wednesday newstrip

Videos of the Finnish PM partying sparked global outrage. Meanwhile, in Australia, beer-drinking PM Anthony Albanese is cheered on · DoNuts T.®ump kept 25 top secret documents, including on national security, at his Mar-a-Lago mansion for almost a year after leaving the White House, affidavit alleges · Moderna sues Pfizer & BioNTech for patent infringement over COVID vaccine · Amazon's Roomba robot vacuum merger bid sparks privacy fears · NASA released audio of what a black hole 200 million light years away sounds like to clear up the misconception that there isn't any sound in space · an orally administered nonpathogenic attenuated vaccine virus can be used to control SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Today the post-
woman brought
me the Swiss Cheese
calendar for 2023. 
I've sent it back
because it was
full of holes.

wednesday newstrip

De-extinction: scientists are planning the multimillion-dollar resurrection of the Tasmanian tiger · human remains were in Auckland storage unit sold at auction. How could it happen? · 'Poxy McPoxface', 'TRUMP-22' submitted to WHO's public search for 'non-stigmatising' new name for monkeypox · scientists achieved self-sustaining nuclear fusion… but now they can't replicate it · Saccorhytus is an early ecdysozoan & not the earliest deuterostome · don’t blame women for low libido. Sexual sparks fly when partners do their share of chores – including calling the plumber · New South Wales police strip-searched more than 100 children as young as 13 in two-year period · Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin defends partying in viral video, says she's taken drug test to alleviate concerns.

wednesday newstrip

FBI seized 'top secret' documents from DoNuts T.®ump's Mar-a-Lago property, unsealed search warrant reveals · North Korea's next generation is upending the regime's propaganda strategy with waterpark tours & quarantine vlogs · Tech giant Google has been fined 60 million Australian dollars – for collecting Android location data without user consent in 2017 & 2018 · Disney now has more subscribers than Netflix, & it's putting up prices to celebrate · McDonald’s to reopen some restaurants in Ukraine for first time since war began · Madonna admits her son David, 16, wears her clothes better than she does · World Health Organization says stop attacking monkeys: it won't stop monkeypox.

geographies: Daylesford

 

recently at Series Magritte

The State of Grace


What people see is the title,
not the subject. & the subject
contradicts the title. “I was
inspired,” said Magritte. “The 
subject to be painted: a bicycle 
on a cigar.” Or to put it even
more bluntly, a bicycle riding
roughshod over another object —
no state of grace in that. Ex-
cept . . .The objects float, & 
perhaps a belief hovers that 
the laws of gravity are defied 
when things are in a state of 
grace. Which brings in Simone 
Weill, who wrote: “All the 
natural movements of the soul 
are controlled by laws analogous 
to those of physical gravity. 
Grace is the only exception.” 
‘Analogous to’ is the escape 
clause that allows St. Thomas 
Aquinas to come on board &
point out that grace builds
upon, not contradicts, nature.
Then, once all parties are on
stage, lined up like ten pins 
in a state of grace, Magritte 
reappears, wearing his bowl-
er hat, & with a solid verbal 
cast, scatters the skittles
with his addendum: “A bike
sometimes runs over a cigar
down in the street.” No
gravity, no grace inherent.

wednesday newstrip

Sorry, that James Webb Space Telescope 'image' is just a close-up of a slice of chorizo · Elongated Muskrat accuses Twitter of deliberately miscounting spam users in countersuit · Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 8, including senior militant, plus another 16 in subsequent fighting · Russia calls for 'restraint' as fighting between Armenia & Azerbaijan breaks out again · Chinese & Taiwanese warships shadow each other as war games due to wind down · Monkeypox declared a public health emergency · Kim Kardashian & Pete Davidson ‘split’ after nine months together · Meta starts testing its latest AI chatbot, BlenderBot 3.

geographies: Wombelano

 

wednesday newstrip

Tiny turtle pooed ‘pure plastic’ for six days after rescue from Sydney beach · Russia, Ukraine accuse each other of POW prison bombing which reportedly killed 53 · Australian Prime Minister proposes draft national referendum question on Indigenous Voice to Parliament · Elongated Muskrat countersues Twitter over $44bn deal amid fresh legal action by shareholder · higher insulin dose is positively linked with cancer incidence, study finds · SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk debris found across New South Wales might not be the last of the phenomenon · people who eat more ultra-processed foods may have higher risk of dementia · habitual mask-wearing is likely helping Japan, Singapore & South Korea bring daily Omicron deaths down, epidemiologists say.

Otoliths issue sixty-six is now live

Issue sixty-six of Otoliths, the southern winter, 2022 issue, is live.

It contains the usual diverse assemblage of varieties of prose, poetry & visuals, from Jen Schneider, Andrew Topel & John M. Bennett, Mark DuCharme, Diana Magallón & Jeff Harrison, Sanjeev Sethi, Richard Kostelanetz, Tony Kitt, Jay Passer, Ken Poyner, Jennifer Weigel, Amy Barone, Owen Bullock, Bill Wolak, Eric Dillalogue, James Daniels, John M. Bennett & Diane Keys, John M. Bennett & Jihn Khan, Grzegorz Wróblewski, John Tustin, Steve Brisendine, Naomi Buck Palagi & Joshua Purnell, Texas Fontanella, Patricia Carragon, Richard Magahiz, John Bradley, Joe Balaz, Pamela Miller, Sunil Sharma, Randee Silv, Judith Skillman, Leslaw Nowara, J.J. Campbell, Jack Galmitz, Bill Freind, Dave Read, Shataw Naseri, Louis Campbell, Jim Leftwich, Karl Kempton, Timothy Pilgrim, John M. Bennett, Christian ALLE, Anna Cates, Clara B. Jones, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Cecelia Chapman, Nathan Anderson, Tony Beyer, gobscure, Daniel de Culla, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Nathan Whiting, Pete Spence, Carol Stetser, Vernon Frazer, Dave Webb, Joseph Buehler, Charles Borkhuis, John Digby & Bill Wolak, Michael J. Leach, John Levy, Olchar E. Lindsann, Peter Cherches, Guy R. Beining, Janet Jiahui Wu, R L Swihart, Henry Cherry, Adriána Kóbor, Joshua Martin, Laurinda Lind, Diana Magallón, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, M.J. Iuppa, Penelope Weiss, Harrison Fisher, Jim Meirose, Ségolène Pihut, Andrew K. Peterson, Réka Nyitrai & Alan Peat, Jeff Harrison, Adam Day, Chris Daly, Lynn Strongin, H.A. Bari, Eli S. Evans, Bob Lucky, Eric Hoffman, Alex M. Frankel, Charles Freeland, Elmedin Kadric, Elaine Woo, Anne-Marie Jeanjean, Keith Nunes, Bradley Earle Hoge, Robin Wyatt Dunn, Patrick Sweeney, fred flynn, KJ Hannah Greenberg, hiromi suzuki, bart plantenga, Rich Murphy, Thomas Camus, Keith Higginbotham, Jeff Bagato, Thomas Fink, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Leopold Haas, Eileen R. Tabios, Marilyn Stablein, Marcelo Medone, David Jalajel, Nils HM Geylen, Steph Amir, Stephen Nelson, Hrishikesh Srinivas, Angelo ‘NGE’ Colella, J. D. Nelson, Mark DeCarteret, Lorraine Caputo, Peter Yovu, Antonio Devicienti, Joseph Salvatore Aversano, & Carol Shillibeer.