idem or a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido

I can remember driving around the countryside in the mid-nineties, long before the days of content-on-demand and in a region whose FM stations did not match my tastes in music exactly with a lot of Country-Western and white-people Gospel, and discovering the wilds of AM radio, who devoted swaths of the programming-day to conservative then liberal tirades—sometimes confusing liberal with libertine.
I found it formative to be exposed to all sorts of alternative points of view—that sometimes retreated to conspiracy-mongering. Everything was open to dissent, however, and like a canon of nostalgic music to draw on, I wondered really what it means nowadays to have entertainment on demand for material that one has not been exposed to before—since we are getting worse, I think, at being very original or anything but derivative. Regardless of how dogmatic or admitting of disagreement these shows really were, I do remember how they characterised the opposition, especially avid followers of one figure in particular—as Ditto Heads. That seemed particularly fitting, and though of course the phenomena still exists, that term has fallen out of favour—because, perhaps, that's what the Medium (another term those shows used for the monolithic main-stream) has become, a media-echo of re-blogging and without much endurance to keep up a rally and when there's only flitting narcissism and everything true becomes a nice back-drop to frame it in.

trip-wire

Just after Israel asserted its independence from American hand-wringing and revealing itself as not another fawning lap-dog, telling the US never to second-guess its handling of security—an internal affair—again, it has been revealed that the intelligence apparatus of Israel closely monitored the communications and negotiations between the US foreign minister as he tried to help broker last year a peace settlement between Palestine and Israel, soliciting support from various regional players.
Of course, the US has gotten many bitter tastes of its own medicine, polling parties for willingness to cooperate with their policies and corporate dictates—or knowing the price of success and how cheaply others may be bought, or whether, by this intelligence algorithm, other measures will have to be introduced. Toppling tragedy could only follow, because naturally any such enlightened, knowing how political sentiment will bear out, that materiel-support will continue, and timing aggressions when America is too overcome by other events, would choose such a moment to prosecute its aims.

arm-chair coaching or ARG:GER

I realise that this speculation is a little behind in coming, but we watched the final match at a Public-Viewing in Rovinj while on vacation, and I continued to be fascinated by the fact the tense stand-off, also being followed by two living Popes, who happened to hail from the countries of the opposing teams, and how such a coincidence of events will never occur again. The Argentine pope had earlier pledged neutrality, asking for no divine intervention, but I don't know what the thoughts of the Pope-Emeritus from Germany were on that subject. They may have watched the game together, though their minders suggested that play started well past their bedtimes.

francofollies

Here, this fanciful Italian regional wine-map, is but one of the several outstanding examples from a fantastic collection of the repertoire of French graphic artist Antoine Corbineau. The website features more wonderful designs, which include more maps and promotional materials for shows and conventions, and information about commission and purchase.