bran and chaff

The fact that the genetic code of rice and maize were mapped in 2002 and 2009 respectively and the wheat genome is just now being puzzled out is not a comment on the staple crop’s importance—both culturally and agriculturally, but rather testament to advances in computational power pitted against an incredibly complex blue-print that is magnitudes larger than human DNA (three billion base pairs as opposed to sixteen billion in a cell of wheat) and is composed of six copies of each chromosome (hexaploid) compared to diploid humans (XY, XX).
One wonders how much fourteen-thousand years of farming contributed to that complicated pedigree and how much was driven by natural forces.  Equipped with this more complete picture and an understanding behind the mechanism and orientation of how certain traits are expressed, after careful research and deliberation (the worst trade-offs are the ones we don’t see coming) scientists hope to be able to select for adaptable cultivars that can withstand a hotter, drier climate or varieties that don’t require pesticides or fertiliser, like this indigenous Mexican corn that can fix its own nitrogen from the air. Other applications could yield wheat-based products that are more nutritious and palatable for people with intolerance to it.

After considerable difficulty in finding a publisher for his manuscript—out of fears that criticism, however veiled, might distress the alliance with the Soviets under advisement of the Ministry of Information, George Orwell’s allegory Animal Farm was first released on this date in 1945.
The work, which is a retelling of the dismantling of the Czarist Russia and the violent Stalinist origins of the Soviet Union, informed by the author’s experiences of escaping Communist purges during the Spanish Civil War and realising how easily “enlightened people in democratic countries” can become gripped by propagandists and whipped into a furore. Originally bearing the subtitle “a fairy story,” the satire—removed from contemporary events and figures—does seem to become a clumsier way of getting one’s point across and might limit the novella’s scope away from dictatorships in general, but I think that such criticism—and we should have the wherewithal to question political relevance—re-enforces the need to study our history in order to avoid repeating it.

rip aretha

Crowned Queen of Soul shortly after her discovery, commercial break-out in 1967, the elevation of Aretha Franklin was by no means something premature. Her impact and legacy are hard to assess, having been the soundtrack and rallying-cry to each of our lives when we needed it and when we were ready for it.  Resquiescat in pace.

the long game

Digg directs us to a fascinating article from The New Republic that traces the deep history of the KGB and successor organisation’s preening of their unwitting Manchurian Candidate, possibly going all the way back to Trump’s 1978 marriage to Ivana and subsequent visits to Czechoslovakia, with the real estate mogul becoming a person of interest who might provide insights into the soft power of celebrity.
Indeed, however, their plant turned out to be something like The Americans, only tawdry and dim and in reverse with the realisation that Trump and his circle had not only the potential for ingratiating themselves to politicians with the power to influence policy-makers but had were fools for flattery and the American oligarchs, the parasitical rich whose fortunes would not have materialised without heavy government subsidies and corporate bequests of to hollowed out institutions and services that the state used to provide, might be enlisted as statesmen themselves—either directly or indirectly.  There’s an exchange from 1986 recounted that would have otherwise appeared too dumb and conceited to be believed until this year with Trump fishing for information on nuclear weapons as a way to get a primer on how Gorbachev so he might be able to convince Reagan to invest Trump with plenipotentiary powers as an ambassador to the Soviet Union and of course, to open a hotel.  Arrogantly, Trump laid claim to his familiarity and confidence by linking himself to the administration through the lobbying firm of Black, Manafort & Stone who had helped orchestrate Reagan’s 1984 re-election victory who Trump had recently retained. It’s easy to concede that such vanity wouldn’t make for a plum asset. 

janteloven

We’re grateful to TYWKIWDBI for the introduction to the “Law of Jante,” originally a satirical way to codify Scandinavian social foibles and group behaviour but now something taught in schools to reinforce social mores.
Setting his observations and reflections on small town life in a 1933 humorous work called “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks” (En flykning krysser sitt spor), author Aksel Sandemose creates the fictional village of Jante and prescribes ten rules, which all echo the prevailing sentiment that overt ambition and rebellion—within certain tolerance—are selfish and inappropriate and one ought to adopt the Golden Rule to have the empathy and self-awareness to know that one is not better than everyone else. Outside the classroom, the term has taken on an idiomatic sense of disdain for over-achievers and agitators for agitation’s sake, and the attitude is testament to the social cohesion, tolerance, equity and compassion demonstrated by the Nordic culture. Visit the link above to review the full rules and learn more.