more cow-bell

We learn in Switzerland, the process of attaining citizenship is often contingent on subjective factors, including the opinion of the community that one wishes to join. Although I share some of the applicant’s views on advocating for animal rights, a Dutch woman who has resided in Aargau for all of her adult life has had her citizenship petition rejected for the second time.
Despite meeting all other legal requirements and the lack of formal concerns from authorities, locals have a say in the matter and view her vocal campaigns for among other things banning cow-bells (those huge one’s that might be a discomfort for the cows are only worn on special, ceremonial occasions) as strident and confrontational—and to her neighbours for whom herding is a way of life anything but integrated. Community members don’t often invoke their veto power but did recently reject a long-time American’s application for not being able to name the local lakes and a Kosovar family for wearing jogging pants to their hearing. What do you think? The Dutch woman is refusing to compromise acting on her opinions for the sake of a Swiss passport—which speaks to her convictions, of course, but strengthens the case for her neighbours to voice their opinion as well.

tatsache kontrolle

An attorney from Würzburg is suing a social media giant and the right wing Alternative for Deutschland political party, rather unprecedentedly, for slander and propagating fake news on behalf of a Syrian man residing in Germany—whose rather nice selfie taken with the Chancellor has been ill-used.
All sorts of rumour-mongering outlets that pretend to be legitimate journalistic sources (as far as it’s convenient for them) have cited the image and continue to do so with the sensational captions and headlines asking whether Merkel took a picture next to a terrorist, and going further to accuse the refugee of all sort of heinous acts meant to sway public opinion and transpose his face to those behind terrorist attacks in France, Belgium and Germany. Whilst abuse and defamation may not violate the standards of the global, online community, such behaviour is illegal in German jurisdictions and the internet platform host to the spread of libel as well as those who share it are being held to account.

7x7

bowie.net: prescient 1999 BBC News Night interview with David Bowie regarding the emergent world wide web

urban league: a primer on why cities grew where they did

track 61: an intrepid team of urban spelunkers explore FDR’s custom train car underneath Grand Central Station, via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake

hic sunt leones: the Phantom Atlas chronicles how we filled in the gaps of our geographic knowledge with centuries of fictitious locations

time and tide: beach installation of mirrored poles captures the reflected sunrise and sunset

shyriiwook: woman goes into labour wearing a Chewbacca mask

curds and whey: a dairy factory in the western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar boasts a circular viewing gallery around its central courtyard that offers visitors a demonstration of cheese-making

tiny don

Though I feel at times that the outcome of the US election was more due to voter apathy rather than tugging enthusiasm or manipulation plied by foreign influence—and the US has done more than its fair share of nation-building, and Russia may have chosen to attack Clinton over the embarrassing revelations of the Panama Papers that she helped bring to light, I’d never dismiss the curdling effects of subverting the work of government to outside forces.
There’s more than enough corruption and lobby-interest that state-actors are beholden to already. Possibly those who called Trump the Manchurian Candidate weren’t that far off the mark, but until or unless one can connect the money, something about the scenario doesn’t strike me as wholly strategic. As much as the US is still being propelled forward on the fumes of exceptionalism, America can’t call itself a Super Power without acknowledging the same for its once and former arch-nemesis, as both are fraught with the same post-industrial and image problems—which flatters neither side. That old antagonism didn’t just sublimate and there’s still animosity and not much room at the top, and Putin has drawn support from vast swathes of the Russian population in part because of the struggle against Western powers. If the US and NATO partner states simply conceding to Russian demands, would the people continue to suffer Putin as their leader.  Don’t the two need each other to pin the blame on?

hauntology or down in the underground

Our favourite alternate reality British town, we discover, interestingly supports a public mass-transit system—albeit many stationed are closed due to possession or accessible only on the astral-plane. The problems with Scarfolk’s metro sound much more endemic and long-term that the current spate of tube strikes but let’s hope the former’s predicament is not exorcised while the latter’s for London is something of an awful last-resort.

refoulement

Though the public was quick to blame politicians and the authorities beholden to them for systemic failures in the migration and asylum process, and it’s no comfort to the affected families—and those legitimate claimants who’ll potentially face being rebuffed—one tragic irony behind the angry lunatic who hijacked a lorry and killed the driver and mowed down twelve individuals at a Berlin Christmas Market is that his country of origin refused to take him back. Non-refoulement is the principle of international law that restricts the rendition of one adjudged a true victim of persecution to his or her place of persecution—although north Africa lands like Morocco, Libya and Tunisia had been declared “safe countries” for some time and refugees originating from that region almost without exception have their asylum-applications rejected.
In this instance (and there are untold numbers of individuals suspended in this legal limbo) Tunisia denied that the perpetrator was a citizens and therefore was under no obligation to take him back. Earlier investigation revealed the quite opposite to be the case, and the dossier that the government in Tunis had on this dangerous and unstable criminal was all the more reason not to accept his expulsion. The flood of refugees and those opportunists that are carried in the wake of humanity fleeing war either don’t have travel-documents or identification because either issuing authorities no longer exist or were encouraged by smugglers or fellow-travellers to destroy them, the logic being it would confound the receiving authorities and reduce the chances of being rejected outright since absent papers, one could claim the sympathies of the day and any nationality one wished. Whatever story offered would hold up to scrutiny at least long enough to get one’s foot in the door, so to speak. The revelation that Tunisia’s belated approval to take back the perpetrator—coming just two days too late—may have been the final bit of news to push him over the edge. Elements of the German government are demanding that foreign aid be withheld from any nation that acts in a similarly recalcitrant manner.