abwesenheit von lärm

“Meine Damen und Herren,” German Interior minister de Maizière began in a press-conference, “there is cause for concern but no cause hysteria,” citing foreign intelligence that gave more substantial leads on a possible terrorist plot to carry out attacks in Germany at the end of November. Such news could also transform into nebulous and scary, but necessarily de Maizière cautioned that response and vigilance should not negatively affect the hallmarks of a free society. Some critics claim the minister and whole security apparatschik for not sharing the urgency that the US unloaded a few weeks past about an even vaguer threat fear the blowback when something might materialize: at the time, it was offered that there was not need to change routine; now however, de Maizière excused this press conference precisely because people might see their daily routines disrupted—there might be a more noticeable police presence, and he just though “the public to know why.”

To call it a tempered and reasonable response sounds like the political talk that signifies nothing, but it is refreshing and affirming that not only are scare-tactics not unleashed wontingly, though the statement was brief, the news is also constantly repeated, including all the admonishments, with analysis and the public parsing every word. It is a lot different than in the US where measures, arguably morale crushing and furthering submissiveness, are only escalating. Statistics record that with the past decade tragically about three thousand people perished as a result of terrorist related air travel, albeit mostly on one day. When draconian response is not at all commiserate, then the boogeymen need do nothing else.

obarmate

If you agree that elevating refudiate to a literate status is the very height of impudicity, then you might enjoy the finely crafted site Save the Words (sadly no more) from the Oxford Dictionaries consortium.  This is a great resource that celebrates the poetic exactness of the English language and rehabilitates obscure and nonce-words.  Who, in his quiver of vocabulary, would have sinapistic (consisting of mustard) at his disposal when singing the praises of the Grey Poupon marketing campaign?  Or that primifluous (that which flows first) is an excellent term to describe the tapping of the keg that opens Oktoberfest, when the master-of-ceremonies adimpleates the Munich Burgermeister's Maß?  One can register to receive a word a day or adopt a neglected word, pledging to use this word in conversation and correspondence, as frequently as possible and to the very best of one's ability.

rock lobster or divide and conquer

There ought to be no surprise that the provisions of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act were a slippery slope, window-dressing and wallpaper, though load-bearing it may be in terms of supporting belief and angst, and that the public would be lulled into submission by this new normal, like a lobster in a pot slowly brought to boil. It is a welcome sign, however, that the American people and those early-adopters (one may want to follow the money-trail, in case the US market actually does wither away) and dwindling list of social-callers have reached their collective boiling point over Department of Homeland Security/Transportation Security Administration's hyperbole and traumatic and taming options for flight: either molestation or a starring role, exposed, in a conscripted bawdy film, which are neither discreet, private, nor effective. I cannot imagine how anyone could abide by a loved one or even a fellow traveler faced with this uncomfortable choice, much less submitting to either a gratuitous physical violation or potentially dangerous and enduring memento--especially to very young or older people. It is just terribly sad that the means of control and influence have stooped this low and is sure to significantly curb airborne travel and keep North America as a destination to avoid. Perhaps the makers of aircraft should be rethinking their giant-capacity air-galleys if there is this much vitriol in mass-transit.

Pilots and crew are a source for solidarity with passengers, however, I suspect that the unions that rightly argue that the exposure to the scanners is unsafe, attended by an endless army of untrained goons deputized, baptized with too much authority and hubris and snared with fear themselves over job-security in a poor economy, will be given a concession, a pass in the form of an alternative screening that alleviates just enough industry pressure to give the travelers no recourse. I am happy that this holiday season, I do not have a need to travel to the States, the Atlantic has certainly gotten wider, but I don't relish the thought in the future either. If flyers just grin and bare it, resigned as intended, things will only get worse, more invasive and more unreasonable.

stitch-witchery or hobby lobby

Though maybe not the sort of realization of the Star Trek style replicator or teleportation that the purist might be hoping for, three dimensional printing, using a variety of media from fast-setting goop to foam to ceramics, seems to have a lot of promise for empowerment and expression. Taking the idea of speedy prototyping and delivering it straight to the cottage industry, items (and any item), given the patience, can be sprouted layer by layer in exacting detail, from a three-dimension scan or original design—or assembled like a model airplane from a punch-out sheet. To revive the care, dexterity, and continued concentration for modeling, tools and fittings and generally smithery and carpentry and pottery, is a very positive detour away from art, progress and participation measured on only flat planes.

Of course, malleability and ruggedness will only improve over time and perhaps the potential for domestic manufacturing will explode, already with talk of fabricating architectural elements, sculpture, ginger-bread houses, integrated circuits, clothing and even human organs. Boing Boing, MAKE and many other websites host creative conversions about 3D printing innovations regularly. Just see what you can find. Design will be customized and revolutionized, with no restraints or anything extraneous. There will be, no doubt, a Gutenberg moment of singularity when the means are available to all, and surely there will be some businesses that want to ensure that their designs are protected and maybe computer companies will someday soon turn to peddling patterns, like the Simplicity paper cut-out guides in fabric stores and turn spiteful like those who belittle homemade Christmas presents over the store-bought variety. Clay might be the business of the future.  Perhaps contemporary designs will retain some proprietary protections, but I am sure that any home would be happily and comfortably outfitted with Art Nouveau and Classical motifs—brilliant and timeless and in the public domain.

blackletter fraktur

Deutsche Presse Agentur announced that the German ligature Esszet, ß, will be deigned allowable in internet domain names beginning soon by the shadowy registrars that determine such protocols. For those unused to such foreign characters, there is always a bit of reluctance and apprehension of unleashing a letter transcribed as an "ss," "sz," "B," Greek beta or ampersand or could insert some wild and rogue, non-displayable carriage-return.  Some degree of oversight is needed to maintain functionality across the world-wide web: just think of relative uselessness of the @-sign not so very long ago.  Until just last year, all the world was at the hegemony of the standard Roman alphabet, and while it could present particular challenges to those not immediately able to input an umlaut or other diacritic or fancy ligature, websites with native characters would be more targeted to local use and still not relegated to internet obscurity, like the nonsensical strasse.de instead of straße.de. Aside from potential loss of foreign traffic and idle looky-loos, I suppose internet watchdogs want to be able to keep easy access to their wards. They would not have their clerks undone for want of an extended alphabet. In addition to Chinese and other Asian syllabics, now it is even possible to navigate in Arabic with traditionally right-to-left order. This is a pretty significant and positive development--and I probably betray my own cultural hegemony when I admit I marvel at a Cyrillic or Japanese typewriter--and I think it is an appropriate celebration of one's language, expressed properly, and ensures that no flavor is lost conforming to arbitrary standards.

atom-mill

Sometimes the bi-weekly dispatch for Bad Karma is neither very informative nor topical, seemingly shying away from anything controversial, including town markets and events until after they have occurred, but sometimes it excels with coverage. Today it reminded readers that Bad Karma was chosen as a model city for developing electric-mobility as an alternative to traditional forms of transit, and had two articles, including some historic background, broaching a highly provocative subject: atomic energy. With the protest that dragged along every angry inch of the shipment of spent nuclear fuel and sundry to the transitional depot in the community of Gorleben in Niedersachsen, discussion is ensuing regarding the power plant in the neighbourhood that I spy in the distance from my office window. I call it our “Cloud-Maker,” cheerfully but defraying what it really is and the trade-offs it represents. It is a divisive subject, and while I understand the argument it is a bridge technology that some believe should endure until such time as truly clean methods of energy production can be installed, it does seem a dangerous and unretiring curse that I would not want in my backyard, and for which I am glad our local paper could address.

QEII is not just a luxury liner or deconstructing dorothy

National Public Radio's Democracy Now! posits in an interview with economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz that the US Federal Reserve's latest round of quantitative easing is an act of aggression--though possibly less familiar than more traditional methods of hostility like invasion, religion, piracy, regime-change and building up banana republics, skirmishes surrounding devaluation, igniting currency-wars, have happened before, perhaps most famously after the Great Depression of the 1930s that erupted into World War II. It is rather insidious that loose credit, transnationally at least but banks are no more eager to lend to regular customers, awash in cheap dollars when more hoarding is necessary to retain any semblance of value, can be hewn into weapons, and that the hottest commodity being produced, at least in places where the shell game of government debt is ran by the central banks, is bonds--i.e., debt.

Response will be in kind. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, always a quirky non sequitur, too, was a complicated if not sometimes opaque allegory, railing against notions of money by government fiat. Maybe when it premiered, audiences who had read the book groaned at a thinly veiled economic policy critique turned into a theatrical production but I am sure such underlying messages were quickly lost in the spectacle of Technicolor. Maybe poverty is meant to be memorialized as a perennial favourite like this, a more welcome survivor and witness than the realities of contraction and hyper-inflation.