An organization deemed too violent and radical, by some accounts, for al Qaeda called currently the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (al-Sham) have barnstormed the country, catching many observers in the West completely off guard, capturing major cities and advancing to Baghdad virtually unopposed. The Iraqi armies, trained and equipped by the American occupying forces that mostly left in 2011, have folded and are surrendering en masse as the fully-pledged military force of the militants moves through the land, increasing its strength en route as it acquires materiel for fighting and conquest in the form of installations, vehicles and supplies that the American's left behind for the Iraqi's own peace-keeping mission. The group's wider aims extend to Syria and establishing a caliphate under strict Islamic law and banishing the West from the region. It was not enough to revive the language and rhetoric of Cold Warriors with tensions returned to make their world-view yet relevant; now it seems that all the old lessons not learned and debates surrounding Iraq and Middle East policy are back en vogue as well.
Saturday 14 June 2014
al-sham
catagories: ๐, ๐ฑ, foreign policy, religion, revolution, transportation
Friday 13 June 2014
italy week: acheiropoieton or bank on it
We had the chance to visit the ancient city of Lucca and first took a nice stroll atop the medieval walls, really berms, grassy with great inviting shade trees and took in an overall of view of the sites. Lucca was one of the rare places that preserved its fortifications and it certainly gave it a characteristic look and one could image that all the other places we visited were similarly defended. We headed down into the city to explore and spent some time in the Duomo of San Martino and surrounding piazza. The storied church houses the acheiropoieton (from the Greek term meaning not made by human hands—usually referring to a holy item that was crafted by angels) called the Volto Santo (Holy Face).
Tradition holds that Nicodemus, the individual who helped Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus, and began carving the massive crucifix shortly after. Nicodemus completed his masterpiece, all but the face, and went to take a nap. When he awoke later, the face was finished and many miracles have been attributed to this relic. The surrounding piazza, during the Middle Ages, hosted a bustling market and currency-exchange. There is an oath written on the Cathedral exterior exhorting merchants and these emergent bankers not to commit any commercial transgression—no trickery, that’s still visible to this day. The adjacent counting house became the Bank of Lucca in the mid-fifteenth century, among the oldest banking institutions in the world.
The concept of a network of banks came about during the Crusades, as it was too risky and impractical to carry too much coin for what could be a long, long mission, and branches were established by crusading knights that could extend credit to their clients. Would that they had kept their oath.
Thursday 12 June 2014
italy week: high-rise or equus caballus
This place on the Italian Riviera on the foothills of the Alps neighbours the marble quarries of Carrara, which is the main building material and artistic medium for the whole area. The main square featured also a rather brutal-looking exhibition of sculpted skeletal horses—including one huge steel installation with human skulls in the mid-section, like some dread, decaying Trojan horse.
The high tower was an impressive landmark and its design was promulgated to towns throughout the region, like the proto-skyscrapers of San Gimignano (which we visited later) whose skyline is unique for the Tuscan countryside and is visible for great distances with fourteen tall structures, commissioned by competing wealthy families, despite an ordinance issued by Florentine authorities in Middle Ages that buildings ought to be no higher than twenty-six meters. Abstract artist M.C. Escher made an early wood-cut of the fine towers.
The towers of this region not only the free standing belfries of the adjacent churches, many eventually installed with a clockworks but were also strategic look-out points, with vantage from sea to mountains.
Wednesday 11 June 2014
amnestรญa or the children's crusade
The United States has a penchant for decades of turning a problem into an absolute disaster, although these upgrades seem to be happening at a much quicker pace lately—mass surveillance, Iraq, Afghanistan, the health care system, kleptocracy, gun control, environmental stewardship. And now America is fomenting a grave humanitarian crisis with immigration policy with an overwhelming (if the medium is to be believed) incursion of children and youth walking great distances, unaccompanied, to cross into States. It not as if this situation materialised overnight but tens of thousands of young people have been placed in temporary shelters or released to live with friends or family. As attention turns to this situation, the government has responded by designating military bases as temporary homes, flying the children away from the border region, and providing legal champions to assist the young people with the naturalization process. Politicians, from all persuasions, are afraid to say anything cross about the situation and broader repercussion it inevitably bring for fear of appearing racist or xenophobic—or simply uncaring for these refugees that have walked, alone, from Central America to Texas. Parents apparently were willing to abandon their children to such an arduous and dangerous march lured by promises of a better life in America and what’s being interpreted as a lure, an open invitation to come to America, where no one—especially children, is being turned away.
italy week: backseat driver
Though I am sure my perspective as just a passenger was quite different, driving in urban Italy was certainly a challenging and formative experience.
We have visited other parts of the country before but had not yet been confronted with the swarms of Vespas zipping pass on both sides and the fact that although lanes were clearly marked, there was no customary lane usage. Somehow it all worked and we are certainly not ones to buck the system and impose an order to perceived chaos or road-anarchy. I guess the biggest huddle to overcome was the change in attentiveness and reaction—certainly it is difficult to forecast ones next move but it was easier in the end to relinquish trying to make a prediction.
catagories: ๐ฎ๐น, transportation, travel
Tuesday 10 June 2014
italy week: la superba
The city of Genoa is known as La Superba, the proud one, for its illustrious history punctuated with many treasures and landmarks as testament to its past and current achievements. The name of Genoa, like Geneva, means the knee—but possibly not because the Italian peninsula below looks like a boot.
We toured the old harbor with its ancient and iconic light house and wide berths. The galleon that was the principle setting of Roman Polanski’s swashbuckling film Pirates is moored there as well. The Port of Genoa, though with a lot of quays for cruise ships and flashy yachts, is one of the most logistical sophisticated and well-designed cargo marinas in the world, and also features a very fine aquarium that we’ll have to make it a point to visit next time—when we have more time to see it and the wealth of museums here properly.
We also visited Piazza de Ferrari with its large fountain, behind the Duomo and buffered by the Palace of the Doges and the Genovesi Bourse and get our bearings.
The fountain’s water was dyed orange for, as stated, multiple sclerosis awareness. We strolled in a covered arcade and we walked through the maze of narrow alleyways (caruggi) of the oldest parts of the city to admire the rows of aristocratic palazzi along Via Balbi, constructed as residences for the Republic’s powerful families. Cristoforo Colombo also hailed from Genoa (though there is some dispute among scholars and various countries and regions try to claim him as their own, like Charlemagne), though voyaged West to reach the East under the patronage of the Castillian crown.
Other powers rejected his requests for financial aid not because they believed the world was flat but rather that the explorer had majorly under-estimated the accepted size of the globe, known since antiquity.
In fact, Columbus never did acknowledge the existence of the intervening continent as anything other than an unknown part of Asia. Against the advice of council, the Spanish court eventually agreed to fund the exploration, including Columbus’ request to be named admiral of the seas and royalties from any property claimed for the monarchs. Some scholars believe that Spain conceded to such terms because they did not really expect him to return—and just in case, did not want him to take his plans elsewhere.
Despite Genoa’s decision not to vet its native son, the republic’s independent existence that spanned almost eight hundred years saw many conquests and colonies and outposts a world away, including Galata in Constantinople, the Crimea and other lands on the Black Sea, much of the Greek Isles, Flanders, Tunisia, Algeria, and Gibraltar (though often these colonies were just gated communities, sometimes just a single building, but with extra-territorial rights for merchants and their families—like a consul), with trade connections extending La Superba’s influence even further.
Monday 9 June 2014
italy week: square of miracles
Even for the Ancient Romans, Pisa was considered an old city and the glory and tumult comes through with its architecture. The chief draw—though there were many other treasures to discover, is of course the so-called Piazza dei Miracoli, which was began in the year 1076 and went through nearly two centuries of refinement before taking its present form but has always been an allegory of the life of man, beginning with a charity hospital in the front adjacent corner (now housing a museum) and across the lawn, a baptism fount, preceded by a cathedral, with its free-standing belfry to herald important events like marriages and funerals, and finally a peaceful and serene cemetery for the symbolic ensemble.
The tower was raised here despite warnings that the foundation was too weak to support such a structure, and I seem to recall that native son Galileo Galilei helped prove that gravity was a compounded constant by dropping and timing canon balls and prop wooden ones off the tower, whose exaggerated angle of pitch helped with the calculations—as well as being mesmerized by the pendulous motion of the incense chandelier in the Duomo so as to describe it mathematically and reverse-engineer periodicity.
This city on the confluence of the Arno and Serchio rivers—though without direct access to the sea—albeit the sea itself might have receded over the millennia, was a mighty maritime power, culling the marble for its showcase square from exploits in the Holy Land and recycling building materials from its conquests.
Pisa also had far-flung colonies in Jaffa and Constantinople among other places. Pisa lost prominence under constant one-upsmanship from the neighbouring sea-going republics of Genoa and Florence but fared better than others during the following economic collapse and unrest that came after the Crusades, by controlling the inland waterways that linked former rivals, spanning all the way from the Genovesi to the Venetians and profiting from trade and tariffs, and retaining its importance through the ages.