entente or cabbages and kings

Despite all the talk and headlines beguiling with strong language and hyperbole that is more fitting of events decades ago and lasting centuries, it cannot be said too often how European peace and integration, the common-currency too being part of that grand experiment, is a remarkable achievement, transcending very real and recent battlefield traditions that are not at all metaphorical. States and political personalities are still players but self-determination (brilliantly or dimly reflected in diplomacy and policy) and inclusiveness, not uneasy peace brokered by strategic marriages or segregated sentiment, have drafted this framework for stability and cooperation. Unpleasantries (Unannehmlichkeiten) aside, the potential loss or gain wagered on the success of the pact that is European identity and relevance, is not the kinetic energy that comes of this alliance and continued partnership. Whatever parts of this formula are not working, rather than racing and raging to support some other defunct system--a self-perpetuating and shared-delusion, members of the EU are unencumbered to change (independent and so far as greed and vanity allow) and resolve.

Financial speculation and prospecting are not ripping Europe asunder and stoking misgivings, as colourfully and graphically as the same headlines would portray these powers, but greed and fear, inelastic, make for short tempers in negotiation and would squarely remove protected and respected cultural differences to the immature tyranny of the stock markets--and the vision of the Treaty of Rome was not to replace sceptre, sword and mitre of kings with seigniorage and adoubement of banks. For Armistice Day, one should recall not only the difference between squabbling and war but also where we came from and where we want to go.

heurism or green fairy/blue tooth

9 November marks Inventors' Day (Tag der Erfinder) in the German Sprachraum. Perhaps coincidentally--perhaps not, the local's Swiss edition featured an article earlier in the week of Swiss inventions, which in addition to milk chocolate, the Helvetica font, and the Swiss army knife, include Velcro, LSD and absinthe. The occasion, purposed to encourage people to pursue their own ideas and remind people about the forgotten and unsung innovators, is observed on 9 November because of the birthday of Austrian actress and Erfinderin Hedy Lamarr, in recognition of her 1942 discovery of frequency hopping spread spectrum technique that eventually enabled the development of cellular telephony and Bluetooth technologies.

matchbox or go-go-gadget brella

Though it's not at all tempting, given the unpleasant and cramped interior and strange odours, to violate these rules and host a roller derby, there is an unloving notice on the outside wall of the lobby of our post-office stating that food and drink and roller blades are prohibited in that facility. I wonder if people still go skating--sometimes one sees older people with Nordic walking sticks (ski poles) zipping, slaloming along the trails but not so often, and one hardly ever encounters young people biking or skating outside the compulsion of a family outing. It's a little sad--the sign might as well say no hula-hooping and no pogo-balls as well--I think we've not only been kept too safe, with the occasional foray into extreme double-dutch or see-saw record-breaking attempt, coordinated via flash-mobs, but also gotten use to having nothing out of arm's reach and fully-integrated.  I ought to organize an impromptu kazoo evening of chamber music in the mailroom lobby and pogo-stick ballet.

a series of tubes

The presidents of Russia and of Germany, who are both overshadowed by their Premier and Chancellor respectively, symbolically opened the valve on the Nord Stream pipeline close to the community of Lubmin in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern near the Inlet of Griefswald. This installation will bring natural gas from the fields of Siberia directly to German and Western Europe.

Of course no one would tolerate an intrusive bulldozing through the region, but environ-mentalists are concerned that this addition along with other power-houses in the area could upset the delicate ecology of the surrounding Baltic Sea. Lubmin, I see, formerly constituted part of the monastic holdings of Cloister Eldena, whose ruins we visited last summer on our rambling adventures up and down the Ostsee coast. The beauty and history of this region is protected with more vehement sensibilities than those that survey the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (in Alaska, shortened to “anwar”) or the tar-sands of Canada, but recipients of this energy should not be complacent about the business at the far end of this pipeline, nor ignorant of the need for more and more power that is driving this arrangement. It is a strategic and clean partnership by all appearances that has been well engineered and executed, but both sides should still be mindful of the limits of these resources and the environment’s threshold of forgiveness and look towards new energy and technologies.