nom de guerre or incite-a-riot

Some European politicians are making well-intentioned calls, with the massacre in Norway and street riots in England fresh on the public conscious, that networking sites and commentary refuse made-up names or (pseudo) anonymous contributions in order to prevent circulation of hate-speech or organizing chaos. Some instigators have always cowered behind anonymity when disseminating destructive suggestion to avoid catching any of the blame when things end badly, and though most faceless pontiffs only go so far, speech and expression are protected, for one, to keep tyranny in check. The paradigms of the Arab Spring do not owe their existence solely to tweets and spasms but the democracy movement certainly would have managed a different pace without networking tools and the privacy that the internet can afford. Mobilization of thuggery, as characterized by some, is a frightening thing but internet crowd-sourcing and crowd-control has not completely managed to transform the population into lemmings.

Those motivated for a cause can discern between leadership and cowardly advocates. Meanwhile, this Orwellian crack-down has already come to pass, autonomously--without discussion or policy-debate, locally enacted without a higher-mandate, which is illustrative of the mindset of some people, over the weekend on the platforms of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in and around San Francisco, California. In response to the killing of two passengers by BART officers--which is another disturbing insight into the mindset of some, when a bus driver is licensed to kill--supposedly a protest rally had been organized. Though the planned rally did not take place, wireless services were disabled to prevent further, real-time coordination by the unruly mob. These broad powers to take a group or individuals offline because they might incite a riot is disturbing. No one wants authority figures to decide what is seemly and warranted--and I suspect that most listened when their mothers admonished, "if all your friends jumped off a bridge..."--but it certainly seems even more dangerous to let a protest escalate into a violent confrontation with multiple bystanders with no way to call for help.

for the rain it raineth every day

Again this year, we have not seen much of a summer over large swaths of Germany. I feel especially sorry for children and their families as school summer holidays come to an end and people grow rabid about getting out from under this cloud--August is inflexible and not everyone can afford to escape to clearer climes, though weather is sometimes too big to get away from. With the incessant drip and spatter, I was thinking about precipitation and I wonder if before deforestation, farming and urban-sprawl, when there were more trees, was there also less water in circulation. Catastrophic floods have complex origins, as does the climate, but I wonder if the weather wasn't fairer with more of the stuff driving the weather sequestered in living things.

Von sommerlichen Wetter schlecht angenommen wurden auch dieses Jahr wieder über weiter teil Deutschlands. Vor allem bedauere ich es, dass Kindern und ihren Familien haben kein Sommerschulferien: Urlaubskalendar sind jedoch starr, und nicht jeder kann es sich leisten, andere Länder zu bereisen. Während dieser Regentage frage ich mich, wie die Niederschlagsmuster veränderte hat: ehemals habe man (vor Entwaldung, Landwirtschaft und Zersiedelung) weniger Regen und Schnee aufgrund weniger Wasser im Umlauf. Der Klimawandel und die Naturkatastrophe hat komplexen Ursachen, aber frage ich mich, ob es hatte schönes Wetter wenn mehr Wetterkraftstoff im Holz gebundene war.

mimicry

Ambitious counterfeiters (flatterers, really I suppose) have moved beyond mere knock-off goods, Austrian villages and amusement parks and have managed to emulate entire retail franchises. Authorities have closed down no less than 22 fake Apple retail outlets in the country (EN/DE) that were made to appear to be the genuine article. A few months back, there were reports that someone had managed to create an entire unsanctioned furniture store, based off the Swedish model.

presque vu or deppenapostroph

 While visiting the País d'Òc recently, we saw nothing of the native language of the region, and there was a conspicuous absence of anything other than French. We discussed how statutes mandate all signage and advertisements should be exclusively in the official language and without creeping impurities, portmanteaux (mot-valises, Kofferworter) and English nonce words. I also found it interesting that publicity laws have been interpreted in France to also impose a ban, in print and television, on inviting customers to friend, like or follow their business or organization on specific, named social networking sites: one may advise clients to look them up on the internet or promote their own website but to be more exact unfairly endorses one (garbled and probably multi-lingually threatening) service over others.

These signs are not shifting between German and English and the onus is not on the local businesses to wonder how their names might sound to an inter-national audience, but I suspect that the French would probably be even less unapologetic about what others might snicker about.