German blogger series: Rumsfeld's "old Europe" remarks
Rumsfeld's comments* about France and Germany being "old Europe" have drawn a lot of angry rebuttals from the French and German media. Combined with the showy but impressive joint sessions of the German and French parliaments at Versailles, some "old European" commentators sense a dawning of a new age of European-American parity. Spiegel excerpted luminaries from Juergen Habermas to Jacques Derridas venting their displeasure with Rumsfeld and Bush in the major German newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", and praising the newly energized German-French relationship. (In Spiegel, this was all under the somewhat risible headline "European thinkers take revenge.")

The reaction among the German bloggers I follow has been mixed. A prominent strain of German commentary is a reluctance to engage in nationalism of any kind, the new EU or German-French "nationalism" included. But a competing one is to point with some pride and relief the new German-French entente, in light of the world wars of the last hundred years, and to join in some tentative muscle-flexing as a fledgling counterweight to the U.S.

A comment by Peter Praschl on "Le Sofa Blog" led to a lot of interesting replies. Praschl's take:

Just because a US defense minister says France and Germany are a problem, doesn’t mean you all have to join in these pan-European hurt feelings. Rumsfeld just said what’s been obvious for a while: the EU is an alternative imperialistic project. Why is it news that the competition of nations [is a zero sum game]?"

"gHack", a Swiss blogger who maintains the amusingly named hirnverbr.antville.org,** responded in the same vein as his comments on his own blog:

Even an old Francophile like me has his suspicions about this odd brand new German-French Friendship, under the sign of standing up to the Yankees.*** I would have preferred a stabler, more positive catalyst. I always have the feeling that something is wrong about all these Statements.

Looking elsewhere, I found that Joerg Schubert, a Leipzig law student who maintains The New Joerg Times blog, seemed to have fewer reservations about the German-French developments. He drew attention to this conclusion by Spiegel writer Markus Deggerich:

If Rumsfeld has turned "I'm proud to be German or French" into "I'm proud to be an Old European," then the United States is dealing with a new, young Europe. Rumsfeld be praised. Maybe he'll even get the Karls Prize [ed: a kind of German Nobel Peace prize] for it someday.

My own feelings are mixed. I joined in the Sofa Blog discussion:

It seems like it's a terrible insult for you to be called "old." Is that true? Rumsfeld is a bigmouth, he likes to get on his soapbox. But when he claims that Europe doesn't just consist of France and Germany, isn't he kind of right? Even as far as EUrope is concerned?

"MV" (Woerterberg blog) agreed,

[...] Old World culturalism is indeed just as dumb and brutal as the Manichaeism of the Bush administration. Amazing, how well that works even in the so-called left-liberal circles.

All in all, some unease at the way the German-French relationship seems to be mutating into an odd kind of Euronationalism, mixed with a dollop of satisfaction that it at least helps spite Bush and Company.

I share the unease, but in my case it's about this divide politicians over here and over there seem to want to make wider between the U.S. and ("old") Europe. What ever happened to the "speak softly" part of that famous "big stick" rule? Whether you voted for Bush or not, none of us voted for Rumsfeld. His job seems challenging enough that he might spare us the "wit" that declared Vietnam draftees to "have added no value, really" to the conduct of that war.

And now this. Would it be too much to ask that the next "Rumsfeld Rule" be "Why don't I shut up for a while"?

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Update: Joerg writes to tell me he studies in Jena, not Leipzig. He also explains that the Karls Prize (named after Charlemagne) is more specific than a peace prize. It's given to "organizations and individuals who have contributed to Europe and European unity." Which of course improves Deggerich's joke.

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* Rumsfeld, Jan 22, 2003: "Now, you're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem."
** Lots of bloggers have fun with the "antville" tag in their URL; gHack's works out to "brain-burned"ville, i.e., nutsville. He does a lot of Jim Treacher-like Photoshop (I guess) stuff. His touching tribute to the German Day of Unity last October is a hoot; translations available on request.
*** "Amis," a term with a similar range of connotations as "Yankees" has in the South: from mild disdain to visceral dislike. And sometimes it's just quicker than saying "Amerikaner." posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:50:00 PM -- |    

 
Von Karman Vortex street

I got curious about the picture below, and found this nifty item, courtesy of Brazilian fluid dynamicist Dr. Cesareo de La Rosa Siqueira. I now know that a regular pattern of vortices is called a "vortex street." From the web site:

Since ancient times, it has been known that wind causes vortex induced vibration of the wires of an Aeolian harp. According to Rabbinic records, King David hung his kinnor (kithara) over his bed at night where it sounded in the midnight breeze. In the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci sketched a row of vortices in the wake of a piling in a stream. In 1878, Strouhal found that the Aeolian tones generated by a wire in the wind were proportional to the wind speed divided by the wire thickness. He noticed that the sound greatly increased when the natural tones of the wire coincided with the Aeolian tones. In 1879, Lord Raleigh found that a violin string in a chimney draft vibrated primarily across the flow, rather than with the flow. The periodicity of the wake of a cylinder was associated with vortex formation by Benard in 1908 and with the formation of a stable street of staggered vortices by von Karman in 1912. (ref.: Flow-Induced Vibration, Robert D.Blevins).

I added the da Vinci link. There you go. posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:05:00 AM -- |    

 

Earth as art
Readers of "newsrack" know of my inexplicable fondness for satellite photos. Here's a treasure trove of them, the "Earth As Art" collection, brought to you by Landsat and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The photo on the right isn't the nicest one in a number of ways, but it is relevant to the ongoing news. The one on the left is just beautiful to look at. Other favorites: Ganges river delta, Icelandic fjords.

The images can be ordered as 27 inch square posters. Also, if you live in the DC area, many can be viewed at an exhibition now showing at the Library of Congress (Geography and Map Reading Room Corridor, B Level, James Madison Building, Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:49:00 PM -- |    

 

Metro trash cans
In "pack not a herd" mode, or at least in "herd member dully wondering what's going on as he plods to work" mode:

Following the 9/11 attacks, the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) made a relatively big deal of moving trash cans and so forth to safer locations. From the WMATA "Safety and security FAQ":

...we have relocated all newspaper vending machines, trash receptacles, and recycling bins to station entrances/exits ...

Not at Courthouse Metro, anyway. There are a couple of trash cans and recycling cans in a tight bottleneck just past the station-booth/turnstile area. While a May 2000 "Security Management" article I found says the cans are special reinforced cans, I'd rather there were none at all, or at least that they were near true open air entrance/exits, so blasts, germs, or gases wouldn't be as confined as they would deep inside a Metro station.

I'll keep you posted on this exciting story: I'm writing to WMATA, we'll see what they say. If you know of other examples of poorly placed trash cans or other security-related questions, leave a message via "comments" or e-mail; better yet, let WMATA know.

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UPDATE, January 24: I've added the text of WMATA responses to my emails as comments. The upshot as of today, and where things will probably remain, is that WMATA likes the cans where they are. My suggestion to remove them if the Homeland Security "threat level" increases to "orange" has been forwarded to Those Who Make Decisions In The Rail Department. (My suggestion for WMATA to pre-emptively attack the cans if we reach threat level "red" remains a closely guarded secret of the "newsrack" web site.)

UPDATE, February 10: Well, we've been in condition "orange" for a few days now, and no trash can movement. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:34:00 AM -- |