cifrão or surreal times

In response and in anticipation to a marked upswing in the trend, a group in Brazil has minted a form of alternative protest currency, called the Surreal—opposed to the real (reais), the fiat tender of the country, Der Spiegel reports (auf Deutsch).

Residents of Rio de Janeiro and the vicinity, having witnessed how big events have become a liability for host cities in recent years with kettling security and robber-baronage that hardly benefits the local economy, leaves environmental, and foremost precipitates a price-gouging that the group finds unacceptable, are expressing their displeasure with the watermark of Salvador Dali over their home-town venue, entertaining the Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft (the FIFA—Fédération Internationale de Football, otherwise soccer—World Cup) this summer and the Olympiad in 2016. Given the country's affection for sport, to stage such a rally, not against the well-deserved honour but the back-handedness of it, I believe says a lot.

the commons

Revolutions have shifted from seasons and colours it seems towards something more in situ and the world is receiving a lesson, no less, in foreign terms for square or plaza where the protests are taking place and public politics are fomenting.
In recent memory, before the press was allowed to name and tidily adjudge such things, there was Tiananmen Square (天安門廣場, named for the Gate of Heavenly Peace which separates the area from the Forbidden City) in Beijing in 1989. Not as if everything was quiet, peaceable or simmering in the meantime, there was Tarhir Square in Cairo (Mīdān at-Taḥrīr, Liberation Place) in 2011. In 2013 and on-going is Taksim (meaning division or distribution from an Ottoman era reservoir originally on this site where the plumbing of the city was managed) Meydanı in Istanbul whose Gezi Park has become a symbol for government oppression and autocracy. Presently, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Майдан Незалежності, Independence) in Kiev has seen its square component of its name become shorthand for public uprising itself—the Euromaidan (Євромайдан) demonstrations seeking to realign Ukraine with Western Europe. Of course, there were countless rallies, marches, movements and occupations before they could be widely reported to the outside and degrees in coordination and spontaneity, and myriad in between. Overthrows and positive reform do not end with these pivotal moments, and possibly a public more educated and connected can appreciate the difficulty in managing the aftermath and transition.

synchronicity

Via the peripatetic Kottke, purveyor of fine hypertext products, cites some stunning pairings of historic events that took place on roughly the same date but to grapple with this coincidence presents some real cognitive dissonance. The growing indices solicited on Reddit point out, for instance:

1888: Nintendo was founded as a playing-card company, Jack the Ripper was active in London, the cornerstone was laid for the Washington Monument and van Gogh painted Starry Night

1971: Astronauts drove a rover on the Moon and Switzerland attained universal suffrage

1977: The last execution in France via guillotine and the premiere of the Star Wars franchise

There are plenty of other jarring, curious moments of history overlapping—like the Monguls fought on two fronts simultaneous: the Crusaders in the Middle East and the Samurai clans in the Far East, woolly mammoths still existed during the time that the Ancient Egyptians were building the earliest pyramids, or the sandwich and the sushi-roll were invented approximately the same time separately by two noble men, one English and the other Japanese, both with a love for gaming and could not be bothered to devote two hands to their food. What other historical worm-holes can you think of? You'll earn a Time Tunnel badge if you can come up with a good one.

personae, pandora

Conceived as sort of an electronic annual, a year book ten years ago for an elite university in a dorm room, the reigning social network has matured and seems to have come of age, established and hard-wired.

Of course, it's only a platform that could be easily unseated, as were its predecessors and it is the behavior of its users—like the adage a leader is not leader without the support of his or her first follower, that craft how we communicate. It is not, I think, the other way around—beneath the surface lexical and semantic shifts, such changes in the way we communicate are expressions, important ones—nonetheless, of statements that would have been voiced already in one fashion or another.

I cannot say whether the lure of the instantaneous and easy and convenient is taking away from native creativity (rather than enhancing it) or more artistic, meaningful or fulfilling pursuit—but if that is the case, I think people are still quick (mostly, at least as quick as they would be otherwise) to realise that that chance is not easily retaken, but there is more than just a change in our vocabularies or ways of coddling our own sense of indolence or procrastination in the simple fact that the Internet does not forget and reminders are lightly stirred. I believe, if used correctly, that could be a supplement rather than a liability too, but considering the current climate, telecommunication providers being prosecuted for complicity and governments being held liable for their abidance, it seems that we are not very good at self-censorship and temperance.

reliquary

Just weeks before the planned canonization of the former pope, a thief has broken into a small church in an alpine village where John Paul II liked to take his skiing vacations (this pope was a very outdoorsy type and admonished his traveling companions to refer to him as Wujek—or uncle—as it was forbidden for a priest to fraternize with junior members of the Church for fear of inculcation and perpetuation of radical ideas and this relationship if not the cover-name itself stuck), which was endowed with a relic with a blood-stained patch of the vestment he was wearing during the failed assassination attempt by a gunman allegedly affiliated with the ultra-nationalist Turkish group the Grey Wolves in 1981. The burglar, the church itself closed for sometime due to bad weather, and pilfered this relic and authorities have launched a massive effort for its recovery. I wonder what would possess someone to take a treasure like this that is best shared. I'd like to hope that someone really needed a miracle and hope that it's answered, even if by ransom.

zwei plus vier

It's a little bit strange that Germany, modern and advanced with the meta-diplomacy of lobbyists and care-taking, does little to recognize violations of sovereignty on its own soil, real or suspected.

Perhaps it is out of fear of admitting collusion—or ignorance for the past. I learnt that it is far more bureau- cratically difficult to carry out any business as an ombudsman for a foreign government, diplomatic or military, on the soil of the former East German Democratic Republic, as defined by the pre-1990 borders than any largess committed in the West. The reason has to do with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (das Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in bezug auf Deutschland) which codified and accorded the reunification between the East and West and the occupying plus the four occupying powers, France, Great Britain, America and the Soviet Union. The winning powers agreed to relinquish all claims to the occupied lands, except reserving the right-of-return, withdrawing their forces and placing limitations on the militarization of united Germany.

Unlike in the West (where NATO allies seem content to allow the Americans to keep watch), military operations in the lands of East Germany are strictly limited to German activities, without special and rare credentialing. The treaty's drafters argue that there was also the sub-text that the influence of NATO would advance no further east, nor the Warsaw Pact further west, as well—though that condition is placed in a dubious position with the expansion of the alliance to many former Soviet bloc nations (after the union's dissolution, having over-extended its resources in Afghanistan as part of the reason) and hosting multinational training exercises on the Baltic and the build-up of Leipzig airport to handle air-force traffic.

pro bono publico

The Washington Post has a sweet article on the evolving efforts of the Holy See to expand its charitable works. Confident of Pope John Paul II in his later years, Francis I appointed Archbishop Konrad Krajewski as his chief almoner, responsible for acting as the pope's giving-ombudsman, both raising and distributing contributions, including with far nobler indulgences.

Formerly the position had become a relatively sinecure office awarded to retiring bishops, but the Pope has given the archbishop his blessing to take license which should not seem so extraordinary but is inspired nonetheless. Krajewski is attended by an off-duty cadre of Swiss Guards and go out into the streets of Rome on a nightly basis to help the homeless and offer what relief from plight that they can. It's pretty powerful what's being done by this papacy to colour the invisible with the hues that they deserve, and nothing pale or superficial, but the crux of his duties probably lies in Krajewski's observation that rather than a moral band-aid for himself to feel better and sleep better at night, he hopes to provide first-aid and that charity has to cost something so it can change the giver for the better. A small donation may not be without meaning and effect, but charged as the chief almoner of the Vatican, a simple tithing does not do to achieve a greater balance of equality.

key-f.o.b. or check-point, checkmate

The latest reports (EN/DE) that transmogrify espionage into all-out basing forward the prosecution of shadowy wars and unconventional diplomacy seemed at first only nuance to activities already being established as taking place on German territory. The outrage and response—considering that usually silence prevails and if an answer is deigned, it is a carefully measured and delayed one, which was rather instant and uncensored, much like the unfiltered distrust aired by the German public over the whole developing situation or more through official channels, the recent, unmediated reaction to US accusations that German export policy was destabilsing the euro zone, however, suggests that the criticism may have been a little to close to home. Though maybe with no more or no less officious cooperation or ignorance—innocence on the part of the Germany than when it came to snooping, prosecuting unsanctioned campaigns under the cover of a host nation, off-shoring aut dedere aut judicare.
Investigative journalism with contributions from more than twenty reporters that American legionnaires are not only using its diplomatic missions as listening posts, siphoning internet traffic off of the major hub in Frankfurt and keeping handy insider read-aheads on European political and trade affairs, but are also using Germany as a launch-pad for its dirty and secretive drone-wars in Africa, helping to craft a post-revolutionary region more sympathetic to American interests and with methods and friendships not fit for open debate or public knowledge, even targeting newly arrived refugees for debriefing and plotting coordinates for the next attack.

vulgate or under lock and key

There are reports circulating that American intelligence services monitored and profiled the Pope during the highly secretive and sequestered Conclave, in order to assess the candidate's views on human rights and international relations and postures on US financial interests and overall direction of leadership.

Others among the suffragans and fore-runners were apparently targets of interest as well. It is already enough that there's spying on the mangy masses and secular leaders, friend and foe whether goals are mutual, compatible or at odds, but elevated to this level invites the audacity to imagine, whether or not implied, that observation smugly includes influence on the outcome. Other contests seem fixed and faked and only an elaborate exercise to appease the public, only undermined by such intense and covert scrutiny, but the perpetration at this height is too bold with its attributed paternalism. What do you think? Is this finally one step too far?

kettling or policeman's ball

The Russian Times is covering an international law enforcement convention in Philadelphia, where one of the distrurbing trends emerging is increase partnership between social-media utilities and police departments with the express and open-ended goal of hindering the right to assembly through the ability to censor content and upstarts deemed to be of a criminal or at least of a (potentially) peace-disrupting nature. While such collaborative efforts could reduce the ability for organised criminal syndicates to use the internet as a platform, like cyber highwaymen whose threat is greatly conflated and peddlers of hate that use these forums, this sort of alliance, already taking place in fits and starts, would do more to quell protests and promote the status quo, ignorance and misinformation. Of course, it does not stop with stopping rallies but I suppose such selectivity would necessarily extend to any unflattering portrayal or revelation regarding the giants of industry, in terms of health, safety and equity. Patently, it would become more and more difficult for organisers to mobilise support for movements and to distribute information that has not received the stamp-of-approval from the competent-authorities.

grundeinkommen oder tres BIEN

Swiss voters may get the chance to decide on a referendum later next month to extend a basic, living wage to all its adults, an allowance for all, regardless whether working or not. Supporters of the movement, called Generation Basic Income (part of the francophone campaign known Basic Income European Network, BIEN) has dumped and swept around some fifteen tonnes of five centime coins in square in front of the parliamentary building in Bern, eight million—one for every citizen of Switzerland, to call attention to their efforts.
The group does not want to make it an option, an incentive not to work (in fact limited trials in developing nations showed that the only demographic to work less was new parents, who could devote more time to childcare and teenagers who were able to focus more on education, and there was a significant increase in creative entrepreneurship) or supplant, replace welfare and other social safety-nets (though some advocates say the measures would if passed, allow for a smaller government as well), but rather to introduce some level of income equality that guarantees individuals the right to get-by—especially at times when household microeconomics are prone to threats from larger, more global events, and help stop the cycle of poverty that's usually passed down from generation to generation.

kevin bacon number or seven-league boots

Though it is a challenge to find a non-moribund version that complements the original science project—and it's sad to think how precariously curated some brilliant things were handled just a few scant years ago, aping at this strange sort of premature immortality only to be displaced and neglected, looking back from an age just a few years later with the threat that most mundane and uninteresting things will ever be forgot—a clever student basically downloaded the growing database of Wikipedia and developed a route to allow users to enter queries on two desperate and random topics through his server and find the distance (the Kevin Bacon number, the connections, steps it takes to bridge both items) between them in the Wikipedia universe. Six Degrees of Wikipedia, it was called and was introduced in 2007, although it appears there has been no one to maintain the programme. Surely still educational and serendipitous, one sees latter day incarnations as a game with a certain frame work, which I think makes the search more of a trivial pursuit. Research, triangulation and abstraction, however, cannot be replaced by any amount of brute force or compendious collection, nor a sense of anticipation or urgency that spoils the surprise.
I wonder how the project's inventor thinks about browsers and engines, without stint or bias, almost without fail direct questions that have no resale value toward their Wikipedia articles. Since the first speech broadcast to those within ear-shot, the speed of communications has been dangerously out-stripping the speed of comprehension. One writer for Der Spiegel's Eines Tages lost-and-found bureau, invites readers on a monthly adventure with a daisy-chain of nodes and relays from the universal encyclopedia to bring together two topics in seven, possibly specious but always interesting, steps. The latest installment (liediglich nur auf Deustch) by Danny Kringiel links the history and development of rail-transport in Japan with the current state of affairs and exposure with the spying apparatuses of the United States. I am sure such a thesis accepts tangents as well.

macarthur park is melting in the dark

Though those genuine articles of engagement and dependent reform may be elusive still, but it is a note-worthy development that the media churns, possibly with a certain chomping at the bit to break the sorrowful or revolutionary, with the elaborated entrenchment at Taksım Square and Gezi Park in Istanbul—and any other surprise walk-on cameo waiting in the wings, seems a bit of a trade-off.
The sustained attention is a positive outcome, but in for a penny, in for a pound, it seems a bit of a poor volley to inspire sudden changes of heart and arm-chair relativism and acutely detracting from the message.   Originating as a human barricade to protect the city's green-spaces from commercial development and growing from there, the government did not entertain dialogue or negotiation but suppressed the outcry, rather, with violence.  It's OK to admit ignorance as to the developing situation in Turkey, with the the hope that information will be unmediated and forth-coming, without prospecting and with pressured demure.

tune-on, turn-in

Last week, the local security apparatchik—well, echo-chamber, redoubled with the various turfs that are the realms of this petty kingdom, the Consulate and the hulking bureau called the Department of Homeland Security did its best to fend off the curious under its protection from the Blockupy rallies being held.
The warning, the issuance read, however, like an open-invitation listing venues and times with a high degree of specificity, even tipping almost towards sympathy for the movement—but still, stay away, move along, nothing to see here. I suppose I was one of those curious ones that the stern warning was intended for—and could rationalize that seeing the spectacle up close was probably another instance of seeking out trouble, since it was not exactly condemned and made Verboten out of hand. The Polizei and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main also in being competently prepared and indulgent of the action that managed to defuse it a bit.

The organizers wanted no violence and the protests were carried out peacefully, without sensationalism that made the public and governments confront some very uncomfortable, impolite truths about the policies of poverty, austerity programmes and corporate welfare, staunch resistance to a clearing-house tax scheme on financial transactions, the spinning of straw into gold that skims money but no wealth out of trade and speculation. The message was delivered and the case pled but whether reforms come out of these rallies is yet to be seen. A little tolerance (which is always a dangerous thing) and some reverse-psychology, I think, coupled with inattentiveness by the press and the show is over make for some deviously powerful opponents.

zeichenträger

Designed by Gerald Herbert Holtom a few months prior, the first public appearance of the Peace Sign occurred fifty-five years ago today, at a rally against the proliferation of atomic weapons in the UK. The simple sign was quickly adopted as a banner by activist groups around the world. Although some point to much old and mixed origins of the symbol, including signs of Christian persecution and intolerance, anarchy, the Petrine office, and even as a unit badge by a Panzer division during World War II that led the advance into Russia and Hungary—which surely experienced distress to see the sign paraded and celebrated. The artist may or may have not known and been influences by these past associations but the popular legend has it that the Peace Sign is a overlapping of the semaphore signals for N and D—for Nuclear Disarmament. Whatever the true history, the icon is now universally recognised as a sign of outreach, engagement and reconciliation.

axis mundi or you got to pick up every stitch

I won’t say that May Day (der Tag der Arbeit) is a subdued affair beyond the land of the Franks by any means (there are quite a lot of protest rallies and demonstrations happening—which I was curious to see but I don’t think I should go looking for trouble today), but I did not appreciate the clear demarcations of customs and traditions and the holiday rather snuck up on me, without the Maypoles (Maibäume) being set up.
It makes some sense, however, jenseits (this side) of the Limes—the limits of the Roman Empire and thus the civilised world, that conquests would have tamped out some heathen celebrations. The follow-on missions of Christianity did not attempt to totally quash but rather integrate and co-opt such behaviour. No one really knows the origin of the beams, temporary totem-poles, regaled and danced around, but some theorise that the tree represents the axis on which the world turns or the cosmological Yggdrasil that connects the nine worlds of Norse mythology. The bit about the ruckus of the night before, Walpurgis, might be a religious conceit, saying that witches gather to dance with their gods or commune with the devil—although it must have always been observed in some manner and with meaning (though now lost) as a cross-quarter day, exactly half a year on towards the harvest festival of Samhain (Halloween). Superstition holds that one will meet a witch on May Day, which old witch and probably why it is a good idea not to go looking for trouble since it knows where to find you.

sjörnustríð: ný von

This past Saturday, Iceland held parliamentary elections, which proved a great disturbance for the establishment, already sorely reduced by the popular backlash to incumbents over their wrecking of the national economy. Observers are calling the rebel scum that roundly stole the vote, minority and independent parties, euroskeptics and threaten to derail further Icelandic integration. Well, the nerve—I suppose we ought not to pay any more attention to them and their shenanigans.
Here is a picture of the mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr Kristinsson—an actor, bassist and comedian besides, casting his ballot. It’s his business of course whom he voted for, but I’ll wager as a free-agent himself and founder of the Best Party (Besti flokkurinn) whose platform promised listening more to women and old people since those groups tend to be marginalised, he’s not in lock-step with the old guard.

moog or ham-and-eggs, hammond organs

The other day, I ventured to a flea-market advertized beyond the former border dividing East and West Germany, which turned out to be more like a party held at a abandoned aircraft hangar crammed full of personal Ostalogie, random items from DDR times.
It was neat to wonder around aisles of piles, but after hearing a radio retrospective of East Germany’s part not only in electronic music, like Kraftwerk who were early-adopters, but in electronic instruments, as well, I wish I had been paying more attention. It turns out that the electronic keyboard, the organ with the basso-nova beat, had its origins (building on some earlier, native discoveries) in the factories of the VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke, by Plauen, in 1972 as the VERMONA, the ET-6. Of course, these factories made other iconic and traditional instruments, like Weltmeister accordions, juke-boxes, and pianos, but the VERMONA and later incarnations really spiked a revolution in sound and how music was made. I am sure there was such an innovative electric organ warehoused there, and although I don’t believe we have the immediate talent to contribute to the retro-legacy musically, I would like to be able to tickle the ivories that oversaw so much change.

baader-meinhof or the episode where mister s learns his apartment is haunted

There are loads of gracious old villas in my neighbourhood, all of which, I’m sure, have very colourful histories. I didn’t imagine that my nondescript and rather anonymous building ever saw much excitement, let alone infamy, mostly the temporary dwelling, as in my case, for people working in the city during the week and it seems that rooms are rented for guest-workers in the construction business—which is pretty practical for all involved.

The building’s supervisor, according to my landlords, is a bit nosy and perhaps paranoid about the tenants, and asks for a bit more background and documentation than is customary—and probably tolerable to most Germans. I guess I am another Auslander passing through here, and complied. I learned afterwards that the cause for this prying was rooted in the fact that these apartments, with the same super at the helm, hosted a cell of the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion) in the mid-80s. Ideology is always dependent on which side one asks: rebels, freedom-fighters, and merry men are also insurgents and terrorists, but it was certainly a dark chapter for Germany—especially with the latter generation who seemed more poised towards violence.

Specifically, what transpired in this building, where a couple, both members lived, involved a plot to wile an American soldier stationed in the area, whom was killed, once lured back to the apartment, for his ID card. The pass allowed other operatives access to the Rhein-Main Air Base (on the grounds of the Frankfurt Airport) with a car full of explosives to detonate. Captured and convicted years later, the woman who was the honey-trap was also implicated for her part in a failed assassination attempt on the former Bundesbank president who would later oversee the introduction of the euro and was nearly put in charge of the Vatican City bank, Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR). Every corner is reeking with it, but that’s a bit more of a story than I was ready for.

iconostasis

Over the weekend, we had a chance to see the interior of the Memorial Church of Saint Alexy of Moscow that Kaiser Wilhelm II commissioned to honour some twenty-two thousand Russian soldiers who perished fighting Napoleon’s armies during the decisive “Battle of the Nations,” that stopped the French advance. The living monument, center of the Russian orthodox community of Leipzig, was dedicated in 1913, a century after the fighting ended, and the exterior is undergoing reconstruction—along with the Volkerschlacht Denkmal, in recognition of this year’s anniversary.
The inside of the church, which is duplicated on an upper and lower storey, symbolic of Heaven and Hell, has an impressive array of icons covering the back wall (an iconostasis) and donated fixtures, including one faithful reproduction of the Hodegetria (the iconic canting of “she [the Virgin Mary] showing the way”) of the Mother of God of Smolensk, that tradition holds was painted by Saint Luke and made its way from Constantinople to Russia via a very circuitous route.
According to different sources, the revered icon was destroyed either during the Russian Revolution that followed just a few years later or during the German occupation in 1941. The relic, however, could have been hidden for safe-keeping as its own copy, like some of the other treasures originally plundered from Byzantium.