le tiers état

Graciously the President of France has invited Dear Leader to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations, which he and his wife will join after his meeting with Russian leadership in Moscow.
Both couples will attend the traditional military parade that takes place on the Champs-Élysees, which will include American troops this year to commemorate the centenary of the US entry in World War I. The revue and joint honours aside, the charity of Macron really strikes me as something really extraordinary—and not just in comparison to the imperial idiocy and ignorance of his guest, given that 14 July not only marks a revolutionary break with the past that did away with feudalism and fealty but also solemnly one year after the horrific truck attack on crowds celebrating their national fête and the World Cup finals along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

bromide

Via Boing Boing comes a very timely and tangible example of how dangerously destructive Dear Leader’s minions can be with his top environmental officer swayed by industry to rollback regulations that prohibited use of a pesticide that was originally developed during World War II for chemical warfare.
Despite the fact that dozens of scientific trials have demonstrated that the substance causes brain damage in young children and would drive hundreds of precarious species to extinction, the EPA administrator took the recommendations of the company’s corporate directors (who have brought us such delights as napalm, dioxins and leaky breast implants, but since they donated a million dollars to Agent Orange’s inauguration, everything’s OK) under advisement and reversed prevailing regulations. If the going-rate for influence is such a paltry sum, I wonder that there’s not more fawning, flattery and vying for attention.

the second arrow

Writing for Big Think, correspondent Philip Perry introduces us to the Buddhist parable of the second arrow—which has the simple exposition of walking through the woods and finding oneself suddenly struck by an arrow. This ambush is to be understood as an allegory for any unexpected misfortune, but the archer isn’t quite finished and has one more arrow in his quiver for us. The first strike was unavoidable but if we keep our wits about us and don’t collapse in an emotional heap, we can dodge the second volley and forego a good deal of extra grief. The visceral pain of the first arrow is rather inevitable but the suffering and sorrow (duḥkha) of the second is voluntary. Read more about the morale tale and Buddhism at the link up top.

ehe für alle

In more positive parliamentary news, according to the chairwoman of the junior coalition partner of the Green party, the Bundestag will vote on legislation on Friday to legalise same-sex marriage, bestowing all the benefits and responsibilities appertaining to on all couples.
The Chancellor was formerly against full integration, believing such households might not be ideal for children—but changed her mind after meeting a lesbian couple who had cared for eight foster children. Opposition and conservative members of her party are upset with her timing, just weeks before an election—but hopefully a political calculation erring towards inclusion is the right decision. Germany’s Basic Law, which is a little tone-deaf and does not do such a stellar job in addressing social conventions and families (there is no German word for parent—it’s always die Eltern and the formulation Alleinerziehender is a complex one), may also need to amended so its definition of marriage is worded broadly enough to match the law of the land.

terra nullis or cincinnatus

Previously we’ve explored how the origins of the American Revolutionary War were less noble than they are usually framed in stories like the Boston Tea Party or the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, and it was refreshing to see that history and scholarship revisited through tracking down a team of colonial surveyors in the 1760s and the charts that they produced that demarcated the boundaries between what lands could be settled and what was the domain of Native American tribes. Many of the maps included both UK and Native American signatories agreeing to rivers, peaks and other landmarks as border markers.
Quite earnest in their efforts to reach a compromise that would promote a harmonious co-existence, all the territory of course still belonged to the Crown but settlers were not infringe further into Indian lands. The colonial governors were not always willing to enforce these treaties and in some cases flagrantly encouraged settlement and coastal, seaboard European communities moved further and further inland and on-going disputes, punctuated with memorable riots and skirmishes, eventually precipitated into rebellion and war. Admittedly conditions for aboriginal people was less than concordant at all times in Canada and Australia and I admit that I haven’t done the research on how things played out differently in those territories, but I think their experience was very different from the systematic “genocidal dispossession” experienced in America.

grenfell tower, june, 2017

Our heartfelt thanks to Nag on the Lake for directing our attention to a moving and righteously outraged elegy by Ben Okri for the victims, families and the displaced of the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June.
“If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower,” the Nigerian poet writes and fervently captures the hollow sense of disdain—contempt of a gleaning ever more profit at the expense of a disposable underclass illustrated by this tragedy. The recent additions to London’s skyline, rather than æsthetic and aspirational, turn revolting and shameful and repeat the demand that a system where austerity for the many means prosperity of the few must change for the better. “See the tower, and let a new world-changing thought flower.”