no fomo

From the Latin fomes for tinder, the term was first coined by academic and physician Girolamo Frascastoro in his 1546 treatise De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis to distinguish contamination from an infectious agent—a disease vector in modern parlance—with a fomite being any inanimate object, a surface, a door handle, a light switch, can temporarily host and transfer germs. As small as it seems, hand-washing is a force-multiplier in this battle—which by the nature of public health is communal and goes unseen, that is—never knowing what impact what we did or neglected to do had, but is nonetheless essential.

is there no balm in gilead?

Crass and disturbing it may be at a time like this to put profit over public safety and rather than protecting the weak and vulnerable, it’s acceptable for them to be culled in order to reinforce the false, cloying narrative (that’s doesn’t even come with the promise of elevation or ennoblement) that the Republican Party is transparently become a death cult should come as little surprise.
They’ve proven their unwavering allegiance already time and time again in their unwillingness to entertain or enact any legislation that might be perceived as curtailing gun rights in the States and clearly signal their tolerance of child sacrifice in order to propitiate their financial backers and mollify their base. Some of these same ghouls, without irony, shrieked back in 2009 of the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare and attacking by extension the NHS) leading to bureaucratic death panels that would decide if the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions were worthy of health care to try to cultivate panic and undercut its reception by the public and other law-makers.

8x8

paperback writer: the cinematic portfolio of Matt Stevens in old book covers, via Things magazine

live-feed: snapshots of deserted public places around the world gleaned from web cams, via Kottke

social distance: the inspiring latest torch song from Randy Rainbow, via Miss Cellania

 🤠: lone security guard of the National Cowboy Museum virtually engages his visitors

 😷: the origins of surgical masks and respirators

they laugh and love: John Carpenter announces sequels to his 1988 sci-fi thriller
 
major arcana: an automated tarot reader that seems to never have gotten off the drawing board

still buffering: the lagging evolution of the video teleconference

long-haul

Though the phrase (this had been haunting me for a while) used optimistically as way to promote good order and acquiescence on both sides during the Great War and probably was first forecast in earnest, “Over by Christmas” was a barbed and derisive response as well—soon overtaking the original sentiment. Hopes for an abbreviated skirmish were dashed by a failure to appreciate how technology and mechanisation had fundamentally altered the nature of killing as the very antithesis of our hubris and harmartia that allows us to think the same technology makes everything expedient and negotiable. This will not be over by Easter and please don’t wait for the authorities to tell us to look out for one another.

welttuberkulosetag

The World Health Organisation marks today as International Tuberculous Day in deference to the 1882 to the meeting of a small group of scientists and professors, including pioneering immunologist Paul Ehrlich, at the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Berlin wherein Doktor Robert Koch (*1843 – †1910)—a name now also very much in the news, astounded those assembled by announcing the elusive cause of the infectious disease to be a pathogenic bacteria.
Lucidly and convincingly, Koch was able to present his case to academics and authorities and suggest effective interventions at a time when germ theory still battled with rumour and superstition in the realm of epidemiology as TB spread through Europe and North America. While Koch did not think the there was a zoonotic connection between the human and cattle incidence of the disease (bovines being the vector) and thus delayed the identification of milk and other dairy products as one source of contamination (an oversight that colleague Louis Pasteur corrected), Koch developed a crucial screening process that could identify, isolate and treat carriers prior to symptoms manifesting. Though much diminished, TB has not been eradicated and remains the second most common cause of death (AIDS being the first) from a communicable disease with approximately eight million new cases per year.

organisation commune africane et malgache

Founded in 1961 to promote economic and political cooperation among the decolonised and newly independent francophone nations of the continent and its largest island, the African and Malagasy Union was formaly dissolved on this day in 1985 by mutual consent of its member states.
Once former Belgian-controlled territories were allowed in the group, the governing body gradually realised it was at cross-purposes to more inclusive, pan-continental institutions that were developing in parallel. One lasting legacy of the former organisation’s work, after abandoning defence pacts and a common army that caused the most strife throughout the decades, was the multinational civilian airline Air Afrique and its spinoffs.

guideposts

First unveiled on this day in 1980, the ensemble of granite monoliths outside of the city of Elberton in the US state of Georgia, astronomically aligned and shrouded in a rather mysterious, secretive commission have the Guidestones are sometimes regarded as America’s Stonehenge.

Made and placed to exacting specifications (the pillars track the sun and the moon) by a group of anonymous donors fronted by a go-between—also under an assumed identity, the local granite finishing company was approached and told that the monument would act as a compass and calendar that could withstand coming, eminent catastrophe and serve as a set of instructions, exhortations for those survivors tasked with rebuilding civilisation. The alternative commandments, inscribed in eight modern languages with transcriptions in Babylonian cuneiform, Ancient Greek, Sanskirt and Egyptian appearing boustrophedonically around the edges of the slabs. Once the money for the project materialised, the granite company executed the job gladly, dismissing the representative as an eccentric. The land and the Guidestones were given to the county afterwards and the regulations, practicable and sage as they may be, have attracted no end of speculation and conspiracy theories and advocate for population control and all manner of social engineering.

rumpus room

We really enjoyed perusing this inviting gallery of conservation pits, an architectural feature incorporating plush seating in a sunken and often shagged subfloor within a larger living area.
The design was a popular mainstay from the 1950s through the 1970s showcased and much copied in the 1958 Miller House (pictured) of Columbus, Indiana from Eero Saarinen—also centrepieces of influential homes by Alexander Girard and Bruce Goff. Do take a look at the extensive collection of images at Messy Nessy Chic at the link up top and let us know which is your favourite adult pillow-fort and how you would design your own.