jimadores

Bat-friendly tequila wrests one species from the brink of extinction.
The blue agave plant is exclusively pollinated by the lesser long nosed bat but as the nectar (the key ingredient in tequila) content is at its highest just before blossoming, farmers tended to harvest the plants before they flowered and relied on cloning to restock their fields. A joint US-Mexican initiative persuaded producers (jimadores) to set aside parts of their fields all allow some of the agave to reach maturity and bloom, thus feeding the bats, whose numbers are very robust after three decades of conservation, and reaping the benefits of cross-pollination for the long-term resilience of their crops.

kompromat

For shame on us all for spreading a fabricated story—if that turns out to be the case, without corroborating evidence.  The virulent nature of it, however, does not demonstrate a liberal bias in the media or a conspiracy within the highest echelons of the US intelligence service to discredit the president-elect but rather a reflection of us all: that this rumoured scenario is more believable than the fact a person displaying such an undignified demeanour could hold the office of president.
There was a moment—probably not more than two minutes sadly, when the whole world was of accord on the idea of fake news and were aligned to combat it but quite suddenly its definition expanded from just the propaganda-machines and mudslinging that yields headlines (generated for eking out a little revenue as much as if not more than for the ends of swaying public-opinion) of the outrageous variety to anything editorial or that one disagrees with. The press, no matter how they packaged or prefaced the story—whose salacious bits of course garner the most attention while being the least significant, true or otherwise, part of the dossier, were obligated to acknowledge it, even if it’s credibility seemed rather flimsy, like the notion that the sitting-president’s ascendency was invalid due to lack of American citizenship. Whether that decision to hold to journalistic responsibility possibly at the expense of short-term integrity of image bolsters or further erodes the fidelity of the press (that is, die Lügenpresse, the lying press and another term with the dubious honour of Unwort of the Year; Volksverräter—traitor of the people, was made equally infamous coincidentally just as the president-elect wondered out loud if we were living in Nazi Germany) remains to be seen. This is humiliating. I find myself more and more exhausted and can’t face the fact that this is only the beginning and there’s much at stake.

picture postcard

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we discover a website that an avid photographer named Mike Wong is crafting that heat maps where and when in the world photographs are taken and plots the most popular locations. What a nifty idea and one can zoom in and find out what’s most photogenic in one’s own neighbourhood.

more cow-bell

We learn in Switzerland, the process of attaining citizenship is often contingent on subjective factors, including the opinion of the community that one wishes to join. Although I share some of the applicant’s views on advocating for animal rights, a Dutch woman who has resided in Aargau for all of her adult life has had her citizenship petition rejected for the second time.
Despite meeting all other legal requirements and the lack of formal concerns from authorities, locals have a say in the matter and view her vocal campaigns for among other things banning cow-bells (those huge one’s that might be a discomfort for the cows are only worn on special, ceremonial occasions) as strident and confrontational—and to her neighbours for whom herding is a way of life anything but integrated. Community members don’t often invoke their veto power but did recently reject a long-time American’s application for not being able to name the local lakes and a Kosovar family for wearing jogging pants to their hearing. What do you think? The Dutch woman is refusing to compromise acting on her opinions for the sake of a Swiss passport—which speaks to her convictions, of course, but strengthens the case for her neighbours to voice their opinion as well.

tatsache kontrolle

An attorney from Würzburg is suing a social media giant and the right wing Alternative for Deutschland political party, rather unprecedentedly, for slander and propagating fake news on behalf of a Syrian man residing in Germany—whose rather nice selfie taken with the Chancellor has been ill-used.
All sorts of rumour-mongering outlets that pretend to be legitimate journalistic sources (as far as it’s convenient for them) have cited the image and continue to do so with the sensational captions and headlines asking whether Merkel took a picture next to a terrorist, and going further to accuse the refugee of all sort of heinous acts meant to sway public opinion and transpose his face to those behind terrorist attacks in France, Belgium and Germany. Whilst abuse and defamation may not violate the standards of the global, online community, such behaviour is illegal in German jurisdictions and the internet platform host to the spread of libel as well as those who share it are being held to account.

7x7

bowie.net: prescient 1999 BBC News Night interview with David Bowie regarding the emergent world wide web

urban league: a primer on why cities grew where they did

track 61: an intrepid team of urban spelunkers explore FDR’s custom train car underneath Grand Central Station, via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake

hic sunt leones: the Phantom Atlas chronicles how we filled in the gaps of our geographic knowledge with centuries of fictitious locations

time and tide: beach installation of mirrored poles captures the reflected sunrise and sunset

shyriiwook: woman goes into labour wearing a Chewbacca mask

curds and whey: a dairy factory in the western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar boasts a circular viewing gallery around its central courtyard that offers visitors a demonstration of cheese-making