Diary (June 16, 2020)

Online diary of Karl Jones for Tuesday June 16, 2020.

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Diary

Ashurbanipal

Prisoners being flayed during the siege of Lachish, from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, 701 BC.

[Context: reply to Facebook post.]

Made me laugh! But also I had to stop and think.

If anyone deserves to have their iconography toppled and smashed, it is Ashurbanipal (685 BC - 631 BC), King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Listen, ye women and men of the modern world, to the voice of a true conqueror:

"I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates."

Which brings us to my question—

Why do we permit this masterwork of atrocity to exist?

Should we not efface the words and destroy the works of this monster Ashurbanipal, as a lesson to would-be conqueror worms, and as a balm to the memory of the countless victims?

No, we should not destroy the works of this monster.

We should preserve the works of this monster, because Art is greater than man.

• Comment @ Facebook

Unpopular opinions

[Context: Thomas Mundahl: "I have opinions on this and they aren't popular ones."]

That's good. It means you have standards.

A lesser man would restrict himself to popular opinions -- which is to say, useless opinions of no consequence.

A man like yourself, who is willing to hold and voice unpopular opinions, is ready to make enemies.

And if you are not ready to make enemies, you had better not have opinions, because all opinions attract enemies.

Keep up the good work.

Better yet ⁠— double down on your unpopular opinions.

Confront your ideological allies, criticize them for their faults, issue demerits. That is the Karl Jones way.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

How Uncanny Was My Valley

How Uncanny Was My Valley (2020) tells the story of the Morgans, a hard-working Welsh mining family on Mars, from the point of view of the youngest child Pkd, who lives with his affectionate and kind parents, and his five brothers, in the Valles Marineris during the early modern era.

The story chronicles life in the Martian colonies, the widening gaps between the "Cannies" (human colonists) and the "Uncannies" (android-Martian hybrids), and its effects on the family.

The film is modern take on John Ford's 1941 classic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Green_Was_My_Valley_(film)

• Comment @ Facebook

Fearless puckishness required

Seeking collaborator(s) to prank Boing Boing's comment board.

Fearless puckishness required.

Reply by email.

Speculative judicial procedures

Are there any societies which have judicial procedures based on ...

Dammit, lost my train of thought ... lichen ... sunset ... indoors ... lentils ... yentls ...

It was some nonsense, some fiction. Come back, little fiction, come back.

That's what sleep is for

Seldom do I wish to not think.

That's what sleep is for.

Tiger Team monitors Trump Tweets

User hecep: "... there must a specialized tiger team composed of WH lawyers working 24/7 to studying Trump’s talks and tweets in real-time, with the sole task of coming up with responses to the inevitable next-day questions. That would explain the paperwork (flowchart?!) that McEnany constantly refers to whenever asked a question by the press corp."

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• How Uncanny Was My Valley - A modern take on John Ford's 1941 classic. The film tells the story of the Morgans, a hard-working Welsh mining family on Mars, from the point of view of the youngest child Huw, who lives with his affectionate and kind parents, and his five brothers, in the Valles Marineris during the early modern era. The story chronicles life in the Martian colonies, the widening gaps between the "Cannies" (human colonists) and the "Uncannies" (android-Martian hybrids), and its effects on the family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Green_Was_My_Valley_(film)

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Karl Jones (nonfiction)