true colours or womp rat

Despite all the active dismissal and disengagement by most of the media, the occupation movement continues and has spread far to Tatooine and Hoth (Antarctica). These occupiers have a story to tell, which might be best conveyed without the scrim and arras of reputed anarchy and homogeneity that the movement’s detractors are peddling.

People are upset at the sight of their futures eroding without being afforded the same protections as the perpetrators, and that that this diverse group camped out at Wall Street would join in says a lot, considering all the exaggerated heights that public defendors claim that we have to fall.

gedenkend or franklin mint

The illimitable Boing Boing featured a sleek presentation of the obverse of vintage (1896) US dollar bills and silver certificates, which bear glorious allegories of the achievements of Electricity, Material Science, and the Promise of Youth, personified, instead of the familiar, relatively stodgier architecture or distant heads-of-state. Though not exactly fiat currency, it did make me reflect on the tokens and mementos that I have collected that I have collected that commemorates the same accomplishments of progress—like this piece of Polish majolica that celebrates twenty-five years of being on the grid or this French medallion of the electrification of the country, with this mythological character, looking like Calibos from Clash of the Titans illuminated by an oil lamp.

These are feats to be proud of.  In a similar vein, I was thinking about the military unit coins that I’ve been presented and wondered if there was such occasion, venue for symbolism and artistic expression elsewhere, or if trophies and icons and cash-money were things relegated to grandfathered traditions.

aesthete

Der Spielgel reports on the efforts of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich to bring to the public for the first time catalogue images of the series of decorative arts showcases, "Great Germany Art Exhibitions" from 1937 to 1944, that tried to impart the Third Reich’s aesthetic ideal, with paintings and contemporary furniture designs that reflected the best of distilled nationalism. The series of photographs (the full catalogues will be available online at GDK Research) are insightful and telling of the exodus of German talent and of the strictures of patrotic interior decorating. Der Führer, who was rejected as an aspiring art student, was the ultimate juror in deciding what pieces were representative and, it seems, one of the showcase's best customers.

ms havisham, i presume

Did you know that a major portion of the economies of some of the smallest sovereign nations in the world, remote Pacific islands like Nauru and Vanuatu, comes in the form of diplomatic aid, gained by swapping allegiance?

Their ambassadors and ministries of state will recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) over the Peoples' Republic of China in exchange for monetary support and then later flip their position--also for some of the disputed regions under the Russian aegis. Who knew diplomacy could be transparently profitable? The coalition of the willing that took part in the American-lead invasion of Iraq of 2003 was certainly never as extensive as the catalogue of ships that stormed the beaches at Troy in the Iliad, and this kind of diplomatic pandering rings with about the same tinny, hollow sound of credit awarded for a show of support.

I hope that the idea of appealing to one nation’s vanities, beggaring one’s rivals and problem-children, does not catch on. Pinky and the Brain of Warner Brothers' Animaniacs tried those stunts already to try to raise capital for their plans of world domination, and it is strange to see reality reflect this appeal. I am afraid, once all the pretend hue and cry of the euro and EU settles and without Cablegate, the United States, place-holder for world-dominance, might try such things while ignoring the management of its downfall. In general, superlatives are not the most auspicious things, but just as the best that the EU hoped for from Greece was a orderly bankruptcy, the US ought to acknowledge its standing and make contingency plans, as no amount of pandering diplomacy could make up the difference.