CH O2 or my name is hunt hunter

H is a superb treasure-hunter and I am really fond of one of our latest additions: this vintage perpetual calendar made for an airline ticket counter.  I really like old adverizing collectibles and this one reminds me of a time when flying was glamourous and exciting and was living up to all the things that one expected or imagined that air travel should be, far-flung lands and adventures, liberated and accessible but still mysterous and demanding high, genuine accomplishment over tenacity and the wearisome and interminable planning and waiting in queues.  Though maybe not so carefree and with details and distractions easily bulldozed over afterwards, the adventure and fun, in the journey and in one's destination, has not be tarnished. 

theory and practice

Mark Twain observed that, “Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” This rings quite true for quite a bit of the annual mandatory refresher training that they expose us to at work—dry, rote and predictable and just enough delaying tactics to bring down a lawsuit settlement in appeals. After making an obligatory appearance at a drug and alcohol awareness class, which in all fairness featured a quite funny stand-up comedian whose message was important and appreciated, though possibly just endured for those who were seeing basically the same routine for the fourth time, I realized that these required audiences, not so insufferable, are like holiday traditions, unquestioned, like watching Dinner for One (Der 90. Geburtstag) on New Year’s or It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas time. I did realize, more by its breach than in its keeping, I did miss out of this year’s winter driving safety, which was no less a chore to schedule around but anything but stale delivered by our German safety officer who speaks like Colonel Klink. And if no one takes anyway anything else from that course, replete with PowerPoint slides, he always quotes statistics that drivers, though one would expect that they are expert and accustomed to wintery conditions, panic during the first snow flurry of the year, which we are receiving now, only to decline in number of accidents and incidents as the season continues and as the roads become even more treacherous, regardless of how many hard winters, tyres swapped out, and otherwise girding themselves for danger. Maybe that says something about practice in itself.

another brick in the wall or please don't feed the tigers

Columnist Laurie Penny of the New Statesman sends a dispatch from the latest round of student protests in England against tuition rate hikes. This anger follows demonstrations in Germany and many other European countries where budgetary shortfalls, real or imagined, and austerity measures, imposed or voluntary, have undermined the ideal and priority of the equitable promotion of a literate society.  This is something worth fighting for and the students' efforts from Dublin to London to Paris to Bamberg and all points beyond and in between are valiant and should not go unnoticed or unheeded.

For those outside of the European education system, and not counting only those laureates and their families who have been direct benefits because the whole society benefits, the nominal tuitions and selective admissions process might seem unfamiliar: it amazes me that the approach to education in the States compared to the rest of the world could have diverged so greatly, on the one side, merit-based and underwritten by the state and on the other prohibitively expensive and undiscerning where even public universities are run for-profit through the Ponzi scheme of student loans and financial aid, which seems likely to be the next bubble to burst, and not to mention overcrowded, unrealistic and generally unremarkable in all disciplines. Perhaps thinking such targets of budget cuts would be forgivably (or forgettable) unpopular, politicians have been unprepared for the backlash, especially in England and Ireland, where rescue-loans from the EU and the IMF came with too many strings attached, and putting university fees on the line was one way to portend fiscal balance. This sort of sacrifice, however, is unwelcome and ill-advised, like the tragedy that will be facing Iceland--again over finances--when the next generation is forced to leave over lack of opportunity. Tripling tuition will have the same effect, leaving one's native landscape diminished and becoming more like the university system of America in price and quality, and that kind of collateral is on terms that no one can afford, regardless of their credit-worthiness.

cornucopia

What sort of daily sentiments, gems of wisdom, especially shop-talk or the poetic haikus of sociopathic rage that the boss of my boss has scribbled on all too ephemeral note pads, would you like to turn into keepsakes? Crochet it on a pillow? Steotch, the New England needle-artists, has produced a vast selection of such samplers, adding a touch of kitsch and permanency to tag-lines and memes, internet doctrines and covenants not necessarily captured in tee-shirt form, from Transportation Security Administration awkwardness to LOLCats (give us this day our daily cheezburger) to Peanut Butter Jelly Time to O RLY owl to Double Rainbow.  A happy and humourous Thanksgiving to everyone... Om Nom Nom.

allons-y, alonso

A bloggeur on Tumblr has a sizable and tasteful collection of animated GIFs from great films, the bulk from modern classics by Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Jean Luc Godard and Tarantino under the blog If we don't, Remember Me.  Unfortuneately, I can only share a static image from the compliation, but I really admire the scences, just a few frames each, that the author choose for their subtle expressions and nice quotes.  Animated GIFs remind me of those Cracker-Jack prizes, little postage stamp sized things with varigated surfaces, that when turned askewed revealed a new picture and the illusion of movement and change.  To get that right in the limited framework of available technology, like within the parameters of a graphic file, is much more impressive than embedding flashier presentations.

beyond thunderdome

Der Spiegel, via thelocal, reports on a tip from a would-be defector that warns of a Mumbai-style terror attack on the German Reichstag to be carried out in the Spring. Since when is kicking it Bombay style a way to talk about stratagems, as if it were comparable to à la russe or Stockholm Syndrome, because as dreadfully effective and tragic as it was for the city of Mumbai, storming Parliament and running amok is on a different level. It is just tacky shorthand.

Given the calm and collected reactions of the Ministry of the Interior, taking these developments in stride, I feel confident that with this warning and insight, the public will be kept safe—though Germany’s quitting Afghanistan altogether would probably be a cheaper and more expedient way to curb terror threats. One other item about this tip that seems suspect, however, is the speed with which authorities leaked this to the press and how quickly the news filters to the public forum. Transparency and disclosure are very important and ought to be expected, but maybe this threat, source and intelligence was too quickly put up for speculation and argument, even without all the details. That the luggage bomb couriered from Windhoek to Germany turned out to be a security test, a dummy, which no one is taking credit for planting, would also make me a little wary of tipsters and possible self-fulfilling prophets of gloom. When the news broke, before it was discovered that the suitcase was a tester model, I tried to fill in the blanks, remembering that Namibia is a former German colony, but now the country is a bit upset over the bad, and misdirected, publicity. Much of the war against Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein was prosecuted on the testimony of exiles, some of whom were later shown to have more complicated agendas and motives, but despite purity of evidence, it was taken as such because that was what the defenders wanted to hear. The exiles were very obliging.