conching

While real threats are clawing steadily at the food pyramid, with the potential spread of awful diseases in livestock and in crops, shortages and skyrocketing prices for grain, spillage of rogue, engineered organisms into the environment and general mismanagement of land and resources (plus treatment that is less than humane), the US Food and Drug Administration is poised to send inspection teams to audit several Swiss dairies and chocolate manufacturers to ensure compliance with American standards for sanitation and, I suppose, for patriotism. This particular episode of Security Theatre clears Swiss chocolates as platforms for launching a biological or radiological attack on US interests, declaring said truffles to be non-weaponized, and is brought to you by the sponsors of the concerned US confectionaries union, I’m sure. Switzerland, I think, is not being specifically targeted by the intent of the resolution, however, it does seem to add insult to injury just after friction between another US agency and another venerable Swiss institution, the Internal Revenue Service and the banks.

I imagine that precision clockworks will be next. Of course, with imported food, consumers need to know what they’re eating is safe, but it is American agribusiness and appetites that’s escalating many of the problems with food supply and actual food security, and submitting to indignities that defy common-sense is not much of an alternative to being blocked, cut-out or compromised. Chocolate-makers would face pyrrhic victory is they were allowed to stay in the export business, providing they toss aside traditional manufacturing methods or possibly feed their milk cows a recombineered diet.

run-off or terrestrial sunsets

Via The Colossal and Five-Infinity, photographer Andre Ermolaev shares some of his air-borne impressions of Iceland’s rugged and liquid landscape.
These incredible images are created by volcanic ash, vibrant and chthonic minerals that the Earth gives up on a fairly regular basis there, being scuttled away by rivers and streams.

The photographer’s eye and technical acumen, I think, are really able to capture in this series what photography was intended for and distinguished from the other visual arts by—being able to distill and communicate a sort of landslide never seen before nor will ever be seen again, like being able to capture the roiling shadows of a cloud or the play of colours in a sunset.

Be sure to check out some of the other photographs featured on these communities.  These smoky, spyrograph moments are outstandingly beautiful and makes me hopeful that I might be able to also frame such compositions as they flow downstream.

memory alpha or library of last resort

Founded originally in 1800 as a collection of law books for the convenience of Congress and a depository of patents, the US Library of Congress has grown its stacks and archives immensely through acquisitiveness and inquisitiveness (all publishing houses are required, through what is known as mandatory deposit, to provide the Library with two copies of all published works) and has continued to move towards independence as a resource, styled the “library of last resort,” for academics, as well as the research arm of the legislative branch. Pioneering the public frontier since the mid 1990s, the Library is continuing to make its holdings freely accessible.

Though the digital collection has been steadily growing for years, with some fifteen million images available besides, it is always inspiring to return here amd search the collection and turn up something new. That’s only the surface, too, with the depths of history and discipline buffeting beneath—not to mention the chance for invention and scholarship. It is a great resource for browsing and discovery, with many special exhibits and programmes, however, no substitute for getting lost in the shelves of one’s neighbourhood archives and for the intensity of local and native knowledge. Librarians are a fiercely independent and impassioned breed and eager to ensure their caretaking is palpable and apparent.

wies’n or the price of eggs in china

Der Spiegel’s English language site has an excellent essay—somewhat of an apology, on the opening weekend of Oktoberfest, which goes on to extol the virtues of the world’s biggest celebration. Though many Muffels summarily dismiss Oktoberfest as dilute and overrun with tourists, profoundly Bavarian and like Pinocchio’s Island of the Donkey Boys, this ode urges people not to succumb to this attitude and enjoy the traditions and atmosphere, which are still buoyant. All in all, there is little negative press surrounding the event (that’s propagated by word of mouth and wavering on plans to go) other than the annual constructive cost analysis on that litre mug (Maß) of specially brewed beer. The increasing expense of refreshment is intensely discussed as a macroeconomic indicator. Everything from the relative worth of the euro, inflation, grain supply and climate and fuel costs—including how much of said grain supply is on hook for bio-fuels, and the sentiment of the competing brewers, is encapsulated in the price of a tall drink. These incremental increases do dampen the mood, a bit and at first I suppose, but attendance and consumption is on the rise as well and I think, despite the crowds and excess, such dull cares ought to be tossed away at a monumental and historic party.

libelle

My father snapped this very good close-up photograph of a brilliant metallic red dragonfly (Odonata Trithemis kirbyi) resting on the antenna of their (hopefully) parked car. He told me it flew away as he was reaching for his camera but then returned seconds later to patiently pose. My mother suggested that it was one of those experimental spy drones from DARPA (DE), miniaturized and disguised as birds and bugs. Though the engineering seems far too advanced, I wonder where the fearful sandbox of field-testing might be.

fungible or cap and share

It was a drastic enough move on the part of the American government to charter an airline and revitalize a military airport in order to bypass the European Union air transportation carbon emissions scheme, in effect since the first of the year. Most air-carriers grudgingly accepted the extra costs and simply passed it off to passengers, but apparently it did not behove the US legislature not to take a cheap shot against EU environmental regulators and showcase a rare moment of cooperation among a divided and paralytic Congress.
Rather than working to craft its own emissions standards (which would exempt any nationally flagged carrier from having to pay the tariff), the upper house instead risks a trade war by acquiescing to the airlines and passengers unformed rumblings and is moving to shield US companies from the tax. Flagrant disregard for the rules of others that America—or any other country—disagrees with or does not find serviceable at the moment seriously jeopardizes its relative standing and credibility. The United States has already attempted to steamroll the world’s playbook just in the past few months with its anti-piracy treaties re-programming the exchange of information over the internet, putting the onus on foreign financial institutions of reporting and taxation for citizens abroad and insistence for going along with its grander designs for its Tournament of Shadows, security-theatre, etc—not to mention the despoiled disappointment shown when the rest of the world is not in lock-step with US interests, like America withholding its UNESCO dues when the international body admitted Palestine. The world is a wonderful and frightening place, but it does not need the theatrics or tantrums of some wilful and gigantic baby wallowing through the business of others. Without recognizing the ecological merit of the EU airport scheme one bit, the champions of the Senate, merely said, without blushing at that, Europe had no right to tax American fliers in order to pay down their own debt problems. While I do not want to believe that the author of that rationale actually thought there was any veracity to that justification, trying to appease or play along with that mode of imperialism presents some unique challenges.