liber pontificalis

Notably the first of the early popes not to be venerated as a saint in the Roman Rite (though fêted in the Eastern Orthodox Church on 27 August and on 4. Pi Kogi Enavot in the Coptic Church, one of the calendar’s epagomenal, “monthless” days), Liberius (*310 - †366) was Bishop of Rome from May of 352 until this death, on this day. Liberius was the first pontiff to associate the winter solstice—celebrated at the time as Sol Invictus—with Christmas, not only as means of co-opting a popular pagan holiday but also in line with the reasoning that great figures did not live life in fractions of years.  This date was also championed by his predecessor Pope Julius I and penned down in subsequent years.

corea: the hermit kingdom

This anthology of Korean folktales collected and retold by William Elliot Griffis from Public Domain Review is interesting in its own right for the well-intentioned desire (with notable shortcomings) to bring to a Western readership some of the country’s mythology and lore, but there’s a striking side note as well with earlier publication of the above entitled in 1882, a history of the Joseon dynasty that coined the moniker, applied to isolationist policies in general. Obviously now not new, the term gained traction and currency when invoked by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to describe North Korea.

future imperfect

NPR’s excellent podcast Hidden Brain (see previously here, here and here) explores the halo effect and hindsight bias, the tendencies to reframe past events as more predictable and straightforward consequential than they could have possibly been once the outcome is known and discount the difficulty of forecasting and intentionality for the future, through a pair of tragic post-mortems that were nonetheless accidents no matter how haunting and haunted we assay our incidents. Not to say that there are no sinister motives and bad, ill-informed choices but certain narratives have appeal because it allows us to assign blame and preserve a sense of agency when confronting the real chain of events might seem too dicey, too random. Far from being exculpatory, finding meaning in successes, calamity and near-misses is empowering. 

public law 81-831

Also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 or the Concentration Camp Law, the McCarran Internal Security Act, namesake of its principal champion the senator from Nevada, was enacted by congress on this day seventy years ago—overriding a veto by President Truman. In addition to requiring Communist and fascist organisations register with the Attorney General’s office and the already established Subversive Activities Control Board with the broad powers to restrict movement and revoke citizenship of members, it also provided for the emergency detention of dangerous or disloyal persons were there is reasonable cause to believe that such persons will probably engage in—or conspire with others to engage in—espionage or sabotage.

In 1965, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled to invalidate the requirement for political party affiliates to register with the Department of Justice and the ban on card-carrying Communist party members from obtaining a passport and traveling outside the US, with the board abolished in 1972, following Nixon’s Non-Detention Act of the previous year (passed due to overwhelming public pressure, see also), repealing most of aspects of the law. The clauses of the Internal Security Act (its official title) that remain in effect are cited, invoked by the US military as a means of access control for instalations.

skyline

The always interesting Spoon & Tamago introduces us to the portfolio of artist Yukino Ohmura whose dazzling and detailed urban nightscapes, which she brilliantly creates from the humble yet versatile stationary store dot stickers, which with the right composition can mimic the picture-taking technique known as bokeh. More to explore at the artist’s web presence and at the link up top.

6x6

blocking: Ella Slack has been the Queen’s stand-in and body-double for the past three decades 

grizzly ii: a previously unreleased 80s horror flick starring Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen is making its debut forty years later, via Messy Nessy Chic  

life, the universe and everything: fun facts about the number forty-two, via Boing Boing  

welcoming autumn: it’s decorative gourd season 

the long now: hiding a ten-thousand-year clock inside a mountain (see also)

framing: Twitter issues apologies for its biased image cropping algorithm

primidi vendémiaire

Coinciding with the autumnal equinox for the Northern Hemisphere of that year and derived from the Occitan term for grape harvester, this date in 1792 on the French Revolutionary Calendar (see previously) marked the first day and décade of the new system of time-keeping for the Republic—the month corresponded with the season of the vintage of northern France’s wine producing areas. In following years, the new year was proceeded by five or six epagomenical days (jours épagomènes) called the Sansculottides, ending the summer quarter and aligning the calendar with the tropical year and named for the partisans “without knee-breeches” that underpinned the uprising and overthrow of the Ancien Régime.

rip rbg

Incredibly, following a private service in the Great Hall and after lying in repose at the US Supreme Court building’s portico Thursday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol rotunda.

Rosa Parks was accorded a similar honour when she passed away in 2005, but because she was not a public official, was said to be resting. Thirty-four men have been granted a viewing in the halls of Congress. Since the president’s 1865 assassination, all those who have lain in state have been presented on the Lincoln catafalque, a funeral bier originally constructed for the funeral services for George Washington but like the cenotaph two storeys below the Capitol known as Washington’s Tomb (unoccupied and where the caisson was customarily stored when not in use), was not implemented at the time. With the high holy day of Yom Kippur beginning at sunset on Sunday, Ginsburg won’t be lain to rest at Arlington National Cemetery until next Tuesday.