BREAKING NEWS RIGHT NOW
DEVELOPING COMPONENTS ON THE CURRENT POLITICAL SCENE
As the current context combines the absurd and hilarious with the obscene and threatening, a report from the ever-prescient Ian Welsh–who saw the present pass coming like few others did–about the pending smash-up between Trump’s agenda and the Federal Reserve, a bracing assessment that all scrappy scribes and stalwart citizens should imbibe, perhaps either as they ponder, and possibly celebrate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment by Donald Trump to head a Vaccine Commission, or as they scratch their heads and marvel at Barack-the-Magnificent’s rhetorical flourishes in his Farewell Address.
This Day in History
This day in ancient Rome commemorated the Goddess Carmenta, and the sacred capacity that she offered to women to remember the past and see the future; England operationalized a long tradition four hundred forty-eight years ago by formalizing for the first time a more or less ‘institutional’ lottery; just four years shy of nineteen decades hence, in 1755, in an English settlement in the Caribbean, a baby boy initially cried out en route to a life of fame and conflict as the thinker and upper-crust wannabe rebel, Alexander Hamilton; four years later, in 1759, merchants in Philadelphia incorporated the English colonies’ first life insurance company; two centuries and twelve years before the here and now, Michigan’s territorial creation took place from vast swaths of Indian lands and former French and English possessions; MORE HERE
A Thought for the Day
At the heart of what one might term the existential paradox likely lies the irrefutable conclusion that resisting entropy must always fail in the end, since no perpetual motion of any sort will ever work out, at the very same moment that the most paltry choice to believe in a meaningful life completely subverts the recognition of this fact inasmuch as any operational definition of meaning that surpasses triviality suggests that in the sphere of investigation and knowledge creation at hand something akin to the slaughtering of entropic forces is not only plausible but an ongoing phenomenon, which in turn joins the plethora of bits and pieces that make up the universal whole to constitute some sort of an ‘exception to the rule’ that permits no such deviations, in the event and in so doing defining the fantastical and fantastic nature of the human project.
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
entropy inevitable OR unavoidable OR inescapable knowledge OR consciousness OR science contradiction OR paradox OR inexplicable necessity OR "sine qua non" OR requisite humanity OR "human condition" OR humanities study OR research OR investigation OR analysis psychedelics OR acid OR "consciousness raising" OR hallucinogen history OR origins marxist OR radical OR anarchist = 60,000 Hits.
TODAY’S HEART, SOUL, & AWARENESS VIDEO
From the standard-bearers of reason at Information Clearinghouse, a roughly fifteen minute sequence that the estimable operators at 21st Century Wire echo and amplify with analysis, in the event an interview between Bashar al Assad and French journalists that reveals the incredibly incisive and reality-based political dialog that becomes possible when scrappy scribes or stalwart citizens set aside the ideologically motivated bullshit and falsehoods that corporate media require like a heart’s beating requires blood in veins and arteries, a mandatory assignment in other words that on the one hand supplements Julian Assange’s recent press conference in which he rues the ’embarrassment’ to the United States of recent, so-called ‘intelligence’ reports, and on the other hand contrasts markedly with a new British Broadcasting Corporation ‘sketch,’ “The Real Housewives of ISIS,” as reported in Mint Press News.
Nearly Naked Links
From Tuesday’s Files
A Technological IP Imbroglio – https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/jul/22/humphry-davy-lamp-controversy-history-science
Steamrolling Administrative Appointments – http://chieforganizer.org/2017/01/09/steamrolling-the-cabinet-choices-is-a-mistake-tillerson-is-an-example/
EVENTS
Historical Novel Society North American Conference
The 7th Historical Novel Society (HNS) North American Conference will be held from June 22 to June 24, 2017, in downtown Portland, Oregon.
OPPS/SUBS/CONTESTS
MONTELLO FOUNDATION RESIDENCIES
http://www.montellofoundation.
Montello Foundation is a foundation dedicated to supporting artists who foster our understanding of nature, its fragility and our need to protect it. The application deadline for the summer 2017 season is January 29, 2017. There is no fee for artists to stay at the retreat, but artists are responsible for their travel expenses and for their meals. Founded by Stefan Hagen, the foundation is based in New York and is currently setting up an artist residency in a remote location in northwestern Nevada.
JOBS
Social Media Editor
The WorldPost seeks a social media editor to run our social media accounts and newsletter distribution. Ideal candidates will have experience managing social media, preferably in a newsroom, and will be well versed in international affairs. This is a full-time position, operating Monday-Friday, based in New York City or Los Angeles, with competitive salary and benefits.
‘Leftist’ Call for ‘New Internationalism’
An In These Times call for a new paradigm: “Progressives must not cede discussion of the world economy either to the liberal globalizationism promulgated by Thomas Friedman and Mark Zuckerberg or the pseudo-protectionism associated with Trump and Le Pen. While the former accepts the current slide of the Western working class as inevitable, the latter proposes only arbitrary and authoritarian countermeasures. “
An Atlantic article that could be useful to scrappy writers and those who must navigate the complexities of differing narratives: “Just as it was for me so many years ago in Coach Mac’s class, narrative, both fiction and nonfiction, will always be more alluring than a collection of facts—for better or worse—because narrative is rooted in the human experience. People want to connect with characters, want to see a plot develop to its end, and want to engage in the fascinating layers of conflict.”
A Nieman Reports look at the public’s oral fixation, as it were, in regards to media consumption: “I don’t remember which issue areas I watched. Maybe trade. Maybe immigration. Maybe terrorism. It didn’t matter. The messages were the same as those he was delivering on the stump. I realized that the Trump campaign wasn’t talking to readers; it was delivering content to watchers. This meant Trump had identified an audience for himself different from that of any other candidate. He was the only candidate campaigning exclusively through television.”
A Bulletin of Atomic Scientists post that discusses the thematic underpinnings of a recent popular cultural offering: “The Death Star, in Star Wars generally and particularly in Rogue One, serves as a stand-in for the nuclear weapons arsenal with all the accompanying nuclear imagery, deterrence theory, and dangers shown to the audience. While the Death Star premise has been previously analyzed by pundits in “back of the envelope” form as an engineering challenge, and as a semi-serious potential proposal for the national budget, the idea of Death Star-as-nuke has surprisingly not been given much attention, considering how omnipresent Star Wars has become in American popular culture. Rogue One deploys the Death Star as a visual, technical, and thematic stand-in for thermonuclear weapons.”
A look at the prescient work of one of history’s most insightful political thinkers, positing thoughts that fit in the world of today: “…owing to the crisis of imperialism, the flames of national revolt have flared up both in the colonies and in Europe, and that national sympathies and antipathies have manifested themselves in spite of the Draconian threats and measures of repression. All this before the crisis of imperialism hit its peak; the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie was yet to be undermined (this may he brought about by a war of “attrition” but has not yet happened) and the proletarian movements in the imperialist countries were still very feeble.”