millennial saint (12. 415)

Beatified and with the confirmation of a second miracle attributed to his intercession, the canonisation of blessed Carlo Acutis, a teenager and avid gamer (though imposing limits on himself to an hourly weekly as an ascetic) and burgeoning influence (whose bandwidth is increased in the repose of the saints, noted for his devotion to the Eucharist, hitting when the time is ripe for inculcating into trad- and pious ways which appeal to many), was originally scheduled to be canonised on this day but the death of Pope Francis means the matter is left to his predecessor. I wonder who played the devil’s advocate for this hearing. Sadly succumbing aged fifteen to leukaemia, Acutis had created several websites for local parishes for outreach and volunteer engagement and another prize-winning project that documented all miracles, guardian angels and Marian apparitions, demonstrating from a young age a keen interest in hagiography, particularly the life of St Francis of Assisi, where he was eventually entombed in the Sanctuary of the Spoliation of Santa Maria Maggiore, his funeral and memorial mass attended lapsed Catholics, especially young people that had abandoned the Church. It is not yet determined what Acutis’ patronage will be exactly but one can make educated guesses. His relics and body on display exhibit the incorruptibility of the holy—some of which is owing to an expert embalming job. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), the Hobby Computer Club of Leiden plus Lego Lost at Sea

seven years ago: the Japanese domestic automarket, nightingale floors, North and South Korea accords, a unique bicycle design, America’s balloon lobby plus typographer Herb Lubalin

eight years ago: der Kuss, AI safeguards, an AI outfitter, the skies of The Scream plus a pop-up recycling facility

nine years ago: longer-lasting batteries plus taxidermied mermaids

ten years ago: the Jonbar Hinge

sidebar (12. 414)

Gathered for the pontiff’s funeral, Trump and Zelenskyy met for the first time in person since the February summit that fell apart on live television, coming after a rare rebuke by the US administration for Putin following deadly airstrikes and accusing Russia of not wanting a peaceful resolution after threats towards Ukraine of walking away from the US-brokered settlement (ostensibly fulfilling Russian objectives by ceding Crimea and other occupied territory) if no progress materialised. Starmer and Macron joined the conversation at various points and it was described by all parties as a productive meeting.

9x9 (12. 412)

crytophasia: eye-witnesses to an accident, twins speaking in unison yield insights about language acquisition   

keep your cool: a 1967 garage rock number appropriate for our times by Terry and the Chain Reaction   

swiss pavilion: the country’s contribution to the Osaka Expo evokes the spirit of the original venue—see previously here and here   

all dams are temporary: an interesting look at the limitations of hydrological regimes   

universi dominici gregis: the faithful and world leaders gather at the Vatican for the pontiff’s funeral   

buying access: Trump offers largest holders of his meme coin exclusive dinner date 

 hilma’s ghost: a monumental glass mosaic installed in New York’s Grand Central Station—in homage to the mystic artist   

on the corner: Myles Davis’ rock and funk, at first panned but now considered a masterpiece 

rampant pedantry: an overview of prescriptivism and hyper-correction

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica), a massive gallery of Star Trek images plus ancient scrolls deciphered with the help of AI

seven years ago: Brutalist Tetris, Macron addresses the US congress, the mythological namesakes of the Chinese lunar programme plus conspicuous consumption and the Diderot effect

eight years ago: Japanese manhole covers, journalism from Wikipedia, more links to enjoy, the Turkish-Syrian border, a Nazi-era bronze back on display plus more persuasive maps

nine years ago: bat nurse, the Sykes-Picot agreement, US tax-havens plus cataclysmic anniversaries (caution flashing image)

ten years ago: American founding fables

10x10 (12. 405)

hug, marry, kill: internet roasts muttonhead JD Vance for his audience with Pope Francis—more here  

kegsbreath: US defence secretary poised to be replaced and other news and developments from Superpunch—see more  

trump slump: populist politicians over the globe are distancing themselves from MAGA  

yolo: search data for Anglophone texting abbreviations  

oh aunt jess: Angela Lansbury in fine art—via Miss Cellania  

technics: an obstacle course for LEGO walkers  

zwiebelfisch: a treasury of printers’ terminology, as in the German for a character misprinted with a dif𝚏erent font, and more including wayzgoose 

one if by land, two if by sea: Heather Cox Richardson speaking at the two-hundred fiftieth anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere  

education for death: Walt Disney’s 1943 film on how fascists are made 

a good book can help us weather the storm: Francis’ defence of literature for spiritual and mental enlightenment—see also this papal playlist

pontifex maximus (12. 401)

After a reign of thirteen years and recently overcoming a serious bout of double-pneumonia, Pope Francis has passed away from a stroke at the age of 88. Having recovered and returning to a full schedule which included a busy Holy Week and a public Easter mass just the day prior, the first leader of the Catholic church from Latin America and first member of the Jesuit order elected to the office, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, taking the regnal name in tribute to Francis of Assisi, throughout his life and career—quickly rising in the ranks though hierarchy did not seem to matter much to him, archbishop of Buenos Aires and created a cardinal and thus papabile by John Paul II in 2001—his pontificate was characterised by personal humility and a focus on mercy, too progressive for some, particularly the conservative and regressive American church with his support of immigrants, environmental stewardship and strong condemnation of nationalist politics and whilst promising failed to deliver for many liberal congregants who welcomed Francis’ message of inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community, the divorced and recalcitrant and expanded roles of women in governance, failing short of doctrinal change. Francis, however, was transformative for the institution, leaving a legacy of like-minded appointees who may one day be able to affect the reforms that he began, eschewing clericalism and authority, saying the Church’s shepherds should “smell of sheep.” Francis willed he be interned in an unadorned grave outside the Vatican proper in the cemetery of Santa Maria Maggiore with a simple headstone bearing only Franciscus. During the sede vacante until the papal conclave, the Irish-American prelate Kevin Farrell, camerlengo, master of the household, will act as regent of the Holy See. The pope chose the motto Miserando atque eligendo, lowly but chosen, from the homilies of the Venerable Bede glossing on St Matthew’s writings on vocation and service.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), David Lynch’s pavilion for Milan Design Week, Footloose plus Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue

seven years ago: North Korean nuclear capabilities plus a visit to Neustädtles

eight years ago: more links to enjoy, revisiting Paradise Lost plus IKEA’s emergency relationship stations

nine years ago: the Queen’s birthday, dirty money plus the heckler’s veto

eleven years ago: in the flow

10x10 (12. 360)

kapmifmif: a study morphological emic distribution classes through a constructed language—see previously   

murder on flight 502: the star-studded 1975 television disaster movie gets the Poseidon’s Underworld treatment 

blanket rate: bad assumptions and arithmetic informs Trump tariff regime, which is tanking markets globally

mira calligraphiae monumenta: paging through a sixteenth century illuminated model book on scribal excellence rebelling against the standardisation of the printing press—with embellishes reminiscent of the Voynich manuscript and Codex Seraphinianus 

clickens: judge chicken portraits on various personality traits and harness the wisdom of the masses—via Kottke   

salmon run: a beautifully crafted early home arcade game speaks to swimming upstream 

sala di consultazione: free access to the Vatican Library’s digital archives 

elbows up: Canada plans retaliation over US punitive duty deal plus GOP senators side with Democrats to rebuke the proposal to levy additional tariffs on its northern neighbour 

real id: US government is beginning to require an internal passport, which is not automatically issued   

mezameta: the role of katakana in loan words, gairaigo, scientific binomials and transcription and the problem with conveying the shifting meaning of woke

synchronoptica 

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), standard lunar time plus vulgar expressions of indifference

seven years ago: Iran’s faux Western fast foods, bi-lingual Braille plus a North American medicinal plant map

eight years ago: more links to enjoy

nine years ago: vintage Canadian tourist posters plus a Rosary ring

ten years ago: the Anthropocene plus the architecture of folklore

8x8 (12. 331)

fork in the road: AI misapprehension of a machine translated simple yes/no survey from Spanish rendered ‘i griega’ (upsilon) as a y-junction and all affirmative responses as the utensil   

hunter-gatherer: the handbag theory of human advancement—via Strange Company   

signature authority: after declaring his predecessor’s pardons invalid over the use of autopen, Trump faces scrutiny over unsigned deportation orders 

certificato di buona salute: pope discharged from hospital and sent home after five dicey weeks   

spring issue: the fourth instalment of the achingly beautiful HTML Review—see previously—is out, via MetaFilter   

vexatious lawsuits: mob boss Trump partially reverses executive order rescinding law firm’s contracts and security clearances for millions in pro bono services, prompting mass resignations 

schlachthof: ancient butchery for mammoths discovered in Austria   

cousin german: a comparison between English and Lower Saxon

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Cityspeak in Bladerunner plus The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound

seven years ago: the Ecosia web browser, an ancient passing red dwarf plus Cambridge Analytica

eight years ago: Trumpland, Trump’s triumphs, recreating the bedroom from 2001 plus more on concrete poetry

nine years ago: the christening of Boaty McBoatface, humorist Richard Littler plus a tubular tree house

ten years ago: God Bless You Mr Rosewater plus the crusades and the reconquista

antiqua et nova (12. 234)

With the above incipit, we learn that back in mid-January, Francis issued a papal bull—as Web Curios informs—on artificial intelligence, which is absolutely by far one of the most circumspect, heavily footnoted, thoughtful considerations of the implications of the technology touching on ethics, labour and the economy, culture, the arts, theology and human identity. In begins with a detailed history, going back to the summer workshop hosted on the campus of Dartmouth university in 1956 which first explored the concept, drawing a distinction between narrow AI and general intelligence and the ability to think and reason, not necessarily condemning the increasingly sophisticated models as trickery or mere pablum—or mankind fetishising the divinity it deserves—but rather as something potentially complementary for human dignity and vocation if harnessed in the right manner. Far from condemning technological advancement—though wary of the tac taken—or privileging, imbuing the human condition with something vague and inviolable, there is an interesting philosophical departure on the mind-body problem and how intelligence, which is not only found in functionality and solution-finding, but requires incarnation, embodiment, to engage in its environment and filtering all the noise not as hallucinations but as input and impulse—lest it remain just a ghost in the machine. The entire essay is worth reading and making the effort to parse the pope’s position, which seems on the whole a positive one that acknowledges AI’s potential to enhance decision making and a force to elevate all of us but cautions not to conflate true wisdom, measured by one’s capacity for charity and empathy, both transcendent and imminent by our own interiority.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Beautiful Blue Danube (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: assorted links to revisit, the animation of Pablo Lozano, renaming historic artwork to give the models a backstory plus Canadian Flag Day

eight years ago: food artist Dan Bannino 

nine years ago: moustachioed sea birds, soup and sandwiches plus brutalist Paris

eleven years ago: policing the police state plus to google in different languages

spes non confundit (12. 072)

Pope Francis has issued the bull of indication that the 2025 Jubilee, which will last from Christmas Eve this year to Epiphany of 2026, fulfilling the declaration made by John Paul II at the conclusion of 2000’s Great Jubilee, with the above convocation from the verse of the book of Romans “hope does not disappoint” and understanding that the youths attending the millennial celebration would be the leaders a quarter century later. Recognising the need, Francis had an intervening Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy a decade ago and this time all four mercy gates of the basilica of the Holy See, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Saint Mary Major, St John Lateran and St Peter’s, are being unbricked to be opened is succession through Christmastide. A fifth door will be added for the first time in a tradition dating back to the fourteenth century with the entrance of Rebibbia prison, one of the chief incarceration facilities in Italy focused on social reintegration and rehabilitation of its inmates (including John Paul II’s attempted assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca, Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino and numerous mafiosi) symbolically representing all jails.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Pantone’s colour for 2024 (with synchronoptica), AI illustrated Christmas carols plus unit abbreviations

seven years ago: Dr Who villains, a space-faring micronation, curios British telly plus AI authored Christmas carols

eight years ago: mistaking the bad guys, more on netiquette plus A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit, nuance in language plus colonial powers vie for Africa

ten years ago: the commodification of foodstuffs, set designs for Kubrick films, an appreciation of clipart plus avocados and megafauna

summis desiderantes (12. 058)

From the Latin incipit “for desiring with supreme ardor” (see previously, see also), Pope Innocent VIII promulgated his papal bull on this day in 1484 condemning witchcraft, issued at the behest of one Dominican Inquisitor called Heinrich Kramer, who would go on to publish the widely popular Malleus Maleficarum (der Hexenshammer) petitioning higher authorities for license to persecute witches in Germany after the local clergy failed to champion his cause—signalling a rather dramatic shift in the Church’s attitude, having previously made a distinction between white and black magic and opposed the denunciation of supposed practitioners of either, restricting the punishment for transgression to confession, repentance and community service. Manifestly political in nature as a way of settling jurisdictional battles between priests in Mainz, Köln and Trier by installing, deputising his cadre (Henry Institoris) with more papal immediacy bypassing the established hierarchy. Recognising the existence of witches, the text of the bull began, and as a preface to Kramer’s own work, written during retirement when the directive to cooperate with inquisitions under pain of excommunication failed to garner support:

Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother’s womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals. These wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that faith which is theirs by the sacrament of baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.

Despite the blurb, the Church condemned the publication as misleading and rejected the animosity towards independent women, though failing to do enough to staunch this apparent endorsement of witchhunts.

perpetua et firma libertas (12. 054)

Created by dint of a cartographical error in redrawing the border between the Papal States and the Republic of Florence (heavily in debt, Pope Eugene IV ceded Borgo Sansepolcro in the north to the Grand Duke), unexpectedly creating a terra nullius of around three square kilometres in 1440, by using a creek called rio as the new line of demarcation. The generic name for “river,” negotiators realised that they had picked two different ruscelli about five hundred metres apart, and thinking it was not worth the effort to redraw an already complicated boundary (see also) and with neither party having an objection to a buffer state in between them, the independent Republic of Cospaia came into existence. Without taxes, customs, or a government (to speak of, or the need for one), the tiny repubblica flourished as a free-trade zone between the temporal and secular powers but really became much more than a mapping mistake about a century later with the introduction of tobacco to the Old World and a ban on smoking by the Vatican (Benedict XIII eventually relented in 1724 and stopped excommunicating smokers). Though without much land to spare, Cospaia devoted its entire agricultural efforts to growing the crop, which neighbours permitted as leverage against harbouring fugitives and more serious contraband. As with many microstates, the Republic came to an end with the Napoleonic Wars and was re-annexed by the Papal States in agreement with the Duchy of Tuscany after nearly four centuries in 1826, but as compensation each resident was given a silver sovereign by the pope and a continued monopoly on tobacco production, which expanded to the whole valley. The village is still associated with cigars and cigarettes and is allowed to fly its historic flag.

synchonoptica

one year ago: neglected books (with synchronoptica), an AI identifier plus Henry Ford’s peace mission (1915)

seven years ago: a White House dinner, school meals plus toe names

eight years ago: more trials with Universal Basic Income plus How I Built This

nine years ago: rallying against global warming plus assorted links worth revisiting

ten years ago: Herostratic Fame plus Victorian microscopic pictures

caesaropapism (11. 958)

Entailing the complete subordination of priests to a secular power, both this form of government and a theocracy admit no separation of church and state and the two aspects of power structure are merged. Though far too many contemporary theonomies whereby divine law governs society, the Holy See, Mount Athos, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Tibet—with more confessional states with an officially endorsed creed—exist, examples of caesaropapism are hypothetical and confined, arguably, to the past with Byzantium’s emperors (and successor sultans under the Ottomans) administrating the Eastern church and appointing patriarchs (the inversion of the Roman pope crowning the emperor), the break of Henry VIII with Rome and following dissolution of the monasteries and the Act of Supremacy and Ivan IV (earning the epithet the Terrible) through his total subjugation of the Orthodox Church as an instrument of state terror against traitors, real and imagined—though not without encountering some resistance and whose independence was restored by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, though again retooled to varying degrees under the Soviet Union and inheritors. Though mostly confined to history (there are instances of mild to blatant use of the pulpit as soapbox), the careerism and ambition still hold sway in matters of the sacred.

funkopope (11. 940)

Though scheduled to debut at a comics con to be held in Lucca this week, the selected mascot for the Vatican’s upcoming jubilee Luce, a guiding light for the theme of 2025: Pilgrims of Hope will have her real premiere alongside another iconic anime figure in Sanrio’s Hello Kitty in a collaboration to bring awareness on the diversity of algae during the Osaka Expo, albeit in a separate pavilion under the auspices of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelisation (Praedicate evangelium, a department of the Roman Curia, under the leadership of pro-prefect Salvatore ”Rino” Fisichella), hosting a space for “Luce and Friends”—Fe, Xin and Sky with her dog Santino. Dressed in hiking gear with mud-stained galoshes, there’s a shimmer of shell in her eyes, recalling the scallop symbol of the Camino de Santiago and organisers hope the group will resonate with the youth. The jubilee year begins on Christmas Eve with the opening of the Holy Door of St Peter’s and runs through Epiphany 2026.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Don Giovanni (with synchronoptica), a thesis paper on ASCII art plus The Devil’s Ball

seven years ago: more clever compositions from Christopher Niemann plus the US Stock Market Crash of 1929

eight years ago: Tabby’s Star, Geocities archived, Swiss Rail accepting bitcoin, new neighbours, more map projections plus an x-rated haunting

nine years ago: Odysseus and Circe, phenakistoscope animations plus IKEA plush toys

ten years ago: Roman Wiesbaden, paintings of big-eyed children plus a German gag political party

rota fortuna (11. 927)

Though limited in recognition to his home diocese of Pavia (Ticinum, the capital of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, officially Regnum Italiae, after Theodoric the Great killed Odoacer following the deposition of Romulus Augustulus—the final Western emperor and entombed alongside fellow philosopher Augustine of Hippo), Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius is fêted on this day, according to tradition on the occasion of his martyrdom in 544 AD, ostensibly put to death by bludgeoning for treason for his outreach to the court of Constantinople in attempts to harmonise their divert practises with the traditions of the Roman See (the Great Schism did not happen for another five hundred years) but likely for being critical of the extravagances and corruption of both. A senator, consul and advisor to Theodoric, Boethius came to age during the fall of the Western empire and well educated, fluent in both Greek and Latin, sought to reconcile the teaching of Plato and Aristotle with Christian theology, translating the entirety of the classics along with a great volume of glosses, commentaries and original scholarship, keeping the great thinkers . Imprisoned for a decade awaiting his sentence—also on the order of the king, Boethius completed his final and best known work, The Consolation of Philosophy, written in the style of Platonic dialogue and premised on the condemned’s fall from grace and questioning how injustice can prevail in a world governed by God, the author’s interlocutor is Philosophy represented by a wise and beautiful woman. In response, Lady Philosophy says that fate is a capricious thing and the only force not reduced to dust by this Wheel of Fortune (conceptualised as the cycle of history, both personal and on the macroscopic scale), a trope informing thought through the Middle Ages to the modern day.

sede vacante (11. 883)

Having recently happened upon this sort of rather singular seating chart with the shortest pontificate, it was serendipitous, via Strange Company, to discover that the conclave blueprint, a programme for interested parties to monitor the intrigues and progress of the electors (the papabili and ineligible amongst them) confined to the Sistine Chapel until a new pope was chosen, like the handwritten gossip tabloids called avvisi that reported on votes with a fair degree of speculation and imagination. Such reconnaissance was indispensable for influence-peddlers, like monarchs and bankers and lower clergy who tried to sway the outcome. As the process wore on, conditions for the cardinals was made less comfortable, outside observers had a detailed, God’s eye view of the proceedings, able to track the odds, see whom their delegate was bunked next to and who had the better accommodations, some spots being considered more auspicious than others.   More from JSTOR Daily at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Mid-Century control rooms plus Hurricane Maria

eight years ago: professional hermits

nine years ago: the ongoing process of German reuinification 

ten years ago: East Germans sought asylum on the grounds of the Czechoslovakian Embassy plus Rome’s Secular Games

il sorriso di dio (11. 880)

Speaking of brief pontificates, Albino Luciani (who assumed the first regnal double name of John Paul in honour of his predecessors and adopted by his successor) was discovered dead on this day in 1978 on what would have been his thirty-third day in office. Given the above monicker, the smile of God, for his contagious gregariousness his death proved quite a shock and due to very real scandals happening in the Vatican Bank at the time, inconsistencies in the Church’s account—and the fact that it marked the end of the long dynasty of Italian popes—gave rise to unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding the papacy. John Paul was beatified by Pope Francis in September of 2022, after the confirmation of a miraculous recovery through his intercession after the medical and scientific explanations of the Devil’s Advocate were overruled by members of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

urbanus vii (11. 877)

Despite having the shortest reign of any pope, Urban VII, dying on this day in 1590 of complications from malaria, nonetheless after a long and illustrious career as archbishop of Rossano in Calabria, papal legate and apostolic nuncio made notable impact. Elevated during the conclave following the death of Sixtus V less than two weeks prior, Urban fought vigorously against nepotism, competing against a Medici and his predecessor’s grand-nephew—instituting a standing policy in the Curia, and continued his subsidies to bakers to feed the poor under costs. The papacy of Urban also saw the first public smoking ban—levying excommunication for anyone partaking of tobacco in any form inside a church or within proximity of its entrance. His successor, Gregory XIV—also a short-timer with just under a year in office—still had the chance, no small feat, to order the emancipation of native Filipinos consigned to enslavement by colonisation, also under pain of casting out of the religious community and thus a legitimate compliance factor as the ousted were not allowed to continue commerce with Catholic members in good standing.

mauritius (11. 863)

Fêted on this day on the occasion of his martyrdom in 287 by execution for refusing to kill local Christians under order of Emperor Maximian, this disobedience punished with decimation—killing one out of every ten rebellious soldiers, at the Roman outpost of Agaunum (present day Saint-Maurice in the canton of Valais, and not to be confused with St Moritz in the Engadine, also named for the same leader of the Theban Legion), Maurice (Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲙⲱⲣⲓⲥ) is a popular and widely venerated saint whose patronage includes multiple kingdoms, municipalities and professions. Depictions and iconography of Maurice have been contentions throughout the centuries, with some suggesting that Holy Roman Emperor (who the saint champions with some crowned before his altar in St Peter’s) Frederich II in the eleventh century initiated the darker-complected trope as a symbol for the Crusades, and that the Christian mission was a universal and non-discriminatory one. Others argue Maurice was never turned Black, though the otherness (see also) went through periods of acceptance and intolerance, including the Nazis’ forbidding the city of Coburg’s coat of arms (since 1493) for glorifying another race and temporary replaced the Wappen with a sword (as guardian of sword-makers) with a swastika on its pommel. Patronage also include armorers, Alpine troops, infantry soldiers, cloth-makers, weavers, dyers and the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Austria, Piedmont, Sardinia, the Houses of Savoy, Lombard and the Merovingians and is invoked against muscle cramps and gout.

holy mackerel (11. 630)

Just prior to the appearance of His Holiness at the G7 summit to express his thoughts on AI—as an ethical authority that world-leaders seemed prepared to listen to, NATO, the climate catastrophe andUkraine and Gaza, in a rather remarkable feat of scheduling the Pope held an audience, conclave with one hundred international comedians, greeting luminaries like Chris Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Whoopi Goldberg, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Tig Notaro and the butt of jokes himself, Francis expounded on how laughing at God was not a blasphemous act and encouraged those gifted with transcend humour to continue to lampoon and satirise our dumb world, particularly in the face of such gloomy news.

mmxxiii (11. 224)

As this calendar draws to a close and we look forward to 2024, we again take time to reflect on a selection of some of the things and events that took place during the past year. Thanks as always for visiting. We’ve made it through another wild year together.

january: Hundred of thousands pay their respects, attend funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, presided over by his predecessor in Vatican City. Supporters of defeated president Jair Bolsanaro stormed the capitol in Brasilia.  Caches of official records and classified files have been discovered mishandled and stored in offices used by Joe Biden after his vice-presidency. Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck passes away, aged 78.  Lisa Marie Presley, artist and singer, has died, aged 54.  Wracked with successive and endemic problems, Haiti descends into anarchy after the last of its elected officials depart the country.  Singer David Crosby has passed away, aged 81.  Jacinda Arden steps down as Prime Minister of New Zealand.  US and Germany agree to send tanks to Ukraine.  A group of five police officers in Memphis, Tennessee brutally murder Tyre Nichols with no justifiable provocation. After speaking out against the criminalisation of same-sex partnerships and denial of basic civil rights, the Pope will journey to South Sudan, joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Church of Scotland for a dialogue with local church leaders preaching a gospel of intolerance.  Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday Addams, passes away, aged 64.

february: After announcing that conflict with China was on the near horizon, the US acquires additional bases in the Philippines to encircle its rival and potential adversary.  Just days ahead of US Secretary of State’s visit to Beijing, NORAD announces the detection of a Chinese spy balloon over western America, prompting Blinkin to cancel his trip. Fashion designer and perfumier Paco Rabane passes away, aged 88.  The EU holds a summit in Kyiv on Ukraine’s bid for membership.  Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf passes away, aged 77, after contending with a long illness.  A powerful earthquake on the border of Syria and Türkiye claims over five thousand lives, the death toll soon quadrupling.  Songwriter Burt Bacharach passes away, aged 94.  Facing a series of crises and increasing pressure from the war in neighbouring Ukraine, the government of Moldova is dissolved.  Top-tier Czech footballer Jakub Jankto comes out as homosexual, the first professional player to do so.  Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon surprises her party by announcing her departure with no clear successor.  Actor Raquel Welch passes away, aged 82.  North Korea resumes missile tests in the Pacific and the US warns that China may attempt to arm Russia and delegates at the Munich Security Conference urge immediate fortification of Ukraine in order to prevent imminent defeat.  Stand-up comedian and tv detective Richard Belzer dies, aged 78.  Humanitarian and former US president Jimmy Carter enters hospice care.  Just ahead of the one year anniversary of the start of the invasion, Joe Biden makes a surprise visit to Kyiv.  Tech companies and media outlets continue tranche after tranche of staff layoffs.  US House Speaker gives previously unreleased trove of January Sixth insurrection footage to conservative pundit Tucker Carlson.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks its one year anniversary.

march: Evidence emerges that Ukrainian saboteurs were responsible for the underwater explosions that ruptured the NordStream I pipeline though questions remain.  In the second largest bank collapse in the history of the US and the first of its kind since the 2008 crash, the Silicone Valley Bank servicing tech-sector start-up has become insolvent and went into government receivership.  Thousands of civil servants in France go on strike in protest of legislation to raise retirement age.  After Manhattan district attorney investigation into Trump directing hush-money to Stormy Daniels, US presidential candidate announces that he expects to be arrested and calls for protests.  Mounting evidence seems to vilify suggestions that COVID originated from a lab leak in Wuhan.  Despite attempts to contain the contagion, the fall out from the crisis with California fintech institutions cause havoc with banking stocks worldwide.  UBS absorbs a beleaguered Credit Suisse.  Xi and Putin enter an apparent entente against American influence.   UN warns that time has run out on combating runaway climate change.  Deadly, hour-long tornado strikes ravage rural Mississippi and Alabama.  Intel Corp founder and thinker behind the eponymous law about the exponential improvement of technology Alan Moore passes away, aged 94.

april: Trump arraigned in the Manhattan district court over falsifying business records pursuant to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.  A US federal judge in Texas suspends the 2000 approval by the country’s food and drug regulatory body on the safety of an abortion pill, restricting its use.  Demanding stricter gun-laws in the wake of another school and church mass-shooting, the Tennessee state legislator expel two Black lawmakers for their stance.  Preoccupied with filibusters over trans-rights, the Nebraska state senate fails to pass a single law in this year’s legislative session.  Tory ministers begin to walk-back plans for a full-scale repeal of EU regulations following an inter-party revolt against the post-Brexit arrangement.  Phasing out of nuclear energy entirely, Germany closes its final remaining reactors.  Revival military leaders have brought Sudan to the brink of civil war as factions of the regular army face the paramilitary rapid response force in Khartoum.  More media organizations fold as ad revenue dries up and newsrooms turn to AI to generate copy, like BuzzFeed and Vice being the two latest to declare bankruptcy and curtail operations.  Comedian and creator of Dame Edna Barry Humphries has passed away, aged 89.  Civil rights activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte dies, aged 96.  Joe Biden declares his party’s candidacy for a second term for president of the United States.

may: Gordon Lightfoot, folk legend, dies, aged 84.  The WHO declares the global COVID-19 health emergency over.  Charles III and Camilla are enthroned during a lavish ceremony in London.  A jury finds Donald Trump guilty on the charge of sexual abuse and battery, labelling him a predator and pest.  Elon Musk appoints a former television advertising executive as head of Twitter as he announces plans to transform the ailing social network into a multi-purpose app similar to China’s WeChat.  Harry and Meghan are recklessly pursued by paparazzi in New York—with strong echoes of the death of his mum’s fatal encounter.  China begins to call in loans to some of the world’s most impoverished countries after making them dependent on cheap credit.  Tina Turner passed away peacefully, aged 83, in her home outside of Zurich—Simply the Best.  Florida governor Ron DeSantis announces his presidential candidacy on Twitter.

june: The death toll of a catastrophic train crash in India approaches three hundred with countless more injured.  After months of drama and tension, the US raises its debt ceiling to avoid default.  A dam breach, blamed on Russia, causes massive flooding along the Dnipro river and forces tens of thousands to
evacuate.  Astrud Gilberto, the Queen of Bossa Nova, and original singer of the infinitely covered ‘Girl from Ipanema,’ has passed away, aged 83.  Wildfires rage in Canada, smoke enveloping the Eastern Seaboard.  The awaited Ukraine counteroffensive begins.  Four children who survived an airplane crash in the jungles are Columbia are found alive having survived the forty day ordeal.  Donald Trump is indicted on federal charges for retention of classified documents imperilling US national security. Boris Johnson quits Parliament ahead of an official rebuke from the House of Commons over Partygate. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber and CIA UK Ultra test subject, is dead, aged 81.  Media tycoon and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi passes away, aged 86.  NATO holds large scale military exercises in Germany.  The whistleblower and leaker behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, passes away, aged 92.  A submersible taking a compliment of five tourist to the wreck of the Titanic is lost.  Mercenary Wagner Group turns critical of the invasion of Ukraine and stages a mutiny after announced take-over by the Russian defence ministry, occupying Rostov-on-Don and proposing a march on Moscow, reaching half-way to the capital before a truce is negotiated by the Belarusian president.  France riots over the death of a teenager after being shot by a police officer.  US Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in college admissions, student loan forgiveness and LGBTQI+ anti-discrimination laws, though at least on the last case, it looks as if evidence was fabricated.  

july: Joseph Pedott, marketing virtuoso, passed away, aged 91.  Israel conducts a major military raid into a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin.  Despite warnings from humanitarians and a ban in place for their use by over a hundred countries, the US is sending surplus cluster-bombs from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to Ukraine.  Catastrophic flooding devastates Vermont and other parts of New England.  Hollywood’s Screen Actors Guild joins the writers’ strike.  Jane Birkin, singer, activist and French icon, dies aged 76.  Crooner Tony Bennett passes away, aged 96.  After months of media hype and anticipation, the Barbieheimer phenomenon comes to cinemas.  Singer Sinéad O’Connor has died, aged 56—nothing compares 2 u.  Hunter Biden appears before court on charges of tax evasion and illegal gun-ownership, days after boudoir photos of him enter the congressional record, possibly in violation of laws against revenge porn. The Nigeria government falls to a military coup d’etat with the president taken into custody.  Paul Reubens, the actor who portrayed Pee-Wee Herman, passed away aged 70, after a private bout with cancer.  Voyager 2 after two weeks of radio silence has re-established contact with Earth.

august: Donald Trump is indicted for his role in fanning the flames that culminated in the January Sixth raid on the Capitol and attempts to over turn the 2020 election.  Wildfires devastate the Hawaiian island of Maui and the town of Yellowknife is evacuated as forests are engulfed in Canada.  A rare hurricane, the first in eighty years, passes over Baja California, causing flooding and heavy rains, a year’s worth in a single day.  Ex-Wagner chief and senior leadership perish in an airplane crash.  Indian lands a probe at the lunar south pole.  Trump is arrested, booked and released on bail after in Fulton County Georgia.  Long-time US game show host Bob Barker dies, aged 99 (playing by Price-is-Right rules until the end).  An unprecedented hurricane strikes Florida’s Big Bend region between the panhandle and peninsula.  “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett passes away, aged 76.

september: Drought and wildfires are followed by flooding in Greece. An earthquake strikes the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, killing hundreds and destroying parts of Marrakesh.  Rupert Murdoch steps down from News Corp.  Fighting erupts in Nagorno-Karabakh, the breakaway region of Azerbaijan. After more than five months, the Hollywood Writers’ Guild reaches a deal with the studio and ends its strike.  In solidarity with striking autoworkers, US president Joe Biden joins the picket line, the first for a sitting holder of the high office.  As counter-programming to the second Republican debate, Trump also makes an appearance with union workers.

october: Hamas and other terror groups launch a surprise attack on Israel, causing Tel Aviv to declare war against Gaza with thousands killed on both sides.  Earthquakes in Afghanistan leaves over a thousand dead.  An eastern Pacific tropical cyclone devastates Acapulco with hundreds killed and many more displaced. 

november: Three-hundred thousand marched for peace in Palestine through London during Armistice Day celebrations after earlier rallies drawing in huge numbers to urge Israel enact a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.  Pope Francis dismisses an ultra conservative bishop in Texas who criticised the pontiff's more progressive stance on non-gender-conforming members of the Church. OpenAI’s board of directors have ousted founder and CEO Sam Altman, the chief representative of the chatbot revolution and proponent for regulatory framework, for his lack of candour and transparency.  Microsoft immediately hired Altman and fellow defectors.  Humanitarian and former US First Lady Rosalynn Carter passes away.  Rightwing populist Geert Wilders wins a controlling share of the Netherlands’ parliament. A temporary cease-fire is called in Gaza to allow the release of hostages and more humanitarian aid to enter the beleaguered city.  Henry Kissinger dead at one-hundred.

december: Fabulist and fraudster George Santos expelled from the US congress.  Israel renews attacks on Palestine after a temporary truce. Legendary television producer Norman Lear passes away at 101. Israeli forces extend attacks in southern Gaza, where many fled to avoid the violence.  Ousted US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy tenders his retirement from Congress, leaving the Republicans a controlling majority of only two seats.  The EU enacts the world’s first comprehensive AI regulatory framework.  A volcanic eruption occurs on the Icelandic Reykjanes peninsula with Sundhnúkagígar dumping lava and prompting evacuations.  Trump confidant and former New York City mayor Rudi Guliani declares bankrupcy after being ordered to pay nearly one hundred-fifty million dollars in restitution for libelling Georgia election workers.  Houthi pirates attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea cause transportation to round the Cape of Good Hope.  A mass shooting in Prague leaves fifteen individuals dead.  Missing Russian opposition figure Alexei Nalvalny emerges, detained in a penal colony above the Arctic Circle.  A heavy barrage of missiles hit Kyiv as US financial and materiel backing driess up.Veteran German parliamentarian Wolfgang Schäuble passes away, aged 81.  Jacques Delors, statesman who helped shaped the European Union dead at 98.  Entertainer Tommy Smothers dies at 86.  Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues, with the death toll of civilians surpassing twenty-thousand.