simoom, samoom

The popular uprising in the Egypt has many hopeful and many pensively watching. Either through revolt, control slouching away in great chunks like with the military forces, or peaceable retirement--however, concessions, negotiations, revisions are not none too convincing, emanating from the same tenacity that has kept the country under a never-changing aegis of emergency powers called regional stability, called peace.

Elite security forces are policing in the original sense of the word, busting up idleness and giving general vagrancy no quarter, and though it may deflect the feeling of chaos, state police seemingly, however ranks splinter, are only interested in preserving the arena, the conditions that have provided them with prosperity and power. The military forces, however, have pledged to safeguard the public welfare, and because of Egyptian's compulsory service requirements, the army is the public and its welfare, all ranking as someone's son, brother or father and some exclusive force of mercenaries working for graft and bribe and job-security. There is an overwhelmingly influential and democratic apparatus in this, unlike deputized goons that by turns seize and are ceded too much authority.  This support, tacit but growing, is significant, and ought to awaken intolerances and apathy for divisiveness and injustice.

colourfast or ghost of laundry future

From the balcony, I have noticed that one of my favourite sweaters, zebra-striped that maybe makes me look like a mime or the Hamburgler, has a strange optical effect reflected in the window. The equally-sized black and white stripes become half as thick and are boarded by grey ones. The photograph is a little bleary but the effect is visible, I think.  Perhaps this is a form of polarization caused by the double panes of glass or my dousing the windows with Windex and calling them spotless. Weird quantum characteristics of light and shadow are shaken out when one starts to meddling with the whole business with refraction.

One experiment, which I always found maddening and counter-intuitive but I do not think others are so easily impressed, is that two polarized lenses never fully cancel one another out, as I’d expect: each only lets 50% of light through and rotating the other around, even when the filter is at a right angle, perpendicular to the other, still lets 25% of the light to sneak through in as a particle-wave prankster.

dromedary

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the US response to the revolt in Egypt is mild, cordial to the old despot, as if in these past three decades, he could most heinously be called the Grinch who stole Twitter. The sympathy is creeping although, and however shameful the lack of support and commitment may be for revolution, it is perhaps more telling of America’s dwindling relevance.

The US and the West have supported this and similar regimes with billions of dollars in aid and resources in the interest of preserving the status quo, idealized and reflexive banana republics to American eyes and perhaps models for their own civil aspirations. There has not been any esteemed revolutions that America could not equivocally claim it managed for quite some time—those of the greatest pitch and moment being the dissolution of the Soviet Union and various influence peddling in the Middle East and Central America. The West, overall, is left speechless when it comes to unmanaged change, because, like the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoyevsky, rapture, democratic reform, is unwanted. There is too much profit to be made in encouraging freedom with one hand and maintaining this friendly arrangement with the other. There is fear, whether genuine or not, of what will fill the power vacuum, dangerous radicals or other despots not of their choosing. No one remembers, it seems, that real reform is difficult but can turn out well in the end. These matters are serious and persecution should cease, no longer suffering the grace-and-favour tyrants. Another important lesson, though masses are mobilized all the same, is in that a very sizable country, with the population of Germany, could completely censor all forms of communication. The American government, for one, wanted to invest itself with such martial powers, over some uncomfortable disclosures. This should be a cue for all peoples to scrutinize broadening authority, especially as that government’s intimacy with the media has made the incriminating, suspicious and otherwise undesirable transparent and instantly discoverable. Enough rope—even if the outlets and the conduits are not closed off, it is becoming possible to monitor and prevent civil unrest before it has a chance to organize and express itself.

spectral analysis or pink is like red but not quite

Wired! magazine has an excellent eulogy for the US Department of Homeland Security's colour-coded scheme for threat and terror alerts, which will be phased out in the Spring. Apparently, the bad guys have finally managed to crack the code. Although rivaled and much criticized and generally useless, it is a bit endearing, like losing the Time and Temperature service or replacing McGruff the Crime Dog or Woodsy the Owl with trendier, modern mascots. Instead of panic-inducing swatches of colour, a newly refined level of bureaucracy, the National Terror Advisory System, will now be able to manage the appropriate level of fear on a local level. I wonder what magical palette and brush will be able to address that. Given that the danger level, across the US, has not been relaxed in the past four years, I suppose yellow (amber, rather) fits all.