day seventy-four (13. 425)

As figures for the cost of the war so far are revised modestly upwards, Trump tells reporters that the financial situation of the American people is not a factor in his strategy with Iran just before embarking on a trip to Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart to discuss trade and a durable peace plan for the Middle East (though downplaying the need for help from China and its influence in global affairs)—the projected two-hundred billion dollar price tag of Bush II’s Iraqi adventure quickly overshot the mark and ended up costing around five trillion and it was this two-decade long quagmire that many economists and historians attribute to the cause for the US loss of productivity and its competitive edge, ceding output and innovation that allowed for the ascendency of China. Oil is expected to remain over a hundred dollars per barrel for the remainder of the year with derivatives including fertiliser remaining prohibitively expensive for farmers. Trump also reaffirmed he is considering resuming major combat operations over Tehran’s unwillingness to accept the terms of the US deal. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been conducting covert, undeclared attacks on Iran, and Israel, keeping up its assault on Hezbollah elements in Lebanon, have reservations about the US negotiating position, worried that Trump will strike a bad deal with the Revolutionary Guard, as Pakistan’s role as intermediary faces criticism for strategic opportunism rather than being an honest broker in mediation by some.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Episcopal church breaks with the US government over immigration policy (with synchronopticæ) plus Qatar gifts Trump an airplane

 

thirteen years ago: darlings of oblivion plus delving into ASMR 

 

fourteen years ago: Mothers’ Day greetings plus fruit of the vine

 

fifteen years ago: White House agrees to stop staging photo ops plus a hot air balloon lift off

 

sixteen years ago: German Fathers’ Day 

powers of darkness (13. 424)

Though we couldn’t quite place the memory at first something familiar about this intriguing side-quest from the Allusionist hooked us immediately with a literary mystery regarding the Icelandic language version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (see previously, see also) discovered more than a century after its publication, first serialised in the magazine Fjalkonan (The Mountain Lady) by Valdimar Ásmundsson in 1900—three years after the original, was determined in 2014 not to be the translation of the novel it purported to be but rather a work of fan-fiction that took several liberties with the plot. A third of the length of Stoker’s work, Makt myrkanna did not preserve the epistolary format and is by degrees raunchier, racist and political, and—moreover—was itself found to be an almost direct adaptation of a Swedish serialisation, Mörkrets Makter, authored by an anonymous individual going by the initials A.—E., with both Nordic vampires championing social Darwinism and leading an international conspiracy to take Great Britain down a notch as the world power and undermine Western democracy as degenerate for not recognising those on the fringes of society as the true leaders. Listen to the first chapter from our dungeon-master and guide Helen Zaltzman (with excellent plot synopses) at the link above and take many different tangents on the esteem of the fanfic genre, the shadowy business of editors and popular fiction and monsters as a vehicle of allegory.

8x8 (13. 423)

all roads lead south: US Democrats disadvantaged further by gerrymandering and redistricting reversals ahead of mid-term elections with rules tossed out—more here  

jeppe on the hill: on Swedish surnames and patronymics  

if only i had a little humility, i’d be perfect: Tedium’s obituary of Ted Turner and a bygone era of benevolent billionaires and media magnates  

straight from the horse’s mouth: a patented animal-human communications helmet  

some call it a war, i call it renovating my middle east ballroom: Operation Epic Fury as a 1990s RPG, playable arcade consoles set up at the DC War Memorial—via MetaFilter  

clipart: everyday objects by Philograph Publishers of London  

gleemonix: the regulations driving the poetry behind brand name pharmaceuticals—see previously here and here  

sortition: democracy by lottery could improve our civic nature—see previously

day seventy-three (13. 422)

Further rubbishing the Iranian response to the US fourteen-point peace plan, calling the proposal stupid and “a piece of garbage” he did not finish reading, hoping moderates in the government would prevail over hardliners, Trump told reporters that the month-long ceasefire was precariously close to failure, characterising the tenuous truce as “on massive life-support.” Tehran’s speaker of parliament said that the country’s armed forces stand ready to respond to any act of aggression and still have military options. The EU has adopted measures to sanction Israeli settlers in the Palestine territories, to the condemnation of Tel Aviv—foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying that extremism and violence in displacing people carries consequences. The US is in talks to open three more military installations on Greenland. As a potential data chokepoint, Iran looks to charging global technology companies for undersea cables running through the Strait of Hormuz.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an endorsement of hypertext markup language (with synchronopticæ) plus a pause in tariff brinkmanship

thirteen years ago: a visit to Frankfurt-Eschborn 

the quiet part out loud (13. 421)

A couple of times in recent history the US chairman of the joint chiefs of the armed forces have stepped in to prevent, the last time that we know of—it’s unclear who or what talked Trump down from destroying a civilisation—Mark Milley in the wake of the January Sixth insurrection of telling top commanders to disobey nuclear launch orders without his involvement, calling his manoeuvre pulling a Schlesinger, in deference to Nixon’s secretary of defence whom prophylactically countermanded the president during his drunken despondence during his last week in high office before resigning in disgrace. Whilst neither of these previous acts met the threshold of a coup or insubordination exactly, lacking the administrative and legislative burden and the premeditated publicity, a new quiet act of patriotism and rebellion, read into the congressional record, Volume 172, № 76 in the form of the expert testimony of thirty-six physicians declaring the incumbent unfit for command. This inclusion and intervention, presumably inscribed for as long as the republic holds and something future scholars of this time will have to address when the history of our present is written, satisfies much of the above criteria as something that begged to be said, but lacks media attention—there’s no press coverage, which is a natural consequence of the administration’s attacks on the media, cowing domestic and foreign outlets alike with intimidation and nuisance lawsuits and conglomerates reluctant to curry displeasure, selectively citing the selectively applied so called Goldwater rule (previously), the American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics directing licensed professionals from commenting on the health of a public figure, as a diagnosis requires both a personal examination and consent. Their assessment is of course not beyond the bounds of speculation, and the duty to warn for the public good is recognised by medical professionals and some reporters alike. Much more from the Grim Historian at the link above.

pearl of great price (13. 420)

Described variously as a star and planet—though to be fair, the distinction from prehistory to pre-modern times has not always been been clear-cut, in the Book of Abraham, we learn courtesy of Dangerous Minds, that the celestial body called Kolob is the seat of the throne of God.

Beyond the Seventh Heaven and perhaps astronomically meant to be obscure by the Zone of Avoidance, the planet was sited by the eponymous prophet and Methuselah with the aid of the set of seer-stones Urim and Thummim (see above), and in the Mormon belief system Jesus has his own home world and the righteous get their own planets at the centre of the Universe or near the galactic core (what does God need with a starship?) where a day measures one-thousand terrestrial years. More at the links above.

day seventy-two (13. 419)

After a week, Tehran issued a counteroffer to the US fourteen-point plan, more of a memorandum of understanding than an agreement or way forward that asked for Iranian surrender and a twenty-year moratorium on nuclear development, which calls for the recognition of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and reparations for the war. Trump rejects the proposal as “totally unacceptable,” accusing the country of playing games. The fragile ceasefire that has held for a month shows more signs of fraying as exchanges of fire increase. Highlighting tensions between America and Israel in the direction of the war, Netanyahu is urging his country to wean itself off of US military aid and reduce reliance on funding. The internet blackout in Iran, in place since protests erupted before the war, remains in place, confounding reporting and sentiment from the frontlines, the frozen conflict offering little hope of deliverance for the people of Iran with reform or regime change and for the broader world as economies continue to suffer from the disruptions to energy supplies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a concert for peace in Central Park (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit, details in comics plus a banger from Roxette

thirteen years ago: flea market finds 

fifteen years ago: the wrong unit patch 

sixteen years ago: plugging an oil leak 

blacklight special (13. 418)

The aesthetic associated with a certain lifestyle and very much of an individual age particular era, we are introduced to the ubiquitous output of a defunct company in Houston, Texas that was once the biggest producer and distributor of experiential and mostly ephemeral wall art in the blacklight poster, printed with phosphorus ink that fluoresce when exposed to the otherwise invisible ultra-violet spectrum. Though the Day-Glo Colour Corporation had produced the pigment in 1932 with mainly military applications, it was the Houston Blacklight & Poster Company founder in 1969 that solidified the technique’s association with counterculture and drug use, popular in dormitory rooms, garage hangouts and advertising in concert venues, as something that could simulate and stimulate the visual distortions and hallucinations produced by an LSD experience or marijuana high. Regarded as disposable and a relic of the 1970s—though seeing somewhat of a revival in recent years, the city’s university special collections library, aside from rare books and ancient manuscripts, also holds, as we learn courtesy of { feuilleton }, an extensive archive of the company’s posters, ranging from the puerile to the promotional to the truly transfixing, with a tour arranged by a docent or trip-sitter now that the the behaviour has been pulled from the fringes of society whose talent, influential, went on to work in the animation field, bringing their style to Star Trek: TAS among others after the company dissolved within a few short years.