𒍪 og súmersk trúarbrögð

As reported by BBC Monitoring and News from Elsewhere, in response to a surge in membership, Iceland’s Zuism community, a revival of the ancient Sumerian religion—considered the most venerable and precursor to all other forms of faith, is seeking permission to construct a two-storey ziggurat in Reykjavík as a meeting place for their growing congregation.
Having spread across Scandinavia, in part due to the fact that adherents are not subjected to the tithing that applies to other state-recognised religions and that instead the tax revenues are used to support social welfare projects, the name derives from the verb to know zu (𒍪) and references the thunder-bird god of wisdom Zú or Imdugud and the theogony also includes four main divinities: An or Dingir—the heavens associated with the north celestial pole who crosses the skies in the Little Dipper (constellation Usra Minor), Ninhursag, Mother Earth—or the Lady of the Mountain, Enki—the lord of the harvest and agriculture and Enlil, the weather god. There’s a whole cast of heroes and minor deities as well whose counterparts are readily recognised. He that you call Jupiter, we call Marduk. In addition to influencing religions to follow, the Mesopotamian civilisation also invented taxation and debt but with the understanding that in order to avoid the ill societal effects of a crippling burden, it was necessary to have the occasional debt-forgiveness—a practise which the Zuistar (what members call themselves) hope champion and to reintroduce as well.

i shot andy warhol

On this day, fifty years ago radical anarchist Valerie Jean Solanas (1936* - 1988†), playwright and author, turned herself in to authorities (later once deemed fit to stand for trial, for “reckless endangerment with intent to harm”) for firing shots from a pistol at Andy Warhol (wounding him) and associates at The Factory, his sixth floor studio in the Decker Building of Midtown Manhattan.
Remanded to psychiatric care and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, it is speculated that Solanas grew increasingly suspect of the ulterior motives of eccentric patrons like Warhol and those in the publishing industry who would undermine her message and claim her words as their own. Her SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto, a scathing criticism of modern norms which proposed eliminating the monetary system and the patriarchy by means of total automation, saw its initial publication the week of Solanas’ sentencing, which was two years plus time served.

tabletop

TYWKIWDBI directs our attention to the ultimate, extended Monopoly board—which was apparently prototyped, with the rules of play laid out here but was never put into production due to (ironically) copyright issues. The discussion at the source thread is a pretty interesting one on how most game play is conducted according to house-rules and most never bother with the formal instructions. Would you like to play this Inception-version of the game? Maybe an enterprising designer could pull it off and successfully pitch it to the company.

freilicht

Journeying to the other end of the River Werra, where it’s fed by the tributary Schleuse in County Hildburghausen, we attended a nice garden show on the grounds of the former abbey Veßra.
Abandoned since the Reformation by the order of Premonstratensians (the White Canons) the ruins of the cloister, built in the 1140s, was an impressive setting and was considered the family chapel of the dukes of Henneberg until secularisation and became imminent domain of the court of Prussia thereafter.
The considerable property became in the early 1950s an annex of the agriculture and history network of museums of the Suhl district and a working, demonstration farm and in 1990 became the open air (Freilicht-) museum that it is presently, having conserved and relocated several historic buildings from the area and curating them as glimpses into how people lived and worked in the past.
As for the garden show, H and I ended up getting some lavender for the front yard for the bees and a rather fetching shrub that was a specially cultivated sort of Physocarpus opulifolius (the ninebark or auf Deutsche, Schneeballblättige Blasenspiere).
It is called “Amber Jubilee,” and by a funny coincidence we learned it was created in 2012 in anticipation the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, which happened to be on that very day. Due to the scaffolding blocking our garage (where all the gardening implements are), however, we couldn’t plant it right away but will be able to do so soon.

crony capitalism

As the nihilism of the vapid economic policy and empty pandering of the Trump regime has teetered like a petulant toddler to alienate US allies and is eliciting belligerent responses in kind (the palaver that’s usually reserved—paternally or otherwise—for those suffering under a tyrant whose not to be understood as a metonym for the country or the people under his rule), it’s worth noting that while punishing tariffs are to be immediately imposed on Mexican, Canadian and EU steel and aluminium exports (in order to punish China for depressing steel prices, though the US imports little from them) there are significant concessions and accommodations being made for the world’s second biggest aluminium exporter, a company called Rusal under the control of a Russian oligarch for whom sanctions are pending.
Though unwilling to fully abdicate their duty, the Senate went against Trump’s wishes by imposing new sanctions on several influential business magnates and their enterprises in April 2018, the legislature betrayed a weakness by compromising and offering a transitional period of six months in order for the oligarch to divest himself of his stakes in the aluminium producer and reorganise his businesses, giving American clients more time to get in compliance with the terms of the embargo. Meanwhile, the Trump syndicate is still grifting at the expense of the tax-payers, refusing to recognise a conflict-of-interest for being willing to swap the Republic and world order for his personal gain and there’s been little room for mediation on matters that the US has rubbished unilaterally—like the Iran deal. This trade war will escalate into a full-fledged one if we are not careful and continue to allow both ends to play against the middle.

input/output

We found it to be a pretty joyous viewing experience to see a group of spectators for a kinetic art display transform into exhausted (and a bit dirty) but inspired guides for a travelling expedition by Polish creator Karina Smigla-Bobinski.
Namesake of pioneering computer scientist Ada Lovelace (previously), the artist likens her freely floating helium balloon studded with charcoal spikes that leaves a tracing of its interactions on the walls, floors and ceilings (plus the audience) of its singular gallery to the way Lovelace and other computer engineers, like Vannevar Bush, came to understand algorithms and networks. There is a record of interaction and the membrane and its behaviour is bound by the rules of physics and the way the participants try to influence it but there’s a significant chasm in intention, result and record that’s worth reflecting on. Learn more at the link up top.