remembrance or apocalypse no!

As European nations are preparing for solemn ceremonies to commemorate the upcoming centennial that marks the beginning of the outbreak of the Great War, each in their own way and surely the conflict was not spontaneous and the reach-back to the chronology is as important to understanding and reconciliation, though such horrors, falling from living memory evade the senses and imagination, another quite different war, half as old, is being remembered in a muted fashion.

War-mongers are always outdoing their forebears and at a fast clip of course came the second World War, no lessons learnt yet something more captivating due to its accessible and vast documentation and clearer sense of responsibility and ownership, and in its ashes came battles that ran hot and cold. Though the tragedy of the American offensive in Southeast Asia lasted decades and it is impossible to name one decisive moment in such proxy wars, where populations are pawns for ideologues, a turning-point came fifty years ago in 1963 when the US-backed leader of democratic South Vietnam was ousted and executed by the Vietcong, dismissed as a capitalist puppet. 
American engagement grew in response and after an alleged attack (which many historians agree was either an outright fabrication or so-called Tonkin Ghosts, false radar images, and a pretext to escalate action courtesy of the No-Such Agency) on its patrol ships, all out war with North Vietnam broke out. The causes of World War I are no less abstract, a backlash against imperialism led to the rise of fascism. History is written by the victors, though there are no real winners in war, and while the character of these enmities may be different, limited by the irrefutable bounds that there is no difference in suffering and loss nor in pride and greed neither, the bitter old specter of propaganda that turns patriots to rebels, depending on which side one is on, still haunts.

through the looking-glass II

The reconnaissance regarding the depth of US spying on friend and foe and the ties that bind has accelerated to such a pitch that it is becoming difficult to keep up.
To advance at such a clip is worrying to me, as rather than addressing known issues first, plaintiffs are becoming magnanimous. Bringing surprise and outrage over cadet affiliates' actions, delegations outremer for damage-control, and testimony in the form of a private audience to stir more strife, though perhaps bidden and needed, before putting a halt to current activities and assuaging public fears seems to me like simple envy—for all parties, and maybe a gracious way to bow-out. Rather than curtailing communication and cooperation, it seems to me that Germany has aspirations for inclusion as a member of the exclusive Five-Eyes Club, treated with the same respect as the anglophone snitching-network and with the same dues—already paid. Europe as a whole would never be accorded the same courtesy. It remains to be seen how sore Germany is over surveillance in general and what to what degree the outrage touches attempts to divine or second-guess her economic leadership.

hearth and home or town and country

The ever- excellent Bibliodyssey features a review of the 1682 Georgica Curiosa, an encyclopedia of sorts in three volumes that aims to exhaustively educate heirs (the landed gentry) in the art of estate management. The illustrated edition has many practical and responsible tips for promoting community health, sustainable and expert husbandry and agriculture. The work, hailing from a retirement in Regensburg, also extolling dignity for the working-class, began as a pastoral poem and expanded from there.

om, om--ugh

The New York Times has a provocative essay on mindfulness getting its share of attention, profiling a typical seminar entitled “Disconnect to Connect” that has drawn together many gurus and humble but respected practitioners trying to re-program patience, recalling a time that seems hopelessly inundated when people were content with waiting or engaging their immediate surroundings without being told by the Control Voice what to do. Ironically, many speakers introduce applications to remind people to be mindful and mediate, even if that's in the form of seeing out a television show without distraction. What do you think? Is this movement capitalising on a craze, shoe-horning a gimmick to sell? Many times technology and culture create divots and then invents something, at a premium, to smooth it over. Or are events like these genuine means towards circumspection? The answer is an important one.

thor's hammer or dilithium

A Connecticut research and development consortium is building on the ideas of a concept car teased out a few years ago to reinvent the internal combustion engine and bring it to the automotive market.
The principles remain the same, only the atomizer is different—instead of spritzing diesel, carefully calibrated lasers are focused on miniscule particles of the dense metal thorium to produce heat to, latent but with amazing potential. Once common in street lamps and the brilliant glow of gas lights, the element fell out of favour due to (mostly) exaggerated concerns over radioactivity and with burgeoning interest as an alternative to uranium for nuclear reactors, one gram of the substance, finely chopped, could potentially yield the equivalent output of some thirty-thousand litres of traditional petroleum fuels. Motors designed to harness this energy have been already shrunk to a size that would fit under the bonnet of most cars. Though fairly abundant and easily harvested, there is still a finite amount of Thorium available, but could prove a cleaner and more efficient source of energy—especially when prospectors begin to mine asteroids and comets.

genossenschaft oder working-class hero

H and I took a weekend trip to the town of Delitzsch, not far from Leipzig, and while it was a very casual, relaxing trip and we even stayed indoors, rather than caravaning (it was a curious feeling to be in a hotel) , and took in some of the sites (the Altstadt was well preserved and dominated in close-quarters, the entire town surrounded by a moat with this high defensive tower and Baroque palace built as a retirement home for dowager-princesses and later used as a women’s correctional facility), there are certain quirks of history that have shaped this region, which are not always apparent by what has been curated.
Though always rich in natural resources, arable land and industrious people, it was not until the Saxon province was ceded to the Prussian empire by a mandate of the Congress of Vienna that administratively recreated Europe after the defeat of the armies of Napoleon.
Production, which formerly had not risen above the levels of cottage-industries, were suddenly objects of interest for Prussian robber-barons (the entrepreneurial geniuses who ended the Chinese monopoly on china through sheer determination and alchemy and the manufacture of textile and the growing of tobacco and sundry became more and more organised. Of course, wage, life-style and handicraft itself became diluted in the process. In response, a generation, some forty years into this new relationship native son Hermann Schultze (nee Schultze-Delitzch) founded many charitable organisations to look after the families who found themselves conscripted into this corporate entity, including hospitals and survivors' pensions—however, his most enduring and helpful establishment was a concept now known as the credit-union, a financial institution by and for its members. Such organic means were invaluable ways for workers to better understand the environment that they had become part of, and I wonder if going forward, similar community institutions by trial and error might prove instructive.