pope trope

The special chimney has been hoisted above the terra-cotta roof of the Sistine Chapel, the deliberation floor for some 115 cardinals, to proclaim to a watching-world their consensus or failure.

Though the Church leaders are now muzzled from talking to the press, there is much speculation about those considered papabile, some are suggesting that the time is right for a reformer, a manger of the faith and not just a theological defender with a few candidates from outside the bounds of the Old World. With or without the media-blackout, however, the ranks trying to apply a political template to the process know the members of the conclave quite well, and considering the change in Church suffrage, instituted not too long ago by Pope John Paul II, which only allows bishops under eighty years of age to vote (excluding some 35 grey-eminences from other arch-dioceses)—directly at least, all those to cast a ballot were appointed either by the Pope Emeritus or his predecessor, and possibly unlikely to depart far from the ideologies that elevated them—at least not in any way to achieve a consensus. This is a level above mundane politics, despite who might try to run interference. What do you think the outcome will be?

paved with good intentions

As the tenth anni- versary—and a decade on, it’s getting a little hard to remember that there was a time without unending struggle let alone envisioning it will come to an end but I think no one who was beating those drums wanted or expected the consequences wrought, of the US invasion of Iraq, author and former diplomat Peter van Buren is sharing his experiences and assessment of how the fronts and the genuine aspirations of Pax Americana demonstrated (gradually, reluctantly and still in denial for many) that the cavalry, the crusaders were themselves the greatest sources of strife and ruin for the region and beyond.
From potemkin humanitarian gestures that were detached from reality and insult to the basic needs of a war-torn population, stark disregard or ignorance of the counter-balances of power being sloppily removed, to squandered opportunities for promoting real concord—not to mention all the death and destruction in vain and demonizing a culture and religion to the whole of the Western civilization, van Buren tries to illustrate how the best intentions rang hollow, if not naïvely so.
One can argue that simple swagger and hectoring cannot account for all the misadventures and when things stop making sense, one ought to follow the money. That is an important consideration and I am sure there’s more than a kernel of greed behind a lot of the US overtures for freedom and democracy, but I do not believe it was ever the objective (well-meaning or not, which I tend to think on the levels that made the decisions) to fold the punished and enfeebled hand of the US out of the round of chaos they created. The entanglement—probably with roots reaching back several decades, is too big to bow out of gracefully and I am afraid that the withdrawal will be painfully stubborn for all involved.

liartown, USA and codename: SPENCH

The happy seekers at Boing Boing share a wonderful Tumblr cascade (not necessarily safe or appropriate for work or people without a sense of humour that ranges from crass to subtle) from Sean Tejaratchi whose eclectic genius for mashups and original juxtaposition creates some very funny reinterpretations.

I especially like some of his re-imagined signage, animal memes and, further back in the archives, movie-teasers and television series, like Marple after Dark and Gypsy Cop. It’s been said that the Tumblr platform is a backlash against the social, over-exposed blog, and while niche audiences entice further exploration, some things are definitely for sharing.

sampo

Reexamining the contents of old shipwrecks may be lending credence to ancient Nordic legends of a mystical stone, claimed to have the properties of revealing the angle of the Sun even under cloudy conditions, and thus direction for sea-navigation. A certain variety of crystals, called Icelandic spar, is common among the manifests of sunken ships and researchers have re-discovered that the crystals can be used to reveal the direction of weak and scattered rays of light, and thus bearing and course, if one applies the proper triangulation to correct for the polarization-effect. Such a tool (Zaubergerät) could have been instrumental in the Norwegian Vikings reaching North America, centuries before other European explorers and centuries before the invention of the magnetic compass, navigating stormy seas with seasons of short hours of daylight.

stella! or fiat means of payment

The EU monetary union and its currency, the euro, has deeper roots, reaching back to the nineteenth century with attendant problems and complications, and was directly inspired by a earlier coalition by the name of the Latin Monetary Union. Founding members Switzerland, Italy, France and Belgium decided in 1865 to tether their respective national coinage to a certain ratio of silver redeemable in gold, which was legal tender among all members.

Later Venezuela, Spain, Greece, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romania, Bulgaria and the Holy Sea joined—with even the United States of America seriously considering taking part in the grand experiment. I never realized that the national pride of the franc, peso, drachma and mark was not so long-lived and had been sublimed before. H told me about this earlier attempt but I never knew what the union was called. The currency, however, had barely overcome many structural challenges before its dissolution during the inter-bellum years. The ultimate failure was due, in the main, to an institutionalized practice of and market for debasing. Though the coin’s face value was honoured universally, some mints were debasing their coins (some of the usual suspects were the greatest offenders), using less precious-metal content than prescribed. Other opportunists, notably the Germans, took advantage of this differential in specie, exchanging coins from countries out of compliance for more valuable bullion. By the same reasoning contemporarily if one could have all of one’s wealth expressed with pennies and had a buyer for the zinc and copper, one could see the value almost double. Despite all its failures at conception, the Latin Monetary Union had a long run and I wonder what lessons are applicable to the current situation.