Saving Bletchley Park

I received my hardcover copy of "Saving Bletchley Park" by Dr. Sue Black with Stevyn Colgan yesterday. I correspond every now and then with Dr. Black, and hope to eventually be able to meet her.

After learning the story behind Germany's biggest team success in chess, the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, the curious tale of the British team leaving to home for a secret government project eventually let me take the opportunity to visit Bletchley Park for myself in 2012. Now, I can NOT recommend hotels in London to anyone, but there is a breathtaking chess book store in Baker Street, and the Simpson's, the Park Lane Hotel (well, if you can afford it, this hotel IS worth it, the personnel is super friendly and even goes an extra mile for you - literally, as I saw personally on my inquiry about the world championship 1986, and I was not even one of their guests!), and other sites of historical events that are worth a visit.

So once you settle with a B&B outside of London (Milton Keynes is a nice place, close to Bletchley Park and less than an hour away of London) you can get to visit Bletchley Park yourself? And why can you? Well, since the British government does not give a damn, Dr. Black dedicated her time to saving it. The full story can be read in the abovementioned book. Through her use of social media, she saved the site where not only World War II was secretly won and the fictional spy James Bond born, but where the most brillant people of Great Britain worked on a project so secret that they literally did not know what they were doing. There is an Israeli t-shirt that says "My job is so secret, I don't even know what I'm doing". The line meant as a joke was true in Bletchley Park: Nobody knew everything, and most people thought they just do some stupid office job, not knowing that they worked towards unraveling a secret of war-turning consequences, trying to break a code that until today is unbreakable, and that might not even have been deciphered at all if the Germans didn't make a tiny mistake. This is the story of 8000 people, living in a small town without even knowing why: CHOD Alexander, Philip Stuart Milner-Barry and Harry Golombek working together with Alan Turing and Ian Fleming. All of this while there is complete war in Europe, while they don't even know about the time pressure brought up by the shoah, by the genocides.

It is exciting history, it is a place of greatest importance in the history of Europe and the world, and it is social media that saved the heritage! While I have yet to read the book, I can say that the place is worth a visit from my own experience, and I am thankful to Dr. Black and everyone else for preserving it, and to Unbound for enabling the book!

Will rape ever be illegal in Germany? / Wird Vergewaltigung in Deutschland jemals verboten?

On occasion of Valentine's Day and the International Day to protest against violence against women we must ask:
Will rape ever be completely illegal in Germany? (link to petition of bff)

The petition of the bff let us hope.
We would also like to remind people that it was completely legal to rape men or the own married wife until 1997. Probably not only this led to a culture where on average every 68 minutes a woman is raped in Germany, making it 7,700 rapes a year. This number most likely does not include forced prostitution. This number also includes only the rapes that are told to the police - the real number might be even higher. And if we include the rapes that are completely legal today - such as when a victim says no but is too frightened to fight - the real number will grow again.

That is not tolerable! That is why I signed the abovelinked petition!


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Anlässlich des Valentinstages und des Internationalen Tages gegen Gewalt gegen Frauen müssen wir fragen:
Wird Vergewaltigung jemals in Deutschland komplett verboten sein? (Link zur bff-Petition)

Die Petition des bff lässt hoffen.
Wir möchten daran erinnern, dass es erlaubt war, Männer oder seine Ehefrau zu vergewaltigen, bis 1997 eine Gesetzesnovelle in Kraft trat. Vermutlich nicht nur dies führte zu einer Kultur, in der durchschnittlich alle 68 Minuten eine Frau in Deutschland vergewaltigt wird, oder insgesamt 7.700 im Jahr. Diese Zahl beinhaltet vermutlich nicht Zwangsprostitution. Diese Zahl enhält auch nur die der Polizei angezeigten Vergewaltigungen - die echte Anzahl wird wohl noch höher liegen. Und falls wir die Vergewaltigungen dazuzählen, die nach geltendem Recht völlig legal sind - etwa, wenn das Opfer nein sagt, sich aber aus Angst nicht zur Wehr setzt - wird die echte Anzahl nochmals deutlich wachsen.

Ich kann dies nicht tolerieren. Daher habe ich die obige Petition unterschrieben.

Sam Sloan for President?

Sam Sloan apparently wants to become President of the United States for the Democrats in the 2016 election.

We are not sure if we should wish him good luck with that, but at the very least it would be interesting.

Sir Jeremy Morse (10xii1928 - 4ii2016)

Reported by Michael McDowell on matplus.net