sinecure or pretender to the throne

While back at the Bundestag, party representatives are holding their conclave to elect the next president of the republic, heir to a mostly ceremonial office that has perhaps made a lot of members of the public and constituencies across the government weary and frustrated with the latest succession of holders of that office.

The previous president resigned too early and the immediate predecessor resigned too late, it seems. Despite all the vested ceremony of having the upper house elect a president (the United States, before the advent of the Electoral College, also allowed the Senate select a president from among its peers), the office seems to be more of a liability (more of a personality rather than a platform) than a political coalition-builder. And perhaps because of the general disillusionment, a significant (though not properly surveyed) portion of the German public favours abolishing the office of the presidency altogether (the Chancellor wields executive power) and reinstating the monarchy, who would assume those roles--hosting foreign dignitaries, inaugurating museums, charitable launches, and the general indirect campaigning and the gauging of public-sentiment that a president seconding a chancellor or prime minister would do--after the idea was raised by a member of the Royal House of Prussia (the descendants, since there never was a German imperial family). Beyond the fascination that many Germans have for the British royal family and in-house nobility is fully-funded through with increased tourism--and perhaps courtiers vying for titles and recognition and the posts that make up a royal household--maybe the return of Kaiser and König as ceremonial figures, bereft of power, would be a good idea.

I can’t imagine that above and beyond what state authorities already contribute to maintaining Germany’s hundreds of former royal residences that much more money would be involved, not to mention discounting the politics of elevating a private citizen to public office, though there is sure to be contention and consequence over legitimacy and right to succession. Nationally and on the state level (Bavaria, like every Lander, has a minister-president and a prince von und zu Bayern, down to dukedoms, baronets, palatinates, counties, marches and fiefs), these dethroned royal families and their adherents have been prepared for this moment--not preening and conniving, I think, but just simply there and rarely does an administration come fully-formed.

cornucopian or QED

Though many clever and novel ideas are later disproven or shown to have specious connections—not unlike spontaneous generation, the theory of humours, leechcraft or alchemy but not plate tectonics, natural selection, the heliocentric solar system, and so on—a hypothesis, regardless of how intriguing or alluring it sounds at first, is something that is to be tested and ought to be taken as such while the verdict is still out. The verdict is still out on a lot of things. Boing Boing’s science correspondent understands the scientific method very well and warns readers to proceed with rigour and caution when entertaining this brief from Discovery magazine regarding a supposition from the University of Copenhagen that environmental pollution, specifically elevated carbon-dioxide levels, may be contributing to the marked increase in the incidence of obesity.

The argument, though untested, holds that breathing an excess of carbon-dioxide turns the blood slightly more acidic and throws off the chemistry of the body and the mind, triggering people to feel hungry more often and be less inclined to sleep properly. This notion has sparked some rather strident opinions on both sides, which underscores, I think, the importance of scientific thoroughness, especially when it has become all too common for pharmaceutical interests, environmental activists, nutritionists and the agricultural lobby to skew results in their favour, and basically setting up competent authorities to act as their pushers. A cornucopian, by the way, who could be characterized either as a denier or an optimist depending on one’s leanings, describes a futurist who believes, either through attrition or innovation, that mankind will not run out of resources any time soon. Traditional wisdom is not necessarily bad science or pseudo-science, but when false connections take root, it can be very hard to disabuse people of those beliefs, especially with a strong marketing force behind them. The idea of the slight change in the pH levels of one’s blood could contribute to obesity (it seems that the whole glass-of-wine-a-day argument and the fitness of French people approached this hypothesis from the other side, and the idea about the acidic of blood making someone prone or immune to disease reminds me of the mysterious survivors of the alien outbreak in the Andromeda Strain, whose blood was too acid to allow the virus to take hold) possibly simplifies the condition, since it seems far more likely that the afore-mentioned peddlers and pushers and a sedentary lifestyle are the causes, and it doesn’t seem quite right to entangle care for the environment with personal health or vanity, though that may prove most effective for bettering both.

d-base or memory hole

The British tabloid The Mirror (via Boing Boing) is reporting on a proposed scheme that could virtually over- night deputize all filling stations in the UK as agents of Miniplenty: closed-circuit television cameras, already installed at gas stations in order to catch motorists who dash off rather than paying for the fuel that they have pumped, will soon be cross-referencing tax-authorities’ and insurers’ databases to make certain that each and every car is current on its obligations.

In the interest of public-safety, cars found to be dead-beat drivers or if their records cannot be found, the driver will not be allowed to gas up. There is a similar scheme in place in Germany, dating back to the times of the Red Army Faction to help police track criminals on the run, but it has not expanded, grown more pseudopods into other areas of people’s lives—yet, nor does it have a mechanism to switch off the pump. This is an absolutely chilling development, which I think will yield more inconvenience and bad bookkeeping and loss of revenue for filling-stations than delinquent drivers. Having a line of liability does not make the streets safer or prevent accidents and only enables inflated settlements and enriches the insurance companies. Only a very small percentage of drivers, as the proponents behind this idea, some 4%, state and tax-dodging with an automobile sounds as if it would be no worth the effort. Why should authorities stop there?  Why not make the purchase of essentials linked all across the board, ensuring that everyone of us has discharged our debts, public and private, on schedule (and with positive indicators that we will be able to continue making timely payments in full in the future)?  One has to wonder what sort of retro-future and insincere visions inspire such surveillance.

pepperland

The creative haberdashers at Civilicious (sadly no longer in business it seems) have released this tee-shirt, Sea of Hope, featuring the Obamas rendered in the artistic style of Yellow Submarine (DE/EN). They also offer a whole line of political-themed apparel with some clever and subtle references.

rico sUAVe

Ruben Bolling who writes the uncomfortably true Tom the Dancing Bug series over at Boing Boing perfectly captures the off-putting dissonance behind the latest by-products of the war on terrorism, which is now turning back on itself--like the Ouroboros, the archetypal symbol of the snaking consuming itself and which ought to be the badge for this whole mission--in a helpful pamphlet. I found it most hard to understand how an individual with a background in constitutional law (Verfassungsrecht) could possibly, not under duress, let such conclusions and interpretations have free reign. There must be some horrendous goods and rank majesty out there to persuade those in power and in the public to suffer such a stance so lightly.  I like the pamphlet’s suggestion, for those equally confused, to write an essay about it which the CIA will grade after the thought criminals are dispatched with, but the whole subject, reality outstripping satire, is not so much conducive to humour.