Even as the Christmas Culture Wars chug along for the umpteenth year running, German and Austrian Catholics have their own version going: opposition to Santa Claus.

They're probably correct that Santa Claus is capitalist project with nothing to do with Jesus, but it's still funny to me: promoting "Christmasman-free Zones".

Below is a download from their website, which translates as "Nothing but the Original for Me," thus tapping into the same motive force as slow-food and the like.

The Maldive Islands is one of the countries whose very existence is threatened by global warming. The land mass of the entire country is at sea level, and is forecast to disappear under the waves within a few decades.

Global Warming debates in the West tend to unfold as ecological issues, with charismatic polar bears as the emblems. But in the developing world, global warming is a human issue. Entire cultures are at risk as people flee their traditional homes.

Below: Hulhumalé, a 3 meter-high artificial island being built in the Maldives to provide refuge for the country in the coming years.

Note: in the center of the picture, a golden-domed mosque.

Photo: Credit Saudi Aramco World Magazine

The Berlin Wall was opened twenty years ago next Monday.

If you are old enough, what do you remember? What do you feel?

If you ever wanted a visual from outer space (courtesy of Google Maps) of the consequences of politics on land usage in the US, here's one: it's the boundary between the Menominee Indian Reservation (to the right) and the neighboring communities.

The Menominee resisted, at some cost to their short-term wealth, the lumbering craze of the late 19th century, as their ancient forest got clear-cut all around their small reservation. But over time, they've gotten much greater wealth from that same forest, through selective logging. After all, the wood from a three-foot-diameter tree is much more valuable than the same board-footage from one-foot-diameter trees.

Today, they operate a tribal college with an internationally recognized sustainable forestry program; when I visited a few years ago, students from East Asia were taking classes there.

Once upon a time, a friend and I were discussing our entertainment-saturated culture, in which people increasingly seem to view themselves through the hypothetical lens of a camara, and we came to the question of authentic experience, which neither of us really understood, at the philosophical level, at least.

To the question, do we have authentic experiences anymore, we posed the crowd-and-tribal experience of a Badger home game (we were both living in Wisconsin at the time).

Is there any truth to that (or is that a bunch of humbug)? How important is a college football game?

[photo credit uwbadgers.com]

This week's question: what is your emotional response to this picture? What memories immediately come to mind?

[photo credit: sxc.hu member mrgoose]

From Marietta College's Flickr site: 2008's Freshmen arriving in the dorms.

What do you feel when you think about this moment? What questions did you have that got answered, or never got answered? How would you re-do the moment of arrival, if you could?

Alongside the unbelievable growth of the global church has come a flowering of new forms of ecclesiastical art.

He Qi is one of the best. This image, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is entitled The Risen Lord. Check out He Qi’s online gallery. This is amazing stuff.

I love this picture. It’s off NASA’s photo gallery.

This summer marks 40 years since humans set foot on the moon. Presumably most readers of ATN were not around to follow the events.

So: what do you think when you see this, you who’ve always lived in a world where this is possible?

Late summer is the time for an American tradition, the county fair. Here's a picture from the local version in Madison, credit the Dane County Fair website.

My question: how important are county fairs for local identity? How important in your experience?