chirality

With travel season approaching, many will be using rental vehicles to bridge the gaps in their vacation plans or tour about the countryside. It can turn into quite a frustration queuing up to fill up one’s unfamiliar car and realize that one is not sure if the tank is on the left or the right side. I’ve wondered what manufacturing conventions govern the distribution of gas-tank configuration and are some popular makes at a disadvantage—chiral is a term for a sort of chemical-handedness, the way molecules twist towards the right or towards the left. Most modern cars, models that one is likely to get at the rental shops, however, do have a very subtle tell in the instrument panel: the little flag by the pump symbol points towards the side the gas tank is on.

beeswax

Over on the inestimable site Boing Boing, Hannah Nordhaus presents a very circumspect and sad essay about the fact that our honey bees are still dying all over the world and the cause(s) remain a mystery. Against the deadly seriousness of the grave prospect of a collapse of agricultural system that works and that we work in, a spate of triumphant and heroic headlines appeared, declaring the mystery solved. I have the impression that I did notice a few more errant bees this year than the year before, but maybe I was subscribing to the same journalistic deadlines and public attention span (the same sort of reporting that relegates Fukushima to the distance past), because beekeepers know that their numbers are still in decline. Hives do not only die dramatically, and by hook or by crook, there are several suspects but the evidence is unclear on how to remedy this disturbing situation. Could it be pesticides, monoculture crops, killer bees, climate change, electro-smog from cellular telephone masts, genetically modified plants or a parasite that’s easy to implicate? This is a development we can ill-afford to be complacent about, dismissing a problem because it is no longer on the press-horizon.

kαταναλωτισμός or conspicuous consumption

While it is premature and insulting to suggest that Greece, failing to form a definitive coalition government after its legislative elections that were themselves held in the framework of a caretaker government ingratiated as a condition of the first bailout package, will flagrantly choose to not uphold its obligations—attracting no clear majority though like-mindedness abounds—it does beg the question at what cost default. Greece is already in hock for the better part of a generation just keeping current on payments to service its rescue packages, with acutely less to show for it in the end: the dictates of creditors and angel-investors are superseding public services and the cultivation of a jobs market. Prophets of doom are probably not exaggerating when the say that Greece will suffer an extended period of massive poverty if they are forced to default (there is not much choice left in the matter) and quit the euro, but such consequences are temporary, surely less than the terms of the loan, and the Greeks could begin clawing their way back right away. Such a precedent, though, would be dread to see, dread to hear for other countries on the economic ledge and the minders of the EU—a cue for Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Belgium and Italy, another nation imposed with a caretaker government, to consider doing the same.
I venture that the biggest fear behind the potential for contagion and strict monitoring of Greek conduct lies in not the potential for poverty but rather that it is a renegade category of poverty. Consumption continues at a pace, regardless of financial standing, so long as there is credit and interminable refinancing. Trade partners can still sell their exports and settle payments with a common currency in understood and agreeable terms, but once those conditions disappear and a country is unable to afford imports, established trade routes break down and there’s a turning inward and countries become more self-sufficient, relying on native products and developing local manufacturing (even if not as immediately efficient and technically advanced), perhaps even getting accustomed to getting by with less. Stronger economies would not be sustained without broader markets for the export of their expertise, and their sterling credit.

du contrat social

Through honeymoon speculation is already enough—from all sides—to dampen the mood, French President-Elect François Hollande, neither unknown nor unseasoned, is certainly promising to be exciting and surprising. The petty tyrants of business have already passed judgement, and while I genuinely believe that Hollande does not care about the drift of opinion or the promissory notes of campaign, his declaration that the financial system is his true adversary and not antagonists with more conservative beliefs may cause some critics and short-term market-watchers to condemn him as a caricature socialist, I don’t think that this individual is one to dismiss. Hollande is not an anti-business radical, and perhaps with the support of a broad collation domestically and beyond the borders of France, his platform and priorities could restore an essential balance, which in the long-term, as opposed to the daily fluctuations and appraisals that drive so much of the markets and profiteers seeking to skim what’s possible in the short-term, could create a more stable economic environment through personal achievement and initiative—and quality of life should always trump the profits of the few.

Concomitant Sunday voting in Schleswig-Holstein and parliamentary elections in Greece had the common theme of a shift in power and attitude driven by debt and so trepidation that the new regime won't be held responsible for the mistakes of those unseated.  Meanwhile, Russia swore in its once-and-future king.  Economically, Hollande is not only advocating the creation of European credit rating agencies independent of the valuations and biases of the American financial empire, running zero deficits, and introducing a tax-regime is progressive without being disruptive to competition and employment (plus assistance for small business), he is also advocating greater alliances with Germany, pooling the better part of competition and eliminating redundancies. Something necessary that no one else has been bold enough to campaign on too is the segregation of financial institutions, allowing no savings and loan to venture into investments—which propelled the financial crisis in the first place and whose break-up made be able to help undo some of the asceticism (fiscal austerity measures) offered up, like restoring the retirement age and hiring more public-sector workers. His long term relationship with former French presidential hopeful, Ségolène Royal, who stared down arch-conservatives back in 2007, suggests that he has more than a bit of fortitude and probably won’t let these pledges be forgotten. Parallel, and with a strong mandate from the voters, his social platform seems innovative and redresses some of the anti-social backwardness that has been institutionalised of late—significantly, bringing about equality in marriage, reforming immigration policy, diversifying energy sources away from nuclear power, and protecting and promoting France’s varied regional languages, like Gallo, Gascon, Picard, Provençal, Asatian, Languedoc and Breton, and no longer insisting on monoglot French. Allegiance and accomplishment are not being tossed aside, but I suspect there will be some interesting developments for France and the European Union under new leadership.

ways and means or checks and balances

Immovable opposition to changes and supplementing US domestic policy by members of the Republic, not limited to principles and ideological differences but also even bound by childish and treasonous oaths that supplant duties to the democratic process and law, have resulted in untenable social reforms that came into force as defanged half-measures. Universal healthcare for America, transparency and fairness in lending-practices, jobs revitalization, education initiatives, equitable taxation, promotion of green-industry are all excellent ideas whose time has come, but impatience and impertinence are making social programmes into empty shells of bureaucracy and targets for criticism.

Like some king in exile, however, the prohibition on cooperation and meaningful compromise has created a strange and dangerous inverted arrangement where the only powers afforded to the president are those of foreign missions. Absent a venue to affect change at home, abroad emissaries attempt to terraform the world in a way most sympathetic to American interests, but pressing the adoption of international treaties is not a tool for pressing social reform domestically, and even the most high-minded efforts are being returned as something twisted and unrecognizable and possibly even more dangerous. America does not possess the largess for its ambassadors to move unchecked, and though there is no Republican opposition to Obama in the business of envoys, there are certainly competing interests. There have been the boomerang antics of the internet intellectual property protection, and though attempts for universal application have failed, the shape it took when it finally returned to the States was more opaque and rigid, the president denied even his voice in demanding more protections for privacy be put into place.

The same goes with the proliferation of the US-style security and surveillance mentality, which has become the chief export of this honourary consul. The intent behind Battlefield Earth, expanding the definitions of war and rules of engagement, was for the defense of the Republic and was not meant to be a civic apparatus or a desperate wedge for enacting unpopular or previously rejected legislation, but perhaps when there is no other outlet, the domestic aspects of laws express themselves awkwardly in diplomatic circles. Obama has not turned to ombudsmen to unblock politics, but seemingly frustrated and unheeded in his political backyard, he is being portrayed eagerly as taking on loop-holes (punitive and selective) rather than what he is doing in fact by working in the slow and imperfect framework of creativity, democracy and dialogue.