simulcast

Though disappointingly this hilarious juxtaposition of swapping out the subtitles was probably only enjoyed in real-time by an audience of one (the Swedish broadcaster thinks it’s rather a glitch with older television sets that allows you to switch channels and keep the same teletext), but this debate in the Riksdag from early last year with narration from the apparently adjacent programming of the PBS children’s show Dinosaur Train is now playing to many more spectators. See the whole series of funny screen-grabs at the link up top.

natron valley

Never mind the hiring underlaps at the Centres for Disease Control and the frittering away of institutional knowledge that means America is woefully ill-equipped to face the next virulent outbreak—meaning that the nation becomes a vector for the rest of the world, or the heartlessness of stripping health-coverage from those most in need of it, routine surgeries and treatments are being postponed because of a rather baffling shortage of medical grade sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).  Used in a number of treatments, health care providers are getting desperate and suspect that the scarcity—which has occurred periodically—is the unfortunate collusion of factors chief among them being there’s little incentive in making this basic ingredient—unlike the proprietary drugs that rake in huge, exploitative profits. Perhaps some substitute is about to be brought to market that performs the same function at eight thousand times the cost. Most other governments would intervene before things get to point where healthcare is at the mercy of a few powerful cartels.

kegelbahn

Via Boing Boing, our attention is turned to marvel at the photographic eye of Robert Goetzfried as he explores the patterns and retro architecture that frame bowling alleys—lanes for Kegeln to be more precise, that one finds in bars, restaurants, sports club houses and guest houses in Germany. With the rules of the game having been codified by none other than reformer Martin Luther, it’s probably apt to characterise devotion to the game, especially in rural Bavaria where most of the images were captured, as a religious one.  Ogle the photographer’s whole gallery at the links up top.

swap meet

Hyperallergic contributor Mark Dery pens a thoughtful essay lamenting eBay’s transformation to a model more akin to other on-line retailers who specialise in plying wares similar to ones that a given shopper has already expressed an interest in from its origins as an on-line flea market (Flöhmarkt, les puces), souk, arcade or yard sale.
Rather than trying cater to consumers by gainsaying what they might like, eBay encouraged critical meandering, the bailiwick of the committed flâneur. The dissonance and the disconnect are essential for experiencing serendipity, the non sequitur, and are patently more character building than having everything that one is interested in or concerned for served to them in tidy package. Ghost malls are a bellwether and a parallel casualty to marketing but in their homogenising brought about their own demise. Old eBay was the emporium that facilitated the exchange of items befitting a Wünderkammer like bizarre taxidermy specimens, celebrity detritus or the simulacra of Jesus and Mary in food items and was a source of associated folklore for some of these transaction, but the new eBay hardly has any auctions any more with the trend towards the bourgeoisie smug and no place for the weirder categories.

seoullo 7017

A Dutch architectural group (previously here and here) has recently completed a project undertaken in Seoul that’s given the city an elevated, tree-lined walkway above the street traffic. A disused highway overpass that stretches more than a kilometre across the metropolis and was slated for demolition but civil engineers envisioned other plans, similar to New York City’s High Line.

polity et pietat

Geopolitics are making things seem a little bit meaningless right now, and sorry that the world is going a little fascist—but this too will pass.
The media echo chamber and the own signature time dilation that the US regime is causing (weeks stretch out to full four year terms) seem insurmountable but provided that we are not complicit in our own destruction and hold tyranny to account, we won’t descend quietly into that unreality where bluster and bombast and magical-thinking (those essential oils are going to have to step up their game with the impending cuts to health care in America) become the standard tool-box for diplomacy, legislation and policy execution. Perhaps a papal audience was intended to be another petulant and hollow photo-opportunity but maybe Dear Leader, who has so far been rather impervious to the world—secure in his narcissism, might get a more transformative lecture than he was expecting.

caption contest

Dear Leader’s rabid supporters, Super Punch informs, have obtained the physical and virtual identities (including sexual orientation and religious affiliation) of thousands of Dear Leader’s detractors and have circulated the list, which comes with instructions on how to find and compile information on their ideological foils—a process called doxxing (a neologism document-tracking or version-control that is associated with on-line vigilantism).
The list itself comes from a legitimately anti-Dear Leader petition’s registry of signatories calling for the removal of the entire regime—which while one ought not be blindly committal to everything that comes along, as a petition could as easily be a honey-pot, it is a pretty chilling prospect that contact data could be so easily lifted and used to harass, intimidate and silence antagonists and their associates. Anonymity is the refuge of bullies and it’s not as if one’s politics are called out in stark contrast, but there’s also no requirement public requirement for disclosure in every context and forum.  This wouldn’t be the first time that a bait-and-switch and unthinking allegiance has gotten people in trouble—still there’s no equivalence with signing a document and threatening the people that did so. Despots already can invoke lèse-majesté laws to mute critics and shutdown dialogue—without the help of goons to do their bidding.  Be careful what you share, be careful what you click.