cornflower revolution or oh mary, don’t you weep, pharaoh’s army got drown’ded

The establishment is attempting to simonize some fatalistic pronouncements, wresting the revolt from the people and recasting it as a choice, between stability and chaos, which is really no kind of choice. The co-opting of the movement came lightly on a couple of haughty and angry promises and continued, first with the US equivocation and staunch neutrality that transformed into a well-place claim for support and influence, though infinitely deniable and far-removed depending on what proves the most expedient, and then to long-discredited leadership belittling and perverting the very nature and message of the protest—saying it itself had been co-opted by radical elements that were denaturing the people’s grievances.

Seamlessly, these players were introduced and quickly and violently degraded the situation and endangered everyone as clashes escalated and reporting was shut out. The theater and methodology of control was diabolical. Regardless of what factors are being transposed on to this struggle, however, it will not fail. The message has gotten out and this is not abortive, whatever help or hindrance may come. Hopefully, others in the world will find their apathy and tolerance quenched, recognizing without idleness, their own mounting injustices: governments and welfare pawned off to corporate interests, robber barons and carpetbaggers, who are only kept at arm’s length by ransoming one’s livelihood and dignity and liberties to a system that is forever demanding more and more.  Though the usual cover for such activities is Saint Swithin appearing in a burrito or some football game, it is no coincidence that the tempo of legislation has picked up during this crisis.  Surely this is the single most important news story going on now, and all focus is on Egypt, but there are forces who would use this to their peripheral advantage, like the motion to rescind the health care reform that would have brought the greater part of the US on par with the greater part of the world.  That is being presented with a choice that is no choice.

baud

At the risk of ignoring all the other suffering endured, Egypt's censorship and blockading of internet services and trying to hide and hinder the people's voice is a rather grinchly thing to do.  After a long succession of insults, this one may seem slight, but the history written by the victors may be vanquished, ignored and forgotten in a day when all else is documented, finger- and foot-printed, live and as it happens.  But they came--they came all the same, without bizzle-binks and floondazzlers.  The major internet players have teamed up to bridge the government imposed digital divide and cobble together a network accessible without the internet, helping to focus the movement's leadership and continue to report from Cairo to the outside world.

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.