A Short Biography of Yesterday

Good wishes were never going to be enough.

The token gesture, even the heart-felt, sacrificial donation… they were always going to be too little, too late, not for that disaster area an ocean away. Thanks to television, the world suffered with Haiti. But Haiti needed far more than tears. Enter America. Never was military might put to better use. Never did an American imperial presidency respond with greater heart and promptitude to the needs of needy humanity than in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. As in the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami, it is not just the aircraft carriers, ambulance ships, thousands of soldiers or even the pledge of a hundred million dollars that makes the difference. It is also in the raw empathy and generosity of spirit from citizens on the streets (notwithstanding the ever-present lunatic fringe). Read more »

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In time for the 2012 Cultural Olympaid, the UK will spend £5.4 million on 12 Artiste-led projects across the country. It was a great funding opportunity for artistes, and 2163 proposals were submitted out of which 59 were shortlisted. The winning project for the South West region will see the artiste, Alex Hartley, towing a piece of Nymark, a newly discovered island off the coast of Norway to the southern coast of England. It will apply for micronation status, apply for citizens, and try to out-populate the Vatican and Monaco before being towed back at the end of the project. The new nation will be liquidated (or whatever it is that happens to countries at the end of their life) There will be no rubble left over to blight the lovely seaside. Read more »

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I rise with the dawn and leave for the beach to find myself a thinkstone.

A couple of questions might also arise here: what is a thinkstone, and why would anyone want one? Thinkstones help people think, and I need one the way some will need a cigarette or a cup of tea. Some people doodle, others sharpen sharp pencils; I want to do something inarticulate with the hands while my mind orders thoughts and sentences – that sort of thing. Read more »

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Question: How do you top a story on a collision of satellites in outer space?

Answer: With a story of a collision of submarines in the Atlantic ocean.

It was the most unnerving thing: in the first week of February, 2009,  two French and  British nuclear submarines managed to collide within the second largest ocean in the world (over a hundred million square kilometres to play with). What was so worrisome was not just the 246 crew, 2 nuclear reactors, 32 nuclear missiles or 144 nuclear warheads on board – bad as those were. It was the fact that submarine incidents are by no means unique after all. The fender-bender years: 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008… not counting 2000, during which a Russian sub sank with 118 souls. Read more »

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And so we have scored another first: a collision between two major human satellites in outer space. I wonder how the future will remember this landmark day. From all acounts an American satellite has collided with a Russian one, spilling hundreds of more fragmentary junk into involuntary orbit in outer space. We have to reach right back into history for another similarly epoch-making first: possibly the day of the first collision between automobiles. Read more »

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I am going to have to go back quite a few yesterdays to write this post. Right back to the nineteenth century in fact, when on this day, 179 years ago, an English court sentenced one John Hammond to a 7 year transportation to Australia for stealing a purse and lace. William James got a similar sentence for stealing an umbrella. Today, British courts will hardly jail a person that long for killing his fellow man. Read more »

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