9x9 (13. 308)

ruina montium: an striking landscape in Spain created by the ancient Romans fracking for gold—via Miss Cellania  

13 ｘ 7 = 28: Abbot and Costello try to meet their sales quota—via MetaFilter 

i’m your hell, i’m your dream—i’m nothing in between: a linguistic and semantic history of the term bitch 

anatoly kolodkin: US waives sanctions to allow Russian tanker to deliver crude oil to Cuba  

coalition of the willing: recalling the legacy Icelandic PM Davíð Oddsson of committing the nation to the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, juxtaposed with contemporary Spain  

cocktail nation: Spy Vibe’s regular segment on swank vintage soundtracks  

lip-filler accent: influencers inform the way we speak—via Nag on the Lake, see also  

gigo: AI is an accelerant for academic fraud, selling papers and citations to pad one’s portfolio  

unoosa: a profile of the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs who alerts the world of impending asteroid impacts

day thirty-one (13. 307)

Accused of duplicitous behaviour by publicly supporting indirect negotiations through Pakistani emissaries whilst at the same time plotting a ground invasion, Trump expresses in an interview his preference to take Iran’s oil, drawing parallels to the US capture of Venezuela where they say America has indefinite control of that country’s petroleum output and saying that the seizure of Kharg Island is among his many options, including taking the country’s stocks of enriched uranium.  Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have hit a UN peacekeeping convoy, killing an Indonesian member as the IDF is ordered to expand its buffer zone on the southern border. Palm Sunday processions cancelled in Jerusalem over the war, Pope Leo rebukes the Trump administration for Holy Week, saying that God rejects the prayers of war-mongers. Iran’s Supreme Leader, still not seen in public since his elevation, thanked the people of Iraq for their solidarity in the face of aggression as a supply train of the Shia militia is seen crossing into Iran. Oil prices continue to surge as world wide stock markets fall.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: new design for the Swiss passport (with synchronopticæ), AI stealing artists’ styles, a classic guide to fleeing America plus renewed attacks on pride celebrations

 

twelve years ago: a visit to Hünfeld, patriotic austerity, Vulcan hairstyles plus the purchase of Alaska

 

fifteen years ago: potential for US government insolvency 

 

sixteen years ago: German-Turkish relations 

day twenty-three (13. 284)

As Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic to non-enemy ships, Trump faces duelling deadlines with two ultimatums delivered Saturday: one either Iran allow all cargo through the vital waterway or face destruction of all domestic energy infrastructure; and two, political but very much related, to congress, either pass voting reforms that would federalise elections or ICE agents will be deployed in US airports. Rather than being cowed into submissions, both opposition parties seem to be taking the longer view, Trump the sole owner of this chaos and its consequences. Despite a near total internet blackout for Iran with start of the war, a carry over from government protests, Tehran seems to be able to strike back on that front as well. The remaining peace-keepers from the NATO mission to Iraq have been evacuated to western Europe.  Israel, Iran and Hezbollah continue to exchange missile strikes, with the UN calling for restraint following bombardment of nuclear facilities and demolition has begun on neighbours near the Israeli border with Lebanon. The US administration roll back more sanctions on Russian petroleum to ease supply pressure.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Sylvanian Families (with synchronopticæ), returning to the Moon facing delays over DEI and DOGE plus a pioneering simulcast

twelve years ago: encrypting one’s DNA, fairs of East Germany plus bio-tech harvests

thirteen years ago: the Cypriot financial crisis 

fifteen years ago: World Water Day

sixteen years ago: reading movies 

blue shield (13. 265)

Coming into force in 1956 and ratified by one thirty eight member states, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, party to every belligerent involved in the current conflagration but not always respected as with the Red Cross designating a hospitals and humanitarian activities, Iran has unfurled scores of the emblems on museums, holy and historical sites across the country as a message that this is not a strategic target. Whilst modern militaries maintain their own “no strike” lists with varying degrees of selective accuracy and there’s no way to control the legitimate use of the shield, the effort is laudable as it does add a layer of responsibility for aggressors and those seeking protection. Pictured is the Tomb of classical Persian poet Baba Tahir in Hamadan in midwestern Iran, which also hosts the burial places of philosopher and polymath Avicenna and Queen Ester as well as being the birthplace of Wojtek the bear.

operation epstein fury (13.221)

The UN calling for an emergency meeting of the security council over the joint Israeli-US strikes on Iran, prompting retaliatory attacks on US military bases in the Persian Gulf theatre, leaders worldwide calling for deescalation that may push the region the region into a humanitarian, economic and even a radiological crisis, and Trump, having grown bored with talks despite the advice of top brass, urged the people of Iran, in a pre-recorded message, to shelter in place until the government of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is decapitated and then rise up and take over the government—as their only chance in generations—and for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to surrender or face certain death, instigated violent regime change along with his cohort on the Board of Peace. The timing of the strikes, amidst ongoing negotiations, though taking place on the sabbath, could be significant for the Netanyahu government, as just head of the holiday of Purim, commemorating the intervention of Queen Ester (see previously) who foiled the plans of the royal vizier to assassinate the Persian king (having been picked out of a lineup of the fairest in the land, without knowing her heritage, the king—possibly the historical Artaxerxes—having demoted the previous queen, Vashti, for her refusal to “display her beauty” to court during a drunken feast and embarrassing him) and his plans to put to death the entire minority populace within the empire. Interceding and protecting her king on behalf of her people, Esther could not nullify the previous decree as it was already issued but is allowed by the king to put out new orders, commanding that they might preemptively kill those aligned the scheming vizier, eliminating some seventy-five thousand potential attackers. The US special military operation is called Epic Fury with the Israeli side named Roaring Lion.

mother tongue (13. 200)

Established by UNESCO in 1999 in honour of the 1952 movement of East Bengal to have their language recognised as official rather than provincial and leading to the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh from the Pakistani territories, the United Nations annual observance of International Mother Language Day is established to promote worldwide linguistic and cultural diversity as well as polyglotism. Al Jazeera presents and overview of the spoken languages of the world, writing systems and the status of many minority languages, including diglossia between officialdom and convention and endangered ones—forty percent of the estimated seven-thousand extant ones. Defined as when parents-users begin to pass on a more dominant parlance to their children, threatening proficiency and identity, most are in Oceania, Asia and Africa, including some on their way to a come-back owing to community-led revitalisation programmes like Yugambeh of Australia (the exonym meaning “no means no” and preferring the endonym Mibanah for “the sound of eagles”), the Ainu language of Japan’s indigenous peoples (an isolate considered to be functionally extinct) and the moribund Kernowek language of Cornwall. In the spirit of the observance, adopt a word from one of these languages.

a child of europe (13. 180)

Although greeted with relief and applause, mounting the low-bar of last year’s gathering which seemed like the nadir of transatlantic relations with much transpiring in the intervening twelve months, the tone of the speech delivered by US secretary of state Marco Rubio on the second day of the Munich Security Conference was hardly conciliatory and sent the telegraphed the same message of no partnership among equals but rather an alliance framed in Trump’s vision and terms. Saying the president did not want a weakened continent saddled with guilt and shame, Rubio went on, “We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline”—seeking not to cause division but to revitalise and renew civilisation, stoking old tropes of racisms and xenophobia and replacement. “What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognises that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency”—citing as among those shared historic missteps for which now the US has made amends was the “climate cult,” prioritising the welfare state over national defence, globalisation and a belief in staid institutions no longer fit for purpose, with a final plug for Trump’s Board of Peace as a more effective and agile replacement for the United Nations. These are hardly soothing words.

prespa accord (13. 170)

The short form of the United Nations sponsored treaty named for the lake at the tripoint of the borders of Greece, the then Republic of Macedonia (referred to by the exonym FYROM, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to avoid controversy of the appearance of endorsement or sometimes heavy-handedly as the Republic of Skopje) and Albania, Final Agreement for the settlement of differences as described in the UN Security Council resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the termination of the Interim Accord of 1995 and the establishment of a strategic partnership between the Parties came into effect on this day in 2019, resolving a long-standing dispute beginning in 1991 following the dissolution of Yugoslavia into its constituent nations. Stemming from the ambiguity of the neighbouring Greek Balkan region and the ancient kingdom of Macedon, Greece insisted upon a geographic qualifier to be used erga omnes (by all…and for all purposes, internal and external), citing concerns of border disputes and the cultural appropriation, symbols like the Vergina Sun (now the icon of the parliament of the Hellenes) and the legacy of Alexander the Great, to stoke sentiments of irredentism (ирреденти́зм, αλυτρωτισμός—coined from the Italian, unredeemed, for territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that they felt belonged to “Greater Italy” and should be rightfully annexed on the basis of ethnic continuity). Contingent on the terms of the agreement, Northern Macedonia entered NATO.

8x8 (13. 069)

leturfræði: an exploration of the graphic design heritage of Iceland through its greatest, recently departed historian  

shoyu-tai: a fibre-based soy sauce single-serve container as an alternative to disposable plastic droppers  

unfcc: Trump administration announces withdrawal from dozens of United Nations chartered organisations, saying their mission does not align with the US agenda  

i’m t?w?e?n?t?y?-f?i?v?e?: artist records one word per day for a reflection on the passage of time 

amour-propre: Chinese buzzword of the year 爱你牢记 (ai ni laoji, love yourself, my dear)—see previously 

hemlock: Texas university has forbidden a professor from teaching a course on Plato  

anodyne: a Singapore based technology company invents biodegradable, paper batteries that rely on no rare earths  

gobelins: the famed French school of animation has a YouTube channel that features student films

unga resolution 3379 (12. 868)

Adopted by the United Nations’ General Assembly on this day in 1975, the infranational body determined that Zionism was a form of racial discrimination a year after taking up the Question of Palestine and inviting the Palestine Liberation Organisation at seat at the table (see previously) in the milieu of the declaration of 1963 to eliminate all forms of racism, which had condemned the nationalist and expansionist policies of the Israeli government. Despite notable abstentions, the measure passed, though ultimately rescinded in 1991, in hope of forwarding the peace process and respecting boundaries drawn up in 1948 with the original partition of the UN mandate. Resolution 46/86 revoked the previous designation, raised under pressure from the United States and Israel, saying that the UN was not in keeping with its role and founding mission in challenging Israel’s right to exist. The rescission was later welcomed by Secretary Kofi Annan, living with the legacy of apartheid, calling the stance from a half-century ago deplorable and antisemitic.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ), the Bear of California plus Trump’s grievances

twelve years ago: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock illustrated, observing evolution plus a trip to Mainz

thirteen years ago: parts of speech and other systems of classification 

fourteen years ago: EU financial integration 

fifteen years ago: quantitative easing plus Germany’s rejection of nuclear power

seventeen years ago: a tour of local castles 

your county is going to fail, and i’m really good at predicting things (12. 752)

Speaking second after his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the few world leaders standing up to his bombast and bullying—who pointedly referenced extrajudicial strikes on supposed Argentinian drug-runners in international waters and lamented how the Palestinian delegation had no representation at the General Assembly, the host nation having denied entry visas, the first such barring since 1998 when PLO head Yasser Arafat was blocked from attending an the United Nations held the plenary meeting in Geneva instead, the forum having seen quite a few displays, particularly during the Cold War with Khrushchev removing his shoe to bang it on the podium, to the exclusion and sidelining of none—Trump took to the stage with no sense of self-awareness or sympathy for the crowd of co-equals and moral and mental betters to evangelise (painfully embarrassing like before in 2017 and 2018 and not memorable like the above breach of protocol by the Soviet head of state) well over his allotted fifteen minutes on the rostrum. Perhaps insinuating sabotage, the US president joked about the out-of-order escalator and broken teleprompter, then proceeding to give a lengthy outline of his successes, unbidden, beginning with his historic trade deals, the seven wars he claims to have ended in his second term alone, expanding further in foreign affairs, claiming that the US was developing a AI verification system to counter bio-weapons, and then blaming the UN for failing to promote peace and that its policies of immigration and open-boarders were consigning Western nations to hell. The last outrage was Trump again airing his denialism of the climate catastrophe, calling it a hoax, a con job and clean energy a “green scam”—drawing audible gasps in the chamber. The mood was far from collegial with all criticism launched towards traditional allies and little reserved for adversaries of the post-war world order, the body gathered to mark its eightieth anniversary. No American president’s remarks was over time and Trump’s disgusting tirade comes in third to Arafat’s 1974 address and the epic five-hour filibuster by Fidel Castro in 1960.

sword of damocles (11. 869)

On this day in 1961, US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered his address to the UN General Assembly, amidst the recent and unexpected death of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld and anxiety over posturing and sabre-rattling over the paused negotiations towards disarmament. In his forty-five minute exhortation, Kennedy praises the intra-national organisation and challenges the bipolar world to turn an arms race into a race for peace:

But to give this organisation [the Troika, the principals, the US, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, on nuclear test bans] three drivers—to permit each Great Power to decide its own case, would entrench the Cold War in the headquarters of peace. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. For we far prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of mass extermination.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons—ten million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on earth—is a source of horror, and discord, and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes—for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And man may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness—for in a spiralling arms race, a nation’s security may be shrinking, even as its arms increase.

For fifteen years, this organisation has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream—it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

Listen to or watch the entire stirring speech at the link above. We think the rhetoric could also speak to contemporary events and the climate catastrophe, also hanging by a thread over us all and severed by wilful ignorance, neglect and misinformation.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a blogoversary of note (with synchronoptica) plus some ruinous remixes

seven years ago: right wing elements gain influence in the Bundestag plus film cuts mimic visual perception

eight years ago: Idiocracy was not supposed to be prophetic plus phantom islands

nine years ago: data-plans and Roman calendars plus innovations in 3D printing

ten years ago: an early version of the Line (with greenhouses), Roman emperor Caracalla plus a graffiti gallery

32/40 b (11. 148)

Commemorated since 1978 on the anniversary of the passage of the United Nations resolution 181 on the partition of Mandatory Palestine, which proposed the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states with a special, international regime governing the city of Jerusalem, the UN-organised observance, a day of solidarity, calls for immediate steps to be taken to grant the Palestinian people full sovereignty and independence. The declaration also established a commission to study The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem to couch regional conflict and contemporary violence and displacement in terms of historical perspectives and past miscalculation and transgression.

unfccc (10. 377)

Adopted on this day twenty-five years ago with a nearly eight year period for signatory states to curb greenhouse emissions, the Kyoto Protocol—an extension of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, which first acknowledges anthropogenic climate change and sets forth a legally-binding plan to mitigate the seven most damaging industrial and agricultural gases and reduce concentrations down to a level that would no longer interfere with natural, prevailing weather systems. Further recognising that individual parties have different capabilities in the front of combating climate change, the treaty informs a common goal but with graduated responsibilities. The protocol was superseded by the Paris Agreement in 2015 after years of annual renegotiations and richer companies resorting to carbon-offsets (see also) rather than genuine progress.

nansen-pass

First issued on this day in 1922 under sanction of the League of Nations—and officially designated as passports for stateless persons but quickly became popularly known for their chief champion, polar explorer, polymath and statesman Fridtjof Nansen (previously)—these travel documents were a way of mitigating the turmoil in Europe after World War I which lead to a crisis of displaced persons, refugees resulting from the overthrow of governments, redrawn national boundaries, and advanced ultimately by the announcement by the newly constituted Soviet Union that it would be revoking the citizenship of Russians residing abroad—applying also to the nearly one-million individuals who fled during the civil war. Two years later, Nansen in his role at the League of Nations as High Commissioner for Refugees (earning him a Nobel Peace Prize), expanded the arrangement tto include former areas of the Ottoman Empire and help Armenian and Turkish migrants. While issuance halted in 1938, under the auspices of the United Nations certificates of identity and refugee travel documents continue to be a necessity. Notable bearers of Nansen passports include Igor Stravinsky, Elvis Presley’s agent Colonel Tom Parker, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, Marc Chagall and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

ꦉ

Co-founded by Stephen Hawking, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May and other former astronauts and technologists with the sanction of the United Nations, International Asteroid Day is an annual observance meant to promote awareness about the minor planets of the inner Solar System and the threats that these near-Earth objects can pose for cataclysm and ways to mitigate the vulnerability through close monitoring. 30 June was chosen as the date as it marks the anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska Event in the Eastern Siberia Taiga, an estimated twelve megaton explosion that flattened two thousand square kilometers of forest caused by the air burst of a meteoroid, devastating for local wildlife but spared greater catastrophe by dint of the region being sparsely populated by humans.

pridnestrain

Coinciding with the intensified fighting of the Transnistrian conflict that marked the beginning of the Moldo-Russian war between Russian supported separatists and pro-union Moldovan military and police forces, that country along with San Marino and fellow former Soviet republics Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan join the United Nations on this day in 1992 during the forty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

3 sutton place

The Burmese diplomat appointed as United Nations Secretary-General after the unexpected death of Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 declining overtures for a third-term, U Thant (သန့်, U being an honorific title and not a first or family name) stepped down on this day in 1971, having facilitated negotiations between Khrushchev and Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, intervened to avoid a chaotic break-up of Congo, overseeing the end of colonial rule for many states in Asia and Africa and was a vocal critic of America’s actions in Vietnam. His successor taking office on 1 January 1972, Kurt Waldheim—in 1986 during some opposition research whilst running for the Austrian presidency (which he won) was revealed to have been a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II—secured the seat accidentally after several rounds of the Security Council conclave failed to produce a winning candidate and three of the four member states with veto power (the USSR backed Waldheim) failed to coordinate their override and abstained instead. After Waldheim left office, incumbency was limited to two terms.

a carol for another christmas

Commissioned by the United Nations and intended to be the first of a planned series of television specials to educate the public about the its mission and foster global cooperation, the modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol by Rod Serling (previously) aired on this day in 1964, the Joseph L. Mankiewicz not shown again until December 2012. The score is by Henry Mancini and stars Sterling Hayden and Eva Marie Saint.

where all are brothers—none faceless others

First performed on this day in 1971 at the behest of then Secretary-General U Thant for the organisation’s twenty-sixth anniversary, a Hymn to the United Nations with words based of the charter’s preamble by W. H. Auden set to music by cellist and composer Pau Casals was not officially adopted by the supranational body, as Thant intended—to be played before special occasions and further efforts to create a formal anthem were never pursued. 

At last it is,
Where even sadness
Is a form of gladness,
Where fate is freedom,
Grace and Surprise.