the quiet part out loud (13. 421)

A couple of times in recent history the US chairman of the joint chiefs of the armed forces have stepped in to prevent, the last time that we know of—it’s unclear who or what talked Trump down from destroying a civilisation—Mark Milley in the wake of the January Sixth insurrection of telling top commanders to disobey nuclear launch orders without his involvement, calling his manoeuvre pulling a Schlesinger, in deference to Nixon’s secretary of defence whom prophylactically countermanded the president during his drunken despondence during his last week in high office before resigning in disgrace. Whilst neither of these previous acts met the threshold of a coup or insubordination exactly, lacking the administrative and legislative burden and the premeditated publicity, a new quiet act of patriotism and rebellion, read into the congressional record, Volume 172, № 76 in the form of the expert testimony of thirty-six physicians declaring the incumbent unfit for command. This inclusion and intervention, presumably inscribed for as long as the republic holds and something future scholars of this time will have to address when the history of our present is written, satisfies much of the above criteria as something that begged to be said, but lacks media attention—there’s no press coverage, which is a natural consequence of the administration’s attacks on the media, cowing domestic and foreign outlets alike with intimidation and nuisance lawsuits and conglomerates reluctant to curry displeasure, selectively citing the selectively applied so called Goldwater rule (previously), the American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics directing licensed professionals from commenting on the health of a public figure, as a diagnosis requires both a personal examination and consent. Their assessment is of course not beyond the bounds of speculation, and the duty to warn for the public good is recognised by medical professionals and some reporters alike. Much more from the Grim Historian at the link above.

pearl of great price (13. 420)

Described variously as a star and planet—though to be fair, the distinction from prehistory to pre-modern times has not always been been clear-cut, in the Book of Abraham, we learn courtesy of Dangerous Minds, that the celestial body called Kolob is the seat of the throne of God.

Beyond the Seventh Heaven and perhaps astronomically meant to be obscure by the Zone of Avoidance, the planet was sited by the eponymous prophet and Methuselah with the aid of the set of seer-stones Urim and Thummim (see above), and in the Mormon belief system Jesus has his own home world and the righteous get their own planets at the centre of the Universe or near the galactic core (what does God need with a starship?) where a day measures one-thousand terrestrial years. More at the links above.

day seventy-two (13. 419)

After a week, Tehran issued a counteroffer to the US fourteen-point plan, more of a memorandum of understanding than an agreement or way forward that asked for Iranian surrender and a twenty-year moratorium on nuclear development, which calls for the recognition of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and reparations for the war. Trump rejects the proposal as “totally unacceptable,” accusing the country of playing games. The fragile ceasefire that has held for a month shows more signs of fraying as exchanges of fire increase. Highlighting tensions between America and Israel in the direction of the war, Netanyahu is urging his country to wean itself off of US military aid and reduce reliance on funding. The internet blackout in Iran, in place since protests erupted before the war, remains in place, confounding reporting and sentiment from the frontlines, the frozen conflict offering little hope of deliverance for the people of Iran with reform or regime change and for the broader world as economies continue to suffer from the disruptions to energy supplies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a concert for peace in Central Park (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit, details in comics plus a banger from Roxette

thirteen years ago: flea market finds 

fifteen years ago: the wrong unit patch 

sixteen years ago: plugging an oil leak 

blacklight special (13. 418)

The aesthetic associated with a certain lifestyle and very much of an individual age particular era, we are introduced to the ubiquitous output of a defunct company in Houston, Texas that was once the biggest producer and distributor of experiential and mostly ephemeral wall art in the blacklight poster, printed with phosphorus ink that fluoresce when exposed to the otherwise invisible ultra-violet spectrum. Though the Day-Glo Colour Corporation had produced the pigment in 1932 with mainly military applications, it was the Houston Blacklight & Poster Company founder in 1969 that solidified the technique’s association with counterculture and drug use, popular in dormitory rooms, garage hangouts and advertising in concert venues, as something that could simulate and stimulate the visual distortions and hallucinations produced by an LSD experience or marijuana high. Regarded as disposable and a relic of the 1970s—though seeing somewhat of a revival in recent years, the city’s university special collections library, aside from rare books and ancient manuscripts, also holds, as we learn courtesy of { feuilleton }, an extensive archive of the company’s posters, ranging from the puerile to the promotional to the truly transfixing, with a tour arranged by a docent or trip-sitter now that the the behaviour has been pulled from the fringes of society whose talent, influential, went on to work in the animation field, bringing their style to Star Trek: TAS among others after the company dissolved within a few short years.

8x8 (13. 417)

little green men: pivoting to priorities, US Department of War’s latest tranche of declassified files on UAPs—via Maps Mania  

4½ to fish 7: humanity’s obsession with large numbers 

hide the pain harold: Sweden state broadcaster found András István Arató, the retired electrician whose stock photo is behind the meme, celebrating the Saturday’s inauguration of Péter Magyar as prime minister in the streets of Budapest  

a comparison using like or as: a meta-analysis of similes from popular fiction—via Nag on the Lake 

d-line: after a century of delays, Los Angeles metro Wilshire Boulevard extension opens   

frictionless transactions: an AI agent pickpocketed $200k from a crypto-wallet with Morse code  

ultrafinitism: an exploration of what can be gained by rejecting the concept of the infinity—via Web Curios 

this way up: an appreciation of the cartographical studies of the Map Men

day seventy-one (13. 416)

Tehran has to yet office an official response to Washington’s peace deal and terms of the truce. Putin offers to take and store for safekeeping Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium if it would help reach a compromise. Iran blames the US for escalation of skirmishes and violating the ceasefire by attacking its commercial vessels and warns of retribution with assault militarily. Fighting between Hezbollah and IDF intensifies with the terror group attacking an army base in Israel as talks for settlement continues with Lebanon, southern neighbourhoods of Lebanon under fire for the first time in weeks. US secretary of state Rubio meets with intermediaries in Qatari, hoping to forward negotiations as a tanker carrying liquified natural gas approaches the Strait of Hormuz, first such delivery sourced from the American ally since the war began. FIFA chiefs maintain that the Iranian national team will participate in its friendly group stage matches to be hosted in Tucson, Arizona as scheduled.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: a failed Soviet mission to Venus (with sychronopticæ), China’s last telegraph stations plus a harrowing escape attempt from the eruption of Pompeii

fourteen years ago: a night in the Gasometer of Leipzig plus satanic panic

 

fifteen years ago: heat mitigating strategies plus mass alter systems

storia di un burattio (13. 415)

Originally a satirist poking fun at the Italian state of disunity and fractured governance, that is until his newspaper, Il Lampione, was censored at shutdown by the Grand Duke of Tuscany after the Italian Wars of Independence, Carlo Collodi turned to authoring children’s stories as the newly unified Italian state was subsidising school readers and the commissions, now serialised in another publication he founded in 1853, Lo Scaramuccia, provided a steady source of income whilst also being a vehicle for continued lampooning under cover of allegory. Pinocchio, originally published in fifteen instalments ending in 1881 with the puppet dead, strung up in the branches of an oak tree, by Fox and Cat—far weirder than the Disney version and akin to a more classical fairy tale with his cricket conscious killed with a hammer by his own hand but returning as a Force ghost, the puppet’s feet burned away, the transformed protagonist in asinine form, injured and rendered useless to his owner, drowned, devoured by a shark, disgorged and skinned so his hide can be used to fashion a drum, the corpse Blue Fairy, etc, etc—and fine. Due to overwhelming demand by his readership, Collodi is compelled to continue the story with more volumes. Whilst united, only a small vanishingly small percentage of the population spoke standard Italian, the diglossia of dialects mutually unintelligible, Pinocchio written in the language of the central region of Toscana and championed as the standard, with simple sentence structure and vocabulary, widely popular and accessible, the motivation behind commissioning children’s reading material, helped to a large and under-appreciated extent to create a common tongue.

dolus specialis (13. 414)

Having recently learned much more than our previous passing familiarity with the figure of Paul and Essie Robeson and his subsequent erasure from history from a cross-over episode of This American Life from the podcast Our Ancestors Were Messy (I strongly recommend listening), we appreciated this addendum—courtesy of Kottke—in this historic snapshot of good trouble with Robeson leading a delegation of the Civil Rights Congress to indict the US government before the United Nations with the charge of genocide perpetuated after the civil war with Jim Crow policies of segregation and disenfranchisement. A copies of the book-length petition were delivered to UN headquarters in New York as well as Paris, but manoeuvres by the United States, preoccupied with the Cold War, prevented formal debate of charges brought forward or even entertaining public discussion—supporters and signatories of the document were further persecuted and blacklisted, accused of exaggerating racial inequalities in order to advance the cause of communism. The title refers to the application of specific, deliberate intent to destroy a group in whole or in part under the UN’s own definition of the crime against humanity.