just deserts

Mental Floss shares a few interesting occurrences of desserts that have shaped history, citing how routines and sweet-tooths have been employed in assassination attempts to famous flubs, both reviled, like “then let them eat cake,” or revered like “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Such totems become taboo, in some cases, are really pivotal things and say as much about history and culture as other more controversial foodstuffs like tea, coffee,spices and hootch—or non-food import/export like tulips, tobacco and opium. Be sure to check out Mental Floss' other lists of superlatives and curiosities.

betriebsblindheit oder golden hammer

Earlier this week, an independent body of linguists announced the ignoble winner for Un-word of the year for 2013 (Das Unwort des Jahres), ever focussing on the popular euphemisms that the public, politicians and press have adopted that tend to downplay the seriousness behind really heady issues. The jury choose the term Sozialtourismus, referring to the fear of immigrants from eastern European countries newly admitted into the European Union descending on wealthier countries only to receive welfare and not to find jobs.

Such pandering or simplification—intended or perceived, is used to justify discrimination against migrants with Romanian and Bulgarian roots and calls for quotas when the problem, both in their homelands and in there host-lands, very complex and allows policies and attitudes to remain ignorant and insufficient. Sozialtourismus—or Benefits-Tourism, beat out other candidates like Supergrundrechts (inalienable rights—something not to be infringed upon, even in the name of public safety and security), Homo-Ehe (the gay marriage/gay-rights debate) and Ausschließeritis (exclusionism—referring to the break-away tendencies of some members of the EU). Past winners have included the derogatory Döner-Morde, in reference to the series racially motivated killings perpetrated by a neo-Nazi hate group against victims with a Turkish background, who mostly ran small businesses, stereotypically like a döner stand (only one known victim ran such a snack bar—while the others were florists, locksmiths or had small kiosks). Golden hammer is a short way of referring to the tendency to resort to something familiar and convenient to facilitate a solution, a dangerous sort of generalisation, since to the holders of the hammer, everything looks like a nail.

hiobsbotschafter oder i spy

Though the German government and the people of the world had already lower their expectations regarding real reform to the practises of the fledgling police state that America has become—and from those partners duly or unwittingly deputized, the awkward spectacle of defending the indefeasible and saying essentially nothing by anyone in a position of authority was a more than a little revolting.

No stop the spying agreement, as Germany has called for—not instigated by “learning” that vast swaths of its citizens are under surveillance without cause but over the bugging of the Chancellor's cell-phone, which she's relying on even more since she has been out on crutches after a skiing accident, but the fact that the US is carrying on with its role, no longer out of necessity but rather self-appointed, without blush or stint is rather besmirching. Aside from this business as usual, which is ever on the rise, stride never broken, there were empty reassurances that the spying apparatchik was above abuse and has prevented damaged to US interests—neither of which are true, and reform was limited to oversight by committees of confirmed insiders and actual operations will mostly remain in the shadows—until or unless the next slate of unwanton exposures, at least. The term Hiobsbotschaft figuratively means bad news in German—from the string of bad events that happened to the biblical figure Job, but with the reports of the US embassies (auch Botschaften) in Berlin and elsewhere being used as listening posts, the term takes on a double-meaning.

wysiwyg

Collectors' Weekly features an interesting glimpse on vintage examples and the movement to revive the art of artisan sign-makers. In the face of ever-advancing graphics programmes—irrespective of nuance like kerning and other foundry-disciplines—everyone can fancy themselves a professional, and not without some amazing achievements, but also with a lot of lack-lustre, derivative and overly-polished banners. Most modern examples stand in pale contrast to the ghost signage, old privilege marketing preserved on the sides of buildings, either out of indifference or nostalgia, and interesting that graffiti artists kept the art viable and devolving.