The cruelty is the point

Orban congratulates opposition leader Magyar on victory in historic Hungarian election "This has become, and will be, a celebration of democracy," Tisza party leader Peter Magyar said.

⚡️BREAKING: Magyar says Orban congratulated him on election win.

"Prime Minister Viktor Orban has just called to congratulate us on our victory," Tisza leader Peter Magyar wrote on X. With over 50% of votes processed, the opposition has taken a significant lead over the ruling party.

they'll have access to our credit cards, and then they can do the reading for us as well. meanwhile, we can just ... exist, rien faire comme une bête.

the insanity of the world (or at least significant parts of it) in a nutshell.

I'm waiting for AI bots to actually buy these books, with real money... the hardcover versions.

Academic News: Finally, my article on adventure playgrounds as sites of democratic learning in the Federal Republic of Germany is freely available. What slides, swings, and constructing wooden huts in concrete desserts have to do with democracy.

academic.oup.com/gh/article/4...

Congratulations to Joachim C. Häberlen for his article 'Democracy at Play: Adventure Playgrounds in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1967–1984' which has been awarded the German History 2025 Article Prize!

You can read the winning article here: doi.org/10.1093/gerh...

What Iran’s Dead Loved and Fought For A young woman’s online diaries about cinema and literature have become her epitaph.

www.theatlantic.com/internationa... a beautiful must read if you care about humanity and love movies

(Gift article)

Thank you Arash Azizi for writing this and @theatlantic.com for publishing it

Moltbook: Wie das soziale Netzwerk für KI-Agenten funktioniert Ein soziales Netzwerk nur für Bots – programmiert, ohne dass eine Zeile menschlichen Codes geschrieben wurde, gebaut auf einer quelloffenen Plattform aus Wien. Moltbook fasziniert das Silicon Valley u...

If this (what's happening on Moltbook) is the future of the internet (you never whether something is written by AI or by a human being), then I guess it's also the future of humanity. Funny times.

www.faz.net/pro/digitalw...

Bäume fürs Klima: Der Meeresgrund als Kohlenstoffsenke Um Kohlendioxid aus der Atmosphäre zu fischen, werden Bäume gefällt und im Erdboden verbuddelt. Das kostet viel Platz. Nun präsentieren Forscher ein eleganteres Konzept.

Bäume verbuddeln und gar im Meer versenken, gegen die Klimawandel. Interessante und ernst gemeinte Idee; und dennoch, irgendwie zeigt sie die Absurdität der Weltlage. Bäume stehen zu lassen schein nicht en vogue zu sein.

www.faz.net/aktuell/wiss...

nachvollziehbarer Rat.

naja, Streiks sollen weh tun... da ist er vielleicht nicht klug gewählt, weil Schulferien sind. Das Problem im öffentlichen Dienst ist, dass Streiks nicht "den Bossen" weh tun, sondern der Allgemeinheit und dann eben besonders vulnerablen Personen.

hm, aber welches "Kampfmittel" bliebe denn der Gewerkschaft, jenseits des Streiks? Ich kann die Perspektive nachvollziehen, bin selbst auf Öffentliche angewiesen (und habe zum Glück gerade Ferien oder kann die S-Bahn nehmen). But still.

The majority of organizing happening in Minnesota isn’t just peaceful, it’s INVISIBLE. Moms showing up who won’t be interviewed on TV, people whose ICE patrols don’t turn into viral video. The grocery runs, the donations, the people filming bc they happen to be there. Please remember this.

the russian judicial system in two headlines

‘I felt like I was kidnapped’: Ojibwe man recounts ICE detainment - ICT At least five Native American men have been detained by ICE around Minneapolis following significant immigration raids

"At least five Native American men have been detained by ICE around Minneapolis following significant immigration raids." ictnews.org/news/i-felt-...

When Cairo tramway workers ent on strike in August 1919, he led some 60 Italian workers to express solidarity with the strike and helped found a Bourse de Travail, where newly formed unions resided.

International Solidarity in practice. (3/3)

After the war he returned to Egypt, where he worked as a printer and became president of the printers' union. Taking internationalism seriously, he convinced his fellow Italian workers to accept Egyptian workers in the Union, which had so far been the exclusively European. (2/3)

Amidst the countless stories of powerful men, and the stories of pain and suffering in history, the story an Italian named Giuseppe Pizzuto deserves being remembered as well:

Born in Egypt, he fought in the Italian army during WWI, where he was apparently influenced by socialist ideas. (1/3)

(Source: ʿIsmat Saif al-Dawla, Mashayikh Jabal al-Badari: Al-Juzʾ al-Thani min Mudhakirat Qarya (Cairo: Dar
al-Hilal, 1996), 16. Quoted in Alia Mossallam, Strikes, Riots and Laughter: Al-Himamiyya Village’s Experience of Egypt’s 1918 Peasant Insurrection.) 3/3

Each person starts to hit the one next to him for no better reason than that the fight ‘has started.’ It’s always an opportunity to get away from paying for the drinks. …This is what neighboring European countries did to their
continent." 2/3

Concise summary of WWI:

"Our story begins in that summer of 1914 when a crazy war erupted in Europe. A war like the kind of fights that flare up between coffee-shop dwellers during almawalid. It starts with a chair hitting the lights, leaving everyone in the dark, and then the fight begins. 1/3

“Can’t believe NYC elected a Muslim as mayor.”

In truth—a Black American Christian woman swearing in a Ugandan American Muslim of South Asian ethnicity as his Syrian American wife holds the Qurans he swears in on, all while standing on the steps of a subway station—is the most NYC thing imaginable.

es wird an Schulen erschreckenderweise in Geschichte als essentieller Teil der Quellenanalyse gelehrt. Warum auch immer.

Protests are spreading across Iran for a fourth day, with demonstrators calling for the end of the Islamic regime and demanding the return of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. A member of the Basij force was killed in Kouhdasht, Lorestan, and confrontations are flaring in Fars, Hamedan, and Tehran.

Beauty is in the Street In post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the streets, fighting for a better world. Their efforts c...

about struggling for and trying to build a better world, here and now, perhaps failing, and against all odds trying again. It's this spirit of radical experimentation that I try to capture.

www.penguin.co.uk/books/321011...

A Year of Global Protest How Gen Z-led movements shaped 2025—and what comes next.

I'm always happy to see my work mentioned, as in this Foreign Policy article (a summary of previous articles on the past and present of movements). However, Beauty Is in the Street is distinctly not about failed movements, but about experimentingi

foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/25/g...

#OtD 31 Dec 1912 about 160 African workers at the Wankie coal mine in colonial Rhodesia came out on strike. Workers were protesting the poor conditions after dozens had contracted scurvy, resulting in nine deaths over the previous three months stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1143...

Working in archives is a bit like getting Christmas presents: ypu open a box of documents, and they might be what you wished for, or something totally useless, or amazing and more interesting than you could have imagined. It's the true joy of being a historian!

"I wrote: "Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.""

"The attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney today was a vile act of antisemitic terror. I mourn those who were murdered and will be keeping their families, the Jewish community, and the Chabad movement in my prayers. May the memories of all those killed be a blessing. While we are still waiting for all the facts to emerge, what we already know is devastating. At least 11 dead, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who held deep ties to Crown Heights. At least 29 injured. Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness. This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world. Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside. What happened at Bondi is what many Jewish people fear will happen in their communities too. On Bondi Beach today, as men with long guns targeted innocents, another man ran towards the gunfire and disarmed a shooter. Tonight, as Jewish New Yorkers light menorahs and usher in a first night of Hanukkah clouded by grief, let us look to his example and confront hatred with the urgency and action it demands. When I am Mayor, I will work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe—on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day. Let this be a purpose shared by every New Yorker, and let us banish this horrific violence to the past."

Compare the statement about the antisemitic terror attack in Australia by the Israeli Prime Minister with the one by Zohran Mamdani, and ask yourself who more truly cares about condemning antisemitism, as opposed to using it to promote unrelated politics.