hubris and hyperbole or omnibus, omnishambles

It is really beyond the pale in multiple ways that if we relent, just for a portion of the news cycle (what does that even mean anymore?), there’s a whole raft of new evasive maneuvers and publicity stunts that bury the really critical stories and any reflection of what America is lurching towards and pulling the rest of the world with it is precluded. No world leader’s chief job ought to be forcing one to choose one’s battles—especially by issuing mixed-messages and being generally evasive and unpleasant. Regardless, it is astounding what can transpire over the course of a few days if one doesnʼt remain vigilant.
Thankfully it was a bit of premature reporting on behalf of the wires and the US wonʼt yet be deploying the National Guard to round-up immigrants and brown-skinned people, but enough has happened already this week, with this weekend expected to see a campaign rally in Florida for Dear Leader to reconnect with his base and supposedly announce his bid to run for an unthinkable second term in 2020: a climate-change skeptic was just confirmed to head the agency (also to be abolished) charged with protecting the environment. More aides at the State Department are dismissed as the chief ambassador and former oil executive attends his first summit abroad. Dear Leader has a rambling and unhinged press conference where the press is declared the enemy of the people, as the Attorney General is asked to recuse himself from any future investigations involving the administrationʼs ties to Russia because heʼs mired in it too. American intelligence agencies admit to withholding information from Dear Leader—underscoring deep distrust, and the presumptive Labour Secretary and former fast food magnate with a firmly ensconced aversion to fair and equitable labour policy had to withdraw his candidacy over employing an undocumented house-keeper. Dear Leader let the past three decades of work towards peace between Israel and Palestine implode with a few carelessly fawning words. The executive producer of the film Suicide Squad is named Secretary of the Treasury just after one cabinet member already on the job for nearly three weeks tendered his resignation for having held talks with his Russian counterparts prior to the inauguration and failing to inform senior leadership of those talks; illegal leaks, rather than gross misconduct or treason, are to blame. This list doesnʼt even include Russiaʼs ballistic missile test (after that other one) nor the ship apparently trawling the eastern seaboard to assess US naval strength and the bizarre assassination of the other Dear Leaderʼs half-brother in Indonesia, likely at his own order, and the renewed assault against public broadcasting.  This is only the first month, and naturally everything in this post could be out of date (or lost down a memory hole) by the time you read it.

earthenware

I’ve wondered before if the echo, imprint of every sound ever made wasn’t somehow embedded in the environment, to be subtly teased out by the right quiver of instruments and detectors, and now see that archaeologists have achieved something even more interesting that speculative acoustic conservation by studying the pottery shards of ancient civilizations.

Researchers found that ores mixed in with clay act as archive, a snap-shot of geomagnetic activity that was happening invisibly in the skies, except maybe as auroras, by cementing the orientation of the minerals when the clay is fired in the kiln. Clay and ceramics being produced at the present time, stretching back over aeons, all record the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field and represent an untapped chronicle of how the Earth has been protected from cosmic radiation and digging down through the strata of pottery fragments gives an indication of the periodicity of powerful spikes in the intensity of geomagnetic events, ones which may have been harmless in ancient times but which would now certainly disable the power grid and present an unimaginable disruption to the way we live.

heʼd let us in, knows where weʼve been in his octopusʼs garden in the shade

The alway interesting Kottke directs our attention to the winners and honourable mentions of the annual UK Underwater Photography competition. Especially striking was this ensemble of clown fish in the protective fronds of an Anemone (an octopus having taken top honour), which upon closer inspection reveals six sees of eyes beaming back at the camera. Thankfully, Finding Nemo spared audiences details on the other symbiotic relationship framed in this picture, the parasitic isopod that has attached itself to the tongue of the host fish and lives quite comfortable there in the fishesʼ mouths as a prosthetic one.

6x6

but they always land on their feet: gallery of brides tossing cats instead of bouquets

quantum of solace: an accessible primer on the starlit experiment that seems to suggest that we do not live in a predestined Cosmos

white monkey gig: a documentary about how foreigners were recruited to help market the Chinese building boom and subsequent bust

dii consentes: organic compounds discovered on asteroid belt dwarf planet Ceres

felis cattus: Mister Data’s sonnet to his pet cat, Spot

さくら: the cherry trees are in full blossom in the eastern Japanese town of Kawazu

doggo, puppers or a horse is a horse of course, of course

Though likely not part and parcel official party doctrine, the doctrines of the so-called New Animal Psychology were considered very fashionable and highly recommended within Nazi circles in the 1930s, Strange Company informs.
In short, that school of thought advocated the belief that animals had latent cognitive abilities and through the right translator or medium (it seems that this furore replaced the séance) could communicate with their humans. One familiar of note was the very outspoken dachshund named Kuno von Schwertberg, known by his pet-name Kurwenal after the servant of Tristan in Wagner’s opera, who belonged to a baroness and attested Nazi in Weimar. This is yet another example that we humans aren’t worthy of the ungrudging affection and loyalty of our canine friends, and this particular craze that wasn’t a Nazi invention survived a bit longer and to the disservice of our non-human associates as humans ultimately felt rather cheated for a time but finally ended with the discrediting of Clever Hans, which brought back the sentiment of the dumb and unfeeling animal, not deserving of our welfare.

you are what you eat or hankering for a hunk of cheese

Artist Dan Bannino, seeking and finding common-ground among the powerful and the powerless, has a finely curated gallery of the favourite foods of the world’s influence-brokers. The Pope’s choice repast is pizza and Vladimir Putin is partial to pistachio ice-cream—and these still-lives (not pictured) are something to behold. You can peruse the complete series on Bannino’s Instagram account and find out whose palette matches your own and see the photographer’s other projects.

factitious disorder

I spotted this poster that’s very much in the standard, pitched format of a German campaign poster that looked more than a little out of place—not so much for the candidate but that it seemed rather uncontested as no posters of an opposing party were to be seen. Even in election years, there are rather strict protocols to be followed that spare the voting public from campaign creep and banners can’t go up earlier than an established date a few weeks prior to the vote and there are equally well-enforced strictures on reporting and speculation.
Upon closer inspection, I recognised that this was a bit of clever satire on the part of the state culture office, throwing its support behind one Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchausen who’s life inspired the fictional nobleman’s narrative of his marvellous travels and campaigns in Russia. Having actually served in the Russo-Turkish conflict of 1735, the baron had endless war-stories to tell and embellish, putting to shame fellow-aristocrats who didn’t serve, becoming somewhat of a reputation as a teller of tall-tales and braggart—pathologically, a syndrome is named after him as well. Fearful of being sued for libel, the author of the novel, Rudolf Erich Rapse, published his novel under a pseudonym, in a different language and deferred ownership until after his own death—the Baron having already demonstrated his wrath to quell the idle chatter around his second marriage to a woman fifty-seven years his junior—later to sue her for divorce for bearing a child he was not convinced was his. The character Münchausen enjoined in much more fantastic flights, including riding a cannon ball into battle and travelling to the Moon to live among the Selenites and Sirius, the Dog Star, battles a giant crocodile (twelve metres) and survives being swallowed by a fish, and tends to get very agitated when anyone finds his exploits incredulous.