peaceful transition of power

Via JWZ we’re directed to a very sobering glimpse of what may transpire with the US presidential election that’s just two months away with a bi-partisan think-tank running scenarios that nearly end in chaos, constitutional crisis and street violence.
Trump and his supporters have given every indication already that a loss or concession is not forthcoming and the only outcome that did not end badly was an indisputably big win for the Democratic ticket. These prophesies of doom are not inevitable and hopefully the modelling and discussion can help to mobilise voters and help them realise that the enshrined—albeit it beleaguered and embattled though not yet too far gone—institutions of democracy and the rule of law need the full backing and support of the franchise, lest someone else chooses for them.

dateline

Born on this day in 1920, Marguerite Higgins Hall (†1966 having contracted a skin disease spread by the bite of sand flies while on assignment that turned out to be deadly) would go on to attend journalism school at U.C. Berkeley and Columbia and become a reporter and war correspondent.  Covering World War II, Korea and Vietnam for the New York Tribune and the wire services, Higgins advanced equal access for women journalists in combat zones and became the first female to win a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Stationed in Europe early in her career, Higgins was reassigned from the Paris bureau to Germany in March 1945 and was witness to the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp a month later, decorated for her coverage and assistance during the surrender for the SS guards. Afterwards from the German desk, Higgins reported on the Nürnberg Tribunal and the Blockade of Berlin.

did ye ken...

This is probably old news for most but I was somewhat taken aback to learn that for over six years the Scots language Wikipedia has been moderated and edited by a Wikipedian who isn’t of Scottish heritage nor speaks Scots and has contributed over twenty-thousand articles to the domain that are largely accurate though not written in Scots but rather with the approximation of a Scots accent.
I feel torn because I understand the upset that this revelation causes—though arguably not malicious cultural vandalism—it does have an outsized influence on the minority language and probably represents the largest lexicon of Scots presently—with all the errata that non-native speakers would take as genuine. What do you think? Despite earnest efforts, one probably ought not to assay something this potentially influential given Scots’ status as something once the object of derision and suppressed, but there is also the fact that this was an undertaking that the administrator took on aged twelve and it presumably grew into an obsession and mission, and I think there’s something relatable in that. Again, a people and a language is not fandom but this episode recalls the spurious volume two of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda of Tordesillas—which Cervantes denounces and is probably the first occurance of metafiction in literature.

u-bahn

As Futility Closet informs the transit map of the metro network of the city of Stuttgart, subways, trolleys feeding into on the railways and airport, commissioned in 2000 is uniquely projected thirty degrees askew to create a three-dimensional isometric layout. Other peculiarities of the transport scheme include the only urban Zahnradbahn (cogwheel railway and nicknamed Zacke) in addition to a Standsielbahn (see also here and here) a funicular narrow-gauge track that ascends a forested hill. This clever representation, however, has since been replaced by more conventional diagrams.

acquired immunity

Seemingly to spite the World Health Organisation and China (plus the some one hundred seventy nation strong coalition who have so far signed up to participate) and avoid any obligations to share with the rest of humanity, the US under Trump’s direction will not join a global effort to develop a vaccine and therapeutic interventions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
By snubbing the Covax initiative and its solidarity trials—which pledges to prioritise aid and delivery to the most vulnerable populations first (once that presently hypothetical inoculation is developed—that is), Trump is forcing the US to wager big on the promise that America can on its own come up with its own treatment hedged with an escalating corona-driven arms race with contracts to buy out the stock of whatever intervention seems viable.

6x6

fast car: the timelessness of Tracy Chapman’s ballad

call me trim tab: inspiring words from Buckminster Fuller (previously)

call of the wild: New Guinea’s singing dogs are not extinct outside of the captive population after all—via Nag on the Lake with bonus content

brick and mortem: a thoughtful reflection on the disappearing traditional high street, via Things Magazine

syncopation: time-lapse films of plants sprouting with a jazzy musical accompaniment

shine bright like a diamond: researchers in Bristol create betavoltaic batteries out of nuclear waste and gemstones that could last for millennia—see previously

divinisation or pompatus of love

We enjoyed reading this short, collective hagiography that profiles several saints named Hyacinth, including one from Fara: “A martyr about whom nothing is known,” but we were more intrigued by the footnote for namesake flower (Giancinto, Jacinto, Hyakithos) and its mythological origins in a handsome Spartan prince and his fatal love-triangle.
Hyacinth was the lover of Apollo, but he had the attention and advances of a host of other suitors including the famous Thracian singer Thamyris, Zephyrus and Boreas—respectively the West and North Winds. Hyacinth preferred the company of Apollo and together in a chariot drawn by swans, they had adventures. While playing a round of frisbee (discus), Hyacinth was struck in the head and perished, the eponymous blossom rising up where his blood was spilled—a trope appropriated by Christianity as a symbol of renewal. Devastated Apollo blamed himself but there is strong suspicion that the winds conspired to punish the prince out of jealousy, and the god wanted himself to become mortal to join him after his healing powers failed him. The Spartan month that coincided with early summer when the flowers bloom was named in his honour and included three days of festivities. Hyacinth was eventually resurrected and joined the pantheon of the gods. This attainment of godhood is apotheosis and usually in Antiquity heroes were accorded local status alone, whereas in Imperial Rome, a deceased ruler was generally recognised by his success, decree of the senate and popular consent—though some ridiculed this practise as it also included the corrupt and inept—satirised by referring to the tradition with another Greek borrowing apocolocyntosis—that is, pumpkinification with accompanying lampoon that features Claudius and Caligula in the underworld.

sacrorum antistitum

Rescinded in 1967, Pope Pius X instituted the requirement, motu proprio, on this day in 1910 that all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries of the Catholic church take his oath against modernism—that is the attempt to reconcile church doctrine with contemporary culture and norms.
An earlier encyclical by Pius, Pascendi Dominic gregis (Feeding the Lord’s Flock) brought the term to prominence and made it a matter of debate, especially vexed by scholars that insisted that the church could no longer ignore scientific evidence that ran counter to a literal interpretation of the Bible. To be sworn by all parties above, the clauses include rejecting “that method of judging and interpreting Sacred Scripture which, departing from the tradition of the Church, the analogy of faith, and the norms of the Apostolic See, embraces the misrepresentations of the rationalists…” While overturned by the curia and no longer mandatory, some organisations offer this pledge on a voluntary basis.