6x6

you down with opm: contractor that may have been responsible for that enormous Office of Personnel Management data breach is awarded handling a new secret security clearance initiative

we can be friends forever: Teddy Ruxpin is getting a reboot—raising not only the question of how technology cheats the imagination but also what’s our ethical responsibilities to creating toys with feelings and souls

sub rosa: some of the disclosed locations of the world’s most secret societies

time’s arrow: a Cosmos compelled to go from past to present to future may just be the limitations of the doting observer

durable solutions:  the architecture and design of refugee shelters is exhibited at the MoMA

drill bit: there’s a newly discovered species of bee in deserts of New Mexico that can gnaw through solid rock like a termite through wood and even can mix its own concrete 

mea culpa or presumption of guilt

Though in the Middle Ages one could defend their good character by assembling a jury of twelve of one’s peers that would attest unanimously under oath that the accused could not have possibly committed the act that he or she (or it with animals often subpoenaed), there was no concept of presumed innocent and the burden of proof was squarely on the charged.
The word culprit is a quirky portmanteaux word dating from times when the courts were becoming more formalised affairs, complete with a proper court recorder. Each docket in England and France began with the same plea of the accused—not guilty, or rather [not] culpable, to which the clerk would reply: [as charged] Prest, d’averrer nostre bille. A call and response that was a mixture of Latin and Old French that signified that the court was ready to present its case. It was abbreviated in the proceedings as cul: prit and became synonymous with the person of the defendant.

bearer instrument

In what sounds to me like the clever plan Bart Simpson once concocted to get Krusty the Clown’s autograph by sending him a cheque to cash (which if I remember right, inadvertently alerted the tax authorities to the entertainer’s off-shore bank accounts), as Weird Universe reports, a magazine sent measly, trifling cheques in 1990 to several billionaires to see who was miserly enough to expend the extra effort to cash them. Out of the two takers, one is currently campaigning for presidency of the United States.

champion charlie brown

On this day in 1950, Charles Schulz’ Peanuts four-panel comic strip (setting the format for others to follow) debuted in around a dozen major newspapers and slowly, over the years, the cast of children was introduced to boldly face a very sociologically and philosophically adult framework—with no grown-up supervision. What are some of your favourite memories from the franchise—arguably the longest story in the telling from a single narrator?