We live in rather cynical times. Just like the practice to scroll through hundreds of newspaper pages or social media entries we pass over the reports of of disaster after the other. Whole industries live from the reporting of disasters in a sensational manner. As the speed of reporting via social and online media has increased over the last few years the time to reflect what are the reasons for the multiple disasters has moved backstage. On the forefront are journalists and life bloggers who gain from increased reach and with the duration of their reporting of disasters. These are the first round effects. Second in line are people proposing fast fixes of what seems to be the problem at first sight. A more thorough analytical approach has little chance against the overwhelming effects of disaster imagery. Before the necessary dara and analyses have been carried out by scientists the next disaster already dominates the headlines and images. Flooding and droughts come and go faster due to climate change, but the reactions just del with reporting and capturing of attention rather than analyses. Next follows the blame game. Rather than unity to deal with consequences responsibility gets pushed from one instance to the next. Another cynical twist is the rise in insurance premiums to be paid by all, because the reporting hypes have increased the cost of repairs for insurance companies and after all more people shall seek insurance and have a higher readiness to accept higher rates for disaster insurance. Maybe this is just another more recent chapter of Sloterdijk‘s „Kritik der zynischen Vernunft“, which we witness currently. The effect of passing disasters is often a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness although we need to do just the opposite. Get together and act together after adequate analyses of underlying mechanisms. (Image Aristite Maillol Brussels, MRBAB) 
Birds again
There are many ways to have more birds again in inner cities. Less pollution and poison are part of the solution. Second, increase the food available to birds. Some plants or vegetation is more suited than the other one. Combined with the question of cooling houses in summer and more isolation in autumn and winter, the greening of facades in cities has a simple effect to provide hiding, nesting and feeding spaces for birds. Birds will discover this vegetation as their natural habitat offering relatively safe shelter and food. It is an incredibly simple way to catch 22. Your new shelter is selective in the choice of birds that it will house. Singing birds seem to value the places most. Other predators may follow. At least in late autumn and early winter the energy rich power food is a welcome addition of the diet. Nesting in spring and summer might be another option to have more birds again. We shall need many very small steps again to keep biodiversity or bring back some of it. Birds again is a small initiative.
Juridification
Law has entered almost all domains of life. This has a lot of positive effects. Law in general, we tend to believe, has an intrinsic link to justice. If you go to court after failed attempts of mediation you will get a judgement(s) from several instances at times and with substantial delays. Justice, however, is a much more complex issue. Ethical concerns enter the stage as well as the ability and willingness to devote substantial resources to support a legitimate or legal claim. A kind of balance of power appears to be a necessary precondition for justice to be achieved. Of course, jurisdification is a process, where time plays to the advantage of one or the other side of contestants. The book by Katharina Pistor, “The code of capital. How the law creates wealth and inequality” has highlighted the importance of the legal intermediaries in the juridification and codification of modern societies. The basis of today’s capitalism relies on an expansive definition of what constitutes capital. The transformation of debt into a product, which can be traded by a “second hand” rather than the “invisible hand”, had created a warning to societies that the extension of rights and volumes led to a financial crash of the most powerful economies. The states, i.e. taxpayers, had to step in to guarantee credits taken out by banks and other financial institutions and ensure the solvability of underwritten debt. The state guaranteed for losses of capital and enforced the rule that deficits had to be shared among all. A well calculated bankruptcy of the system was then managed by lawyers and bankers rather than the politically elected representatives of the people.
The juridification has been extended to intellectual property rights as well. This made the fruits of intellectual property tradeable. It is rarely the authors that negotiate translation rights or the use of a novel as a screenplay. You better rely on a specialised lawyer to assist you in the national or transnational defence of intellectual property rights.
Artificial intelligence relies on huge data inputs. It is not an easy task to define ownership of data, especially of what we believe are “your own” data. Juridification means that a process of narrowing down definitions or the opposite, absence of a proper definition, creates market opportunities to trade data and the right to collect or use those data for specific or encompassing purposes.
Are we still all equal in front of the law? Or do the better informed have a significant advantage over the rest of society? Financial resources play a vital in the legal system as well. Collective solutions, like associations of consumers or trade unions, have demonstrated that they may operate as a societal antidote in the biased codification of capital. Democracies are well advised to open their eyes to the blind spots in the “regard” of justitia.
(Image: Auguste Rodin, Cariatide à la pierre, enlarged bronze statue in Paris) 
Shorter is better
Contrary to a lot of received previous recommendations, the shorter duration of antibiotics prescription and use (3-5) days is overall better than the prolonged use of durations between 7-14 days (JAMA Link). A so-called narrative review of medical studies (Lee et al.2023) reports more precise results separate for medical indications (pneumonia, sinusitis etc.), which tend to go in the same direction for the majority of indications. In view of the serious issue of antimicrobial resistance, a consequence of overconsumption and too widespread use of antibiotics (also in animal health and food production), the slogan of shorter is better should receive serious attention.
It is not only a medical, pharmaceutical or public health issue. The topic has become an issue of nutrition as well. The food chain contains largely unknown amounts of antibiotics as well, especially if larger amounts of animal or fish products are part of it.
The knowledge from these sciences has still to filter through to the broader public. This means it has become a social science topic as well. The transmission of knowledge and patient expectations on prescriptions, which is also linked to regulations concerning sick leave, make it more difficult to shorten prescriptions of antibiotics. There is a steep challenge to change behaviour according to the new mantra “shorter is better” with respect to antibiotics, even if we know that it is better for all of us in the medium or long term.
(Image: Jan Harmensz. Muller, De keuze van de rechte levensweg 1571-1628, MRBAB, Brussels) 
Sexual harassment
Under the broader topic of violence against women, we count gender-based harassment at work. The recent report of a survey based on more than 100.000 persons in the European Union in 2021 shows the shocking amount of violence in the last 12 months as well as violence experienced over a lifetime. (Source Eurostat Link to pdf report) These data have to be interpreted with care since it is a well known statistical phenomenon that in some countries such misbehavior is reported and talked about more easily and openly than in other countries. Therefore, the countries with the highest figures, for example in Nordic countries, there it is safe to talk about the issue (Nordic paradox), whereas in other countries violence against women and sexual harassment at work are still much less talked about and addressed in public. Italy even deviated from the joint EU data collection.
It is important to address the topic in the media and lift the cover-up attempts in many societies. This is a process over time, but it is important to continuously raise awareness about the problem. We have made a lot of progress on more equal treatment of women in recent years in most European societies. However, the is need for a “zero tolerance” of violence against women and the sexual harassment at work, which prevents women to take equal shares across all professions. Monitoring the process is an important step, which is necessary to target safety measures in a better way. Further details of the statistics are needed as well to address intersectionality as well. Young women tend to suffer more than older ones. Maybe the latter ones have learned to be more careful to avoid or evade critical situations. It is, however, men who have to reconsider their behaviour towards women at every age, at work as well as at home. 
On Keys
Keys may open multiple doors. Even a single key can open many locks, if constructed in the appropriate way. The obverse of key is also key, at least in the function of keys to lock doors. Hence the trick of the key is its dialectic function (open/close) of access. We practice the functioning of this binary thinking (1= open, 0= closed) several times a day. Even binary thinking can become very complex in case you consider a bunch of keys or organized as a ring of keys. With a plurality of locations or rooms (home, work, leisure) the uncertainty to have the fitting key to the lock in question at your disposable becomes a bit of a puzzle. Here we are, trial and error enter the stage for most of us. Don’t worry, there are digital tools to solve the problem for you, but then the whole issue of trust comes into play more forcefully. Sharing is not only caring, but also daring. Transponders replace keys and passwords have become the new “passe partout”. This leads to the brave new world of encryption as the keyfactor for security. Encryption is key. Are you already encrypting or still turning keys?
Keys are key to understanding as well. Artists in Berlin-Schöneberg combined the portraits of persons and their bundles of keys next to each other. Keys seem to reveal key personality traits of a person. Life course researchers may investigate the “first ownership” of a key to a room, an apartment or the family home as a factor of independence, even freedom to move. Handing over the keys of a car or your home to a significant other may mark looming restrictions due to health issues.
Anyway, what is your favourite key in music? More a fan of serial music or 12-tone music? 
On Resilience
There are at least 2 definitions of resilience: (1) a material definition points at the “ability to return to an original form or position after being compressed, extended or curved, and (2) a immaterial or psychological definition. The latter one describes the ability to recover, be happy or successful anew having overcome a bad or challenging experience. The American psychological literature defines resilience in the shortest form as “positive adaptation despite adversity”. The psychological construct is linked to a positive life span perspective of personal development. Other areas of application range from “resilient investments”, “resilient industries” to single resilient societies or intergovernmental organizations like the European Union or NATO.
The challenges to resilience increase with complexity of societies and social as well as technical systems. As supply chains have become longer in time and travelling longer distances as well, the improvement of resilience has become a steep challenge for globalization. Reorganizing supply chains with “own sourcing” as in countries which are cut-off from international trade will have huge consequences on sending and receiving countries.
Last, but not least, countries like Ukraine demonstrate the fact and virtue of resilience after more than 1000 days of the massive Russian invasion of its country, which threatened its survival. Resilience works best in networks of organizations and countries. Solidarity is a fundamental building block of resilience as well. Donations and funds support activities that foster resilience. 
On Organics
Organics are the new hype. Organics are everywhere. It is true in organic chemistry, biochemistry or pharmaceutical biochemistry we start from organic compounds as the basis for various forms of classification systems, structures and reaction chains. A search for organics brings you to Organic Farming and to lots of other applications of organic production as well as organic design.
The extended definitions highlight the foundation in biology and chemistry to then include any processes which integrate cyclical reproduction or resources and conservation of biodiversity. Based on the plurality of forms and connectivity of organic compounds this leads to a vast and diversified basis of carbon- and hydrogen-based life on earth. The ensuing complexity (variety of species) has been the basis for mankind to come into being. It is likely to determine also our survival in the long run. Organics is based on open as well as closed forms and therefore has an encompassing nature. Depending on time and space constellations (temporality) evolution has taken one or the other path. We are certainly not at the end of this evolution, although we through the loss of biodiversity we narrow down new potentials in an unprecedented way. Rethinking life on earth from a cell-based perspective of plastics and chloroplasts is a challenge, but it will lead us on towards the “organic turn” in the 21st century. 
On Woke-ability
The past particle of “to awake” is “woke“. As early as the 1960s the term woke has appeared in a New York Times article to reflect the idea that in the African-American History movement you woke up to a new movement, leaving behind discriminatory practice and rhetoric. The definition of woke in dictionaries refers to an awareness of social facts and injustices. Additionally, the use of woke has implied a need to act upon injustices due to social and/or ethnic origin. Elements of the woke movement were the use of more general non-discriminatory terms like people of color (POC) in official documents and revisions of textbooks for pupils. Subsequently, the application of the term woke spread to other social concerns like the discrimination of LGTBQ+ people in many societies.
The underlying concern was and still is (1) to recognize the discrimination and disadvantages faced by many groups in society and (2) a call for changing the way we talk about it and (3) a shift of policies to counter social injustices. Societies differ in the capacity of “woke-ability”, i.e. the capability to address social inequalities of various types including intersectionality. Societies have never simply been only homogenous. Heterogeneity, plurality and complexity are much better suited to represent societies, regions or countries. It is our willingness to deal with these complexities in an open way which includes the “woke-ability” of social phenomena. Acknowdge a social problem and act upon it. Change the way we talk about a problem and the discoursive practice in general are important steps to address old and new social problems. For example, over the last 50years the discourse with respect to handicapped persons has evolved and the Paris 2024 Paralympics have made this clear to the public on a global scale.
(Image: Installation of Daniel Boyd in the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2023)
On Temporality
Time is passing, or is it? We tend to confound time, with passing of time or an occurrence at a specific point in time. Time has a static use, which refers to a date of birth or date of death. Time refers to durations like the lifetime or time in office of a person or a political leader. In most such cases time is considered as a continuous and linear process. The concept of temporality questions these common perspectives on time to allow additional time perspectives in the description and understanding of time.
Temporality is linked to a more flexible view on the periodization of history. The time before and after the 12 years of Nazi-terror will then be part of the extended periodization of the Nazi-Regime in Germany and Europe. Similarly, temporality widens the perspective on social phenomena by linking historical events to the time before and maybe even to what follows, seen as a consequence of the temporal and spacial co-evolution.
A deviation from the static view of time and a rigid periodization of fascism allows to study the Russian male dominated political authoritarianism as a new wave of fascism in Europe, which negates the right of existence of the state of Ukraine in its neighborhood.
Temporality expresses the need to go beyond a simplel periodization to include a spacial dimension in the defintion of time, much like modern physics does in relativity theory. Temporality, therefore, opens up a “thought space” beyond just the timing of events, which may challenge many of our day-to-day experiences. Cultures with a different understanding of time or the pace of time become a “sound board” for our way of considering and being captured in a time space. Probably many artists are forerunners in playing with time and the way time is “treating” them. Most of them face(d) hardship during their lifetime, but have an extended “after life” in terms of reputation. Some contribute to the perodization in the arts and of their time. They all shape(d) temporality.
(Image: extract from Hans Bol, 1593 Ring Jousing in front of a pond inan imaginary city, MRBAB, Brussels)
