'Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, is believed by some to be cartoonist E.C. Segar’s inspiration for the character of “Popeye”, the photo was taken in the early 1920s.' Source
'A kitty basking in the beard of a lighthouse keeper, 1919.' Source
'This photo of the sun might not look too impressive... until you realize it was taken at night – not looking up but looking down, through the entire Earth, using neutrinos rather than light.' Source
'“Fire Rainbows” are a rare phenomenon that only occur when the sun has to be at an elevation of 58° or greater, there must be high altitude cirrus clouds with plate-shaped ice crystals, and sunlight has to enter the ice crystals at a specific angle.' Source
No, not another virus, though I am sure they will keep finding them as for many would be lost without willingly complying with restrictions, hence the ‘we will continue to wear masks after Thursday’ - I assume those that choose that route will be wearing them for the rest of their lives.
I wrote a piece labelled Peak Wokery not that long ago, really believing that it could not get more stupid. How wrong I was: it appears that virtually every organisation has succumbed to the offended. Not only do they apologise for any slight infringement that is pointed out by the ‘offended’ but in many cases the enforcers of the latest items or people accused of offence are the top brass of business and organisations. It is not known if the CEOs of these companies personally endorse these removals or changes or are just afraid to upset the new wave of woke infiltrators these companies and organisations now employ.
For organisations and charities those running same all come from the same melting pot of leftish progressives, so we should not be surprised; but business?
What is increasingly remarkable is how little in the way of a complaint of supposed offence can bring about a change, be it a word or something else. Nothing could be a better example than M&S changing their jelly baby sweets from Midget Gems to Mini Gems all because one academic at Liverpool Uni was offended, one person and M&S caved in. Dr Erin Pritchard said using the word 'midget' was a form of hate speech! and 'was insulting to people with dwarfism.’
‘The lecturer defended her campaign, tweeting separately: "Perhaps if strangers refrained from screaming it [midget] at people with dwarfism in the street it wouldn't matter."'
Really, I can’t remember the last time I saw a midget in the street let alone people screaming at them. It is an imagined slight with no grounding.
It didn’t take long for Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to come in for some more wokery, this time from a dwarf actor who in 'Cyrano de Bergerac: the musical' played the title role. Perhaps in the cause of authenticity they should have just got an actor with a big nose. You can’t have it both ways, or perhaps you can?
Peter Dinklage says about the remaking of the film…
'He went on to say that the makers have been progressive in one way, with their hiring of a racially diverse actor, but then continue to tell the story of "seven dwarfs living in a cave."'
What does he want changed, no dwarfs at all, or all of them living in ‘big’ houses. His disability has opened doors for him that if he had been of normal height might never have happened. In reality he is a small character actor, no different from a very tall, very fat actor who is chosen for the part as written.
But no longer is this enough: those who advocate change want inclusivity, no losers all winners, and all to have the same openings in life regardless of ability. As Judge Judy says, she would like to be 5’ 10” but it ain’t going to happen.
Andrew Laurence sums it all up rather well…
Meanwhile the institutions are getting into their stride by - if not banning anything they can find and hang 'offensive' on - putting explaining labels next to items they would rather not show but are forced to as they would have to shut down.
First in this country the NT decided that the lovely houses they open to the public (at ever increasing costs of entry) need to have explanations about the original owners and any however slight connections to slavery - the slavery meme is getting a bit passe now, I was going to say it has been flogged to death but that would be construed as hate speech. The NT and all the other charities and institutions following this road conveniently forget that there would be no lovely houses and very few universities but for the benefactors whom they now want to cancel.
Now, following in the wake of the National Gallery Canada and its ridiculous signage for a Rembrandt exhibition...
... here we have the Manchester Art Gallery about to take the same route:
The Hogarth exhibition at the Tate is first class wokery, even a chair is used to depict slavery in a picture…
This quote from an article in Spiked sums up the state of play regards the institutions.
‘There is no need for wokery to be enforced. Institutions are conspicuously woke because they are terrified not to be. They preempt censure, calling out and public shaming with precautionary, exaggerated and insincere displays of wokery.'
Terrified, only because of peer pressure or some sort of collective malfunction in approaching any subject deemed to be offensive even if it is only one individual.
We now live in a society were wokism has become a cancer, spreading through all the arteries of the state; we can but hope there is a cure.
In the strange world of removing statues Captain Cook is next in line. This missive in where else but the Guardian, lays out the reasons for the new age demise of one of the world's great discoverers. As with all these pieces the angst is all now, nowhere is any thought of what it was all about over two hundred years ago, of the months at sea not knowing where they would end up and who they would meet.
This was at the time the same as Neil Armstrong landing on the moon; any news that filtered back was greeted naturally as a wonderful achievement, something to make the nation and people proud, and quite rightly at the time.
There was no knowledge of carrying diseases to foreign lands to which the locals had no immunity. It was not always one way either: syphilis was caught by the earlier expeditions of Christopher Columbus and brought back and spread across Europe in five years.
As an aside, the question as to why Europeans were immune to the diseases of the Americas but not of Africa and the far east is still argued about, as here…
But today nothing matters other than correcting what a small group of woke academics and activists consider a blight on the world, the plusses (which have benefitted us all) are erased.
The University of Chester has a certain Dr Richard Leahy who has given trigger warnings on the first Harry Potter Book by J K Rowling, ‘over 'difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class, and identity'.
J K unfortunately has made her views on the trans issue very plain and that naturally makes her a target for the woke brigade. She has already been cancelled by various groups for having the temerity to state the obvious about trans people, but today one can’t do that without consequences. Her saving grace is her wealth, she can afford to stick two fingers up at any wanting to take her down. Sadly most are not in that position and the uncalled-for apologies are spewed out before they are obliterated by woke activists.
The University has given J K a sort of pass in the face of a backlash, you can draw your own conclusions from the link.
And finally the Middlesex cricket chairman faces a backlash for almost certainly stating the truth. Why this should be seen as being contentious is beyond the realms of reason. An opinion can no longer be given unless it is the ‘correct’ opinion as proscribed by progressive lefties. We have a long way to go before this rubbish burns itself out.
Three days late but Burns Suppers are not always held on the day. When I was in Madrid it was usually held on the nearest Friday night to avoid having to stagger into work the following day! So here is a selection which may please for there are literally hundreds to choose from.
"I insist that you shall write whatever comes first, - what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike; trifles, bagatelles, nonsense, or, to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length."
- Robert Burns.
Translation:
"Good luck to you and your honest, plump face, Great chieftain of the sausage race! Above them all you take your place, Stomach, tripe, or intestines: Well are you worthy of a grace As long as my arm. ~ You powers, who make mankind your care, And dish them out their bill of fare, Old Scotland wants no watery stuff, That splashes in small wooden dishes; But if you wish her grateful prayer, Give her [Scotland] a Haggis!"
Holy Willie's Prayer is a poem that was written about a certain Willie Fisher who was an elder in the Parish church of Mauchline, in Ayrshire. Fisher was a hypocrite and himself a sinner who spied on people and reported them to the minister if he thought they were doing wrong.
The poem is a satire based on Fisher's sickly self-righteousness. The phrase "Holy Willie" have become part of the Scots language for describing someone that is humourless and ultra religious.
Note: Burns was a God fearing man. This poem is not anti-religion. It is stricly a condemnation of religious hypocrisy and self righteousness.
"Many scholars and Robert Burns enthusiasts prefer not to mention his association with the Merry Muses of Caledonia because they don't like him to be associated with this sort of material. Burns allegedly made no secret of his interest in erotic verse and bawdy song but apparently he kept this in a locked drawer at home. Well, you would, wouldn't you?
"It was first published within three or four years of his death and of the original only two copies are known to exist but it has since been published several times in facsimile editions. Burns both wrote and collected this material so there is no knowing how much of it is actually his. While some of it is local and clearly from the hand of the bard he may also have collected other material during his tours around Scotland."
One of the poems in the collection is called 'John Anderson My Jo.'
Two variations are known about the piece: a previous bawdy version contained in “The Merry Muses of Caledonia” and a more intimate version of only two stanzas that speaks of love (or friendship) between two elderly people.
This is the gentler, more wistful version beautifully sung by Eddi Reader
I'm not technical, but techie Karl Denninger says he is detecting cyber activity on his site that suggests sophisticated hackers, quite possibly non-domestic, are probing for vulnerabilities. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=244966
Commenters are speculating on how easy it might be for foreign state computer experts to disrupt US energy systems, government administration, Electronic Benefit Transfer cards used by the poor to access state benefits and so on.
If this is so then the response of countries that feel threatened by America could be worse than merely regional conventional-military such as artillery and short-range missiles. Imagine the social disruption if for example the benefits system abruptly freezes up.
In a subsequent post, Denninger notes that his geopolitical commentary stands in danger of being suppressed, possibly because it's relevant and plausible. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=244972
Concerns had been voiced for some time about the shortage of officers in the Metropolitan Police, as in e.g. these queries in Parliament from April and November 1961:
There was a Royal Commission in progress to review policing arragements generally, which produced a final report in May 1962 with 111 recommendations. One suggestion considered was to establish a centralised police force but the Home Secretary told Parliament that 'all the Commissioners except one recognised as even more cogent the advantages of local administration, and they came down firmly against a national police service.'
These criminals are relatively short in stature, perhaps because of their poor diet in childhood, which the postwar Labour government sought to address. In the 1980s a teaching colleague noted the variation in height of a class of young secondary schoolchildren and commented that it was a sign of the decline in the Welfare State.
Giles had a keen eye for detail. Both miscreants are wearing fashionable boots of the time - the one in front sports pointy-toed 'winklepickers' which some said were handy in a fight; the blond wears what look like Chelsea boots with 'Cuban heels' and apparently they have spurs attached - also a fighting asset, perhaps. Their jackets appear to be zip-up 'windcheaters' and both wear 'drainpipe trousers'.
21 January: 'The Organization of American States (OAS) began its Eighth Meeting of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in the course of which the United States agreed to resume aid to Haiti in return for its support of sanctions against Cuba. Haiti's participation was essential because the United States was a vote short of having the 2/3rds majority of the 21 member nations.'
22 January: 'The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS), opposed to the independence of Algeria, bombed the French Foreign Ministry, by placing a time bomb inside a truck that was going into the compound. A mailroom worker was killed, and three people were seriously injured by the shattering of hundreds of windows at the Quai d'Orsay. Gunmen from the OAS also kidnapped a member of Parliament, Dr. Paul Mainguy, who was rescued that afternoon by French police.'
23 January: 'American inventor Thomas Townsend Brown received U.S. Patent 3,018,394 for an "Electro-kinetic Transducer", a means of using an electric field as a means of propulsion of aircraft.'
24 January:
'The East German government instituted conscription into its armed forces, which formerly had been filled by volunteers. Western sources speculated that the East Germans had waited until the completion of the Berlin Wall before announcing the draft.'
'Brian Epstein made a verbal contract with the four members of The Beatles, becoming their manager in return for receiving up to 25 percent of their gross earnings.'
'An attempt by the United States, to launch five satellites into orbit from the same rocket, failed when the final stage of the Thor-Able-Star rocket failed to provide sufficient thrust to break the pull of gravity. Falling into the Gulf of Mexico "well south of Cuba" were the 80 foot rocket and the satellites SR-4, Injun II, Lofti II, Secor and Surcal, worth $3,500,000 altogether.'
25 January: 'Anandyn Amar, who had served twice as Prime Minister of Mongolia (1928–30 and 1936–39) and Chairman of the Presidium of State (1932–36) before becoming a victim of a purge by Joseph Stalin, was posthumously rehabilitated, more than 20 years after his execution by the Soviet Union on July 27, 1941.'
26 January: 'The American space probe Ranger 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral at 3:30 pm local time with the objective of duplicating the Soviet feat of landing a satellite on the Moon. Hours later, NASA announced that the Atlas rocket had hurled Ranger 3 into its trajectory too quickly, and that the probe would miss its target by 22,000 miles. Intersecting the Moon's orbit after 50 hours instead of the planned 66 hours, the spacecraft arrived too soon, got no closer than 22,862 miles from the Moon and went into orbit around the sun.'
27 January:
'With the publication of a January 15 decree of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union changed all remaining street names and place names honoring Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Georgi Malenkov, and Kliment Voroshilov two months after the five aides to Joseph Stalin had been denounced by the Soviet Communist Party.[87] The Azerbaijan SSR city of Molotov would become Oktyabrkend, and the city of Perm had reverted to its name after Molotov's ouster in 1957; Voroshilovgrad was renamed Luhansk and Voroshilov in the far east became Ussuriysk.'
'The planned 7:30 am launch of Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr. was postponed after the countdown clock stopped 20 minutes before liftoff. Glenn had been in the capsule since 5:10 am and was prepared to become the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, while much of the nation watched live coverage. After technical difficulties halted the countdown, the skies became overcast with thick cloud cover, and the mission was scrubbed at 9:20 am.'
'At a major conference in Beijing, Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China, criticized the "Great Leap Forward" economic policies of Party Chairman Mao Zedong. "People do not have enough food, clothes or other essentials... agricultural output has dropped tremendously," Liu told the assembly, adding "There is not only no Great Leap Forward, but a great deal of falling backward." Chairman Mao made a rare self-criticism three days later, and eventually took revenge on Liu, who disappeared in 1968 and reportedly died in 1969.'
UK chart hits, week ending 27 January 1962 (tracks in italics have been featured previously)
14 January: 'A Netherlands warship sank an Indonesian torpedo boat after it approached the disputed territory of West Irian, a Netherlands colony claimed by Indonesia.'
15 January: 'After the United Kingdom sought to join the European Economic Community, the Meteorological Office first began using Celsius temperature values in its public weather information, following the Fahrenheit values. In October, the Celsius values were listed first, and by January 1, 1973, when the government entered the EEC and completed its conversion to the metric system, Fahrenheit numbers were only used occasionally.'
Also, 'The Derveni papyrus, written in about 340 BC, was discovered in a cist that had been buried at the site of the Greek city of Derveni, near Thessaloniki. The oldest surviving manuscript in Europe, the papyrus roll contained a commentary on philosophy and religion.'
16 January: 'A military coup in the Dominican Republic, led by General Pedro Rodriguez Echavarria, forced President Joaquín Balaguer to resign and to go into exile. Earlier in the day in Santo Domingo, soldiers fired into a crowd of people protesting against the new regime, killing 8 people and wounding many more. Balaguer had been the leader of a council of state with seven civilians, and had pledged to hold elections on February 27, 1963. The junta consisted of two former state council members, two civilians from the old Trujillo government, and three military officers, but had no presiding leader. The other council members were placed under house arrest.'
17 January: 'United States government workers were given the right of collective bargaining by President Kennedy, in Executive Order 10988.'
18 January: 'Two days after seizing power in the Dominican Republic, General Pedro Rodriguez Echavarria was overthrown in a counter-coup by his own officers, who then freed members of the former council of state who had been under house arrest. The council's first act of business was to accept Balaguer's resignation, with Rafael Filiberto Bonnelly as his successor.'
Also: 'In the lead-up to the opening of negotiations on Ireland's entry to the European Community, Irish Prime Minister Seán Lemass addressed the members of the other EC governments at their headquarters in Brussels.'
19 January: 'KGB agents identified Colonel Oleg Penkovsky as the man who was secretly meeting British national Janet Chisholm in Moscow. The agents, who had been shadowing Mrs. Chisholm, had first seen the two together on December 30, and followed Penkovsky to his apartment. Surveillance determined that Colonel Penkovsky, a high clearance official with the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU, had been bringing home classified material relating to ballistic missiles, photographing it, and giving the film to the British intelligence agency MI-6. Penkovsky, whose information alerted the United States to the placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, would be arrested on October 22, when the Cuban Missile Crisis began, and would be executed on May 16, 1963 for treason.'
20 January: 'The play Prescription: Murder, by Richard Levinson and William Link, was first presented, with the premiere at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. Character actor Thomas Mitchell portrayed a disheveled police detective named Lt. Columbo. When the play was made into a TV movie in 1968, Peter Falk portrayed the detective, and then in the title role of Columbo, one of the recurring segments of the NBC Mystery Movie. Columbo had been seen once before, on July 30, 1960, in the presentation "Enough Rope", part of The Chevy Mystery Show.'
UK chart hits, week ending 20 January 1962 (tracks in italics have been featured previously)
Giles cartoon for this week: the UK Professional Footballers' Association Strike
For 60 years in the UK, there had been an earnings cap for professional soccer players - maximum £20 a week in 1961, when the average male manual wage was £14.
Jimmy Hill, a Fulham player about to retire from the game, organised a threatened nationwide players' strike which would have taken effect on Saturday, 21 January; the Football Association caved in on 18 January and so ushered in the modern era of very highly paid footballers.
16 January: 'The United States banned travel by its citizens to Cuba, except in cases where a special endorsement was included on a passport.'
17 January: 'President Dwight Eisenhower gave his farewell address on nationwide television, with the warning, "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex"..We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
Also, 'Patrice Lumumba, 35, former leader of Republic of Congo, was secretly executed by a firing squad.'
19 January: 'In New Zealand, the filling of Lake Ohakuri began. Within two weeks, a reservoir of nearly five square miles was created and a supply of hydroelectric power was created. At the same time, two of the world's largest geysers—the 295-foot-high Minquini and the 180-foot-high Orakeikorako—were covered over and made extinct.'
20 January: 'John F. Kennedy took the oath of office as the 35th president of the United States. For the first time, the event was shown on color television, pioneered by the NBC network.'
21 January: 'Loaded with 16 nuclear tipped Polaris A-1 missiles, the submarine USS George Washington completed its first "deterrent patrol", after having remained submerged for a record 66 consecutive days.'
