small-arms trade

Depressingly we learn that one of America’s largest purveyors of firearms who tragically lost dozens of patrons and two store managers in a spree of massacres over the past week, remaining steadfast in its retail commitment to keep guns prominently and publicly available, has pledged make one reform in the wake of all the violence.
Unhelpfully parroting Trump’s false-narrative that mental illness or manipulative journalism is behind mass-shootings, the ubiquitous chain will take measures to take down signage and displays that promote video games that model violent and aggressive behaviour—no mention of its hunting assortment. Anyone who patronises these stores is morally bankrupt.

split-personality

Much like that paragon of wisdom and virtue whose reputation for sage judgment extended far beyond his kingdom yet his personal life was rather shambolic given to excess with little signs of succession-planning, we’re often better advisors for other than we are for ourselves, rarely able to follow our own dispensed advise—a phenomenon, the New Shelton Wet/Dry informs, termed Solomon’s Paradox.
Individuals are able to overcome this wilful blindness and bias through reason (not that it is an easy matter, nor that his solution to a custody dispute was particularly tenable), but a new virtual counselling paradigm that allows the subject to occupy two different virtual avatars, one being themselves as patient, and the other being Sigmund Freud, that encourages self-dialogue and a healthy distance might be not a short-cut but rather a segue that may provide helpful therapy for in some cases. Read more about this self-conversation experiment and how it was scripted and gauged at the link above.

well i’m not a crook—i’ve earned everything i’ve got

On this day in 1974, Richard Nixon (previously), embroiled by the Watergate scandal and having lost collegial confidence and faced with impeachment and removal, tendered his resignation as president of the United States of America, asking the nation to support his successor, vice president Gerald Ford. Defending his record with a preamble from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 address to the Sorbonne about grit and the “Man in the Arena” who perseveres before listing his accomplishments in office:

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, “whose face is marred btydust and sweat and blood, who stives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knowns in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Though not wholly decontextualised nor lost on his audience, there was a notable lack of candour, contrition or admission of wrong-doing with Nixon’s having quoted the same passage for his inaugural speech and Roosevelt’s originally included a rebuke of those critical players on the sidelines instead of in the arena.

histoire de perles

Via the always engaging Æon Magazine, we are subjected to the rhythmic and beautifully brutal stop-motion animation from filmmaker Ishu Patel, illustrating the cycles of evolution and competition with glass beads—inspired by the handiwork of the Inuit. This 1977 acclaimed short starts from a single cell and concludes with humanity in all its dreadful excellence with a stark warning against a nuclear arms-race.

Bead Game from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.