smugglers' roost

We ended our vacation with a detour to the isolated village of Samnaun, which was like a little Las Vegas nestled in the Alps or a giant duty-free shop. Due to its remoteness, until 1905 only accessible by road from Austria, it was granted a tax-free status, which it still enjoys though there is a direct route up a steep mountain route with a series of tight and intimidating tunnels that can only be passed one vehicle at a time.
Tankers haul petrol, luxury goods and booze up to the top of the mountains and people flock there to save some fifty Rappen per liter on fuel and realize steep discounts once the VAT is taken away. There are arguments that this sort of break is no longer necessary, since the villagers are not quite so inaccessible and see immense profits from all their visitors but it certainly does create for unique environment, a sort of a land that the law forgot. I did not realize it at the time but when we were lounging about the shores of Lake Lugano, a similar Italian enclave (enjoying the same tax exclusions but for reasons of historical intrigues and not just owing to its isolation) was just to our south—Campione d'Italia, cut off from the rest of Italy only by a few hundred impassable meters and with access exclusively through the Confederation.

books - check 'em out (at your library)

I enjoy noticing the reinterpretation of logographs in different countries and the ways that the intuitive comes across to the eyes of outsiders, like the subtle differences in traffic signs, the way pedestrians and children scampering across the streets are rendered or the symbols for cars—in Switzerland there were quite compact models with prominent mufflers (for quiet) and smiling faces when coming from the opposite direction and in Italy, the cars look a bit like mobster roadships, especially on the slippery-when-wet warning—it looks like someone's been rubbed out.  Maybe there is some meaning in that I am glad that there is not over-standardization in the name of conformity.
I really like the Italian sign for a public library, too. I suppose the columns are upright books on a shelf but the way they're arranged made me think of Karate Kid and breaking boards of wood with one's fists.  That is one way to keep readership engaged and excited about learning.

tune-on, turn-in

Last week, the local security apparatchik—well, echo-chamber, redoubled with the various turfs that are the realms of this petty kingdom, the Consulate and the hulking bureau called the Department of Homeland Security did its best to fend off the curious under its protection from the Blockupy rallies being held.
The warning, the issuance read, however, like an open-invitation listing venues and times with a high degree of specificity, even tipping almost towards sympathy for the movement—but still, stay away, move along, nothing to see here. I suppose I was one of those curious ones that the stern warning was intended for—and could rationalize that seeing the spectacle up close was probably another instance of seeking out trouble, since it was not exactly condemned and made Verboten out of hand. The Polizei and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main also in being competently prepared and indulgent of the action that managed to defuse it a bit.

The organizers wanted no violence and the protests were carried out peacefully, without sensationalism that made the public and governments confront some very uncomfortable, impolite truths about the policies of poverty, austerity programmes and corporate welfare, staunch resistance to a clearing-house tax scheme on financial transactions, the spinning of straw into gold that skims money but no wealth out of trade and speculation. The message was delivered and the case pled but whether reforms come out of these rallies is yet to be seen. A little tolerance (which is always a dangerous thing) and some reverse-psychology, I think, coupled with inattentiveness by the press and the show is over make for some deviously powerful opponents.

perry como or back from vacation

Reluctantly, we returned from holiday in in northern Italy with a pleasant transfer of much of what lay between, though the weather and mood, somewhat, were degraded bit by bit as we crossed the Alps but there is a lot to be grateful for, the chance for an escape and to be spared some of the ravages of Nature. It is good to be home, in any case, however, and there yet again memories and impressions to last a lifetime.