adi, adieu, arrivederci, adios acta

After months of protests over intransparency and secret diplomacy, back room dealings and public outcry, the outcome of 4 July’s parliamentary vote in Strasbourg was somewhat of a foregone conclusion. The vote, however, was a decisive stance and declaration of independence from American dictates, coming in the form of rejection of the ACTA treaty and choosing freedom over copyfight. A clear majority of parliamentarians from all political persuasions did come together to deflect this proposal, ostensibly to combat international counterfeiting of real and virtual commodities and enshrine intellectual rights, but there was a minority of proponents and many abstainers.

I am sure that the watchdog group, European Corporate Observatory, could let you know how your representative voted and if there might be industry connections influencing that decision. In the last minutes before the ballot, there were some desperate, sophistical arguments that tried to defend the opaqueness of the negotiations, saying that the deal was about keeping fabulous-fakes out of the market and not about codifying the ability of government censorship, though China and Indian were not signatories. (That argument is a bit taxing, I think, because those countries are not dens of piracy and inequity and do export some counterfeit goods because they also generate the majority of the world’s non-counterfeit goods as well.) One supporter of ACTA compared an agreement without China and Indian to the good done with the imperfect and not universal Kyoto Protocols, which is without Chinese, Indian and American support, and that we still ought to try something. The comment was weak, but it did make me think that before even entertaining furthering American hegemony and legal frameworks, the EU and others ought to be able to demand that the US abide by the environmental treaty, recognize the permanent tribunal in the Hague, pay its membership dues to the United Nations, etc. Such a quid pro quo seems fair and might convince the US to introduce compacts not overly swayed by the telecommunications and entertainment industries—especially as the move by Europe is inviting the spectre of retribution in trade and tariffs on the part of American businesses. Those threats, however, must have rung empty for the rejection to be so resolute.

aperitif or alcohol-spectrum

Championing a national drink generally amounts to the exclusion of other equally distinct and fine products, like wines and other spirits, however, there are usually interesting connections and a story behind how one liquor, rather than another, came to be identified with one country and region. Greek ouzo and Italian grappa and sambuca are different branches, essentially, of the distillation experiments undertaken by monks on Mount Athos in the 1300s, although the idea of fermenting an elixir, brandy out of the leftovers of wine-making has far more ancient roots and traditions.

The anise-flavoured spirits themselves gained broader popularity and became firmly established in the early 1900s, after the ban on Swiss Absinthe, whose bad reputation was mostly undeserved but left a gaping opportunity for other competitors.

plum-pudding or deus ex machina

Scientists have a dislike for the popular designation for the theorized Higgs boson. God particle (Gottesteilchen) sounds way too hyperbolic but the name stuck after a physicist and science journalist penned a lengthy and publically accessible book about the elusive Higgs boson and the non-scientist editor had to find a good, catchy title for his work. The authors and fellow researchers exclaimed several times throughout the manuscript why can’t we find that goddamned (gottverdammt) particle and the editor settled on entitling the 1993 book The God Particle.

Should subsequent findings hold up, it of course would not be an insignificant discovery, reaffirming the model that most physicists believe describes the properties and relations among the menagerie of sub-atomic particles. Most quarks and other exotic constituents were undiscovered, theoretical entities that were initially unproven but were hypothesized and whose existence was necessary so that the mobile construction of their model hung together. One by one, other particles revealed themselves and the Higgs boson was among the last stubborn hold-outs. That the microcosm functions in an intelligible and predictable way certainly lends support to human comprehension, and though maybe not so grandiose and omnipotent as its nick-name (Spitzname) suggests, the experimentation and study does not just validate theory—the role of the Higgs boson, as described by the Standard Model, accounts for why matter has mass, in the observable way things fall to the floor and galaxies hand together as an inherent quality, universal and unaffected by how much energy one puts into or takes away from a system. Should we manage to isolate (I am cautiously excited, just remembering the popular media reports about superluminal particles detected in another CERN experiment that were discredited) such a force-bearer, I am not sure what we could do with it—before the electron was identified experimentally as a part of the atom in 1897, there was certainly electricity that could be harnessed and exploited. Maybe no one hailed this discovery at the time. I doubt, however, there would have been the advances in electronics without understanding the mechanics of the electron.

today’s episode brought to you by the letters GOOG

My thanks to all regular and chance visitors for their continued patronage. PfRC was not meant to generate traffic or revenue, rather just something for fun, but I was very excited nonetheless to get a check from Google’s AdSense programme. They really do pay, and it was thrilling to hold it in my hot little hand. What fills in the white spaces is a strangely thoughtful and personalized, though not prying and intrusive, process, and if one’s sponsors are somewhat lackluster then one only has oneself (and browsing habits) to blame. Some things defy commercialization, however.

statecraft

While I do not believe that German resistance to relaxing reform-measures or pooling debt was anything less than genuine and negotiations were not weighted by some calculated double-bluff, governments and eurocrats gained a way forward without and reached a deal precisely by being uncompromising. Merkel is a talented and clever individual, and I bet once the summit was over and everyone could relax their game-faces, she thought “wait a minute, did you see what I just did there?” Germany entered the conference firm on the position of not altering the stability and rescue mechanisms of the Fiskalpakt.

Eventually, however, Merkel conceded to allow troubled banks direct access to the funds (as Italy and Spain wanted), bypassing the rule that sovereign governments should only have these drawing-rights, which could be used, if they saw fit, to provide their banks with capital. With this allowance, however, Germany mandated the creation of an office to oversee the deportment of beneficiary financial institutions. This stipulation in turn addressed a point of inflexibility on the part of France. Without agreeing explicitly to a solidarity that is domestically unpopular, France expressed a willingness to not surrender national sovereignty to an EU governing board but rather the management of its banks. The agency charged with monitoring the banks is not based alongside the institutions in Brussels, Luxembourg or Strasbourg but rather incorporated into the EU’s Central Banking Authority, located in Frankfurt.

a fifth of beethoven

The music-royalties clearinghouse of Germany has managed a hearty and hale business since 1902, monopolizing the regulation of performance-rights and artists’ entitlements for music played to German audience. Of course, GEMA (die Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte—the Society for Musical Performance and Mechanical Reproduction) has evolved with the entertainment industry and is a take-down force to be reckoned with. Since the apparent failure of ACTA and similar treaties that the group championed, it has however turned to more traditional staples of the listening tax and now has expanded its reach over discotheques, having made arrangements to levy anywhere from a ten to six-hundred percent fee for music played on the dance floor, with a non-negotiable tithe of ten percent on the door-charge.

Without question, musicians deserve credit and acknow-ledgement for their work, but following strict no smoking regulations that has hurt the business of bars, restaurants, clubs and cafes, these new demands of the studio-system seem like an all-out assault on the institution of the public-house. GEMA’s poor-mouthing probably does not translate directly to more income for performers, though they argue that discos and disc-jockeys are making an absolute killing, nightly, at the expense of starving-artists. In order to make up for the new, higher royalty payments (unless venues choose to skirt the payments by having DJs mix clip-length sampler medleys only), clubs will have to charge higher entrance prices and more for drinks. These developments suggest a scavenging, shadow economy—no rewards for talent but rather for baited membership. Such cost and bother might be enough to bring back live-music and reinvention.

little switzerland or like water for chocolate

Over the weekend, H and I took a very scenic tour of the region known as the Fränkishe Schweiz (Little Switzerland, as the Americans call it) and stopped to marvel at Burg Pottenstein, cleaving to a cliff-face with a narrow ribbon of a path spanning the continuous karst outcroppings the portion up the landscape. As with a dozen other vantage points nearby, the castle commands an impressive vista, both from a distance and looking outward from its towers and turrets. For a year or so, this fortress, vassal to the Diocese of Bamberg, was also home to St. Elizabeth of Hungary (Hl. Elizabeth von Thüringen) while essentially under house-arrest by inquisitor and spiritual-advisor Konrad from Marburg. Married and tragically widowed at a young age, Elizabeth promised her husband that she would never remarry and devoted her life to charitable works. Her politically-engaged family, however, were not pleased with her choice, since at the apex of a noble-line, discounting a second-marriage in high royal circles left them with little chance for advancement.

The family, eying potential suitors—including the Emperor, solicited the confessor’s help to dissuade her from a life dedicated to helping the poor. Elizabeth was abducted and treated badly, taken away from the hospital she founded in Marburg and her chaste existence at the Wartburg by Eisenach, and held at Pottenstein. While secreting bread and valuables for the poor, she was caught but miraculously her bundle transformed into a bunch of roses—which was probably the ideal expression of noblesse oblige for Elizabeth’s conniving family, who’d fawn over that sort of gallant gesture, sort of like “…then, let them eat cake” or the unhelpful exploits of Monty Python’s Dennis Moore, who robbed from the rich and gave the poor lupins. Threatening to cut off her nose, eventually her advisor and family released Elizabeth, who only had a few months to work to reestablish her charities. Her support for the fledging Franciscan Order and ongoing intervention for the destitute earned her sainthood and reverence in her native Hungary and adoptive Germany.