patteran or tacit knowledge

Ranker--and it is amazing what boutique web-sites one can find--showcases the top 50 internet memes of 2011, via Neatorama, which is curating many of the superlatives, achievements and things better forgotten of the past year. Some of these are really funny and flooring and even though for the best ones only a glimpse and no explanation suffices to communicate everything without killing the joke, I do like the Cliff's Notes and appreciate the background with plenty of inspirations and variations on a theme. What other statement in short-hand, writ small, might you include here?

kitchen-witch or jahresendflügelfigur

We have a pretty papier-mâché angel hanging up for Christmas time. Last year, we had it up as well and H's father asked if she was a witch. H was a little embarrassed, but H's parents lived in East Germany, and as H once explained to me, Christmas and all the seasonal trappings were tolerated during the DDR-Zeit, only the idea of angels was secularized in the form of their official catalogue designation: ein Jahresendflügelfigur, basically an end-of-the-year-figure-with-wings. Maybe angels, regaled not as a Guardian Angel (Schutzengel), and such would not be instantly recognizable.  I thought it was sweet what H's father said and having a Christmas witch is certainly something to hang with the mistletoe.

show-boat diplomacy

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced, with the support of the administration, that the US diplomatic machine will no longer suffer the bigotry, discrimination and violence of other nations in regard to gay rights and freedoms.

Stance and human-rights records on the treatment of gay people will be taken into consideration when granting asylum and as factors when figuring foreign aid, just as fundamental rights for women and minority groups have been factored into the equation. I am proud that America came forward with that position but it is a delicate matter. Clinton readily admits that the US does not have the best track-record in civil-rights in general but has made strides, like with the revocation of her husband's compromised Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy and though gay people are living and being born all over the world and in some places shunned for it, it is going to be difficult to manage this embassy without appearing to promote cultural imperialism or chauvinism, imposing American norms and values on others. Such fears, though never to be dismissed, are a distant, academic excuse--considering all the other direct and indirect American ambassadors and peddlers of influence. Life isn't easy for anyone and no one can indoctrinate whole nations with the tools of statecraft, nor is anyone trying to--only that countries tolerating or persecuting injustice in its most awful forms not be given equal footing with the rest of civil society. It is noteworthy that just on principle, opponents and detractors of everything the current US administration does or fakes or contemplates, is as shrill and vocal about this change in policy as those few nations that find any degree of support or acknowledgement of gay rights surpassingly objectionable. The German Foreign Minister (Clinton's counterpart) is openly-gay and travels unaccompanied by his husband when his job takes him to lands where this practice is not accepted. I don't know that his husband's absence sends a stronger message to international foils, and personal choice, respected, does not become official position and vice-versa. Not to diminish Clinton's bold work, but maybe first the US as a whole needs to become more tolerant and inclusive, to the point where they too could be represented by such an individual and that nobody knows and nobody cares whom he or she loves.

top bonität oder ansteckungsgefahr

The bullying, nannying antics of the credit-rating agencies have threatened to downgrade (toppling the Top Bonität, rating, of some 15 euro zone members) en masse the core countries of the shared-currency, not that Greece and others are peripheral but the financial machinery has already dismissed them. I kept belabouring these rather predictable developments, in hopes, that the insanity of it all is just a bit more apparent or, if already manifest, at least not taken as custom or as inescapable. The machinations of the confidence tricksters and assessors of gullibility, however, are forcing one's hand, perhaps too hastily down one strait, which removes serious deliberation to the speculators that would gamble on the failure of the whole enterprise. Collectively, we are leaning on France and Germany for leadership but the characteristics of good and effective governance did not suddenly become important commodities only when the monetary wherewithal of Europe was thrown into question.   It is extortion and it seems as if the credit-rating agencies and the markets have already made up their minds.  There's no honour in kow-towing to the bullies and taking their remedies without question, but maybe the menace of higher interest-rates, usury for past borrowing, might change the way people owe and how they owe--after all, too much easy credit and thoughtless debt helped create this mess to begin with--and that discipline, not austerity, might not be such a welcome shift for the lenders.