pot to kettle or the dutch disease

In the face of the precipitous downfall of the Russian rouble (₽) over a constellation of sanctions, perceived weaknesses, an alleged slack in demand for petroleum over weakened industrial demand, which is at the same time being offset by increased American production(which does smack as a bit suspicious, given the overall climate and charged accusations of conspiracy to undermine that seems like burning one’s wick at both ends), some economists are diagnosing Russia with the so-called Dutch Disease—which turns out to be a relatively recent market characterisation, describing the misguided attempts that the Netherlands committed in the 1970s when, after the discovery of off-shore oil reserves, began cultivating that natural resource at the expense of all other export sectors, whereas I would have guessed it to have had much more historic roots, like in the Dutch founding a stock-market based on tulips or an empire based on exotic spices.
By extension, they claim that Russia has no economy per se but rather is an oil company accorded the membership of statehood, but that is more than a little bit dangerous and near-sighted as the same could be said of most national marketplaces that call themselves post-industrial. America is hardly a competitive oil company—more a captive consumer—and is more akin to a name-brand that licenses its economic activity out to franchisees. This collective Schadenfreude over the fate of the rouble is woefully premature, too—I think, considering the range that the single currency has. Though by population and other measures of wealth, the rouble sphere of influence is not as great as the Euroraum, covering a large portion of Eurasia and extending from Norway to Alaska, the long way around and fully one eighth of the habitable land on Earth, I imagine that the internal needs of the country could still be met and indeed thrive without regard for external scalars. Moreover, if hostile voices insist on countering with the same poisonous rhetoric, I imagine that the foreign debt that Russia was formerly welcomed to both finance and borrow could be easily turned to tactical purposes. What do you think? Of course, there is real cause for concern, but there also might be old Cold War fears and prejudices pushing agendas as well—and not just the well-oiled oligarchs.

studio system

Back in 2004, then regime of North Korea made overtures to the Czech Republic to prohibit its cinemas from showing the movie Team America: World Police because of an unflattering depiction of Kim Jung Il in puppet form.
The Czech government rebuffed such demands, saying that those kind of requests have no place in free and democratic countries. Before that, Charlie Chaplain resorted to financing the production of his parody The Little Dictator, entirely with his own funds, because all the Hollywood studios were afraid to touch the subject and be seen as taking sides. Now a studio is in similar straits over a lampoon—and while I can appreciate the difficulty of the decision, with no pretentions of being a profound masterwork of a film, it may be not worth it to pick this fight and instead be accusing of caving to bullies and blackmailers—and is ultimately not releasing the movie to anyone.  What do you think about that? Does the studio merit being foisted on its own freedom of speech and expression?

j’adoube or game and gambit

After being invented in the India sub-continent, the game of chess in its recognisable and modern was one of those cultural commodities, like language, writing and religion, which was quickly disseminated all over the world and was firmly entrenched by the year one thousand. The game was so popular and universally played that societies were also quick to undertake reimaging their boards and chessmen after their own iconography and values.

The rules of engagement were the same but sculptors and artists were given great license to reflect their own outlook on the world. Chessboards from Islamic countries hosted an army of abstract figures because of the proscription against making things in the likeness of natural beings and had a vizier accompanying the sultan instead of a queen, Asian boards represented their court traditions, pawns all around were simple and anonymous, and these finely crafts objects would have been treasured and handed down as heirlooms. The historical details of the place and period in which these playing pieces were made comes across, as does the makers’ sense of hierarchy and how to mount defenses. Instead of our modern Rook, the Tower, the Viking royals of this set discovered on Scottish Lewis Island under Norse rule are flanked by fearsome berserkers. All the queens of these sets share the same forlorn and distant look, and perhaps because she is frustrated that her movement is limited to one diagonal square at a time. The question of mobility for this sovereign was one of the only major changes to the rules in centuries—though sadly not an attitude adopted by society at large until much, much later: about five hundred years later going from having even less range than a pawn to becoming the most versatile and powerful piece on the chessboard. For a time, this liberation caused the European game to be named “Mad Queen” chess, which sounds like a story for Lewis Carroll.

candida or grist for the mill

This is somewhat of a delicate subject, especially coming from those who are not exactly sympathetic to the matter, but I learned that the germ candida, a species of yeast, that’s responsible for infections in women also presents itself as diaper-rash in infants, thrush (a particularly nasty coated-tongue that young children get), acne in adolescents and most interestingly the dry patches of skin that usually attributed to psoriasis and dandruff (glands in the skin and hair folicals are designed to prevent these out-breaks but are often compromised by other factors). This yeast travels with us as part of our gut flora all our lives but is mostly kept in check by other beneficial bacteria that complement our digestive tracts that compete for space and nutrients, symbiotically breaking down those foodstuffs that we can’t handle whole ourselves. Though not the only cause of fungal infections, repairing too quickly to antibiotics or other such non-discriminatory treatments that, like a wrecking-ball, kill off those good germs that keeps us balanced.