and i would fall out into the night, can't live a minute without your love

The Norwegian press, just as Germany is poised to begin its two year term on the United Nations' security council, has revealed that the country's aerospace administration has been working secretly with the US to develop a network of ultra hi-resolution spy satellites, which can also perform the nifty trick of night time surveillance with infra-red cameras and transmit data faster. Due to protests from neighbouring countries and partners, including France, US and German authorities decided to front the collaboration as a civilian environmental study. That Germany would engage in such a project seems strange, especially considering public sentiment for privacy and an abiding attitude that nebulous threats should not undermine the liberties or tolerances of a democracy country. This news also serves to remind viewers that less than 1% of the cable-dump has yet been processed and published.

emphasis added

Alternet hosts a excellent article from the younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, where he faces surely a lifelong demon in the Espionage Act of 1917, a blatant beast that has mostly been a "dormant Sword of Damocles" but could also prove very plastic and serviceable, thanks to an array of wounded egos laid bare and selective reading. What an awful burden for anyone to be yoked with--that one's parents were executed as traitors, especially considering that Americans do not believe such things happen in America. With so much constitutional steerage and political fundamentalism, recourse to original sources seems often frustrated and arbitrary, though in its argument that the Espionage Act violates the principles of America's founders, the article highlights the Constitution's own reckoning of what could be traitorous:

"'Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort' (Article III, section 3). The framers felt this narrow definition was necessary to prevent treason from becoming what some called 'the weapon of a political faction.' Furthermore, in their discussions at the Constitutional Convention they agreed that spoken opposition was protected by the First Amendment and could never be considered treason."

History is littered with countless examples of despotic regimes wielding high treason, unilaterally defined and investigated, as an effective political tool to remove inconvenient people and inopportune laws, and the people who drafted the founding documents did not want their republic to devolve in that manner. Let us hope that America never again goes down this path, and if already committed to that course, can at least be turned. Apparently, the incoming US Congress, led by those same fundamentalists and literalists, wants to open their session with an unprecedented reading of the US Constitution in chambers. I wonder how much of more choice parts will be mumbled over, or what amendments, including the Bill of Rights, will be skipped to reinforce the myth that their constitution is eternal, sacred and infallible, especially if construed to one's own ends.

shampanskykh or apres ski

H and I spent a very nice New Year's eve celebration at home, launching fireworks in the street and enjoying televised calvacades of various dance music genres, the networks opening up their archives of party chart-toppers and in-studio performances, rarely-seen vignettes that predated the venue known as the music-video where the audience is allowed to engage the band fully and songs that became standards for all types of fests.  We also toasted in the new year with a very good Russian white sparkling wine, Krimskoye.  Champagne and its imitators, though I imagine that's attributed rather than aspired for through the insecure opinions of faux-connoisseurs, are afforded a strange array of protections as well as a sacrosanct place in for seasonal and other other celebrations.  I suppose that one reason its drunk on such occasions is that it is a new wine, fresh and not aged, which not only symbolizes the new year and untainted beginnings but also allows it to be produced and delivered to market just in time. 

Before modern day cola-wars and the ubiquitous branding campaigns of today's non-adult beverages, champagne was aggressively marketed, touted as a tonic and cure-all--think of all of those vintage, elegant advertisements for one's common cola as well as the more exotic additives that helped boost its initial popularity--and it was gradually installed as a an indispensable party-favour.  One certainly does not want to think of one's party plans as having anything to do with logos, labels and product-placement, but I guess that the success of that marketing venture is demonstrated at minimum every time the calendar turns.  Toasting or otherwise christening one's special occasions does not feel obligatory nor a product of consumer-culture, and I guess that is one of the true hallmarks of intelligent marketing, when labels and corporate influences can be stripped away, and the handiwork of some shrewd and hard working vintner families can join in the fun.

em-mex-l oder silvester

A very good and auspicious beginning to the New Year.  This pipe-cleaner chim- ney-sweep with his ladder and lucky mushroom is one of the German symbols of the changing of the calendar, like Father Time and Baby New Year, and a few other unique traditions and rituals are explained here via the local.

a la mash

Some time ago, I was hounding around on some celebrity gossip site and saw a movie poster for the most outstanding cinematic vision that I had seen recently: deadly, big-game hunting aliens visit rural England during Jane Austen's time, and the film was titled Pride and Predator.  I have no idea whether it was ever actually produced or what the critical reception of it was or whether it was just a brilliant steam-punk concept, and would rather remain ignorant.
Something a bridge further than parody or a tribute band, it is a fusion that is more creative than its constituent influences, fun, rollicking mash-ups--authorized or otherwise, have produced, not just repackaged, some outstanding vignettes:  The Beestles (Beastie Boys versus the Beetles), Brokeback to the Future, the Grey Album.  Classic board games, I think, would be excellent and rich fodder for mash-ups, and could be made to honour whatever character universe one wished, like Doctor Who Cluedo--it was K-9 in the Tardis with the Sonic Screwdriver, or backgammon-Jenga.

three French hens and twelve lords a-leaping

Christmas time can be a bit overwhelming and adjunct and accessory commem-orations are sometimes overshadowed, especially when they fall after the tension and subsequent relaxation of Noel and between the less demanding workshopping for New Year's. The Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is one such celebration--observed in many places with many regional variants. Though elided over, but not forgotten, this holiday, marked with pranks like April Fools' Day in some countries, has some very sage and sensible traditional admonishments: one that it is not auspicious to begin new projects on the day of the week that the Feast Day falls on (a year of Tuesdays, for instance) for the coming year, and two, further, to avoid engaging in work, barring emergencies, whenever possible also on that day of the week, progressing on to the next day of the week next year and on through the weekend.

honored matres or overseas telegram

A local research and development firm in Minnesota is promoting wireless internet via strobe-light and is installing the modem-based systems that works off of the same principle as Morse code: ceiling lights flicker on and off faster than the human eye can detect (though I imagine there might be subliminal residuum) transmitting signals--internet content, to a counterpart modem connected to a computer that can interpret these subtle oscillations. The company seemed to primarily take on this experiment in municipal office buildings in order to find a solution to diminishing band-width as WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular phones, G4 and VLAN compete for space above the general din--and also to create dual-use lighting elements for public spaces, which are always on away way, to provide connectivity without additional power consumption.

Moreover, I believe it is important that technology drifts away from WiFi and "electro-smog" in general. There's not so much discussion anymore about the dangers of cell phone usage and cell towers muddling-up honey bee navigation systems, however, wireless internet is even less tried and proofed, and I cannot imagine it is exactly beneficial to have trillions of bits of data tunneling through one's body from all sides at all times. Central to the Dune series of novels by science-fiction writer Frank Herbert, was the prohibition against "thinking-machines." Though hardly luddites, humankind had to revolt against artificial intelligences in order to save themselves, and maybe in the future, there will be a similar effort to outlaw all things wireless once ill-effects are realized and cultivate such smarter alternatives.

port of call

Though living in Germany for many years, I cannot recall a holiday season when we were visited with such unrelenting, top-quality snow.  It keeps coming down, occupying all available real estate, and turns seeing family and friends into a challenge, but one that we have been able to meet with success.  There is no definitive answer why we are awarded with a second Christmas (2. Weihnachten) to celebrate, but it seems that the day is reserved for travel and alternately recognizing good service, since domestics and renters usually had to work on Christmas for their lords and ladies.  The denomination of "boxing" relates to this charity, alms-giving but my favourite account, besides the the Irish traditions, was of the Christmas boxes of the Golden Age of Exploration, a donation box, which priests installed on great ships while in berth preparing for the voyage.  Crewmates contributed coins to this box throughout their journey and presented it to the priest as thanks for a safe trip upon return during the next Christmas, who distributed the wealth among all his parishioners.  Of course, this business with money was not to be conducted on a high, holy day.  Adventures on the icy roads, where the wind curls and whips the loose snow like streams of plasma, and the sky is dark and heavy with successive storms, is a lot like navigating the high seas, and safe passage and return is something to be grateful for.