[NON BLOG] A Final Offline Entry

I’m offline right now, listening to Dave Stewart and the Spiritual Cowboys, drinking a Molson Canadian, and looking at the receipt for July 2004’s rent (paid in advance via cheque), and feeling a bit out of sorts.

( What has happened so far )

( What’s going on now )

( Counter )

[LYRICS] "I've Got You Under My Skin"

Neneh Cherry’s rendition of this song, as catchy and good as I find it, differs substantially from the lyrics listed in the Red Hot & Blue, so I choose to include these lyrics just because.

( The original lyrics, copyright circa 1936. )

( Neneh Cherry's 1990 lyrics. )

[QUIZZES] Three Quizzes

( What movie do I belong in? )

( Which of the Greek gods am I? )

( Which phase of the Greek tragic cycle am I? )

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Reunifications Deferred: Germany and Austria

I'd mentioned back in January that I was planning a series of posts on unlikely reunifications, on pairs of countries separated by relatively minor historical circumstances which were nonetheless unlikely to ever overcome the separation. I don't know why I'm doing this since I'm not a political scientist or another sort of specialist and I don't think my writings on the subject are particularly revelatory. I suppose that my interest in alternate history, in paths not taken despite their plausibility, is responsible. Regardless, here's installment #1.

* * *

In the heady days of die Wende, I remember reading in Time the tumult which erupted in Austria when a West German author proclaimed that the German nation was divided between two ideologies (capitalistic democracy and an orthodox communism) and three states (West Germany, East Germany, and Austria). If it had been made a generation ago, this statement would have been immensely destabilizing, suggesting as it did that the Federal Republic of Germany’s territorial ambitions might not be satified with reclaiming Brandenburg and Saxony, Thuringia and Mecklenburg,would have awoken. The hint that Austria was just as "illegitimate" as East Germany suggested the possibility that German territorial appetites would not stop with East Germany, that Salzberg, Tyrol, and Burgenland might also be claimed. After that, who knows? Bohemia and Moravia? Silesia and East Prussia? Even Poznan and Slovenia?

It’s important to note that this West German author’s suggestion never got off the ground, either in West Germany or in Austria. 14 years after reunification, Austrian independence is as unchallenged as it ever has been. This is interesting from the comparative perspective, for Austria and East Germany were both states built on territory that was ethnically German after the Second World War, in order to deny their territories, populations, and industries to a rump Germany (West Germany) still suspected as politically unreliable and potentially strategically destabilizing. The Austrian nation-building project worked; the East German nation-building project only managed to create a strong regionalism. Why did the Austrian project succeed where the East German failed?

( First, a Bavarian counterfactual. )

( Kleindeutschland versus Grossdeutschland. )

( The First Republic, and how it failed. )

( Why the Second Republic worked. )

Modern-day Germany and modern-day Austria are once again united, sharing a customs union, a single currency, and elected officials in the same parliament. The European Union, though, is a much broader project than the Austro-German customs union vetoed by France in 1932. Austria was once a politically unstable and struggling state, vulnerable to its neighbours; it is now one of the richest countries in Europe, surpassing Germany in income per capita, with a relatively stable political system despite its recent disturbance by the xenophobic populism of Haider and his ilk, and a frontier secured within the greater European Union. Austria’s main political issues have little to do with its relationship with Germany, and much more to do with its former partners in Austria-Hungary. Austria's now on its own.

( Counter )

[NON BLOG] Scattered Notes

• After making five posts this evening (including this one), I feel decidedly relieved, somehow. I'm still tense about my impending life changes, but I'm good. I'm not yet desperate enough, as one commenter suggested, to begin looking at employment opportunities in male stripper bars, though I do appreciate the implied compliment.


• I've found some old writings that I'd like to link to, just for the hell of it. From January 2003, one brief essay comparing languages and their statuses in the classical and early 21st century worlds, and another detailing a RPG character from a Traveller-like campaign that never got started. And, from 1998, an alternate history of mine from soc.history.what-if describing the consequences of a late-settled Vinland.


• My Living in Europe crosspost of last month's posting on Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide got some heat, as I got a Turkish commenter who accused me of anti-Turkish racism and posted links to a site that, among other things, accused Armenians of being Naziphile in the Second World War. (Presumably said commenter wasn't aware of Turkey's 1942 wealth tax, but I digress.) After some consideration, I deleted that poster's comments as provocative and unlikely to advance the debate productively. Question: What would you have done?


• On my livejournal friends list, london_calling is upset that many Islanders are supporting the American team at the Stanley Cup, since Tampa Bay has an Island-born player (Brad Richards). She's right; but then, she's also from Newfoundland. ;-) (Me? To be honest, I don't really care.)


• Though perhaps I should care about my showing in my Diplomacy game. I'm Italy. Yes, I know that I have Problems.
  
• The NASA-ESA Cassini probe to Saturn, with its accompanying Huygens Titan lander, is approaching its destination. I hope that everything goes well for both orbiter and lander, since the Saturn system looks fascinating. In particularly, I'd like to know whether Titan does, in fact, have a hydrocarbon ocean. evildrganymede must be thrilled.


• I was watching the English graduate students' softball team practice this afternoon--it's a bit of a surprise, incidentally, that I've become interested in spectator sports--when I saw a maple seed settle on the gravel, helicoptering down to a safe landing. A moment later, I realized that the yellow-brown specks I saw all over the field weren't gaps in the gravel, but rather hundreds of maple seeds. That moment was an interesting moment, almost a paradigm shift in its minute way.


• Dragan Antulov, he of Just Another September 1939 ISOT fame, has recently acquired a vast surge of visitors thanks to his commentary on the Severina Vučković scandal. Ms. Vučković, a prominent pop music singer in Croatia, apparently filmed her sexual escapades a couple of years ago. Naturally, it ended up getting released onto the Internet. Dragan's blog has received in excess of ten thousand visits as a result of his commentary. He deserves all of those hits.


• I'll be going to The Toucan, now, ostensibly to celebrate the success of the sole MA student in the Queen's graduate English program in delivering her thesis. It should be fun.

[META] A question to my readers

I'm interested in expanding my blogroll, but I'm too open to suggestions. Accordingly, I'd be interested in learning what blogs you read. Just say in the comments, or E-mail me.