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.

chicken kyiv oder rollsplitt

While the US and the EU are at odds as to the better means of sanctioning Russia's encouraging the Crimea to assent to annexation, there seems to be precious little traction from outside pressures. Obviously this invitation was well choreographed and premeditated, and whether the aggressions are opportune, taking advantage of an uprising off-set, or merely staged and coinciding with the world's focus on the Winter Games (or a negotiation of both) is unclear.
 A balmy winter in western Europe that could have better weathered the valves being shut off for delivery of natural gas from Russia or America's announcement to scale back the army and military presence in Europe, deemed stable and no longer interbellum and relics of the long, Cold War being cannibalised for adventures further east. It's a bit of a reach but I wonder if this was not some sort of double-bluff, a head-fake, to bolster new Europe's alignment with the West, and legitimize America's missile shield in Poland and mission-creep elsewhere.

This sort of psychological battle for hearts and minds seems like a very real possibility, given Russia's counter-wooing of satellites like Moldova, with an offensive to expose the hollow promises of joining Europe, demonstrating that economic integration is other than rosy, including Russian-influenced embargoes on Moldovan wine exports. In exchange, the nations, which in turn harbour break-away republics with limited recognition like Transnistria or Georgia's South Ossetia in 2008, are portrayed as presented with false taunts and alternative life-styles. Regardless of circumstance or politicking, citizens reserve the rights to secede, devolve or resist, but this sort of partitioning is a bit scary on both sides, interest reserved—whether or not one is just spinning diplomatic wheels.

tehdit

In an apparent about-face to the regime's earlier courtship of technology and telecommunications and in response to opposition politicians that have hijacked the internet as a platform for lies and libel, at least—according to the incumbents, the government of Turkey is looking to curtail freedom of expression on-line when the integrity of the public and republic is at stake, including the whole-sale blocking of certain popular sites.
The European Union is joining a chorus of Turkish protesters in revolt, however this individual-mandate, which Turkey wants to install as a way for policing the internet and dousing out sparks before the lead to righteous conflagrations, blocking the activity of certain persons or a link before they can blossom or metastasize—though blatant censorship is little different from roving arbiters and trolls that have door-stops within governments to get their way and can be scarier yet than calling twitterpation a “menace (tehdit) to society.” These laws are ostensibly meant for protection of individual privacy and dignity, adding a bit of amnesia to the internet which never forgets—which seems on the contrary like something quite positive and reasonable, since going back to the idea of an individual-mandate, great freedom also carries with it great responsibility—especially when evangelizing, but the potential for abuse is always there, as those most eager to do the judging usually have no business doing so.

reductio ab hitlerum

Apparently at one point during his conversation with the US president, the Russian premiere invoked that the invasion of the Crimean peninsular was executed for the protection of ethnic Russians living in the area. Immediately, this elicited a petition by many Russians and Russian-speakers residing there, refusing those overtures, stating they needed no protecting and felt, on the contrary, very secure and welcome.
Though no further violence has actually yet been perpetrated with the occupation of the region, the next maneuvers are unclear, and I am sure that someone, somewhere has pointed out the obvious, said the argument that's no popular or considered logically flawed, but isn't this current reasoning parallel at least to the invocation of “protecting the ethnic Germans” in 1939 in Gdansk in Poland or in the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, Japan declaring Korea a protectorate in 1905 before formally annexing the country in 1910, or the acts of others that one cannot call to the carpet, not to mention dozens of trespasses committed in the name of US interests and for earlier empires? This invasion was premeditated and not a spontaneous response to an opportune moment of civil disarray and the defanged counter-balance is left with few tenable options, even in terms of economic sanctions—considering Europe's dependence of Russian natural resources and especially allied China's favourable assessment of Russia's actions, able to levy painful usury as the financier-in-chief of the world's accustomed lifestyle. Ukraine, despite the odds, could however offer resistance, having a respectable arsenal in comparison regardless of the spread of their antagonist, but this possibility is being decimated by Russians recruiting Ukrainian force individual by individual, luring them away with a passport and citizenship.

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.

spear-phishing

Via Boing Boing (and Wesley Crusher), there's a new low in despicable tactics in American politics. 

At least sixteen Picture Pages have been set up, presumably in contested jurisdictions, by campaigners in the Republican Party, which appear to be standard websites of Democrat incumbents up for re-election, at first glance, with a not unflattering big photograph of the representative and an over-sized button to click to make a donation. Closer examination, sometimes buried in the fine-print or not obvious at all, however reveals that the page is actually soliciting donations for the Democrat's rival. I don't think that anyone would be surprised to learn that politics are dirty and there's no dignities that won't be trounced on—but I do find it incredible that any subject-citizen would give to either cause, by hook or by crook, since there are not enough contributions in private hands in all of America to combat the influence-peddling of lobby-groups.

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.

the rowdy girls

After granting clemency to one certain former oligarch imprisoned in a Siberian gulag, an amnesty law led to the pardoning of thousands of inmates in Russia, including a girl-band and environmental activists. Their crimes?

To be specific, according to German news sources, Rowdytum—rowdiness, and was on the law books until just recently. I suppose that the message is still status-non-gratis, since I guess those freed prisoners would not challenge the authorities after serving their commuted sentences and going through that experience, and I am not sure if the term хулиганство has other connotations, but the German mixed-designation does sound much better than its literal alternatives, like disturbing the peace, yobbishness or chavtastic. Though far from ideal, I'd suggest judicious use of criticism as many governments fancy their worst example peerless and tolerable at the same time without savouring the irony. I admit, however, I had never heard the word used until this latest iteration of jubilee. I knew the usage, though, as the German version of Die Simpsons refers to the characters Nelson Muntz, Jimbo Jones, Kearney Zzyzwick and Dolph Starbeam collectively as die Rowdys.

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.

sanctuary

Nominated for official accolades for civilly brilliant ideas and already beloved by its residence, a community foundation has constructed and nurtured an old library building in Nürnberg into an educational centre for a neighbouring home for asylum-seekers with name of the Asylothek (although I had a high-school with a the cafetorium, I think Germans are very partial to inventing designations for facilities and the like, there's the unfortunately named Blitz Döneria by work that just does not sound like words and suffixes that ought to be associated with food and this trend is especially true for institutions like hospitals and specialty clinics—there's the Heboteum (actually right across from the döner [the Turkish version of a gyro, sort of] stand), a child-birthing school that sounds in German like a museum of mid-wifery.
The Asylothek is really clever institution, though true to its original purpose as a library (Bibliothek), offering a space for reading and reach with literature in immigrants' native languages, as well as a job-centre with courses on the German language and after-school activities for children. I think we take libraries for granted and such a place would really be a welcome comfort, having fled in the night to a strange land. Not that refugees need to be minded and treated like inmates, but a home has been established in Bad Karma, our fair city, in one of those abandoned—though not dilapidated, just given up as the business environment and demand changed—old villas that became resort hotels, with no apparent supervision to help ease the transition.  It is not due to some ancient native skill but rather a therapeutic introduction to interacting with people again after traumas that caused the proliferation of nail-salons run by people of Asian descent, when social-workers arranged for them to give each other manicures as a way of trusting and connecting, having survived the awful experiences of wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  Care-taking is as important to perception, helping to mitigate local xenophobia and unwelcoming behaviour on the part of host communities, as it is for preparing those who sought sanctuary for success.

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.

pro se or soi-disant

Shaking my head with a touch of disbelief over the way a German political party portrayed itself, I was totally unprepared for the stultifying display of ignorance and insensitivity that a senior delegation of legislators made, while on a fairy-tale princess reception in Cairo, as the New York Times reports.

Their message of solidarity, invoking 9/11 and a chorus of singing eagles was too revolting to stomach, and surely left a country already in flames and under martial law insulted, regardless of what political persuasion or whether considered rebels or patriots, and confused. “Stand strong, Egypt,” they said, promising to vouchsafe the some billion dollars in military aid the US gives Egypt annually. “Stand firm.” Not that this empty praise and grandstanding is not disgusting enough on its own, given that Congress is preparing to vote yea or nay on authority to attack another country in the region, or only give its tacit approval and thus relinquish any semblance of checks-and-balances with its authority to raise armies, make it all the more terrible. The unfortunate timing of the decision also has everything to do with the typical bailiwick of the legislature, having gone on recess and only affording themselves just a few days to tackle old and new business, including formulating a military operating budget and that has happened every year since 9/11.

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.

seven against thebes

Recently, the unsurpassable Twisted-Sifter featured as its picture of the day the ceiling fresco of St. Paulinus' Church in Trier, photographed with care by a professional who carefully stitched together several separate images to capture the entire canvas of the nave (far superior to my snap-shot from a visit a few years ago) by Rococo artist Christoph Thomas Scheffler. The church, a Basilica minor, itself was designed by the son of another superstar of the time, prolific architect Balthasar Neumann, and is dedicated to the local bishop who became a saint after his body was repatriated to this church after dying in exile, banished by the emperor a certain rivals for holding a view on the nature of the Trinity not en vogue at the time.

The amazing fresco depicts the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, a Roman garrison in Egypt,who were converted and condemned en masse under the leadership of St. Moritz, patron of many places in Germany and beyond—other members are venerated as well, including San Fedele (Saint Felix) who ended up in Como, when dispatched to the French-Swiss border to quell an (im)pious uprising and refused to do so.