if there’s a bustle in your hedgerow

For the benefit of those playing along at home, paleofuturist Matt Novak—whose perspective is attuned to how our descendants might interpret our present—summarises the events of this past week of Dear Leader’s antics, which included a rather unprecedented dismissal of a chief investigator and vacillating on his reasons for doing so, a series of strange photo-opportunities, the White House press secretary hiding from reporters in the bushes outside of the West Wing. It’s overwhelming—and by design, I’m sure—but necessary housekeeping at times when customary and courtesy records and registers are already being censored and discontinued and this dint of revisionism could spread.

pause for station identification

Colossal takes us back to the days when the logos for television and film studios were physical objects, animated by practical effects, which is not so very long ago. There’s an extensive history of the evolution of the BBC’s signature emblem that has of course an interesting parallel run to the development of the media property.  I recall vividly too NBC’s peacock and the diorama flyover introduction for HBO features—which you can watch at the link up top.

i have great intel—i have people brief me on great intel every day

In a move that potentially poisons its own diplomatic and intelligence wells, when Dear Leader welcomed the Russian foreign minister and the ambassador to the US into the Oval Office for a closed-door meeting he used the session to apparently brandish to the assembled company highly classified material that had been relayed to the US by a partner state.
On a high enough level of course the whole world is united against the Cosplay Caliphate and their ilk, but in the Syrian proxy war, Russia and the American allies have very different objectives. Dear Leader is demonstrating a willingness, apparently (it’s a matter of speculation since reporters familiar with the conversation have withheld details to prevent further damage to national security), to share more with individuals with an adversarial stance than with tried and true associates. Compromised or otherwise, Dear Leader with this stunt and lack of reprimand by Republican politicians jeopardises future information exchange from sources that did not want its identity revealed to the Russians.

bird of prey

Although I know it’s the way of wild things, it’s a bit dissonant to think of parrots, crows and ravens as carnivorous hunters—especially of the domesticated variety. I few years ago, we watched with rapt fascination when the young falcon had caught his first mouse and sort of hammed up the act for the camera, but had to confront not such a majestic sight the other day while queuing at the gas pump. A big crow was rather cruelly batting around a shrieking tiny bird, stunning it before ripping it apart. I had to look away and I was torn whether I ought to have intervened, even if I could have gotten there in time. If we’d been in the forest and not near the bins of fast-food restaurants where the murder hangs out, I might have felt differently but these birds are fearless around humans and seem to have shed all other instincts.

londontown

The Big Think features a review of the newly released Curiocity, which is a celebration of the city of London told through a soulful geographic introduction that combines the best elements of atlases, trivia and more conventional travel guides to address those deceptively straightforward questions and statistics that allude answer or definition. The verdict on London’s etymology is still at large, as are the city-limits and the city’s central point—the Omphalos (Greek for navel), the spot on the Isle of Dogs (no one knows how this eyot got its name either) where John Dee and Christopher Marlowe performed a magical rite in 1593 to establish the psychic base of the British Empire, is our favourite contender. Visit the links up top for more information and imponderables to ponder.