Tuesday 21 June 2022

texas v johnson

The landmark decision announced on this day in 1989, a split US Supreme Court invalidated prohibitions against the desecration of the American flag, which at the time of issuance were on the books of forty eight of fifty state jurisdictions, ruling first that the category of protected speech as defined by the US constitution as amended extends to symbolic acts and that counter arguments against the plaintiff’s right of expression of a compelling interest to protect a venerated symbol and to prevent a “breach of peace” that allowing the above might incite failed to reach the threshold for its continued abridgment. The defendant, activist Gregory “Joey” Johnson, then an associate of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, had engaged in a political demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention, held in Dallas, which re-nominated the Reagan administration, culminating in dousing a flag in kerosene and burning it, chanting “America, the red, white and blue—we spit on you! You stand for plunder, you will go under!” The protest was peaceful but some spectators were profoundly offended by the act, prompting one onlooker to collect the ashes and inter them in their backyard. Johnson’s conviction was initial not upheld by the state judges under the same logic and appeals elevated the matter to the high court, represented by civil rights attorney William Kunstler. There have been numerous attempts by congress to subvert the ruling by introducing an amendment to the constitution excluding the national flag from first amendment protections, which have been generally introduced around the anniversary of this ruling and have all failed to pass the senate. On 20 June 2016 while protesting the RNC in Cleveland, Johnson was arrested after burning a US flag on unclear charges, with the state of Ohio paying him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in restitution three years later, admitting his arrest was unwarranted and a violation of his free speech

skydiver

Pioneering parachutist and inventor of the rip-cord, Georgia Ann “Tiny” Broadwick became the first woman to jump from an airplane on this day in 1913 when she performed the stunt over Los Angeles’ Griffith Park with the assistance of aviator Glenn L Martin (of Lockheed Martin) as pilot, having begun her career as an aeronaut jumping from hot air balloons in a travelling troupe. Demonstrating her technique to the US Army the following year, Broadwick’s skill and daring-do convinced the military that the deployment of paratroopers might be executed in a less hazardous manner by untethering the jumpers (the static line) from the aircraft and allow for a few seconds of free-fall. Also in 1914, Broadwick became the first individual to parachute from a seaplane, landing in Lake Michigan. Retiring from her act in 1922 due to problems developed in her ankles, Broadwick had over eleven hundred safe landings.

Monday 20 June 2022

dรฉnouement

As a bit of insight into the formulaic writing (previously here and here) of every streaming show, JWZ breaks down the first, often orphaned series into: 

  • Episodes 1 and 2: The Mystery Episode 
  • 3 - 6: The Fambly and Crying 
  • Episode 6: Mild cliffhanger Episode 
  • 7: Deep Flashback—prequel that exploits the whole show mythology 
  • Episode 8: Resolution for Episode 6 but proffers several more cliffhangers for a Season Two that’s probably not going to happen 

Once this pattern becomes established, it becomes hard not to find this arc-of-narrative.

glastonbury fayre

The free four-day concert hosted in Pilton—the second Glastonbury festival, opened on this day in 1971 with the venue of a special Pyramid Stage, a one-tenth scale model of the one at Giza constructed of sheet metal and positioned over a water source discovered with dousing and was documented by filmmakers Nicolas Roeg and David Puttnam—released the following May. Performances included numbers by Melanie, David Bowie, Traffic, Fairport Convention, Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, Mighty Baby and Hawkwind.

Sunday 19 June 2022

home office

Prototyped in a studio space in the Harkotten Palace near Mรผnster in Westphalia by industrial designer Lutz “Luigi” Colani who began his career in the early 1950s fashioning automotive concepts for Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Volkswagen and BWM pivoted to homewares with items ranging from modular kitchens, television sets, cameras, work uniforms, ballpoint pens, grand pianos and this typing chair that embodied his “biodynamic” signature. Find more of Colani’s designs curated at Vintage Everyday above and this online gallery, arranged by product type.

ss gervasius and protasius

Martyred second century twins venerated on this day on the occasion of the translation of their relics to their major shrine of Milan are also the patron saints of haymakers and called upon for the discovery of thieves. Dioscuri like Castor and Pollux (fรชted on 15 July), their iconography and rituals maybe a conflation of the mythological heroes and followed the former in their popularity and the spread of their cult. Church authorities in Milan reject the claim that Friedrich Barbarossa pilfered their remains from the city after its destruction, the feast of Gerasius and Protasius gained a reputation among German harvesters as weather prognostication (see also): “Wenn’s regnet auf Gervasius es veirzig Tage regnen muss,” that is—forty days of rain will follow when it rains on St Gervasius’ Day.

lift every voice and sing

On the anniversary of the 1862 prohibition of chattel slavery in the unincorporated territories of the United States—a compromise and even-split that in another form continues to this day—and more than two years after president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1863, freeing the enslaved individuals in all the secessionists states of the Confederacy, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston on this day in 1865 to take command of two thousand federal troops deployed to enforce manumission and oversee reconstruction efforts, delivering General Order Three:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labour.

Though freedom did not come uniformly to the South and borderlands, along with the rest of the country, and there is much work to be done yet to achieve social justice and harmony, Juneteenth marks a pivotal moment in the history of the struggle for recognition and equality. Though officially commemorated in some jurisdictions, with the status of a state holiday, since 1980, it was not until 2021 it became a national wide observance as a second and consequential independence day.

8x8

crisis on terra prime: US president Biden invokes emergency powers to boost solar energy production

midsommar: ten ways to celebrate the June Solstice—via Strange Company  

madagascator projection: another look at mapping and bias—see previously  

unai no tomo: an early twentieth century catalogue of Japanese toys  

imago and eclosion: good pictures of a newly emerged swallowtail  

controlled burn: astronauts have lit thousands of little fires in microgravity to understand its strange behaviour  

you spin right round, baby, right round: the only way to play Weezer’s new singles is to become one’s own turn table—via Waxy  

perovskites: research into making cheap but brittle photovoltaic technology sturdier to rival modern solar cells