spring funk

For this past week, I've not felt motivated to take much advantage of the nicer weather, and H told me about a phenomenon called Frühjahrsmüdigkeit, Spring time tiredness--like a seasonal affective disorder.  I've just been sleepy, and although warmer and squandrons of migrating water fowl are overhead, the sun is still conspicuously absent and threatens prolonged periods of rain.

MKUltrée

Last week, the Telegraph circulated a story that really reignites all those old covert spook stories of secret US government experimentation.  Concensus is leaning more towards the CIA lacing grain with LSD to study its effects on a village, Pont-Saint-Esprit, in rural France one late summer day in 1951, rather than ergotism blamed on the village baker as was thought for decades.  The whole population suffered were plagued with violent hallucinations, and some did violence to themselves or were committed to mental institutions after the singular episode.  The public knows there is truth behind the CIA operations with those MK- designations.  France, however, has had its history of mania and mass-hysteria without US government interference.  In Strausbourg and then in Metz in the 1518, there were cases of seemingly enchanted dancers, where hundreds of people jived and gyrated until they collapsed from exhaustion.  The victims were compelled to keep moving against their will, and it was nothing like dated crazes like flag-pole sitting or crowding into phone booths or apparently spiking the grain supplies of other nations with mind-altering drugs

tiajuana

It is break week for my MBA programme, and I wonder what one does traditionally for spring break for an on-line course of study.  I understand the usual bastions of sophomoric excess in the States, Mexican border towns, have become far too dangerous, like tinderboxes tempting violence, ransom or murder for their US holiday-makers.  What surprised me most about this news item was not the spill over of drug violence, but that there is no limit for capacity to scare white people--I could not believe the xenophobia and frightful nationalism and ugly asides in the comment, buzzed-up section after the article.  Careless behavior should not invite violence, but peripheral violence should not justify reactionary fears and useless stereotypes.

urban legend

Slowly and without much notice, it is being revealed that the coalition of the willing fighting in Afghanistan have significantly inflated news of the taking of Marjah in Helmand Province, not a metropolitian stronghold of some 80 000 souls but rather a dusty little village with a mosque and a few shops.  This success was touted as a major turning point for the allies and was hoped to justify the prolonged effort.

what's up, buttercup?

To counter the general mood of the weather that's yet heavy and gray, H and I are trying to brighten up the place a bit with some flowers--actually, call them Narcissi, jonquils or daffodils.  I like the round-about etymology of daffodil the best: like the mythology of Narcissus, the name daffodil comes from the Greek word asphodel for the ghostly flowers that grew in the fields of the purgatory of Hades where mediocre souls grazed on them, and things were perfectly neutral and gray, like today's sky.  Maybe that's why the flowers bloom at this time of year, just before world is gob-smacked with the full force of Spring time, as an early signal that nature is about to re-awaken.

vade retro satane

The Times of London reports that the Holy See's equivalent of the Department of Homeland Security, the chief exorcist, is attributing the perennial spate of scandals to demonic possession in the Vatican and suggests a purging is in order.
 That article was cheap sensationalism and intented to be derisive.  It is a very serious issue that must be redressed and handled transparently, and an exorcism may or may not be part of that reconciliation process.  No one is suggested that blame is shifted and that people were not responsible for their actions--like the Pope's failure to recollect any bad press curried by his Regensberg cohorts, which is either attributable to dishonesty or a failing memory, whichever is worse--and nothing redeemingly diabolical.  Reading the story, however, I noticed right away that the chief exorcist and I have the very same silver and enamel crucifixes.  The Church is mired in controversy but it will emerge from it better and more accountable, and hopeful no one will have to repeat these repeated sufferings.  Hang in there, baby.

dazzling, but where is the pop!?

Yesterday, the Onion posted a very astute article on the dwindling attention span of the media's average readership.  I found the lampoon to be pretty clever, as I do much of the work that the Onion has done over the decades--that is when I remember to check it.  I wonder what kind of dedication it takes to turn on as opposed to tune in.  What kind of virtual roadie archival dedication does it take nowadays to keep up with all the frentic and mindless competition?

compliance & complaints newsletter

I am rather forcibly included on quite a lot of mailing list, most of which are not worth a second glance.  The Winter edition of the EEOCCR newsletter is the most absolutely franjabulous bureaucratic circular that I've seen in a long time.  Not only is the organization headed by friendly chap named "Spurgeon," the marginalia quotes Proust, has information on historic tourist destinations in Washington, DC, has a section called "voidably vague verbiage" that advises against obfuscation by being generally non-commital, and discusses at lenght the 2008 passage of GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act), as amended.  Electronic publications are certainly scatter-shot, but I think the actual deed of sending something to print made people a little more selective about what passed as informative and comprehensive.  I am certainly not knocking the Equal Opportunity Office, despite being mired in the muck of abbreviations--after all, GINA indentified the gay-gene and then subsequently made it an outcast, I just think an old fashion fan club is a more fitting forum.