you used to ride on your chrome horse with your diplomat

This morning on the drive into work, I was listening to the news in the background, not really paying attention to it. The anchor was reporting on the broad field of Republican presidential candidates for next year’s election in the States, and garbled the name of a former top US diplomat who apparently had been offered in jest a cabinet position, his old post, in the administration.

The reporter named Secretary of State--Außenminister(in)--Hillary Kissinger as having reacted graciously and with good humour to the proposal. That would be a strange mash-up of policies and missions that I can’t even begin to imagine (but would make some good speculative fiction), much less the message and logistical feasibility having reinstating such a figure would entail.

nazca or man in the moon

Until a couple years ago when satellite charting services started paying attention to the ocean and the ocean’s floor, it seemed like our educational system was really failing, since 99% of school children could not locate Atlantis on a map. It turned out the apparent submerged roadways and building foundations were shadows and optical illusions (pareidolia, like the Face on Mars) but the excitement at least increased the awareness of some people. Perhaps, ultimately, the strange, man-made patterns appearing in China’s remote Gobi Desert will present the same lesson. It’s mysterious, kind of like the Nazca Lines of Peru, but barring what’s classified or secreted away (surely a fresh sweep is allowed over Iranian and Chinese ambitions but not over Area 51), one will probably be able to divine their purpose, whether defensive or experimenting with new ways of producing energy or drawing water out of a salty aquifer discovered beneath the desert. Before such powerful telemetry became available, the Great Wall of China was considered the only man-made structure "visible" unaided from orbit: I wonder if that distinction is still meaningful when all skyward features, down to the smallest detail, are visible for public scrutiny and imagination.

utopian gesture

More toxic yet, I believe, than politicians and their squabbles, though sometimes and in some places they are genuine and productive--the growing pains of democracy and inclusion--but mostly rightly adjudged as corrupt and self-interested, is the attitude, best exemplified in the sentiment of American Exceptionalism and the unsinkable promises and aspiration to maintain the chauvinism and clout of days and decades past (but the USA does not have a monopoly on hubris nor is the USA alone with her illusions of perpetuating institutions as they are). Despite what the prophets of doom are preaching, Europe and America are secure and can provide for their people, but dominance and even identity (tradition within bounds but also grandeur and influence out of proportion) have been supplanted by business and the bets that dictate the limits of sway and how far one can involve or distance oneself.  Crafters of State ought to recognize whether the effort expended is bent on re-capturing old glories--manifest destiny and merry old England, preserving values and norms, or if all that energy is re-directed towards making the landscape favourable for business that knows no borders, cultural or political.  National arrogance, insistent and potentially seductive, is dangerous enough on its own in any context but has the capacity for more damage when aims of peace and true prosperity are edged out by trade and economic demands that would preserve institutions (the topography) at any cost, delusional and empires without end.

hippocrates

Though I am not one to easily repair to medication or the doctor's office when sick, especially wary of highly synthesized and prepared potions that claim to have a surgical aim but whose chemistry in reality is not so precise and whose rolling shock-and-awe goes after the body's responsiveness rather than the cause, masking the pain.  Sometimes, however, recovery needs some help and haste, and the German attitude towards sickness, rather than my general aversion to drugs, does default to home-remedies and conventional wisdom as a first and usually effective result.  The last thing I want to do when sick is stew in a hot bath or drink some sippy tea or a steamy hot beer, though like one forgets pain and sometimes expects to feel even better than before one can proclaim oneself better or cured, I tend to be doubtful and do not remember how effective simple steps were before.  Though I do not know the governing guidelines behind this practice, if doctors and apothecaries alike are schooled in detecting hypochrondria or Münchausen syndrome and discerning it from the real thing, I understand that when one does need to seek out store-bought medication (and all things, even as innocuous as asprin and antacid are distributed not in filling stations and supermarkets but rather through one's friendly neighbourhood pharmacy, and dispensed with a dose of expert advice) a significant amount of medication given out (with and without a prescription) are placebos.  There was an additional bit of psychology with my last visit to the apothecary when I got my generic yet potent medication: the woman behind the counter agreed with my assessment that the drugs should help and said I ought to take three pills a day but also warned it was potentially serious and if I was not better after the weekend, I should see a doctor.  I am sure that astute bluff scared me into remission.

what is that new country-code, top level internet domain for obamastan?

The United States Congress is poised to pass yet another regulation that will severely curtail creative expression and make the make internet a more impoverished place. H, earlier in the week, spend some time at the footlights of one of Germany’s bigger entertainment awards ceremonies, by coincidence, and was in close proximity to some of young darlings of pop music that were not only discovered through the internet, were continuously promoted, aggressively disallowed to sink into obscurity, by the same medium, at a time when monotony of the radio just does not cut it anymore.

And it made me wonder how those celebrities, though already made and secure, might feel about the chances of the future artists they hope to inspire, when, if such trends succeed, everyone would have to go through a very litigious checklist before posting or sharing anything, if they can even find a forum to host it in the first place. The proposal, drafted and sailed through legislation is of course sponsored by an entertainment industry that knows no shame, dark and divorced from their product and producers (actors, actresses and artists), would not only protect, hermetically seal, both stale and inviolate renditions by making it a crime to cover, parody or re-mix the copyrighted work of another, the industry with the support of the American government would gain broad and arbitrary (without appeal or recourse) to shut down large swathes of the internet for infringement. Of course, every host would recede at the merest threat. So much for derivative talent and inspiration, but then, one might expect that this change might promote the truly original and talented, without acknowledging that the most productive practice comes from revisiting the classics. That hope is also dashed by this legislation, however, because there are yet more insidious parts to this bill: alternative and independent news sources would be edged out, because citing or referencing the copy of mainstream sources would need to be vetted through permissions and licensing—for each and every link and citation. There would be no more American Wikipedia, though seeking hosting outside of the bill’s jurisdiction is becoming more and more attractive. Even enriching the internet with original art and information with blogging could be made prohibitive, because the bill strongly encourages private contributors to register their works with a media clearing-house, so their unwanted patron can determine how their work is shared and held in trust. The whole world is hoping that Americans do not go quietly down that dangerous path, but given the political will in general there and the practices that have eroded privacy in the name of security, maybe the best the world can hope for is that this trend does not spread and other countries can play the gracious host.

warnschuss, coup de semonce or disconfirmed expectancy

One should not forget that Europe as a personality or playable character is something ultimately derived from a Greek myth (EN/DE), and not a very happy or pleasant one at that. While there is trouble going on in the lands of the Classics, France too in its capacity as a leader in the European Union’s coregency with Germany in fixing the currency is seeing its woes compounded. A major credit rating agency made known by mistake and perhaps prematurely the downgrading of France’s credit-worthiness. I am sure that the functionaries at such institutions always have such press-releases cocked, especially when it is a real and strategic possibility, and ready, like the morbid job of obituary writers who constantly update the curriculum vitae of celebrities, so their newspaper can be first and timely in case one should leave us unexpectedly.

Still, intention or accident, the damage has been done—for those who put faith in the opinions and prognosis of such offices, and besides sewing doubt in France’s surety, makes Germany more unilateral and obligated. Perhaps France could capitalize and restore the same weighted-credibility with a more modern myth (a strange draw recently featured in Atlas Obscura): the village of Bugarach in the Aude Department, between the Pyrenees Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, is being invaded by thousands, and possibly as 31 December 2012 draws closer, thousands more, because some believe that it will be spared the Doomsday Event, interpreted by one take on a Mayan calendar.

French authorities, however, are doing the responsible thing and down-playing the hysteria, and the agency MIVILUDES (an acronym that translates into something like Mission to Combat and Monitor Cult Deviancy) have been quashing publicity and have the whole area under surveillance. Believers cite the location of the village along the Green Meridian (the line of longitude that runs through Paris and long time rival of the Greenwich Meridian for reference in navigation and world time) and the unusual geography and tectonics of the Pyrenees that makes the tops of mountains here old than their bases as reasons for gathering there. Yesterday, with the confluence of elevens, I was thinking about prophesy and prediction and how strange it seems to try to resolve, synchronize calendars, clocks and time-zones, and I suppose the location of that real-estate is sold on terms as convincing as the judgment of creditors.

elevensies

Quirks of the calendar are certainly something to take notice of, especially when one considers how these days were ordained, pre-determined since the beginning of time, driven by calendar-reforms, the base of our numbers systems, and other events. Today, I read in the paper, an area, in Germany where it is also the Feast Day of Saint Martin when geese are rounded-up and devoured like turkeys on Thanksgiving for giving away the reluctant saint's whereabouts to Church authorities and children parade with paper lanterns, holding a nighttime vigil, brother and sister (twins) are celebrating their eleventh birthday. Patterns tend to rise above the din, but that's really a story in itself to mark this day.  What would your story be?