Mushroom

Mushroom (pronounced muhsh-room)

(1) Any of various fleshy fungi including the toadstools, puffballs, coral fungi, morels etc; any of several edible species, especially of the family Agaricaceae, as Agaricus campestris meadow mushroom, or field mushroom, cultivated for food in many places.

(2) A fungus producing such fruiting bodies.

(3) Anything of similar shape or correspondingly rapid growth.

(4) As ellipsis of “mushroom cloud”, a large, mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke or rubble, formed in the atmosphere as a result of an explosion (or other sudden release of energy), especially a nuclear explosion.

(5) Of, consisting of, or containing mushrooms.

(6) Resembling a mushroom in shape or form; to have or assume the shape of a mushroom.

(7) Of rapid growth and often brief duration (to spread, grow, or develop quickly).

(8) To gather mushrooms (typically as “mushrooming”, practiced by a mushroomer).

(9) As “magic mushroom” (used typically in the plural), any mushroomlike fungus that after ingestion induces psychedelic effects (“shrooms” to users, “psilocybin mushroom” to clinicians in some jurisdictions where prescription is now lawful).

(10) In ballistics (of a bullet), to form the shape of a mushroom when striking a soft target.

(11) In bar billiards, any of the mushroom-shaped pegs.

(12) In architecture, a concrete column with a thickened portion at the top, used to support a slab.

(13) In slang, an individual who rises rapidly from obscurity or poverty (now rare and displaced by “upstart”); the figurative sense of something that grows very quickly or seems to appear suddenly remains in use.

1350–1400: Following the usual conventions in English, it may be expected the construct was mush- + -room but those words wholly are unrelated and the ultimate source is unknown.  Mushroom was an alteration (by folk etymology) of the Middle English muscheron & musseroun, from the eleventh century Middle French mousseron, from the Anglo-Norman musherum & moscheron, from the Old French moisseron, from the Late Latin mussiriōn- (stem of mussiriō).  The Old French word had a murky history and etymologists suspect it was from the Old French mosse & moise (moss (from which modern French gained mousse (on the basis of the first known use being of a type of fungus which grows in moss))), from the Frankish mosu (moss) or the Old Dutch mosa (moss).  The Old French was akin to the Old High German mosa (moor, swamp), the Old High German mos (moss, bog) & mios (moss, mire), the Old English mēos (moss) & mōs (bog, marsh), the Old Norse mosi (moss) & myrr (bog, mire), all from the Proto-Germanic musą, muso & miuziz (mosses, bog), from the primitive Indo- European mews- (mosses, mold, mildew).  It displaced the native Old English swamm.  The clipping shroom is a synonym (most popular with users of magic mushrooms) and the spelling mushrump is long obsolete (the modern spelling more or less standardized by the 1560s).  Mushroom is a noun, adjective & verb, mushroomed is a verb, mushrooming is a noun & verb, mushroomer is a noun, mushroomic, mushroomless, mushroomlike, mushroomoid & mushroomy are adjectives; the noun plural is mushrooms.

Lindsay Lohan's mushroom gravy.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil or butter
3 cups thinly sliced baby portabella mushrooms or white button mushrooms
½ cup finely chopped onion
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour or cup for cup gluten-free flour
3 cups beef broth/stock or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

(1) In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.  Sautee mushrooms and onions until they are nicely browned (should take around 7 minutes).  Add in garlic and stir until fragrant (about 30 seconds).

(2) Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.  Whisk in the broth, remembering to scrape from the bottom of pan all the "browned bits" (the best part).  Reduce to a simmer and simmer until thickened, then remove from heat.  Taste for salt and pepper and season to taste.

The alternative etymology (noting the Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs) (mushroom) suggests the Old French may be of pre-Roman origin and it remains a matter of debate among etymologists (almost all lexicographers stick to “of uncertain origin”).  What is agreed is the noun “mushroom” was at first applied to almost any of the larger fungi but later to the agaricoid fungi (especially the edible varieties).  The figurative use for something or someone that makes a sudden appearance in full form dates from the 1590s; it was applied especially an upstart person (bounder) or family (those who rose rapidly from a low station in life).  All that was based on the mushroom’s impressively rapid rate of growth and by the 1740s the figurative use substantially has lost the “upstart” sense and came to be used generally of “expanding or increasing rapidly; to rise suddenly in position or rank”.  The famous (or infamous) “mushroom cloud” was first widely described in 1916 (World War I (1914-1918) a time & place of big explosions witnessed by many with cameras) but the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) cites the first use as dating from US in 1902.  It thus long pre-dates the nuclear-age but the phenomenon would for millennia (long before there were explosives) have been observed by those watching volcanic eruptions.  After photographs of the immediate aftermath of the A-bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki (August 1945) widely were publicized, the term became popular and spread to many aspects of popular culture including film, art and T-shirts.

Germania, Berlin’s sandy soil and the “mushroom” used to test for sinkage

Germania model, circa 1940.  The scale of the buildings was monumental and Speer was aware of the comparisons with the Rome and Athens of Antiquity, even writing (a not wholly original) “Theory of Ruin Value” arguing the importance of designs that might, thousands of years hence, leave “magnificent ruins”.

Until in the twenty-first century the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) began doing things at a scale once thought unsustainable, the urban-redevelopment plan imagined on a grandest scale was that for Berlin designed by Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945).  What was the be the capital of the Third Reich (and, in the minds of the most delusional of the Nazis: “of the world”) would be renamed Germania and, as Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) told Speer’s wife: “Your husband is going to build buildings for me the likes of which haven't been built for 4,000 years.”  Prone to lies and exaggeration, this was one of the occasions the Führer was being truthful and although there was little the plans for Germania that was original, what was impressive was the scale, Speer taking reference points from architectural history (the Pantheon in Rome, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) and making the German versions bigger.  Although at the time much taken with what he called the regime’s “Empire style”, in his (sometimes reliable) post-war memoirs (Erinnerungen (Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969)) he admitted the stylistic failure, above all because the architecture wholly was disconnected from the human scale.

The mushroom, Speer's improbable architectural legacy.

Of all that Speer planned for Hitler's megalomaniacal vision of Germania, only small fragments remain but the strangest and largest relic is the Schwerbelastungskörper (heavy load-bearing body) a concrete structure 30 metres (100 feet) tall and weighing 12,650 tons (11,476 tonnes); locals nicknamed it der Pilz (the mushroom).  Located on the city’s southern edge (near modern day Südkreuz station), the giant concrete cylinder was in 1941 erected to test the suitability of Berlin’s sandy soil, something of great significance because most of Germania’s large, representational buildings would be constructed from granite, concrete & steel; although structural engineers could solve the challenges the architects designs presented, the only way to be certain the soil could handle such weight was to conduct a practical, real-time, full-size experiment.  While the data were required for much of what was planned, of particular interest was intended landmark of the Victory Arch which, at 117 metres (384 feet) tall and 170 metres (558 feet) wide would obviously exert much pressure and, having the foundations sinking into the sandy soil was less than ideal.  With a footprint of exactly 100 m³, Speer’s giant, reinforced concrete “mushroom” was placed in a way that would as closely as possible emulate the forces involved; it sat 18 metres (60 feet) deep with the above-ground extending 14 metres (46 feet) high while inside there were a number of measuring devices recording movement.  As things transpired the instruments recorded sinking between 110-180 mm (4.3-7.1 inches) across the six measuring points and that was well beyond the 60 mm (2.4 inches) deemed by Speer as the upper limit of acceptability.  Whether the findings would have compelled a change to the arch or indeed any of Germania’s other gargantuan designs will never be known because, as the tide of war turned, the resources devoted to the project were re-allocated to more urgent tasks and by 1943 Speer, by then also minister of armaments and war production, quietly shut-down the Germania planning office.  So little was built and less survived but the “mushroom” remained and is now a tourist attraction and a site visited by many organized tours.

The mushroom cloud

Tsar Bomba, the largest ever nuclear test, detonated by the Soviet Union in October 1961.

As the photographs suggest, the mushroom clouds generated by large volcanic eruptions and the detonation of nuclear weapons can look similar because the same atmospheric physics are operating despite the underlying energy-release mechanisms being completely different and, counterintuitively, there is no precise TNT (abbreviation of trinitrotoluene (an explosive substance used in blasting)) equivalent threshold above which every explosion produces a mushroom cloud. A mushroom cloud is principally a consequence of buoyancy and atmospheric fluid dynamics, rather than merely a product of energy released, thus the phenomenon can occur with nuclear explosions, large conventional explosions, volcanic eruptions and even especially intense fires.  What an explosion does is produce a very hot, rapidly expanding mass of gas and entrained material and this rises because the air above has less resistance than the ground below; it rises because it has acquired enormous upward momentum and, as it rises, it entrains surrounding air.  The most important mechanism in the ultimate generation of a mushroom cloud’s distinctive shape is a phenomenon plasma physicists call “thermal buoyancy”.

Physics of a mushroom cloud (left), the fluid dynamics an interplay of energy, matter & air temperature and a mushroom cloud T-shirt (right), the images used sometimes for political messaging and sometimes just for dramatic effect. 

Fernando Famiani's photograph of the eruption of Mt Etna, Sicily, Italy, December 2015, shot from the outskirts of the village of San Teodora.

Familiar from many conditions in climate science, as hot material rises, the heated gas being less dense than the surrounding atmosphere, the rising plume entrains cooler air, increasing its volume while reducing its average temperature, a process that continues until its density approaches that of the surrounding atmosphere at which point, the rising material spreads laterally, producing the mushroom cloud’s characteristic “cap”, the outer regions circulating downwards, maintain the shape of the stem.  There are scaling relationships between explosion energy and the size, height and evolution of the resulting plume and consequently, as a general principle, as explosions become larger, a mushroom cloud becomes increasingly likely under appropriate atmospheric conditions.  So the mushroom cloud is a product of the environment; the same release of energy in different conditions (an explosion deep underground; a large underwater explosion; an explosion in a confined structure; energy released over a sufficiently long period rather than instantaneously) will tend not to create one whereas a relatively modest release of energy can produce one if the geometry and atmospheric conditions are favourable.  So, a mushroom cloud is a thing not of yield but of atmospheric conditions.

Death cap mushrooms.

In 2023, Australian mother of two Erin Patterson (b 1974) murdered three of her relatives and nearly killed a fourth by preparing for them a lunch of Beef Wellingtons laced with highly toxic death cap mushrooms.  Amanita phalloides (the more evocative “death cap” the common name) is a basidiomycete fungus and mushroom (one of many in the genus Amanita) and although originally from Europe, it has spread around the planet as have many species (zoological & botanical) in the age of mass-movement of people and goods.  Dangerously, the death cap closely resembles a number of (variously bland and delicious) edible mushrooms used in many dishes so mushroomers must take care when mushrooming (harvesting wild mushrooms).  They’re the most poisonous of all known mushrooms and a single example contains enough toxin to kill an adult human; unsurprisingly, death caps are estimated to be responsible for as many as 90% of the annual death-toll from eating toxic mushrooms.  Quite what is the extent of the annual loss of life is uncertain because in rural parts of Asia (where foraged mushrooms are common in diets) the statistics are not reliable but it’s believed the numbers bounce-around between 100-300.  The principal toxic constituent (hardly affected by cooking or freezing) is α-Amanitin which causes liver and kidney failure.

Erin Patterson, prior to charges being laid.

It was severe liver failure that was the cause of the death of Erin Patterson’s three victims, all of whom died within a week of falling ill (despite one receiving a liver transplant); the sole survivor recovered after several weeks of treatment.  The trial was conducted before a jury that delivered a guilty verdict on all three charges and the judge handed down a sentence of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years; there was immense international interest in the case and it was the first sentencing hearing in the state of Victoria to be live-streamed.  In what was anyway a macabre tale, one interesting aspect was the way Erin Patterson chose to learn about the nature of the death cap; some will have drawn the conclusion: “When researching murder-methods, don’t use one’s own digital devices.”  The case currently is on appeal, the defense seeking a retrial on several procedural and technical grounds while the state is arguing the sentence was “manifestly inadequate” and there should be no possibility of parole.  On X (formerly known as Twitter), some were even more unforgiving, suggesting: “She should get the chair.”

Cryptic crochet: Erin Patterson crocheted a rat as a gift for her defense counsel.  According to press reports, it was an expression of “thanks” but a crocheted mushroom would have been a nice touch.

In her cell, “mushroom lady” (the public's choice of dub upon the case being publicized) is said to pass the hours crocheting, an intricate, time-consuming business but for those serving long prison sentences, time is relative in a way different to that made famous by Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and for the seven Nazis incarcerated in Spandau prison after the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946), “time” often came up in their sometimes awkward conversations.  Grand Admiral Erich Raeder (1876–1960; head of the German Navy 1928-1943) served as prison librarian and, responding to a complaint from one of his fellow inmates that his handing out the four permitted (and by 1954 uncensored) newspapers (one selected by each of the powers administering the prison (France (Kurier), the UK (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), US (Die Welt) & USSR (Berliner Zeitung) bound in one folder meant “It will take too long for one person to read all four newspapers”, answered “That doesn't matter. You've got plenty of time, after all.”  Despite that uncompromising start, within two days the admiral relented, averting the threat of mutiny by distributing the papers singularly. 

Ozempic: The famous “fat jab”.  Now on GLP-1 fat jabs, hopefully the prison authorities will permit her (once slender) to create content and open an OnlyFans page with proceeds going to the families of her victims.

One unexpected coda to the trial was the announcement mushroom lady has been granted access to taxpayer-funded Ozempic (a GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) appetite suppressant), the official explanation being her inability to pursue an exercise regime while in solitary confinement; because of the nature of her offences, it's expected she'll remain in solitary confinement for the foreseeable future (33 years presumably within the vista of “foreseeable”).  Unfortunately, her previous exercise techniques were not disclosed, something that would have been of interest to many pursuing weight-loss.  Doubtlessly anticipating some public outrage at the thought taxpayers would be footing the bill for mushroom lady to get free “fat jabs”, a spokesperson for Victoria’s Department of Justice issued a statement confirming weight loss drugs were just another medicine and would be provided to prisoners based on a clinician's advice: “Prescriptions are only given by clinicians when there’s a clear medical need - like preventing serious conditions such as type 2 diabetes.  Access to prescribed weight loss medication was introduced in response to recommendations from the Coroner following a death in custody linked to obesity.”  The convicted mass-murderer had told the court she “had a problem” with body image and binge-eating, a perhaps unnecessary confirmation given some of the photographs circulated by the media.

Ambassador

Ambassador (pronounced am-bas-uh-dawr)

(1) A diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).

(2) A diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.

(3) A diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country's mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.

(4) An authorized messenger or representative.

(5) A term for a corporate representative, often the public face(s) of the company, mush favoured by fashion houses etc.

1325-1375: From the Middle English ambassadore, from the Anglo-Norman ambassadeur & ambassateur, from the Old Italian ambassatore (ambassador in the dialectal Italian), from the Old Occitan ambaisador (ambassador), a derivative of ambaissa (service, mission, errand), from the Medieval Latin ambasiator, from the andbahti (service, function), from the Proto-Germanic ambahtiją (service, office), a derivative of the Proto-Germanic ambahtaz (servant), from the Gaulish ambaxtos (servant) which was the source also of the Classical Latin ambactus (vassal, servant, dependent).  The early Proto-Celtic ambaxtos (servant), was from the primitive Indo-European ambhi (drive around), from ambi- (around) + ag- (to drive).  The adjective ambassadorial (of or belonging to an ambassador) dates from 1759.  The spellings ambassador and embassador were used indiscriminately until the nineteenth century, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) curiously continuing, well into the twentieth century, to insist the later was the preferred form in US English long after it had there been abandoned everywhere except in the halls of the State Department.  In diplomatic use, the US government had an interesting history of nomenclature, neither sending nor accrediting foreign ambassadors, having only “ministers”.  The reason for this lies in the origins of the United States as a revolutionary state freeing itself from monarchical tyranny; it thus insisted only on ministers who represented states, not ambassadors who historically were the personal emissaries of sovereigns.  Functionally there was no difference and not infrequently, in in casual use ministers were styled as ambassadors with neither offence or declaration of war following and, having made the political point for a century, after 1893, every minister became instead an ambassador.  Ambassador, ambassadress, ambassadry & ambassadrship are nouns, ambassadorial & ambassadorless are  adjectives and ambassadorially is an adverb; the noun plural is ambassadors.

Kylie Jenner (b 1997), a most glam glambassador.

The neologism ambassadonor was coined to describe those appointed to ambassadorships on the basis of the size of their donations to whichever party has the embassy in their gift.  A common practice of long-standing in the US, it’s a way not only of conferring prestige on the appointee but also grants them a title, the convention being an entitlement for life to be addressed as Mr or Madam Ambassador.  For doners, the appointments can be good value for money because (1) traditionally they’re skewed towards desirable locations (a nice (non-shithole) country with a pleasant climate and a majority white population) and (2) they’re effectively sinecures during which one can wine & dine (the US taxpayer picking up the tab), network and pursue business opportunities with any real work handled by the professional staff appointed by the State Department.  That’s just how politics works and it’s a better gig than being something like secretary of state for agriculture.  The nouns ambassadress & ambassadrix are now rare and did double duty as (1) a female ambassador or (2) the wife of an ambassador.  In the modern age, either may make a comeback because when a female ambassador is appointed, if she has a wife the forms may be thought useful but should she have a husband, there’s no equivalent honorific; he’s just an unacknowledged appendage.  Tempting though the thought may be, embassador & embassadress are not two embarrassing appointees (possibly ambassadonors) to an embassy but just now archaic alternative spellings of ambassador & ambassadress.  The informal noun glambassador describes a glamorous public figure (especially a female celebrity) who uses (or licences) her personal brand & image to promote some product or cause.  Kylie Jenner’s role in the promotion of Meta Glasses (camera glasses) may be thought a glambassadorship.

Diplomatic ranks since 1961

Margaret Qualley (b 1994), Venice Film Festival, August 2019, Brand Ambassador for French fashion house Chanel.

Diplomatic rank is the system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, the seat at the table at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented and the title by which they should be addressed.  The current system of diplomatic ranks was established by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) and the modern list is a simplified version of the more elaborate system established by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815).  There are now three senior ranks, two of which remain in use:

Ambassador. An ambassador is a head of mission who is accredited to the receiving country's head of state. They head a diplomatic mission known as an embassy, which usually is headquartered in a chancery in the receiving state's capital, often clustered with others is what’s often styled a “diplomatic quarter”, a feature of town-planning especially associated with cities where physical security is a concern.  A papal nuncio is considered to have ambassadorial rank, and they preside over a nunciature; often, in predominantly Roman Catholic countries the nuncio is, ex officio, appointed dean of the diplomatic corps.  Between Commonwealth countries, high commissioners are exchanged; they preside over a high commission and enjoy the same diplomatic rank as an ambassador.

Minister. A Minister is a head of mission who is accredited to the receiving country's head of state. A Minister heads a legation rather than an embassy. However, the last legations were upgraded to embassies in the late 1960s, and the rank of Minister is now functionally obsolete although any country may at any time appoint them.  An envoy or an internuncio was also considered to have the rank of Minister; they’re now granted status ad-hoc but tend to be regarded as being on the level of consular appointments.  None of this should be confused with the long and tangled history of the resident minister, appointments sometimes political, sometimes diplomatic and sometime administrative.  At different times and in different places, it has meant different things, used essentially to mean whatever the immediate situation demanded and, being outside any formal rules or conventions of diplomacy, flexibility was possible.

A chargé d'affaires en pied (usually styled as chargé d'affairs in everyday use) is a permanent head of mission, accredited by his country's foreign minister to the receiving nation's foreign minister, in cases where the two governments have not reached an agreement to exchange ambassadors.  A chargé d'affaires ad interim is a diplomat who temporarily heads a diplomatic mission in the absence of an ambassador.

A variety of titles exist beneath the formal three such as counsellor, first secretary, second secretary, third secretary, attaché and assistant attaché.  The actual roles discharged vary, indeed, some of these jobs are actually covers for spies or other political operatives and, just as ambassadorships are used often as a rewards for helpful services (such as large campaign donations) or as a temptingly lucrative sinecure to get a potential rival out of the country, the lower appointments have been a dumping ground for troublesome public servants when, for whatever reason, they can’t be sacked.  The diplomatic appointment also determines the description of the architecture.  An ambassador works from (and usually lives in) an embassy whereas other diplomats (except Commonwealth high commissioners who operate from high commissions) tend to be housed in consulates.  Like ambassador and embassador, the terms ambassy and embassy used to be interchangeable but in each case one prevailed and the other went extinct.  Etymology has no explanation for either case except it was just a pattern of use which emerged and that’s how English evolves.  The word embassy evolved in another way.  It now, institutionally and architecturally, refers to something permanent but, until the late nineteenth century was more often a temporary mission and described a delegation which would return home when its business concluded.  The history is reflected in some terms still used in diplomacy such as "Head of Mission".

Uncle Otto and nephew Eric

Uncle Otto, taking the salute, Paris 1940.

Because the Third Reich (1933-1945) never concluded a peace treaty with Vichy France, diplomatic recognition was not possible so no ambassador was accredited.  There was however a de-facto ambassador, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) in November 1940 appointing Otto Abetz (1903-1958) to the German Embassy in Paris, a post he held until July 1944 when diplomatic conditions changed a bit.  As the letters patent made clear, he acted with full ambassadorial powers and, genuinely a Francophile, he certainly attempted to use his authority in a way he thought would be conducive to making France a central element in a Europe under Berlin's benign hegemony.  These proto-EU (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) gestures didn't much impress his colleagues from the Nazi's "loot & pillage" school of thought with Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) openly contemptuous of "Herr Abetz's" earnestness.  Hitler, who applied "divide and conquer" tactics to enemies, allies & associates alike, seldom attempted to mediate in such squabbles.  In July 1949 a French court handed Abetz a 20 year sentence for crimes against humanity; released in 1954, he died in 1958 in a traffic accident on the Cologne-Ruhr Autobahn and there are conspiracy theorists who suspect the death was an "assassination", the French in the era not above administering some ex post facto justice.

Nephew Eric, taking tea, Canberra 2018.

Otto Abetz was the great uncle of Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, member of the Tasmanian House of assembly since 2024).  Because of the coincidence of one being born in the same year death visited the other, there was speculation about the transmigration of uncle Otto’s soul to nephew Eric.  Spiritualists however generally agree this would have been impossible because the former senator was born on 25 January, his old Nazi relative living until 5 May the same year.  Transmigration was known also as metempsychosis and was an idea most associated in the West with pre-Ancient (archaic) Greece but which may (perhaps concurrently) have origins in Egypt and India.  Mr Abetz is now Tasmania's treasurer, a perhaps thankless task given the level of the state exchequer's indebtedness but despite his reputation as a conservative, he has a history of innovation, proudly telling one interviewer his law firm was in the 1980s the first in Hobart to include a splash of color on the firm's letterhead.  At the time, that would have seen some think him a troublesome radical but clearly he's a problem-solver and that's good because in his new role there are problems to solve.  Encouragingly, despite the unpromising family background, no evidence has ever emerged linking Eric Abetz to the Freemasons co there's that.

Lindsay Lohan: Allbirds Ambassador         

Lindsay Logan, nueva embajadora de Allbirds (the new Allbirds ambassador), possibly on a Wednesday.

In 2022, Allbirds appointed Lindsay Lohan as an ambassador for its "Unexpected Athlete" campaign, focusing on her for the new limited edition of its most successful running shoe to date, the Tree Flyer.  The promotional video issued for the announcement was nicely scripted, beginning with Ms Lohan’s perhaps superfluous admission that as an ambassador for running “I am a little unexpected" before working in a few references to her career in film (showing again a rare sense of comedic timing), fondness for peanut butter cookies and the odd social media faux-pas, many of which she's over the years embraced.  It wasn't disclosed if the photo-shoot happened on a Wednesday but the featured shoe (Lux Pink) was said to include no plastics but Allbirds didn't respond to enquiries about the material used for the laces' aglets.  

Lindsay Lohan, Allbirds “Unexpected Athlete Ambassador”.

As a well-known car driver and frequent flyer who has for years lived in an air-conditioned cocoon in Dubai, it’s not clear how far up the chart of conspicuous consumption Ms Lohan has stamped her environmental footprint but US-based footwear and apparel company Allbirds claims its design, production & distribution processes are designed to make its products as eco-friendly as possible.  It is a certified “B Corporation”, a system of private certification of for-profit companies of their "social and environmental performance" conferred by B Lab, a non-profit organization which claims to provide consumers with a way reliably to distinguish the genuinely environmentally active from those who cynically “greenwash”.

The AMC Ambassador's footnote in the history of automotive AC

The AMC (American Motors Corporation) Ambassador was between 1957-1974 produced in eight generations although the name had since 1927 been used by a company that would become part of the ultimately doomed AMC conglomerate.  Emblematic of the company's unsuccessful attempt consistently to compete with Detroit's big three (GM (General Motors), Ford and Chrysler), the Ambassador was in those years offered variously as an intermediate and full-sized model but unfortunately, this culminated in its largest ever iteration being sold as the first oil crisis struck in 1973; the universe shifted and the Ambassador was axed in little more than year.  One footnote in the story is that in 1968, the advertising made much of the Ambassador being the only car in the world (other than those from Rolls-Royce) with AC (air-conditioning) as standard equipment.  That was a bit of a fudge in that at the time a number of European manufacturers fitted AC (optional in Europe) to all of at least some of the models they shipped to the US but technically, AMC was correct.

1974 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI (1968-1990) Formal Limousine (coachwork by Mulliner Park Ward).

Originally, this Phantom VI was delivered to Moscow to serve as official car of British Ambassador to Russia; symbolism was of great significance during the high Cold War.  When supplied, it was in traditional diplomatic black but, after being acquired by a US collector, this was changed to two-tone black over garnet, close to the hues associated with some of the Rolls-Royces in the Royal Mews.  By the time the last left the factory in 1990, it probably remained true Rolls-Royce was "the best-built car in the world" but in many ways the Phantom VI was a relic with the engineering of some of the underpinnings dating from the inter-war years (1919-1939).  The sole virtue of the four-wheel drum brakes was their silence in operation and the solid rear axle's semi-elliptic springs (the nickname "cart springs" gained from them for centuries appearing on horse-drawn carts, carriages, buggies and such) were wrapped in leather gaiters, ensuring the ambassador would never be troubled by tiresomely intrusive squeaks.

The Rolls-Royce "best car in the world" cliché  was in the 1960s still a powerful cultural message and a couple of seasons earlier Ford had spent a lot of money on an advertising campaign asserting their then new range of full-sized Fords was "quieter than a Rolls-Royce", a claim that must have seemed audacious given the English company's hook: “At 60 mph (100 km/h) the loudest noise in a Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”.  That shtick had been verified (at least in ideal conditions) by sceptical journalists although one did note it was possible to make electric clocks function silently, concluding the company deliberately fitted time-pieces emitting an untypically loud “tick-tock”, just to ensure the claim was true.  Still, true it was and to ensure they couldn't be accused of “mere puffery”, Ford spent a lot of money, J. Walter Thompson (then Ford’s advertising agency) commissioning acoustical consultants Boldt, Beranek and Neuman to run tests, two brand new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud (1955-1966) III (1963-1966) saloons purchased for the project.  What the engineer’s dB (decibel) meters revealed was that, under conditions that were controlled but representative of much of the driving experience in the US, the Fords were indeed quieter.

1964 Chrysler New Yorker Salon advertising.

AMC's marketing budget didn't stretch to hiring consultants of buying a brace of Roll-Royces but to verity its claim, all it required was a Rolls-Royce brochure or specification sheet, free from the closest distributer.  In a sense it was a bold move for AMC to include AC as standard in the Ambassador because it was in 1968 still far from a commonly ordered option and even Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials sometimes were ordered without the buyer ticking the box for what was then an expensive choice (well into four figures in 2026 US$ values).  Nor was the commercial history encouraging.  Chrysler in 1963-1964 had tried the approach of bundling almost all available options (including AC) into a top-of-the-range New Yorker it dubbed the “Salon”, daringly offering it at a price-point above some of the (less well-equipped) models in the Imperial line, nominally the corporation’s flagship brand.  Salon was from the French salon (reception room) and although the word was associated with gatherings of literary and artistic circles, most Americans were probably more familiar with the “beauty salon” (eyelashes, hair, nails and such) so how well the “associative messaging” would have cut through is uncertain but the imagery used for marketing certainly had a “European theme” with English society photographer Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) hired to do a few “artistic” shots.  Alas, at almost US$5,900 it was some 30% more expensive than the standard New Yorker and at that price was intruding not only on Imperial’s territory but also that of Cadillac and Lincoln, all with more “brand cachet” than Chrysler although, to be fair, on the basis of cost-breakdown, the value was there because it was still cheaper than any of them similarly equipped from their (long) option lists.  The salon lasted in the catalogue less than two seasons with a disappointing 2,214 sold (593 of the in 1963; 1,621 in 1964) and that was the last time the US industry dabbled with “standard AC” until AMC’s venture with the Ambassador for 1968. 

Dictator

Dictator (pronounced dik-tey-ter)

(1) A person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who (at least ostensibly) has absolute control (ie effectively not restricted by a constitution, laws, recognized opposition, etc) in a government (and officially without hereditary succession); applied particularly to those exercising tyrannical rule.

(2) In republican ancient Rome, a person vested by the senate with supreme authority during a crisis, the regular magistracy being subordinated to him until the crisis was met (typically by conducting a war).

(3) A person who makes pronouncements, as on conduct, fashion etc, which are regarded as authoritative.

(4) A person who dictates text to someone or some sort or mechanical or electronic recording device.

(5) In Ancient Rome (during certain periods), an elected chief magistrate.

1350–1400: From the Middle English dictatour, from the Old French dictator, from the Latin dictātor (genitive dictātōris), (Roman chief magistrate with absolute authority) the construct being dictā(re) (inflection of dictō (I repeat, say often; I dictate (to someone for writing))), frequentative of dicere (to say, speak); I compose, express in writing; I prescribe, recommend, order, dictate)) frequentative of dicere (to say, speak)" (from the primitive Indo-European root deik- (to show (also "solemnly to pronounce") (and related to dīcō (say, speak) + -tor (from the Proto-Italic -tōr, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr from -tor-s; the suffix added to the fourth principal part of a verb to create a third-declension masculine form of an agent noun).  The feminine forms were dictatress or dictatrix, both probably now obsolete except in historic reference or as a jocular form; the old alternative spelling dictatour is obsolete.  Some European languages (including Dutch and Romanian) were like English and borrowed directly the Latin spelling while others used variations including Catalan (dictador), French (dictateur) Italian (dittatore), Piedmontese (ditator), Polish (dyktator), Portuguese (ditador), Russian (дикта́тор (diktátor)), Sicilian (dittaturi), Spanish (dictador) and German (Diktator).  The feminine forms dictatoress & dictatrix are now rare.  Dictator, dictatoress & distatorship are nouns, dictatory is a noun & adjective, dictatorial, dictatorlike & dictatorless are adjectives and dictatorially is an adverb;the noun plural is dictators.

The noun dictatorship (office or term of a (Roman) dictator) came into use in the 1610s to describe the historically specific terms of office the Roman Senate sometimes granted individuals in extraordinary and reprehensible circumstances while the now familiar general sense of "a ruler exercising absolute authority" evolved by the late seventeenth century.  The noun dictator had already proceeded along this path, the historical sense being first used in English circa 1600, the extension to “one who has absolute power or authority" (in any context and not just political power) noted by the 1690s.  The nasty and not infrequently genocidal nature of some of the dictators of the twentieth century and beyond certainly influenced the understanding of the word which, as late as the 1800s could be used neutrally, effectively as a synonym for president.  The adjective dictatorial (pertaining to a dictator; absolute, unlimited), dating from 1901 evolved also to enjoy use outside of descriptors of absolute government and by 1704 had acquired the general sense of "imperious, overbearing", usefully (and often applied as required to husbands, mothers-in-law, parish priests etc); the related form was the adverb dictatorially.  In that vein, to convey the notion of "pertaining to a dictator" there had been dictatorian (1640s) & dictator-like (1580s).  Etymologists insist historic duality of implication in "dictatorial" ((1) a disposition to rule & (2) a sharp insistence upon having one's orders accepted or carried out) has survived in modern use but instances of the former are now less common.

1929 Studebaker Dictator Royal Coupe with rumble seat and "artillery wheels" in the style made famous on Bugatti's roadsters and race-cars.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) was of course the dictator who has for almost a century loomed over the word and “Hitler” was used figuratively for "a dictator" from as early as 1934, a use persisting despite there being no shortage of dictatorial tyrants in the years since his assumption of power.  One amusing variation emerged in England in the early years of World War II (1939-1945), a “little Hitler” being someone appointed to a minor post (archetypically an air-raid warden (someone employed to walk the streets during a “black-out” telling folk to extinguish their lights)) and, cloaked in this brief, unaccustomed authority, soon intoxicated by their power.  In the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran (1979-), the regime encouraged a similar put-down aimed at opponents, the US being شيطان بزرگ (Shaytân-e Bozorg (the great Satan)) and Israel شیطان کوچک, (Shaytân-e Kuchak (the little Satan)) and it’s a worse slight even than it sounds because “great” is not the perfect translation, the idea of the great Satan being one of derision rather than awe.  When ayatollahs are in a bad mood (it does happen), sometimes the UK is also described as a “little Satan”.

Lindsay Lohan, glad to see a dictator go.

Lindsay Lohan never forgave dictator Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020; president of Egypt 1981-2011) for shouting at Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001).  When told in 2011 he’d fallen from power as one of the victims of the Arab Spring, she responded: “Cool.”  When told it was brought about by a military coup she replied: “Gross!”  Lindsay Lohan doesn’t approve of coups d'état and believes soldiers should "stay in the barracks", allowing due constitutional process to be followed.   

Because of the evil of Hitler and his many spiritual successors in this century and the last, dictator really doesn’t cry out for synonyms but autocrat, despot, tyrant, absolutist, authoritarian, oppressor & totalitarian all tend in the direction.  Associatively however, the noun generalissimo (supreme military commander), dating from the 1620s and a borrowing of the Italian generalissimo (superlative of generale, from a sense development similar to the French général), can in some cases be applied to dictators because in the twentieth century the title was granted (ie self-conferred) to the dictators comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) and Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975).  Despite that roll-call, it has never come into use as a general term for "in the manner of dictator", possibly because historically it's too specific (to the military context) and has just too many syllables to be catchy slang.

1935 Studebaker Dictator phaeton (left) & 1936 Studebaker Dictator sedan (right).

The Studebaker Dictator was produced between 1927-1937, the naming scheme using titles from government service to indicate a model’s place in the hierarchy, the Dictator replacing the Standard Six as the entry-level model, the progressively more expensive models being the Commander and President.  Other manufacturers have adopted the concept idea, Opal in Germany once merging admiralty and political ranks, offering the Kapitän, Commodore, Admiral & Diplomat.

Some of the opposition to crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) presidential campaign in 2016 accused her of wanting to turn the US into a dictatorship.  Given that she couldn't manage even to keep her husband "on the porch", fears crooked Hillary might in the Oval Office morph into dictatorial Hillary may have been hyperbolic but the meme makers any responded with agitprop.

To many it will seem strange a US manufacturer would, as late as 1937, call one of its cars the Dictator but in 1927 the Nazis were years from power and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943), was far from the tainted character he would later become, public perception of his rule still in the moment of admiring him for “making the trains run on time”.  Whether any improvement in punctuality was noted by many Italians is dubious but the Duce would anyway have been pleased at least one train arrived in good time.  Because the image of a mass-movement black-shirted supporters taking to the streets to overthrow an old, corrupt government was just the sort of propaganda dictators adore, the 1922 "March on Rome" became part of fascist mythology but although a good "photo opportunity", Mussolini joined the march only for it's final stage; he caught the Naples-Rome train.  Studebaker anyway had always explained the name as suggesting “a fine car at a moderate price” that would “dictate the standards” in the vital mid-priced field.  That was fair enough but with the benefit of post-Nazi hindsight, when the option of a straight-eight engine was offered as an upgrade from the straight-six, Studebaker probably would not to have used the marketing slogan “a brilliant example of excess power”.  By 1937, the use of excess power by the Third Reich’s dictator was becoming obvious and Studebaker quietly dropped the Dictator name for 1938, re-positioning the Commander as the base model, the cars exported to the Europe, the UK and the British Empire having early been renamed Director.  Of those changes, probably just about everyone except Henry Ford (1863-1947) approved.  Briefly, Studebaker had also offered the Chancellor but, presumably because it wasn’t a title that much resonated in the American imagination, it was short-lived (only in the catalogue for the 1927 season); that was a stroke of luck for Studebaker because Hitler took over the Reich Chancellery in January 1933 and had the Chancellor remained in production, it too would have faced the linguistic cull for 1938.  

So Studebaker’s tale is an example of how the shifting meaning of words can influence many things.  Still, if in 1937 any association with Hitler had become distasteful for a US corporation, even by 1940, some two years after the Nazi’s most publicized pogrom against the Jews (Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)), Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) released his satirical comedy The Great Dictator which parodied both dictators (Hitler and Mussolini), his argument being that however controversial it might be, “…Hitler must be laughed at."  He later admitted that had he known in 1940 what would later be understood, he’d never have produced the film.  When in 1940 Lord Halifax (Edward Wood, 1881–1959) arrived in Washington DC to take up his appointment as UK’s ambassador, he was taken to lunch by a group of Republican senators and told they regarded Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) as “a worse dictator than Hitler or Mussolini” so Studebaker clearly made the right decision.

Studebaker US6 truck in Red Army use, configured as mobile Katyusha rocket launcher, circa 1943.  Under Lend-Lease arrangements, some 152,000 US6's were supplied during Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Comrade Stalin’s favorite cars by the 1930s were the big Packards but he acknowledged the importance of Studebaker trucks supplied by the US under Lend-Lease and the company also greatly benefited; like many US corporations, some of its golden years came during World War II (1939-1945) when industrial capacity was given over to government contracts fulfilling military demand.  A variety of materiel was produced but Studebaker’s most notable contribution to the war effort was the versatile US6 (G630 in the government purchasing system) 2½ (short) ton 6x6 trucks, over 150,000 of which were supplied to the Soviet Union.  Built in many configurations, the most memorable adaptation by the Red Army was as a mobile platform for the BM-31-12 (nickname: Andryusha) Katyusha rocket launcher, known to the enemy as “Stalin’s organs” because of the distinctive sound; before drones emerged as the preferred front-line weapon, the Russian army widely deployed such rockets in the “special military operation” (invasion) against Ukraine.  The US6 proved popular with Red Army troops who judged it superior to the locally-made ZIS-5 & GAZ-AA and better even than the captured German trucks with Maybach engines which (belying the German reputation for “good beer, good engines, good sausages”), were prone to overheating under extreme loads, unlike the Studebakers that never boiled.

Tough, durable and easy to repair, it was the WS6 that made possible the movement of the Red Army at the scale and speed achieved by 1943-1944 and it proved equally adept at handing the both the muddy and freezing conditions that became notorious on the Eastern Front; affectionately the troops nicknamed the things “Studer”.  The tale circulated that comrade Stalin even wrote a letter of appreciation to Studebaker, mentioning how important the US6 had been to the Red Army; that turned out to be apocryphal but in the Studebaker archives there are documents from Soviet officials expressing their satisfaction with the machines.  The flow of information between across the Iron Curtain was once highly restricted and one Soviet diplomat, arriving in the US in the late 1960s, expressed surprise Studebaker was no longer in business.  Brought up on the legends of the part the WS6 had played in Great Patriotic War, he'd assumed the company would still be a fixture in US manufacturing.  Of course, if corporate comings & goings in Detroit (actually South Bend, Indiana, where Studebakers were built, a place that wouldn’t again make the international headlines until 2020 when Pete Buttigieg (b 1982; US secretary of transportation 2021-2025), who served as mayor from 2012 to 2020 sought the Democratic presidential nomination), were a mystery to Russians, the Kremlin was just as opaque, even to experienced diplomats.  Probably no figure in the twentieth century was as dominating a dictator as comrade Stalin but even at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) there were senior figures in the US State Department and the UK’s Foreign Office who believed the one Russians knew as their vozhd (from the Russian вождь (vožd) (chieftain, leader) was a figure whose freedom of action was constrained by “hard liners in Moscow”.

The Hijab Police

Of the many “morality police” forces that have existed in countries with a majority Islamic population, the best known was Afghanistan's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice which actually pre-dated the Taliban takeover in 1996 but they certainly deployed it with an enthusiasm which went much beyond it functioning as “burka police” and in one form or another, it actually operated for most of the (first) post-Taliban era.  When the Taliban regained power in 2021, immediately they created the "Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" and, in a nice touch, allocated as its headquarters the building formerly used by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

The institution is infamous also in Iran.  In the West, it’s usually referred to as the “morality police” and among women the sardonic slang is “hijab police” but technically, the instrument of the Islamic Republic of Iran which enforces, inter alia, the laws governing the wearing of the hijab is گشت ارشاد (Gašt-e Eršād (Guidance Patrol)).  On 16 September 2022, the hijab police arrested Mahsa Amini (2001-2022) because she was wearing her hijab in “an un-Islamic way”.  While in custody, Ms Amini suffered a medical event, dying two days later without recovering consciousness, the hijab police claiming the cause of death was heart failure, induced by pre-existing conditions.  Her family dispute this, saying the evidence suggests she was severely beaten and many witnesses have confirmed she was tortured in the back of a van before arriving at a hijab police office.

Handy guide for the hijab police.  Not only must hijab must be worn correctly but clothing must also be (1) not brightly colored, (2) not patterned with extravagant designs or shapes and (3) be loose enough that the shape of the body is not discernible.

Her death triggered waves of protests in Iran, which, on the basis of footage seen in the West, seem dominated by school girls and young women; that's not unique in the context of political protest but is historically unusual.  With protest signs and banners rendered in TikTok-friendly English, the headline issue is of course the matter of the hijab and whether women should be beaten to death for letting a lock of hair slip from beneath but the protesters are making clear they're there to highlight corruption (noting the poverty of most while the clerical elite have become very rich), the structure of the state, the economy and the very question of whether the republic should be an Islamic theocracy.  The ayatollahs are no doubt well aware that the standard calculation in political science is that if 3½% of the population can be mobilized to revolt, regimes can be toppled and most recently, the Afghan Taliban did it with a fraction of that.  For many reasons, Afghanistan may be a special case and the Iranian state, on paper, is much better equipped to suppress internal dissent but then the security apparatuses around Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi (circa 1942–2011; Libyan dictator 1969-2011) both looked impregnable until the volume of the protesters reached critical mass.  These things are however hard to judge from afar, Bashar al-Assad (b 1965; ophthalmologist and Syria dictator 2000-2024) looked vulnerable long before Gaddafi and Mubarak fell yet he sat as dictator in Damascus for another 14 years.  The ayatollahs of course watched things with concern but so did individuals in the Kremlin, aware their security apparatus proved inadequate to execute the battle plan of the "special military action" in Ukraine and observed, in a nice echo of the 1979 revolution, the protesters in Tehran again chanting the cry once spat against the Shah: “Death to the Dictator!”.