heresy or wash your mouth out with soap

Generally, I don’t ascribe to the latest fads or scares in health and hygiene, though I do tend to be skeptical about the utility over marketing and salesmanship of most products and I am usually captivated by the ideas that present reduction and disenchantment with conventional wisdom and the vaunted over-the-counter industries. Some time ago, H shared with me a tract circulating the internet, I’m sure, about tooth care, and I took the prescribed regiment rather seriously because the researcher (who I am sure could also share a lot of conspiracy theories about the fluorine in tap water—I could as well) was not trying to sell anything or get one to radically change his or her routine, like freeganism or the anti-soaps league.

I tried and stuck with it, not be too vain about my teeth and questioning if anything should be brilliantly and unnaturally white—I found the tobacco and coffee stains tolerable, but since I exchanged red wine for beer and tried to combat the discolouration with aggressive, daily flossing, I could tell that I was doing damage to my gums and enamel. The researcher maintains that the teeth can heal themselves (we tend to forget that one’s biology is mostly smarter than we are, despite our micro-managing of the affairs of our mouths and skin) and the biggest obstacle against repair is angry teeth-brushing with tooth-paste. The glycerin in all toothpaste, which makes it foam up, sort of suffocates one’s mouth because it does not rinse away. Instead, the researcher recommends that one use a bar of plain soap and take vitamin C and calcium supplements. That getting rid of a chemical coating might make all the difference struck me at first like the fallacy of moisturizers for one’s skin--nothing of the fancy ingredients and nutrients are absorbed into one’s skin, nor would we really want them to be. I must say that my gums were very sensitive at first and I had a few painful mouth ulcers at first, and I wasn’t seeing results after just two weeks, as promised, but six weeks later, my gums do look healthier with no latent pain and the stains have been bleached away to a large extend, even some of the swaths of decay look like they have sloughed off. Dental health is important and hopefully people won’t follow quackery, but as with most matters of taking care of oneself, there is no magic potion and a lot of what is being peddled does little more than mask underlying problems and perpetuates the business of health-care.

heisenberg or frisch gestrichen

The New York Times' technology blog has a post covering significant recent changes being released that redirect the traffic flow of the internet on the approach from the biggest and most ubiquitous internet search engine. After first changing its parameters a few months back so as to not so easily fall for website spam--pages that capitalize and snare hits with words popular searches but are hollow and without content, in addition to continual fine-tuning, parameters and rules in favour of freshness, timeliness, I suppose over other criteria like brute popularity or possibly definitiveness.

These structural changes, of course, which in turn molds and models the internet itself, being a repository also but immediately the sum of what seekers find and share, refer to something called an internet search algorithm. Knowing that an algorithm is not a formula or a mathematical proof but rather describes a set of rules, like a dogma (no one can hold all of the important tenants of belief or affiliation in his or her head all at once and at all times)--a rule of thumb that for all practical intents and purposes becomes something absolute and infallible (ex cathedra and within itself) given how many processes the computer-aided human mind can summon, brute and making the finite applicable for as far as one cares to extend infinity to. A lot of things taken as a rule are calculated with such heavy-handedness, and apparently one reason that the mainstream search engine are making the change is pressure from social networking platforms that have made freshness, instant and incessant updating customary. If search results are arbitrated truth, one wonders what tweaking is improvement and what is pandering over precision and bias.

flower drum song

A few weeks ago, our neighbour, sharing the plot of a crime-thriller that she was excited to plow through (auf englisch), asked if I had read any Günter Grass--and I think, enjoyed literature in general. She named off Die Blechtrommel, and I said that I had heard of that one, translating it "The Tin Drum Song," like Flower Drum Song, which is something, I think, completely different.

Since that exchange I had been a little obsessed about finding a copy and investigating it. Finding this vintage edition (1962) from our library, I remembered, vaguely, the cover illustration and think that there was a copy among my families books growing up. The story is intoxicating and is the perfect expression of the genre of magical-realism, which too is all about remembering and the supernatural talent of recalling what can't be recollected.

In translation, I am plowing through this saga as well. The cover image of the prodigious Oskar Matzerath also reminded me of another household artifact, though, this plate, I believe, was a much later acquisition. The novel promises to be a story that one incorporates, perhaps, anticipating the whole of it before the end, like a natural, musical progression or a consonant chord.

begrudge report

Quietly, and I am sure gratefully for some detractors to escape critical eyes and public debate, Palestine's ascension to the United Nations' UNESCO body (Gremium) has slipped away post-hast from the headlines and perhaps the public's attention.

While this awarding of membership that took place in Paris under split auspices does not recognize Palestine's full statehood, it does acknowledge their strife and strive and open up avenues towards membership in more UN institutions. Perhaps, if motives and agendas were bared for all to see, it was not diplomatically correct or expedient to force UN politics with petitioning to join what is primarily regarded as a cultural organization, but the attention on the detractors should not be excused with such interpretations and Palestine's membership marks an important first step. America, Germany and others voted their reservations, calling membership premature and perhaps counter-productive, but having let their stance be known, should have then been willing to engage Palestine as a partner, and not, as America has done, tried to delegitimize the whole body by begruding its membership dues. UNESCO, more famous as the accrediting agency for tangible culture, also does significant and important work (including within America, and no one is even asking what treasures Palestine holds) in promoting education and protecting the intangibles, which America's decision threaten and appear counter-productive and calculated.

demos

One of the great things about memes going viral, modular and remixed and remixed, is that that creativity is channeled into a sort of choose one’s own adventure type story. One template is pretty much accepting of any theme or expression. The same is true for democracy, a very Greek invention. Introducing this pomegranate (Granatapfel) of accepting the money and the terms of the euro-bailout fund as a ballot measure, a referendum for the voters of Greece, was an unexpected but necessary move. It is not quite accurate to compare the plight of Greece with that of Argentina’s decision to default on its loans years hence, since although both could survive this choice, Argentina was not part of a currency union, and the vox populi may well out-shout any usury and further anything more to do with membership in the European Union. The Greek people and future generations are going to be the ones who have to deal with the consequences (equally unenviable, it seems) of default or grand-receivership.

best in show or PR's PR award

The small oberbayerisch town of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm beat out some 376 communities worldwide in its size category (populations of 20,000 to 75,000) to win the International Award for Livable Communities (LivCom) for 2011, presented in Seoul. Among the criteria rated were neighbourliness, city-planning, future-orientation, and environmental stewardship, and Pfaffenhofen's score impressed the jury. While I do not question the rigour and distinction of this honour, these sort of trade-show mavens seem to wander towards recursiveness and idiosyncrasy.

While waiting on queue to go up in the Berlin Fernseherturm earlier this year, the panorama along the interior walls not only illustrated and compared the tallest buildings and towers in the world, but also mentioned that the television tower was a member of the International Association of Tall Structures. I wonder if some of these contest also tend in that direction. I want to visit Pfaffenhofen and see for myself what a world-class livable city is like, and I am sure it does have excellent civil-planning that might be a good model for others, as I imagine that the city's residents can attest to as well, but without context and tradition (and Pfaffenhofen surely has history but those details do not seem to be competing against its latest bourgeoisie plaudit), I do wonder how much of winning was a strong marketing and public-relations campaign that isn't just in it for the recognition. After all, the life of communities is generally more than can be reflected in a single honour, though that is no small achievement.

mister sandman or traumhalf

A few weeks ago, Boing Boing, had a small item about the United States Army Medical Command's ambitions to treat soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) by applying dream-therapy techniques and implanting the seeds of ideas, as portrayed in the film Inception. Though there will be no dream secret-agents and ninjas, the research and development firm taking this project on might make for some interesting studies in lucid-dreaming and twilight-sleep, using specific virtual stimuli to counteract the recurring and debilitating nightmares associated with shell-shock and the horrors of the battle field. The decision to prosecute war should never be taken lightly and we ought not to gloss over these hard choices by editing out the bad and uncomfortable aspects of it, like surrendering the fight to autonomous death drones, but the potential, if administered well and the unexpected is entertained, for one to work through his dreams does seem a bit more productive and genuine than invasive, exculpating drug therapies.

flik und flak or endless summer

Trying to triangulate times among Germany, the States and Russia has become a bit more complicated. In Germany and most of western Europe, day-light savings time ended early Sunday morning--a change that occurs a week prior to when America falls back. Russia, however, opted out of observing the time-change altogether this year, stating primarily seasonal-affective disorder and, I think, inviting debate on a custom of dwindling utility. The apparent motion of the Sun around the Earth throughout the year does a good job of shortening and lengthening the days without legislative intervention, and the fact that Daylight Savings Time (and Standard Time) was first proposed and championed in the Southern Hemisphere where the seasons are opposite ought not to be taken as strong testimony. So the time's off in the United States and Russia, from a German perspective, although that may not matter much, since its likely a public holiday--a chaotic collusion either today or tomorrow: the predominately Protestant Länder (Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxon, Saxon-Anhalt, and Thuringia) celebrate Reformation Day (Reformationstag) when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg on Halloween, and the Catholic Länder (Baden Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine Westphalia, Rhineland-Pfalz and Saarland) observe the following day All Saints (Allerheiligen). Hours and days certainly count and the few seconds devoted to ensure synchronization are certainly well-spent as well, not so much for the early, bleary sunrise but in the custom and reflecting on what others do.