While there is at least a modicum of public discussion and public outrage over the trade-deal, negotiated in secret after a model of corporate supremacy, between the United States and Europe, there is barely a bald mention of the pseudopodia of lobbyists who have no allegiance to any greater good are reaching out in the other direction—eastward.
Wednesday 14 May 2014
fore and aft
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฑ, environment, foreign policy
letter and spirit or jot and tiddle
The High Court of the European Union ruled in favour of the “right to be forgotten” and is granting individuals the right to petition internet search-engines to remove indexed results that the individual esteems to be libelous, misleading, dated or simply incorrect—to include public documents and news articles. Search-engines do not host content and merely return results—based on several metrics which may or may not be biased, although we have been shown that the “internet” can be bought to skew perception or ease-of-access like when an oil company responsible for a grave environmental disaster paid to have negative publicity deflected or America’s assault on net-neutrality, and having a haunt from the past disappeared in one or several search engines does not mean that the offending characterization is gone and cannot be found with some old-fashioned muckraking;
the websites that archive such stories or photos have no mandate to take down their content just because it is no longer indexed but the hopes are that such unwelcome material will wither away. It is very significant to side for individual privacy and reputation and afford regular people the chance to challenge the medium, which is normally reserved for the powerful or litigiously patient, but it seems a lot of questions remain unaddressed and there’s no mechanism in place to queue ones petitions. What onus does the individual have to prove hardships caused and what are the criteria for infamy? Also—how specific would a take-down request need to be worded, since cause-celeb tends to splinter and branch-off down a dozen different pathways and the searchers and browsers would quickly find loop-holes? I think there’s little danger of white-washing or further compartmentalizing history in the ruling of the justices as it is presently issued and it will help undo some incriminating acts of youthful indiscretion and the like, so maybe some people will be able to take back a few poor choices—to an extent, but I still think it prudent to fear, in terms of censorship and revision, what sort of precedent might be prized from this right to be forgot.
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฅธ, networking and blogging
Tuesday 13 May 2014
gehirn-jogging or shiny objects
The New York Times has an interesting feature about the collective-awakening (for America, at least) among mental health professionals and patients regarding the stages of inattentiveness which manifests itself at different ages either as hyperactivity, a deficit-disorder or senility.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ง , lifestyle, philosophy
castellum cattorum or trizonesia
Here are some more images from our recent trip to the Kassel area.
Kassel became a garrison-town for American soldiers instead, but immediately following the Potsdam Conference (in order to ensure that the exchange of foodstuffs from the Soviet Union for raw materials from the Ruhrgebiet was administered properly) the Office of Military Government, United States established its economic ministry in nearby Minden and the headquarters of the British Element of the Control Commission for Germany was also close by in Bad Oeynhausen.
Having not participating in the Potsdam talks, French forces originally clung to the western border but later joined the US-British condominium to administer the so-called “Trizone” until the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) on 23 May 1949 (Germany turns 65, retirement age soon).
Although the endonym for Germany is and was Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the initialism BRD was never used by West Germans and was only a foil to DDR (East Germany, Deutsche Demokratische Republik) to keep either nation from calling itself Deutschland.
All of these challenges barn-stormed the plain, the corridor in this part of northern Hesse (earlier still, those Hessian mercenaries that fought alongside the rebel forces against the British during the American Revolutionary War hailed from Kassel and earlier still) and it is unfortunate that the inner-town was ravaged and wiped clean—without an ensemble to jar these long memories, but happily the periphery was spared and is cherished.
Monday 12 May 2014
mata hari or gene gene the dancing machine
Austria's talented entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest is highly deserving of all her accolades and acclaim and has managed to unite a big part of the world in respect. The evening did not go so well for Russia and affiliates that took a sour-grapes attitude after being the brunt of much booing and jeers, not only the performance but also when the viewer and jury votes were tallied and anyone voted for Russia.
Sunday 11 May 2014
tardy-slip or enten/eller
In a very beautifully terse and compact analysis, Maria Popova writing for Brain Pickings weekly thoughtful digest looks at the nature of happiness and discontent through the focused lens of Sรธren Kierkegaard's fragment of life: Either/Or.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ฐ, ๐, philosophy