presto-chango or mission abolished

Though ostensibly in response to the promise of more moderate and democratic regimes in the wake of the Arab Spring (which caught the West off-guard, though now they are trying to countermand the movement and cultivate partnerships), elements within the US executive branch have pronounced the war on terror to be over, the tide receding. I truly hope that peace, openness and reason will return to fill that void, idleness of the machines of war, but I suspect that prosecuting terrorists is merely transmuting into something more devious and shadowy, and puts the conduct and shell-diplomacy of the US just a few precious notches above the forces and ideals that they were fighting against, until just now. The armed forces, vetted and contained by Congress, and the foreign service corps of America are being drastically cut, only to be replaced with mercenaries and all-seeing harpies. 

 One important characteristic, at least one that was highlighted by the US for justification, of terrorism is that these groups fight unconventionally, outside of the context and oversight of government and law. This shift to contracted warfare, rendition, secret operations sounds uncomfortably similar to the modus operandi of enemy combatants, unaccountable and held to no standards or overarching consensus.  Soldiers-of-Fortune do not exactly seem promising, not only in keeping the peace but also in terms of real defense from real threats.  Add to the formula the erosion of civil liberties, income disparities, chronic under-employment and a representative democracy that has strayed far from its intended purpose and process, America is becoming more rogue and difficult to distinguish as a leader among nations.

synaxarion or by george!

Though Germany is one of the few places not wholly under the patronage of Saint George and Germany has another event to mark on this day—the anniversary of the enactment of the Reinheitsgebot, the Saint Day has universal recognition and usually falls (the feast can be preempted by Easter) on a strange amalgam of celebrations that are as varied and involved as his cult and veneration. Aside from beer, literature is also synthetically celebrated on this day, due to it being the anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes’ death and the anniversary of both William Shakespeare’s birth and death (though this coincidence is a bit contrived because of subsequent calendar reforms)—books are a traditional St. George’s Day gift.

For Saint George himself, festivities can range from the civic to national to professional observances for the many places and vocations (including blacksmiths, butchers, farmers, miners and beer-barrel makers) he covers. The historical personage was an accomplished and respected leader of the imperial guard in Roman Palestine, and although a favourite of the Emperor, was martyred for making a spectacle of his refusal to recognize the pagan household gods. Apparently, his faith inspired a revolt among the people and military ranks, overturning the ban against Christianity. Where the bit about the dragon comes in is not so clear. I always felt kind of sorry for the dragon, but it was more than just a nuisance, demanding livestock- or maiden-sacrifices from villagers in exchange for access to their oasis and water supply. Then, instead of taking the act, George slaying the dragon (symbolizing Rome, perhaps) to save the life of the chieftain’s daughter who drew the bad lot after all the sheep and goats had been devoured, as a fait accompli, I prefer to think of it as a continuous battle, a tumbling and constant struggle like the eternal standoffs seen in the constellations.

This fiery perseverance is something internalized, perhaps, as the choices that confront us all the time and the sometimes delayed realization that choices and acts have consequences. I like how this imagery has been propagated and the hero is acknowledged in his homelands and far beyond, and his icons and devotions are spread from the Middle East to the nation of Georgia, to the flag of England and the Arab world because of widespread miraculous acts and visions of the Saint on the eve of battle.

visa visum

The careless rhetoric of political campaigns can certainly re-phrase backwards proposals as something benign. The European Union is a striving towards perfection through integration and cooperation, and while though it may still have hard battles ahead of it (exacerbated by the economic climate and political scapegoating), one should approach the subject of closing boarders with extra caution. To have reinvented an entire continent of some four-hundred million people as an entity with no internal border control is a hallmark of the EU, extended even to more people than use the euro.  Citizens of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein also enjoy this privilege, though the Irish and the Anglo-Saxons did not fully agree to the terms of the treaty and still exercise elements of border controls with the rest of the EU.

Freedom of movement and the consequent right of abode and right to seek employment is one of the founding principles of the EU, and France and Germany, by proposing to exercise a seemingly innocent closing of their borders for a temporary period (not to exceed thirty days), are pandering to the fear of xenophobes and those who imagine their particular work-ethics to be sacrosanct. Some factions of the governments of France and Germany who would like the option to suspend the Schengen Accords are squarely blaming those outlying members, like Italy, Greece and Spain, for not better policing their external borders. The arrangement states that the first country to receive migrants are responsible for ensuring that the immigration process is carried out or that they leave once over staying their welcome, but these frontier lands are accused of lax controls and of sending on their arrivals to neighbouring states—i.e., France and Germany. I doubt that this characterization is entirely accurate, but given the financial hardships imposed on these same countries, so called austerity-programmes that have decimated funding for such public-sector affairs, I would not be entirely surprised if this situation was developing. Maybe there does need to be reforms and the terms of the treaty does allow for member states to protect their interests, but it does seem rather disingenuous and to confirm some of the criticisms of the skeptics who argued that the Schengen Zone is somewhat a one-way street, facilitating vacations for holiday-makers but less open and forthcoming for local-colour infringing on home-territory.

triangle man

In a follow-up interview, after adding his voice to the chorus of educators, entrepreneurs, innovators, futurists, writers and artists expressing grave concern over the openness and continued utility of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee (DE/EN), who made the internet accessible though his perseverance and invention of hypertext mark-up language, made a very eloquent remark that should be all rights be the coup de grâce and last word to the bullies of the world.
Berners-Lee simply said that the internet is bigger than the entertainment industry, bigger than record labels and movie studios. The potential for fostering creativity and discovery and the threat to this freedom of congress is much more significant than the grossly magnified grievances of a few thuggish companies, who have the backing of politicians and inflated claims of damages. In fact, although apparently we’d be better off believing the charm-offensive that equates copyright integrity to the last bastions against all the nightmarish ills of the world, the scale of economy of the entertainment industry is relatively tiny and could be handily absorbed (though I doubt the situation would be improved) by anyone of the technological giants that has built empires of connectivity. We have been put at the mercy of bullies in a lot of other ways as—and though it’s an obvious statement, we’d do better not to forget again: freedom, honesty, integrity are bigger than any illusory security; peace and unity are bigger than any one nation’s peccadilloes or aspirations; not demonizing others is bigger than spreading one’s personal gospel; conserving nature is bigger than profits (though for the last two, forces are ardently at work with discrediting keeping matters in perspective). Understanding scale and priority is something that we are all capable of at first glance, and despite efforts to skew and burden our feelings, I think, with a gentle reminder, we’re able to see through that deception as well.

one-off or noch eins

When the great mall-tree, the schef-felera whose bran-ches make a canopy over the bed, flowered last year for the first time, I guessed that was all the generative action we'd see out of it for the next decade or so. I thought plants that took time to mature were patient and stategically territorial, like a Century Plant (Agave americana).

 I was surprised to see these stalks emerge again. I was also surprised and happy at the same time to find that the geranium that sprouted from the little nub of root that I salvaged from the balcony last Autumn survived. I had heard that one can sometimes keep the roots in a cellar and urge them to grow for a second season, but I didn't think I'd discover that it was a white (rather than a red) hanger-on.

furor teutonicus

There has been much fanfare over the past week about a survey (Umfrage) of the American public that confirms a general affinity between Germans and their American cousins.

 I am sure that it is a combination of factors, like many Americans having some German ancestry, military partnerships—at least an understanding—familiar products, like beer, food and automotives, that could have endured as a tacit acknowledgment, as I am sure it has for years. Slow-news days are probably also a contributing dynamic. Depth of knowledge and stereotypes aside—the thrust of the battery of interview questions and responses seem to mainly involve economics—I wonder if American public perceptions of Germans aren’t a focus, an ideal corrective lens for how they’d like to see themselves. Secure and stable and comfortably bourgeois without the outward signs of massive inequity or fanaticism or hysteria; socially and environmentally conscious yet relatively conservative and traditional without excluding other persuasions. It seems this way, at least. The two acts are not connected, but it really does seem the antithesis (and not a reciprocation or extension—perhaps rather a back-handed compliment), but it does seem strange that the European Union parliament moved to back accords (Abkommen) to share air-traveler data between Europe and the US. The American security apparatus will have fifteen years to ruminate over their guests’ profiles, but the judgment that this was not in violation of individuals’ privacy rights rather lowers the standard, instead of giving America a standard to aspire to.

manuscript culture or head-up forward crawl

Several luminaries of internet architecture have recently had some sharp and needful words regarding the restrictive environment that governments and businesses are cultivating. Current conditions certainly would not have fostered free-exchange, creativity and innovation and the internet, in terms of content and scope could not have developed as it had. Increasingly aggressive policies are being reinvented and re-flagged under different names but with the same unsavoury and prying aims. That assault and invasion is awful enough, but critics are also right to broach the trend towards compartmentalization.

Like some medieval scriptorium, a lot of information, news and culture meant also for the broader public is being concentrated by aggregators into isolated platforms that are card-catalogues that are at most offering a tantalizing abstract or a bit of nosiness. In the tradition of antique librarians, this inventory, cultivated and expansive as an almanac or chronology, is jealously guarded, and though bidden by the same hosts, come with a caveat of conformity and house-rules. Increasingly, whatever is shared behind the arras of social-networks and networking-applications is really being shunted down a memory-hole, perhaps not forgotten but verging towards inaccessible, like video and cassette tapes and other obsolete forms of coding. What treasures and histories, discoverable but undiscovered, are relegated to film, floppy disks and format? Or even hidden in the shipwrecks of faded enterprises—like mySpace and other groups? Cultural heritage, when and where it can be shared ought not be sequestered or offered up to a repository—especially one whose conditions and conduct are not transparent. Patience and native-curiosity may save what’s in the stacks, physical archives, basements, attics and junk-drawers from oblivion, but as more and more research is confined to digital media and what’s readily accessible, I do not think humans are very backwards-compatible.

three-letter initialism

Though the US Internal Revenue Service is in fact a federal agency and not a largely autonomous entity like the Federal Reserve Banking system, deriving authority from its expanded charges but accountable to no one, America I think is poised to endow this other creation, the IRS, with similar dreadful powers. I suspect (and hope) that the intent is not as scary and grasping as some are making it out to be, but like other familiars of industrial and puritanical helpfulness that have grown out of bounds and terrorize the public much more than the unseen forces that they claim to combat (the TSA, FBI, DEA, FDA, EPA, CIA, NSA, DHS—and the DOT, the FED and IRS). Buried within a broader transportation bill to ensure continued funding for the US interstate highway system, rappelling its way through the US Congress, there is a clause (open of course to broad interpretation) that grants authorities the power to revoke one’s passport should the bearer be found delinquent (these two words cover an entire spectrum of meaning) on tax obligations.

 In theory, under this unholy alliance, a border patrol officer could bar an individual owing $50 000 in back taxes from leaving the US but I suppose that there is a large potential for such powers to uncoil and become much broader and more restrictive in terms of freedom of movement. This is the same mentality that has unleashed scads unending of rarified dollars on the world markets and driving inflation, or that has created a tax-regime that put such an administrative obligation on foreign banks (to do the jobs the IRS couldn’t manage itself) that doing business with Americans is becoming a liability, not remorsefully unburdened. What of the some 30 000 US soldiers or 98 000 government employees, many of whom are working overseas, that owe taxes? Is movement stopped for them as well? I imagine that enforcement would have to be equitable and without exemption, so no individual would feel targeted and singled-out because of his or her views. Everyone benefits in some way from the services, security or stability that government provides through tax revenue and again no one can simply shirk their duty, but (again) if America was earnest about taking in what’s owed them, they would go after businesses and corporations who’ve profited the most off of the market environment that the US has created and not devise a new mechanism to rustle the pockets of private citizens for diminishing returns. One further hopes that the helix of the secretive no-fly list or the battlefield Earth judgments of the National Defense Authorization Act (DE/EN) does not join up with the one of this collection-service, since then we would all be put in the dark.