write-in campaign (11. 198)

In a narrow, historic ruling by the state Supreme Court, justices in Colorado concluded that Donald Trump is barred from the primary ballot, citing the 1868 fourteenth constitutional amendment’s Civil War-era Disqualification Clause (see previously), for engaging in insurrection in encouraging the January Sixth attack on the US Capitol and threatening to overturn the electoral process. The campaign to re-election Trump immediately filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court to overturn the state’s decision. The decision includes a stay through the fifth of January, the deadline for inclusion in the state’s March Super Tuesday initial round of voting, to give Trump the chance to fight the ruling and if challenged by the high court, Trump’s name will be included on the ballot for the Republican primary. Should other states issue similar bans, it could make it difficult to impossible for Trump to secure the GOP nomination, though other Republican candidates are threatening to boycott Colorado altogether. President Biden is not included on the Democratic ballot for New Hampshire’s upcoming primary over a long-simmering dispute within the party about what states and regions should get the first say in determining how nominees will fare in the broader field and proposing to move the prime spot from New England to a more diverse location.

operation red dawn (11. 187)

Codenamed after the 1984 World War III invasion scenario of the US by a coalition of the Warsaw Pact and Latin American countries—starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as resistance-fighters—a task force of American soldiers apprehended deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on this day in 2003, having disappeared and gone into hiding shortly after the US invasion, discovered in his hometown of ad-Dawr near Tikrik, holed up in a foxhole or spider-whole with guns and three-quarters of a million dollars in cash. The site where Hussein was captured, Wolverine 2, is also a reference to the teenaged band of guerrilla fighters of the movie. Put before a special tribunal called by the provisional authority and interim government (which many characterised as a creature of American jurisdiction and a show trial not representative of an independent Iraq) six months later and found guilty of crimes against humanity for genocidal campaigns against the Kurdish and Shiite populations during the war with Iran and subsequently executed at the trial’s conclusion and having exhausted appeals in November of 2006.

the battle of versailles (11. 145)

Similar to the surprise coup of this other culture rafinée, high stakes challenge from earlier in the same year, the historic fashion show held on this day in 1973 at the famous venue in order to raise funds for its restoration. Organised by the museum and government forum’s curator, the event pitted French designers, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Carin, Marc Bolen and others against Americans Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston and Oscar de la Renta before an invited audience that consisted of artists and celebrities like Andy Warhol, Princess Grace, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, Jane Birkin, Liza Minnelli and Joséphine Baker (the last two performing for their respective sides). The show was legendary (more here) and the mostly French spectators were stunned with the American designs and models, a new benchmark set for representation with eleven Black women on the catwalk and shifting the industry in a way that brought respect and legitimacy for the US contribution and the palace which had seen better days was rebuilt.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Christopher Isherwood’s I am a Camera plus Word of the Year: Gaslight

two years ago: the duet from Dirty Dancing,  Advent season plus some COVID comic-relief

three years ago: your daily demon: Furcas, Trump at the kiddie-table, assorted links to revisit plus the Great Bed of Ware

four years ago: a visit to a local museum plus a Thanksgiving pageant

five years ago: barely maps plus a proposed change to the UN Security Council

l’etoile du nord (11. 140)

The state flag of Minnesota, as TYWKIWDBI informs, is undergoing a redesign (see previously here and here and here) to modernise the banner and refine the jumble of tiny symbols emblazoned within, keeping the lodestar but to the regret of many residents forgoing the loon and happily removing the imaging the of the Native American riding off into the sunset with a settler ploughing the field in the foreground. Subject to public input, the redesign will be finalised by the committee from a selection of six finalists by the new year. The clean abstract look reminds me of the flags of the prefectures of Japan—which whilst not uniform, do have a cohesive look to them and wonder if the rest of the American states ought not to follow this example of vexillological reform for more of a corporate branding. The flags of the German states, notwithstanding the coats-of-arms—which can be complicated affairs but follow the rules of heraldry or blocks of patterns, and are like the rule-of-thumb prescribes, recognisable and can be drawn from memory. More at the links above.

kid, have you rehabilitated yourself (11. 133)

Courtesy of Open Culture, we are treated to an animated version of Arlo Guthrie’s counter-culture Thanksgiving tradition—the talking blues spoken-word track for his eponymous 1967 album, a lightly embellished account of the artist’s arrest for littering, illegal dumping, a run-in with the law that jeopardised his suitability for the draft for the Vietnam War, the record protesting US involvement in the conflict. Alice Brock, the titular hostess, bailed Guthrie and his co-accomplice out of jail. Despite violent content and outdated, objectionable language bordering on slurs, no radio station observing the tradition of airing it on the holiday, no fine has ever been issued by the American Federal Communications Commission and with subsequent performances, the artist has changed a few lyrics and lines and inserted some topical asides. The arresting authority, William J “Officer Obei” Obanhein, whom became a life-long friend with Guthrie after the song was released, was a model for Norman Rockwell (previously) appearing as a police figure in his depiction of the inauguration of John F Kennedy and schools de-segregation but not, despite popular and fitting misconceptions, The Runaway, which featured another state trooper at Joe’s Diner in a neighbouring village.

the streisand effect (11. 124)

US teens and young adults are not stanning (the term itself taken rather ironically from an Eminem rap song as a portmanteau of stalker and fan about a fictional encounter with an obsessed, ardent admirer whose pleas to get the artist’s attention turn desperate and deadly and this complex and unsavoury form of adulation has been simplified into shorthand for something short of support and mild interest) terrorist and al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Rather this supposed trend of discovery on the escapingly recent past through bin Laden’s Letter to America is a moral panic triangulated with an unrelenting attack on the TikTok platform for its virality and tenuous connections to the Chinese government and the war in Palestine and generational division, and raises serious questions about how we can (selectively) gauge shares and views and how exposure (propelled in part through censorship and timorous outrage) is different from indoctrination.

constructive ambiguity (11. 113)

Credited as the prime negotiation tactic of US diplomat Henry Kissinger, employed both as a way to mask an irreconcilable impasse when sides remain far apart on an issue and as a means for both parties to save face and claim concessions from the other. Postponing true resolution is in retrospect disparaged as papering over systemic and deeper conflicts for its tendency for subsequent eruption for a temporary stay. Examples include the Shanghai Communiqué, considered America’s first expression of the one-China policy during Nixon’s visit and the so called “Six-Point Agreement”—both brokered by Kissinger—and the latter signed on this day in 1973 at the Kilometre 101 of the Cairo-Suez highway. At inroads after the first phase of peace talks to end the Yom Kippur War achieved little progress in de-escalation with the encirclement of the Egyptian army by the Israeli Defence Forces and neither side willing to withdraw. Provision B of the settlement was ambiguously worded so as to incentivise further negotiations to go back to status quo, which both sides choose to interpret as favourable to their cause: Egypt as clear mandate that Israel would surrender its claim on their territory and for Israel a disentanglement of belligerents without the obligation for capitulation.

per dexter, per fichtée (11. 081)

Despite the proscription in the US against royal titles, many past American presidents have employed personal coats-of-arms, either through inheritance or as foreign honours from heraldic authorities. The last president to hold a such a heraldic achievement was William Jefferson Clinton bestowed on him by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1995 at the behest of the Taoiseach in honour of his Irish heritage. The azure anchor of the crest bares the word SPES (Latin for Hope) as an allusion to Clinton’s hometown and campaign platform and the motto below, “The Lion carries away the Branch.” While the Trump Organisation and his Scottish golf course have corporate arms, they were not granted or sanctioned by any competent authority.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: further adventures plus unblogged Crete

two years ago: your daily demon: Shax, Gulliver’s Travels plus more on being in the flow state

three years ago: the Greek flag adopted, priority group mall Santas, the short films of Al Jarnow, a pizza chain’s logo plus a home-makeover for the Simpsons

four years ago: a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere, a mundane Halloween plus The Millennial Raven

five years ago: a day-trip to Frankfurt plus assorted links to revisit

a conference divided (11. 065)

Entering its third week without a leader, the US House of Representatives’ Republican forerunner for the gavel and Speaker of the House, a hard right conservative, Trump apologists and noted obstructionist, having blocked far more legislation than sponsored, failed to secure the required majority with some rather brave GOP hold-outs refusing to allow Congress to fall further into the control of a radical minority element of the party. Despite not having secured the commitment of other fellow Republicans for support, the vote was brought to the floor, hoping that a public forum would draw the ire of their constituents in a rather unprecedented campaign for a congressional leadership role. Under pressure to fill the vacant role of House Speaker, Congress is unable to introduce new bills and severely handicaps its ability to address immediate concerns of funding the government with a looming deadline in mid-November, approving the appointment of ambassadors and military commanders or for extending aid and armaments to allies of two wars.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the BBC at 100, rallying against the totalitarian regime in Iran plus a gallery of nightmare art

two years ago: an obtunded opportunity, your daily demon: Velar, Toto’s Africa plus Video Killed the Radio Star

three years ago: International Necktie Day, more musical mashups, more mushrooming, drills for the zombie apocalypse plus put our service to the test

four years ago: the Peaceful Revolution of East Germany,  a font inspired by Greta Thunberg, more US gun violence plus prayer goes digital

five years ago: International Credit Union Day, Big Bird retires plus the Postal Illuminati

9x9 (11. 055)

the witch of positano: a portrait of Bohemian original Vali Myers who inspired Tennessee Williams and danced for Donovan’s signature song, charging one Nubian goat for her performance  

hotel california: legacy luxury in Kabul now jointly run by the Taliban and their quiet dissenters—via Web Curios  

the mysterious land of the grimaults: another look at The Saga of the Viking Women and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent  

the rest vs the west: proven tech ventures that rival occidental offerings 

my coffee with niles: a meta episode of Frasier remade in the style of one hundred thirty animators and filmmakers  

watermeal: world’s smallest flowering plant could play an outsized role in interplanetary exploration  

don’t crash the pips: the Canadian Broadcasting Company discontinues the long dash time signal—see also  

unauthorised build: this “illegal” LEGO construction bends conventions  

nightclub school: The New Romantics and 80s youth subculture  

synchronoptica

one year ago: another MST3K classic,  the world’s first personal data protection law plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: your daily demon: Focalor, The Style Council plus a psychedelic design collective

three years ago: a fashion show with puppets plus Witchtok community doing the Lord’s Work

four years ago: the introduction of the Ampelmännchen (1961), more links to revisit plus more mushroom finds

five years ago: democracy by lottery, vintage Sainsbury’s packaging plus a music video from Bob Sinclar

méthode polonaise (11. 054)

Pedagogue and prominent adherent of Transcendentalism, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody founded the first kindergarten in the United States, and a vocal advocate that play over rote memorisation ought to be privileged in education and introduced many new ideas into the standard curriculum and public discourse, including the rights and roles of women in society and especially noted for the so called Polish System of Antoni Jażwiński popularised by engineer General Józef Bem. This grid system with a prescribed colour and symbol key to follow that although forgotten in modern teaching but very much en vogue for a time across Europe by allowing students to visualise and intuit the assigned chronology, as with parallel methods (see also) of making historical events readily approachable, optically, using their eyes and homework as “feeders to the reservoir of the mind.” These centographs were coded in a similar fashion to flow charts to indicate conflicts, conquests, conspiracies, unions and truces to make otherwise inaccessible historical events (beyond the grasp of living memory) a creative exercise in plotting and more conducive to learning. More from Futility Closet at the link up top.

speaker pro tempore (11. 037)

In stark contrast to the fifteen rounds of voting that it took for McCarthy to secure his conditional speakership, radical members of his own party in Congress sided with the Democratic opposition to abruptly end his shaky nine month tenure, instigated by representative Matt Gaetz, ostensibly for while making good on his promise to launch an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden negotiating with Democratic lawmakers to avert a government shutdown with a stopgap funding bill. Gaetz was possibly also motivated by a personal vendetta against the California congressman for an ethics investigation against the junior Florida statesman over misuse of campaign funds, sexual misconduct and drugs use which McCarthy as House leader allowed to proceed. This unprecedented removal leaves the lower house of legislators without a chair in control, making it more difficult to bring bills and administrative proceedings to the floor, and as chaotic and unruly as Congress was under McCartney, his replacement may turn out to be much worse.

8x8 (11. 031)

11/9/1989 - 9/11/2001: a thoroughgoing, reflective essay examining the fateful decade defined, bookended by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the September 11 Terror Attacks—via Web Curios  

hail and well met: the surprisingly radical roots of the Renaissance Fair that emerged during McCarthyism and the Red Scare—via Miss Cellania  

whom of which: an interesting and divisive syntactical formation  

imperial airways: Harry Beck’s iconic Underground map for scheduled flight routes—via Things Magazine  

tapped out: a passive approach to desalination that can produce safe and cheap potable water without disrupting the ocean’s natural haline balance—via Kottke  

wassermusik: a tonal analysis of waterfalls  

mr dressup: a documentary about world of make-believe of Ernie Coombs, the Canadian counterpart to Mister Rodgers (previously)  

sleepless in seattle: a scrolling narrative on the invisible epidemic of loneliness and isolation experienced by many Americans—via Waxy

synchronoptica

one year ago: ethernet, Business!, assorted links to revisit, more on the Scunthorpe problem plus Putin addresses the nation

two years ago:  a very distasteful sitcom plus revisiting the Colossus of Rügen

three years ago: memorialising the shame of Canada’s residential school policy,  International Translation Day, passive voice and reflexive forms, digital world address maps, deconstructing American exceptionalism plus more botanical epithets

four years ago: a farewell to Bauhaus, a remedial lesson on separating one’s trash plus the World Clock of Berlin’s Alexanderplatz (1969)

five years ago: a recipe for mushrooms, BBC Radio 4 (1967), a Chinatown edition of Monopoly plus Leoind and Friends cover Earth, Wind and Fire

faithless electors (11. 008)

Limning an outcome quite possibly even more fraught than the mandate of a decisive Trump victory in 2024 in terms of undermining the credulity in American democracy, we learn about the mechanism called a contingent election activated—and already clearly in the ballot calculus unpalatable to a broad majority of the public—when no candidate can claim the threshold (two hundred-seventy out of five hundred thirty-eight) of Electoral College appointees—either through numerical losses or contested results. Congress, with each state delegation voting together—one could only imagine how a consensus is reached, votes for the president with senators individually casting their ballots for vice-president, reflecting a convention when there was not always a party ticket and those officers were often antagonistic rather than aligned. Historically these special elections have been invoked three times in the early nineteenth century—once for a tie, once for a ballot split between four candidates and once—for the office of vice president where electors refused to endorse the nominee against the popular and electoral results and force the House to decide. Though a century after the fact in the case of the last such special election, inauguration and congressional term dates were shifted in 1933 to avoid giving outgoing members this franchise and rather leaving in to the incoming legislative.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a photo from Voyager I that puts everything in perspective, St Joseph of Cupertino, photographer Harold Feinstein plus triangulating Instagram

two years ago: your daily demon: Stolas,  anthrax in the mail, arcade animations, more on Wikipedia edit-wars plus post-Brexit UK planning to return to Imperial Measurements

three years ago: vaporware and its antecedents, “producing geese,” “without worries,” the Interkosmos Group plus AI tries to create a universal and enduring warning for the ages

four years ago: US congress debates abolishing the Electoral College, taboos surrounding talking about death, Germany Calling! plus flight-shaming and train-bragging

five years ago: keep-sakes,  assorted links to revisit plus a hydrogen powered locomotive

motion to vacate (11. 001)

In the face of another US government shutdown over perceived cultural agendas, vacant military leadership roles by a single senator opposed to the armed forces providing reproductive care to service members and diminished deadlines over internecine posturing with bald majority of only a few party members, the beleaguered Speaker of the House whose appointment was conditional and easily unseated is making further concessions and pandering to the malcontents by pursuing an impeachment inquiry into the Biden administration, couching his justification in the belief that the president mislead the public about his family’s foreign business relations, with tinny and circumstantial echoes of the self-dealing of the Trump crime family syndicate. 

Conservative elements in the Republican Party want to oust McCarthy as leader for negotiating with Biden over the debt ceiling standoff and now the same group a threatening to force a government shutdown, unless a formal impeachment inquiry is launched—the GOP having wanted to eject Biden on any pretext since the election with the attack on the Capitol and the false narrative accompanying the vote, spurious lawsuits, the withdrawal from Afghanistan—which his predecessor also instigated, Biden’s handling of the immigration crisis but are now turning to old developments over unsubstantiated allegations that the president’s son used his father’s influence and position to secure wealth for himself (Trump was impeached the first time for badgering the Ukrainian president for dirt on Biden and his son, threatening to withhold military aid if Zelenskyy could not produce) to build a case, brought unilaterally by the Speaker himself since there are not the votes in support to bring the motion to the chamber.

hot labor summer (10. 983)

Amid ongoing strike actions by the Hollywood Writers’ Guild and pushes to unionise workers for increased leverage in bargaining with big manufacturers and retailers and the growing precarity of news outlets, this round-up and review on the US observance of Labor Day (see previously here and here) presents both hopeful and fraught factors for the movement’s reception and success. While a strong jobs market and with historically low unemployment has advantaged many workers in many industries and has momentum, changing paradigms, which companies can cite with varying levels of credulity, like generative content, cloning (the last time actors in 1960 joined the writers, a six-week stoppage awarded creators residuals from re-runs and syndication) as well as shifting to less labour-intensive manufacturing techniques—electric vehicles take few machinists to build and maintain, signalling major changes in productivity and the makeup of the workforce. While many in the US give vocal support to the ideal of unions, only ten percent of workers belong to one and the US Supreme Court has issued recent decisions that erode the right of workers to strike when negotiations, stalled and forced into a stalemate by business executives sold on technological utopias that have failed in many cases to materialise. The empires of off-license lodgings, gastronomy and taxi cabs haven’t translated to savings for consumers and are either petty kingdoms or indentured servitude for providers and streaming is just as expensive, exclusive, walled-off as cable or the studio-system. This changing posture of course has global implications and could further undermine workers’ rights.

elephant in the room (10. 961)

Beginning with counter-programming parallel to the actual televised Republican primary debate in the form of an interview with fired Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and staging an encore the next day with his arrest and release on bail in Georgia that will surely negate the spectacle and grandstanding, Trump was conspicuously absent from this quorum of contenders, carefully vying for cabinet positions yet haunted the pundits and hopefuls who could focus their attacks on a surrogate, political outsider and Trump apologist in the form of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy—described by Fox hosts as a “skinny guy with a funny last name,” exactly the same words used for Barack Obama. While not a forgone conclusion, Trump calculated sitting out this debate would be to his advantage, leading the polls for the GOP nominee by a compelling majority, with his major rival, Florida governor and cultural-crusader DeSantis seeming much diminished in this forum. And while the split-screen seemed not garner the attention wanted or expected, all but one of the candidates pledged (albeit meekly) to support Trump for re-election should he be convicted on one or all of his four indictments and ninety-one criminal charges and no one on stage really addressed policy but rather personality and credentials.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links to revisit plus the party’s response to the 1991 attempted coup in the Soviet Union

two years ago: more links to enjoy, ant architecture plus Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

three years ago: cocktails for on-line courses, the International Garden PoTY plus vintage Soviet pop

four years ago: a sorceress’ trove found in Pompeii 

five years ago: Kalashnikov makes an electric vehicle,  a White House press briefing, drought in Europe reveals ominous Hunger Stones plus one community’s fight to keep a fast food giant at bay

wattstax (10. 953)

The name a play on the Woodstock festival, the benefit concert to commemorate the seventh anniversary 1965 Watts Riots and help the community and organised by Stax Records with all the label’s biggest stars took place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on this day in 1972, selected for coinciding with the thirtieth birthday of major talent Isaac Hayes. Spanning the musical genres of soul, funk, blues and jazz and included sets by Kim Weston, The Staple Singers, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, Ernie Hines, Hayes and The Bar-Kays. Invocation and various speeches were given by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. Tickets priced at a suggested donation of one dollar so everyone could attend, the festival was filmed by David Lloyd Wolper (the producer by the television mini-series Roots, North and South, and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 LA Olympics) and released the following year to high acclaim.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to a potash mine

two years ago: Davy Jones & The Lower Third (1965), more miniatures from Tatsuya Tanaka plus links worth revisiting

three years ago: more words of Shakespearian coinage, quality control officers, the August Coup in Russia (1991) plus the ravens of the Tower of London miss the tourists

four years ago: a classic from Miles Davis (1959), a disembodied hand dominates the skyline in Wellington plus the plague of e-scooters

five years ago: dawn in the woods, the logos of Paul Rand, an on-screen marriage ceremony that may have been legally binding, winning-streaks plus Soviets crush reform attempts in Czechoslovakia (1968)

rico (10. 944)

Ex-president Trump and a cadre of his closest confidantes were indicted by the state of Georgia on forty-one counts of racketeering and conspiracy charges to subvert his loss during the 2020 campaign, the eighteen other defendants including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, justice department official Jeffrey Clark, election lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro as well as a slate of rogue “fake electors” that certified Trump as the winning candidate. The charges stem from a solicitation to break an oath of by Trump’s infamous directive to the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” him the needed votes, pressuring other election officials and breaching electronic ballot machines to undermine confidence in the democratic process. This represents Trump’s fourth indictment and because it was initiated on the state and not the federal level and potential re-appointment to high office and the opportunity for self-pardon would not make these charges go away.

barrel traps or buoy knife (10. 938)

Though it kind of seems otherwise, we know we haven’t dedicated more reportage to the Texas governor’s pontoon-bridge to deter immigration from México than Trump’s bombastic Border Wall. The prop is political pandering of course to worst elements of the Republican Party’s constituents assembled by subcontractors and will likely break apart and damage infrastructure or be disassembled as a violation of international law. We did not know, however, that between the orange buoys, there’s a circular saw, nearly hidden from sight. Barbaric and overly-aggressive, calling this modern enhancement medieval is unfair to our pre-Enlightenment progenitors, and as with machines of torture back then, there was no industrial push to equip every castle with chamber of horrors with threat and rumour being more coercive and corrective and the surplus of such devices the handiwork of enterprising tour guides. Something as gruesome as the Iron Maiden was misconstrued reconstruction of the much tamer—yet humiliating Schandmantel (Coat of Shame—a wooden vessel sometimes lined with metal on the inside to be worn for punishment) which has an analogue in the image of the bankruptcy barrel. The Texas implements of inhumanity are very real. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Scientology’s Sea Org Day, the first Model-T (1908) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: Willy Wonka (1971), the closing ceremony of the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, an exhibit of ephemera from events cancelled due to COVID, a Roman fast food kiosk, a WikiHow illustration worth a thousand words, a handbag inspired by a pasta box plus Avon paperbacks

three years ago: more on the new US Space Force, the Democratic ticket, the first IBM PC plus the martagon lily

four years ago: preparing to revisit the Bretagne  

five years ago: the cart before the horse, silver thistles plus a photograph from Art Kane featuring the Harlem music scene