tredjelandsborger

Though these allowances for cross-border commuters post the UK’s seemingly imminent departure from the European Union seem rather niche, we’re pretty confident that the ex-patriate community who live and work on opposite sides of the Øresund/Öresund strait that separates Denmark from Sweden is not quite the unique situation that it seems at first glance and illustrates how fraught and precarious that Brexit has been for UK citizens living on the continent. Swedish residents working Copenhagen will be allowed to keep their jobs and move from country to country without impediment and even change Danish jobs but no guarantees are extended for the right to seek employment elsewhere or in Sweden.

+44

Installed at the beginning of the month and in place for twenty-eight more days until the UK’s scheduled departure from the European Union, the always brilliant Nag on the Lake informs that artist Joe Sweeney has placed a telephone booth on Dungeness beach on the south east coast of England that invites public comment and for a forum (telephones can be intimate and powerful props and prompts indeed) for people to share their feelings on Brexit. Designed to be weathered by the elements over the following span of just weeks, the project’s title (one can see it live and leave a message here too) refers to the international dialling code for the UK and the Crown Dependencies.

drawn together

Hamburg-native and illustrator responsible for bringing to life English author and playwright Julia Donaldson’s Gruffalo, Axel Scheffler, has called London home for nearly four decades but since the Brexit referendum and the UK’s departure imminent, these days he’s anguishing over the outcome. In response, he invited some of his colleagues to illustrate their visions of Europe united and divided.

7x7

yo gabba gabba: Canadian researchers explore drug therapies that appear to rapidly reverse age-related cognitive deterioration in mice—via Slashdot

some assembly required: trace the evolution of furnishing trends through the covers of IKEA catalogues (previously) from 1951 onwards—via Nag on the Lake  

if i can make it here, i’ll make it anywhere: online retail giant abruptly cancels plans to build a second headquarters in New York City

hollywoodland: mapping the remaining iconic neon signs and other illuminated installations of California’s Electric Products Corporation

the doctor is in: a “public philosopher” takes deep and probing questions from strangers

deal or no deal: an overview of how UK expatriates living in the EU will be impacted post-Brexit

please won’t you be my neighbour: an appreciation of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood’s friendly Officer Clemmons 

5x5

village détruit: exploring nine ghost towns in northern France—via the inestimable Nag on the Lake 
   

¤: : a short animation celebrating the obsolete coins of the member states now using the euro

no longer part of the squad: the art of unfriending prior to social media—via Things magazine

onomatopoesie: a conservancy for endangered sounds—via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals

holidays are coming: a primer on Advent season—a movable, malleable fest

principal organ

Germany’s vice-chancellor suggested to France that the country should turn its permanent seat on the United Nations’ Security Council into one for the European Union as a whole.
The five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US—all World War II allies, were appointed to prevent the outbreak of future conflicts and share power with ten other member states that serve on a rotating basis, but the five have the crucial power to veto and block resolutions of the supranational governing body. What do you think about that? It is unclear whether Paris would be willing to abdicate in favour of the EU, and critics of the UN hierarchy call this unconditional power undemocratic and leads to gridlock and inaction. The United States, infamously not a part of the League of Nations (the UN’s predecessor) and the conspicuous absence was considered a big factor in the failings of the organisation, refused to join the UN in 1945 unless it was guaranteed a veto.

bilancia dei pagamenti

Rome and its freshly-minted conservative and anti-establishment government’s on-going strife with the EU over its fiscal policy, the country and the supranational body at loggerheads over a magnanimous and expansive budget versus a perceived push for unpopular austerity, is resulting in credit rating agencies—arguably their own special variety of bully—downgrading the outlook on Italy’s ability to fund the country or service its debts.
Banksy’s self-destructing piece of art seems to be a very apt meme to reference for this awkward standoff and stalemate, though departing from civic norms is not the same as impugning the sacred cows of the auction house. Neither party seems willing to budge but Brussels has signalled that it does not want to court an open, public battle between a populist coalition and the sedate commitments of sustainability and stability. At the same time, negotiations continue and Italy believes a resolution will be reached without any rash actions and stop short of outright revolt or renewed threats to quit the union.

living daylights

The European Commission is soliciting feedback on the option to end the requirement for harmonisation across the EU for daylight savings time, citing the potential for negative health consequences caused by the bi-annual change and prompted by Nordic members who’ve dutifully sprung forward and fell back despite the fact that no hour of sunshine at these higher climes is won or lost.
Railway and telegraph networks necessitated synchronisation and standardisation in the late eighteenth century and the concept of adjusting the clocks with the seasons was first proposed by an insect collector and astronomer (and frequent train passenger) named Charles Hudson in 1895 and was not implemented until the spring of 1916 with the German Sommerzeit as a way to conserve coal during the war. The current EU compact dates to 1980, in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s, and if repealed, the change wouldn’t be automatically nullified, just the participation of each member state. What do you think? Modern time-keeping devices can assuredly handle the changes and dispensing with the ritual will be certainly welcomed by many but time and tide admit politics and identity as well.

master negotiator

twelve golden mullets, their points not touching

Though I’d venture that the symbol did not enter into common-parlance nor was readily identifiable until the early 2000s, on this day in 1985 the European Communities (now the Council of Europe) and the European Union adopted its official flag to represent the supranational organisation.
Not displacing the national flags but flown along side them, it is considered a “community logo” rather than an emblem accorded the honours and protection reserved for other symbols of state. The stars do not represent any particular member and rather a sense of unity and equal-standing. Though those who originally designed the flag and calculated its proportions deny the suggestion—at least on a conscious level, there is a golden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the cathedral of Strasbourg depicted with a golden halo or crown of stars who is displayed in an alcove of a deep blue stained-glass window.

article 13

straw-man

Though superficially it might seem to some like a petty, nannying move though in reality every incidental, insignificant bit counts for something that hangs around well past its usefulness, the European Union has done something really bold and urgent in banning plastic products like drinking straws and disposal plastic utensils and cups for personal use.
Planned legislation also includes provisions to take plastic products out of circulation with scheduled milestones to phase items out and fining members per kilogram that goes unrecycled. Proponents are hoping to fend off minor annoyances and inconvenience (for that’s all it is, despite what the industry lobbyists would have one believe—plastic shopping bags have been all but banned for years and no one’s worse off for it) but a rigour public education campaign to be more mindful of our buying habits, alternatives and consequences of what we’re tossing away.

eu 2016/679

Just days after going into effect, two internet giants, the Daily Dot reports, are facing suits in the billions for failure to comply with the GDPR, for as characterised by the Austrian privacy and consumer-rights advocate who brought the complaint despite eighteen months to prepare themselves for the new standards (imagine had they not just flaunted the coming change or indeed how different the world might be today had the regulation gone into force upon passage) still are offering users only an all-or-nothing means of opting out, which is no choice at all and contravenes the spirit of the regulation.
The companies responded predictably with continued commitments to the GDPR’s provisions and how privacy-protections are built into every stage of the user-experience. While many websites seem to have put together some wearying slap-dash boilerplate message in a last-minute, reactionary fashion—even the biggest ones with an established presence in Europe, many smaller services that harvest visitors’ data directly or indirectly—especially second-tier news-outlets have simply gone dark for Europeans until such time as they can be reasonably assured (and thus safe from legal consequences) that their accessibility isn’t afoul of the law.

walled garden

Prior to learning about this breaking development thanks to Super Punch, I was mulling the notion of reinstating part of PfRC’s and my personal media presence once the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect, but the company’s surprise decision to repatriate its Ireland-based international operations means that the new law will have magnitudes fewer beneficiaries.
The four hundred million or so EU-area residents that are creators and consumers of digital content will be covered, and had the headquarters remained in Ireland and under EU jurisdiction so would the rest of the global population of over a billion and a half users whose activities are banked there, with the exception of North American records which are stored in California. With only Europe cordoned-off, all other data from accounts around the world will migrate to servers in the US and the company will have far greater latitude in what it does with people’s history and demographics. What do you think? Though we are glad to be afforded at least a measure of protection and control (maybe, hopefully a meaningful one), it seems like a real jerk move on the company’s part to deprive the rest of the world by centralising its clearinghouses and now I don’t think in good conscience reanimate my account. What we let this company get away with informs how all other stewards of privacy and truth behave going forward.

interoperability

Despite a two-year transition period, we are uncertain what compliance will look like—either a universally more transparent internet that enshrines privacy or a more compartmentalised environment where the experience in the EU is different than outside of the EU, however this primer from the Verge is a helpful one for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that becomes enforceable on 25 May 2018 after its passage in April of 2016.
In addition to simplifying the regulatory landscape for international business transactions, the directive also aims to return control of telemetry and personal data to the natural persons from whence it came. Aside from expanded requirements that clearing-houses be faithful and accountable stewards of the data they’ve banked and meaningful terms of consent and assent, there’s an interesting portability requirement. Not only will European Union residents be able to request their on-line dossiers in full, one’s autobiography must also be easily and readily transferable between platforms, if one so chooses to migrate one’s curated histories from one social media host to another, which also works to undermine walled-gardens and fights against the hegemony of the few or one by allowing more players access to the sector.

putting your money where your mouth is

Ingeniously, designer Tomo Kihara is offering these Street Debater kits that allow a person between engagements to radically change the reaction of passers-by to pan-handling.
Once soliciting donations becomes a challenge and a conversation starter, people on the streets might become more aware of social inequities and more willing to discuss the big issues that drive them—and perhaps even tip the scales of fortune for those who might need a little extra luck and exposure at the moment. What do you think? It’s fair to question whether such opinion-polling might not invite even more polarisation and divisiveness but we think it’s insightful that voices other than social media influencers and shrillest among us deserve to be heard and benefit from honest debate.

franking privilege

A leading pro-BREXIT campaigner chided Royal Mail for issuing a set of commemorative stamps celebrating the career of Pink Floyd, as Kottke informs, whilst refusing to do the same to mark the occasion of the UK’s departure from the European Union. The internet quickly obliged to fulfil that glaring philatelic niche.

plenary session or lingua franca

We enjoyed considering the strange but sensical dialect called European Union English, via Miss Cellania, that’s a sort of jargon by committee that arises in international institutions where groups of non-native speakers (and it naturally wouldn’t be only in the working-language of English, and one might wonder if post-Brexit it will still have the same official standing, but similarly coding errors would be propagated through French and German and others as well) develop a highly formalised cant and bend words to their experience.
Using to dispose of to mean to avail oneself for a chance or opportunity or being vexed by the false friends of actual (Aktuell meaning current rather than existing) and eventual (Eventuell being a possibility rather than an eventuality, a foregone conclusion). That last linguistic Flascher Freund, Fauxami leads us into even more interesting territory with examples that don’t mean what one could be forgiven for thinking they do. Whereas in German or Spanish punctuality might be anything related to a particular moment or juncture, punctuality in English only refers to the quality of being at the agreed upon place at the agreed upon time and has that former sense of punctiliousness and periodicity in EU documents—whose turn of phrase appears in translations down the line. Perhaps—if stereotypes are to be believed, Germans are a bit nonplussed at the fact that tardiness is such an epidemic problem that there needs to be a special word to describe the virtue vis-à-vis the vice. We could certainly imagine other scenarios where the existence of an opposite, essential trait would be indeed baffling. Similarly (though no rules of grammar or precedence to suggest otherwise), standard-issue English uses the term opportunity as a synonym for chance rather than conferring the quality of being opportune or timely to a given event. Be sure to review the whole list of odd usage compiled by the supranational body itself at Mental Floss. Has your profession bumped up against the limits of translation only to transcend them? Although these constructed definitions and how they might come across to native speakers as an entertaining and engrossing thing to see unfold, I wonder if those snatches of Latin frozen in legalese struck those outside of the profession as vulgar and amateurish rather than venerable.

stimmzettel

It’s federal elections in Germany and every suffragan is given two votes—one to choose their local representative to send to Berlin for the Bundestag (the legislative and constitutional body) and the other to select a political party affiliation that determines the mandate each political group carries. Though voting may translate to a cult-of-personality, Germans know that they are not electing a chancellor in any direct sense, just operating under the assumption that a party will want to retain their present leadership and form a government with the assent and cooperation with those garnered a share of seats in Federal Diet. Though it’s not beyond reproach to argue that forming the same coalition among senior and junior partners is not ideal for democratic institutions but it is certainly preferable to chaos and antithetical compromise, and while there are two major groups, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) that usually have to work towards solutions that both can live with, the landscape is wholly other the binary natures of many other national constituencies. There’s the pro-environmentalist Greens plus the Ecological Democrats and the Animal Rights Party, two sorts of independent-voter movements plus those seeking secession for various states, the Pirate party, the further left-leaning, the Marxists and the Communists as a robust counter-balance to the hard right elements Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland—die NDP which considers itself a successor to the NSDP.
I was also happy to see that among the contenders on the ballot was die PARTEI—an intentional mockery and miscarriage of politics, whose satirical rotation of representatives (listed candidates take turns at the EU and retire after a month) in Brussels won on the slogan “for Europe—against Europe” in 2014, just like Frontfrau Alix Schwarz advocating for both peace and war. The group’s political activities this election-cycle has been infiltrating the social media circles dedicated to AfD adherents and lampooning their message with rather destabilising consequences. Refreshingly, unlike many other joke campaigns, die PARTEI actually had a plan for what it would do if elected to high office.