No long spiel this month - but three shorter ones:

1) About a month ago, on one of my fave radio shows, On the Media, there was a segment on the whistle-blowing predecessors of the subject of the new documentary now in cinemas, Citizen4, and William Binney - whom I'd heard of, because he was asked to testify in the German parliament's security scandal committee currently investigating what truly transpired - & Ladar Levison - whose name I hadn't remembered, but learnt now was the guy who shut down his own e-mail service Lavabit, when encryption keys of his customers were forced from him by US institutions, in order to decrypt future mails passing through his firm's servers. So the man now hiding in Russia had equally courageous examples he could draw inspiration from. After some checking, I found a list of 'blowers in Wikipedia - just look at how often the better known US "watchdog" institutions are mentioned there! All those other people - esp. also Fellwock, Drake & Klein - need to be remembered for all they gave up to "come clean"!

2) I.a. in connection with Obama's slow decadence - cf. prev. blog entry - there's been a lot of talk in media & elsewhere about how many changes in recent years were actually bad ones. But, and Obama actually never promised more than this, change is at its onset neither good nor bad. If it does occur, it usually means a lot of unexpected stuff starts happening as a consequence, problems as well as surprising successes, and it's probably never easy. Just as it may be happening at levels or speeds that most people can't discern. Change is always a risk. Avoiding that risk is basically a definition of what the aims of political conservatives are. So, actually, politically left folk are often just social innovators, prepared to risk the New. Yet people who vote(d) for them never seem to grasp that "good" or "bad" change may follow - they want it only to be "good". -- I propose they haven't really understood what politically embracing change means.

3) A few hours ago, I got a sad, but also funny, life lesson on following one of my mottos - "delay judgement!": I decided to try out a new Döner* joint in nearby Bergmann Street, which street, in the last decade or so, has become a real tourist hot spot for some reason. I stood at the counter after having ordered my veggie Döner with special corn bread "pocket". First thing I noticed was that the guy serving me was a bit of a grouch - o well, everyone can have a bad day. Then a lady arrived, asking timidly whether they sold Döner "boxes" - a "box" usually being a rectangular cardboard enclosure for the food, i.e. no bread. The guy looked at her, turned around and wordlessly started cutting meat from the typical great "meat mountain" turnstile you find in every Döner kiosk or restaurant. The woman looked at me, somewhat at a loss; I smiled encouragingly. Then the taciturn one took out a small empty cardboard box, i.e. he'd taken her question as an order & was now filling it. He asked whether she wanted some fried veggies, too; she ecstatically agreed. So I got to thinking, man & shop gets a demerit, woman a nod for being normal... As if to prove me right, he later behaved a little macho-like toward her. But then the lady in turn made some disparaging remarks about a pair of folks passing by, which quashed my positive take on her... Finally, when walking away from the place, trying to consume my - okay-tasting - Döner, even that wholesome goodie basically fell apart: There's a reason Döner "pockets" are basically bread triangles, with one edge closed - so you don't lose half the contents as you eat it on the run. Well, in the end I've never been so full of bits of food & sauce from just below my beard down to my one shoe! Only because he'd taken the round wholewheat bun and cut it all the way through - like a hamburger bun.