the fees being charged by panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to panama by the us—this complete 'rip-off' of our country will immediately stop (12. 111)

Though US president-elect Trump’s stupid antics are already too much to keep up with, they become too hard to ignore once the enter the territory of diplomatic crises and quashing internationally agreed upon norms of behaviour. A bundle of such instances can be traced to a recent assertion that America can and should reclaim the Panama Canal because of perceived unfair transit fees applied to US flagged vessels (never mind how America tanked British supremacy over a similar squabble in the Suez)—which seem to have antecedents in a Trump branded hotel in the capital that failed to pay Panamanian income taxes and social security for employees. The operation and management is administered (since New Year’s Eve 1999 when the US handed over the concession) by the Panama Canal Authority, a government agency which considers the waterway inalienable patrimony. Per the Torrijos-Carter treaties (see above) negotiated in 1977, America retains a right to defend the canal from threats to neutral operations but holds no claim to it. While there are two ports in the isthmus operated by China, there are no indications that American ship traffic has been affected, though imposing higher transit fees on non-US carriers might be seen as a way to bolster planned universal tariffs. At the same time, Trump is also renewing calls for the sale of Greenland to America (following offers to annex Canada as the fifty-first state), calling ownership and control of the Danish autonomous territory “an absolute necessity” for reasons of national security and global freedom. Neither property is for sale.

the haves and have yachts (12. 089)

Via tmn, we are directed to a brief chronology of the superyacht (its definition and the more exclusive class of gigayacht) and how that history corresponds with the larger world of oligarchy and status, beginning with (of course with acknowledged antecedents) shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis’ Christina O, a surplus Canadian anti-submarine frigate purchased in 1954 and outfitted with swimming pool that could be converted into a dance floor an appointed with furnishing crafted from the leather of whale foreskin and pornographic scenes from the Odyssey carved in whale teeth. Only keeping it for three years, the Trump Princess is flipped to another Saudi prince in 1991 after one of the previous owner’s casinos went bankrupt. A boasted new yacht, the Trump Princess II, which will be “something in excess of four hundred feet long—closer to five hundred feet” fails to materialise. There are dozens of other data points and anecdotes to consider on how that unattainable lifestyle informs the everyday reality of us all.

floating instrument platform (11. 951)

Originally launched in 1962 by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the US Office of Naval Research and decommissioned since 2017, the R/P FLIP, the vessel (see previously) designed to partially flood its ballast and capsize to pitch it backwards ninety degrees, was headed to the scrapyard but has now been saved and will see a second incarnation as an environmental research ship. Past studies included whale behaviour, ocean turbulence and effects on intensity and directionality of underwater acoustics—presumably to track the movement of submarines—see also. The engineering marvel able to reorient its labs ninety metres under the surface and shield experiments from the wind and waves is being purchased by DEEP, a private consortium devoted to exploration and developing subsea habitats, and is being retrofitted in France. More from the CBC at the link above.

k kilo (11. 930)

 

Via Kottke, we thoroughly enjoyed this hand illustrated overview of international maritime signal flags—developed and standardised to facilitate communication between ships over distances and language barriers, like the radio spelling alphabets (for both letters and numbers) which follow similar conventions to the same ends. The exercises in morphology and conveying more complex messages with heraldry (the above, per pale or and azure, has the lone syntax, “I wish to talk with you”—see previously on how such language has shifted) were fascinating and Rabbit Waves gives similar treatment to day-signs, markers used in lieu of signal flags, and semaphore. 

costa-del-home (11. 929)

Dissecting this article about the trending popularity of cruise vacations by people identifying with the cohort of Millennials and GenZ—via Web Curios—left me depressed and angry, not knowing whether to lay the onus on the industry catering to a different demographic, sensational generational baiting characterising progenitorial peers as stay-ins and homebodies or latch it to the holiday-makers finding appeal not in the port-of-call but never leaving the house, reliably fed and bed with the opportunity for a few no stakes sharable moments. What do you think? What hit as really was the commiseration over vacations that had no gone to plan and finding such a preferable alternative in the safe and secure with all the familiar comforts, especially after revolts against this mode of tourism.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: crony capitalism hindering Puerto Rico’s recovery 

eight years ago: a half-buried church in Helsinki

nine years ago: banksters sentenced in Iceland, Germany’s little reunification plus Dutch bubble houses

twelve years ago: vampiric gourds 

großer lychensee (11. 893)

Leaving the Haussee of Himmelpfort, we took a short trip through the tributary Wolblitz (the river‘s name meaning the Little Havel in Old Slavic) for a really magical route with wooden bays and tight curves all to ourselves and crossed into the public dock in Lychen.  We walked around the town for a bit and had a nice lunch at a former coffee mill and rostery.  One the way back to the boat, we passed the the historic home of one Johann Kirsten who circa 1900 invented the push pen, thumbtack, whose present occupant had somewhat appropriately it seemed established a Museum of Fake News, using the windows as a bulletin board for made-up headlines.  The weather turning windy and rainy and not much time left in the day for traveling, we returned to the campsite by the lock in Himmelpforte and had our pitch still waiting for us—although our neighbors had moved on, an older couple who had been on the waters since May and had been working their jobs remotely thanks to the pervasive WiFi coverage with the company of their two adventurous cats.  

synchronotpica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), a pristine tomb discovered in Naples plus a fully outfitted station wagon

eight years ago: more links to enjoy, the Altamura Man plus Parliament under repair

nine years ago: the Best of Reddit

ten years ago: parenting around the world 

eleven years ago: debt-limits and default

coeli porta (11. 892)

 

Departing Röblinsee through the Fürstenberg lock and crossed the canal into Stolpsee, and although intending just to stop at a municipal harbour to check out the town, we ended up staying moored at entrance to Himmelspfort, the spot turning out to be idyllic, essentially all to ourselves and aligned with what we envisioned camping by boat would be. After we got settled, we took a look at the ancient town named for a former Cistercian monastery, abandoned and left for ruins after sacralisation but the adjacent brewery founded by the monks was still intact and active.

The town is also known for its Weihnachtspostamt, upholding a tradition began by two postal workers in 1984 when they started answering children’s letters to Santa Claus (the Weihnachtsmann in East German times)—the whole town kind of has a Christmas theme and today, the postal service answers around three-hundred thousand letters from all over the world, but apparently is only one of seven addresses in Germany for such dispatches.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: fantastic spiralling art with AI (with synchronoptica), a graphic design collection curated by Kristen Lound plus LEGO as a media for fine art

seven years ago: murderous dioramas, proposed sovereignty for a Great Lake plus Japanese bathroom ghosts

eight years ago: Obama to his successor on unfinished business, solar plasma eruptions, a new front in the Cola Wars plus early canned, robotic music

nine years ago: holiday creep

ten years ago: the Ebola outbreak, stealing drug-offenders identities plus the landed gentry unchanged for a thousand years 

finowsee, woblitzsee, drewensee und zurück (11. 891)

Leaving the habour, we hooked up and to the north through a narrow channel that led to the Greater and Lesser Priepert lakes through the Finowsee that forms a round bend in the river.We pasted underneath the Hausbrücke Ahrensberg, a covered bridge (one of the few intact in northern Germany) that spanned the crossing to Drewensee.

 

 

Taking a long canal through the forest, we arrived at the inlet to Woblitzsee and stopped in the small town of Wesenberg to walk the dog and have a late lunch. The place is dominated by a high Middle Ages hilltop fortress (Turmhügelburg).

 

The lock at the outlet turned out to be the the most powerful one in the network of waterways with the floodgates really powerful instead of the usual sinking and rising and ended up passing through twice in rather quick succession as the anchorage we planned to stay at on the way to Neustelitz was closed for the season.Rather than risk getting stuck somewhere after the locks closed, we headed back to the first camp by Fürstenberg, seeing some of the boating lesson in practise and navigating the buoys which warn of hazards and the course to take that switch depending on whether one is travelling up- or downstream, and arrived just at sunset.

bundeswasserstraße obere havel (11. 888)

H and I travelled north for a houseboating holiday on the Havel, which intersects with a few different national parks crossing the borders between Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg Vorpommern. 

With our point of departure Röblinsee, leading to connections to the various lake districts (Seenplatten—including the Müritz where we visited years and years ago), we arrived at the harbor at midday and after orientation and a training module to operate the boat safely, it was too late to venture out before sunset and stayed in the dock in Fürstenberg overnight. 

The neighbourhood fronting the riverbank was lined with fancy villas and the industrial ruins of multipurpose food processing factory (Mischfutterwerk) was visible on the opposite shore. Three years prior to the Cuba Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union placed six armed launch for medium range R-5 Побе́да (Victory) nuclear warheads in early 1959–garrisoned troops left the small town in 1994. Behind the row of stately homes built originally for retirees from Berlin, a housing high rise for soldiers and their families stationed there. After an evening of planning and studying the channels and rotes, we were ready to head out.

6x6 (11. 858)

second-hand baloney boys: director Bong-Joon-ho’s Mickey17 explores indentured immortality with his expendable space colonists—like the duplicates paradox of teleportation 

r/no burp: a Redditor community brings recognition to an undiagnosed but pervasive syndrome 

ultimate world cruise: the social media coverage of a trip to seven continents plays out like reality television  

the ladies annual journal; or, complete pocket book for the year: the 1776 diary of Susannah Dalbiac kept in the back of an almanac 

twenty-eight years later: latest instalment of Danny Boyle’s zombie franchise was filmed entirely on iPhones 

sanewashing: how journalists can resist normalising outrageous and radical ideas—via the New Shelton wet/dry

the cruise of the kings (11. 787)

Disembarking this day in 1954 from Marseilles with a retinue of over one hundred royal dignitaries from twenty five current and former reigning families aboard the Agamemnon, the ten-day excursion through the Mediterranean was conceived and organised by Frederica of Hanover, queen consort of Greece, with the aim of not only promoting tourism in the region and economy recovery after World War II and the country’s civil war but also, as the granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II (see previously), to repair family ties among Europe’s royals after decades of conflict and turmoil. Ports of call included Naples, the Ionian islands, Corfu, Heraklion, Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes and Athens with guests including Simeon II of Bulgaria, Prince Axel of Denmark, Duke Franz von Bayern, Prince Otto of Hesse-Kassel, Duke Peter of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Antoine of the Two Sicilies, Umberto II of Italy, Charlotte Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the royal families of the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden along with Prince Dimitri Romanov of Russia and Infanta Pilar, duchess of Badajoz. Protocols were abolished aboard the cruise ship and at any stop so guests might be freed from royal order of precedence and could mingle amongst themselves and with locals, and though there were designs on solidifying love connections (reality tv-style), only two engagements resulting from onboard encounters—Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia and Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Sophia of Greece and Prince Juan Carlos of Spain. A second cruise was planned for two years later be had to be cancelled due to the Suez Crisis and the invasion of the Sinai peninsula.

the philadelphia experiment (11. 760)

Alleged first trialled on this day in 1943 on the US navy vessel the USS Eldridge at the city’s shipyard and coming to public attention over a decade later with a detailed account by supposed witness, a former merchant marine Carl Meredith Allen, the secretive project involving poorly understood extraterrestrial technology carried out with the intention of cloaking an escort ship. The outcome however was unexpected: while the Eldridge did vanish, it reappeared instantly in the naval docks of Norfolk, Virginia, some four hundred and fifty kilometres away, with the crew (no one else corroborated Allen’s story) sustaining bizarre side-effects from the teleportation, returning to Philadelphia minutes later. The navy disavows any knowledge of such research and the story and conjecture gained currency in the late 1970s with the resurgence in interest of paranormal phenomena like the Bermuda Triangle and Project Montauk. The 1984 film adaptation with Michael Paré added an element of time-travel and was generally not well-received by the fringe scientific community.

synchronoptica

one year ago: deadly and illegal border barriers (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: sabre-rattling, crown shyness plus old neologisms

eight years ago: more links to enjoy

nine years ago: the velocity of money

ten years ago: thoughts on Dune and redundancy

women on the waves (11.687)

The Dutch NGO founded in 1999 by Dr Rebecca Gomperts has the mission of bringing reproductive health services, education and outreach to women in countries with restrictive abortion laws, with services rendered on board a specially-made ship, which boards women at a pre-arranged port-of-call and sails out to international waters, where Dutch law is in effect. Unsafe abortions administered in countries whose laws provide no other alternative are a leading cause of maternal death and the organisation seeks to champion universal reproductive autonomy. Earlier ship’s doctor on the Rainbow Warrior II, Gommperts and crew of medical professionals have visited Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Guatemala and México—all countries that have since significantly expanded abortion access, and a spin-off programme, Women on the Web, helps women with self-managed medical abortions with the drug combination mifepristone and misoprostol.

beaumont slope (11. 686)

In anticipation of eventual ratification of the 1994 UN treaty, the Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, see more), the United States quietly staked claim last month to its extended continental shelf in the Arctic so were it to become a signatory, it would be joining on its own terms with boundaries already delineated. The move did not go unnoticed as other member nations have also tried to assert, under the treaty, their own territorial reaches in the far north and the American declaration of what’s theirs by dint of geological affiliation, an area of the seabed the size of California which overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of Canada, Norway, Denmark and Russia, rather than political flag-planting and is seen as contentious and a sign of continued American exceptionalism, manifest destiny flouting customary and international law. More from Radio Free Europe at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the search for past life on Mars (with synchronoptica) plus the Hollywood sign (1923)

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus a million dollar heist

eight years ago: camping in Metz 

nine years ago: missing the Dalai Lama plus the Bechdel Test

eleven years ago: a furlough for US federal workers, psychiatry and sainthood plus a choreographed panopticon

isola boromee (11. 654)

Though island-hopping was not as logistically easy as we thought—an all day commitment and much of the archipelago did not allow dogs, we nonetheless enjoyed our excursion via ferry to the Lago Maggiore island group in the bay of Stresa.  

One of a number of merchant and banking dynasties to carry the title Buon Romei—trustworthy Romans, the House that began acquiring the properties in the mid-fifteenth century were eventually ennobled and still to this day retain much of their holdings. Isola Bella contains a summer palace and Isola Madre has an English-style botanical garden. Isola Superiore (dei Pescatori, the Island of the Fishermen) where we disembarked, is the only one with a permanent—albeit a small one and far outnumbered by the staff of the many restaurants—and never owned by the House Borromeo.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica) plus The Wizard of Oz x Pink Floyd

seven years ago: Grenfell Tower, colonial Americans’ expanding settlements plus Germany legalises same-sex marriage

eight years ago: biometric passwords plus Invisibilia returns

nine years ago: more on the Right of Panorama plus a trip to the Wetterau

ten years ago: obscure sorrows plus pataphysics and Alfred Jarre