flash in the pan

Apparently legions of a virtual robot army are massing to fight under the banner of Dear Leader with the ranks of these fraudulent accounts growing by half a million per week.
Despite the suspected anæmic constitution of such a following, it remains unclear what these ditto marks hope to influence and where the recruitment campaign is focused—if indeed in one place. With just over one half of Dear Leader’s current supporters on his social media platform of choice thought to be real and authentic (a ratio that has climbed significantly since the US presidential election and spikes whenever impeachment is discussed), one has to wonder who is behind the messaging and to what ends. It’s not just ditto marks all the way down, and perhaps it is another ploy to distract public attention from the investigation into Russian meddling in the US election—maybe lifting a play from their own script. While such tactics may have influenced the outcome in an election in unexpected ways, measures of engagement are not the same as ballot-stuffing when it comes to arguments against an ouster.

parforce

Recently H and I had a chance to visit a pair of monumental hunting lodges whose architecture and ceremonial follies illustrated how the occupation become leisurely pursuit of the powerful of the hunt was a way of reinforcing fealty and was a metric of noble means beginning in the Middle Ages (parforce hunting) and articulated as a social arena for centuries thereafter.
The great wooded area around the village of Wermsdorf was a royal park for many generations and there was an ancient though modest lodge there already—but as existing accommodations were proving inadequate to impress visiting dignitaries, August II. der Starke (called the Strong for his physical strength that could apparently break horseshoes bare-handed and won him prizes in the prince-elector bracket of competitive fox-tossing—literally and as cruel as it sounds) commissioned the construction of the Hubertusburg (announced on the feast day of Saint Hubertus—3 November—who is the patron of hunters and the vision that led to his conversion is popularised in the Jägermeister logo) to showcase his family’s power.

The prince-bishops were not only instrumental in choosing the emperor, the leader of reformationist Saxony was also the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania through martial unions that honoured the traditions of those brought into the fold—exemplified in the Catholic court chapel that was rather unique in the region and is the only room to have escaped plunder and destruction.
Lavish, choreographed hunts continued at the Hubertusburg, whose grounds and layout was favourably compared to Versailles—the quarry of choice being deer—up until the outbreak of that first global conflict, the Seven Years’ War, in 1755—whose own chambers saw the peace treaty that brought its end as well as the French-Indian War.
The residential palace never wholly its former glory and was at times used as a sanitarium and prison and even a porcelain factory. Presently, the trappings of the hunt are re-enacted by skilled equestrians and enthusiasts who dress up in period costumes, but mercifully the hounds are put on to the scent of human decoys to pursue through the forest—harming no one in the end.
The other hunting lodge we visited was Schloss Moritzburg, an earlier Baroque example also set in the midst of a favoured game preserve not far from the royal capital of Dresden. Constructed on an artificial island, the quatrefoil design reminds me of the Seehof of Memmelsdorf by Bamberg, it served a similar function with protocol and entertaining dignitaries.
A showroom of course for hunting trophies, the collections quickly expanded to display pieces side by side to compare Japanese and Chinese ceramics with Meißen faience. Later an ensemble of other buildings were added to the parkgrounds, including a Rococo pavilion called the Little Pheasant Castle (Fasanenschlösschen) that’s meant to invoke an Oriental style and despite Saxony’s landlocked state, it’s one and only lighthouse—for when the occasional mock naval battles were conducted in the lakes that bordered the gardens.

sabbatical

We here at PfRC are taking a short leave-of-absence—or at least a reduction in posting frequency, over the next few days for some housekeeping and a short but much needed vacation. Stayed tuned for more adventures same time, same station.

böse, sehr böse

With truly surpassing bravado and despite attempts to demonstrate to him otherwise, Dear Leader insists on his false narrative that all other NATO members are dead-beats for not honouring the members’ dues—as if this were his tacky White House in the swamp—which is not the case as these proportional contributions do not go into effect for a few years yet and western European members participate in ways far more constructive than maintaining standing armies.
There’s enough military-spending and posturing as it is. Over these imagined short-falls, Dear Leader intimated that the US would begrudge holding up member-states’ mutual defence pact, having already demonstrated his zest for throwing Montenegro under the bus and we’re left to wonder what other former Soviet-satellite might share a similar faith. The other twenty-seven NATO members seemed rather bemused to be scolded—including Germany which received a special chiding over its perceived trade imbalance with the US—too many German cars flooding the market. Apparently Jean-Paul Junckers’ stamina had not been totally spent on trying to teach Theresa May some expectation management and tried to make Dear Leader’s misapprehension a sort of an object lesson in the way the other bloc on the continent, the European Union, operates—offering that Germany as a member does not set manage its export targets and no country can enter into a tariff agreement with another. Never mind that a lot of these automobiles are built in US factories.  For his part Dear Leader would like to see supranational institutions like the EU demolished because the US has better leverage over individual countries than over broader unions and has publicly backed politicians who want to weaken the EU’s powers.

she’s got electric boots, a mohair suit

Singer, song-writer duo Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin have collaborated with several film-makers to produce music videos to three of their iconic songs over forty years after their initial release. Go to this link to see all three songs—the others being Rocket Man and Tiny Dancer, other numbers like Crocodile Rock achieved perfection already with a guest appearance on the Muppet Show—and learn about their production and choreography, which in the featured video reminded me of the Triadic Ballet of the Bauhaus movement.

confederados

During the US Civil War (1861-1865), the Confederate States of America ran a side campaign to realise colonial expansion into Central and South America. Southern imperialists called filibusters or freebooters raised militias in order to destabalise the Mexican government and foment revolt so piecemeal the country might be more easily taken.
When Emperor Napoleon III seized Mexico in 1863, the Confederacy seemed to have the perfect pretence for liberating the country, which would be indebted to those who freed them from the yoke of the French. Prosecuting the war with the Union took up all their resources, however. After the Confederacy was defeated, some Southerners realised their imperial ambitions after a fashion when having lost significant portions of their land-holdings they fled as refugees across the border and established settlements in many Latin American countries and in Brazil—where enslavement was still legal at the time before being outlawed in 1888, that still bear the name Americana and New Texas (parts of São Paulo, by leave of Emperor Dom Pedro II), New Virginia (located between Mexico City and Veracruz and tolerated by Emperor Maximillian II until he was executed by revolutionaries in 1867) and several outposts in British Honduras (modern-day Belize) that retain to varying degrees their exported heritage.

noforn or eyes-only

Not only has Dear Leader exhibited to the world his gross incompetence when it comes to diplomatic discretion and his inability to let an opportunity to humble-brag (or outright brag) pass by in showing off in front of a Russian delegation and then publically confirming the source of that intelligence or by disclosing top-secret submarine manœuvres in Korean waters to the Filipino dictator for no apparent reason, the distrust and toxicity that his regime has engendered all the way down the hierarchy has repositioned leaks and whistleblowing to the fore, whereas this had formerly been the option of last resort once all other avenues were exhausted. How easy would it be to trick Dear Leader?  There are rumours that his staffers in the White House feed him news articles of questionable provenance throughout the day.  The regime has done nothing outside of threats and intimidation to instil confidence or loyalty but these leaks also materially damage the reputation and trust of partner states—including the UK’s politically independent interior ministry. After US security services leaked the name of the perpetrator of Monday night’s horrific attack on a concert venue in Manchester to the press, potentially compromising other leads, before the UK was prepared to do so, authorities behind the investigation have suspended intelligence sharing with America. With the credibility of the US already suffering, it cannot afford to lose the faith of its allies as well.