p.s.a. or ribbon-awareness month

America has a penchant for proclamations and especially tends to cram a lot of education and spangled reflection into those months without federal holidays not already identified with some other cultural or health moment and movement. April is over-burdened as it is, what with the distinctions of being national Domestic Abuse-, Child Welfare-, Alcohol Addiction-, and Stress-Awareness month and all tied together as Autism Awareness Month. That’s already quite a spectrum, and added to it, per a presidential executive order, April is also Distracted-Driving Awareness Month. How is one exactly supposed to honour and be mindful of distractions? What other random virtues and vices would you include in this cavalcade?

broadside, broadsheet

While diplomatic niceties, the biting of tongues continue mostly unabated, and the esteem is unfortunately mutual, relations between Germany and Russia have grown increasingly frosty (EN/DE), as reported by Der Spiegel. The introspection is worth visiting, for more than the nonce, because the tenor is distinct from the usual protests and criticisms that the balance of Europe holds for the Teutonic nation and is unlike the dangerously divorced indifference that those governments geographically further away (although I suppose that America is geographically closer) have adopted. It’s these postures and acts that typify expectations and strain relations.
Germany has expressed, reservedly, on several occasions displeasure with Russia’s political and social standings, while trying to preserve whatever civilities are possible under such strain. What do you think? What currency do old prejudice and distrust carry and what sort of relevance is exercised through elevated and formalized disbelief? I do not think the whole matter is solely locked-up in the personalities of leadership and by-gone proclivities treated like broader stereotypes, but such considerations are hardly irrelevant.  Is it the same sort of secure distain that comforts the further West for the near-east?

durch die kurzen hessen und durch die langen hessen

For my weekend commutes, I had found a convenient place to stop midway between home and work to tank-up, which also usually boasts a bonus flea-market on Sunday afternoons.

I took the opportunity to linger a while in the towns, separated by the river Kinzig, of Bad Soden-Salmünster and walk around the historic districts. The towns are located on the Via Regia, a protected road that during medieval times extended from Paris to Krakow, with the high road, the trade route of the Holy Roman Empire, stretching from Frankfurt am Main to Leipzig.
Each town, in exchange for policing their section for the sake of public safety and deterring highway men, was able to exact a toll on travelers, and I thought the way that the churches and the venerable homes that framed the narrow thoroughfare could excite imaginings of ancient merchants making their ways from one extreme of Europe to another. Inspecting the secular buildings, which were all sided with these distinctive and meticulous wooden shingles, I also learned that the armies tended to beat the path of least resistance along these roads too—as the Autobahnen and national highways tend to mirror them as well.
A defeated Napoleon and some of his entourage encamped at a hostel on the main street, I learned, in flight from Leipzig in 1813. It was ironic, I thought, that the armies marched through this same spot once on the way to battle as part of the domain of the bishopric of Fulda, and even though not victorious effected major reorganization and break-up of ancient holdings, retreated (while it was at Waterloo where Napoleon did surrender) through the same spot as what was soon to become part of the Grand Duchy of Hessen and by Rhein.  I am never eager to go back to work but there is a lot of interesting things to discover and learn along the way.

who moved my cheese?

Doubtless the governments of Cyprus, Portugal and Spain will accept the extra funds and for the latter the extended repayment periods offered coming out of the summit in Dublin, but in a rare moment of clarity—though mostly ignored I think as disingenuous, there was a lament by the recipients that more money is not what the beneficiaries need in this crisis. It is possible to throw good money after bad, but no one is going to turn down generosities, even when they might lead to greater sorrows later. The plaintive alternative requested was instead for more administrative flexibilities in managing the assets they have, reforming leadership, regulation and enforcement with but not around those initial life-lines before being presented with overtures of more—with new terms and conditions.

This preposterous suggestion, dismissed, made me think of this scholarly interview from Der Spiegel’s International desk examining the rise of anti-German sentiment across Europe over the euro and re-packaged austerity. It is a difficult and probing question, but I think, from these latest rounds of renegotiation, the public protests are a reflection in part at least of frustration that little flexibility—the structural might that Germany appears to have and seems to influence the body politic, that’s not accorded to the people equitably. Unfortunately, more credit does not equal a measure of determined reform, despite similarly deferred wishes for greater alignment.

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.