outbreak

With the exception of commanding officer of the Marine Corps, every other member of the US military branches that comprise the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Space Force included) who have the task of advising the president and the secretary of defence having been in close contact with one of the latest meeting’s attendees who tested positive for the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 and are in quarantine. Separate from the nomination ceremony for his handmaiden to the US Supreme Court of Justice, it appears that Trump himself is the disease vector.

Aside from anonymous domestics and ancillary staff who put their health and the heath of their families at risk daily in this toxic work environment, the running tally of those at the White House who have succumb to the infection sprints ahead of those rapid succession resignations and dismissals that qualified the administration and measured in Scaramuccis until by process of elimination, he had really scraped the bottom of the barrel for the very worst. Aside from Flotsam and Jetsam, here’s a list of staffers from his inner-circle who’ve been infected and are seemingly wearing it like a badge of pride, a sign of how much access they have to Trump: 

Stephen Miller, Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway and Bill Stepien—speech writer who maintained COVID-19 was a hoax as his grandmother was dying of it, close adviser who was one of the first to show symptoms, former counselor and campaign manager 

Jalen Drummond, Chad Gilmartin and Kayleigh McEnanny—deputy press secretary, press office staffer and deputy press secretary 

Admiral Charles Ray—vice commandant of the US Coast Guard who sent the Joint Chiefs of Staff into isolation 

John Jenkins—University of Notre Dame president who attended the nomination ceremony of the school’s aluma 

Ronna McDaniel—chair of the Republican National Committee 

Senators Thom Tillis, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson—members of the judiciary committee and head of Homeland Security 

Chris Christie—former New Jersey governor and campaign adviser 

Nicholas Luna and an unnamed valet—bag man for Trump and one of his drivers

51 pegasi b

On this day in 1995 the discovery of the exoplanet by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva was announced in the journal Nature.

Though we now know the Cosmos is awash with worlds beyond our Solar System, this planet—provisionally named Bellerophon for the monster-slayer of Greek myth who captured and tamed Pegasus, namesake of its host constellation—officially designated Dimidium (Latin for half) can be described in current parlance as a hot Jupiter, a common class of planets but as this was the first one found orbiting another sun-like star (the first were discovered in 1992 though orbiting a pulsar and wholly ghostly and alien) it was given the name for its mass being half that of our largest world. The co-discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize in physics last year—nearly a quarter of a century afterwards.

9x9

dry dock: a drone surveys a cruise ship graveyard  

one of these things is not like the other: match memes described as having the same energy—via Waxy 

anti-trust, anti-social: leaked documents show how viciously Facebook (previously) plans to fight regulations and its forced break-up

verticalisation: photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro has Chongqing in frame a decade after his first visit 

rephotography: vis-à-vis, the above, staging the same photos decades later—via Things Magazine  

we bid a hasty retreat from his lair: School House Rock’s Unpack Your Adjectives  

begagnade varor: IKEA to open a second-hand outlet in Sweden—via Kottke  

space ghost coast-to-coast: a retrospective of comics illustrator Alex Toth 

even keel: a tiny, personal boat to navigate Amsterdam’s canals

parola del giorno

Though the furore over FLOTUS’ wardrobe choices two years back have since been superseded by more consequent expressions of disdain, we thought it noteworthy to learn that what could be translated as having an “I don’t care” attitude has a lot of if not nuance then context underpinning that ought not be glossed over.

Menefrehismo traces its rabid pedigree back to the rise of fascism in Italy over its late entry into World War I. Under the leadership of Il Duce, his volunteer shock troops, known as the arditi—the daring—sang a vulgar song as they marched off to the fight. One line goes “me ne frego” if I die in battle, expressing not only a sense of nihilism but moreover in a wanton and crude fashion—the reflexive verb fregare meaning to rub and thus I won’t rub myself about that or mildly I don’t give a damn, I don’t give a toss. Click here to listen to a better song.  Of course phrases become middle-of-the-road over time and don’t carry the same weight of history, propaganda and ideology but plenty of menefreghista are out there signalling among one another.

pyongyang on the potomac

Not to rest on his laurels in his escalating pursuit of photo-opportunities—not content with gassing a gathering of peaceful protesters to pose, uninvited in front of a church holding a Bible or turning a nomination ceremony into a superspreader event without remorse or going for a joy ride, skipping out of the hospital in an armoured, hermetically sealed vehicle with a retinue of Secret Service agents while highly contagious to wave at small crowd of well-wishers, an impeached, still contagious and steroid-addled Trump was discharged from Walter Reed Medical Centre and remanded to the White House, ascending, gasping for breath a few stairs and dramatically whipped off his mask in a gesture that’s to be interpreted as triumph and full recovery.

Audaciously insulting to the over two hundred thousand Americans who’ve died from COVID-19 complications, the untold millions of affected families and those who’ve lost their livelihoods due to the ensuing economic collapse, he released in a recorded message shortly after his appearance: “Don’t let it dominate you—don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines, all developed recently.” Medical insurance is tied to employment in the US and the situation is quite fraught on both fronts right now, and the level of tax-payer supported housing and healthcare is of course not available to the average citizen and most will experience very different outcomes.

sorry seems to be the hardest word

From part of a fascinating conversation at Language Log, we learn that the French equivalent phrase for I stand corrected is Autant pour moi—that is, So much for me—the expression being a corruption itself of the military order “au temps,” directing one to repeat a manoeuvre from the beginning due to an error committed somewhere in the process. Or not, possibly the above is a back-formation or a folk etymology—we love how people are passionate about language. Je suis désolée. As much as I liked the idea of retreating that the French conveys, I rather thought the English idiom was sort of a strange formulation since what first comes to my mind was “to take a stand” and be committed to one’s convictions though they might be shown as false, but here we encounter stand as an auxiliary verb, as in to understand or to be in good standing. Well off I go.

älmhult almanac

Previously we posted about the archival qualities of the IKEA catalogues dating back to the company’s 1951 founding, though beforehand it was just what was featured on the covers and not the older contents, and now—via Plain Magazine—we discover that the store’s museum has curated each edition in its entirety and makes them available digitally for all to peruse. The next leap forward we think will be arranging a 3D download for some retro furnishings.

glass microbiology

Via two of our favourite bloggers, Nag on the Lake and Everlasting Blört, we are directed towards the exacting model that Luke Jerram and his team of glassblowers have created of the strain of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 as a homage to global effort to contain and combat the global COVID-19 pandemic and to help scientists and non-scientists alike to visualise and focus their efforts on an artefact magnified by a factor of two million. There is an educational video and a gallery of previous sculptures of pathogens and pestilence at the link above, and whilst not on the same subject, these creations made us recall the glass specimens made as museum pieces of deep sea life that would have disintegrated on surfacing but we thought also speaks to the inspirational value of this heuristic that is as much art as it is utilitarian.