Via the always interesting Everlasting Blört comes the forgotten World War II artwork of Mexican anti-Axis Propaganda.
Though Mexicoʼs involvement in the war was a relatively brief one prompted in 1942 after a Nazi submarine attacked one of Mexicoʼs oil platforms and later dispatched fighter-jet pilots to the Philippines (I was pretty impressed to learn about the Aztec Eagles) the feelings portrayed in the poster were genuine due to having been betrayed and made the object of revile and suspicion beforehand by Germany. The so-called Zimmermann Telegraph was a leaked communique between the German consul and the government of Mexico that proposed an alliance between the two countries should the US decide to intervene in World War I, with the promise to help Mexico to reclaim territory in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico that the US annexed. America launched a punishing raid on Mexico in retaliation and harboured suspicions afterwards, even though it was unclear what Mexico thought of this arrangement.
Sunday 19 February 2017
guerra mundial
Saturday 18 February 2017
peaceniks or hms semaphore
hubris and hyperbole or omnibus, omnishambles
It is really beyond the pale in multiple ways that if we relent, just for a portion of the news cycle (what does that even mean anymore?), there’s a whole raft of new evasive maneuvers and publicity stunts that bury the really critical stories and any reflection of what America is lurching towards and pulling the rest of the world with it is precluded. No world leader’s chief job ought to be forcing one to choose one’s battles—especially by issuing mixed-messages and being generally evasive and unpleasant. Regardless, it is astounding what can transpire over the course of a few days if one doesnʼt remain vigilant.
Thankfully it was a bit of premature reporting on behalf of the wires and the US wonʼt yet be deploying the National Guard to round-up immigrants and brown-skinned people, but enough has happened already this week, with this weekend expected to see a campaign rally in Florida for Dear Leader to reconnect with his base and supposedly announce his bid to run for an unthinkable second term in 2020: a climate-change skeptic was just confirmed to head the agency (also to be abolished) charged with protecting the environment. More aides at the State Department are dismissed as the chief ambassador and former oil executive attends his first summit abroad. Dear Leader has a rambling and unhinged press conference where the press is declared the enemy of the people, as the Attorney General is asked to recuse himself from any future investigations involving the administrationʼs ties to Russia because heʼs mired in it too. American intelligence agencies admit to withholding information from Dear Leader—underscoring deep distrust, and the presumptive Labour Secretary and former fast food magnate with a firmly ensconced aversion to fair and equitable labour policy had to withdraw his candidacy over employing an undocumented house-keeper. Dear Leader let the past three decades of work towards peace between Israel and Palestine implode with a few carelessly fawning words. The executive producer of the film Suicide Squad is named Secretary of the Treasury just after one cabinet member already on the job for nearly three weeks tendered his resignation for having held talks with his Russian counterparts prior to the inauguration and failing to inform senior leadership of those talks; illegal leaks, rather than gross misconduct or treason, are to blame. This list doesnʼt even include Russiaʼs ballistic missile test (after that other one) nor the ship apparently trawling the eastern seaboard to assess US naval strength and the bizarre assassination of the other Dear Leaderʼs half-brother in Indonesia, likely at his own order, and the renewed assault against public broadcasting. This is only the first month, and naturally everything in this post could be out of date (or lost down a memory hole) by the time you read it.
earthenware
I’ve wondered before if the echo, imprint of every sound ever made wasn’t somehow embedded in the environment, to be subtly teased out by the right quiver of instruments and detectors, and now see that archaeologists have achieved something even more interesting that speculative acoustic conservation by studying the pottery shards of ancient civilizations.
heʼd let us in, knows where weʼve been in his octopusʼs garden in the shade
catagories: 🎬, 📷, environment
Friday 17 February 2017
6x6
but they always land on their feet: gallery of brides tossing cats instead of bouquets
white monkey gig: a documentary about how foreigners were recruited to help market the Chinese building boom and subsequent bust
dii consentes: organic compounds discovered on asteroid belt dwarf planet Ceres
felis cattus: Mister Data’s sonnet to his pet cat, Spot
さくら: the cherry trees are in full blossom in the eastern Japanese town of Kawazu