Today it's about the power vacuum in the pandemic, about a legendary sentence from 1871, about the Danish queen and a caricature.
Hurry up please
The second worst state of politics is the power vacuum.
When no one is in charge, chaos and anarchy ensues.
The worst state of politics is the power vacuum in an existential crisis.
Unfortunately, that is exactly the case in Germany.
The
fourth corona wave is
driving up the number of infected and dead, and there is no one who really is in
charge
.
The Executive Chancellor
Angela Merkel
is just waiting to be recalled and passes the time with farewell trips and farewell dinners, today in Meseberg Castle with
António Costa
and
Krisjanis Karins
, the Prime Ministers of Portugal and Latvia.
Her presumed successor,
Olaf Scholz
, also does not yet have full authority and continues to forge his traffic light coalition.
Germany lives in the meantime, now of all times.
Nobody can do anything for that.
But it is clear that all traffic light negotiators must pull themselves together, that they must not fail, so that the power vacuum does not drag on unnecessarily.
Today the 22 working groups are to present the results of their negotiations.
From now on there will be talk in a large group.
Coalition talks and the fourth wave: a corona plan that the liberals like
Two kinds of anger
When I read the pandemic reports, I get angry twice.
Once as Dirk Kurbjuweit, vaccinated out of full conviction, a few weeks ago still hoping for a permanently normal life, without restrictions, without fear of infection.
The high number of people who oppose the vaccination could destroy these hopes.
That's
anger number
one.
Then I imagine how I would read the reports as an opponent of vaccinations if I were threatened with serious interference in my way of life or my freedoms, for example through a nationwide 2G rule -
anger number two
.
I have no sympathy for those who oppose vaccinations, but I fear a society in which there are mostly angry people, from both sides.
That dampens my own anger, the real anger.
We must not allow deep divisions, we must remain in a position to forgive each other's attitudes.
Researchers on rising corona incidences: "We need 2G across the board"
The meeting of Ujiji
One of the most casual sentences in world history was said 150 years ago today.
In other words, you don't know for sure whether it was really said that way.
The reputation of the man who claims it said it is bad.
He was British, he was a journalist, his name:
Henry Morton Stanley
.
His publisher had commissioned him in October 1869
to look for
the missing missionary and explorer
David Livingstone
in Africa.
On November 10, 1871, Stanley met a sick white man in the village of Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika and - allegedly - greeted him with the legendary words: "Dr.
Livingstone, I presume. ”(Dr. Livingstone, I assume.) Even the Laconians (Spartans) couldn't have said it more laconically.
However, this self-citation by Stanley was never confirmed.
Livingstone died of dysentery a year and a half after this meeting.
Stanley hired himself out to the Belgian King Leopold II, whom he helped to establish his cruel rule over the Congo.
Belgians in the Congo: rule of the whip
Blue haze, blue-blooded
If one sifts through world literature for works on royal houses, the British are probably in first place, especially through William Shakespeare (including "Richard II.", "Richard III.", "Heinrich IV."), And also through Friedrich Schiller ("Maria Stuart «) or Hilary Mantel (trilogy on the court of Henry VIII). Little Denmark is also well represented, also by Shakespeare ("Hamlet"), and also by Per Olov Enquist ("The visit of the personal physician").
To be honest, I'm only writing this because I have no idea about royals, but I would like to announce that the
Danish Queen Margrethe is coming
to Germany
today
.
In the previous reports, she is described as a personable and original queen.
She was born in 1940 and has ruled since January 1972, almost 50 years.
She is the head of state not only of Denmark, but also of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
It is almost always mentioned that she likes to smoke.
Danish monarch: Queen Margrethe now works for Netflix
Winner of the day ...
... for me is the caricaturist
Klaus Stuttmann
.
The Berlin »Tagesspiegel« is printing a drawing of him today that shows a machine gun, there are lots of people in the cartridge belt.
The line to it: "Lukashenko's attack on Europe ..."
It is terrible to look at, but it does exactly what the ruler of Belarus is doing right now.
He turns people into ammunition in his hybrid war against the European Union, lures them from Iraq and other Arab states to Minsk and drives them from there to the border with Poland or Lithuania in order to destabilize these countries and the EU.
There is only one word for it: disgusting.
The latest news from the night
RKI reports 39,676 new infections - more than ever since the beginning of the pandemic:
The Robert Koch Institute has registered 236 further deaths related to the coronavirus within 24 hours.
And: The seven-day incidence increases significantly to 232.1
US Congress summons Donald Trump's ex-spokeswoman and former chief demagogue:
Kayleigh McEnany and Stephen Miller are among ten other Donald Trump employees who are supposed to testify about the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th.
The former president also suffered a legal defeat
NASA postpones planned moon landing:
In 2024, NASA wanted to return to the moon with a manned mission.
This goal cannot be met.
A legal dispute with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also allegedly responsible for this
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours Dirk Kurbjuweit
