Monday 10 June 2013

duomo di como

Among all the interesting sights we saw was the City of Como on the south western leg of the lake.

From the harbour, we were greeted by a monument to science.
We overheard a tourist declare to her husband tha was in fact the “Temple of Como,” flatly, as if some pagan god dwelt there, battery-powered.
Rather it was a memorial for native son Alessadro Volta and held the first engineered and practical energy sink and cell in the world. Campers, among many others, tip their hats to Volta, I'm sure. Next after exploring the piers, we came to the ancient cathedral among the ensemble of the oldest part of the city and other sacred architecture.
We were joined in admiring the series of altars and niches by a contingency of Buddhist monks clad in orange robes. I wondered if they were fellow-tourists or if initiates were sent out into the world to document their experience on tablet devices. They seemed genuinely engaged as we were, in any case—treated to an organ concert. The performer was seated at the keyboard beneath an unusual nave with a crucifix figure coiffed with genuine human hair.

roy g. biv or the dark side of the moon

It's not as if out of the blue, the US intelligence agencies now can see us as God and the Angels or Santa Claus—not quite or that the congress of private individuals, businesses and the negotiations of statesmanship was heretofore above snooping and observation, but still to be confronted with the brute and raw data, the scope and depth, is chilling. Already, America has demanded the flight-manifests of passengers world-wide and has become a clearing-house of financial transactions, bullying those reluctant to play along into submission. The herding instinct, strength in numbers kept us safe individually. Underscoring the tribunal of fellow-sieve Bradley Manning, a contractor with the nebulous National Security Agency could no longer face the sinister realities, of course assumed but danced around and it turns out veiled with a spindly cover of lies and false-modesty.
Thank goodness that there are individuals with the strength of convictions to speak out and force the erosion of privacy—long beat up but rarely addressed in earnest, since these quantified revelations, billions, trillions of data elements per month profiling citizens all around the world, drag-net style, like cases of industrial espionage, political baiting and spy-rings tend to create an overall confessional mood. Perhaps the owning up will be more than the fessing up that all intelligence agencies spy on one another but might inspire some more whistle-blowing. How could the German Chancellor greet the American President next time, from a background where the private-sphere is enshrined and protected and discussed and debated and shake hands with an equal who has basically appointed himself as her parole-officer, knowing more intimate details (at least anything with an electronic finger-print) than the Stasis without a blush of anger and feeling violated on behalf of the people she represents—not that Germany was more or less of a target than any other nation, the USA included.

What does such a discovery mean for the efforts of other countries and organizations fighting for increased protections for privacy and the right to be forgot? Since this information is unlikely to ever be purged, even if the zealous grab is relaxed and promises of safe-keeping are extended, do sovereign attitudes and latitudes become even more irrelevant, regardless of whether the data is transited through the States or not? And as for safe-keeping, despite a lot of people with consciences, there are unending and grand-standing scandals not to be out done of violations of public trust, from targeting certain affiliations to be put through the wringers to legions of baggage checkers who steal from passengers' luggage and just general self-important people with a quantum of authority to abuse. This outrage against the world, I think, won't settle quietly, in spite and because.

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.

Sunday 9 June 2013

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.