first instance or operation hummingbird

There is an embarrassment of expert and thorough articles on every subject to be found in the annals and Neulichkeit of Wikipedia, so much sometimes the depth is taken for granted, even if it is repaired to a source of first- and last-resort. 

My mother referred me to such an in depth article about the decisive, inter-bellum episode of the horrific coordinated wave of political assassinations, the Night of the Long Knives, that cemented Nazi control in Germany. Also called Operation Hummingbird after its code-word to commence the awful retaliation, I had seen piece-meal the counter-coup, the silencing through documentaries but had not read a full account with all its nuances. It struck me as especially relevant, with opposition and outrage hardly cresting above unshared rumour or outright support, considering the organized network, recently uncovered, of Neo-Nazi prisoners to communicate with one another and figureheads currently on trial. Missives are hidden in otherwise mundane letters in microscopic printing and cryptograms and can turn jails into incubators for extremists.

tanks for the memories

I am usually not a follower of such reporting, but in this present environment of transitions and retreat, the milestone of the last couple dozen or so Abrams battle tanks, after 69 years, are en route back to America seems important. As the Cold War sublimated into bigger tensions, some six thousand were stationed in Germany alone. Repatriating the last few combat vehicles does represent a significant change in posture. I wonder if the removal of these relics, bulwarks is a political signal, overdue, or a change in strategy to reflect newer tactics and a technological high-ground that’s a pretty smug assumption. Such fleets should not stay front and forward and this is not the last hallmark of partnership and outreach, but neither should all customs of cooperation be seen pared back.

hertzian photography

BLDGBLOG shares and expands on an interesting proposal by the London Economist that suggests that the extant array of antennae and satellite dishes and other shadow-casting receivers and transmitters could be used as a passive, supplemental radar to track aircraft and light up the run-way.
Such auroral imaging is like earlier snap-shots focused by WiFi signals or radio-telescopes, augmenting and translating what is visible to the human-eye. The discussion makes me think of another development, which although less of a technical challenge for the pilots, is nonetheless representative of a bigger technical divide: a number of systems, on a common platform, are coming into place to alleviate a very democratic and local problem, that of finding a parking-space. Some very creative and clever solutions are on offer, but I am wary over another common and unaccommodating layer of haves and have-nots, not redressed by leveraging the conditions that created it.

by hades’ handbag

Of all the gifts—pandora—of the gods of mythology, all the humanizing deifications, it strikes me as strange that the only “professional” endowment that has not be stricken from common-parlance is a plutocrat—though, unlike for the aristocracy, probably not a badge proudly proclaimed.

Prometheus who gave mankind the gift of foresight and the patron of the healing arts Asclepius were basically condemned with extreme prejudice for elevating mortals and challenging supremacy and only their names remain as cautionary tales, however, the acquisitiveness of Pluto, or earlier Hades, remains. The connotation is not an infernal one, necessarily, and is connected with buried mineral wealth. The association developed over the centuries, tending towards greed and inequity, combining the god of the Underworld with the attributes of a minor demi-god, son of the Demeter (Ceres) the goddess of the harvest and more broadly cycles of creation and destruction and Iasion (wiled and then also destroyed with extreme prejudice), called Plutus, whose name carries all the root-meanings. His mother saw to it that Plutus was amazingly wealthy but that left no riches for his twin brother, another figure that seems to not have a contemporary cult-following, Philomelus. Without an inheritance, the brother turned to industry and invented the plough, out of necessity. Very impressed, Demeter made him into a constellation, Boötes, the Plowman and a celestial cue for tilling the fields. I think that there are some more admirable qualities to incorporate into our vocabularies.

moog or ham-and-eggs, hammond organs

The other day, I ventured to a flea-market advertized beyond the former border dividing East and West Germany, which turned out to be more like a party held at a abandoned aircraft hangar crammed full of personal Ostalogie, random items from DDR times.
It was neat to wonder around aisles of piles, but after hearing a radio retrospective of East Germany’s part not only in electronic music, like Kraftwerk who were early-adopters, but in electronic instruments, as well, I wish I had been paying more attention. It turns out that the electronic keyboard, the organ with the basso-nova beat, had its origins (building on some earlier, native discoveries) in the factories of the VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke, by Plauen, in 1972 as the VERMONA, the ET-6. Of course, these factories made other iconic and traditional instruments, like Weltmeister accordions, juke-boxes, and pianos, but the VERMONA and later incarnations really spiked a revolution in sound and how music was made. I am sure there was such an innovative electric organ warehoused there, and although I don’t believe we have the immediate talent to contribute to the retro-legacy musically, I would like to be able to tickle the ivories that oversaw so much change.