paso del norte oder flüchlingslager

In a 2008 publication, historian David Dorado Romo explored a very dark and tragically formative and inspiring episode of in the history of cross-border relations between the US and Mexico and attitudes towards immigration.
These uncomfortable measures taken—ostensibly to ensure public health during the Spanish Influenza pandemic (brought back by returning soldiers from the Great War) that was decimating the population, included screenings to keep out homosexuals, the handicapped and other undesirables, fumigation and disinfection, and were lauded as systematic and scientific—though only in practise only carried out in a targeted, selective manner at checkpoints in El Paso and Juárez and only for Hispanic peoples. While the cruelty and outcome—death and maiming from the disinfectants that included DDT, petrol and Zyklon-B, has gone mostly undocumented and even forgotten—even after the debut of Romo’s book, the influence that America’s model had on the Nazis is recorded explicitly, whom instituted those already horrible and dehumanising methods by dread exponents.

R-IL (D-SC)

According to Four-and-Six, a web-site documenting forensics and doctoring photographs that spans the history of the technology, that iconic image of the Statesman Abraham Lincoln is actually a pastiche of Lincoln’s head and the posing figure of Senator and former Vice-President John Caldwell Calhoun. This choice of composition is a great irony as the Democrat’s views, fearful of a tyranny of majority-rule and defense of the institution of slavery, and general rabble-rousing was one of the contributing factors that encouraged the Southern Secessionists and started the US Civil War. There are quite a few more interesting examples to be found on the website of creative cropping and air-brushing before the advent of photo-shop.

brekekekéx-koáx-pole-ax

Though German ministers are defiantly now saying that they refuse to hear out the argument of a regime sworn-in only a mere forty-eight hours hence—probably not the most civil or humble reception—the slightest hint of disunity, a chink in the offensive that the US has bumped up (in the membrane of the EU) against Russia, becomes something quite troublesome.
Though this tales has been long in the making and ought to come as no surprise—but not something to dismiss either, like the promises of some prophet of doom or tin-pot dictator, the newly elected Greek government may use this momentum and political capital to depart the European monetary union. It’s a bit of sensationalism that Germany has not already discharged its debts in the economic sense and ought not invoke ethics since that cheapens both, and regardless of whether or not Greece and other less robust economies were brought into the fold under false-pretenses or folly was indulged is really immaterial as the Greeks have been backed into a corner and saddled with insurmountable obligations. And like those other weaker members, Greece at the frontier seriously risks pol-axing (receiving the coup de grâce) itself by quietly playing along, its exports and shipping opportunities having severely been curtailed as a result of incremental sanctions levied by the West against Russia. Greece is contemplating breaking that embargo and negotiating its own deals with Russia, which I believe is a much more profound break than bucking the fiat currency would be. It is really striking how this conflict has escalated—though there are obviously strategic footholds to be found but would not have been quite so self-fulfilling without that initial, ideological meddling in the first place—is not over resources but rather nationalistic pride that’s also known as vain-glory, cushioned from slight and insult all around. Like the chorus of the Frogs croaks, “Old Ways Good, New Ways Bad.”

toponym or afternoon map

In celebration of the centennial since the establishment of its own, independent bureau of cartography, National Geographic is presenting a small retrospective of the estimated three thousand meticulously detailed maps of land, sea and space they produced for the magazine and other outlets. One arduous update that struck me as particularly poignant and telling of the politics and impermanence of the trade was the task of rebranding once the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991—when many place names, not just in Ukraine, reverted to their older forms. This past century has seen a lot of those changes but possibly no more than average.

material sciences or teflon don

The ever brilliant Colossal featured a keen and imaginative report on a research project—illustrated with some very fine visual effects, wherein an optics laboratory has imbued metallic surfaces with the quality of hydrophobia to the degree that water droplets roll and bounce away—in a mesmerising fashion, almost water globules floating away in microgravity.
Unlike the conventional ways of creating this effect with chemical coatings—which can be toxic and wear off over time, the scientists etch nanoscopic landscapes into the surface with precision lasers, which apparently resists degradation. A little speculation quickly leads to all sorts of possible applications, from pipes and plumbing—sanitation stations that don’t need extra water to be kept clean—better rust-proofing and airplanes that won’t require being chemically de-iced. I wonder what other special properties that very fine texturising techniques could awaken in ordinary materials. Maybe tiling and quilting a surface, on a scale otherwise undetectable, might make everyday materials rather supernatural: housings and cases and building materials capable of absorbing and retaining heat, an efficient insulator employed instead of conventional refrigeration, better acoustics, germ free surfaces without antibiotics, made too slippery in microscopic dimensions, or even plain old counter tops and banisters that could channel energy like fibre-optics.