ansible oder zum gedanken an

Moving house and home a few months ago and by sheer dint of having too many things, we had to cull some of our stuff—including a telephone that belonged to H’s grandmother (it’s funny how landlines in general are referred too as granny phones), which I took with the instructions to dispose of it.
Of course, I didn’t do as I was told—mostly because the dial, enigmatically and I still haven’t figured out why, only went up to eight—though there’s slots for the zero and nine. Now that H’s grandmother has recently passed away, I’m glad we held on to her telephone—especially in keeping with this special telephone booth installed in a town ravaged by the tsunami and Fukushima disaster of 2011 to let people commune with those they’ve lost, and perhaps with those that they never got to say goodbye to. I know I’m conflating metaphors and confusing two histories with their own canons but having grown up in the shadow of Colditz castle and having worked there, I associated her story with the series Hogan’s Heroes—which by coincidence premiered in 1965 on the same day as we lost her.

orbiter vehicle designation 101

On this day (Constitution Day in the United States of America to mark its ratification in 1787) in 1976 President Gerald Ford christened the Space Shuttle Enterprise, named in response to an overwhelming Trekkie (“one of the most dedicated constituencies in the country”) letter campaign and the event was attended by the creators and cast of Star Trek.
Like the NCC-1701, it was not originally designed for spaceflight with no heat-shield for atmospheric re-entry (absent the expository device of a teleporter), the test vehicle was an important stepping stone to improve next generation vehicle engineering, famously piggy-backing aloft on a Boeing 747 to bring it to attitude and speed and testing its gliding maneuvers. The Enterprise was later retrofitted and flew missions in support of Skylab.

bella ciao

After more than a two year hiatus, prompted by the disturbing tilt towards fascism that’s captivated many unexpected many lately to include the separation and incarceration of young children from their families, Tom Waits has contributed his voice to the compilation of Songs of Resistance—spanning from World War II until the present—collected and arranged by composer and guitarist Marc Ribot with the Italian lament “Bella Ciao,” Farewell Beautiful, a ballad of much older and universal pedigree. Listen to the song (follow the bouncing ball with the lyrics below) and visit the link above to learn more about the anthology of protest.

One fine morning
I woke up early
o bella ciao, bella ciao
bella ciao, ciao, ciao
One fine morning
I woke up early
to find the fascists at my door

Oh partigiano
take me with you
bella ciao, bella ciao
goodbye, beautiful
oh partigiano
please take me with you
I’m not afraid anymore

And if I die
a partigiano
bella ciao, bella ciao
goodbye, beautiful
Bury me
up on that mountain
beneath the shadow of the flower

So all the people
the people passing
bella ciao, bella ciao
goodbye, beautiful
So all the people
the people passing
will say: “What a beautiful flower”

This is the flower
of the partisan
bella ciao, bella ciao
bella ciao
this is the flower
of the partisan
who died for freedom

this is the flower
of the partisan
who died for freedom

transit hub

Though quite the committed walker myself, I’ve never quite mustered the occasion for the sort of point to point travel on foot from terminal to downtown that Ian Rose has developed into a rather intriguing pastime, sharing his routes and results—as we learn from Nag on the Lake and Things Magazine.
Ages ago I recall out of obstinance walking from Marco Polo airport to Pisa but that was only about an hour’s walk under relatively pedestrian friend conditions, and ages before that being told by a cab driver that he wasn’t licensed to take passengers to the airport servicing Havana and stopped on a parallel road and was told to dash through the intervening field of sugar cane to reach the airport. We don’t fly very often but do pass Frankfurt Flughafen on a pretty regular basis and I’ve wondered about those seemingly hard-to-access areas and industrial estates not meant for human perambulation. I think that this bears some further investigation.

interscholastic

Due to limited hours per semester, a sub-committee of the Texas Board of Education (that was the nickname of the paddle when I was in school) convenes regularly to cull figures from its social studies curriculum that no longer retain the relevance to devote a portion of a lesson to studying.
Among those nominated to be consigned to a memory hole include father of modern political philosophy Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Republican elder statesman and five term Arizona senator that urged Richard Nixon to resign Barry Morris Goldwater, author and activist that overcame her disabilities to flourish Helen Adams Keller (her inspirational story has become problematic for her support for socialism and civil rights), and First Lady, senator of New York, Secretary of State and presidential contender Hilary Rodham Clinton—to name a few victims of damnatio memoriae. What do you think? The space vacated by Hobbes and Clinton is to be filled with the prophet and lawgiver Moses and the late televangelist Billy Graham respectively, if the recommendations of the committee are enacted. These decisions have far-reaching implications beyond Texas public schools since the state is a large market for textbook publishers and their will be pressure to adapt national standards to the prevailing ones.

buzzkill

After legalising marijuana throughout the country back in June, it gave its provinces some time to prepare for cultivation and sales when the law goes into effect one month from now on 17 October.
US border control authorities, however, do not recognise the legitimacy of the lifestyle and trade options that this change in the law heralds and reserves its right to bar any individual entry who uses or trafficks in the substance (actual possession or intent to distribute is immaterial), which is illegal on the federal level in America. What if Canada were to retort that they didn’t recognise America’s attitude on firearms as a legitimate and banned visitors accordingly? Though there are no plans presently to interrogate every Canadian visitor about his or her cannabis use at the border, those figures who already have public ties to the emerging markets have received a lifetime ban on entering the US. Despite consternation and at a time when diplomatic relations between America and Canada are under significant strain, Trudeau offers he is in no position to telegraph to another nation how to patrol its borders.

times are bum and getting bummer, still we have fun

Our thanks to Boing Boing for the timely and annotated reminder of how only a few journalists really were prepared to ask the tough and probing questions in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, precipitated by one bank’s declaration of bankruptcy that revealed the fantastic nature of six hundred billion dollar portfolio, and most were to believe hard-scrabble legends to keep up the charade. As one of those exceptional reporters, Matt Taibbi, prefaces “history is written by the victors” in his reflection on the lost decade—not hyperbole, especially when one considers the regressive caution and pessimism and the generation caught in risk adverse times—and a legacy we are still very much heir to. An overly elaborate narrative, deflecting and assigning blame, was offered as sort of an allegory to explain something as immediate as a greedy and fraudulent practises, which the public could have easily digested and understood and not find themselves in an even more compromised position later.
It was a truth that one couldn’t squeal to the proletariat since their confidence and complicity in the system—contributing to pension-schemes and the dream of home-ownership—not only generated wealth for those barons of industry that can spin straw into gold but was also already entrenched as a matter of national security and a question of macroeconomics eschatology. As big and over-leveraged as US debt is, supply exceeds demand for foreign countries who would like to park its cash in government-backed bonds, considered as safe an investment as anything and with a guaranteed rate of return but with retirement-funds and pension-schemes competing for a safe bet, foreign governments resort to the next best thing: real estate in the form of home loans and mortgages. In order to keep the faith that internal and external backers have in all bonds, the financial system’s junk bonds have to be buoyed up as well by shielding dishonest brokers from the wages of capitalism. This calculated behaviour on the part of economists was the disdain that fostered the attitude that allowed some to be turned away from experts—lumping in those not worthy of their trust in with legitimate and helpful institutions—and by extension the establishment.  And now we are all living with the effects of that misplaced anger.