweden’s eventual accession into NATO.

April 6, 2023
“Rituals Stabilize Life,” Without Them, Man is Lost in a Sea of Sameness

“Rituals Stabilize Life,” Without Them, Man is Lost in a Sea of Sameness

In his book The Disappearance of Rituals, Korean-German philosopher Byun-Chul Han presents a genealogy of the disappearance of rituals and its catastrophic effects on society.

April 6, 2023