fulda-gap

Over the weekend, we criss-crossed the former border dividing West and East Germany, driving through the farthest reaches of Hessen and took the chance to visit the memorial site at Point Alpha. This first observation post, initially manned by the American Constabulary Corps and later by the regular army, as the US assumed command and control for border protection along the fringes of the Iron Curtain from West Germany, was known as the “hottest spot of the Cold War,” and not just with the hyperbole of two opponents being able to stare one another down (East German authorities erected a parallel tower that could not obscure the view down in the valley of the village of Geisa).
The Fulda Gap, the pass between the Rhön mountain range and the Vogelsberg massif, was known to strategists for a long time with the armies of Napoleon retreating from Leipzig along this route and the final push of the Allied armies following the same path into Germany in the final days of World War II. Today, the preserved installation is a conference centre, a youth camp and a museum. I noticed that many of the parents visiting were having a hard time explaining the place and artefacts to their young kids—not that I could do much better. Speaking of the whites of their eyes, I have updated this map of occupied Germany to include Soviet posts.
Not that all Americans were (are) necessarily better integrated into their host communities and did not create their own little ghettos, the Russian units stationed in the DDR had no interaction with the “economy” and very little evidence or memory remains of their presence. Far from some historical curiosity or conundrum, I am glad we took the time for reflection and that such places have been preserved and honoured.

itsy-bitsy

When trying to recall, with a little help, the details of a science brief we saw on the news a couple weeks ago, about an engineer whose water-collection system—an alternative to water-filtration on a mass-scale, especially for communities where access to clean water is prohibitively expensive and no one seems forthcoming—I was only looking for the name of the Onymacris unguicularis, also known as the fog-basking darkling beetle.

This clever little bug lives in the one of the most arid places on Earth but manages to survive due to a morning ritual, lifting its hinder up to the sky and collecting dew and condensation on microscopic bumps that flow down its waxy abdomen to its mouth. Scientists took a cue from the resourcefulness of Nature and designed a domed surface that harvests moisture with the same principle. The novelty was something revisited perennially, but no matter as I found some other very interesting and ingenious adaptations during the search, which are solid arguments for protecting Nature's diversity, if one needed more reason: the iridescence of butterfly wings rely on prismatic reflectors that require only ambient light, which translated into human, sedentary and unremarkable terms, could power a monitor or a television screen with virtually no electricity—or the fact that birds rarely collide with spider-webs, unlike with windows, because spiders don't want a false Red Rover moment to spoil their handiwork and create webs that are visible to a bird's spectrum while remaining invisible to manageable insects and doltish humans. Any one of Nature's hacks, however, require a measure of moderation and consideration for the consequences down the line, like what it would means to steel the water from the atmosphere before it could complete its cycle naturally.

seward's folly or geopolitics

On this day in 1867 (depending on whether one employed the Georgian or Julian calendar, still in use by the Russian Empire at the time), the United States senate formally ratified the purchase of the territory that would become the state of Alaska from Russia, brokered by US Secretary of State, William H. Seward.
The czar, Alexander II, was little engaged with his North American colony, and having been recently trounced by a coalition led by the British in the Crimean War, was eager to unburden himself of this wasteland, lest Russia loose it to their colonial neighbours without compensation. Those lands that would become Canada had little interest in buying the land, and Russia assumed that the UK would just as likely appropriate the peninsula in some future war or for past reparations, the Empire approached the Americans as buyers for the difficult to defend outpost. At the time, the American public did not think it much of a bargain and the newly acquired territory, twice the size of Texas, became known as Seward's Folly, paying some seven million dollars, two cents an acre, for what was regarded as a frozen wilderness.

coif

In response to the mandate (which may or may not be true, despite what the computer says) for all North Korean males to model their hair-style after their Supreme Leader, Bob Canada points out that having one, utilitarian and uniform hair-cut, on a planetary-scale did not seem to detract from the success of the Vulcans, so maybe it is not such a bad idea.  I suppose the Romulan and the Klingon diaspora pretty much subscribed to just one sort of do, as well, with just the humans with a hair out of place.

ironclad patriotism

Collectors' Weekly features a fascinating little show-and-tell of the nineteenth century phenomena of sweetheart pendants, when aristocratic families of Prussia exchanged their gold and silver jewelry for austere and gothic-looking iron brooches, blackened with a flaxen coating to prevent rust, to help fund the Napoleonic Wars. These so-called intricate Berlin Iron pieces often bore patriotic (and shaming) slogans like “Gold gab ich für Eisen” (I gave gold for iron)—which was something en vogue for later conflicts, too, though not restricted to the upper-classes, like the saying that goes round the edge of this skillet from the Great War that I found: In World War 1916, the German Housewives shared in the spirit of sacrifice by giving up their copper for iron (it rhymes in German).

unbeholfen

It is difficult to say what the artist intended to portray with this ensemble of sculptures.  The little girl, however, is apparently aghast at whatever those boys are doing on the bench and points judgmentally.  I cannot tell if it is just supposed to be rough-housing or taking someone's lunch-money.


In any case, it was installed in 2000 for the occasion when Hünfeld was a regional host for Hessentag, a statewide showcase of local culture and attractions.  I wonder if such statues, and sponsoring foundations, help keep kids like these off the streets.

There was a Spring festival going on just now and a moment earlier that seat was fairly crowded with beer-drinkers sharing the bench. I suppose whatever it was meant to be, the bronzes have since become part of the furniture.