minced oath or london bridge

Although maybe the Cycle of Democracy is not genuinely attributable to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee--Scottish writer, historian, lawyer, and educator of the late 18th century, and rather to an editor from the Daily Oklahoman newspaper, Elmer T. Peterson in 1951--the statement still contains some truth: "Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: 'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.'"

Or rather, from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage. Alexis de Toqueville, who planted the seeds of the idea of American exception, even echoed himself that America's growing population would be better managed by a monarch and that democracy could only be so elastic. I wonder where the world might be in this cycle, with hysterics over the market and unrest and estrangement in the streets--on the rise or fall? Hysteria, detached and writhing like a Water-Wiggle, could be used to justify cuts to social services, just as pointing to rioters, destroying what infrastructure and opportunities for employment might remain in their neighbourhoods, might either be an expression of frustration or more justification to dismantle social-safety nets. Greed is nothing to aspire to, but neither is playing into the characterization of an angry and an idle mob nor the complacency of leaders and role-models. What's the face of it elsewhere, and might this happen anywhere?

series of tubes

These concrete drainage tubes converted into individual hotel rooms are certainly more comfy and less treacherous than the pipes that the Mario Brothers have to navigate. This installation in a city park in Bottrop certainly has the same arcade-feel, and booked-solid, operates on a small environmental footprint principle under a pay-as-you-wish scheme. This would be a fun twist on camping with a bit more space (2 meters in diameter and 2.6 meters long) and a few more amenities.

Diese Beton-kanalrohre wurde als Hotel Zimmern eingerichtet, und sie sind gewiss weitaus bequemer und weniger gefährlich als die Abenteuer des Super Mario. Die Anlage stehen im Park im Bottrop mit dem ähnlichen Videospiel-Stimmung ausgebucht ist. Das Park Hotel funktioniert nach dem geringstem Umwelteinfluss-Prinzip und sind Pay as You Wish. Nächtigen im Inneren des Rohr ist Camping mit einem industriell Twist.

built this city on rock-and-roll

Some clever software engineers several months back produced a faithful three-dimensional model, extruded with a homemade 3-D printer, of the Coliseum in Rome from an aggregate of holiday snap-shots found on a photo-sharing site from all sides and all angles. The computer processed and analyzed all this data autonomously, and I thought about this feat during our recent trip to Dresden. This tidy and automated routine can no way compare, however, to the rebuilding of the city's landmark Frauenkirche essentially from collective memories. Although putting the church back together again was not completed until 2006, it was symbolic and important for many as a gesture of reconciliation for divided Germany, like the peaceful rallies, Montagsdemonstrationen, at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig.

The church was not actually hit by a bomb, experts surmise, but rather imploded during the ensuing firestorm that heated the porous sandstone building material to a temperature of 1000 degrees Celsius. Only the darker stones on the Frauenkirche are original, puzzled together from a pile of rubble that sat in place in the square for some six decades--the lighter-coloured material is new restoration.

Making whole all the baroque indulgences of Dresden, the Semper Opera House included, was a labour of love, remembering and piecing back together.  We passed by a memorial (Communist-style sculpture) to the Trümmerfrauen, teams that dug through the debris of war, salvaging what could be saved and unriddling remnants of a city that's once again glorious. I thought that this one had built this city on rock-and-roll.

dereliction

The US reached and surpassed its legal debt ceiling, before it was raised by Congress just before all money was obligated, back in mid-May, and extraordinary bookkeeping measures, creative accounting not far removed from the kind of shenanigans that led to the collapse of Enron and WorldCom and more recently, averted or deferred--Merrill-Lynch and Italy, were implanted to buy the government a little more time. Those extra weeks certainly were not devoted to serious contemplation and meditation. This paying Peter to rob Paul, was in part, financed by floating funds from the Thrift-Savings Plan (TSP) accounts of soldiers and government employees. Who's to say whether or not those retirement-nest-eggs were the first things made whole again, once the borrowing-limit was raised? That was no different than any other pension-raiding scheme. More so than any precedent that has coloured economics for good or bad through war, plague or invention, what I think we are seeing is not a failure in business but a crisis in governments. Avarice always dampens business-ventures, but globally governments have also been negligent in safeguarding treasure and creating, enforcing the regulatory framework that makes growth and meaningful employment sustainable. The job of governments is to protect its citizens from threats and promote equality of opportunity. Too much effort, however, is squandered in the name of safety from imagined but serviceable dangers and into cultivating the ideal consumer culture, instead of concentrating on ways, creative, dogged or just brute that makes people independent, self-sufficient and self-determined.

silhouette of saxon

We're taking a long weekend to visit the phoenix of Dresden. I am sure it will be a nice refrain to sustain the feeling of last weeks' travels, and there will be a lot to see and do. I am hoping also to have the chance to explore the surrounding countryside known as the Sächsische Schweiz with its gorges and colossal rock-formations. No bureaucracy or committee ever diminished or contributed to the aesthetic value of anything, however, with Dresden's Elbe Valley being only one of two UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Weltkulturerbe und Weltnaturerbe) to be defrocked because of the muncipality's decision to build an Autobahn bridge to close to the Altstadt, it seems obligatory to celebrate what's original and authentic about a place--any place. Though it was a committee which too made that choice that's turned more and more unpopular, that move also ensured that the entire area tries to make amends in terms of preservation and conservation. Character and charm can be restored while they are not something easily displaced with either awesome enmity or mundane zoning.

sisyphus or the united states of austerity

The American economy, industry and stability has ventured into very uncertain territory. After the enduring the battle of the wills that nearly resulting in a suspension of government services and furlough, I kind of lost interest in the posturing and mime that pushes the crisis but affect no real positive good. Some have described the atmosphere in Washington as bellicose, and though the work of exercizing democracy is not meant to be neat and courtly and hard decisions face America, it seems that the will and welfare of the people is not what's being won by all these histrionics and summoned rage.

No long-term solution has been found, and while debt and spending are unsustainably high, erosion of employment opportunities and physical and social infrastructure impose a bigger threat. The notion of American identity is challenged by the loss of that fleeting American dream, American exceptionalism and also the loss of military supremacy. Public health is not being championed, but rather only the rolling, regimented faith and confidence of the broader markets, not allowing the fear and frustration other outlets of expression. Debt is fleet-foot, threatening to obligate everyone futures with the toil of money already spent. Rather than fostering ways for the country to grow itself out this tangle together, secretive panels have been deputized with the task of chipping away at a mountain of outlays. People won't so be able to look beyond the childish antics that staved off any real debate and transparency and won't ignore what's been eschewed, and the cycle has only been primed to continue. Insular or expansive, this drama will be carried out over a succession in a long run of bank holidays, beginning when America faces up to the task of drafting a budget for the next fiscal year, and then when austerity panels fail to meet the quotas, and the build up to the 2012 presidential elections, and then when the credit rating agencies--to maintain any semblance of credibility--downgrade the US, and so on.

bücherbox

The English daily, thelocal, reports on a urban, ad hoc library project in Berlin that revitalizes two not-obsolete but lower-tech institutions. The Institute for Sustainability in Education, Employment and Culture (INBAK) is installing bookshelves in disused telephone booths and filling them with donated literature. Some villages in the UK apparently are doing the same thing with their iconic red telephone booths. Even with whole annals and archives and borderless communication totable, it is welcoming to see the chance to take time out with real books and real totems to language.