simoom, samoom

The popular uprising in the Egypt has many hopeful and many pensively watching. Either through revolt, control slouching away in great chunks like with the military forces, or peaceable retirement--however, concessions, negotiations, revisions are not none too convincing, emanating from the same tenacity that has kept the country under a never-changing aegis of emergency powers called regional stability, called peace.

Elite security forces are policing in the original sense of the word, busting up idleness and giving general vagrancy no quarter, and though it may deflect the feeling of chaos, state police seemingly, however ranks splinter, are only interested in preserving the arena, the conditions that have provided them with prosperity and power. The military forces, however, have pledged to safeguard the public welfare, and because of Egyptian's compulsory service requirements, the army is the public and its welfare, all ranking as someone's son, brother or father and some exclusive force of mercenaries working for graft and bribe and job-security. There is an overwhelmingly influential and democratic apparatus in this, unlike deputized goons that by turns seize and are ceded too much authority.  This support, tacit but growing, is significant, and ought to awaken intolerances and apathy for divisiveness and injustice.

colourfast or ghost of laundry future

From the balcony, I have noticed that one of my favourite sweaters, zebra-striped that maybe makes me look like a mime or the Hamburgler, has a strange optical effect reflected in the window. The equally-sized black and white stripes become half as thick and are boarded by grey ones. The photograph is a little bleary but the effect is visible, I think.  Perhaps this is a form of polarization caused by the double panes of glass or my dousing the windows with Windex and calling them spotless. Weird quantum characteristics of light and shadow are shaken out when one starts to meddling with the whole business with refraction.

One experiment, which I always found maddening and counter-intuitive but I do not think others are so easily impressed, is that two polarized lenses never fully cancel one another out, as I’d expect: each only lets 50% of light through and rotating the other around, even when the filter is at a right angle, perpendicular to the other, still lets 25% of the light to sneak through in as a particle-wave prankster.

dromedary

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the US response to the revolt in Egypt is mild, cordial to the old despot, as if in these past three decades, he could most heinously be called the Grinch who stole Twitter. The sympathy is creeping although, and however shameful the lack of support and commitment may be for revolution, it is perhaps more telling of America’s dwindling relevance.

The US and the West have supported this and similar regimes with billions of dollars in aid and resources in the interest of preserving the status quo, idealized and reflexive banana republics to American eyes and perhaps models for their own civil aspirations. There has not been any esteemed revolutions that America could not equivocally claim it managed for quite some time—those of the greatest pitch and moment being the dissolution of the Soviet Union and various influence peddling in the Middle East and Central America. The West, overall, is left speechless when it comes to unmanaged change, because, like the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoyevsky, rapture, democratic reform, is unwanted. There is too much profit to be made in encouraging freedom with one hand and maintaining this friendly arrangement with the other. There is fear, whether genuine or not, of what will fill the power vacuum, dangerous radicals or other despots not of their choosing. No one remembers, it seems, that real reform is difficult but can turn out well in the end. These matters are serious and persecution should cease, no longer suffering the grace-and-favour tyrants. Another important lesson, though masses are mobilized all the same, is in that a very sizable country, with the population of Germany, could completely censor all forms of communication. The American government, for one, wanted to invest itself with such martial powers, over some uncomfortable disclosures. This should be a cue for all peoples to scrutinize broadening authority, especially as that government’s intimacy with the media has made the incriminating, suspicious and otherwise undesirable transparent and instantly discoverable. Enough rope—even if the outlets and the conduits are not closed off, it is becoming possible to monitor and prevent civil unrest before it has a chance to organize and express itself.

spectral analysis or pink is like red but not quite

Wired! magazine has an excellent eulogy for the US Department of Homeland Security's colour-coded scheme for threat and terror alerts, which will be phased out in the Spring. Apparently, the bad guys have finally managed to crack the code. Although rivaled and much criticized and generally useless, it is a bit endearing, like losing the Time and Temperature service or replacing McGruff the Crime Dog or Woodsy the Owl with trendier, modern mascots. Instead of panic-inducing swatches of colour, a newly refined level of bureaucracy, the National Terror Advisory System, will now be able to manage the appropriate level of fear on a local level. I wonder what magical palette and brush will be able to address that. Given that the danger level, across the US, has not been relaxed in the past four years, I suppose yellow (amber, rather) fits all.

der zauberberg oder table, donkey and stick

The gathering of the World Economic Forum annually in the alpine retreat, exclusive and guarded, is a very strange, ornamented ritual, and I wonder if Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg), set in a sanitorium in the same village, is required reading for any and all attendees.

I would almost expect that the audience indulges this all too apt quirk of literature leeched into reality as a wonderful honorific, bestowing some of the big personalities present with epithets from the book. Economic civilities brokered is likewise nursing, cloddeling a sickness. I wonder if the Swiss appreciate the irony. In recent years, I think it was gotten to be a dull challenge to match characters with their assembled ministers and handlers. Peripatically, France in Davos has pontificated about the importance of maintaining a monetary union, which may be true and sound but the asides used to merit the argument were inscrutible and big reaches: embroiled in barbaric wars that are still within living memory, forever seeming the lastterrible gasp in violence and not counting the Cold War that evaporated a scant two decades ago or all the war-making that went before and since, but Europeans are not at each others throats for the time being and economic cooperation is a surrogate peace. Some are saying that the rise and prosperty of the Western world is an anomoly, and for most of history Asia has enjoyed the dominant reign. I am not quite sure what that means. It seems arrogant to weigh the two and to force one's ideas of god and kingdom upon another, and calling it commiserate. The long peace in Europe and stability, hopefully not premature or anomolous, are outstanding things, but to proffer money has the binding factor, no matter what the venue, only cheapens how far we all have come.

no sugar tonight/new mother nature

The company store here at work, which business nee social-hour revolves around, apparently was a little slap-happy with orders and inventory and as a consequence, is unloading palettes of a sugary-sweet caffeinated beverage in a can, something of the voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir) moco choco latte variety, for free, since they surpass their sell-by-date, for which co-workers are of two camps, either ignoring that recommendation entirely since the little organic content is bolstered by preservatives and artificial flavours, or are generally adverse to the transgression but take it as a mild recommendation. Anything free, people will lug away with abandon. Coffee confection.  As a result, all the offices are wired and jittery like Mario when he gets the Invincibility Star and the music goes double-quick time, and it makes doing the budget revisions even more urgent and manic, along with everything else.

rosinenbomber or fishmonger

Since the shuttering of the stunning Tempelhof city airport of Berlin in 2008, a rather sad winding down of a historic place--built on lands owned originally by the Knights Templar and witnessed the Airlift of Berlin during the Cold War when the Western exclave was blockaded by the Soviets, people have been trying to come up with good ideas for use of this massive space.

Though I am not able to discover much else about this one, intriguing proposal, it seems that a major German grocery store (Lebensmittel) chain is sponsoring one plan: to turn the area into a grand co-op for bread-baking and fish-farm, where locals could process and sell their produce. I think it would be a great thing to go further and plant a giant victory garden, too, and perhaps lessen the way people have become estranged from what they eat. Albeit, in Germany, local food is not such a boutique item and there is not such a disconnect between produce and consumption. There is a farmers' market around the corner from our house that sells stupendous fruits and vegetables from local sources--whose shop tagline is "mehr als Rüben und Kraut"--more than beets and cabbage. That always made me think about the variety of vegetables that are of new world origin--staples like tomatoes, potatoes, corn. I suppose there was mostly just beets and cabbage beforehand.

Certainly the variety is available but it isn't grown overseas, and while it may come from the fields of Spain sometimes, a lot, greens less hearty and less suited to Germanic climate, is grown here in hothouses and with a modicum of coaxing in nicer weather. With food prices rising out of proportion, there is a lot of talk of sustainability and feeding an exploding population and doing so more efficiently through vegetarianism (yay!)--all of which are certainly pressing and deserving of attention and serious thought, but maybe realigning one's attitude towards food begins with growing one's and bringing it to market.

noblesse oblige

To again reaffirm that there is always something new to discover here, whether traveling a long distance or just around the corner, H and I went out--the bright sun though low on the horizon was deceptive, as it is still very cold, and explored the grounds of this little moated-castle (Wasserburg), and one of the ancestral homes of one of the German noble houses, though I think for a minor cadet branch, which still resides there.  The surrounding village still possessed some of its original character but the fancy castle looked rather out of place.

 I wondered what the neighbours thought of this abdicated royalty.  It reminded me of when we were house-hunting and seriously entertained the idea of renting another nearby castle of another famous personage (the count corrected us: it isn't a castle but a fortress, Veste).   The owner of the Wasserschloss returned while we were looking around and greeted us politely.  There was a sign on the bridge stating that visitors were welcome, and we certainly were not trespassing, although the reception was a little different once before when we were visiting the grounds of the residence of a noble family who became local banking magnates centuries past. 

We were walking around the stately manor and gardens when I presume the lord of land, current pretender to the throne, emerged from ye royal woodshed and alighted his horseless carriage.  He seemed rather disappointed that we did not kneel before him, or at least bow graciously.