EU Spectacle
The word spectacle is carefully chosen, since this is what the current drama of which Greece is the symptom, not the cause, has become. It no longer bears any relationship to coherent democratic leadership or process of governance in a workable political and currency union. The cancellation at a moment’s notice of a summit of all EU leaders is extraordinary.
There is a problem with Greece, but it is not that difficult to solve. Indeed this blog working alone would be able to negotiate a workable solution. What is proving impossible is to find an acceptable solution, because the institutions normally established to process decision making at national and international levels are not there, or there in such abundance nobody can detect who is in charge. And to make matters worse the structure of the currency itself is unsustainable as it lacks a treasury and a finance minister answering to an elected government. A committee of finance ministers at loggerheads, elected by only one member state in each case, on conflicting mandates and to differing electoral timetables will work only in the good times and becomes dysfunctional under pressure.
So all we know at this moment is that Greece may or may not go bust tomorrow, the euro looks more like an impediment to growth than an engine of it, and the reputation of the EU as a coherent political union is severely damaged. Beneath that a big gap is developing between the north and the south of Europe, between the politicians and their electors everywhere and between those in the eurozone who want to stand firm to high principle even if it brings the whole thing down, led by the Germans, and by those who feel pragmatic reality demands compromise, led by France and Italy.
At the heart of of this crisis now engulfing the whole EU are three violated principles. You cannot have a democratic political union without an elected forum from which all authority flows. You cannot have a currency which cannot be printed. You cannot have capitalism which does not permit debtors to go bust. The first is violated because the whole EU is wrongly configured. The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
You would think after 9/11 that people would have learned not to board airplanes or build tall skyscrapers, which by the way I also detest. But they never learn. I especially find it phenomenal that they rebuilt over the area where the Twin Towers stood in New York and now call them the Freedom Towers. We saw them last summer when on the QM2. You would think it would be taboo to build on the area again. They should have a park instead.But then in general I really don't like New York City. I never liked New York City even when I visited the Met when in College. I didn't like it when I first saw it in fifth grade. I still don't like it driving across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. And believe me in the past few years we've driven on both the upper and lower levels of the bridge (the top level is better by far, the bottom level is like a cage). I've crossed under the bridge on the ship. I've even seen the Statue of Liberty now several times across the harbor. I've eaten at a restaurant on Staten Island(that's far better than Brooklyn). And I wish the QM2 docked somewhere else for instance in the Chesapeake Bay near Virginia Beach would be much better. But I will never like New York City. Southampton is better and Hamburg is far, far better than either New York or Southampton. The city is much prettier and better laid out. Too bad you've never seen it. Sailing up the Elbe River, for instance, is fun. You get to see beaches on either side, buildings, and groups of people waving at you. Not that many tall buildings either. Just picturesque stuff.
Yes I accept there are those who do not like to fly. Nowadays there is not a lot of choice, other than cruise liners, but I believe it is the case that some of the cargo vessels take passengers.
Linda wrote: "You would think after 9/11 that people would have learned not to board airplanes or build tall skyscrapers, which by the way I also detest. But they never learn. I especially find it phenomenal tha..."Yes I have never taken to New York. It seems very hemmed in between these vast buildings.all you can see is buildings and no sky.
I was surprised they built up again on Ground Zero. I suppose it is a kind of defiance. I imagine the new building is a plum target for some terrorist attack and must have very sophisticated counter- measures installed.
When I used to fly, flying struck me as unnatural. People weren't meant to be high up in the air. Nobody flew until the 20th century whereas people were always inventing wheels and driving around in carts and on horses practically from Neolithic times and they were also in boats just about as long too.
New York is the worst city I've ever visited in terms of tall buildings. And other Northeastern cities want to imitate it. European cities at least seem more park-like with more green space. Even western cities don't have as many tall buildings. It seems more open even though there is endless sprawl.
When you are on the land New York is impossible. It's a concrete canyon and tall buildings surround you on every side. That's why I thought the best view is from the water. You saw my best view on the Christmas stamp. From the water especially at dawn you can see the sky. It's the way to make the whole New York skyline look smaller or at least be put into perspective. The dawn rises above the highest buildings and surrounds it with an ambient glow. And you have all that sparkling water in front of it, too.
Linda wrote: "When you are on the land New York is impossible. It's a concrete canyon and tall buildings surround you on every side. That's why I thought the best view is from the water. You saw my best view on ..."Yes you are eight. I remember taking taking a boat trip with my first wife all round Long Island in the early seventies. it was a lovely sunny day but not too hot and New York looked beautiful from the water as you say. But inside those canyons it is another matter.
Hayden Flour Mills on the outskirts of Phoenix in Queen Creek, Arizona grows "heritage grains" to bring back time when flour was "non-hybridized, minimally processed, and flavorful". They mill their own grain www.haydenflourmills.com. They offer an online shop where you can buy their very expensive, homemade flour. We are trying it out making cinnamon-raisin bread using their white sonora all-purpose flour. This is what we are going to eat for breakfast. I'll let you know how it turns out.
It really strikes you about New York and approaching it from the water. Of the ports I've sailed into (not all that many) it is definitely the most stunning. Southampton is interesting once you walk into the Old Town. Hamburg does have a skyline from the harbor, but it is nothing so imposing as Manhattan, the bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. Halifax has an interesting lighthouse in the harbor but nothing else. Where we were in Boston I saw a New England like boat dock. At night we sailed into the main part of the harbor past the airport. We could see the Bunker Hill Monument at night. But still it wasn't as iconic as New York. I guess that's why Cunard features sailing into New York when they talk about transatlantic crossings. Apparently there are Brits who sail the Atlantic just to take a look at it and then sail back again.
Have you seen a picture of the Freedom Tower in New York? If anything I think it looks more imposing than the original which I saw only in photos and never in person. I saved a AAA guide to New York from 2001 printed in early 2001 before 9/11. On the cover they feature the two towers that were to be knocked down later that year.
Linda wrote: "Have you seen a picture of the Freedom Tower in New York? If anything I think it looks more imposing than the original which I saw only in photos and never in person. I saved a AAA guide to New Yor..."Yes i have. I am happy to fly but i would not work up there, that's for sure.
Gary says that Churchill's grandson wrote an essay about voting to stay in the EU. Something about your duty to Europe and how it distressed Winston Churchill to see Europe in ruins, etc, right after the war. Have you read about this?
I should be getting my ballot in the mail for the Arizona Presidential Preference Election soon. How about that?
As far as something like the Freedom Tower goes, I have a distinct dislike and philosophical objection for tall buildings which has gotten worse since I have lived in the West where there are fewer tall buildings and more one story and two story buildings --- low rise. Not only does it make it hotter in the summer when you are in a concrete canyon, I think it makes it harder to find your way around town when the buildings are blocking your view. I remember when I was in Athens I navigated by the fact that I could always see the Acropolis and the Parthenon rising above the city. In New York City or Pittsburgh, Boston, etc you wouldn't be able to see anything. Also I avoid elevators when I can. When I was in high school I got caught in one when it was malfunctioning and went up and down and wouldn't let anybody out. Somebody from outside the elevator made it stop at a particular floor by pushing a button and everybody fled. I have been in an elevator only once since then. Most people on the Queen Mary 2 use the elevators all the time to get from deck to deck. We always used the stairs. Also since 9/11 tall buildings have become dangerous in a different way.
What do you think is going to happen with the Referendum this summer?
People in the West may pour scorn on the Russians, but really they are trying to prop up the government there. They don't want to shake up Russia too much. They need it to stabilize and hold together the Eastern Block. No one forgets that is where WW1 came from 100 years ago. They don't want the East to affect Western Europe.
What does the EU do for England? Why is it important to stay in the EU especially when you are not part of the currency zone? It seems like belonging to the UN. It is not very useful. Of course that would be very humorous if the US dropped out of the UN. Very funny.
How is your book coming? Do you have a publication date?
I just got done listening to an audio book called The Most Dangerous Book about the history of the reception of Tacitus's Germania. The point of the book was that the Nazi's, mostly just Himmler, used it during the 1930's and WW2. Supposedly he had a quote translated into German from the Germania on the SS uniforms. Supposedly in 1943 he had his troops raid an Italian villa looking for a manuscript translated into Italian during the Renaissance but he couldn't find it. It was all supposed to be about German national identity. Tacitus had supposedly praised the Germans and called them moral, brave, etc compared to the more corrupt Romans of the day. Have you ever heard anything about this?
The author of The Most Dangerous Book admits that Hitler himself would have nothing to do with the Germania. When somebody mentioned it to him he laughed and said how could the German tribes back then have been so impressive when at the same time the Greeks were building the Acropolis? Supposedly certain people had been arrested for making similar remarks!
I am finishing up on my novel about Waterloo and getting ready to watch the movie I bought for Christmas which you suggested and which I would not watch until I was done with Inn at the Crossroads, the title of the book. But now I have just started a book, believe it or not, inspired by the Varusschlacht and the Germania. It takes places in 9AD instead of 1815 or 1945.
The Varusschlacht was that battlefield just outside Osnabruck that we saw not once but twice last summer when we were in Germany. It had recently been discovered by some British archaeologist, and the second time we were there a busload of British tourists arrived and started walking around the site.
I learned in the audiobook that the government of Italy loaned a manuscript of Tacitus's Germania (written after 9AD about the ancient Germans) to a museum near Osnabruck where the statue to Hermann the German now stands. Have you ever heard of him? Apparently this manuscript was loaned in 2009, which was the 2000th anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which is the same thing as the Varusschlacht. It was the battle that massacred 3 of Augustus's legions. It was supposed to have been the most serious defeat of the Roman Empire particularly during the Golden Age. It ensured that Rome would never expand into Germany and ensured that the German language would not become another romantic language like French, Italian, and Spanish.
Linda wrote: "I learned in the audiobook that the government of Italy loaned a manuscript of Tacitus's Germania (written after 9AD about the ancient Germans) to a museum near Osnabruck where the statue to Herman..."That's all very interesting. It is not one of my areas of knowledge, but I like the explanation about the German language. It had never struck me before that the Latin influence was missing, as was the concept of a single German nation until very recently.
Here in Britain we broke into bits after the Romans left circa 5oo AD until Alfred the Great put England back together. But of course Scotland was never occupied by the Romans, which explains a good deal of its separate identity. It was never occupied by the Normans either.
I had never heard of Hermann the German before. I had not even heard of it last summer when we were in Germany, and we didn't see the statue which was close to Osnabruck. Gary had just come up with the Varusschlacht as something to see on the way to the Rhine and then Waterloo. We hadn't even thought of its significance. And even after I saw it twice I didn't know there was a connection to German nationalism and the Nazis.
I would have thought until very recently that people in Europe nowadays and for centuries past would have liked the idea that the Romans came to settle there and spread their empire. I would never have imagined that they would later define nationalism in terms of rejecting them. In 9AD the Romans were the ones with the civilization spreading it far and wide. It was good to have them in your area, not bad. Of course it's very cynical. What I've discovered is that the Germans who fought in 9AD against the Roman invaders were glad they had grapes planted on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle. They were glad the Romans put them there. They were happy they had taught them military tactics with which to defeat them and they liked the other buildings the Romans left there. But THEY wanted to control the stuff and get the economic benefit from it --- NOT THE ROMANS.
I'm actually imagining that Goebbels made a film about the Varusschlacht. Then Hitler shows it when Dora and Edward are visiting. That's how I'm inserting a mention of all this stuff into a novel I call Hitler's Spy.
You say that Trump would not be beholden to anybody else. But that is the way American politics works. You have lobbyists. They have influence. Presidents pay back those who contributed to their campaigns by awarding them offices. For instance George W Bush offered the ambassadorship to Great Britain first to a man from Tucson called Jim Click. He refused it, but he had been a big contributor because he is the biggest car dealer in southern Arizona. If you don't have people who contribute to your campaign you are very isolated for a politician. Sounds like a lame duck. Also sounds like a huge conflict of interest. If you are a big businessman voters will assume you will favor big business, in particular your kind of business. That doesn't sound good either.
Linda wrote: "I would have thought until very recently that people in Europe nowadays and for centuries past would have liked the idea that the Romans came to settle there and spread their empire. I would never ..."In the UK the Roman occupation is seen as very positive and civilizing and a good thing. We still use many of their roads.
Linda wrote: "You say that Trump would not be beholden to anybody else. But that is the way American politics works. You have lobbyists. They have influence. Presidents pay back those who contributed to their ca..."I am sure you are right.
Linda wrote: "I'm actually imagining that Goebbels made a film about the Varusschlacht. Then Hitler shows it when Dora and Edward are visiting. That's how I'm inserting a mention of all this stuff into a novel I..."Sounds like a lot of good historical material there.
A bit busy tonight. Time to read but not comment. More later!
I am glad that the Britains at least appreciated the Romans. Why would it have been different there than in Germany? I don't remember any rebellions in Gaul or Spain either. Gaul seems to be what we now think of as France, the Low Countries, and Germany up to the Rhine River.
Saying that Trump is too big business to be President goes back to saying that no one like him has ever been elected President before. You can tell by the election laws. If everybody who ever got elected was a billionaire, then they wouldn't have laws about how much money each person or contributor can contribute to a political campaign. The whole system seems to be founded on different groups contributing a prescribed amount. Then the politician is supposed to do things for them in return for the patronage. If you are independent of everybody else, it makes you more like a monarch who inherited his money (in this case I am sure earned it himself but politically it amounts to the same thing as long as he has it when he runs for office). You would think Americans wouldn't like this.
I couldn't resist having Goebbels make a film about the Varusschlacht. He could have, you know. It was part of the Nazi propaganda machine minus Hitler who supposedly didn't like the idea. Himmler was apparently the big supporter, and Hitler and Himmler didn't seem to cross paths very often. Once in a blue moon supposedly Hitler made some remark that vaguely referenced the idea of Tacitus's Germania. But supposedly Himmler was obsessed. Hitler joked about it in private saying that he didn't know why the ancient Germans were so outstanding when the Greeks were building the Parthenon at the same time.
I came across something about TV licenses in Great Britain yesterday. What is this about a TV tax? Do you pay one on your TV set? Even in the digital age? Do you pay a tax on your computer, too, if you watch TV on your computer screen? What if you were watching American TV programs? Russian TV programs? What if you are downloading movies from Amazon and watching those? What if you are watching You Tube? This sounds impossibly weird and quaint!
We have started to listen to the audio book for Tacitus's Germania at dinner time. A lot of it is obviously really intended as social comment about Rome at the time of Tacitus. Tacitus never visited Germany himself and doesn't know anything about it firsthand. When he comments about the ancient German religion it sounds more like the ancient Roman religion full of mother goddesses and full of respect for women. He is implying that Romans of his day don't have enough respect for old Roman ways.
We have so far listened to part 1 of the Germania. There are a few tidbits that are interesting. Twice so far Tacitus has commented about how the Germans are from an "unmixed race". This is what caused all the controversy in later times and what the Nazis latched onto. He also mentions that Germans like to live in separate dwellings with land around each house instead of in multi-family dwellings with buildings close together as in Rome. That might just be the difference between urban and rural, but even to this day you do tend to think of Italy in term of city states and you think of Germany as much bigger than mere cities. Think of Hitler! There has always been a strong bias towards the farmer and praising attributes of the rural life. So oddly enough, here there does seem to be something more fundamental. Then Tacitus mentions that Germans like to build rooms underground. This certainly reminds me of Germans! Pittsburgh, too! You have all sorts of tunnels. Germans seem to be obsessed with long tunnels to this day.
Linda wrote: "I came across something about TV licenses in Great Britain yesterday. What is this about a TV tax? Do you pay one on your TV set? Even in the digital age? Do you pay a tax on your computer, too, if..."Replied to this via email.
Linda wrote: "We have so far listened to part 1 of the Germania. There are a few tidbits that are interesting. Twice so far Tacitus has commented about how the Germans are from an "unmixed race". This is what ca..."This is fascinating and very accurate. My family on my mother's side had the same estate in East Prussia from the mid 1500s until 1945.They owned the land, the village and the estate compound with various family houses in a kind of enclave. Quiet different to the style here.
Now we are hitting on why Tacitus has fascinated people for two thousand years! The text being read aloud is surprisingly simple. Anyone could understand it. He makes statements about the German customs with regard to marriage, celebrations, war, drinking, farming, all sorts of everyday tasks. Some observations may be accurate. Some may not be. Some obviously are not. But people keep on translating it and looking for analogies to what they know about the Germans or what they want to know.
Another important part of the Germania is what Tacitus says about democracy. He credits the Germans with democratic traditions. Apparently Thomas Jefferson liked this. He and Montesquieu apparently thought democracy originated more in northern Europe than among the Greeks and Romans. Both Jefferson and Montesquieu thought that was where we got it from.
Mostly what The Most Dangerous Book is about is the reception of the Germania. The author is some classical scholar from Harvard who traces the reception starting with friends of Tacitus such as Pliny the Younger who apparently read it, critiqued it, and contributed to it. (He was the guy who wrote a famous letter about his uncle, Pliny the Elder, who died in the Vesuvius eruption trying to study what was going on). He mentions Charlemagne. Apparently if Charlemagne didn't get a monk to copy the classical manuscript it didn't survive until modern times. And the Germania survived in one manuscript only until the Renaissance. It almost didn't make it. Then it got translated and commented on by everybody you can think of until right now. The author emphasizes the Nazis. That's the popular tie in with this book.
Last night we finished listening to the Germania. Tacitus described how German warriors in ancient times liked to dress themselves up before they went into battle so that they looked scary. They put on headdresses and dressed up their shields. That reminded me of Himmler and the SS with the skull symbols. But then supposedly Himmler was reading Tacitus.
Believe it or not, the Germania is only 30pp. It's not very long considering how much interest it has engendered over the years. The way people talked about it you would think it was a tome of 30 volumes. Of course some of the translations over the years added things and made it longer.
If you got a copy you would think, "What is this?" It is just an assemblage of odd remarks about German tribes. It starts at any point and ends at any point. What was so influential was the way people kept on trying to read things into it. It was like a distant mirror in which they kept on trying to see themselves more clearly. They would pick out golden tidbits and quote them the way I am doing now.
TV "licenses" sound like something that needs to be abolished, not extended or continued. The government in Great Britain has no business getting mixed up with the media in any way. If the BBC needs government support to survive, it should not survive. It should have to support itself, which means it probably would have to change what it did and what was broadcast. It would be like just any other media company competing for ratings. It's income would come from advertising.
Originally I thought of cruising as a way to reach Alaska. But I never really booked a cruise. I just imagined it. Instead we tried to drive there. We actually did drive halfway there on a trip to Banff and Jasper in an RV. But I was so discouraged by the rainy, cold weather and the roads that we did not go back that way again. I have a picture of a sign for the Alaska Highway. But at that point I would never have pictured sailing across the Atlantic.