false-flag or the real mcguffin

Even though it seemed that a disguntled former-employee of the entertainment concern was behind the hack attack against the movie studio’s estate and not factions of cowboys Juche sponsored by an obliviously angry and belligerent government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, the US has decided to impose the already political-isolate with more punishing sanctions.

Even though North Korea’s involvement of prizing into a gossip column of a Japanese company was not cleanly exonerated and the general conduct of the nation is pretty inexcusable, this resolution, though typical, strikes me as suspicious. Either—and this a real possibility, there is either more at stake behind these cyber-skirmishes that’s being held back, or—which the whole business is starting to absolutely reek of—this is a carelessly crafted plan to tame the Chinese dragon, a creature conjured up by Western conspiracy and appetite in the first place, indirectly by winning over its perceived partners that it cannot influence in other ways. It is not exactly like earlier shameful episodes where the world’s will was drawn together with fabricated stories about weapons of mass destruction ready to be released in Iraq, in this Hack-attacky II, there’s no time to bother with such theatre, since I am sure that there are already test-audiences that panned it. First, however, destabilising Syria, Kiev, next making a pariah out of Russia, then making friends with Cuba, it does seem like the next step in their minds would be to drive a wedge between regional partners.

epiphany, theophany

The feast of the Epiphany—or Dreikönigstag as it is known in German, celebrates the arrival of the Magi to greet the infant Jesus and marks the twelfth day of Christmastide. On the eve of the holiday, priests bless frankincense (Weihrauch), gold that decorates the church and the chalk used to inscribe the initials of the Three Wisemens over the thresholds of the community, the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar also being an abbreviation for Christus mansionem benedicat—“may Christ bless this house.” One of the original purposes behind this pageant was to publicise the date of Easter and thus the liturgical schedule of the new year, before the availability of calendars. Eastern traditions also observe a similar feast on 6 January—though the Julian calendar in the present century is thirteen days ahead of the Gregorian one, though it is called Theophany, which is closer to the Greek source word meaning God’s shining forth.
Among other solemnities, which include priests making the rounds to homes of parishioners, the Orthodox priest will also bless a special batch of holy water that’s known as the Waters of Theophany and shared from the fount by the faithful. A greater ablution will take place afterwards, with a procession proceeding to the nearest natural reservoir, a lake, a harbour, and a cross will be cast into the water. In Greece particularly, this is done to calm the waters and make it safe for sea-travel after the stormy winter months and disperse the gremlins called καλικάντζαροι that bedevil ships. Parishioners will dive in to retrieve the cross and return it to the priest for a special blessing.

big fat surprise

A study, heavily laden with footnotes and cross-references, from the British Medical Journal suggests that all the lies the public have been fed regarding diet and nutrition over the last five decades or so was more or less experimental in nature—with the subject of study being more marketing, agricultural surplus and farming lobbies rather than health and well-being—and could neigh equate with mass-murder. This rather short analysis has been bantered about in the news for the past few days and subject to quite a bit of elaborate and imaginative conclusions, which was the stuff of the fringe-community previously, for going against the rubric of the Food Pyramid.

The article is not a summary dismantling of the pseudo-science, sponsored studies and poor sampling techniques that launched a thousand fad-diets and ensured that despite what appear to be good-faith remediation, we are as a whole, much unhealthier than ever before, but it does open the way for rigourous and humbling studies to follow. What do you think? Were we just naïve in believing that we not are surrounded by touts and hucksters—untouchable even in more wholesome rackets? Is this bit of righteous arson just clearing the stage for the next round of opportunists, as usually what’s quality isn’t worth the investment?

sea of serenity or columbiad

Though the first steps and thoughts uttered on the Moon are much celebrated and well-known, the final reflections of the last human to walk on the lunar surface are also profound and poetic. As he was getting ready to return to the lander 13 December, 1972—just over forty two years ago, astronaut Eugene Cernan mused:

‘...I'm on the surface; and, as I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come—but we believe not too long into the future—I’d like to just say what I believe history will record. That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. “Godspeed the crew of Apollo XVII.”’

It always strikes me how short of period those missions spanned, in the crippling, unhappy days of the Vietnam War, and the reference-realisations that we thought we needed and had a really good reason for the exploration and the whole retroactive time-travel associated with adventures and imaginations that only seemed to have crept in one direction.

Humans first landed at the Sea of Tranquility (Mares Tranquillitatis) carried aloft by the orbiting command module called the Columbia after the Columbiad, the giant space-canon in Jules Verne’s book From the Earth to the Moon (which bears a lot of other similiarites to the actual missions’ execution), and humans left for the last time from a canyon called Taurus-Littrow in the Mares Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity. Though never meant to be a party-crasher as the programme held its own and in many ways surpassed the achievements of the Americans—and in the first act of cooperation with the US, Soviet mission-controllers released the flight plan of its latest launch to ensure the safety of astronauts, Luna XV overlapped with Apollo XI and the first manned landing on the Moon. The Soviet module collided with the side of a mountain was it was coming down at the moment when the Apollo astronauts were first emerging from the lander for their walk-about.

Had the Soviet mission—the third attempt aimed to bring back rock samples, been a success, it might have still been overshadowed by humans presence, but the programme might have demonstrated that the same feats could be accomplished without risk to life and limb, being the first space programme reliant on advanced robotics and computers. IX having landed successfully on the Moon some three years earlier, II having rammed into the Moon a decade prior, while the first mission overshot its mark and became the first satellite to orbit the Sun and others—continuing until later summer of 1976—taking photographs and measurements, delivered roving vehicles and did succeed in returning soil samples, the scientific value—for the cost—of Luna XV would have outshone Apollo. If this pace and urgency had been sustainable, and even friendly as it later became, I wonder where we might be now. I hope too that we have the patience and the ambition to realise the vision that the last human to walk the Moon expressed.