priorität or listening-tax

I suppose that in the midst of everything else that is happening the business of legislation and upholding the rule of law must go on, but I found this item being entertained by a few members of America’s Congress to be backwardly-visionary: law-makers want to make it a felony to perform and share (primarily via the largest video repository of the internet) cover-songs. Violators could face prison-time for lip-syncing, sampling, karaoke, or otherwise playing copywritten music, regardless of the venue or platform’s policies or whether the rendition is talented or not. A group has rallied to stop this proposal, championing the alternative-history cause of one young vocal artist, who happened to be discovered singing cover ballads in just the manner they propose to outlaw, and portray the young performer as unjustly incarcerated in this bizzaro, future dystopia. It is easy to guess the instigators behind this bill (and its natural extensions) but at the same time hard to reconcile the cognitive dissonance behind an industry that would want to stifle creative experimentation and fame-making in its future associates.

viennese waltz or ballroom blitz

 

The negative attention plied and mounting on the European Union and imminent crisis talks, replete with rumour and grandstanding and loggerheads, is striking me as a very sort of Zen/Non-Zen exercise. There is an imponderable quality to the debate, that the raining down of economic doom, has levied undue focus on these otherwise normal and healthy proceedings. The European clubhouse, founded primarily on hope, understanding and cooperation but also maybe cynically on the guilt of Germany and the opportunism of others (and the constituent parts were never, it seems, painted with so much contrast when there were borders), is holding deliberations among its treasurer, secretary and president. If this was happening with a less scrutinous watch, would there be so much noise? Of course what happens matters, especially when it could affect the timbre of politics, social support, peace and self-determination, yoked or not to an indenturing debt, but other major economies have also collapsed under the weight of their own greed and surfaced (not recovered) none the wiser, unlike Europe who has already made regulations more transparent and more robust in order to reemerge again, stronger and more secure.

There is no easy or obvious answer to these challenges, but nor is there a wrong decision that cannot be overcome. The most-watched designations are overgenerous and meaningless, and Triple A-Alpha-Ailm-Aleph-Double-Plus-Super-Thanks, I'm sure will settle to a new baseline.  There is something horrible and vicious about an academic exercise, a zero-sum-game--something that claws its way back to equilibrium--that seems very Non-Zen but also a little bit reassuring that affairs will adjust and right themselves, and that the core of a place, buildings, streets and communities can be much older and essentially more durable than their latest ascribing armour--city, nation, state.

true colours or womp rat

Despite all the active dismissal and disengagement by most of the media, the occupation movement continues and has spread far to Tatooine and Hoth (Antarctica). These occupiers have a story to tell, which might be best conveyed without the scrim and arras of reputed anarchy and homogeneity that the movement’s detractors are peddling.

People are upset at the sight of their futures eroding without being afforded the same protections as the perpetrators, and that that this diverse group camped out at Wall Street would join in says a lot, considering all the exaggerated heights that public defendors claim that we have to fall.

gedenkend or franklin mint

The illimitable Boing Boing featured a sleek presentation of the obverse of vintage (1896) US dollar bills and silver certificates, which bear glorious allegories of the achievements of Electricity, Material Science, and the Promise of Youth, personified, instead of the familiar, relatively stodgier architecture or distant heads-of-state. Though not exactly fiat currency, it did make me reflect on the tokens and mementos that I have collected that I have collected that commemorates the same accomplishments of progress—like this piece of Polish majolica that celebrates twenty-five years of being on the grid or this French medallion of the electrification of the country, with this mythological character, looking like Calibos from Clash of the Titans illuminated by an oil lamp.

These are feats to be proud of.  In a similar vein, I was thinking about the military unit coins that I’ve been presented and wondered if there was such occasion, venue for symbolism and artistic expression elsewhere, or if trophies and icons and cash-money were things relegated to grandfathered traditions.

aesthete

Der Spielgel reports on the efforts of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich to bring to the public for the first time catalogue images of the series of decorative arts showcases, "Great Germany Art Exhibitions" from 1937 to 1944, that tried to impart the Third Reich’s aesthetic ideal, with paintings and contemporary furniture designs that reflected the best of distilled nationalism. The series of photographs (the full catalogues will be available online at GDK Research) are insightful and telling of the exodus of German talent and of the strictures of patrotic interior decorating. Der Führer, who was rejected as an aspiring art student, was the ultimate juror in deciding what pieces were representative and, it seems, one of the showcase's best customers.

ms havisham, i presume

Did you know that a major portion of the economies of some of the smallest sovereign nations in the world, remote Pacific islands like Nauru and Vanuatu, comes in the form of diplomatic aid, gained by swapping allegiance?

Their ambassadors and ministries of state will recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) over the Peoples' Republic of China in exchange for monetary support and then later flip their position--also for some of the disputed regions under the Russian aegis. Who knew diplomacy could be transparently profitable? The coalition of the willing that took part in the American-lead invasion of Iraq of 2003 was certainly never as extensive as the catalogue of ships that stormed the beaches at Troy in the Iliad, and this kind of diplomatic pandering rings with about the same tinny, hollow sound of credit awarded for a show of support.

I hope that the idea of appealing to one nation’s vanities, beggaring one’s rivals and problem-children, does not catch on. Pinky and the Brain of Warner Brothers' Animaniacs tried those stunts already to try to raise capital for their plans of world domination, and it is strange to see reality reflect this appeal. I am afraid, once all the pretend hue and cry of the euro and EU settles and without Cablegate, the United States, place-holder for world-dominance, might try such things while ignoring the management of its downfall. In general, superlatives are not the most auspicious things, but just as the best that the EU hoped for from Greece was a orderly bankruptcy, the US ought to acknowledge its standing and make contingency plans, as no amount of pandering diplomacy could make up the difference.

omicron, omega

Did you know that the Greek letters omicron and omega just mean little-o, big-o respectively? Euro notes and coins bear both Latin and Greek script, which I believe is a piquing reminder of the mutual glossing that may have been behind the monetary union. Since the Maastricht Treaty, no one wanted to exclude any established members of the old or new Europe, regardless of the maturity of their economies and markets, and I do not believe that Greece and other nations unilaterally covered-up their fiscal health and talked their way into membership.
I am sure that to a large extent, against warnings of economists and analysts that saw at the time weaknesses, hyperbole and litotes, that such obstacles were overlooked towards the formation of a more perfect union, and not a German or a French hegemony or a north, south schism. It parallels the lesson unlearned with the economic collapse fuelled by the housing bubble, which with exuberance oversold the properties market to all and sundry on the hopes that value would keep increasing. I have great hopes for the euro and the ideas behind it still--including the absolute solvency of each country’s financial systems without respect for outside shaming and subjective ratings, should it not lead to overarching micro-management of each country’s affairs or usher in conservative governments that undo the social and equitable fabric of its constituents, but I do think that one aspect that this vision elided over was that of competition and customers. Within a bloc of currency, it is hard for one country, maintaining its standard of living and government support, to compete with another, more advanced in manufacturing. It is that competitiveness that will lead to recovery and growth, and not an outsider's idea of discipline or scope of government responsibility.  The average shopper, I do not think, would forgo price or quality (or his or her own sense of protectionism) to seek out Greek, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese goods to fan their solidarity. The money-changers (nummularium) did a brisk business across borders, as well, and within Europe, we are our own best trading-partners.