Franka Welz
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frawel.bsky.social
Franka Welz
@frawel.bsky.social
Journalist, currently based in Madrid. Wannabe surfer. Fault in the system. Holding on to that sweet Brexit grudge since 2016 and counting.
Posting in 🇩🇪 & 🇬🇧occasionally 🇪🇸 & 🇵🇹 (it’s not bragging, if it’s true).
Reposted by Franka Welz
Every so often I get a slap to the head that reminds me how meaningless & petty our academic concerns are - we act like it’s all so important but one day we will all be dust, not even a footnote in someone’s dissertation. Take care of your art and your soul and your loved ones, that’s all.
May 22, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Love the replies to this that are saying things like “this is getting traction because the right and centrists want to attack the Greens”. No. It’s getting traction because it is, above all, funny. It’s funny that someone in their 30s would have this as their business!
This appears to be right, the full Sun piece on Polanski’s hypnotherapy is basically advertising his services in a wholly positive light. He suggests it was a hatchet job which he naively fell for but the copy doesn’t suggest that at all.
Impressed by the number of Zack Polanski-defending blokes today who have confidently told me that the hypnoboobs piece was a sting or stitch-up by The Sun, and misrepresented him. Have you read the piece? It’s not a sting. It’s a puff piece for his then business www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/798...
May 13, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Bitch, please. NOW you feel the need to take a stance? Too little too late, I’m afraid.
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“Across the world, we’ve seen democracy in retreat,” writes A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times. “This anti-press playbook is now being used here in this country — and it could not come at a more difficult time for the American press.”
Opinion | A.G. Sulzberger: A Free People Need a Free Press
www.nytimes.com
May 13, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
time.com
May 13, 2025 at 11:19 AM
This. I’m getting there too. Slowly, but steadily.
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
time.com
May 13, 2025 at 10:31 PM
I just can’t with this s toxic blend of ignorance and stupidity of it all. NOTHING works like this. And who knows wherever the place in this world for the none brain dead among us may be. I haven’t spotted it yet.
Byron Donalds implied the pain from Trump’s tariffs are necessary and compared them to working out at the gym
May 13, 2025 at 10:30 PM
As someone with an entire bouquet of roots and several places I like to call home (and not because of riches or privilege, but simply because life happened), I really don’t know what to make of this emerging world order, nor where my place in it may be. And whatever happened to sanity in politics?
May 13, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Ich kenne gerade eine Menge Menschen, die es, unabhängig von ihrer politischen Haltung, extrem umtreibt, dass es in Deutschland kaum regnet.
Aber ich schätze, das meint Klingbeil nicht.
„Wir haben vergessen, was die normalen Menschen umtreibt.“ Schlimmer als Spahn und Linnemann.
May 11, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Am Ende gehen die Afghanen morgen irgendwo anders über die Grenze. Aber die Bundesregierung hat das Signal gesendet, dass man sich nicht an EU-Recht halten muss. Jedenfalls nicht bis die Gerichte entschieden haben. In der Migrationspolitik legt Merz einen dezidiert antieuropäischen Start hin.
May 10, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Nach dem Dublin-Verfahren wäre Griechenland zuständig. Deutschland bringt aber (aus nicht genau erklärten Gründen) nach Luxemburg (?) zurück, wendet das Verfahren nicht an — obwohl man es gerade in jahrelangen Geas-Verhandlungen im Kern bestätigt, neu austariert hat.
May 10, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Wie gerade alle möglicherweise betroffenen Auslandskorris auf heißen Kohlen sitzen und auf die Verkündung warten, ist auch schön. #papst
May 8, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Wer jetzt nicht Papst-Relevantes pusht, ist doof.
May 8, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
After the brutal reality of dealing with student papers in the ChatGPT era finally hit me, here are a few tactics that I've found at least somewhat effective in getting students to do their own writing: 🧵
May 7, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Ein großes Fest!
Von uns aus kann's losgehen! Kommentierung
#Kanzlerwahl mit Kerstin Münstermann, Parlamentsbüro Rheinische Post. Um 8:30 Uhr fangen wir an. #phoenix #live
May 6, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Im Bundestag weiter viele Beratungen. Anders als von einigen berichtet, steht noch nicht fest, dass es heute keinen weiteren Wahlgang gibt. Gerade Statement Grüne. Dröge betont, werden nicht Merz wählen; aber Interesse an raschem 2. Wahlgang. Haßelmann: schlimmste wären Neuwahlen. #Merz #Bundestag
May 6, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Ehrlichkeit statt Stanzen. Die Lage ist ernst.
Ein prominenter CDU-Abgeordneter sagt im Bundestag auf die Frage, wie es weitergeht: „Wir wissen es nicht.“
May 6, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Wie geht es jetzt weiter? Fraktionen beraten. Ein zweiter Wahlgang ist laut Grundgesetz innerhalb von 14 Tagen möglich; also auch heute. www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_63.html / Tagesspiegel dazu: www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/sche...
www.gesetze-im-internet.de
May 6, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Sounds like a terrible idea:

“with Meta’s rollout of social features in its stand-alone AI app, …. quiet queries—“What’s this embarrassing rash?” or “How can I tell my wife I don’t love her anymore?”—could soon be visible to anyone scrolling through the app’s Discover tab”.
Meta's attempt to turn any interactions with its AI models into a social network is a privacy disaster waiting to happen for less tech literate users. My latest for @fastcompany.com, on what happens when the confession booth has a built-in megaphone www.fastcompany.com/91327812/met...
Meta’s AI social feed is a privacy disaster waiting to happen
A new social feed quietly shifts AI chats from private to public, putting users’ most personal moments one swipe away from going viral.
www.fastcompany.com
May 5, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
This is an astoundingly good interview. The LA Port Director explains very clearly how profoundly trade is coming to a screeching halt. This summer will be tough.
Is this bad? I'm no international shipping expert, but this sounds bad.
May 5, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Eine Vorlage für die Fähnchenumhäng~Crew? Es ist so bitter mitanzusehen, wie diejenigen, die begründet argumentieren, marginalisiert werden, offenbar einfach, weil es unbequem ist. Wãre es nicht an der Zeit, diese Partei und ihre Mitglieder als das verfassungsfeindliche zu akzeptieren, was sie sind?
Wisst ihr eigentlich, was aus einem CDUler wird, der stabiler Antifaschist ist?

Gar nichts mehr.
May 4, 2025 at 10:01 PM
It’s not about the seal on your degree certificate, it’s about where you take it. @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com took it all the way.
hadn't checked my university's spot in national rankings in years but reading about higher ed stuff made me have a look, out of curiosity - lucky and blessed to announce that Westminster remains in the bottom ten, same as it was when I was there x
May 4, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Franka Welz
Das Merz-Regierungsteam wird die AfD ebensowenig "kleinregieren" wie das Merz-Oppositionsteam sie kleinopponieren bzw. kleinkopieren konnte.
Sie kapieren es aber nicht, weil sie ihren eigenen Merkel- und Ampelfrust in die AfD-Wähler projizieren. Unterkomplexe Versteher-Analyse.
Im @ZDF eben von Dobrindt zur AfD wieder nur die naive konservative Leier, man müsse sie durch gute Politik "weg regieren".
Er könnte auch gleich sagen: "Die (linken) Altparteien sind schuld an der Rechtsradikalisierung". So stärkt man AfD-Narrative.
May 4, 2025 at 7:00 PM
“Inhaltlich stellen” in ernsthaft geht oftmals schon deshalb nicht, weil freie Mitarbeiter*innen für Vorbereitung in der Regel gar nicht oder nicht adäquat bezahlt werden. Dies nur zur Kenntnis aller, die glauben, der ÖRR würde überwiegend von fürstlich entlohnten Festangestellten bestritten. Falsch
May 4, 2025 at 6:28 PM