82. I've decided

Previous - 81. Veblen + Barton

Accent wall

Back at the Bank Cafe -- the Pine Street Peet's was still closed on Black Friday, also I remembered that the WiFi is better on days like this when many people are away. It's so quiet here I got one of the nice chairs in the window. Interestingly, the guy taking my iced tea order seemed to remember my usual order without noticing I had been absent for close to two months.

I've decided to de-accent my accent wall... maybe. The thing is I have this eleven year plan to repaint my apartment and still can't decide on colors. What to do? If I paint the accent wall the same color as the rest of the room it will be a little easier to visualize how some of the colors I'm considering will look. Maybe. It could also be that I'm bored and looking for something to change. 

My plan (as of an hour ago) is to also paint the window trim the same as the wall to see how that will look. Since I still have leftover paint from when I originally painted the room, this won't cost me anything and I will even be using up paint that isn't getting any younger. I'll use a paint pad again, so I won't have to move much furniture or clear much of the room. 

The accent color seems to work better (for me) in the bathroom, so I'll leave that alone. I could take this opportunity to raise the storage unit in the bathroom up off the floor, which I've thought about for some time. Eleven years is a long time to wait to make a change. Maybe I should consider using really crappy paint next time so I don't have this longevity problem.

Stockton street

They have returned almost all of lower Stockton to pedestrian usage for the holiday shopping season. I walked up it last night on the way home from the train station after Thanksgiving diner at a friend's. There are still a few areas fenced off, and too much of one block was taken up by infrastructure for what must have been a concert earlier in the day, but, assuming that was temporary, this will be a nice addition for the next month. 

Holiday horrors

Dear Goat, someone just walked past the window here -- on the way to the epicenter of the Union Square shopping district -- in Christmas themed sweater and pants. Did he choose those clothes? Did someone pick them for him? And if the later, what was the motivation? Humiliation or festive blindness? 

Machiavelli

Today I ran into a BBC article about Erdogan's toddler diplomacy with the EU. He threatens to send millions more Syrian refugees to Europe if the EU doesn't let Turkey join. I call it toddler diplomacy since it seems to be the equivalent of a child pounding on the door and threatening to set your house on fire if you don't let him in. 

Since Erdogan is no fool, I suspect the intended audience for this diplomacy is domestic rather than foreign. "See, we are forced to turn our backs on the West (and to get rid of all the refugees who are annoying us) by the EU itself." But that got me thinking.

I try not to think too much about Syria because I can see no obvious end-game there. The more successful the Kurds and other anti-ISIS forces, the more nervous the Turks get -- a dynamic we are already starting to see around Mosul in Iraq. There is a fairly obvious solution to all this, but it has always seemed a remote possibility. But if Turkey turns its back on the EU it could turn its back on NATO at the same time, and that would open up the possibility of it resuming its previous status in both Syria and Iraq. The only thing stopping it would be Russia and Iran. 

When it comes to Russia, Turkey probably has a fair amount to trade -- and Russia has little more to gain in Syria and probably can't afford to do there what the U.S. did temporarily in Iraq. If I was a member of NATO or a country in the Caucasus, I would be a little nervous. 

So what you end up with is just like old times: Russia & Turkey & Iran jockeying for position while Europe tries to manage them all. While that scenario ended in world war back in 1914, much has changed since then, the main change being that European nations are not currently at each other's throats.

Since I'm engaging in wild speculation and prognostication here, let's go even further and suggest that the Euro Zone -- in my opinion the dumbest thing nation states have done in all of recorded history -- will fall apart and the EU will either fail with it or be re-envisioned in a less coercive and more cooperative way. Regardless, I find it hard to imagine Europe resorting to the nationalism that led to ether World War. If that is true, then Turkey, regardless of how much the West doesn't like its policy, gets some lee way as a counter to both Russia and Iran. 

At present, the U.S. is in the awkward position of needing to support Iran -- as the Shia counter to Wahabi fundamentalism. (Does Putin realize he's doing what we can't in Syria?) But if Turkey entered the game then Turkey could be a more acceptable alternative, though even then we might need to lend support to Iran as a counter to Turkey. 

This is where I fall back on my amazement at chess masters who can see so many moves ahead. But then even Bismarck was eventually undone by a fool who couldn't see ahead at all.

Next - 83. Chairs + Democracy