swiss cheese

Quietly—and hopefully not prematurely, last month Switzerland disarmed around three thousand defensive features hidden in and around transportation infrastructure—bridges, tunnels and roadways, that had been primed for decades to self-destruct in case of invasion and literally close all the borders of this landlocked Alpine nation, whose population would flee to shelter in the mountains, which are apparently hollowed out with secret bunkers like Swiss cheese.

/self-/determination

Though this article may not be complete and totally up-to-date, the Wikipedia entry, yet loving tended for its apparent faults, on separatist and succession movements in Europe provides a pretty powerful illustration—with a map of the tensions and disputes—of how we regard outsiders and insiders even on the smallest regional levels.

Of course most splotches of colour are not typically violent and many just want greater recognition, but surveying the land and finding large areas that don’t contain some sort of break-away politics makes one wonder if the people there are all completely agreeable, just naïve or too cowed to complain. Looking at this situation presented on this map, I am not sure what to think about it. While I am sure that motivations are genuine and not frivolous and people have the right to proportional representation—historic borders being far from infallible too, I suppose that this sort of fractocracy and devolution does fiddle a bit with not only the spirit of integration but also of equal-rights and minority-protection—and we’re all happily minorities in one way or another, and rather than making an honest-effort to try to get along with one’s neighbours (oppressors, by some estimates) simply compartmentise them with a new sovereignty.

harmonic trap

Researchers in Switzerland and Belgium are developing a novel new approach in the search for extraterrestrial life in a very sensitive motion detector, which could identify the sympathetic vibrations that the chemical powerhouses of life produce, whether microscopic or closer to our scale. Complementing current methods of investigation with another sense could certainly boost chances of discover and I think strips away an element of bias that has maybe tainted prior efforts.

heaven can wait

A group of seniors, nostalgic and saddened over the decline of their village of New Port on the Isle of Wight, the once great piers now neglected and decaying decided to do what they could to revitalise their community.

In 2007, they started broadcasting from a local radio studio their own hit-parades, the record library being comprised from their own collections, with the call-sign Angel Radio: Music and Memories. The timeless selection from the 1920s to the 1960s was a resounding success—for young and old alike, and hearing these classic songs perked up quite a few shut-ins, who were feeling marginalised and not much use to anyone, and resulted some becoming engaged again and more than one listener even got their own regular shows, disc-jockeying. Angel Radio is now on the internet—still run by the same founding group, whose biggest intimidation to overcome was using the computer, but have since excelled.