Thursday, 20 March 2025

auswรคrtiges amt (12. 319)

Following the detention and expulsion of three nationals (two tourists and a green-card holding permanent resident), the Foreign Office has issued a travel advisory for Germans travelling to the United States. While in most cases residents of the EU can enjoy visa-free travel in America for up to ninety-days, the decision on whether a traveller can enter ultimately lies with the host country’s border authorities, the enforcement reciprocated. Tantamount to a warning only in degree, Berlin advises prospective vacationers to prepare for arrest, holding (in the cited cases, for periods exceeding two weeks in austere conditions, far beyond just ruining one’s holiday) and deportation even with documentation and pre-flight vetting through ESTA (their Electronic System for Travel Authorisation visa-waiver programme).


synchronoptica 

one year ago: an intemperance scale (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the Game of Life, an evacuation collection plus a profile of Atlantic City

eight years ago: mandalas from sifted red earth, plans for a paperclip skyscraper plus more on map projections

nine years ago: duelling constitutions plus belated pi day

ten years ago: assorted links to revisit plus collaborative human-robot experiments

Wednesday, 19 March 2025

8x8 (12. 318)

first comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration: thirty lonely yet beautiful acts of defiance—even including social media—via Kottke 

fubar: Muckrock presents its FOIA Foilies awards for 2025—probably too early—see previously  

not shuttered, per se, just considered complete: venerable UbuWeb started back up after closure last year  

audible enclaves: researchers have discovered how to beam sounds to a targeted listener—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

it’s peanut butter jelly time: froghorn.exe is an homage to what used to be the internet’s biggest draw  

programmable mutterer: the allure of magical thinking and how the displaced grace of AI could prove more analogous to markets and institutions steering better than individuals  

smoking gun: Trump declassifies a tranche of documents on the JFK assassination, unredacted and “ushering in a new era of maximum transparency  

greeks bearing gifts: Senator Schumer votes to let the wooden horse into Troy

georgia claimed her—georgia named her (12. 317)

Recorded on this day by Ben Bernie and the Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra and released the following day, spending five-weeks at number one on the American charts, the jazz standard was inspired by a chance meeting with the composer and longtime state house representative Dr George Thaddeus Brown, pledging while in office to name his daughter in honour of his constituency—the anecdote reflected in the above lyric. Renditions include performances by Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, a more empowered version by Roberta Flack, the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme from the instrumental rendering by Brother Bones and His Shadows featuring whistling and rhythm spoons and the below opening scene (which lives rent-free in my head) from the 1983 film To Be or Not To Be featuring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft dancing and singing in Polish.

america the unbeautiful (12. 316)

Guardian contributor Alexander Hurst, reflecting on a recent roadtrip with a friend from Washington, DC to New Orleans—in part retracing the path of Alexis de Tocqueville—presents a thoughtful travelogue that encapsulates the aesthetics of sprawl and alienation that informed the MAGA mindset—those without an internal moral compass—long before it came home to roost with the return of Trump. “Like fish in water, I wonder if Americans are even aware how they swim in it,” Hurst writes of the inuring indignities of suburban living—sold as a dream still despite the nightmare monotony, congestion and estrangement of off-ramp after off-ramp leading to “rectangle islands of stuff, surrounded by parking lots leading to other little islands.”

synchronoptica

one year ago: Sagrada Famรญlia (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the origins of tempura, email for trees, Google’s Art Palette plus Expo '70

eight years ago: FOIA inspired cocktails plus next generation phreaking

nine years ago: Italy’s answer to absinthe plus the Butcher’s Broom

ten years ago: the Fourth Crusade

Tuesday, 18 March 2025

see you next wednesday (12. 315)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we learn that a fairly innocuous, throw-away line from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as the titular closing line spoken by the father of Frank Poole in a video letter to his son became the working-title for the first screenplay of director John Landis. Self-described as terrible and unfilmable but with a few redemptive though underdeveloped ideas (a musical autobiography as if he himself had died aged nineteen), this beginning effort was never produced but Landis made sure to give it a cameo appearance in later films as he established his credentials as an auteur as a running gag, rarely screened and never in its entirety and recast each time. A frame story, it appears in Landis’ 1977 The Kentucky Fried Movie as a 4D experience with each audience member attended by an usher acting out what is occurring on screen, on a billboard in The Blues Brothers as a King Kong knock-off, a porn film presented in a seedy theatre in An American Werewolf in London and as the pictured poster in 1983’s Trading Places. Outside of Landis’ filmography, it is also a line of dialogue in the monster movie Michael Jackson and girlfriend are watching his in Thriller extended music video as well as numerous other easter eggs to watch for in his other works and homages by other creators—which pretty good for an unmade freshman project.

9x9 (12. 314)

๐Ÿ‘€: a “half-swipe” feature that allows recipients to screen messages with them being marked as read is exacerbating dating anxiety amongst teens—via Superpunch 

rabbithole: global styles of curiosity survey as revealed by Wikipedia app usage—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—are you a hunter, dancer or busybody?   

we have urinated in our beds—there was no chamber pot: a survey of the graffiti of Ancient Rome that’s very much like a contemporary comments section 

quotidiano: Italian news paper prints all-AI edition   

derezz: local club hosts a TRON party during a gaming developers’ conference as a history lesson   

gulf-stream: a mesmerising overview of the world’s ocean currents and eddies   

let your fingers do the walking: the typography of the telephone directory, the Yellow Pages, and its antecedents 

patrimonialism: running a state as one’s family business   

forbidden unlawful representation of roleplaying in education: legislation in Texas would outlaw students presenting as other than human, check out the acronyms of the bill, including fursonรฆ

synchronoptica

one year ago: the science behind sippy-birds (with synchronoptica), another 3D rendering challenge plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: the allure of old booksThe Gods of Japan (1943), more links to enjoy plus artist Grant Wood

eight years ago: the architecture of choiceTrump defunds agencies plus Trump’s foreign policy

nine years ago: more on state fossils plus collected quotations

ten years ago: the new EU central bank headquarters, job redundancy, even more links, animals on trial plus local galleries

Monday, 17 March 2025

polygraph (12. 313)

In an angry late-night post to his social networking platform, Trump said that Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons for individuals associated with the investigation of the January Sixth Capitol insurrection were “hereby declared VOID, VACANT AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OF EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.” Unclear if the clemency grants were not signed by hand in the first place, the claim is baseless, because if so, the exercise of this broad and magisterial presidential power requires no signature, just that the recipients accept the pardon—Trump then pivoting his accusation that Biden’s diminished mental capacity meant he was unaware that his endorsement was being mimeographed. The tool has been used by many in high office to personalise correspondence as well as by institutes of higher learning to confer diplomas and certificates and at least once—that we know of—to sign legislation, Obama telegraphing his approval of the extension of the Patriot Act whilst in France in 2011. And while bills have been flown around the world for the executive signature in order to suppress any doubt of legality, still the language of the constitution stipulates that legislation is to be accepted or returned, vetoed without outlining how it is recorded. Patented under the title trademark, Thomas Jefferson was an early-adopter of this prototype, allowing two pens to move simultaneously and doubling efficiency. The pseudo-scientific technique of lie-detection shares the name because of its range of physiological indicators.

alien enemies act (12. 312)

Over the weekend, Trump deported over two hundred alleged Venezuelan gang members to an infamous prison in El Salvador, despite the a temporary stay issued by a judge stating that the right to due process for the detainees, the president saying the block was not lawful, delivered verbally and not in writing and coming after the planes had already departed the US (which according to flight records seems not to be true). Marking perhaps the first time Trump ignored a ruling, lost in the midst of everything else going on, these expulsion seem to inform—re-enforce if not merely signal loudly (though out-shouted by other news) the constitutional crisis on display in America. Citing an 1798 law codified when tensions were high with France that has only been invoked during times of war, all “subjects of the hostile nation or government shall be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as alien enemies,” with the infamous Japanese interment camps of World War II. Gang membership or criminal association was not established during immigration proceedings and this initial dragnet detention and deportation seems based on national origin rather than a substantiated threat to the country.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a maglev train on existing tracks (with synchronoptica), a chatbot on a spreadsheet, an arch insult generator plus revisiting some abandoned settlements along the former border

seven years ago: Japanese lessons 

eight years ago: the Spanish civil war and WWII, assorted links worth the revisit plus tensions on the Korean peninsula

nine year ago: EU appeals to Tรผrkiye to stem immigration, the distribution of primes, the knock on effects of food waste plus stochastic engineering

ten years ago: Mister Linea, a partial solar eclipse plus more links to enjoy

Sunday, 16 March 2025

the hostess with the mostess (12. 311)

Dying on this day in, aged 76, in 1975 at her home in Oklahoma City, Perle Meste heiress to an oil fortune from her late husband—widowed since 1925 from the one of the original participants in the Land Rush of 1889 on the former Indian territory (Boomer-Sooner)—is best known in Washington, DC high society for her lavish parties that included artists, celebrities and national political figures from both parties and was portrayed in the title Playhouse 90 CBS anthology feature by Shirley Booth, as well as by Ethel Merman on Broadway and the cinematic adaptation of the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam. Eventually relocating to the capital in 1940, feeling out of place elsewhere, Mesta was active in the National Women’s Party, an early champion of an Equal Rights Amendment and an ardent campaigner for Harry S Truman—for which the administration awarded her the ambassadorship to Luxembourg out of gratitude. An invitation to one of her many gala parties was highly coveted and a sign that one had reached the upper echelons of DC high political society, bringing together senators and congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle. And while continuing to host glamorous soirรฉes through the 1960s, Mesta ceded her role to Jacqueline Kennedy when it came to bipartisan entertainment. Featured on the cover of Time magazine (note the candelabra on the Washington monument), the Black Russian was created by barman Gustave Tops in 1949 as Mesta’s signature cocktail, who frequented the Hotel Metropole in Brussels during her time as ambassador.

digital flรขneur (12. 310)

We really enjoyed this essay, courtesy of fellow peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic, on how to rewild one’s browsing experience chocked full of helpful navigation analogies of avoiding congestion, breaking out of the walled garden, by taking the side streets and adopting the regular commute of another (we all have these routines and sources we check in with on a daily basis but it might be refreshing and eye opening to realise that there are whole unexplored routes to the same end) to add to serendipity. There are numerous suggestions and resources for taking this internet walk from the Syllabus Project at the link above, including gifting a mixtape to your friends and followers of places you’ve discovered, leaving a trace, taking more than just photos, bringing a satchel along to collect what we’ve encountered and cultivating the practise of derivรฉ to map one’s local IRL wanderings to their online spaces.

take me to the river (12. 309)

Watching the Netflix production The Electric State about a retro-future dystopia where the thinking machines have been locked away in a no man’s land, under the leadership of Mister Peanut, and noticing stacks in a warehouse of presumably contraband Big Mouth Billy Bass, we couldn’t resist reposting this clever modification to this novelty animatronic trophy catch from Austrian hacker Charlie Diaz that greatly expands its vocabulary with the the help of ChatGPT, responding in a voice inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger. This benevolent vision of things to come with AI shoehorned into everything is not yet commercially available but Diaz helpfully includes builds for all of his projects.

*     *     *     *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: Stile Bertone (with synchronoptica),  a pronunciation guide to British surnames plus a walk in the countryside

seven years ago: more on Fluxus, US school shootings, Balinese New Year traditions plus propaganda and reality television

eight years ago: feline hybrids plus a constellation calligram 

nine years ago: the Mah Nร  Mah Nร  song, culinary mushrooms, outdoor classrooms plus the original vision for Star Trek: The Motion Picture

ten years ago: intermediate geologies, the sugar trade plus assorted links worth the revisit

Saturday, 15 March 2025

pocket veto (12. 308)

As of this posting (timestamps are important as we’ve gleaned from every episode of the NPR Politics podcast), the continuing resolution to keep the US government funded and in operation has yet to be signed into law by Trump. Normally a failure to endorse after a ten day period, de facto the bill becomes law, but the titular technicality occurs when the president cannot return the bill to congress because it is adjourned, as it is for Monday (Sundays also excepted)—and the language of the CR has the provision that for the purposes of the bill that the remainder of the fiscal year constitutes one congressional day (with no pro-forma members present to keep the legislature open) despite returning in session on Tuesday, meaning that deadline never arrives—an unusual proviso perhaps to hedge his bets. Something legally ambiguous that cannot be overridden that Trump could keep in his quiver to exercise at will, the GOP were perhaps expecting more resistance from the Democrats, which could explain the reversal of party leadership—with a shutdown, which is in effect, and solely owned by the Republicans.

the customer is always right (12. 307)

On this day in 1962, JFK delivered a speech before congress establishing four pillars of basic consumer rights, amid a backdrop of historic lack of recourse against deceptive claims and faulty products which led ultimately to corporate liability and lessening the burden of proof on the injured party of demonstrating negligence on the part of the manufacture or advertiser, enumerating: the right to safety, the right to be informed through clear and accurate labelling, the right to choice affected through anti-trust legislation and limits of patenting to control monopolistic practices and the right to be heard via voicing complaints and concerns—expanded to include the right to include access to basic and essential goods, the right of redress in the form of fair settlement, consumer education and the right to a healthy workspace. A decade later, the principles were formalised in the US Consumer Product Safety Commission working across a range of agencies, both domestic and international, and World Consumer Rights Day, observed on the anniversary of the original address since 1983, sponsored by the NGO that also publishes Consumer Reports.

10x10 (12. 306)

i don’t belong here: reactions of first time listeners to Radiohead’s “Creep” 

auragraphs: a look at the psychic paintings of Flora Marian Spore, received visions from departed relatives—see previously  

overton window: why some find humour in embracing fascism—see also, see previously  

all in the wrist: a memorable mnemonic device for learning the carpal bones from Michelangelo’s Snowmensee also  

i’m just gonna dance all night: a joyful behind the scenes peek at SNL writers’ room from a decade ago—via MetaFilter

orbital group: astronomers find Saturn has one-hundred twenty eight additional natural satellites

the pen is mightier than the sword: the end of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (previously) after forty-two years—via Miss Cellania

persona non grata: US state department expels the South Africa ambassador, buying into Musk’s false narrative of confiscating land from white plantation owners 

the medium is the message: Alan Turing and other Cambridge academics obsession with ghosts and spiritualism 

hootie & the blowfish: an oddly effective mashup with The Smiths

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica), the first AI lab, Geoguessr savants plus serendipitous directories

seven years ago: The Inland Printer, Trump’s fabricated trade imbalances with China and Canada, the Anthropocene era’s golden spike plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: embodiment and Singularity, LEGO tape plus Australian war time propaganda

nine years ago: more Liartown, USA, English as the official language plus Sir Thomas Moore

ten years ago: the Comic Code plus further crusading misadventures

Friday, 14 March 2025

hr 1968 (12. 305)

Though hard to forecast what might have been the better path through an undesirable binary, and mostly cleaving to party lines, an early procedural vote against cloture and ultimately advancing of a continuing resolution through the senate to avoid a US government shutdown at midnight seems to have been a grave political miscalculation with Democrats squandering the only leverage they had to slow or derail Trump’s dismantling of the federal bureaucracy. In response to Musk commenting that closing down the government might be a preferable course of action for the DOGE agenda, senate minority leader Chuck Schumer reversed his stance on the spending bill that keeps government funded through the end of the fiscal year and along with nine other Democrats, voted with Republicans for the passage, reaching the sixty votes needed to avoid a filibuster—earning praise from Trump for his decision and highlighting deep divisions within the party. If the GOP had wanted the government to shutdown, they wouldn’t have advanced the budget in the first place, which until it passed the first hurdle of the house of representatives, Democrats were united against it. The CR is essentially a sequestration, maintaining funding levels but removing line item allocations and collapsing appropriations into larger pots of money, further abrogating the role of congress and allowing the executive branch to move funds, legally, as it sees fit.  Unabated with his assault on the republic, Trump issued more executive orders while roll-call was happening on the senate floor, rescinding the federal minimum wage of fifteen dollars per hour, the mandate for agencies to share data on emergent public health threats as well as order the closure of the parent agency that operates Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and smaller offices that handle labour disputes, the council on homelessness, developing minority-owned businesses and the institute of museum and library services—agency heads given seven days to justify their existence and prove that their work is statutorily required.

listen—strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government, supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony (12. 304)

As the monarch bound by the constitution does not hold political opinion, Charles III has resorted to subtler ways to signal his stance and support, much like his predecessor recently to show solidarity with Canada by wearing his national regalia lately and most recently bestowing a ceremonial sword (see also) to his personal ombudsman and senior protocol officer, the Usher of the Black Rod in the Canadian senate, during an audience with the king. This show of concord comes amid incessant overtures for annexation repeated even during the Quebec hosted G7 conference to reinforce sovereignty as the country’s monarch. Elbows up!

snow recedes, mist lingers in the air (12. 303)

Courtesy of the always excellent Web Curios, we get a chance to revisit the topic of microseasons (ๅ€™, kล) with this guide to the twenty-four solar terms or sekki, a phenomenal calendar in driven by the cycles of nature instead of fixed dates used traditionally for agrarian purposes in China and Japan, timing planting and harvesting. Harmonised nicely with yesterday’s lunar eclipse (see previously here and here), we are presently in Keichitsu or Jingzhe (ๅ•“่Ÿ„, the going-out of the worms) the days when insects awaken from their winter hiberation. Once I accidentally disturbed a nest of dormant lady bugs checking a barrel for rainwater and was devastated for days that I had interrupted their winter nap, still to this day. Even with the climate catastrophe and global weirding, there’s comfort in looking forward to Seimei (the first rainbows and geese migrate) and Shunbun (the sparrows return and the cherry blossoms bloom), the swallows come back to Capistrano and April showers.

u is for upper canada, where the poor slave have found rest after all his wanderings, for it is british ground (12. 302)

This 1846 hand-coloured primer was printed as an abecedary (see previously here and here) for the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Fair, authored and distributed by a pair of activist Quaker sisters, Mary and Hanna Townsend, realising that change could only be affected by including the young before they were inculcated otherwise with racist and oppressive ideas handed down. This volume was conserved and shared by the State of Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the whole alphabet, the rhyming couplets are reflective of the time and a bit paternalistic but worth reading, is showcased courtesy of Kuriositas at the link up top. I is the Infant, from the arms / Of its fond mother torn, / And, at a public auction, sold / With horses, cows and corn.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a psychoanalytic board game (with synchronoptica), Pi Day plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: celebrating the life and achievements of Stephen Hawking, the Norwegian Porridge Feud plus more praise for Professor Hawking

eight years ago: Trump’s rentier economy, more links to enjoy plus the thawing of the tundra

nine years ago: six-plus decades of space exploration, the making of 2001 plus the statues of Dublin

ten years ago: Iceland drops its bid to join the euro-market, even more links to revisit plus the digital attention deficit

Thursday, 13 March 2025

supraphon (12. 301)

Courtesy of Present /&/ Correct, we are directed to a gallery of record sleeves from a Czech label founded in 1932 and still active. It is oriented mainly towards publishing classical and popular music from Czech and Slovak composers, and the catalogue acquired by Warner Music after the amicable split, which after mapping out the discography of the likes of Dvoล™รกk released its first stereophonic pop album in 1968.

boรฎtes de nonne (12. 300)

Cloistered and with no outside visitors allowed into their cells, since at least the early seventeen century, nuns from sisterhoods across France created “spiritual boxes,” curated dioramas that changed over time, accumulating keepsakes and marking special occasions with recycled materials. Treasured and intimate, this poorly documented craft and practise was hardly a guarded secret as older members sometimes shared theirs with novices as teaching aides (see also) and showed their miniatures to benefactors of the convent as a personal expression and glimpse into life in a nunnery, linking the inside with the outside. More from Messy Nessy Chic at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: patent models (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: senate panel rules out Russian collusion in US presidential campaign, life’s milestones plus David Bowie as the Periodic Table

eight years ago: a celebration of Brutalist landmarks plus the Pope on Compassionate Disruption

nine years ago: the cinematic inspiration of The Shining plus a dignified soup kitchen

ten years ago: unmarked white vans, innovations in 3D printing plus assorted links worth revisiting

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

eponym (12. 299)

Born on this day in 1832 in Norfolk, Captain Charles Boycott lent his name (see also here and here and here) to the term during the Irish Land War (Cogadh na Talรบn, an agrarian uprising that began in 1879 under UK rule) as an agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo. Ostracised by tenant farmers over rents levied after a bad harvest when he tried to evict the protesters. Rather than resort to violence, the farmers instead organised to socially shun Boycott and his lieutenants, stopping work, causing short-term economic hardship locally and isolating the estate. The tactic worked and Boycott was unable to hire anyone who would work the fields under his charge and the neologism, spread by the press, swiftly entered common-parlance, identifying a linguistic lacuna and the meaning became more generalised.

lemon lot (12. 298)

We’re all weary of these fascist antics of Trump and his viceroy and there are far more destructive and dangerous acts being committed by the administration (a litany of horrors bears repeating but is quickly growing too lengthy to recap or process—with the latest being the detention and possible deportation of a student for organising pro-Gaza peace rallies which is a test on limiting free speech and reigning in the latitude of elite and liberal universities and eviscerating the department of education) but this photo-op of Trump’s newly acquired Tesla really is beyond the pale. In response to buyers’ remorse and some incidents of vandalism perpetrated on Cybertrucks and verbal assaults, fragile owners have convinced their congressional representatives to classify such attacks as “hate crimes” with Trump selecting the vehicle from a line-up as his new personal automobile, not the reviled flagship make and model, on the White House south lawn—further blurring ethical lines for Musk’s roles in government leading DOGE initiatives and receiving billions in federal contracts with SpaceX and Starlink, simultaneously dismantling his chief competitor NASA while running the Nazi bar formerly known as Twitter and the Columbia House Music Club inspired car subscription service—blatantly signalling the economy will be driven by favouritism and crony capitalism. Trump endorsed his purchase, at market-value, “I think he has been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people—and I just want people to know he can’t be penalised for being a patriot, and he’s also done an incredible job with Tesla,” and used the opportunity to reiterate that the private company had been subject to “ongoing and heinous acts of violence” orchestrated by radical leftists and declared that occupation or protests on dealerships will be henceforth labeled as acts of domestic terrorism and that perpetrators will “go through hell” for their infractions. Musk’s wealth and Trump’s favourability depend on their brands being not toxic for their own wealth and success and seem to be summarily alienating their consumers and constituents.

9x9 (12. 297)

ei-ei-o: a comparison onomatopoetic words for animal sounds across different languages—via Waxy   

acrostic: textile company’s branding has the aesthetics of concrete poetry 

destiny narrative: an omnibus post on the horrors and avoidability of war  

analog society: a British group performs live mash-up of notionally similar songs 

tectonic independence: why Greenland is an island and Australia a continent—see also   

360: Manhattan’s only revolving restaurant to reopen  

telephone game: Russia demands details from US before agreeing to any ceasefire agreement in Ukraine   

cross-walk: mimes direct traffic in Bogotรก   

an old error has more friends than a new truth: proverbs and idioms from around the world

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica) plus more FOIA follies

seven years ago: raising awareness for prosthetic limbs, Japan’s residential towers plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: provisions requiring employees submit to DNA screenings

nine years ago: what if the Singularity already happened, the doorway effect plus colourful ancient statuary

ten years ago: Disney reboots, even more links plus more made-up jobs

Tuesday, 11 March 2025

inatsisartut (12. 296)

Though a referendum for independence is not explicitly on the ballot, forty-thousand of the island territory’s population of fifth-six-thousand residents have cast their vote in what could be consequential election of the autonomous region with geopolitical overtones that extend far beyond local politics. Characterised as a “fateful choice” for Greenlanders by the Prime Minister Mรบte Inequnaaluk Bourup Egede (incidentally a descendant of eighteenth century missionary Hans Poulsen Egede who founded the capital as Godthรฅb, now known as Nuuk, documented one of the earliest encounters with a sea-serpent and had challenges translating the Lord’s Prayer as the populace had no concept of bread and first tried to convey “Give us this day our daily seal”) of the democratic socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit pro-independence party, previously lobbied successfully to leave the EU over fishing rights, while recognising how the strategically located landmass is a point of contention for polarised powers seeking a foothold in the Arctic and mid-Atlantic. Results, once the tally is complete—an arduous task on the world’s largest island (granted home rule since 1979 with the above titular unicameral parliament—“those who make the law”) to collect ballots from isolated communities and general not subject to immediate speculation—will indicate whether Greenland wants to rehabilitate relations with Denmark or move towards integration with the United States with overtures to “buy” (or annex) it outright for its geographical vantage point and mineral wealth. Sentiment suggests that Kalaallit would prefer to be prefer and allowed self-determination and reject becoming another colony, especially given US imperial ambitions and its disrespectful and untrustworthy treatment of supposed allies and partners.

trade wars are good and easy to win (12. 295)

In response to a surcharge placed on electricity flowing into the American states of New York, Minnesota and Michigan, Trump has hurled multiple threats at Canada and the provincial government, accelerating the tariff schedule that is already bringing turmoil to international markets over uncertainty about global supply chains with a rambling post on his social media platform:

Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on “Electricity” coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. This will go into effect TOMORROW MORNING, March 12th. Also, Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products, which has long been considered outrageous. I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area. This will allow the U.S to quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada. If other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S. which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada. Those cars can easily be made in the USA! Also, Canada pays very little for National Security, relying on the United States for military protection. We are subsidizing Canada to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. WHY??? This cannot continue. The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that. The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, “O Canada,” will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen! 

In a succession of increasingly hostile and unfocused re:truths, Trump went on to accuse Ontario Premier Doug Ford of stooping “so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the lives of innocent people, as a bargaining chip” and that the country will pay “a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!” Tariffs (which end in FFS) are taxes charged on foreign exports paid by importers and typically pass the cost on to consumers and likely to raise prices for US businesses and shoppers very soon—risking, coupled with flagging consumer, boycotts and investor sentiment and disruption to finished products, the possibility of recession and job loss. Canada didn’t pick this fight and the extra duties run counter to the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that Trump negotiated back in 2020, hailing it as the “best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA.”

7x7 (12. 294)

wikiportraits: a group of photographers offering their services to furnish the free encyclopaedia with better celebrity images  

good enough: the rising phenomena of vibe coding, AI text-to-programming  

any one, any one: how US tariffs might play outsee more

march madness: a bracket face-off of the best literary villains 

stand up to a bully: a profile of Canada’s new prime minister, former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney   

i’m using an exclamation point so you know i’m friendly and excited: email etiquette   

ask jeeves: the International Butler Academy of Simpelveld in Limburg

synchronoptica

one year ago: Marlo Thomas and Friends’ Free to be You and Me (with synchronoptica) plus a lightly edited royal portrait

seven years ago: propagandist Axis Sally 

eight years ago: toasting the newly discovered TRAPPIST exoplanet system

nine years ago: a moving McDonald’s ad plus odd British toponyms

ten years ago: more protests against refugees in Germany, assorted links to revisit, folk etymologies and false cognates plus recycling e-waste

Monday, 10 March 2025

♀ (12. 293)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we learn that on this day in 1914 suffragette and activist Mary Raleigh Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velรกzquez with a meat cleaver in protest of the arrest and incarceration of movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst the day prior. After slashing the canvas, apprehended and sentenced to the maximum allowable for vandalising a work of art of six-months, Richardson issued a statement to the press: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” her actions further embellished in the papers in violent terms and framed as a callous murder of a actual person—an enduring problem when most female eponyms bestowed on places are not for actual figures but rather goddesses and deifications and more defamed by the omission, see also here and here. Velรกzquez’ 1651 work, successfully restored after the attack but again vandalised in 2023 by Just Stop Oil activists, was rather singular as one of the few nudes to come out of Spain during the Inquisition (Richardson also objected to the way gentleman gallery-goers leered at the image) and the motif, often copied, gave rise to the psychological, depictive departure known as the Venus Effect (cf, titular planetary symbol) with the goddess contemplating her reflection with back turned to the audience, seeing her face though not directly behind her, the intuitive framing often used in cinema to better frame an actor looking in the mirror.

blm (12. 292)

Created in response to federal officers attacking peaceful protesters with teargas in order to clear demonstrators as Trump’s entourage walked to St John’s Church for a photo-op holding a Bible, Washington DC’s iconic Black Lives Matter street mural is being erased, the city’s mayor pressured by contingent of congressional representatives to remove the slogan (citing public safety) or lose federal funding. Dedicated 5 June 20202 on the what would have been the twenty-seventh birthday of Breonna Taylor, a nursing student student killed during a botched police raid on the wrong premises, adding to global sorrow and outrage amid a mass movement to expose inequities, discrimination, violence the brutality of law enforcement for that began with the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013—and too many before and since—and grew to its international scope after the killing of George Floyd in May. The two block stretch and surrounding plaza have been a forum for healing and a venue for continued rallies as all our affected by the administration’s unrelenting attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, banning books and outlawing critical race theory or anything else that might make white people uncomfortable.

the birth of the robot (12. 291)

Having enjoyed some samples of Leonard Charles Huia Lye’s work (better known as Len Lye) in his pioneering animation studies and experimental use of rotoscope techniques, we appreciated being introduced to his kinetic sculptures and work in stop-motion short (presented in living Gasparcolor, developed in Berlin in 1933) about an undaunted motorist (see also) suddenly caught in a sandstorm and stranded in the unforgiving desert, who despite being reduced to sun-bleached bones is resurrected (with a few drops of life-giving petroleum) as cyborg. Watch the entire film at Open Culture at the link above from the Shell Oil historical archive—which includes many other promotional pieces of iconic animation.

synchronoptica

one year ago: 1978’s The Incredible Hulk (with synchronoptica) plus a cheese-mongers’ survey

seven years ago: a next generation scarecrow  

eight years ago: bringing back the bees plus more on repealing and replacing Obama Care 

nine years ago: illustrator William Thomas Horton, a fantastic projection of the Trump dynasty plus a Roald Dahl inspired font

ten years ago: an Ayn Rand film adaptation plus roving wireless

Sunday, 9 March 2025

ambuluwawa temple (12. 290)

Via Messy Nessy Chic’s regular roundup, we discover a singular multi-faith centre in Sri Lanka extending the eponymous peak (เถ…เถธ්เถถුเท…ුเท€ාเท€) of the strategically important mountain range separating the north and south of the island nation and protecting the historic capital of Kandy from colonial powers. The spiralling fairytale white tower with a narrowing staircase winding around takes a hour to ascend, affording spectacular vistas of the highlands. At the base of the pinnacle some fifty metres below is a complex opened to the public in 2007 (built at the urging of a former prime minister from this area to uphold both religious tolerance and harmony with nature) including a Buddhist stupa, a Hindu kovil, Muslim mosque and Christian chapel so all denominations can commune together above this biodiversity reserve.

and i’m going to use that bill for myself too—if you don’t mind—because nobody gets treated worse than i do online, nobody (12. 289)

Though drafted with the unimpeachably serious aim of curbing the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII—also known as revenge porn) online, the piece of legislation, the so called “Take It Down Act,” whose immediate passage Trump urged during his address to a joint-session of congress earlier in the week overly-broad language and is blatantly a recourse of the powerful to pressure host platforms to remove content critical of the administration, censoring and silencing dissent. Sponsored in the senate by Ted Cruz of Texas, the act would further require social media to have procedures in place to comply with a takedown request upon notice from a victim and enjoys support from the first lady, who is known for championing a rather unoriginal online safety campaign “Be Best” during her husband’s first term, opponents fear it could easily be extended to political speech and journalistic reporting that leadership does not like, with no penalties for lodging a false or frivolous notice and a requirement for hosts to monitor content shared over end-to-end encryption, potentially leading to platforms abandoning privacy measures in order to align with the law.