Gentle readers, I could not even begin to reconstruct the daisy-chain of thoughts that made me think of the tale of Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue-Bonnet, a short animated musical from 1946 produced by Disney animators, but suddenly the lilting and wistful tune was in my head.
Friday 28 February 2014
carriage-and-four
Wednesday 26 February 2014
jai alai
The European Union and Brazil will sink a submarine fibre-optic cable beneath the waters of the Atlantic to link Portugal and Latin America directly and provide a relief artery for more of the world's population to avoid using American infrastructure for communications.
catagories: ๐ต๐น, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฅธ, ๐ง , foreign policy, networking and blogging
Monday 24 February 2014
three is a magic number
The fantastically thoughtful aggregate of boot-strapping and interesting things, Brain-Pickings, shares a new collection of self-improvement reflections and exercises from Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology in the States—though popular in Europe for years, that seem to certainly fulfill their promises of more joy and less angst.
the commons
Revolutions have shifted from seasons and colours it seems towards something more in situ and the world is receiving a lesson, no less, in foreign terms for square or plaza where the protests are taking place and public politics are fomenting.
In recent memory, before the press was allowed to name and tidily adjudge such things, there was Tiananmen Square (ๅคฉๅฎ้ๅปฃๅ ด, named for the Gate of Heavenly Peace which separates the area from the Forbidden City) in Beijing in 1989. Not as if everything was quiet, peaceable or simmering in the meantime, there was Tarhir Square in Cairo (Mฤซdฤn at-Taแธฅrฤซr, Liberation Place) in 2011. In 2013 and on-going is Taksim (meaning division or distribution from an Ottoman era reservoir originally on this site where the plumbing of the city was managed) Meydanฤฑ in Istanbul whose Gezi Park has become a symbol for government oppression and autocracy. Presently, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (ะะฐะนะดะฐะฝ ะะตะทะฐะปะตะถะฝะพััั, Independence) in Kiev has seen its square component of its name become shorthand for public uprising itself—the Euromaidan (ะะฒัะพะผะฐะนะดะฐะฝ) demonstrations seeking to realign Ukraine with Western Europe. Of course, there were countless rallies, marches, movements and occupations before they could be widely reported to the outside and degrees in coordination and spontaneity, and myriad in between. Overthrows and positive reform do not end with these pivotal moments, and possibly a public more educated and connected can appreciate the difficulty in managing the aftermath and transition.
Sunday 23 February 2014
verso-recto
The unique and enigmatic Voynich Manuscript, a six century old pharmacopoeia, which supposedly only returned into the world's stacks after its purchase by a Polish antiquarian in 1912 when the papal college in Rome was forced to auction off some of its collection, may have at least been demonstrated as something other than a hoax, according to one British researcher.
cosine or god bless you, mister vonnegut
Never discounting the classic novels Kurt Vonnegut Jr. gave the world with Galapagos, Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night and a dozen more, one of the story-teller's simple gifts, long overlooked, may have been in the form of an anthropology thesis—rejected at the time for appearing too unsophisticated, which theorized every arch-of-story, all archetypes, can be represented in eight shapes. Luckily, Mr. Vonnegut later revisited his “man-in-the-hole” and other hypotheses and his lectures and conjectures have caught the interest of others, like the brilliant graphic artist Maya Eilam, who presents these ideas as a beautiful infographic.
devolution or shelbyville-adjacent
The suggestion of one of Silicon Valley's resident tycoons that California governance has become untenable and the state ought to be splintered into six separate republics has picked up some momentum for the populace too impatient for the great quake and letting Mother Earth sort it all out.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ช️, ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐, ๐บ, foreign policy, labour