in vino veritas (in aqua sanitas)

As a follow-up to last year’s reprinting of a most sublimely surreal cookbook, the German publishing house TASCHEN will re-issue Salvador Dalí’s liberally illustrated field guide to wine grapes, viticulture and history, The Wines of Gala, which was last in print in 1978. The artist’s pairings were emotional driven and classified his wines based on how the contrasted or complimented his moods, with groupings like the Wines of Generosity and Wines of the Impossible.

netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz

Though the defamation case is stalled in the courts, the charges against a social media giant for libelling an individual as the face of terrorism and rampant, uncontrolled immigration illustrated that the legal framework of Germany was insufficient to hold such influential entities to account and informed what’s colloquially known as the “Facebook Law.”
Though highly valued and defended, Germany’s Grundgesetz does not privilege freedom of expression above human dignity and acting as a vehicle for the spread and incitement of hatred carries a heavy fine and networks have until the new year to ensure that they have controls in place to be and remain in compliance. Despite fears of censorship and the potential for differences in interpretation, it seems to me a good policy to adopt as these platforms become de facto surrogates for journalism and reliable reporting and one which might save us from ourselves and be restorative for our esteem in so far as it lends more mediacy to the moment.

signal-to-interference ratio

Admittedly, we’ve probably been swooned by one of these viral, catchpenny maps ourselves and so really appreciated the person who, especially against the backdrop of the scope and scale of the disinformation campaigns launched to destabilise the US and other elections coming to light, rallied against the preponderance of dumb comparative charts. Whether or not any research went into their design is almost immaterial relative to the apparent provocative powers they’re accorded—seemingly an inescapable guarantor and fomentor of contention over an idiotic claim or accusation. This ought not be the conversation that we ought to be having but apparently this is what we’ve come to.

nia una menos

Via the ever brilliant Kottke, we learn that Peru held their national beauty competition over the weekend and contestants instead of disclosing to the judging panel their vitals (body measurements) according to the pageant’s expected script instead choose to recite statistics on violence against women in their country. Winner Romina Lozano took the opportunity to highlight trafficking victims.