tween

Considering the on-going disclosures that monitoring of commun- ications is not a bailiwick reserved for the world-police and is a common commodity, I wonder if the story might not be watered down to the extent where all outrage is put on the level of a mopey adolescent who feels devastatingly violated after discovering his parents thoroughly rifled through his belongings and contacts out of concern and for his own good. Of course, that's a very parental thing to do and usually advisable despite whatever angst or wrath is incurred—but I think it's not the job of the government to put its wards who've reached majority in such an uncomfortable situation—regardless whether their own up-bringing saw such awkward moments of tension or not, no matter how this tactic might defuse cries of fascism and unfairness.  Being made to relive teenage traumas shouldn't deflect from the gravity of being talked-down to.

verily a new hope

Some clever wordsmiths have re-adapted the quintessential Space Opera as if it were penned by the Bard himself. This is fun and something you can try at home and leagues better than adding zombies or vampires to the classics and declaring it original or a genre.  Pride and Predator or Baby Got Back Gilbert and Sullivan style were absolute genius, however.  What ideas for mixes and mashes do you have?

franking privilege or going postal

It's not as if anything is sacred any longer and such snooping it certainly nothing new or nuanced but I would have thought that the snoops would be less inclined to go after data that's not digitised or clearly verifiable, but—and despite that knowing for years the US Postal Service “scanned” envelops to print a machine-readable zip code, long before optical character recognition was very advanced and long since the ability to print one's own barcodes and postage stamps developed, the so-called Mail-Cover Programme—there being no reasonable expectation of privacy between the from and to lines, has not relented and is going stronger than ever, with the ability to image and archive route of every piece of mail in the country, and perhaps beyond.

In order to steam open the envelop, a request need only be forwarded to the Post itself for approval and such a closed system of judge and juror has set precedence for prying into electronic correspondence as well. Being subject to tracing and inspection of course helps uncover networks after the fact and hopefully going forward, like any good detective work—scams, illicit trade and sympathies but such insatiate methods really only help build dossiers, accurate or otherwise, rather than keeping anyone safe and secure.

tamarod or pitch and putsch

I do not know what to believe about the developing situation in Egypt and regret that I have not invested time in educating myself, since there are a lot of opinions out there either worthy of staving off or consideration, not that I was a particularly competent authority to comment on the previous revolution. I won't say that there was a lack of coverage exactly but a strange sort of disengagement when the protests swelled to the largest moment of mobilisation in human history with seventeen million people rallying for the regime to abdicate—not to mention anger at the US and its diplomacy for its policies and what has been interpreted by some as tacit support for the status quo. For the sake of the people of Egypt, I hope that this becomes a better turn, despite and in spite of speculators.
In what I hold to be a concession too far against tradition, the post by my workplace held its Independence Day celebrations last night, culminating with a fireworks display at around 2200 (it's considerate not to have people work on a federal holiday but it kind of loses its meaning when it becomes such a moveable feast), and I could see and hear the spectacle from my open hallway. It made me smile that the distant rumblings were perfectly in time to celebrations and fireworks going off in Tahrir Square as the regime was removed to jubilation.  Differences are always mentionables among friends and co-celebrants.

jenseits or rhinegold II

Having the day free with finer weather but with H unable to join me, I didn't want to have too grand of an adventure or venture too far from my little apartment, so I decided to revisit some of the romantic scenery at the beginning of the Mittel-Rhine that we had seen together before, the plunging valleys with a mighty river coursing below and the ensemble of villages and castles cleaving to the ridges and flatter lands until overtaken by vineyards—just from a different angle. On the way to Bingen am Rhein, I stopped first to explore the village of Ingelheim, host to the ruins of an imperial palace of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (Karl der Große).

The emperor decided in the late eighth century to transform the existing, ancient manor of a Merovingian king into a stately palace—the village being kindred to our fair city, leagues away in Bavaria, but also commissioned by Charlemagne to include a few forts, a residence and a town wall that's heart-shaped for his wife (I still like that story even though probably no one thought to draw a heart like that or particularly associated the organ with love until much later).
Destroyed by the battles during the Thirty Years War and the wars of the Palatinate's succession, the palatial remains were fully incorporated into the architecture of the town and the extent of the ruins were really forgotten until they were rediscovered as architectural elements throughout the town by archeological studies and showcased, opening up the land that was the Aula Regina, beginning in the early 1990s.
Last summer, H and I had the chance to see the colossal statue Germania, the Niederwald Monument, from the opposing bank of the Rhein, taking a gondola ride from a station in Rüdesheim that clipped the vines as it flew up the hill to the park above and look down at the river from above.
The city of Bingen is directly across and I remember gazing at it from a distance back then and wondering what all there was to discover.
I trekked across the city and visited the Basilica of Saint Martin and former grounds of a once expansive nunnery that's provided a wealth of early medieval artefacts, including the first inscriptions ever found in German, the written testament to the language copying Roman tablets and I climbed to the top of the dominating tower of Burg Klopp—now the administrative offices of the local government but fully accessible to the curious and with some beautiful landscaping that highlights the fortress and ancient foundations, for a spectacular view, even though the skies turned a bit threatening.  

I went back down into the city next and crossed the park that ran along the waterway—there were a lot of cultural and historical installations to look at—and got progressively better views of Germania and the famed Mäuseturm, Mice Tower, on an island in the Rhein.

I got the tale mostly right about the greedy and cruel archbishop of Mainz who exacted such high tariffs on passing boats that the peasants could not afford grain and the bishop in his tower was besieged by an avenging army of mice that ate him, along with the grain he was hoarding, in retribution. I like this story too, even though it's more likely that the name derives from the Old German infinitive mûsen for spying or lying in wait, since the strategic location of the tower with the defensive fortresses around it allowed the rulers of this bend in the Rhein to control trade.  I was surprised how close one could get and how peaceful it seemed, no crowds and I had the view all to myself and could well imagine again how the romantics were inspired.  I rather like too the creative explanations and etymologies.

picture-picture or instamatic

Kottke, purveyor of fine hypertext products, presents a thoughtful reflection on how pervasive photography, saying it and sharing it with pictures, marks a fundamental change in how we experience things and how we in turn incorporate and interpret those moments. It is certainly an idea to give one pause, as images and the medium depart from documentation, archiving to communication itself. Rather than being worth a thousand words, the tales that illustrations impart could be an even greater abbreviation. What kind of shutter-bug are you? Do time and distance make photos, artefacts, more dear and meaningful or can instant and constant mirroring co-exist?

call your parents

The BBC reports about a new “Elderly Rights Law” enacted in China to promote, under pain of fines or jail time, adult children visiting their parents and never neglecting the spiritual and emotional needs of older people. Though a nice message, regulating visits and enforcing the policy maybe such not be something left up to the authorities and perhaps the criticism is somewhat deserved, since there's no equitable way to apply it and no allowance to help keep children in compliance. I miss my parents and family very much but personally don't need legislated guilt to encourage me to make the time. What do you think? Is such a law necessary and do people need this sort of nudge?