Okay, I know, I'm a day late, and I'm not sure if any of you are around anyway, and even worse I've really been on full vacation this week and can't even suggest anything...but let's do What Mattered anyway.
So anyway: what have you noticed? What do you think mattered this week?
Sunday, December 29, 2013
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Continuing developments in Bulgaria have been very worrying, particularly now that Turkey, next door, is also in some kind of political meltdown. Combine this with the troubles of recent years in Greece (also adjacent), and you've got the alarming possibility of failed states within the European Union and on its frontier. I've gotta believe there are better ways to commemorate the centenary of the World War I Balkan crisis than by re-enacting it.
ReplyDelete(Bulgaria's a lovely country, by the way -- been there many times and have only fond wishes for it, so I find its troubles personally saddening.)
On another subject, I was traveling and missed the announcement of this blog's change of venue (?) when it posted. As a regular reader and commenter for more than three and a half years, I would belatedly like to associate myself with the various remarks on that thread, particularly those of CSH and others in praise not only of the blog itself but of my fellow commenters and the little community they formed. Would be great to see that continue if at all possible.
What happened in Bulgaria? Google news isn't telling me much.
DeleteHere are recent summaries:
Deletehttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/115954/bulgaria-crisis-2013-protests-violence-push-country-brink
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116035/bulgarias-european-union-membership-has-hurt-country
Basically, it's a political crisis that's been building throughout the year, and may now be turning violent. Not a happy situation.
Hopefully I'm not ragging on the NSA too much, but "NSA Destroys Credibility of US Tech Industry" seems a big deal.
ReplyDeleteThe political clout of the Security State is impressive. Even after making enemies with Silicon Valley, there are few political leaders who support amnesty for Snowden
DeleteYou raise an interesting point, Couves,though I suspect its not political clout so much as a business decision for political leaders. If we learned anything from Snowden its that no communication is safe; certainly a congresscritter is visible enough to have an especial worry about that.
DeleteWhich suggests that one doesn't have to comply in order to be assimilated by the borg; the threat of immense retribution may be powerful enough.
Drinks on the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover!
China easing its one-child policy and ending its re-education camps could matter some.
ReplyDeleteAbe in Japan giving in to nationalistic saber-rattling by visiting the shrine most prominently associated with 1930s militarist imperialists. Not a great symbolic turn of events for Asian stability.
ReplyDeleteYou are quite right that this was important, but I disagree that Abe is "giving in" to anyone. To the best I can tell, he's in the vanguard of pushing the country to the very far right as fast as possible. The LDP has published their proposed revision to the constitution: The nation is not longer "for the people", the people now exist for, and are subservient to, the state, the emperor is no longer the symbol of the state, but the actual head of state. And, of course, no renunciation of war.
DeleteUnfortunately the left in Japan imploded recently, and there's no opposition to speak of. Sigh.