revival

Though sometimes reviled as pedestrian (especially after alternatives became readily available), Microsoft's Internet Explorer was truly a pioneering opus.  For the launch of its latest incarnation, MS has developed a brilliant series of marketing-infographics, embracing this love-hate relationship, to inaugurate its come-back.

lend-lease or ostalgie

Possibly in anticipation of a disgruntled electorate for regional voting in May, a very polarizing and divisive idea has been offered up for public consumption by some cash-strapped communities in North-Rhine Westphalia: civic leaders argue that the Solidarity Pact tariff (DE/EN) for helping integrate the former East Germany has become redundant and they can ill-afford to make further financial contributions.

The industrial region of the state in question is called the Ruhrgebiet and has seen some struggles, contemporary and on-going since some mining and manufacturing operations have been curtailed, but is hardly a Rust-Belt. The cities and towns there on the verge of insolvency were prey and prone to the same mechanisms that have distributed this economic crisis globally. Perhaps it is the press coverage that is most politically-charged, igniting much comment and discussion. These assistance payments, scheduled to expire in 2019, helped the former East (the so-called Neue Länder—which is in fact true since under the East German regime, there were no states but rather districts that were restored to their former boundaries with reunification but when it’s said in the news, it sounds a little back-handed to me) to rebuild and thrive. No one, I think, is begrudging past payments or doubts it was necessary but are merely suggesting that perhaps its time has come—that East Germany is on equal footing with the West, however, the media has exploded the debate into greater dimensions.

Old prejudices come out—though they are never much restrained, like the small comments about having, for the first time in history (which spans a little more than two decades, just), both Chancellor and President from East Germany—and I think maybe people forget that the Solidarity Pact is not a tax solely levied on the people of the Ruhrgebiet but rather something paid by all citizens, East and West alike, and the fact that razing the border, along with added government support, also significantly increased the opportunity for commerce for Western firms and made quite a few businesses extraordinary wealth over night and fueled the German Wirtschaftswünder. It seems almost, in the realm of politicking, that the suggestion is a swipe against the economic rescue packages of the European Union, which are something held at arm’s length from a plebiscite.

conservation of energy or green-washing

Alexander Neubacher, writing for Der Spiegel’s international section (auf Englisch), presents a clever look at trenchant German environmental policies and psyche, suggesting that outcomes are sometimes marginalized for the sake of the movement and solidarity. Though I do believe that many ecological initiatives of Germany and the inchoate care and concern for the planet’s health are positive, like indoctrinating everyone at an early age to develop sustainable practices, wind- and solar-power and preservation of natural habitats, it is interesting to explore how some aspects of environmentalism, in practice, have perhaps become counterproductive and have been victimized by their own success.

Some of the more convoluted efforts, with no net gain or possibly a negative impact, seem more there to uphold the laws of thermo-dynamics (that neither energy nor matter can be created or destroyed) rather than help the ecosystem. The article addresses two of the biggest perversions, bio-fuel—ethanol, which takes the incentive away from farmers to raise food crops and practice traditional methods of sustainability, like crop-rotation, and must be harvested with diesel burning tractors—and energy-saving light-bulbs—which are poisonous and have the potential to make one as mad as a hatter and are a nightmare to dispose of, but there are other unintended consequences welling up from the best intentions no longer so well managed. The deposit programme (Pfand) on single-use containers has led to a reduction on truly reusable containers, extreme water-conservation has left the sewer systems of larger cities clogged up and extra water must be used just to flush it all away, abandoning nuclear energy only to import the shortfall from neighbours, the latest craze of insulation does save on heating and cooling but the siding suffocates homes and offices and promotes growth of mould. Germany is a model for environmental activism and stewardship, and no one should be discouraged by the estrangement of policy from outcomes but rather work within that same framework of recycling, conservation and improving efficiency towards a better means of execution.

litotes or meno male

There has been enough deflection in the news in recent weeks, what with the American Republican party primaries, unrest and due unwelcome in Afghanistan, general simonizing of the economy, one could rightly wonder what happened with the aegis of sovereign default that was clouding Greece, Italy and other euro-zone members. One would be forgiven, in fact, for thinking that the situation resolved itself, and the Greeks and other Occupiers have grinned and bore it through austerity and virtual deficits met a spectacular and fiery demise, greeting their anti-debt counterparts (fabricated and negotiated in kind), as if real markets and future prospects unfolded to the same morality play script, the personified Laziness and Greed versus the righteousness of the fabulists and troubadours.

I am sure there was no mutual annihilation, however, and rosiness and ease, by any number of estimations, are unfortunately not prevailing. Standards of ethics and morality of course do have everything to do with governance, stewardship and negotiation, but like the pronouncements of the Credit Rating Agencies, the so-called Troika, the triumvirate, is not the absolute moral authority it is setting itself up as.  I am sure the intent is pure but pontificating, far from under-shooting the mark, is a useful mask for hypocrisy and dread.

sinecure or pretender to the throne

While back at the Bundestag, party representatives are holding their conclave to elect the next president of the republic, heir to a mostly ceremonial office that has perhaps made a lot of members of the public and constituencies across the government weary and frustrated with the latest succession of holders of that office.

The previous president resigned too early and the immediate predecessor resigned too late, it seems. Despite all the vested ceremony of having the upper house elect a president (the United States, before the advent of the Electoral College, also allowed the Senate select a president from among its peers), the office seems to be more of a liability (more of a personality rather than a platform) than a political coalition-builder. And perhaps because of the general disillusionment, a significant (though not properly surveyed) portion of the German public favours abolishing the office of the presidency altogether (the Chancellor wields executive power) and reinstating the monarchy, who would assume those roles--hosting foreign dignitaries, inaugurating museums, charitable launches, and the general indirect campaigning and the gauging of public-sentiment that a president seconding a chancellor or prime minister would do--after the idea was raised by a member of the Royal House of Prussia (the descendants, since there never was a German imperial family). Beyond the fascination that many Germans have for the British royal family and in-house nobility is fully-funded through with increased tourism--and perhaps courtiers vying for titles and recognition and the posts that make up a royal household--maybe the return of Kaiser and König as ceremonial figures, bereft of power, would be a good idea.

I can’t imagine that above and beyond what state authorities already contribute to maintaining Germany’s hundreds of former royal residences that much more money would be involved, not to mention discounting the politics of elevating a private citizen to public office, though there is sure to be contention and consequence over legitimacy and right to succession. Nationally and on the state level (Bavaria, like every Lander, has a minister-president and a prince von und zu Bayern, down to dukedoms, baronets, palatinates, counties, marches and fiefs), these dethroned royal families and their adherents have been prepared for this moment--not preening and conniving, I think, but just simply there and rarely does an administration come fully-formed.