団地

Literally meaning “group land,” we are given a visually striking introductory tour of Japan’s danchi—large clusters of apartment towers executed in concrete (previously here, here and here) meant to offset the housing pressures experienced in the 1950s through the 1970s from the country’s then growing population—from Tokyo-based photographer Cody Ellingham.
Though many of the structures are aging, maintained either by the local authorities to provide public housing or by large corporations to provide places to live for their staff and promote workforce cohesion, rent for danchi units is either nominal or non-existent and interested parties apply for residency through a lottery programme. Check out the link above from Spoon & Tamago to learn more and peruse a whole gallery of apartment blocks.

medical model, social model

In order to raise awareness for individuals with physical handicaps and promote how advanced three-dimensional printing technology are making prosthetic limbs accessible to more people, an advocacy organisation in based in Paris have outfitted several statues from Antiquity and more recent times—including a life-sized replica of the famously disarming Venus de Milo—who’ve sustained some damage over the centuries with artificial arms and legs.
The campaign is operating under the principle that no body in the world should have to wait so long before being made whole—not that the fractured, whom because of their flaws like Venus epitomise perfection, but rather to urge reflection on how we frame being able-bodied and how assistive devices (as spectacles and hearing-aides have done) might shed their associated stigmas.

midge at the mic

Earlier this week marked the anniversary of the identification and arrest of broadcast personality “Axis Sally” employed by Nazi Germany in order to spread propaganda and engineer public opinion and reception of the Allied war effort in 1949. Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, originally from Portland, Maine, was one of those Lost Generation types that came of age between the wars and was quite disaffected by the failure of her aspirations to become an actress. Not able to sustain a career in New York City, Gillars moved to Paris and then to Algiers before finding stable employment in Dresden in 1934 first as an English teacher and then with the Reichs-Rundfunk state media outlet.

The pursuit of fame often is expressed as infamy and Gillars’ case is perfect example. Though protesting that she signed an oath of allegiance under great duress after the attack on Pearl Harbor which pulled the US into the war and that she had no truck with Nazi ideology, under the influence of various Svengalis, Gillars’ prolific programmes turned pointedly vile, broadcasting under several pseudonyms and conflated with other parallel campaigns of disinformation and demotivation, with arcs of narrative aimed to engender homesickness for troops stationed overseas and suggest that prolonged absence did not make the heart grow fonder with sensational stories of infidelity while husbands were away at the front. For Midge at the Mic, Gillars would DJ a music hour with American songs with interstitials attacking the US government. Here is a link to an audio recording hosted on YouTube. Gillars was apprehended in Berlin running a second-hand furniture operation and was tried and convicted on a single count of treason (despite a litany of charges brought against her) for a broadcast that preceded the storming of the beach at Normandy by just a few days designed to make families question the worth of their sacrifice. Once discharged after serving a sentence of eleven years, Gillars confined herself to a convent and taught German, French and drama classes in an attached academy.

alpha predator

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we learn of the successful trial run of a robotic monster to mitigate human and wildlife competition for resources that’s a sort of next generation of scarecrow. Orchard-keepers and rice farmers in Japan can now summon the juggernaut Super Monster Wolf as a means of keeping wild boars out of their chestnut groves and rice paddies without resorting to more lethal countermeasures.
Its prowling and howls are adaptive so its quarry does not grow inured to its presence and the terrifying turns into the laughable. Having had a close-call with one of these hulking beasts (not pictured—this one was relatively tame and confined to a wild park), we wonder if Super Monster Wolf could be persuaded to patrol different beats besides safeguarding crops in order to keep animals away from busy roads and out of harm’s way. Be sure to visit the links up top to learn more and see a video demonstration of Super Wolf in action.