netiquette or more cow bell

Sometimes I feel terrorized by directed and undirected chimes and ring-tones.  Every ubiquitous ping, ding and whistle, no matter what demanding electronic detritus it is attached to, comes in fast and intimate and nagging.  Are their established rules of form for when an SMS can be a substitute for an e-mail?  Is there a measure for urgency?  I feel quite old-fashioned sometimes, with my pay-as-you-go Handy with only a bald reserve of credit saved for a real emergency.  Cell phones, I think, are not for chatting or pillow-talk, unless there is no other viable alternative.  Waiting, sometimes, does not seem to be an option.  All the static and mystery, not immediately identifable or sourced, noises lose their meaning.  A calling-plan and perhaps a nicer Handy with an integrated touch-sensitive keyboard (and demonstrating a more expert range of sound-effects) for expediting dispatches might lend a sense of importance to my mental notes.

psychology of superstition

Alternet, which regularly posts some pretty engrossing articles, has a recent one by Anneli Rufus on the fadism surrounding conspiracy theories and belief in super-secret societies.  The argument that in times of crisis, people turn to the occult as a solace and an opiate.  While perhaps people are prone to abstract their problems onto a malevolent or benevolent overlord and search for blame or excuses, I do not think that is the whole story.  Paranormal facination has its following, more or less mainstreamed, year in and year out, and world governments, rife with error and missed-opportunities, do not exactly convey the united front that the true-believers are expecting.  If anything, a quagmire of conspiracies is rather disappointing.  Under a perfect regime, all the conspiracy theorists would have been rounded up and disappeared long ago for knowing what they know.  Obviously, that has not happened yet.  If anything, all the theater is masterful distraction, choreography, so one won't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, but I am not sure what other moves are orchestrated.  Belief in whatever mythology has traces of motivation in it; being able to discriminate among the talismen and charms might lead to the top.

a mark, a yen, a buck or a pound

The Guardian last week published a facinating article that details UN findings that financial watchdogs, at the height of the economic apocalypse, were exceedingly lax about discriminating between laundering and legitimate business operations (perhaps there is no day-light twixt the twain as it is).  This roughly one-third of a trillion dollars circulating in the international banking system for the past few months from the drug and weapons trade probably kept world markets from total collapse.  This turning a blind eye to things below board is another insult and demonstrates the poor planning on behalf of governments in liberally tossing out those stimulus funds to businesses too big to fail.  Perhaps the public should let the syndicate churn out swine-flu vaccine or execute a manned-mission to Mars, if they are not doing so already.  Above is an image of the corn field in the middle of Liechtenstein.  It seems quite strange to me that a country whose flat land is at such a premium, the biggest open space would be for this purpose.  I am convinced that this is where things go when they are disappeared, like with the little boy from the Twilight Zone who could send people "to the cornfield."  Maybe the stimulus funds are stashed in Vaduz.

past-perfect

Flickr artists Rétrofuturs (Hulk4598 and Stéphane Massa-Bidal) showcase their visions of websites in vintage paperback form.  Apparently one can purchase poster-sized prints.  I think these are great--it reminds me of illustrated literature that one finds in clinic waiting rooms, sort of the tortured stick figures that get every kind of social disease.  I think everything looks classier and truer in this format. 

hogan's heroes

Over the weekend, H and I visited the village of Colditz with its imposing castle.  During the war, it was used to house incorigible allied prisoners of war, since thinking the fortess impenetrable, those who had successfully escaped from other prisons could be kept secure and isolated.  Due to the nature of the prisoners with their established histories of escape, this place had one of the highest records of flight of any jail.  H told me a lot of the history about the village, but it's strange to think of such a monolithic place as this not really being known in its own right.  With tourism, the castle and the camp became sort of a parody of itself, a mash-up of a dozen different mythical places and intrigues.  Sometimes these places need to be rediscovered, and then can be awe-inspiring in their own rights.

must see t.v. or proud as a peacock

An article highlighted a rather disturbing coincidence concerning the aquisition of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) by cable conglomerate Comcast.  The merger still needs Congressional approval before proceding, and given Obama's professed stance on the laxity of others in enforcing the break up of monopolies and cartels, one might expect that the deal would fall through--especially considering such a large stake of US media outlets is covered by a single umbrella.  NBC reporting, however, has just come out in favour of the Democrats' health care platform.  Is policy determined that way?  Do law makers consider how to get in on this or that action before giving this giant buffer to freedom of the press their blessings?  Would the new mouthpiece that the government pwn'd, state-owned media, be effective in blathering only what's favourable about their health care plans?

wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

To greet delegates as they arrive at the airport for the climate summit, which gets underway Monday, Greenpeace has hung a series of posters of world leaders, electronically aged eleven years, apologizing for not affecting real change to protect and preserve the environment when they had the chance.  Old Meta-Obama looks wizened and sad.  Some 140 private jets will be decending on the capital's airport (though unable to park on the tarmac during the conference due to lack of space, will wait to pick up their charges at Finnish run-ways) and a fleet of 1200 limousines will clog the streets.  I can't believe the wake of bureaucracy and minding that conferences such as these pull.

did we drink the kool-aid?

I hope have not grown overly cynical, but I have to wonder if Obama has delivered or if it's too soon to judge, obstacles of the old guard still in place.  But the new boss is looking a lot like the old boss, in terms of policy and promises.  Especially after seeing the hollow performance from the other night on sending more US troops to Afghanistan and bullying the European Bloc into committing more, I feel sorely disappointed.  I wonder if it was not all a cruel hoax, and that the media darling isn't just another tool of the international banking conspiracy.  I feel cheated.  I don't want to be duped, nor do I want his supporters, hopeful and weary, to feel that their confidence was misplaced.  Scarier things are brewing too.  I think the world is more comfortable with the idea of a New World Order, a world super government, since the launch of the European Union.  It's still quaint and Old World after all, and the French are still the French and the Germans are still the Germans, and there's even room for quirks like the Holy See or princely Lichtenstein.  Maybe people think that's what the corporate overlords have planned for them.