dact and re-dact

As part of its continuing charm offensive to plug potential leaks and dampen whistle-blowers, a communique was issued en masse with current guidance to staff "to NOT/NOT download any documents" recently made public as they are still considered classified.  Further, having this information on one's office or even on one's private home computer would constitute spillage of secure data.

letterboxing

Mike Shaughnessy, of BoingBoing fame, shared his latest find, a collection of vintage colour photographs from Berlin/Verlagsanstalt für Farbenfotographie of a European tour from 1906, as a Google Maps geocaching.   This is a more pleasant alternative to the debate over the invasive nature of Street View.

These pictures are amazing and it's quite remarkable to see what has weathered conflicts and upheavals, even considering how the last century represents in most cases only a small fraction of the lifetime of the sites.  Particularly interesting was this image of Kaysersberg in the Alsace region that H and I visited in the Spring.  The geocaching grafiti tag really was eye-catching, since we had just recently watched the Kevin Costner film Dragonfly, and the symbol.  There's a similar mysterious map-related cruciform symbol that played a significant part in the plot.

naukograd

The unquelled wildfires are still raging in Russia and neighboring lands and it is a terrible and unprecedented tragedy, deadly smog settling over cities and villages wiped away.  Now the greatest urgency seems focused on minimizing potentially catastrophic and lingering damage if the fires reach nuclear research and processing facilities at Mayak--Russian for "lighthouse."  In the midst of all these tragedies that are pinned to failures of something called crisis management, which I guess is a new discipline like managed health care, it is amazing to me how what was buried and forgotten is unearthed and strewn about.  A nearby closed-town, a restricted area for plant workers that is not accessible to the public and probably did not appear on any map, suffered major environmental damage in the past and emblazoned it on its city coat-of-arms as a radio-active, glowing salamander.  The fires are out-of-control all over, but authorities especially want to ensure that latent radiation is not reawakened and spread, like that godzilla salamander or Springfield's three-eyed fish.  I wonder how often these unnamed towns are on the public radar without the spotlight of imminent disaster.  Buried in the distant past, I wonder how much awareness there is even for enviromentalists, residents and the people who keep tabs on the nuclear posturing.  I hope Russia can cope and recover, and maybe take a leading role with such crisis management in the future.

tarpaulin

Given the almost jubilant anticipation that the US financial sector held yesterday for yet another turn of the screw that opens up the flood gates for more stimulus, I feel doubly vexed that the economic assessment was winnowed away into a non-story. Of course, it was too much of a tell that banks and associates rejoiced and rallied over the TARP package. That should have made everyone a bit queasy. More dismal news would cue world governments to inject some fresh money into the economy, and like I once heard a reporter fumble the idiom, paying Peter to rob Paul, instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul.  The mixed up message is about the same but there's a subtle difference I cannot quite unravel.  Business kept its poker face, held its composure, so they can escape some measure of the scrutiny that goes with the duplicity of companies who complain venomously over government interference and call economic policies defeatist and yet gladly accept a piece of bail-out pie or unbuild to order to fulfill a government contract or niche.  A cleverly executed hybrid automobile, I am sure, would do well on the market on its own merit, but instead of innovation, cost-overruns and short-comings are buffed down with tax credits and funding earmarks for pet-projects.  I wonder what was decided behind closed doors that yanked this story from the next day’s news cycle.

vini, vidi

Having resided in the European Union for quite some time, on official business, though without accompanying citizenship, I have gotten use to borderless pacts and relative freedom of movement. I have run up against a few logistical riddles lately, however, when it comes to travel. Though I had every assurance in addition to my own research on entry requirements for Turkey, I was still nervous and nearly flipped out when the guy behind the ticket counter informed me that my vegetarian meal, as requested, would be available on the flight. I misheard it. A visa is the short-form of the Latin phrase “charta visa,” the paper that has been seen. It think, however, a more apt expression might be quid pro quo, as everything escalated or otherwise sustained behind bureaucratic and diplomatic reciprocity and blow-back to the US for making travel in general such an unpleasant experience. H and I, projecting longingly to the next vacation, are hoping to spend New Year’s in Russia and I am already a bit overwhelmed by the process and who I belong to under these circumstances and travel arrangements. In an unrelated move, the airport at Hamburg is poised to start a pilot program to test full-body scanners, the city-state’s foreign minister announced. After the revelations, which should not have come as a big surprise, the US Department of Homeland Security is actively warehousing these images for more than just training purposes, I wonder why Hamburg would have committed to this exercise—which is apparently on a voluntary-basis, and risk being entangled in the same mistrust and suspicions that the US is courting. That makes about as much sense as a city-state having a full-fledged ministry of foreign affairs.