Quietly, and I am sure gratefully for some detractors to escape critical eyes and public debate, Palestine's ascension to the United Nations' UNESCO body (Gremium) has slipped away post-hast from the headlines and perhaps the public's attention.
Wednesday 2 November 2011
begrudge report
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, foreign policy, revolution
Tuesday 1 November 2011
demos
One of the great things about memes going viral, modular and remixed and remixed, is that that creativity is channeled into a sort of choose one’s own adventure type story. One template is pretty much accepting of any theme or expression. The same is true for democracy, a very Greek invention. Introducing this pomegranate (Granatapfel) of accepting the money and the terms of the euro-bailout fund as a ballot measure, a referendum for the voters of Greece, was an unexpected but necessary move. It is not quite accurate to compare the plight of Greece with that of Argentina’s decision to default on its loans years hence, since although both could survive this choice, Argentina was not part of a currency union, and the vox populi may well out-shout any usury and further anything more to do with membership in the European Union. The Greek people and future generations are going to be the ones who have to deal with the consequences (equally unenviable, it seems) of default or grand-receivership.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ท, ๐, ๐, economic policy, networking and blogging
best in show or PR's PR award
The small oberbayerisch town of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm beat out some 376 communities worldwide in its size category (populations of 20,000 to 75,000) to win the International Award for Livable Communities (LivCom) for 2011, presented in Seoul. Among the criteria rated were neighbourliness, city-planning, future-orientation, and environmental stewardship, and Pfaffenhofen's score impressed the jury. While I do not question the rigour and distinction of this honour, these sort of trade-show mavens seem to wander towards recursiveness and idiosyncrasy.
While waiting on queue to go up in the Berlin Fernseherturm earlier this year, the panorama along the interior walls not only illustrated and compared the tallest buildings and towers in the world, but also mentioned that the television tower was a member of the International Association of Tall Structures. I wonder if some of these contest also tend in that direction. I want to visit Pfaffenhofen and see for myself what a world-class livable city is like, and I am sure it does have excellent civil-planning that might be a good model for others, as I imagine that the city's residents can attest to as well, but without context and tradition (and Pfaffenhofen surely has history but those details do not seem to be competing against its latest bourgeoisie plaudit), I do wonder how much of winning was a strong marketing and public-relations campaign that isn't just in it for the recognition. After all, the life of communities is generally more than can be reflected in a single honour, though that is no small achievement.
mister sandman or traumhalf
A few weeks ago, Boing Boing, had a small item about the United States Army Medical Command's ambitions to treat soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) by applying dream-therapy techniques and implanting the seeds of ideas, as portrayed in the film Inception. Though there will be no dream secret-agents and ninjas, the research and development firm taking this project on might make for some interesting studies in lucid-dreaming and twilight-sleep, using specific virtual stimuli to counteract the recurring and debilitating nightmares associated with shell-shock and the horrors of the battle field. The decision to prosecute war should never be taken lightly and we ought not to gloss over these hard choices by editing out the bad and uncomfortable aspects of it, like surrendering the fight to autonomous death drones, but the potential, if administered well and the unexpected is entertained, for one to work through his dreams does seem a bit more productive and genuine than invasive, exculpating drug therapies.