großer zapfenstreich

Though likely to hold her caretaker role until the new government is formed, Angela Merkel is celebrated with a formal farewell ceremony in the form of a military tattoo featuring a retinue of torch-wielding soldiers in the forecourt of the defence ministry in Berlin-the high military honour rooted in traditions that go back to the sixteenth century and accorded to departing chancellors since Helmut Kohl-accompanied

by the soundtrack of her choice, a hymn Großer Gott, wir loben Dich (Great God, We Praise You), Für mich soll’s rote Rosen regnen (It ought to rain red roses for me) a 1968 ballad by Hildegard Knef and Nina Hagen’s song Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Have Forgotten the Colour Film), a tip to her East German upbringing that was rarely acknowledged during her sixteen year incumbency or special requests in general.  Among the two hundred or so invited guests, fifty-two deputy ministers who served under Merkel are expected to attend. 

7x7

dress rehearsal: for a quarter of a century, an individual attended his own funeral  

dominical letters: how the artificial unit of the week came to govern our lives—see also  

carceral publications: a collection of US prison newspapers  

yes or no questions: celebrate the conclusion of Futility Closet’s eight plus year run with a final episode of lateral thinking puzzles  

hvorugkynsnafnorð: despite progress in the choices for human naming conventions, the Icelandic governing body for horses is still highly gendered  

regenerative medicine: researchers develop “xenobots” capable of biological self-replication—via Waxy  

amigone: aptly named mortuary services—via Super Punch

forget-the-year

Though in practise perhaps a bit premature and ill-advised given the milieu of a resurgence in COVID cases, we did nonetheless enjoy augmenting our vocabulary with the Japanese tradition of bōnenkai (忘年会) office parties that take place usually during December sponsored by companies for their employees that involves banqueting and a lot of drinking. As respite from the pandemic and the lengthening past or otherwise, not everyone is ready to embrace mandated festivities and bureikō—無礼講, nomunication—that is, loosened tongues facilitated through drink, nomu 意味, which allows one to albeit temporarily, perhaps regrettably disregard hierarchy and distinctions in rank and seniority.

🎗️

Observed annually since being designated as an international day of awareness and mourning of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes the life threatening and in most cases fatal acquired immunodeficiency syndrome by compromising resistance to other diseases, World AIDS Day in 2019 marked the first recorded case of another pandemic, far more contagious and readily transmitted with the World Health Organisation picking up on a report published in the medical journal The Lancet documenting the onset of symptoms in Patient Zero for COVID-19 on this day of that year. The WHO verified this diagnosis with their own official reports on the novel corona virus within the week. There is no vaccine for AIDS, which has claimed over forty million lives and untold collateral damage and forty thousand people contract the disease annually, though improved access to antiretroviral therapies as well as broad acceptance of interventions and preventative measures has significantly slowed the spread and meant that many can live with the illness.

balmis expedition

The operation officially named Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna, the Spanish healthcare mission under the leadership of Doctor Francisco Javier de Balmis set sail on the María Pita from a port in Galicia on this day in 1803 and would vaccinate, using the technique developed by Edward Jenner, untold millions against smallpox, calling in the Canary Islands, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, China and the Philippines, even offering surplus to the colony at Saint Helena on the return route, despite animosities between Spain and Britain at the time. Undertaken to make amends for the Old World diseases that ravaged North and South America and to attempt to wipe out the contagion that proved fatal for nearly half a million individuals annually in Europe only, the complement and crew included twenty-two orphaned boys designated as successive carriers of the cowpox virus (there being no refrigeration or other means to isolate and transport the vaccine), which would help recipients acquire immunity to the deadlier version.

there was no ransom to be paid—no song unsung, no wine untasted

On this day in 2009, the ITV network’s Britain’s Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle’s debut album climbed to the top of the charts, becoming the best-selling first recording in the history of the UK. Appearing as a contestant on series three, she surprised the audience and jury with an amazing rendition of Fantine’s solo from Les Misérables, subsequently rising to stardom.

what who called the ν variant? yes!

With WHO’s on First—JWZ brings us some comic-relief over the latest viral strain of concern, though to apparently avoid such hilarious confusion, went out of Greek alphabetical order, jumping ahead to Omicron (little o, as opposed to Omega, that’s big o) skipping nu and xi (ξ).

1.advent

From the Latin for arrival, the fourth Sunday from Christmas Day marks the start of the liturgical year and is accorded certain themes and readings: the first Advent mass has celebrants anticipating the “End Times,” the “Messianic Age” and the second coming, whereas the next two focus on the preachings of John the Baptist that made ready the way for Jesus with the last being the traditional time for nativity pageants—plus it marks the start of lighting wreaths or Christingles, setting up trees and the ceremonial, welcoming hanging of the greens, putting out the garlands.