shēngxiào or march of time

In China and various other countries adhering to the same lunar calendar, this day marks the beginning of the Year of the Horse, specifically of the wood horse, one of the five classical elements of the Wŭ Xíng (alchemic) tradition in combination with one of the twelve earthly branches, the animals of the Chinese zodiac, and each iteration occurs every sixty years—plus either a yin or yang year, depending on the reckoning, whether odd or even.  An ancient folk story holds that years and their traits were established when the Jade Emperor called a meeting of the principals of the animal kingdom together and said that the procession of the years, the march of time would be named in honour of the delegates arrival and there are various fables that describe that race. Wood is associated with strength but also flexibility, gregariousness and expansion, and the Horse signals extrovertedness and charisma but perhaps also impatience, superficiality and economic troubles.

a,e i-o-u (and sometimes y)

As the hyphenated prefixes i- and e- are mostly claimed by private, the US government has grown fond of the old fall-back my for a lot of its self-service applications, mostly cordoned to the vast community of conscientious bureaucrats.

Now the American administration, just as the Affordable Care Act is finding its sea-legs, is introducing the so-called MyRA—for an individual's own individual retirement account (IRA). In other words, the US president wants to afford people the opportunity to supplement their statutory pensions with low- to no-risk investment vehicles for workers who don't have that benefit from their employers, whom are in the majority. I am constantly astounded how the opposition hounds and hobbles best intentions and usually pervert them into something other—like ObamaCare that can sadly now never live up to its expectations, saddled with various riders. I do, however, see rather soberly the outcome of such a surprising and gregarious act. As the very public and autonomic gesture of quantitative easing (read printing money) is rather unpalatable for the trading-houses that would manage these contributions of new and universal investors, it's surely a welcome cover for, I could see this diverting becoming, a mean to absorb US debt outside of such an unsustainable model, and enables business as usual. I do hope hope that the nay-sayers are wrong with this assessment.

purity of essence or always/never

This day marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick's master-work Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned how to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which the New Yorker celebrates with due fanfare for its prescience and enduring relevance.

Though dismissed as unimaginable at the time of its premiere, it has since been revealed that a single individual could easily initiate a nuclear launch autonomously. Though the risk and compromise was clear, the consequences of allowing an assault to go unanswered, unrequited seemed far more risky. Beyond fail-safes, the film also of course offered critiques on doom's-day devices kept secret and thus useless as deterrents, which were very real for both superpowers, however guarded. There's no fighting in the War Room, gentlemen.

tipping-point oder sternwarte

Partially over revelations of American industrial spying practises and with a modicum of acknowledgment for the outrage over the preference for business rights at the expense of safety, health, livelihoods and the environment, as the Corporate Europe Observatory reports, the European Commission in Brussels have halted talks for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty to submit the agreement to what's being called a “public consultation.”

I would not know how to interpret that. Under the current model, American companies (surely in proportion to their investments on European soil) could demand arbitration (although without an arbiter or champion) directly with governments to challenge policies the companies find under favourable to their profits. The proposal is reciprocal, but I imagine that US firms could do more damage than EU firms good in the States in the name of equity and conservation. This terra-forming provision is what's up for debate but sadly does not signal real reform, as the same mechanisms remain in place and corporate interests are far from de-fanged. A tribunal established for European capitals to stare down businesses or vice-versa and the rosy name of the treaty sounds like a good and positive thing. Considering, however, what is all at stake, which CEO covers expertly and at length, from fracking, recidivism among banks, opening the farmlands of Europe to genetically modified crops to the loosening of labour laws, this matter deserves more than a consulting.

angel-investor or miner forty-niner

Such actions, I think, have been on the horizon, waiting in the wings, for some time and authorities with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), championed by investigators—rather character witnesses for the prosecution—with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested Bitcoin money-changers on charges of money-laundering and drug-trafficking charges.

This news is rather chilling, concomitant with reports that in Russia transactions with such coinage have been criminalised outright. I wonder what the competition for this fiat currency portends? Maybe it is a demonstration and affirmation of the real scheming of the financial system. Of course, apparent grey-market dealings suggest that this, like no other money, is not subject to corruption, but broader independence from influence and control from the default mints and established quid pro quo can be a discomforting matter. Those trading in Bitcoin rather than script are fervent and dedicated collectors above all and signal an unaccustomed foil. What do you think? Is Bitcoin only a fad or a back-door diversion or a noxious omen of assault against barter and alternative methods of tendering debts and wealth?

reliquary

Just weeks before the planned canonization of the former pope, a thief has broken into a small church in an alpine village where John Paul II liked to take his skiing vacations (this pope was a very outdoorsy type and admonished his traveling companions to refer to him as Wujek—or uncle—as it was forbidden for a priest to fraternize with junior members of the Church for fear of inculcation and perpetuation of radical ideas and this relationship if not the cover-name itself stuck), which was endowed with a relic with a blood-stained patch of the vestment he was wearing during the failed assassination attempt by a gunman allegedly affiliated with the ultra-nationalist Turkish group the Grey Wolves in 1981. The burglar, the church itself closed for sometime due to bad weather, and pilfered this relic and authorities have launched a massive effort for its recovery. I wonder what would possess someone to take a treasure like this that is best shared. I'd like to hope that someone really needed a miracle and hope that it's answered, even if by ransom.

a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

As a very fine interstitial-piece during a Sunday afternoon's theme on myth and legend, a network broadcast a documentary from 2007 on the post-modern fable of the Star Wars saga.

All good and timeless stories draw effectively on the archetypes, the deep- seated stuff of the human-experience told and retold, but the crafting of this franchise—and not only for the purists who reject anything that was not presented in media-res, the original parts three through five—really is a master-work and a cultural touch-stone that references parallels that can be found in all branches of classic mythology and ringing through psychology as a digest of wrath, coming-of-age and redemption. How much can you find of the Iliad or the Odyssey or other epics can you find in the principals, mentors, monsters, and side-kicks of the old Republic as well as the quotations? What struck me perhaps as the most amazing aspect, aside from each single connection that I had never made with the classics, was that although there are influences and footnotes to influences, many of these constructions were unconscious and organic and came to be known with the consensus of academics and fanatics.

all ınclusıve

Never having taken a cruise or booked a full-pension vacation package, I suppose I had a bit of a naïve view of what kind of impact that a resort really has on an local economy, especially in an industry-model where luxury or authentic experiences are displaced by the accustomed bargain and an unwrested competition to preserve that environment. One such example of devastating consequences, driven by catering to a clientele lured by the dialectic of a package deal, lies in the so called Turkish Rivera, where giant hotels with a lot of logistic help, enabled to a large extent by a international hub managed by the same group that run the Frankfurt airport and facilitate the shuttling of millions of German tourists to the region for cheap holidays.

This endless and upward-spiraling throngs of vacation-goers, however, are not boons to the local-economy themselves but rather liabilities that deserve real disabusing—as I am sure that the same Spar-Fuchsen would find their trip otherwise unconscionable, like rejoicing over cheap apparel made with child-labour or discount food-stuffs traveling the world around to save a few cents on at the cash-register. Not only does competition make for revolting working-conditions and penance-wages for the staff, regardless of white-gloved ratings from the guests, the resort-system also destroys those smaller, traditional establishments in the towns and villages, who cannot maintain their customer-base regardless of how good of a service and location that they provide. Local businesses, whether or not devised as souvenir-shops, see their traffic diverted to outlet malls that pay commissions to the giant hotels (who become the only viable places for employment and can dictate their salaries) as do certain locales and attractions—real tourists' traps, for planned mass outings. Those who do venture off their self-contained resorts to explore the local-colour are naturally disinclined to purchase any mementos or dine anywhere else, since they've already paid, in their estimation, for it in kind. We're happy camping.