pro tempore (12. 275)

Inaugurated on this day in 1853 (see below—public ceremonies were held on 4 March with a few exceptions when the date fell on a Sunday from 1793 until 1933), William Rufus DeVane King became the thirteenth vice president of the United States—serving until his death about a month later. Previously a representative from North Carolina (under the constitutional age requirement of twenty-five but attaining that age by the time congress convened and then sworn in), senator of Alabama and ambassador to France and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, King assisted in the drafting of the Comprise of 1850 and generally held moderate positions (insofar as possible for such things) on slavery and westward expansion, opposing secession while resisting efforts to abolish enslavement in the congressionally administered District of Columbia. Suffering from a bout of tuberculosis, which would summarily be his demise, King was in residence at a sanitarium in Matanzas Cuba at the time of transition and by dint of a special act of Congress was administered his oath there by a consular officer. King and subsequent successor to the presidency, James Buchanan, were able to survive the political scandal of their long-term homosocial and homosexual relationship, having lived together for thirteen years, despite being mocked publicly as Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy respectively by the Jacksonian camp. Shortly after the ceremony, King made his way back to Washington, expiring two days after his arrival, never having discharged any act in his capacity with the office remaining vacant until thr inauguration of Buchanan in 187, with John C Breckinridge, often summoned to the White House to speak with Harriet Lane, Buchanan’s niece and acting First Lady—one of eleven such designees but never a divorcee to service a bachelor or widower, an accomplished hostess, for private office with the president.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a televised version of the Star Wars saga with product placement (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Berlusconi returns 

eight years ago: pan to the right, Kellyanne Conway plus Türkiye takes a cue from MAGA

nine years ago: a trafficking board game plus a plant-identifying app

ten years ago: numeracy from The Simpsons, assorted links worth revisiting, executive functions plus the legacy of Bauhaus

embajada (12. 140)

 

Relations formally severed by the Eisenhower administration on this day in 1961 in the aftermath of the Cuba Revolution, partially restored under Carter for business interests though not under the aegis of anational flag (operated by the Swiss) and partially normalised under Obama in early 2014 with a ceremonious unfurling which was attended by the same detachment of Marines whom had lowered the flag for the last time of the US mission, the ousting of the Batista government by the popular people’s front of Castro was seen as a rejection of the widespread corruption and cronyism encouraged in part by brief American rule and support for maintaining the status quo. 

 

A huge amount of American money was invested in real estate projects and sugar cane plantations, overwhelming and exploiting the domestic Cuban economy, and the revolutionary government nationalised all US assets. In response, Eisenhower imposed a strict embargo and travel restrictions, shutting down the Key West-Havana ferry service and closing the embassy. The partial restoration of relations was reversed three years later under Trump, reimposing travel and trade sanctions.

frostbite falls (11. 907)

The fictional terra nullius, an island in the middle of the Lake of the Woods (Pikwedina Sagainan) neither claimed by the US or Canada since conditions there were said to be inhospitable to human life, of Moosylvania is governed by presumed namesake Bullwinkle J Moose. In the finale of the first run of the series, an insidious plot to destroy the island by Fearless Leader was foiled by the duo’s ingenuity, and in hopes of getting the show renewed for syndication, Rocky and Bullwinkle producer Jay Ward dispatched an assistant to Minnesota to purchase an uninhabited island on the cross-border lake suitable as a stand-in and then launched a campaign to petition for statehood. A publicity team gathered sufficient signatures across America and Ward and associates arranged for an audience with president John F Kennedy on this day in 1962. Arriving however just as the Cuban Missile Crisis began (see also here and here), they were escorted off the premises of the White House at gun-point.

synchronoptica

one year ago: e-textiles (with synchronoptica) plus Don’t Look Now

 

seven years ago: rehabilitating cephalopods, occupational gender equity in Russia plus translating IKEA accessory names

 

eight years ago: denim televisions, Brexit and Marmite shortages plus clowns try to improve their public image

 

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus drone wars

 

twelve years ago: ISPs policing IPs

mmxxii (10. 419)

As this calendar year draws to a close and we look forward with anticipation to 2023, we again take time to reflect on a selection of some of the events that took place in 2022. Thanks as always for visiting. We’ve made it through another wild year together, and we’ll see this next one through together as well.

january: Violent protests erupt in Almaty in response to the Kazakh government ending fuel subsidies and lift price caps on petrol and heating oil, prompting a coalition of former-Soviet military forces to intervene. The US reflects on the one year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection and the fragile state of democracy.

Legendary actor Sidney Portier passed away, aged 94, as did singer Ronnie Spector (*1943). Tragically, seventeen individuals are killed in an apartment fire in the Bronx. Disturbingly the US Supreme Court blocks vaccination mandates for private companies-upholding the requirement for public sector workers. Two Democratic senators-who derailed president Biden’s Build Back Better plan-are also opposed to changing legislative rules to overturn the filibuster, allowing Republicans to block the enactment of a voter-rights protection bill. There are widespread calls for the resignation of Boris Johnson over revelations of work-dos during strict lockdown. The Queen strips Prince Andrew of his titles and military leadership roles over his association with sex pest Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of sexual assault. Russia seems poised to re-invade Ukraine, first undermining their cyber capabilities.  The Pacific island group volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai erupted violently, triggering tsunami waves halfway across the world in California and Nova Scotia. Performer Meatloaf has passed away, aged seventy-four as did comedian and actor Louie Anderson at sixty-eight.  Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh who protested the Vietnam War and introduced mindfulness to the West dies aged ninety-five.

february: The leader of a defeated though resurgent ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quarshi, is killed in a US airstrike in Syria.

Tensions continue to mount in Ukraine over the spectre of an Russian invasion, with the US suggesting that Russia will stage a false-flag operation as a pretext to advance.   Truckers in Canada protesting COVID restrictions, mandatory passports blockade Ottawa; separately Justin Treudeu, Jacinda Arden and Keir Starmer need police intervention to be rescued from rioters.  The Queen celebrates her Platinum Jubilee with seventy years on the throne.  So called Canadian Freedom Convoys of big rig truckers shut down three key border crossings into the US, causing knock-on effects including factory shut-downs.  Provocatively, Russia begins military exercises in Belarus and on the Black Sea. 

Two powerful, successive windstorms, Ylenia and Zeynep, cause damage through a corridor in German after wreaking havoc in England and Wales (as Dudley and Eunice).  The Candy Bomber, Gail Halvorsen (previously) passes away, aged 101.  As the UK announces the relaxation of legal measures to combat the spread of the COVID virus, the palace announced that the Queen has contracted a mild case of it.  Putin recognises the sovereignty of break-away Ukrainian territories Donetsk and Luhansk and deploys peace-keepers to the regions nearly eight years to the day after applying a similar tactics to Crimea. 

march: Numerous Western companies suspend operations in Russia as sanctions intensify.  Shelling of civilian targets across Ukraine shows no signs of abating though the invasion has not been the easy and instant take-over that was apparently expected. 

Inflation surges as the price for everything spikes with the price of oil.  Many news outlets suspend reporting from Russia following passage of legislation that threatened individuals with fifteen-year sentences for spreading “fake news.” Sustaining a minor infection, US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was discharged from hospital, a week after he was admitted. The news comes as the congressional panel investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol sought testimony from his wife and conservative activist, Virginia Thomas, after the revelation of a text message exchange between her and the White House chief of staff, urging him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.  People Power Party candidate is narrowly elected president of South Korea.

april:  The US Senate, after much acrimony, confirms Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Though vice president Harris would have been the tie-breaker in the case of a fifty-fifty split, no Black woman in this forum had the chance to vote.  Viktor Orbán with fourth consecutive term as leader of Hungary. 

North Korea appears to be on the verge of resuming nuclear tests after a pause of five years, escalating regional tensions, after demolishing a symbolic hotel that held out the possibility of reconciliation. Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was ejected by a vote of no confidence.  Hundreds die from mudslides in the Philippines and flash floods in South Africa.  Russia retaliates to the destruction of its flagship of the Black Sea fleet with renewed shelling in Kyiv and Lviv, having shifted focused to the southeastern part of Ukraine to create a corridor through rebel-held areas to Crimea and the sea.  Emmanuel Macron holds his presidency against Marine Le Pen.  Twitter agrees to sell itself to Elon Musk.  Moscow confirms Russia assault on Kyiv during visit by UN secretary-general António Guterres, meeting with the Ukrainian leader just after a summit with Putin.

may: A leaked draft opinion from US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggests that the court is poised to over-turn the 1973 precedent that affords women access to abortion. 

The remaining contingent of soldiers holding Mariupol’s bulwark of resistance in the Azov steel plant have surrendered to Russian forces.   Australia’s conservative coalition government is defeated for the first time in a decade and the Labour party takes control.  A gunman espousing the Great Replacement Theory, tying into all the regressive, racist social movements in the United States, murdered ten individuals in Buffalo, New York.  A shooting at an elementary school in Texas takes twenty-one lives.  A dire shortage of baby formula in the US is on-going.  Monkeypox is spreading rampantly.  

june: the UK and the Commonwealth celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. 

Prompted by the publication of the Partygate investigation, Boris Johnson weathers a confidence vote by fellow party members but with more negative ballots than the votes that ended the ministries of Thatcher or more recently May. Portions of the January 6 select committee hearings are being televised.  The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, prohibiting access to abortion in more than half of America and putting at risk same-sex marriage, gay rights and access to contraceptives. 

july: Russia takes control of the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.  Yet another mass shooting occurs in the US, this time at an Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb. 

Compelled by the resignation of over fifty chief ministers and secretaries (including those appointed a day and a half earlier) ultimately, cumulatively over the Chris Pincher scandal, Boris Johnson announces he will step down as leader of the Conservative Party but plans to hold on to his prime ministership until the party conference in the autumn.  Former Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe is fatally wounded in an assassination attempt.  Actor James Caan passes away, aged 82. After massive unrest and protesters storming the presidential palace, Sri Lankan leader Gotabaya Rajapaska steps down.  After reaching a deal brokered by Turkey, the first Ukranian grain transport vessel sails into the Bosporus, bound for Lebanon.  Pioneering actor Nichelle Nichols passed away, aged eighty-nine.

august: In the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and intensifying incursions from mainland China, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan.  Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is killed by a blade-wielding drone in Afghanistan.  The conservative state of Kansas rejects a referendum to outlaw all abortions.  The FBI conducts a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for mishandled government documents.  The US congress passes Joe Biden’s Build Back Better act. 

Taking a cue from Belarus, the governors of Texas and Florida are bussing migrants to New York and California.  Olivia Newton-John passes away after a long battle with cancer.  Fashion designer Issey Miyake (三宅 一生) has also died, aged eighty-four.  Actor Anne Heche died after sustaining serious injuries in a car accident.  Salman Rushdie was stabbed by an assailant whilst delivering a lecture in Chautauqua, New York.  Joe Biden announces a jubilee on student debt that will positively impact millions of borrowers.  A redacted affidavit shows that over one hundred eighty classified documents were being sought at Mar-A-Lago, which Trump illegally removed when he left office.  Pakistan is devastated by heavy monsoons.  Ukraine begins a counter-insurgency to retake Kherson.  Mikhail Gorbachev passes away, aged 91.  

september: Liz Truss is chosen as new Prime Minister to replace Boris Johnson.  Queen Elizabeth II passes away, aged 96, with London Bridge protocols enacted.  Ukraine is seen to make major incursions into Russian held territories as municipal officials in Moscow and St Petersburg call for Vladimir Putin’s resignation. 

Charles III is proclaimed as new monarch as UK and Commonwealth enter a period of remembrance and mourning.  A Florida federal judge appoints a Special Master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.  The UK economy tanks after Truss chancellor Kwarteng borrow more to reduce tax on business, garnering rebukes from Germany, the US and the IMF as the Pound Stirling approaches parity with the US dollar.  Iranians rage against their government after a young girl dies in custody of the morality police.  Russia appears to have sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines, rendering them unusable even if the gas is turned back on.

october: A hurricane batters Puerto Rico and Cuba, Florida and South Carolina.  Putin annexes four more regions in Ukraine though the hold is tenuous.  Coolio and Loretta Lynn pass away.  A mass shooting, knife attack takes place at a nursery in Thailand with two dozen children killed.  Joseph Biden pardons all of some six-thousand individuals charged with marijuana possession on the federal level.  Rhetoric over the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia is increasing. 

Ukraine damages the twenty kilometre bridge linking the annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland, a key supply route, across the Kerch strait.  In retribution, Russian attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure increase markedly.  Kwasi Kwarteng is dismissed, giving the UK four chancellors in as many months amid wide-spread calls for Liz Truss to resign.  Accomplished actor Robbie Coltrane passes away, aged 72, as does Angela Lansbury, aged 96.  Rishi Sunak becomes prime minister of the UK after being voted leader of the Tory Party. The husband of senior congressional member Nancy Pelosi is attacked by a man with a past of espousing fringe right wing theories with a hammer, the target intended to be the Speaker of the House.  Twitter is delisted from the stock exchange as Elon Musk takes over the platform.  Over one hundred and fifty individuals in Seoul are crushed in a stampede during a Halloween party in a narrow alleyway.  Citing continued Ukrainian drone attacks on its Black Sea fleet, Russia pulls out of a UN brokered arrangement to facilitate grain-shipment.

november: World leaders gather in Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27.   Ukrainian cities contend with power blackouts after Russia targets the country’s infrastructure.  Founding father of election science Sir David Butler passes away, aged 98. The anticipated repudiation of the US Democratic party failed to materialize, counter to polling and pundits’ expectations with those Republican candidates aligned with Donald Trump underperforming and falling short in the broad sense, holding the GOP bastions of Florida and Texas.  The UN announces the world population is at eight billion. 

At a ceremony at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump announces his third candidacy for the presidency, much to the dismay of a Republican party whom cannot challenge his bid.  Artemis I launches on its way to the Moon.  Speaker Pelosi steps down as party leader in the House of Representatives.  In response to Trump announcing his intent to run for president, a move in part calculated to frustrate legal action against him, Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints a special counsel to investigate the insurrection that Trump instigated and the US Supreme Court rules that Trump must turn over years of tax returns to Congress.   Mired in controversy, the World Cup hosted by Qatar commences.  Continued Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and utilities have caused a near total blackout in neighbouring Moldova.  Earthquakes cause mass destruction in West Java and Turkey.   The UK Supreme Court blocks a second referendum for Scottish independence.  Fame and Flash Dance singer Irene Cara passes away, aged 63.  Demonstrations against the government and the ruling party not seen in China since Tienanmen Square erupt in China over COVID lockdown protocols and after the emergency response to an apartment fire is apparently delayed due to restrictions and added barriers to restrict movement. Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie dies, aged 79. 

december: Chinese authorities begin relaxing COVID prevention measures in response to protests.  The G7 nations and the European Union try to enforce further sanctions against Russia by banning oil shipments by sea and placing an upwards price cap per barrel. In response to massive protests, Iran disbands its morality police.

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs announce a breakthrough in harnessing the power of nuclear fusion for energy production.  During its final session before dissolving, the January Sixth Committee recommends to the Justice Department to bring four criminal charges, including inciting insurrection, against Trump.  The Specials lead singer Terry Hall passes away, aged 63.  In his first trip abroad since the Russian invasion, Zelenskiy speaks before a joint-session of Congress in Washington, DC––appealing for continued aid from the United States.  Much of the US is pummelled by a bomb-cyclone, a monstrous winter storm that forces the cancellation of holiday travel. Bolivian police detain opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho for his role in the 2019 protests that prompted then-president Evo Morales to resign. Putin issues a decree prohibiting the export of Russian oil to countries and organizations that adhere to the US$60-per-barrel price cap that Australia, the European Union, and the G7 member states agreed upon earlier this month. The decree will be in effect from February through the summer.  Legendary footballer who made soccer the beautiful game, Pelé, passes away, aged 82, as well as fashion icon Vivienne Westwood.

able archer (10. 279)

The third of the annual NATO command post exercise to train Western Europe units for escalating nuclear conflict and prompted by intelligence that suggested under code-name Operation RYaN (РЯН, “Nuclear Missile Attack,” Ракетно Ядерное Нападение) a coordinated campaign to monitor decision-makers in government and military hierarchies for the intent to launch a first strike against the Soviet Union and a string of infiltration maneuvers on both sides to see to what extent that spies could penetrate the opposing sides’ defences before detection, the war game, began on this day in 1983. The added sense of realism to the execution with coded communiques and radio black-outs in light of increased rhetoric from Ronald Reagan (sabre-rattling that was taken with dread earnestness) and the scheduled delivery of additional missiles for staging in the theatre, reportedly caused some in Soviet leadership to believe that Able Archer 83 was a ruse de guerre to distract from actual preparations and placed units in Poland and East Germany on high alert and began priming their fuses. Tensions as high as during the Cuban Missile Crisis two decades earlier, the Chief of Staff for the US Air Force in Europe convinced Washington not to respond in kind, de-escalating the situation by the end of the simulation.

urgent fury

Along with a coalition of six Caribbean partner states, the United States embarked on this day in 1983 on its first and only military victory since partaking in World War II with its predawn invasion of Grenada, the island nation recently decolonized and independent from the United Kingdom. Characterised by outsiders as a Marxist-Leninist vanguard organization, the New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation, the New JEWEL movement, chartered prior to attaining its self-governing status, had seized power in a peaceful coup from the first ministry installed after the UK’s departure.

Internal struggles among party leadership escalated to an armed confrontation that resulted in the killing of the movement's leader, Maurice Bishop, and a group of his supporters once the shooting began under still disputed and unresolved circumstances, and in turn elevated into an international crisis with the United States lobbying for immediate intervention.

Though transparently a pretext for the invasion and occupation, Ronald Reagan, wanting to forestall a repeat of the Iran Hostage Crisis, attributed his actions to “concerns over the six hundred US medical students on the island,” (the country offering medical school at affordable rates and presenting an attractive alternative to US tutition) and remained steadfast in his decision despite nearly universal condemnation and censure in the UN. Under the leadership of Major General Norman Schwartzkopf, Cuban presence was expelled to prevent further communist influence and a government friendly to capitalists' interest was propped up, though the prevailing narrative is still a contentious one and not authored by the Grenadians.

obverse

Whilst I’ve been the recipient of my share of military unit coins with varying levels of swagger, ridiculousness and bombast, outside of the prematurely issued commemorative one issued for Trump’s summit with North Korea, I was unaware of the minting of “victory coins” by US government agencies and so was intrigued by this artefact from the CIA (via Super Punch) for memorialising the over-throw of the regime of Fidel Castro in April of 1961 through the arming of exiles and dissidents. The abject failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion raised tensions significantly between the USA and the USSR and led to the Cuba Missile Crisis and inchoate nuclear war.

your house is on fire and your children are alone

Courtesy of a film recommendation by one of our favourite podcasts, The Flop House, we learn of the 1963, Oscar-nominated film by Frank Perry that analyses the psycho-social toll of the Cold War that really speaks to the uncertainty and the fears harboured over our current collective crisis and what totems we rally to preserve through selective ignorance. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis (previously) from just a year prior, following the protocol of classroom drills, teachers escort their students home at a rural elemental school after a warning siren sounds. Absent independent verification on the veracity of the alarm, no one is sure whether it is a false warning, a test or not. Some of the students’ parents dismiss these distant, abstract events as they frantically search for a fall-out shelter that can accommodate them all. One girl is ejected, with the claim there is not enough space and goes off to take refuge in a discarded refrigerator—introducing that trope, though her classmates don’t abandon her or forget about her altogether.

location scout oder deckname topas

Hearing that someone might be making a weekend of visiting nearby sites where films had been shot sounded like a fun activity and piqued my curiosity as to whether any might be in reach for me. I was surprised to come across this image from 1968 in the Stars and Stripes photographic archive of the filming of the 1969 release of the Cold War spy-thriller Topaz, the cinematic adaptation of Leon Uris’ novelisation of a real defection, the Sapphire Affair, that took place in 1962 directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Here is the same building from last summer from a slightly different angle and perspective.
The story follows a French intelligence agent who becomes entangled in a spy ring and the geopolitical situation on the eve of the Cuba Missile Crisis. A high-ranking Soviet officer reveals that nuclear warheads will be placed in Cuba (mirroring the US installation in Turkey) and he and his family are evacuated to Wiesbaden. Filming also takes place in Copenhagen, Washington, DC, Paris, New York with Havana scenes filmed on a studio lot.

interkosmos group

Launched on a routine rotation and restocking mission to the Salyut 6 space laboratory on this day in 1980, the crew of Soyuz 38 included cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (*1942)—the first (see also) Cuban and individual of Latin American and African heritage to enter into Earth orbit.

An aerial combat pilot from the Guantánamo province decorated for flying reconnaissance mission during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and after demonstrating leadership potential at the brigade level, Tamayo was selected for the pan-communist space programme in 1978 and moved to Star City (Звёздный городо́к) to commence training. Tamayo’s time in orbit aboard the station helped diagnose and treat the phenomenon known as space sickness for future ventures. Since retirement, Tamayo has served as a deputy in the National Assembly, representing his home constituency of Guantánamo.

red telephone

Despite its conception in the popular imagination the Washington-Moscow Direct Communications Link or hotline, which first went into operation on this day in 1963, was a text-only emergency channel as spoken communication was considered too prone to misunderstanding.
Engineers first recognised the need for an expedient exchange between the leaders of the polarised world in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis of the previous summer when it took US diplomatic and military staff nearly twelve hours to receive and decrypt the initial settlement message from Nikta Khrushchev and deliver it to John F. Kennedy, with a nod to the direct link as portrayed in Red Alert, the 1958 novel that Doctor Strangelove (1964) is based on. The superpowers could initially send teletypes to one another—the equipment tested hourly by exchanging passages from William Shakespeare and Mark Twain (with selective quotations from the former and A. A. Milne as they were considered Soviet cultural property) for excerpts from Anton Chekhov and other literary figures, with messages of greetings and congratulations sent instead on New Year’s and on 30 August, the anniversary of the hotline’s launch. In 1986, the system was upgraded to facsimile machines and finally in 2008 to an extra secure form of email.

mambo № 5

Though propelled back into renewed popularity with Munich artist Lou Bega’s sampling and remixed version released on this day in 1999 in German markets on his debut album A Little Bit of Mambo, the history of the jazzy dance number goes back half a century before (see also) that with the composition and recording of Mambo King Cuban musician Dámaso Pérez Prado. Here are both songs for your listening pleasure.
Bega’s reintroduction of the tune (there is a lot of original material and is by no means just a remake and only takes inspiration from a few albeit central riffs) was incredible popular and quickly garnered accolades. It was a candidate campaign song for the Democratic Party’s 2000 election push though sponsors had second thoughts over the line “A little bit of Monica in my life…” and a BBC children’s television programme, still basking in the success from its first recording venture Can We Fix It? Yes We Can!, in 2001 released a cover-version featuring the construction engineer’s voice actor singing, replacing the litany of girlfriends with construction materials and tasks: “There’s a house with a roof that leaks / It’s an urgent job and could take us weeks… A little bit of tiling on the roof / A little bit of making waterproof / A little bit of concrete mixed with sand / A little bit of Bob, the Builder Man.”

nolle prosequi

Via the inestimable Kottke, we’re directed to a profile of illustrator and court reporter (see previously here and here) Wendy MacNaughton and her time visually documenting the 9/11 military tribunal held at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba September of last year. MacNaughton’s experience of her journalistic commitment clashing with the strictures of censorship and a rather byzantine vetting process overshadows (but hopefully foreshadows the rigour overall) the arraignment and peremptory pleas.

mmxix

As this calendar draws to a close and we look forward to 2020, we again take time to reflect on a selection of some of the things and events that took place in 2019. Thanks as always for visiting. We've made it through another wild year together.

january: China lands a probe on the far side of the Moon.  In the US, works from 1923 enter into public domain, the first tranche to do so since 1998. After a contested election, the incumbent government of Venezuela is declared illegitimate.  We had to say a sad goodbye to Zuzu, a long time companion for my mother and a devilish dog.

february: The Trump administration announces its decision to withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting Russia to follow suit.  Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to visit the Arab peninsula.  A second summit between the US and North Korea collapses in failure.  We bid farewell to fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld, musician Peter Tork, and actor Bruno Ganz.

march: A terrorist’s rampage kills fifty people during services in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, prompting the government to immediately ban the sales and ownership of assault weapons.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller concludes his report on Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election and summits it to the Attorney General.  Copyright reforms pass in the EU Parliament.  After successive failures to pass a divorce deal, Brexit is delayed.    We had to say goodbye to musicians Dick Dale and Keith Flint, actor Luke Perry, as well as filmmaker Agnès Varda.

april: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange loses his political sanctuary after seven years residing in the Colombian mission to the UK and is apprehended at the behest of the US, to be extradited to stand trial for releasing classified materials.  We sadly had to say goodbye to another canine companion, Chauncy. Astronomers capture the image of a black hole.  Brexit is postponed again. During Holy Week, a conflagration engulfed Notre-Dame de Paris.  Over three hundred individuals in Sri Lanka were massacred on Easter Sunday.

may:  Austria’s far-right coalition government collapses after an incriminating video surfaces of a senior official emerges of him promising infrastructure contracts in exchange for campaign support to the posturing relative of a Russian oligarch during a meeting in Ibiza.  Sebastian Kurz resigns as Austrian chancellor and Brigette Bierlein leads a caretaker government until new elections can be held.  We bid farewell to master architect I.M. Pei, Tim Conway, Peter Mayhew, Leon Redbone and Doris Day.  Grumpy Cat also passed away too soon.

june: The Trump family take a summer vacation, going off to London to see the Queen, fêted by outgoing Prime Minister, Theresa May, discharging one of her last, onerous official duties before stepping down. The US administration reinstates most sanctions and travel restrictions against Cuba.  Trump ordered strikes against Iran for the destruction of a US spy drone, belaying the order once jets were already in the air and instead authorised a cyber-attack against the government.  Over the course of two evenings, the large pool of Democratic nominee hopefuls held debates.  We had to say farewell to iconic New Orleans singer, song-writer and producer Mac Rebennack, otherwise known as Dr John, as well as epic, old Hollywood filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli and Gloria Vanderbilt.

july: Violent protests continue in Hong Kong.
An arsonist attacked an animation studio in Kyoto, killing dozens.  Donald Trump channels his racism to strengthen his bid for re-election, having never stopped campaign, blowing a dog whistle that is clearly audible to all.  Boris Johnston succeeds Teresa May as prime minister and head of the UK Tory party.  We had to say goodbye to Brazilian musician João Gilberto who introduced the world to bossa nova as well as business magnate and philanthropist turned independent politician Ross Perot (*1930), US Supreme Court associate justice John Paul Stevens, Argentine architect César Pelli and actors Rutger Hauer and Russi Taylor.

august: Protests continue in Hong Kong.  India revokes the special status accorded to the disputed territory of Kashmir, escalating tensions with neighbouring Pakistan and China.  More gun violence visits the US.  Puerto Rico goes through three governors in five days.  Sex-trafficker and socialite Jeffrey Epstein was found dead of apparent suicide in his jail cell awaiting trial.  In the midst of a mass-extinction event, Trump repeals the Endangered Species Act and the Amazon burns.  Poet and author Toni Morrison (*1931), Irish singer Danny Doyle and lyricist David Berman died as did actor Peter Fonda and animator Richard Williams.

september: Setting a dangerous precedent, the US national weather agency revises its hurricane forecast to match the antics and bullheadedness of Donald Trump in the wake of the death and destruction brought on the Bahamas.
Prime minister Boris Johnson prorogues Parliament until only two weeks ahead of Brexit departure day.  Trump also announces the cancellation of secret talks he was to hold with a delegation of the Taliban that probably otherwise would have been a 9/11 anniversary photo-op.  Greta Thunberg leads a Fridays for the Future climate walkout in Washington, DC and addresses Congress and global strikes follow.  After thirty years as presenter for BBC Radio 4 flagship Today programme, John Humphrys retires.  House Democrats launch impeachment proceedings against Trump after it was revealed he sought to impugn his political opponents with the help of a foreign power, this time Ukraine.  Photojournalist Charlie Cole (*1955) who captured the iconic image of Tank Man and artists Eddie Money (*1949) and Cars headman Ric Osasek (*1944) and pioneering journalist Cokie Roberts (*1943) passed away.

october: Trump withdraws US troops from the Kurdish controlled border region of Syrian and Turkey promptly invades.

Protests continue in Hong Kong, marring China’s seventieth anniversary celebrations.  There is a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Halle.  Trump refuses to cooperate with House impeachment proceedings.  John Bannister Goodenough (previously) is recognised with a shared Nobel in Chemistry for his pioneering work with lithium batteries. An all-women team of astronauts successfully complete a space-walk.  Brexit is delayed again with the extension pushed back to 31 January 2020.  ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed in a raid by US military forces.  The Trump administration is highly recalcitrant and uncooperative during impeachment proceedings.  Long-time congress member representing Baltimore, Elijah Cummings (*1951), passed away.

november:  The Trump impeachment hearings go public.
Aide and political consultant Roger Stone found guilty on all counts for obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lying to Congress just as Trump intimidates former Ukrainian ambassador live during her testimony and career diplomat Marie Yovanovitch is afforded the chance to reply in real time.  A deadly knife-attack on London Bridge is halted by three by-standers, one with his bare hands and the others armed with a fire-extinguisher and a narwal tusk.  The historic Austrian village of Hallstadt is partially burned down.   Frank Avruch (also known as Bozo the Clown, *1930) passed away. We also said farewell to William Ruckelshaus (*1932), America’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator and government official who defied Richard Nixon during the Saturday Night Massacre.

december:  The venue moved from Chile due to ongoing unrest, the environmental summit COP25 commences in Madrid.
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin step down.   Greta Thunberg is named TIME’s Person of the Year.  In the UK General Election, a sizable Tory upset gives Boris Johnson a mandate for the UK quitting the EU.  Global trade wars with the US and the rest of the world as belligerents re-surges, this time over Nord Stream 2 (previously) and opting for an energy source at least marginally cleaner than American oil and natural gas obtained by fracking.  Wildfires continue to devastate Australia.  We had to bid farewell to pioneering Star Trek screenwriter DC Fontana (*1939), veteran stage and screen actor appearing in M*A*S*H*, Benson and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine René Murat Auberjonois (*1940), spiritual guru Ram Dass (*1931), accomplished actress Anna Karina (*1940) and Carroll Spinney (*1933), the puppeteer behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (previously) for nearly fifty years.

encomio

Since seeing that raw tweet put out by one major news organisation—since amended—announcing the death of Fidel Castro with the parenthetical instructions to update the number of US presidents he’s survived if George HW Bush were to perish first, I’ve been thinking about how the media keeps its reckoning for the dead in a very much animated manner, updated continuously for all persons of note. Sadly, this year has seen quite enough in those columns. Kottke takes a look at how another bulwark of journalism has been morbidly drafting and then revising Castro’s obituary for nearly six decades on a set recurring basis as well as every time intrigue or rumours began circulating—the Cuban leader having outlived not only several successive regimes but even print journalism, various formats of media storage and some of the industry’s other institutions.

soy cuba

This collection of vintage Cuban political posters (propaganda is always such a dicey and loaded word) of curator Michael Taylor of Bath, UK comes to our notice via Messy Nessy Chic’s intrepid searches. Circa the early 1970s, most of these artworks were commissioned to mark the annual Tri-Continental Conferences that Cuba hosted through its Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL in Spanish) to bolster support for human rights, social development and the ideals of socialism as a counter-weight to imperialism and globalisation. Due to a lack of ink, during the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, production dropped off, but there was a resurgence beginning in the year 2000 and still publish to this day. A comprehensive gallery of organisation’s posters can be found at this partner-site, Docs Populi.

feuilleton

Quartz presents a really fascinating and under-appreciated glimpse on the strange, strained affair that the Chinese government has with Western social-networking heralds and mavens.

The dominant sites are banned from public-consumption, although it is not as if the average Chinese citizens were unaware of their existence and most businesses and state organs maintain their own internet presence on the same blocked sites. Possibly in order to curb curiosity and assuage rebellion, the state news agency Xinhua is featuring a segment of selected tweeted and shared items to give its audience a glimpse of how China is portrayed around. The articles seem pretty anodyne and cherry-picked to cast the country in the best light, but then again most regimes have highly propagandised mouth-pieces. Learning of this and of the sobering, unfamiliar mirror universe of applications that the Chinese make do with reminded me of the living tradition of the “lectores”—that is, news-readers, of the Cuban cigar factories, which is a really rich and fascinating story in its own right. The scope is of course very different and attestedly, the individual whose job it was to read to the workers as they rolled cigars usually elevated by popular consent, there for the emendation of the others. The juxtaposition of someone first anchoring the national, official newspaper, however, and the moving on to literature in the afternoon—whether subversive, unvetted or otherwise, makes me wish that this broadcast feuilleton might prove just as entertaining and broadening.

colossus oder klaipėda

H and I had the chance years ago to explore the German Baltic coast (Ostsee) and camped in the shadow of the massive former sea-resort of Prora, constructed originally as an affordable and accessible destination for rest-and-recuperation for any German citizen by the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) programme. Kept off of the maps during the Cold War and being gradually remembered and re-discovered, East Germany employed the colossal structure as an army barracks, never recognising its past as a shell that represented Nazi ideals and coordinated equality with a summer-camp atmosphere, though capable of lodging some twenty-thousand adults with maybe a subtle (or less so) agenda that one can only speculate about.
The character of the installation was transformed during the regime, hosting elite schools of military specialties for paratroopers and a Warsaw-Pact version of the institutes of higher-learning for the armies of partner nations like Cuba, Sierra Leone and Jordan that were established in the Allgau of West Germany, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Oberammergau for NATO pedagogy, and then as housing for contentious-objectors who wanted no part of East German soldiering. As conscription was not something that one could easily test- or opt-out of, unwilling draftees were quartered in Prora and put to work on a neighbouring project that was East Germany's organically largest building projects, the train-ferry—I had no idea that such conveyances existed, that afforded East Germany a direct rail-link with the Soviet Union.
Undoubtedly, the region was strategically significant, with an ensemble that included the rocket facilities at Peenemünde, a naval submarine yard already and this harbour and gigantic boats that could accommodate several trains is an impressive site. The waterway formerly linked Saßnitz, a burrough known as Mukran, and itself a classic resort before becoming a garrison town and working its way back to courting tourism, much like Prora too, hosting a youth hostel, an eclectic museum and is seeing redevelopment as luxury apartments. This port that folded the separating sea away connected the railways with Klaipėda, today in Lithuania, and presently with the havens of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

spanish armada or tonkin ghosts

The story of America’s other non-contiguous state is also a fascinating one and how it came to be is impacted not just by time and tide (and volcanic eruptions) or even just simple avarice (as I assumed).  Neither was Manifest Destiny a universally accepted doctrine of the expanding Republic.  It is true that the Kingdom of Hawai’i was ultimately annexed by the United States due in part by agitators who owned plantations and backed supporters in the overthrow of the royal family.  The seated US government, however, under the leadership of anti-imperialists, was exonerated of any interference, both in unseating the monarchy or encouraging the new democracy (a very short-lived republic) to make the transition to accession as an American territory.   The timing of events during the late 1800s and culminating in 1903 were the ripples broadcast of a larger stratagem for America to assert its strength as a world power.  The interest and acquisition of the Pacific island group began with the Spanish-American War, a forgotten and long-distant conflict itself but responsible for many of these geological artefacts and discontinuities.  Prior to the US Civil War, successive regimes in the US were interested in obtaining Cuba, a colony of Spain, for its farmlands and to enslave its native population—rather than importing slaves from Africa.  Spain refused to sell to America at any price and America’s own intervening civil war put a halt to ambitions of empire for several years.

 After the Civil War ended, however, the idea for conquest was renewed, enervated in part by nascent revolts in Cuba towards Spanish rule, which had been going on for years.  America saw the chance to feed the unrest, aided by the yellow-journalism, sensational and negative press by reporters Pulitzer and Hearst (whose names now seem to epitomise just the opposite quality in reporting).  The mysterious sinking of an American battleship in Havana harbour pushed the American president, William McKinley, reluctant for war and with no interest in colony building until and unless America could solve her existing domestic problems, into all-out war with Spain.  Perhaps part of the American public’s appetite for war was paradoxically just emerging itself from a horrendous and prolonged conflict and wanted to unite in one cause—though not a very just or honourable one, and perhaps a cause also picked by munitions-manufacturers.  The theatre quickly spread from the Caribbean to Spain’s colonies in the Pacific, and after ten weeks, the crippled Spanish navy demanded peace be brokered.  The Treaty of Paris awarded the US all Spanish colonies outside those in Africa—sort of a pyric victory, though, as the engagement brought waves of epidemic illnesses back to the US and introduced the country to the concept of crusading, which it tried very hard to avoid and has never been able to shake since.  Independence was eventually given to Cuba (with the lease in perpetuity of fort in Guantánamo Bay), Panama and the Philippines (all had to fight for it and were the subjects of other wars) but much of the rest of America’s overseas holdings came as a result of this little war: Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Guam are among the islands that came into US control—American Samoa sort of got caught up in the wake.  Though Spain was no longer a threat to the US and the Philippines wanted to be dependent of the US and not vassal to some other foreign power, the US sought to incorporate Hawai’i for strategic reasons, as the island was approximately midway between mainland America and its most remote holdings.