east-enders

In order to ensure that security theatre see its caliber of performance bolstered by no less than the finest special effects and pyrotechnics, MiniDef is installing (with no pretense at discretion) an anti-aircraft missile battery on top of a residential estate in East London, where some seven hundred people live.

This vantage point affords security forces a commanding view of the games’ venues as well as urban airports, probably of the new US Embassy construction site too. The building of such a gargoyle is really the limit: no doubt everyone hopes that the event of the summer benefits one and all, but it is hard to accept that anyone aside from corporate sponsors and defense contractors are going to come through the hassle any richer for the experience. It is no great strain on the imagination to think up ways that this could go terribly wrong, and if such measures are deemed necessary and the threat is in any way tenable, shouldn’t the whole affair have been called off long ago, to spare the expense and all the humiliation for the regular people of London? There are easier avenues for the promotion of public safety—and imagine what’s not hailed in the news and carried out publicly if we are already privy to this—but the business of security has become self-perpetuating and won’t obligingly be forced back to its original confines.

brigadoon or unscheduled appearance

Though more concerned presently is on keeping Venice and other islands from sinking further below the waves, our favourite BLDG BLOG reports on the very curious case of the sometimes island of Ferdinandea. Presently a volcanic seamount in the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily and directly north of the island of Lampedusa, which garnered attention during the revolutionary Spring of North Africa when an influx of refugees came into this nearest port of the European Union.

Ferdinandea’s most famous and prominent appearance was when it broke the surface in the year 1831, causing quite a sensation (quite expected for an island appearing overnight and without warning) with many scientists and celebrities visiting the tiny basalt shoal with two lake-like depressions and even sparking a minor international crisis over disputed claims: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the United Kingdom, Spain and France all saw strategic importance in this little rock. Some were even alarmed that this outcropping might be the first stage of an entire chain of volcanic islands that would join Sicily to Tunisia, changing dramatically the definition of Europe and Italy’s crown. The tensions were soon quelled, however, when after five months, the island was reclaimed by the sea, almost as abruptly as it had appeared. Aside from a few rare intervening appearances, including an incident when the seamount was bombed in the shallows by American fighter jets, believing the marauding island was a Libyan submarine, Ferdinandea is lounging about six meters beneath the waves but could, at any time, rise again.

rushmore

The fourth President of the United States, author of the Federalist Papers and significant contributor to the US Constitution, James Madison called government the greatest reflection of human nature.
Invoking the so-called Founding Fathers can be a tricky thing, since they are used as straw men many times for arguments that they’d rather not be brought into and reductio ad absurdum positions. No constitution is inviolate and can of course be read selectively. Madison said many sage things that are resounding and ought not to be forgotten and are certainly more agile, adaptive and current than the language of any law or designs at strategy. Though the charter documents of America could not have anticipated the complex environment of an intricately connected world, Madison was able to address, succinctly, the latest incarnation of nightmarish Orwellian conveniences being thrust upon the whole planet at America’s behest: “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” After public outrage and protest defeated SOPA and PIPA and lamed ACTA, the US government was amazingly quick to regroup with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). This law’s essential powers and scope are the same as its avatars—only the justification was changed from piracy to the more serious-sounding threat of corporate espionage perpetrated by Russian and Chinese agents, intent on sabotaging America’s prosperity and economic edge.

mission midas or bergwerk im all

A cadre of adventuring entrepreneurs are making incremental moves, in earnest, to go prospecting in the asteroid belt (DE/EN).  Although I am not sure of the details, whether the project will live up to romanticized notions from science-fiction and space opera with heroes and villains and high risk—or if the risks of this melodrama only pertains to business and investor losses and there’s only the tremolo-bravery of disposable robots and swarms of tug boats and pick-axes.
Either way, such a vision and ambition is something exciting and sure to have broader repercussions, like the cadre promises, of not only material wealth and resources and also tutoring (remediating) mankind in space exploration, and I cannot fully understand some of the jadedness and cynicism that’s being cast towards this enterprise—well, I understand some of the suspicion given the rank privilege that corporations enjoy and pulling down shooting-stars should not give us license to be more wasteful and less environmentally-conscience, especially considering how dirty, invasive and creeping terrestrial mining operations are. Efficiency won’t be necessarily discredited either, just because rare-earth and trace metals and alloys are increasingly precious components of current electronics and material manufacturing might become common-place; technology will still advance and probably in surprising ways. This research and exploration may not only succeed in overcoming the pettier expense barriers and lead to bolder experimentation and engineering developments, mining asteroids, while possibly not unearthing some alien mutagenic virus or uncovering the artifacts of an ancient civilization (perhaps we are the claim-jumpers) or finding unexpected residents, it will at least force us to think about the possibility of such wondrous and exotic things and give us a bit of a foothold beyond this poor abused and hollowed-out world.

presto-chango or mission abolished

Though ostensibly in response to the promise of more moderate and democratic regimes in the wake of the Arab Spring (which caught the West off-guard, though now they are trying to countermand the movement and cultivate partnerships), elements within the US executive branch have pronounced the war on terror to be over, the tide receding. I truly hope that peace, openness and reason will return to fill that void, idleness of the machines of war, but I suspect that prosecuting terrorists is merely transmuting into something more devious and shadowy, and puts the conduct and shell-diplomacy of the US just a few precious notches above the forces and ideals that they were fighting against, until just now. The armed forces, vetted and contained by Congress, and the foreign service corps of America are being drastically cut, only to be replaced with mercenaries and all-seeing harpies. 

 One important characteristic, at least one that was highlighted by the US for justification, of terrorism is that these groups fight unconventionally, outside of the context and oversight of government and law. This shift to contracted warfare, rendition, secret operations sounds uncomfortably similar to the modus operandi of enemy combatants, unaccountable and held to no standards or overarching consensus.  Soldiers-of-Fortune do not exactly seem promising, not only in keeping the peace but also in terms of real defense from real threats.  Add to the formula the erosion of civil liberties, income disparities, chronic under-employment and a representative democracy that has strayed far from its intended purpose and process, America is becoming more rogue and difficult to distinguish as a leader among nations.

synaxarion or by george!

Though Germany is one of the few places not wholly under the patronage of Saint George and Germany has another event to mark on this day—the anniversary of the enactment of the Reinheitsgebot, the Saint Day has universal recognition and usually falls (the feast can be preempted by Easter) on a strange amalgam of celebrations that are as varied and involved as his cult and veneration. Aside from beer, literature is also synthetically celebrated on this day, due to it being the anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes’ death and the anniversary of both William Shakespeare’s birth and death (though this coincidence is a bit contrived because of subsequent calendar reforms)—books are a traditional St. George’s Day gift.

For Saint George himself, festivities can range from the civic to national to professional observances for the many places and vocations (including blacksmiths, butchers, farmers, miners and beer-barrel makers) he covers. The historical personage was an accomplished and respected leader of the imperial guard in Roman Palestine, and although a favourite of the Emperor, was martyred for making a spectacle of his refusal to recognize the pagan household gods. Apparently, his faith inspired a revolt among the people and military ranks, overturning the ban against Christianity. Where the bit about the dragon comes in is not so clear. I always felt kind of sorry for the dragon, but it was more than just a nuisance, demanding livestock- or maiden-sacrifices from villagers in exchange for access to their oasis and water supply. Then, instead of taking the act, George slaying the dragon (symbolizing Rome, perhaps) to save the life of the chieftain’s daughter who drew the bad lot after all the sheep and goats had been devoured, as a fait accompli, I prefer to think of it as a continuous battle, a tumbling and constant struggle like the eternal standoffs seen in the constellations.

This fiery perseverance is something internalized, perhaps, as the choices that confront us all the time and the sometimes delayed realization that choices and acts have consequences. I like how this imagery has been propagated and the hero is acknowledged in his homelands and far beyond, and his icons and devotions are spread from the Middle East to the nation of Georgia, to the flag of England and the Arab world because of widespread miraculous acts and visions of the Saint on the eve of battle.

visa visum

The careless rhetoric of political campaigns can certainly re-phrase backwards proposals as something benign. The European Union is a striving towards perfection through integration and cooperation, and while though it may still have hard battles ahead of it (exacerbated by the economic climate and political scapegoating), one should approach the subject of closing boarders with extra caution. To have reinvented an entire continent of some four-hundred million people as an entity with no internal border control is a hallmark of the EU, extended even to more people than use the euro.  Citizens of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein also enjoy this privilege, though the Irish and the Anglo-Saxons did not fully agree to the terms of the treaty and still exercise elements of border controls with the rest of the EU.

Freedom of movement and the consequent right of abode and right to seek employment is one of the founding principles of the EU, and France and Germany, by proposing to exercise a seemingly innocent closing of their borders for a temporary period (not to exceed thirty days), are pandering to the fear of xenophobes and those who imagine their particular work-ethics to be sacrosanct. Some factions of the governments of France and Germany who would like the option to suspend the Schengen Accords are squarely blaming those outlying members, like Italy, Greece and Spain, for not better policing their external borders. The arrangement states that the first country to receive migrants are responsible for ensuring that the immigration process is carried out or that they leave once over staying their welcome, but these frontier lands are accused of lax controls and of sending on their arrivals to neighbouring states—i.e., France and Germany. I doubt that this characterization is entirely accurate, but given the financial hardships imposed on these same countries, so called austerity-programmes that have decimated funding for such public-sector affairs, I would not be entirely surprised if this situation was developing. Maybe there does need to be reforms and the terms of the treaty does allow for member states to protect their interests, but it does seem rather disingenuous and to confirm some of the criticisms of the skeptics who argued that the Schengen Zone is somewhat a one-way street, facilitating vacations for holiday-makers but less open and forthcoming for local-colour infringing on home-territory.