pro tempore (12. 275)

Inaugurated on this day in 1853 (see below—public ceremonies were held on 4 March with a few exceptions when the date fell on a Sunday from 1793 until 1933), William Rufus DeVane King became the thirteenth vice president of the United States—serving until his death about a month later. Previously a representative from North Carolina (under the constitutional age requirement of twenty-five but attaining that age by the time congress convened and then sworn in), senator of Alabama and ambassador to France and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, King assisted in the drafting of the Comprise of 1850 and generally held moderate positions (insofar as possible for such things) on slavery and westward expansion, opposing secession while resisting efforts to abolish enslavement in the congressionally administered District of Columbia. Suffering from a bout of tuberculosis, which would summarily be his demise, King was in residence at a sanitarium in Matanzas Cuba at the time of transition and by dint of a special act of Congress was administered his oath there by a consular officer. King and subsequent successor to the presidency, James Buchanan, were able to survive the political scandal of their long-term homosocial and homosexual relationship, having lived together for thirteen years, despite being mocked publicly as Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy respectively by the Jacksonian camp. Shortly after the ceremony, King made his way back to Washington, expiring two days after his arrival, never having discharged any act in his capacity with the office remaining vacant until thr inauguration of Buchanan in 187, with John C Breckinridge, often summoned to the White House to speak with Harriet Lane, Buchanan’s niece and acting First Lady—one of eleven such designees but never a divorcee to service a bachelor or widower, an accomplished hostess, for private office with the president.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a televised version of the Star Wars saga with product placement (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Berlusconi returns 

eight years ago: pan to the right, Kellyanne Conway plus Türkiye takes a cue from MAGA

nine years ago: a trafficking board game plus a plant-identifying app

ten years ago: numeracy from The Simpsons, assorted links worth revisiting, executive functions plus the legacy of Bauhaus

fetch happens (12. 274)

Already taking certain cues from the dog when it comes to a vigorous shake of the head and big stretches as a reminder, from the New Shelton wet/dry comes another behaviour that maybe it’s wise to incorporate in that chewing wood may boost memory and brain antioxidants. Previous studies suggest that mastication has a positive influence on blood flow and brain function but new research points to how chewing wood—like a popsicle stick—as opposed to gnawing on piece of gum might stimulate production of glutathione, an important restorative that helps the brain repair oxidative stress, neutralising reactive chemicals. More longitudinal studies are needed to see if the correlation nets improved cognition and overall help.

ideas lying around (12. 273)

Cory Doctorow couches the current pandemonium that America has inherited in the succession of dormant crises that neoliberal economics professor turned advisor to Reagan and Thatcher Milton Friedman and his acolytes (previously), recognising that external pressures and anxiety can quickly spiral out of control “ideas can move from the periphery to the centre in an eyeblink,” and in his role was responsible keep those regressive notions in his quiver and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice when the public was most vulnerable and susceptible to turning.  As with the illiberalism that rose from the pandemic and second-wave inflation that followed, the US is emboldened to be disruptive but in ways that that are shortsighted, not sustainable and likely to backfire, repatriating off-shored industry is a process as gradual and fraught as any economic pressures that saw the loss of manufacturing capacity in the first place and won’t be fixed by tariffs, as bad as reversing posture on the environment are, clean, renewable energy is at a crucial juncture and looking less and less like that oil could ever recapture its primacy, dismantling the administrative state and defaming bureaucracy and rubbishing allies and a world order its helped maintain for decades does not put American interests first but rather risks its further descent into a pariah nation, a kleptocracy and failed petrostate with nuclear weapons. These uncertain times can also engender mainstreaming the fringe and reframing it something that people want desperately or reject categorically, but hopefully the cranks and charlatans have lost their lustre and those under their influence radicalised.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica), the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, Penrose tiles plus die variants

seven years ago: a quilted autograph collection plus modern day hobo symbols

eight years ago: Girls’ Day customs and doll displays, more links to enjoy plus US vice-president’s mixing of personal and official emails

nine years ago: sanctions imposed against North Korea, portable Macs for astronauts plus a robotic dog

ten years ago: even more links plus maps that never happened

blue ghost i (12. 272)

Launched in mid-January and touching down now in the Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises, adjacent to the Sea of Tranquility, the basin of a huge impact crater visible from Earth to the naked eye flooded with ancient lava, originally named after the Caspian Sea for its apparent geological correspondence), Firefly Aerospace, sponsored in part by NASA and SpaceX, has achieved only the second successful landing by a commercial enterprise on lunar surface. Carrying a payload of experiments and demonstration projects. The payload of instruments include devices to gauge how the satellite’s regolith (dust) could affect future missions and measure how the Earth’s magnetosphere interacts with the Moon as ways to migrate exposure to solar radiation.

speldosa (12. 271)

Via Marco McClean’s Memo of the Air, we quite enjoyed seeing this impressive performance from Swedish folktronica band Wintergatan (the Milky Way, from the term for the galaxy, “winter street”) and the resident multi-instrumentalist and tinkerer Martin Molin’s documented construction of a music box that used cascading steel marbles to play, modulated by a hand-crank, the score programmed on LEGO Technic beams. Nearly a decade later, the group has returned to the idea, with a challenge to build a bigger version (powered by eighty-thousand marbles) robust enough for touring, turning to the Renaissance and contraptions of Da Vinci and Huygens for inspiration. More from New Atlas at the link above.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: a 1974 international crisis in West Berlin (with synchronoptica) plus the language of Dune

seven years ago: the science of toast, assorted links to revisit, an adventuresome archaeologist plus an Oscar preview

eight years ago: the women of NASA in LEGO form, a lunar mission, US cracks down on immigration plus more on space-elevators

nine years ago: perfect for Roquefort cheese, prohibition in Canada plus a luxurious time-capsule in Palm Springs

ten years ago: recruiting for the Second Crusade, more links to enjoy, misinformation plus that dress

 

mothman and the man in the moon (12. 270)

Having come across his astronomical illustrations beforehand, we appreciated this monograph on artist and amateur astronomer and entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot of French extraction who fled to Massachusetts because of his republican leanings after the coup d’état by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. Problems with raising silk-producing moths (previously) in his adopted home in North America revised his long time interest in studying insects, and unsuccessful in breeding domestic species, had shipment of spongy moth (Lymantria dispar, also known as the gypsy moth) egg masses sent over from Europe. The larvae Trouvelot was experimenting with unfortunately escaped into the wild, where this voracious, invasive species has been damaging woodland habitats ever since. The incident, realising the gravity of his actions, made Trouvelot return to sketching pictures of the heavens, eventually attracting the attention of the director of the Harvard College Observatory due to his prodigious and detailed output, ultimately leading to the publication of his pastel studies of the Sun, Moon and planets the opportunity to turn his hobby into a profession, contributing to a number of scientific papers.

eo 10924 (12. 269)

Established on this day by executive order from John F Kennedy and authorised by the US congress later in September, the Peace Corps is an independent agency of the federal government that trains volunteers and deploys them to local communities around the world to assist developing countries in health and environmental programmes, education, empowering women and the marginalised and making resilient polities that enshrine American values of democracy, free markets and entrepre-neurship, respecting local customs and norms by embedding participants with a command of the prevailing language and living under the same general conditions as their outreach group. Pitched as missionaries of democracy to provide technical advice and assistance, the Corps dispatched some nine hundred volunteers to fifty-two partner countries in its first year, Kennedy committed to its formation in the final days of his presidential campaign—realising the potential to genuinely help people in post-colonial Asia and Africa and counter stereotypes of US imperialism and hegemony—against his opponent Nixon who called the proposal a magnet for draft dodgers and a “cult of escapism.”

covenant of the goddess (12. 268)

The cross-traditional Wiccan organisation was founded on this day in 1975 by forty elder witches from fifteen different covens in Oakland, California in order to secure for practitioners and adherents the same rights and legal protections extended to other religious communities. Affiliate congregations, numbering presently over one hundred, focus on education, philanthropy, theology and ritual worship of the Goddess and the Old Gods, operating largely by consensus and with autonomy for separate chapters. In 2007, the group successfully lobbied the US Department of Veterans Affairs to recognise the pentacle as one of its suitable headstone emblems in national cemeteries, though this is probably not the case any longer with the establishment of the White House Faith Office and task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. High priest and priestesses solemnise lifelong relationships among members in “handfasting” ceremonies, which transcending traditional marriages can include numbers greater than two.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an undiscovered marine ecosystem off the coast of Chile (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth the revisit plus Operation Crossroads

seven years ago: an Italian-designer cargo-droid plus a Brutalist housing estate outside of Amsterdam 

eight years ago: more links to enjoy, an extensive logo archive, legalising WiFi squatting, Obama for the president of France plus historic events on this day

nine years ago: the origin and development of the shopping buggy, the predictions of Nostradamus plus a planet populated by robots

ten years ago: the Caliphate and cultural destruction plus the nature of misconceptions