herab heraus or power of the purse

While still caught in either mid-yawn or mid-reel from the repercussions of the downgrade (Herabstufung-- Herabstufung is an upgrade or a promotion) of nine states of the European Union by one member of the creditworthiness brat-pack, the agency then proceeded to cast a pall of doubt on the EU’s financial crisis-management plan, the European Financial Stability Facility (gekürtz als EFSF oder bail-out pie), making the mechanisms of recovery potentially more costly, paying a dearer premium on the assurance of their efforts.

 I suppose it is logical that plans and pacts would also be targeted for assessment, but given that the EU was not simply downgraded en mass but rather parsed and excised instead of indirectly attacking their credibility through their good neighbor programme and that I cannot recall the agencies being very vocal (for or against) during the early phases of the US economic recession with trillions from treasury coffers dispersed to salvage over-exposed financial institutions, the gaming of the EFSF seems to me more like the bookmakers’ culture of Briton, wagering on an outcome and any interest-grabbing probability with the intent of skimming a little off the top. Germany and other EU leaders have dismissed the notion, at least not publically addressing or entertaining the idea, that the activity of the rating agencies is vindictive or something of a conspiracy--though there is more money to be made raising the stakes. Banks, in collusion with the rating agencies, are bringing down Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal whose baited lend-lease ventures shoved these countries over the ledge by obscuring their real levels of indebtedness and still foisting more easy credit on them, past the EU statutory limits. It is simply false to attribute the whole crisis to bad governance, greed, or laziness without factoring in the temptation and terrorism visited by this conspiracy. Once the crisis was forced, the same predatory gang called in their debts and are now profiting off the chaos and desperation as well.  Hopefully, national responses to this sort of gamble are measured and in proportion.

air america

Apparently, the US has found a way to bypass the new EU airport emissions tax being levied on all incoming and departing flights into Europe. One exemption is that the originating location imposes a reciprocal environmental regime to offset some of the pollution from air travel, but instead, the government has contracted an airline, called Patriot Express, for all official military travel in Europe, no longer relying on commercial airliners to transport soldiers.  This service will fly one route only, between Baltimore-Washington International and not to Frankfurt (the traditional hub) but rather to Ramstein Airbase, which is of course does not fall under EU environmental regulation. This slapdash and ostensibly retaliatory work-around is supposed to commence as soon as February.

byzantine

Yesterday marked the beginning of the internet's hour of desperate need, and I hope that the exposure and message sent reaches its intended audience. The vote, and perhaps subsequent hearings and challenges, however, is just a formal codification of the shady dealings that are happening in regimes the world over to silence the voice of dissent. The same champions of this current legislation shut-down Wikileaks as revelations were unfolding furiously and with the same attitude (but not with the same gravity, yet) as the dictators that tried to stop the uprisings of the Arab Spring. Though it is not the only insidious facet of the bills revealed, one major complaint of websites is the expected burden of policing every link, every tangent of what they post and of what they host, with criminal consequences for non-compliance. Most websites, fearful of litigation, will just give up or become expatriates, though there is probably not much of a margin for escaping.  

There is additionally the potential for oligopoly on the internet by a few media sources and, by extension, the chance to regulate the flow of misinformation.  The internet is just a series of tubes, but it is also a medium that is free and open and patched together by architects that do not suffer being bound by red-tape.  It seems to me that for whatever reason, possibly thrashing out against loss of power or prestige, the US government or its minders have taken to a new strategy when it comes to getting their way: a convoluted, byzantine legal support structure that places a Sisyphean labour on the public at large, like this obligation to make sure all ones commentary is copacetic or the reporting requirements of the US Internal Revenue Service imposed on foreign banks that would make them shun American clients (and investments) over the paperwork and administrative costs involved.  Just as if the government were serious about generating tax revenue, they would make businesses pay their fair share, SOPA and PIPA will not be effective in curbing piracy and copyright violations by "foreign rogue sites."  Maybe the Super Powers are expecting the rabble to do their patrolling, under threat of torture, or maybe these policies, which no one even bothers reading in full, are hopelessly complex by design, wearying one into submission. 

degrees of separation

I bet people were missing Wikipedia and the thousands of other sites that went dark in protest, in order to avoid going black permanently if the US passes laws to unmake the internet and cede its potential to handful of media outlets and copyright holders. Since when did a trade mark become a royal signet seal, a talisman that less about authorship (or royalties) and more akin to a deed or title, that's passed around like so many underwater mortgages, either held in jealous trust or readapted and repackaged with diminishing creativity? Nothing quite matches Wikipedia, not just as a reference source because it happens to be within easy reach, but also as a copilot, a navigator--whose future comes into question because of passing acquaintance with proprietary materials, no matter how far removed. A lot of time spent on the computer can be an aimless pursuit, but there are some, saving moments in between the predictable and necessary gears and cogs of unfiltered, immediate reporting and illimitless comparison.
That some websites are taking a stance on a politically pregnant issue, does raise questions of maintaining neutrality and insulating influence, but when pressed into free-determination over expurgation, there is the matter of self-defense, survival and keeping the entire substrate of the internet fertile and useful. Courts in the UK recently ruled that links do not constitute libel, and I wonder how citation, just as modern arts are sometimes dismissed as footnotes to the Classics, can mean guilt by association. Hobby and opinion should not be empowered at the expense of another's entitlement and no one is proposing otherwise, and one's voice and access should not be sacrificed to ownership, and unfortuneately is what some propose.  I personally felt at a lost and a little ungrounded without a dose of science and the humanities, enough to excite the curiosity and endure like an after-image beyond the competition for attention. Hopefully the message is resounding and we take the time to appreciate those tools and movements that are an integral part of learning and teaching.

kauderwelsch

Since 1994 linguists from the Association for the German Language along with journalists and authors have gathered to nominate an Unwort (Un-word) of the Year, picking a neologism that's made its way into common-parlance but butchers the language. The nature and construction of the German language, compounding modifier and substantive in long and novel chains not just for the nonce but also for public-consumption, celebrates invention as well, but Unwörte general fill a need that’s not there, sort of like the English equivalent of "irregardless" or "misunderestimate" or "refudiate," and many past candidates do originate with American buzzwords.

The jury announced that the winner for 2011 was "Döner-Morde," which is a little dark but importantly draws attention to the type of soft, dismissive and maybe apathetic racism and prejudice that has disturbingly become much too prevalent and tolerated. It is shorthand that marks the spree of coordinated extremists murders that targeted minorities all over Germany that went nearly unnoticed for a decade. The term is meant to be demeaning and reflects the ignorance of authorities and politicians who might be as prone to reduce someone to a stereotype based on assumption. People with Turkish ancestry living in Germany are often associated with running Döner Imbißen (stands, lunch-counters) and such labeling may have prevented police from seeing the scope of the murder series and terrible ideas that have taken root. Grammarians are not usually social activists and perhaps it would have been more in keeping with the light mood of the contest to use some fashionable term from finance or Merkozy or the whole trend, out of some weird hurricane-envy, of naming all the storm fronts (Orkan) that pass through, but they are right in that the timbre of communication does reflect the times.

barnard’s star or space oddity

The BBC has an item on a newly expanded public science project, called Planet Hunters, which invites volunteers to scour time-lapse images of some 150,000 stellar groups captured during the Kepler mapping mission. It is incredible and inspiring to think in the span of less than a decade, astronomy has gone virtually from uncertainty whether any planet was outside of our own Solar System to over seven-hundred confirmed extra-solar planets. Scientists posit that all stars host a planetary system of some kind, so there's a lot to be discovered yet. Computers have identified many potential candidates but computers are very good at spotting patterns in the universes that they create, and I am sure human recruits with wonder and imagination will be able to point out many more.  The Zodiac and its underlying mythology is a very human invention, a means to cope with mysteries and the the unknown, but the calendars and charts that were shook out of that approach have not been surplanted or bested. Being a part of such a project, I think, would be a much more constructive use of my well-honed skills for match games and mah jongg and I am very excited to contribute.

blackout warden

Although the White House and the US congressional contingency sponsoring SOPA has flinched, abandoning language that provides for a government firewall that blocks out whole swathes of the internet, nodding to some expert testimony and perhaps in hope of appeasing protestors who demonstrated how DNS blacklisting could invite more security problems and damage the architecture of the internet, the remaining provisions of SOPA are still devious and misguided and give Hollywood too many choke-points (any link), to stifle creativity and reporting. On Wednesday (18. January), many diverse websites are going dark in protest to this bill’s impending passage, to illustrate how broke down the internet could become if America enacts this law. People world-wide ought to join in, because the internet knows no borders, and no one suffered the privations or propaganda that tried to quell past and more recent uprisings. America fortunately does not control the internet, though maybe pressure is mounting for the US to act as if it does, and ought to receive a strong signal that such meddling in media and in politics and in the economy is unwelcome, especially through such cowardly, backdoor channels.