versöhnen u. abkindern

According to the Passauer Neue Presse (DE), there is a small faction in the CSU (the Christian Socialist Union) proposing to shore up the financial landscape of health- and nursing care insurance, facing an aging and dwindling population in Germany, by levying a special income tax against the childless (Kinderlose).

The group's speaker and chief advocate suggests that adults over the age of twenty-five should be made to contribute 1% of their income to support this fund, reduced to a half for the first child and to zero for every child thereafter. I am not sure what to make of this plan, which would need to overcome the hurdles of a Bundestag vote, legal scrutiny and public opinion. I don't know if it is equitable to exact a nominal, punitive sum from individuals who are not backfilling, putting someone in the wings, to continue paying into the pool of funds that make up pensions and insurance programmes, and apparently, aside from Kindergeld, there is already a fractional surcharge built into nursing-care policies for the childless--and such a plan would have to ultimately face the hurdles of the past as well. Incentive initiatives, like the Marriage Credit (Darlehen) (DE/EN) of the 1930s and 1940s and continued under the DDR for the promotion of families and a strong populace, of the past approached social engineering from the opposite direction. Newly-weds were extended lines of credits, loans, which were progressively forgiven as the couple had children. This scheme of debt jubilee--pardoning, discharging--was referred to as abkindern. I suppose that eventually no plan of action is off limits when it comes to reconciling (versöhnen) disparities between generations and the flow of support between children and parents.

it’s only a paper moon

Some months ago, I heard some discussion about a crowd-sourced, independent science-fiction feature with the premise that during the final days of World War II in Europe, remnants of the government of Nazi Germany retreat to the dark side of the Moon, and from that lunar base, study world developments and regroup to found a Fourth Reich. The Moon and exploration, cinematically, has been taking a beating lately, what with the Transformers' Movie and the cover-up depiction of the missions, general lunar skepticism, and now this.  Iron Sky, nonetheless, sounds fantastic, and I was not following at first but the movie has premiered at the Berlinale film festival, with audiences and critics indulging in the guilty pleasures of this trashy fun. Irreverent, the movie reminds me of Mel Brooke's The Producers, and shows that (maybe trampling on good taste and the realities of war) this era continues to be inexhaustible. There are several theatrical trailers out there, but I really like this one, featured on Boing Boing, because it pokes fun at itself and the ridiculousness of the idea, and I agree that an invasion of space Nazis from the Moon would be a natural consequence of electing Sarah Palin as president of the United States.

songbird

It was very tragic and shocking news to learn of Whitney Houston's (DE/EN) passing. Her superlative lists of accolades and firsts, pioneering within the music industry, will certainly demand time and appreciation to recount and celebrate, but she has other important legacies in her charity and activism--for instance against apartheid in South Africa, which did not end so very long ago. Of course her talent resounded year in and year out but the timing was disconcerting and regrettable on a personal level, what with presentations and activities marking Black History Month, with the theme black women in history.

Her image was in the montages of fame and achievement with many others. I always found these events interesting, inspiring and necessary--but I found myself a little uncomfortable being made acutely aware that for this month, all these politicians, professionals, educators, entertains were different. Then I realized that it was all well and good that I was not seeing the colour of people's skin but that did not mean that the colour-blindness was universal nor did it ease the struggles that all people with any kind of otherness are facing. I guess no individual or group should be so arrogant as to think that they are the only audience, intended or otherwise. Perhaps that too was a part of Whitney Houston's accomplishments, not that she achieved fame despite or because of her heritage and not that her success was accepted despite or because of the same reasons--neither she nor her audience ever minced her roots and her talents were never pigeon-holed as one typified genre or another. For the one cinematic role that she is remembered for, in The Body-Guard with Kevin Costner, no mention was ever made that the characters shared an inter-racial love interest.  Her vocal abilities and personality carried through her pop mainstay, and also managed to famously decompartmentalize gospel and patriotic music in her career. We'll miss you, Whitney.

tag or bridges and islands

Taking a walk through town, I happened on this stretch of wall by the school campus that was decorated along its length with stencil graffiti. These were the usual icons and statements that one sees propagated everywhere, but what caught my eye first was the attempt to correct a reverse application (islands are the solid, outline areas of a stencil, and the straits that form letters and other details are termed bridges), which I guess is really impossible in the rush of spraying.

Then I noticed that one was not advised to keep warm by burning the rich, rather by burning them out. I guess that this wall has been a canvas for all sorts of messages, and I think experimenting with stenciling has produced, maybe accidentally, a more nuanced declaration.

erherberrechts oder

Just scant hours after reports of pan-European protests against ACTA, the German signatories to the treaty, a supranational and undemocratic imposition of the SOPA and PIPA bills that are for now consigned to Limbo, withdrew their unconditional support. More and more lawmakers are realizing that this bill is flawed, not striking a balance between ostensible protection of trademarks and patents and intellectual property and freedom of connexion, and has not been entertained in any public forum. The ascent of German and other European nations would not be formalized until the treaty is ratified by the EU Parliament, and Germany is not excluding switching back to its original position yet. This deferment and formality is parallel to the rank hypocrisy of the whole arrangement of press freedoms, privacy violations and domestic intrusions that characterize many governments of the world, who only look for a codification, a systemization for the questionable platforms they are already pushing, perhaps rallied and encouraged by certain lobbies. The marches are going to be carried out as planned, with tens of thousands committed to the protest and are expecting the same level of literacy and engagement out of their representatives on a broadening array of issues.

man-at-arms

Der Spiegel’s excellent daily chronical (nur auf Deutsch) takes note that this year marks thirty years since the launch of Mattel's He-Man franchise (Barbie’s Barbaric Brother). Though the Masters of the Universe (EN/DE) cast of characters and multiple spin-offs only reigned for a short five years (competing with parallel universes of action figures, like GI*Joe and Star Wars that did not play into the pantheon of over-sized muscle-men--I think I never had He-Men primarily so as not to mix statures), the line has been revived as cultural shorthand and reinvention, along with Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, Pound Puppies and others from the Saturday morning and after-school cartoon cavalcades. I think it is great how new life is being given to these different classic lines of toys and comics, independent of all the marketing and repackaging, like in the movie adaptations, which are pretty flagrant about the distinction between nostalgia and unoriginality.

equipoise

After twenty years of effort and attempts, Russian researches have managed to bore through some four-hundred thousand years of ice to tap the surface of the immense subglacial lake Vostok (DE/EN). The body of water, rivaling the Great Lakes of North America or Lake Baikal in volume exists in liquid form, despite the below freezing conditions due to the enormous pressures exerted by a four thousand meter thick sheet of ice over it. One of some one hundred forty known reservoirs under the Antarctic ice, the lake originally existed only as a hypothesis, until its discovery as a ground scanning radar anomaly--much in the same way ancient geomancers postulated the existence of a southern continent to balance the globe. Such exploration is estimated by some to represent some of the last undiscovered geological finds on Earth, but considering how adventurers and prospectors have never penetrated beyond the surface, nor sounded much beyond the crests of waves, I think that this could usher in a whole new golden age of exploration.

Plus considering how poorly ecology is understood and given life's capacity to astound and adapt, it is never just mountain high or valley low. Environmentalists and rival drilling teams have expressed concern over Russia's methods and worry about contamination, suggesting that a more isolated and smaller lake ought to have been probed first, to see if it could be done safely, rather than going after the biggest. I think, though, that the Russian scientists are keenly aware of this and will take every precaution. Exploration does not equate to exploitation, and they know that to taint this discovery would be to lose a unique chance and there has been enough propaganda from science fiction to give anyone pause. The project has been carried out in careful phases, under the assumption that exotic microbes live in this environment. Confirmation would strengthen the case for Earth-like, familiar, organisms on the satellites Europa and Enceladus, icy moons harbouring subterranean seas. Despite whatever corollaries are drawn to imaged alien life, this process excites the imagination and respect for the unknown even more. What if the artefacts of some Lovecraftian race lost to the ages are found? These water flowed millions of years ago on a subtropical land joined with Australia. Science and science-fiction both are accomplished at postulating.

taxman or special drawing rights

There is a wealth of advice, some professional and modular, suitable for tailoring, and some common-sense that demands one dispatch with mistake-prone sentimentalities and panic, regarding managing one's personal finances and home-economics. There also seems to be, however, a terminal severing of connections pervading otherwise good tips. The utility of money (and that's all it is, a utility, like electricity and water and heat--essential and essentially takes care of itself) diminishes with an embarrassment of riches, as the cost (and perhaps the worth, as well) of things approaches zero.  On the other hand, juggling sacrifices makes one unable to plan and budget and look inward to the narrow horizon of those same sentimentalities and panic. There is a disconnect on both ends of the spectrum, which just exacerbates the situation all around and perpetuates gentrification.

Often, one is commended to pay oneself first, which is helpful and positive and makes one make the conscious decision to negotiate the obligations and think about savings--though savings at its poor rate of return is usually at odds with paying down debt, whose interest negates the benefit of savings. A third of one's income should probably be sequestered, however, and with a tangible goal in mind--paying forward, paying off one's loans, saving for a home, and not just some comfort-zone where the worth of things is reduced to specks. All of this takes some discipline to execute and pays off in the end. Some people, the day-trader and the generally nervous set, I think however need something more immediate, creeping but visible and effective. One should still set aside something for the future first and then corral what's needed for essentials and make do with the rest, and perhaps a way to do that--and not forget the value of a dollar, would be to tax oneself. After all, all levels of government, in war and peace, have been funding all of their activity, maybe up until very recently though creditors have always been around too, through tax revenues. One should follow one's bank statement with a critical eye and levy a financial transaction tax against each withdraw, say of 1%, and place a duty on other items according to utility, endurance and necessity. Tax at 10% gifts not budgeted for and 100% that extra coffee bought at the gas station out of laziness when a little planning would have saved some money. Depending on how easily one can transfer between accounts, calculate one's tax by the week or the day and sock it away in savings. With punishingly regressive rates and arbitrary vice-taxes, one can be as austere and byzantine as one wishes, since it's one's own money, just rescued from the general fund and a good reminder of how one is spending his or her income and financing purchases.