the state of tennessee v. john thomas scopes

Ending on this day in 1925 with a guilty verdict for the defendant for being found in violation of state statute, the Butler Act, making it unlawful to teach or promulgate the concept of human evolution in a public school, the show trial, test case had been deliberately staged as a publicity stunt for the plaintiff town with Scopes himself unsure whether his syllabus had ever actually risen to that threshold. The media event was engineered to pit progressive Modernism against biblical literalist and Fundamentalism that held that the word of God was primary to mundane research and exegesis with celebrity lawyers and was broadcast on the radio nationwide. The ensuing manufactured crisis and attendant entrenchment on both sides of the inchoate conflict and helped codify an anti-evolution movement that had heretofore been active in only a few jurisdictions but was now regarded as a countrywide moral panic despite the initial characterisation of Inherit the Wind as a win for science and reason over fable and superstition and only serves to illustrate how one ought to adhere to the status quo and create an ostensibly fake flashpoint for a false dichotomy.

ns savannah

Though following the first civil application of nuclear-power for civil maritime purposes after the atomic-fueled ice-breaker Lenin (see also), the first cargo and passenger liner, a flagship for the US president’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative (see previously), was launched on this day in 1959 by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. With several educational ports of call in US coastal cities, the vessel was a demonstration project on the safe and responsible harnessing of nuclear energy, including exhibits on the preservation of food through irradiation, x-rays and other medical diagnostics and other emerging technologies—like the microwave oven, and had the state rooms and galley and the other amenities of a regular cruise ship with swimming pool, promenade deck and lounge all decked out with Atomic Age styling. 

In 1964, the ship crossed the Atlantic for the first time, stopping in Southampton, Dublin, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Rotterdam on an international good will tour. Ultimately decommissioned in 1971, the Savannah is now a museum ship moored at Pier 13 in Baltimore, Maryland and can be visited by the public.

fiskeläge

We spent the day exploring more craggy coves and islets that were once crown dependencies granted to fisherfolk to settle and establish maritime industries on the nearby island groups of Orust and Tjörn. 

First we came to the anchor community of Henån that once specialised in traditional boat making and continues to supply craftsmanship and expertise to larger yacht and ship manufacturers. 

Continuing along the coast with several stops at lagoons and landings in between, we sought today’s catch at a small fish (fisk) market in a town called Mollösund with a vista over the archipelago and looking out to sea with a widow’s walk and a busy marina below. 

Stopping to marvel at the fjord that clefts the islands, we drove on to an Iron Age archeological site with numerous burial sites and standing stones called Pilane in Klövdal that annually hosts an outdoor exhibition of monumental sculptures, this season showcasing the work of artist Sean Scully and various others. The colossal bust over the ridge was especially transfixing in this natural setting and dramatic, ancient landscape.

Monday, 19 July 2021

bohuslän

Having secured a well-situated site to act as base camp at the marina of island of Vindön, we had the chance to leisurely explore the colourful and craggy harbors and fishing villages of the granite cliffs and fjords of Sweden‘s south central west coast, sharing the North Sea with Norway and Denmark—this rocky archipelago approaching ten thousand islands and skerries, though mostly linked by land bridges today.  

First we visited the larger port of Lysekil, a formerly important trading centre and a quarry but now focused on oil refining and tourism. 

Next we saw the cove of Kungshamn and Smögen with its ensemble of fisher huts. 

Not the Reeperbahn or St Pauli’s in miniature but picturesque and pleasant nonetheless, we saw Hamburgsund whose short-haul cable ferry takes passengers over the hundred-meter sound to the island of Hamburgö a hop away, and finally the beautiful Fjällbacka, built around a massive boulder in the centre of the village and holiday home to Ingrid Bergman.

Sunday, 18 July 2021

diffraction, refraction

Via the ever intriguing Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links, we enjoyed this gallery of furry and feathered companions distorted through the lens of various spectacles and glassware. We wonder how our aquarium-bound friends regard us in outer space. Much more ti explore at the links above.

läckö slott

Rounding out the southern aide of Lake Vänern, we ventured up the peninsula of the municipality of Lidköping and onto the picturesque island of Kållandsö, the second largest of the enormous lake and visited the medieval castle at land’s end. Originally a fortification of the local diocese, with the sweeping reforms of our Gustav I. Vasa, the nearly deposed, who made the monarchy heritable rather than elective of the landed gentry, converted the country to protestantism and appropriated church property and made Sweden a European power, it fell to various favourites of the court and caretakers who oversaw its expansion as an impressive receiving stage for visiting dignitaries. 

 Today it is a national monument and hosts a series of outdoor operas in the courtyard during the summer.

your daily demon: naberus

This twenty-fourth infernal marquis or field-marshal who governs from this day through 22 July and commands nineteen legion. With the office to imbue cunningness in rhetoric and the natural sciences, Naberus presents as a three-headed hound with the body of a raven and according to most Goetic sources is synonymous with the Cerberus of Greek mythology which guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from escaping. Naberus is opposed by the guardian angel called Chahoah.

Saturday, 17 July 2021

kristinehamn

Driving a few kilometers to the city on the shore of Lake Vänern—the larger of the two and biggest in all of the European Union, third on the continent, we marveled at the Brick Gothic Kristinehamns kyrka opened in 1858 and informed by a similar construction boom after the Wiesbaden school to my mind. 

 On the lakefront preceding the harbor, there is a monumental sculpture from Pablo Picasso looking into the blue expanse, the fifteen meter high pillar the artist‘s largest and part of a series called „les dames des Mougins.“ Not overseeing the construction in person, the location of the installation was reportedly a contest between Sweden and Norway, with the latter ultimately conceding. 

 Just outside of town in a meadow of daisies and guarded by a flock of sheep stands the Järsberg Runestone, a bit less verbose than the previous, the inscription is one of the oldest known. Essentially „I made a thing,“ the writing is translated as „Leubaz I am called…I, the earl, write the runes.“