pigeon forge

From our balcony looking towards the little river, we have a regular display of wild birds.  Sometimes when an unusual one passes by, I try to identify it in this old children's birdwatchers' guidebook, which does a pretty good job of illustrating Germany's fowl. 

While trying to name our most recent siting, I was reading over the pigeon and dove (Tauben) section, and wondered at the caption accompanying the common, city pigeon, die Türkentaube.  At first, I wondered just at the name, and then at the text, "They have lived with us since 1946," going on to describe its environment and feeding habits.  I thought, how did the pigeons know that the war was over--what a strange thing to insert in a children's book and what does that have to say about current immigration and integration reform.  It turns out that this now ubiquitous breed of pigeon, whose native range is from Turkey to Japan, was not introduced into European stocks until this time, in efforts to restore roosts and an industry damaged by years of violence.

taboo you tour

The provocative tracts and the media circus featuring German Federal Bank representative Thilo Sarrazin is rousing several uncomfortable debates that I do not believe are palatable material for a public forum. There is too much taboo in it. The vitriol and the extreme claims are not helpful and do not forward Sarrazin's arguments, nor really lend much credence to those who disagree with him.

Sarrazin is not right but people may be too quick to dismiss his assessment, which may be a distasteful truth: there may be difficulties with immigration and there may be the potential for cultural clashes but the situation that Sarrazin presents (however prejudicially and imperfectly) invites the question to the public what kind of Germany do you want, inclusive and tolerant or otherwise. Maybe, however, Germany's dogmatists need to recruit Jesus in this process, like America's ambassadors of love, peace and understanding, the Tea Party set, or stellar models of integration, like occupied Palestine, who the US is currently trying to mediate while at the same time addressing its own hateful debate over the mosque not only at Ground Zero but mosques in general and drones patrolling the border with Mexico. Further, I wonder what would have been made of Sarrazin's book had he substituted Jewish and Muslim people with "Russians." Would there have been this uproar or just blasé nods of concurrence and what does that mean about the tenor of tolerance in general?

skywalker ranch or blue harvest

Fantastic graphic designer and Etsy artisan Andy Helms is selling has sold new, reimagined prints of the Star Wars space opera odyssey.  These posters are awesome and have a really keen, Jungian common-fate movement to them, similar to Mark Eco fashions. 

idée fixe

EU legislation has condemned the old fashioned, inefficient and heat-generating light bulb (German--Glühbirn, glowing-pear) in favor of the lower wattage, longer-lived variety. This is a good move which will reduce waste since light-bulbs are reputedly resistant to recycling--which is something I do not quite buy--and save consumers money on their utility bills, figured rather unexcitedly over the life-time of the light-bulb. This restriction, beyond promotion of a cost-saving measure and a sensible idea, could create a underground culture of after-market old fashioned light-bulbs to fit vintage and antique lamps. There must be surplus stock for decades-worth of lighting that are now barred from retail outlets but could span a grey-market. I do not want to buck the ecologically smart trend, but I like the idea of sneaking around to bypass newly-mandated contraband. It makes me think about those eternal, early incandescent bulbs that are still burning from Thomas Edison's time, the heydays of tinkering and experimentation. The designed obsolescence supposedly came later, once manufacturers realized that there was no money to be made in something that did not need to be replaced.