8x8 (12. 176)

cryptobiosis: a nematode was reanimated when pulled out of the Siberia permafrost after forty-six thousand years 

fresh air, town square: Mastodon is becoming a non-profit organisation—via Waxy  

wrack and ruin: a superlative gallery of abandoned places  

a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable but you must not go very far beyond this: in praise of Jane Austin 

hollywood hills: architects reckon with the scale of destruction from the Los Angles fires—more here 

luthersadt eisleben: a horde of coins found hidden in a statue’s leg in the reformer’s home church 

the joe rogan experience: Elizabeth Lopatto summarises the three-hour interview with Zuckerberg 

 ™: Sweden’s attempt to copyright Sweden thwarted plus other assorted legal stupidity

*: to undertake without usual protection, preparation or comfort (12. 175)

Though striking as a bit vulgar as an extension of the slang term, the American Dialect Society’s selection of rawdogging (see previously here and here)—from the slang for engaging into intercourse without a condom—is striking for how pervasive the term has become in common parlance, sort of like the time Angela Merkel said shitstorm once at a press conference, how the Trump administration pushed the limits of what could be said on television and necessitated some uncomfortable explanations or how generally such anti-euphemistic (a dysphemism, substituting a derogatory descriptor when a neutral one would do) language can transcend its company and find widespread application, from forgoing luxuries to bare-knuckled navigating through a hardship with no lead-time. Others voted on and ranked by lexicographers, editors and ethnographers included brat, sanewashing, AI slop, to crash out, to reach one’s physical and emotional limits and mog, to assert dominance based on physical appearance, from the initialism for alpha male of group.

dryish january (12. 174)

Having encountered this humour list of alternatives to California sober—no alcohol or other recreational drugs, only weed for the health conscious—for other polities, we quite enjoyed this introduction to the growing lexicon of N/A (non-alcoholic) vocabulary under development that goes past the mocktail or zero-proof as a substitute for the social function of booze and spirits. Particularly intriguing were damp/flexi drinking, an intentional moderation, a less smug way of declaring mindful imbibing, elixirs and infusions, not authoritative definition but concoctions that elicit mystery and lend a certain air to one’s fancy stemware and zebra striping, like practice of bookending one’s evening with non-alcoholic options, enjoying an adult beverage or two in between or alternating. Sure that the language will improve and evolve beyond backronyms, no one should be expected to explain or excuse their choices or succumb to peer-pressure in social settings. More from Punch at the link above.

unwort des jahres (12. 173)

For the thirty-fourth time, the jury has selected its Un-word of the Year (see also below) for this past twelve months, the panel of linguists (for the first two years, the selection was announced by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache along with the Wort des Jahres but an internal row led to the committee to become independent and refuse any state funding) calling out a recently popularised term that denigrates human rights and democratic principles through euphemism or deflection. For 2024, with dishonourable mentions going to Heizungsverbot, misleading as implying a heating ban and attempting to discredit environmental protection measures but only effects standards for the construction of new heating systems, the overall winner was the neologism that repackages old, everyday racism biodeutsch, that is—biologically German. Gaining parlance on social media, it is used to classify, evaluate and discriminate against an out-group on supposed biological criteria, originally used ironically from the organic seal for domestic produce but used for some time in this non-satirical and unreflective way. The construct implies a non-existent biological connection to nationality and is meant to exclude those with immigrant roots, real or presumed.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus more emoji remixers

seven years ago: Martin Luther King Day universally celebrated in the US plus the leader of the American Nazi party

eight years ago: bat-friendly tequila, promotion via voice-analysis, modern grotesques, MAGA international plus image compression

nine years ago: Germany’s Unwort of the Year 

ten years ago: Switzerland retires some of its civilian defence infrastructure, the origins of bio-feedback plus no crisis unexploited

counteroffer (12. 172)

After newly elected Mexican president Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s musing that the gulf be renamed and suggesting instead that the historically accurate appellation of Mexican America be applied to the northern portion of the continent, a law-maker in Canada also snapped back that the western Pacific states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California petition to become a new eleventh province—not only shielding from retributive tariffs but also with the guarantee of universal healthcare and sensible gun control-measures which the US has failed to provide.

his sole objective is to become a trillionaire (12. 171)

Delightfully—but never thinking we might kind of side with the likes of Steve Bannon (previously)—the former advisor and architect of the MAGA movement has taken to labelling apartheid shadow president Space Karen as a truly evil character and racist, albeit mostly due to Musk’s access to and influence over Trump and advocacy for immigration carve-outs that would benefit his own businesses and government contracts, and vowing to personally take down the richest man in the world’s ambitions to enrichment himself further by appealing to Trump’s vanity, a relatively cheap date—also calling for the impeachment of justice Amy Coney Barrett for not blocking Trump’s felony sentencing. Bannon questions the validity of commentary of unelected white South Africans in US policy and sees Musk and his hangers-on (appreciating the monetary support but hopes for silent partners) for their techno-feudal aspirations.

let’s play twister, let’s play risk (12. 170)

Though by far not the last annexation or intervention in the history of American imperium, the current state of affairs has echoes in the major territorial acquisition by the United States: faced with an increasingly polarised world vying for newly accessible sea routes and scarce natural resources, America sets its sites on a strategically located island under the control of the Kingdom of Denmark over reasons of national security and economic interests, with threats of taking it by force after Copenhagen refused the offer. Denmark eventually makes the trade, finalised in 1917, with the Danish West Indies becoming the US Virgin Islands, US president Woodrow Wilson (previously) keen to maintain a foothold in the Caribbean, for fear it be invaded by Germany and used as a base to stop shipping in the then recently opened Panama Canal. A century later, Trump is revisiting the idea with proclamations that, “for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” not ruling out economic pressure and the use of force to take it militarily. Not discounting the doctrine of settled borders or the incoming president is lobbing threats at fellow members of the NATO alliance, return to an age of empire negates America’s argument for aid to Ukraine—or Taiwan or how its enablers should put their foot down over Israeli incursions in Palestine—and privileges the same pretext of national security (for access to the Black Sea) that Russia used for its invasion over state sovereignty, and boosts the chances of it happening to America itself. This is what one gets for re-electing a not very smart or terribly successful real estate developer. None of the indigenous populations deserve to be made pawns in this redux of the Great Game and would likely not get a voice in the matter, but Russia could take back Alaska, using the same arguments and resort to the fallback of whataboutism, and claim the US is underusing the peninsula’s potential—or for the remnants of the British Empire, like las Islas Malvinas, Diego Garcia or Gibraltar. More from Vox contributor Joshua Keating at the link above.

twentytwentyfive (12. 169)

Better Living through Beowulf brings us a thoughtful reflection on George Orwell’s prescient 1946 essay called “The Prevention of Literature” that forecasts how authoritarian regimes will turn to AI (not exactly couched in modern parlance but rather as formulaic, mass-produced writing that could outpace any author or newsroom, though his dystopian novel does feature prole porn—we might even be denied that—and other entertainments produced by machine), which envisions journalism being first censored out of existence to be churned out with minimal human input or intervention with prose and poetry to follow—though book bans in the United States (including 1984) seem to rather subvert that sequence, notwithstanding the attacks against what’s labelled as the “legacy media” continuing—already witnessing the change in his own time with modular stories and plots, easily adapted and repackaged for an eager audience and easily made to conform with the worldview that the state seeks to project. Introducing his work with a recollection of attending a meeting of the PEN Club in London that coincided with the three-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Milton’s Areopagitica—in defence of press freedoms—two years prior, Orwell blames the loss of intellectual liberty on the undermining of the increasingly concentrated ownership of the press and monopolies on broadcast media by corporations that refused to support their authors and internecine squabbling amongst academics. Such an atmosphere and compromised readership enables conditions for a totalitarian takeover. Contemporary critics generally agreed with Orwell’s premise, though some though his arguments amounted to “intellectual swashbuckling” and concluded his prophecies doubtful.