State of Disuniom (sic): God's Plan for MEdia Dragons and Babylon Berlin

 "Go to law for a sheep and lose your cow." 
~ Bohemian proverb

"He promised unity, but sowed division. America deserves better."

An early look at Wednesday's front pageTrump pats himself on the back during first SOTU address https://t.co/vU1aB3kjeHpic.twitter.com/W7J6DJPSUB

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) January 31, 2018

Well, things seemed to get pretty awkward for a minute during the 2018 State of the Union. What moment was that, might you ask? Oh, it was when First Lady Melania Trump didn't stand when Trump discussed "faith and family" during his address

There was also a bit of an embarrassing blunder when it came to printing tickets for the event. The typo of "Uniom" is particularly sensitive considering Trump's speech is set in the context of a starkly divided country.

Things unravelled further when it was pointed out that "Visitor's Gallery" should have been typed as "Visitors' Gallery".

 'A load of clap': Social media responds to Donald Trump's State of the Union address

Read the full text of Trump's State of the Union address


Last night we were able to watch for few minutes the movements of the brightest moon around 10:30ish even though the Bra beach was cloudish Blue moon, supermoon, total lunar eclipse rolled into one

“I am convinced that you must write as if no one were ever going to see it. Write it all, as personally and specifically as you can, as deeply and honestly as you can. … In fact, I think it is the only true way to reach the universal, through the knot-hole of the personal. So do, do go ahead and write it as it boils up: the hot lava from the unconscious. Don’t stop to observe, criticize, or be ‘ironic.’ Just write it, like a letter, without rereading. Later, one can decide what to do.”

Against Wind and Tide

An old joke says that a sadist is someone who’s nice to a masochist ...
George Orwell’s classic essay on writing

Remembering Investigative Journalist Robert Parry Norman Solomon, Nation

Irrelevance is the fate of most political magazines. Yet there are times when they change the course of history. Now might be one of those moments  


Obsession for the Perfect Worker Fading in Tight U.S. Job Market Bloomberg. Help me. More neoliberal messaging. Ridiculous overspecing of jobs was a huge management perk in a weak labor market. They got to keep themselves busy by wasting time on job searches with the spurious goal of not having to train workers. Do you really think that netted out ahead in managerial time saving? If so, I have the Sydney Harbour bridge I’d like to sell you. Making jobs artificially hard to land also increased boss power v. worker power. See Kalecki on why capitalists don’t like full employment even though that preference cost them in profit terms.

What really happened after this photo was taken BBC. Re an iconic Vietnam War image.

Artificial Intelligence May Have Cracked Freaky 600-Year-Old Manuscript Gizomdo 

‘Carl Sagan’s rolling in his grave’: Academic hits out at profit-making on alien-bound Golden Record RT 

Today in cryptocomedy FT Alphaville

Butterflies and hurricanes pay no heed to borders, but humans will risk their lives to cross them, build walls to mark them and kill to defend them

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness is next on my list. 

 At the edge/
Of a world/
Beyond my eyes
/ Beautiful/ 
I know
Exile Is always
Green with hoe
The river
We cannot cross
Flows foreverIn a video for Audi, Candide Thovex skis in locations around the world without any snow. He skis in the jungle, on water, on volcanic ash, down sand dunes, and across the Great Wall of China. The sand dunes in particular look incredibly fun. I wonder how many pairs of skis he ripped up making this?
See also Thovex’s past videos: a fun run down the mountain, more creative freeskiing hijinks from Candide Thovex, and his previous commercial for Audi (Come back in December )

Here’s a numbered list of the 10 times Trump has “prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice.”

↩︎ The New York Times

I am haunted by the face behind the face ... I am the unnoticed, the unnoticeable man:
The man who sat on your right in the 256 cafe:
The man you looked through the SMH:
The man who was the colour of recycled teenager

I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.

"Only an artist can tell,” James Baldwin wrote,“what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what it is like to be glad?"

What do you think, Ursula? I asked her in my head. Were you predicting anything? Not exactly, she answered. It’s a thought experiment. But then, so is our society.

Margaret Atwood eulogizes Ursula K. Le Guin.

↩︎ The Guardian

Whistleblower claims accountants Ernst & Young turned a blind eye to Dubai firm he says painted 5 tons of gold to look like silver


Ach. God. Ach. For someone who does not exist He has caused MEdia Dragon a great deal of trouble.

Dating without last names (WSJ

Everything leads to and everyone is going to Berlin ... Before the Berlin Wall 
Babylon Berlin - vynikající seriál o Výmarské republice varuje před 
Babylon Berlin: it's time to party like it's 1929

How a Highlands publisher has hit the big time with 'Babylon Berlin'

Yet, it was Sandstone Press and its director Robert Davidson who secured the English language rights to the "Babylon Berlin" books by German author Volker Kutscher, a year before it was announced they were being adapted for the small screen — a bet that has paid off handsomely with the books now ...

Babylon Berlin review: political maelstrom, a populist right on the march – sound familiar? |

Sex, Drugs and Crime in the Gritty Drama 'Babylon Berlin' - The New York Times

HBO Europe Picks Up 'Babylon Berlin' – Variety

FROM THE MAGAZINE

“Oh My God, This Is So F---ed Up”: Inside Silicon Valley’s Dark Side

BY 

• EMILY CHANG

IN CONVERSATION

New Novel The AfterlivesPresents a Surprising & Humorous Journey to Death

Author Thomas Pierce uses a love story to ask the big questions in his debut novel.

by 

• ERIN VANDERHOOF

Police in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have launched a new pilot programme which will see them confiscating expensive clothing and jewellery from young people if they look too poor to own them.
Officers say the scheme will see them target younger men in designer clothes they seem unlikely to be able to afford legally – if it is not clear how the person paid for it, it will be confiscated.
The idea is to deter criminality by sending a signal that the men will not be able to hang onto their ill-gotten gains.
…He [the police chief] said the young men targeted often have no income and are already in debt from fines for previous convictions but wearing expensive clothing.
This “undermines the rule of law” which sends “a completely false signal to local residents”, he explained.

I know how this would play out in New Jersey or Rhode Island, but the Netherlands?  Here is the full article