the other shoe

What is going on with the United States of America and its legislative foundry? I realize that partisans like news that validates their own tastes and worries and reporting is prone to exaggeration, but the States have lately taken on these strange airs with all the busy, bossy tyranny of a domineering and wicked step-sister. Maybe it is the throes and rattle of a collapsing empire and dynasty, desperate and clawing--but undeniably and unequivocally, America seems to be assaulting those freedoms and achievements that made it relevant (if not great) with a perverted prejudice and uncertain prospects. It all sounds unreal.  At the behest of the entertainment industry, it was revealed that America was intent on denuding the internet, making it a very difficult to publish original work or sample the creations of others without establishing an onerous chain-of-custody and provenance except for those artists whom are already discovered and can afford the up-keep of membership and registry. Next, in quick succession, the US is considering broadening the definition of battlefield to cover the whole folksy Homeland, this front just added to the Global War on Terrorism a few months after it was deemed acceptable that America's Cyber-Command could launch an offensive fight and respond not in kind to virtual threats but answer them with real-world guns and bullets. These creeping powers of the military and the all-encompassing playing field would allow for detention of anyone anywhere without trial or due process for an unlimited period of time, not just American citizens in America.
The last and latest insult is the natural consequence of unrelenting attacks on the arts and sciences in the States but is now assuming its final form with the failure of the Congressional Super-Committee to trim the government budget. I suspect that no one had much faith that the Super-Committee would succeed, so some analysts saying that the failure was a good fiscal outcome as automatic reductions have been put into motion is not a very genuine endorsement. Perhaps brute enforcement will force some choices and some discipline but programs targeted on contingency of this breakdown are, besides social programs, funding for art programs and research and development. Squandered inspiration and neglected imagination are intolerable wastes, and these proposals, in triplicate, even if overstated, are dangerous and would generate little in return, regardless who champions them. What gain, anticipated and delivered, could even begin to replace what's been lost? The torment in the end, like an overbearing and favoured step-sister however, may be just as listless and a paper-tiger as the tormentor.

metonymy

After a year and a half in the receivership of a caretaker government, Belgium is finally set to form a coalition, permanent regime. Political and cultural contention meant that the Low Country surpassed civil war-torn Cameroon and occupied Iraq for the modern record of operating without a proper elected government. Now, for the first time since the 1960s, the liberal and social-democratic parties have joined together under the leadership of a prime-minister from the French-speaking region of Wallonia. I think that this is a big accomplishment and wish the Belgian people continued success in their affairs, but it is a bit strange how the daily business of politics limped along over the past five-hundred days in a self-described power-vacuum towards this notorious record given that in Brussels there is already super-imposed seat of the European Union and those vested powers and a perfectly good royal family and given that the outcome of elections and party-partnerships will never please everyone. There are significant divides and cloying for representation between the Francophone Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish, and politicians are generally disappointing. Belgium's perseverance to secure a proper government sort of reminds me of the biblical Israelites insistence on a human ruler out of king-envy and peer-pressure. Maybe it was a bit awkward to tell their neighbours that their king was God. The Israelites got some very good and wise secular leaders but were eventually tuned into the fact that earthly leadership was prone to error. Now that Belgium is not just Brussels, as the EU capital, hopefully the political loggerheads can be navigated and place more emphasis on unity rather than division.

cloudy gray times, you are now a thing of the past

The American Stock Market Panic of 1893 was overshadowed by the Great Depression during the interbellum and the hand-wringing of today, but notably was also precipitated by a bubble, in railroads--speculation and over-building led to too many trains and inability to profit and compete, and the first spectre of quantitative easing in the mandate for the US government to absorb the seigniorage (fiat) in backing up the Gold Standard with silver certificates and coin. The crisis was not defused until the discovery of gold reserves in the Klondike and the right-sizing of the transportation industry. These events inspired at least one Broadway melodrama called The War of Wealth by playwright Charles Turner Dazey in 1896. Though Dazey portrays economic turmoil and runs on banks portentously, insolvency did not really hit the financial system as a cause rather than an effect until the Panic of 1907, but I suppose few are interested in seeing the theatrics on Main Street, Wall Street or on Broadway.

holly, jolly and echo base

A clever Buzzfeed contributor (via the stupendous Neatorama) offered this wonderful holiday mash-up of the Empire Strikes Back and Rankin/Bass' cavalcade of Christmas specials. Abominable-Wampum surely won't be mean to the Misfit Jedi (Hermey the Elf wanted to be a dentist instead of a toy-maker) and his red-nosed Tauntaun steed.

parts of speech

H and I used to hold (though the frequency was semi-legendary) German Days, when I struggle to communicate exclusively auf Deutsch. We really ought to get back into that practice, as the struggle and frustration is more memorable when it is more personable than conveying pleasantries with strangers or what I want left out of my meal at restaurants. One of the more challenging grammatical constructs, universally, are the prepositions (Präpositionen oder Lagewörter), owing that there are no set or predictable rules to follow and that the rules, framework of grammar was developed and committed to study long after the Germanic languages splintered.

German, I find, there is more difficulty and nuance in modifiers--whereas in English a plastic preposition might clang dissonant, the meaning is usually not lost, German words admit of differences in declension and mood that takes a precise preposition that communicates a more narrow relationship. The natives of Vanuatu (the Sandwich Islanders) after centuries of colonial shared rule by the British and the French, developed a creole to communicate with plantation owners and level out the dozens of different dialects and Pacific languages spoken in the area. The pidgin is called Bislama--from the French word for sea-cucumber, Seegurken or rather Bêche-de-mer, and is an evolving language, transposing English and French vocabulary on a mostly Pacific substrate of grammar. One of the features that struck me about this highly serviceable way of talking is the trend towards reduction and simplification. There is no conjugation of verbs but rather markers that indicate past or future tense, and most interesting, many prepositions and prepositional phrases have been replaced by the words "long" and "blong." Long can mean next to (neben, bei), by (von, mit, durch, an), at (im, in, auf, über), to (zu, nach, gegen), or in (in), and blong substitutes for the genitive case or simply the plastic English word of. I think I have adopted this sort of reduction, inadvertently, but I keep trying to become more fluent and it is constructive to be wrong and sloppy, as long as one does not settle on a plateau, and to see where speech diverges and comes together.

polity

Der Spiegel staff writer Georg Diez has an excellent, thoughtful portrait of German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas and his perception and understanding of the economic crisis threatening the institution of Europe. Lucidly and refreshingly, and with a unique sort of serenity for the audience who would listen, Habermas describes the move into post-democracy, post-sovereignty, where governments are driven by the whims of markets and day-traders--instead of commerce carried out all levels within the framework of civics. I have been trying to attack this argument on all fronts, calling the economic situation a hoax meant to perpetuate great game for its winners and to leech away the substance of public office, but Habermas has through discourse managed to encapsulate the sum of all dangers. He commends the media for its unrelenting coverage, some of which I would have stinted as fear-mongering and unreflective, but Habermas was also able to look beyond the pedestrian problems of corruption in politics and greed and recognize (and validate) a fear for a diminished public voice and politics disengaged when the legacies of whole peoples are chained together and bound by representatives that are unelected and not vetted with authority--no more referenda, plebisites (Volksentscheid) but rather everything decided by treaty and steerage and stock-brokers--in some cases, and would abandon the European ideal for finances.