songbird

It was very tragic and shocking news to learn of Whitney Houston's (DE/EN) passing. Her superlative lists of accolades and firsts, pioneering within the music industry, will certainly demand time and appreciation to recount and celebrate, but she has other important legacies in her charity and activism--for instance against apartheid in South Africa, which did not end so very long ago. Of course her talent resounded year in and year out but the timing was disconcerting and regrettable on a personal level, what with presentations and activities marking Black History Month, with the theme black women in history.

Her image was in the montages of fame and achievement with many others. I always found these events interesting, inspiring and necessary--but I found myself a little uncomfortable being made acutely aware that for this month, all these politicians, professionals, educators, entertains were different. Then I realized that it was all well and good that I was not seeing the colour of people's skin but that did not mean that the colour-blindness was universal nor did it ease the struggles that all people with any kind of otherness are facing. I guess no individual or group should be so arrogant as to think that they are the only audience, intended or otherwise. Perhaps that too was a part of Whitney Houston's accomplishments, not that she achieved fame despite or because of her heritage and not that her success was accepted despite or because of the same reasons--neither she nor her audience ever minced her roots and her talents were never pigeon-holed as one typified genre or another. For the one cinematic role that she is remembered for, in The Body-Guard with Kevin Costner, no mention was ever made that the characters shared an inter-racial love interest.  Her vocal abilities and personality carried through her pop mainstay, and also managed to famously decompartmentalize gospel and patriotic music in her career. We'll miss you, Whitney.

tag or bridges and islands

Taking a walk through town, I happened on this stretch of wall by the school campus that was decorated along its length with stencil graffiti. These were the usual icons and statements that one sees propagated everywhere, but what caught my eye first was the attempt to correct a reverse application (islands are the solid, outline areas of a stencil, and the straits that form letters and other details are termed bridges), which I guess is really impossible in the rush of spraying.

Then I noticed that one was not advised to keep warm by burning the rich, rather by burning them out. I guess that this wall has been a canvas for all sorts of messages, and I think experimenting with stenciling has produced, maybe accidentally, a more nuanced declaration.

erherberrechts oder

Just scant hours after reports of pan-European protests against ACTA, the German signatories to the treaty, a supranational and undemocratic imposition of the SOPA and PIPA bills that are for now consigned to Limbo, withdrew their unconditional support. More and more lawmakers are realizing that this bill is flawed, not striking a balance between ostensible protection of trademarks and patents and intellectual property and freedom of connexion, and has not been entertained in any public forum. The ascent of German and other European nations would not be formalized until the treaty is ratified by the EU Parliament, and Germany is not excluding switching back to its original position yet. This deferment and formality is parallel to the rank hypocrisy of the whole arrangement of press freedoms, privacy violations and domestic intrusions that characterize many governments of the world, who only look for a codification, a systemization for the questionable platforms they are already pushing, perhaps rallied and encouraged by certain lobbies. The marches are going to be carried out as planned, with tens of thousands committed to the protest and are expecting the same level of literacy and engagement out of their representatives on a broadening array of issues.

man-at-arms

Der Spiegel’s excellent daily chronical (nur auf Deutsch) takes note that this year marks thirty years since the launch of Mattel's He-Man franchise (Barbie’s Barbaric Brother). Though the Masters of the Universe (EN/DE) cast of characters and multiple spin-offs only reigned for a short five years (competing with parallel universes of action figures, like GI*Joe and Star Wars that did not play into the pantheon of over-sized muscle-men--I think I never had He-Men primarily so as not to mix statures), the line has been revived as cultural shorthand and reinvention, along with Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, Pound Puppies and others from the Saturday morning and after-school cartoon cavalcades. I think it is great how new life is being given to these different classic lines of toys and comics, independent of all the marketing and repackaging, like in the movie adaptations, which are pretty flagrant about the distinction between nostalgia and unoriginality.

equipoise

After twenty years of effort and attempts, Russian researches have managed to bore through some four-hundred thousand years of ice to tap the surface of the immense subglacial lake Vostok (DE/EN). The body of water, rivaling the Great Lakes of North America or Lake Baikal in volume exists in liquid form, despite the below freezing conditions due to the enormous pressures exerted by a four thousand meter thick sheet of ice over it. One of some one hundred forty known reservoirs under the Antarctic ice, the lake originally existed only as a hypothesis, until its discovery as a ground scanning radar anomaly--much in the same way ancient geomancers postulated the existence of a southern continent to balance the globe. Such exploration is estimated by some to represent some of the last undiscovered geological finds on Earth, but considering how adventurers and prospectors have never penetrated beyond the surface, nor sounded much beyond the crests of waves, I think that this could usher in a whole new golden age of exploration.

Plus considering how poorly ecology is understood and given life's capacity to astound and adapt, it is never just mountain high or valley low. Environmentalists and rival drilling teams have expressed concern over Russia's methods and worry about contamination, suggesting that a more isolated and smaller lake ought to have been probed first, to see if it could be done safely, rather than going after the biggest. I think, though, that the Russian scientists are keenly aware of this and will take every precaution. Exploration does not equate to exploitation, and they know that to taint this discovery would be to lose a unique chance and there has been enough propaganda from science fiction to give anyone pause. The project has been carried out in careful phases, under the assumption that exotic microbes live in this environment. Confirmation would strengthen the case for Earth-like, familiar, organisms on the satellites Europa and Enceladus, icy moons harbouring subterranean seas. Despite whatever corollaries are drawn to imaged alien life, this process excites the imagination and respect for the unknown even more. What if the artefacts of some Lovecraftian race lost to the ages are found? These water flowed millions of years ago on a subtropical land joined with Australia. Science and science-fiction both are accomplished at postulating.