the island of doctor moreau or domestic-partnerships

Though I am no advocate for animal-testing nor place any stock on the pharmaceutical industry to regulate itself, perhaps the fear that a governing counsel in the UK might grant geneticists a purchase to explore hybridisation of beast and man may be misguided. The notion that animals might be breed as spare-parts or we might find ourselves in an awful transmigatory situation where a human soul might be trapped in the body of another species—or an animal’s mind in a person’s form.
It might be—however, a necessity that a single panel is convened to review proposals on a case-by-case basis and issue a verdict, as any codex would be insufficient to cover all the possibilities that are quickly growing and escape the peerage of science and ethics altogether. Proponents and sceptics alike concede life-saving advances have been won from animal-testing, though important questions remain regarding the efficacy and alternative routes that might have yielded the same benefits for mankind. Not to equate genetic-modification and the creation of chimera to the practise of husbandry, crop-cultivation or even natural selection (I think this argument is a thin and perhaps a lazy one), but our domestic familiars have been with us for a long time. Farming is an incubator for some of our most dire diseases but has also led to some redemptive advances, and it would behove one frightened by the headlines to remember that it was by the observation that milkmaids—having acquired a mild case of cow-pox, were somehow resistant to small-pox, and thus poising physicians for formulating the Germ Theory and the concept of vaccination (from the Latin for cow, vaca) and immunisation with antibodies eventually culled in chicken eggs. Insulin to treat diabetes was first isolated when doctors extracted a certain hormone that calves produced and tried injecting it in themselves and observed the effects on blood-sugar. What do you think? Is a counsel of experts superior to reactionary legislation or by this legal breach, are we just conceding any control in the face of progress?

décoration for the yellow house

Via Nag on the Lake we learn that in anticipation of its upcoming retrospective on the art of Vincent van Gogh, the Chicago Institute of Art has created his room in Arles, which can be rented by the public as sort of bed-and-breakfast experience. This is a delightful draw to get people learn more about the artist and his work, but as the Yellow House period bookends his descent (late summer to just before Christmas 1888, sunflowers to sunflowers) and mental breakdown, I don’t know if it’s the best accommodations for all and sundry.

cabbages and kings

From Wikipedia’s On this Day… sidebar, I learnt that not only is this the anniversary of anniversary of the congressional selection (contingent presidential election) of John Quincy Adams in 1825, when a three-way split among the united Democratic-Republican party, the Whigs and the National Republicans resulted in no candidate a majority in the Electoral College, it also marks the date when young Alessandro Ludovisi, styled Gregory XV, was elevated to pope in 1621, not through the familiar conclave but rather by acclamation—a voice vote. Although sometimes agreement is still measured by yeas and nays, Pope Gregory was the last pontifex vetted in this way. I wonder how public versus a secret ballot sits with one’s constituency. President Adams was not America’s only president to bypass the conduits of the democratic-process (such as it is—creating the modern day two party system out of Republican-backers who supported the defeated Andrew Jackson and the sore-winner Democrats) and the majority of politics (sacred and profane) take place in smoke-filled rooms.
The origin of that term is sourced to a meeting in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel (Room 404, as when someone attempts to make some spurious connections) when the Republican National Convention failed to produce viable candidate to block Woodrow Wilson’s heir-apparent and Warren G Harding was tossed in the ring, also under special-appointment. Weary from WWI and more resolved to take a stance of not being World Police, Harding’s regime was popular at the time though his cronyism and involvement in the Teapot Dome Scandal (over bribes from the oil industry which was the most notorious until Watergate) rather tarnished history’s opinion of him. With only a reign of two years, Pope Gregory was not able to accomplish a lot—other than making the penalties for witchcraft a little less severe and reserving capital-punishment for those proven to be in league with the Devil and instigating reforms in the way papal elections proceed, giving us the ceremony and closed-door meetings that we recognize today.

6x6 link-roundup: after-school edition

puppet on a string: the laudable, laughable efforts of the FBI to steer youth away from being radicalized

mimir and vanir: some of the bizarre scenarios of Norse mythology

penmanship: three-dimensional calligraphy that rolls off the page

war on drugs: when defence-contractors try their hand at directing (anti-drugs) films

planned-parenthood: from Dangerous Minds’ extensive archives, Donald Duck lectures on contraception

gymnastique suédoise: lovely illustrations from the 1920s for a domestic exercise routine

whitelisted

Via Vox (which is always a good place to visit for some mansplaining—though not in a patronising way), we’re presented with a rather interesting compromise between using browser extensions that filter out advertisers and subjecting oneself to the harsh glare of rabid sponsorship—all the distractions and the hardly-know-ye touts and catchpenny tactics going on in the marginalia.
Reading and study can become easily fraught with inktraps blotting out the flow of white-spaces. Advertising is the mainstay of the low- and no-cost internet, however, and cutting off this source of income entirely either erects serious barriers to entry for up-start enterprises, or—and possibly worse since it’s becoming less obvious what people and robots are compensated, marketers turn to native-content to praise and promote. Though not a perfect solution, the article’s author discovered a work-around that does not block but rather masks the ads behind a page that contains only the text. Readers experience less befuddlement and the word from our sponsors, though muted, is not expunged—maybe like the fears that networks had over fast-forwarding past the commercials. As I said, it’s not an ideal fix but maybe a provisional one, being that the billboard is such a narrow one, and with some established web haunts withholding some select services to visitors with filter software, maybe it is a step in the right direction.

fú lù shòu

For many countries following the Lunar Calendar, today marks the beginning of a week-long celebration that will usher in what in the Chinese tradition call the Year of the Fire-Monkey. Annually the zodiac processes through one of twelve animal houses, which are coupled with one of five elemental signs, making (with other epicycles in play as well) a grand tour of sixty years. A fire monkey sounds as if it will be an incendiary and mischievous time and indeed when last we saw this combination in 1956-1957 there was the troubles in the Suez which became the sunset moment for the British Empire, Morocco and Tunisia secede from France, Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba and the Saarland is reunited with West German, but these tumultuous events are the high-profile ones which don’t traffic in undoing and like all interesting times don’t bear repeating if we’re circumspect. The year also bodes innovation, reinvention and rejuvenation in its chaos that can be tamed. What do you think your fortune holds?