a working-class hero is something to be

A Washington, D.C. journal featured an important and intensely personal account of the how being out of work changes a person and a family, affecting one's dignity, attitude and outlook. It is absolutely crushing, gathering small blessing nonetheless, how the writer realizes that America has become a plutocracy, a kleptocracy and the only relatively safe careers are those that appeal to the vanities of the wealthy.

For the writer's intended audience, such transformations should be obvious and prevented, dealt with sympathetically, but just as hard as her revelations are about the state of affairs, understanding the consequences of unemployment or underemployment can be very difficult, for those spared the brutality and the insult.

The struggle is different for any individual anywhere, but it is nearly impossible to fathom for many Europeans, where the chance to live the American dream is still possible for immigrants and natives alike, who are rarely confronted with threats of eviction or a constant plague of bounty-hunter debt collectors or shudder in the absence of any sort of meaningful social safety-net, recourse or cushion. Sincerely, I hope that no one ever need to go through this, especially with the lowered expectations that globalization brings, disgust and futility with the ability and impetus to organize and protest against injustice even taken away.  One hopes, as well, that the message of this story shared is received and that awareness and empathy increases.

zusammenhalt

While world attention is focused on the urgent, unmitigated threat of uncontrolled radiation poisoning the land and sky and leeching into the sea, one has to wonder at this catastrophe three-times-over and not forget restoring basic needs to all the displaced people, rebuilding, finding the solace to begin again and honour what’s been lost through gainful, meaningful labour, is just as vital as controlling the atomic monster that’s impeding progress on those efforts. Just because international support and expertise are rallying on one front and the Japanese have been forthcoming about accepting that help, one should not assume that assistance is unneeded or unwanted elsewhere.

Those scares that bleed across borders should not overshadow the coping for destruction that was sufficient by itself. Nonetheless, the international community has come forward: a scattered fleet of enormous pumping engines, to deliver water to the reactor or, if the situation degrades, concrete to bury it, from Germany are being brought to the scene by Russian cargo planes to Japan to quell an American-designed nuclear power plant. One hopes that there could be the same concerted level of cooperation for any humanitarian crisis, recognition that we are all in this together, regardless of the potential for seepage.

sector 7G

A German broadcast network quietly announced it will practice some discretion in airing episodes from The Simpsons. In order to avoid further trauma at home and abroad, it will not be presenting shows that are centered around the Springfield nuclear power-plant.

Before the crisis in Japan and debate in Germany over the future of atomic power that has precipitated a series of documentaries on the Chernobyl disaster, what had educated (or at least introduced) the public most about nuclear issues was Mr Burns' reactor. Perhaps the network does not want to appear to be taking sides in the debate or influencing the viewers, but the same channel also showed Black Hawk Down just after the presence of US CIA operatives were working in Libya came to light, though it could be coincidental and is probably a superficial comparison since the bigger surprise would be if such agents were not already there. Hopefully, the network's selectiveness is also out of respect for the workers toiling under deadly conditions and racing against time.  This flyer seems a bit crass given the current situation--really done up for a Thanksgiving Day mini-marathon two years ago, but I have to wonder at the choice in clip-art to begin with. Cloud-Maker II does not loom over this town like that, and there are a lot of other nice landmarks to choose from.

penny-ante or tin-roof rusted

Huffington Post contributor and Former Assistant Secretary and Spokesperson for the US State Department P. J. Crowley, who resigned on principle over the shadowy incarceration of font of embarrassment and entrapment, has an excellent and thoughtful entry regarding the disposition of super-powers for a super-power without an operational government.

Whatever compromised is reached with the current quibbling certainly does not yield a balanced budget or new fiscal and monetary policies that will promote solvency and sustainability, however, cuts would remove America's ability to go questing and peddle influence through foreign aid. NATO and the UN can and probably should assume a leading role in peace-keeping, with the checks and balances of an international framework, but just as neither NATO nor any other organization can take over the administration of federal aid programs for the US, one has to wonder, what influences are filling that void in foreign policy. It may be positive or profoundly negative. Maybe the International Red Cross or the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta will never be expected to make sure American federal judges, national guardsmen and national park rangers receive their pay-checks, but the dysfunction (and bargaining that might wrest defeat from the clutches of victory) and indecision in serving its citizens and promoting the general welfare--for which no politic animals are accomplished experts, it seems--makes its emissaries suspect.  Money, after all, is not the measure of all things--including statecraft, and is a rather a tenuous shared delusion, opposed to health, well-being and dignity, and a grand unequalizer.

in the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun?

The newest, latent source of worry--though it is hard to tell from the volume of the shouting, is the threat of a US federal government budget impasse. Despite all the suspense dates, reporting requirements, fiat debt-ceilings and endless bureaucracies in place, this body of lawmakers has ignored its own rules, and failing to agree on a fiscal budget, has funded day-to-day operations through a series of so-called "continuing resolutions," an allowance every two or three weeks of a few billion dollars. If no compromise on funding is reached very soon, then the US government will be forced to suspend operations--selectively--or risk defaulting on its obligations--that is, paying dividends on bond-issues, their debt held by foreign governments, outstanding contracts to private business, and social services. I can remember the Government Shutdown of 1995-1996, as I was living near the Washington, DC area and I remember making the trek up there by public-transportation--which always seemed impossibly difficult, but on returning recently for my college reunion, I realized that those distances that seemed so insurmountable and bothersome were greatly diminished--to see a special exhibit at the National Gallery.

Of course, the museums were closed due to the budget crisis (precipitated by the current president's infidelity) and a massive snowball fight ensued on the Mall. This time, the perspective is a bit different: one side claims the other is too willing to pare down social programs too far, saying that they would force such a stand-off in order to eradicate the vestiges of health-care reform. Maybe one side is certain that recipients of US government welfare programs, patrons of federal institutions or services, is restricted to the other side and believe ending such programs would not adversely affect their base. Attempting reform through such jarring methods, however, is not so well thought out. Furloughing all the hundreds of thousands of citizen and soldier employees of the Ministry of Truth, over and above the loss of support services, will cause that economy to crumple at light-speed with loss of purchasing-power, missed payments, tight credit, and an already fragile economy whose jobless recovery was being sustained by government-staffers in the first place. A few days' worth of late installment-payments and deferred spending will be tormenting, however contained, and will quickly creep to the world's markets.

They won't smash up our Pierce Arrow,
We ain't got none
They've cut my wages
But my income tax will be so much smaller
When I'm paid off,
I'll be laid off
Ain't we got fun?

betrügerisch or we are unanimous, we are legion

A politician from Germany’s Green Party, whose success in recent state-elections certainly has more to do with such long-standing insults as described and corporate steam-rolling autocracy rather than reactionary fears over atomic energy from just yesterday, presents a marvelous and disturbing expose (auf Englisch) on the dastardly ways that big business has at its disposal for keeping tabs on anyone, and introduces it with the prescient words of Kraftwerk’s Computerwelt.

In order to highlight how a person’s day-to-day activities could be easily triangulated to limn a more than complete picture of one’s movements, dealings and interests and what repercussions changes in data retention rules (Vorratsdatenspeicherung) could have. After winning a lawsuit again the telecommunications firm that warehouses such logs, the politician made these records, six months' worth, available to Die Zeit. Gadgetry should not present the consumer a conundrum between convenence, functionality and being spied upon. Technology does not advance solely as fodder for marketers or advertising space. A second article (auf Deutsch) in the series is also quite an interesting read, addressing not only the trade-off but what is so willing offered up as incriminating evidence.