Society

I think of a fictional person. He is a pacifist — not because he read about it, but because he has experienced violence and rejects it. He comes from a country where men must be strong and are not permitted to show shame. He flees. He arrives here. He carries something with him. The conviction that peace is possible if someone starts it. He wanted to contribute here. Not as a gesture — because he knows what happens when no one does. He has seen where hate leads. He wanted to live the opposite. ...

The fool is one of the oldest figures in human history. He goes by many names — shaman, dervish, mystic, court jester. What connects them: an inner freedom that outlasts outer circumstances. He sees differently and speaks what others leave unsaid. He cannot be bought. The fool knows the word no — toward himself and toward others. His confusion is his raw material. His clarity, the result. They are called fools. ...

The birth rate is falling. Everyone talks about money and housing. That is true. Still, it does not get to the core. The Core Is Fear People are not having children because they can no longer imagine the future. Because they believe they must be perfect to be parents. Because one mistake today is enough to be disqualified. That is how it feels. It suffocates. What I have learned as a person of faith: God forgives. God even wants us to make mistakes, so that we learn from them. That is not a weakness. That is the ground on which a person can live at all. ...

At the Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, an older gentleman sat quietly upright and ate his burrata. Shots. Panic. He stayed seated. Bad back, he said afterward. New tuxedo. Dirty floor. That is cool. It is also an image for something larger. “Thousands from the journalistic and political elite of the country have now experienced what countless other Americans have had to live through in their schools, offices, shopping centres, and churches.” ...

Eleven texts on this site. Different topics, different lengths, different registers. Rebellion in France and Austria. Punk in Vorarlberg. Communication. Pigeonholing. Family history. Meaning and motivators. A Williamson quote. Only on looking back did I notice that all of them circle around the same word. Kowtowing. Where the Word Comes From January 2026, LKH Rankweil. I talk with people — patients, nurses, doctors, an AfD voter, people at various stages. I ask them: tell me honestly when I am being annoying. No performative nodding. No polite yes that means no. ...

Third part of the series “Rebellion as Civic Duty” The first two articles dealt with the big question: why does France rebel, and Austria does not? With Hofstede and Milgram, with police and media, with systems and structures. This article goes back to the beginning — to the moment when rebellion in Vorarlberg actually happened. Briefly. Loudly. And then it was over. Feldkirch, 1977: Two Weeks to the First Concert At the end of 1977, a few young people came together at the Graf Hugo youth center in Feldkirch. Galle, Franz, Slaughter, and Chy — four guys who had heard about punk in England through the German magazine Sounds and, yes, Bravo. The spark didn’t come from Vienna, not from Innsbruck, and certainly not from any Austrian institution. It came from a Zurich DIY fanzine called “No Fun,” published by Peter Wittwer and Martin Byland. Inside was a sentence from an English punk magazine: “Buy a guitar, learn a C, learn a D, learn an E and join a band.” ...

We sort people. Daily, unconsciously, in fractions of a second. Homeless. Unemployed. Addicted. Failed. The drawer opens, the person goes in, the drawer closes. What’s inside, we no longer see — we only see the label. What the Drawer Does to the Person Whoever is classified first loses their name. Not the one on their ID — the inner one. The name that says: I am someone. I have a story. I have contributed something. ...