Acephalous

Acephalous (pronounced ey-sef-uh-luhs)

(1) In zoology, a creature without a head or lacking a distinct head (applied to bivalve mollusks).

(2) In the social sciences, political science & sociology, a system of organisation in a society with no centralized authority (without a leader or ruler), where power is in some way distributed among all or some of the members of the community.

(3) In medicine, as (1) acephalia, a birth defect in which the head is wholly or substantially missing & (2), the congenital lack of a head (especially in a parasitic twin).

(4) In engineering, an internal combustion piston engine without a cylinder head.

(5) In botany, a plant having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex (as is the case in certain ovaries).

(6) In information & communications technology (ICT), a class of hardware and software (variously headless browser, headless computer, headless server etc) assembled lacking some feature or object analogous with a “head” or “high-level” component.

(7) In prosody, deficient in the beginning, as a line of poetry that is missing its expected opening syllable.

(8) In literature, a manuscript lacking the first portion of the text.

1725-1735: From French acéphale (the construct being acéphal(e) + -ous), from the Medieval Latin acephalous, from the Ancient Greek ἀκέφαλος (aképhalos) (headless), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) + κεφαλή (kephalḗ) (head), thus synchronically: a- +‎ -cephalous.  The translingual prefix a- was from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (not, without) and in English was used to form taxonomic names indicating a lack of some feature that might be expected.  The a- prefix (with differing etymologies) was also used to form words imparting various senses.  Acephalous & acephalic are adjectives, acephalousness, acephalia & acephaly are nouns and acephalously is an adverb; the noun plural is acephali.

In biology (although often literally synonymous with “headless”), it was also used to refer to organisms where the head(s) existed only partially, thus the special use of the comparative "more acephalous" and the superlative "most acephalous", the latter also potentially misleading because it referred to extreme malformation rather than absence (which would be something wholly acephalous).  In biology, the companion terms are anencephalous (without a brain), bicephalous (having two heads), monocephalous (used in botany to describe single-headed, un-branched composite plants) & polycephalous (many-headed).

Acephalous: Lindsay Lohan “headless woman” Halloween costume.

The word’s origins were in botany and zoology, the use in political discussion in the sense of “without a leader” dating from 1751.  The Acephali (plural of acephalus) were a people, said to live in Africa, which were the product of the imagination of the writers of Antiquity, said by both the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 487-circa 425 BC) and Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (circa 37–circa 100) to have no heads (sometimes removable heads) and Medieval historians picked up the notion in ecclesiastical histories, describing thus (1) the Eutychians (a Christian sect in the year 482 without a leader), (2) those bishops certain clergymen not under regular diocesan control and later a class of levelers in the time of Henry I (circa 1068–1135; King 1100-1135).  The word still sometimes appears when discussing religious orders, denominations (or even entire churches) which reject the notion of a separate priesthood or a hierarchical order including such as bishops, the ultimate evolution of which is popery.

Acephalousness in its age of mass production: Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) kneeling next to her confessor, contemplates the guillotine on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  Colorized version of a line engraving with etching, 1815.

In political science, acephalous refers to societies without a leader or ruler in the Western sense of the word but it does not of necessity imply an absence of leadership or structure, just that the arrangements don’t revolve around the one ruler.  Among the best documented examples were the desert-dwelling tribes of West Africa (notably those inhabiting the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (now Ghana)), the arrangements of which required the British colonial administrators (accustomed to the ways of India under the Raj with its Maharajas and institutionalized caste system) to adjust their methods somewhat to deal with notions such as distributed authority and collective decision making.  That said, acephalous has sometimes been used too freely.  It is inevitably misapplied when speaking of anarchist societies (except in idealized theoretical models) and often misleading if used of some notionally collectivist models which are often conventional leadership models in disguise or variations of the “dictatorship of the secretariat” typified by the early structure of Stalinism.

The Acephalous Commer TS3

A curious cul-de-sac in engineering, Commer’s acephalous TS3 Diesel engine (1954-1972) was a six-cylinder, two-stroke system, the three cylinders in a horizontal layout, each with two pistons with their crowns facing each other, the layout obviating any need for a cylinder head.  The base of each piston was attached to a connecting rod and a series of rockers which then attached to another connecting rod, joined to the single, centrally located crankshaft at the bottom of the block, a departure from other “opposed piston” designs, almost all of which used twin crankshafts.  The TS3 was compact, powerful and light, the power-to-weight ratio exceptional because without components such as a cylinder heads, camshafts or valve gear, internal friction was low and thermal efficiency commendably high, the low fuel consumption especially notable.  In other companies, engineers were attracted to the design but accountants were sceptical and there were doubts reliability could be maintained were capacity significantly increased (the TS3 was 3.3 litres (200 cubic inch)) and when Chrysler purchased Commer in 1967, development ceased although an eight-piston prototype had performed faultlessly in extensive testing.  Production thus ceased in 1972 but although used mostly in trucks, there was also a marine version, many examples of which are still running, the operators maintaining them in service because of the reliability, power and economy (although the exhaust emissions are at the shockingly toxic levels common in the 1960s).

Acephalous information & communications technology (ICT)

A headless computer (often a headless server) is a device designed to function without the usual “head” components (monitor, mouse, keyboard) being attached.  Headless systems are usually administered remotely, typically over a network connection although some still use serial links, especially those emulating legacy systems.  Deployed to save both space and money, numerous headless computers and servers still exist although the availability of KVM (and related) hardware which can permit even dozens of machines to be hard-wired to the one keyboard/mouse/monitor/ combination has curbed their proliferation.

A headless browser is a web browser without a graphical user interface (GUI) and can thus be controlled only be from a command-line interface or with a (usually) automated script, often deployed in a network environment.  Obviously not intended for consumer use, they’re ideal for use in distributed test environments or automating tasks which rely on interaction between web pages.  Until methods of detection improved, headless browsers were a popular way of executing ploys such as credential stuffing, page-view building or automated clicking but there now little to suggest they’re now anymore frequently used as a vector for nefarious activity than conventional browsers with a GUI attached.

Browsing for nerds: Google’s acephalous Headless Chrome.

Headless software is analogous with but goes beyond the concept of a headless computer in that it’s designed specifically to function without not just a GUI or monitor but even the hardware necessary to support the things (notably the video card or port).  Whereas some software will fail to load if no video support is detected, headless software proceeds regardless, either because it’s written without such parameter checking or it includes responses which pass “false positives”, emulating the existence of absent software.  Headless software operated in a specialized (horizontal in terms of industries supplied but vertical in that the stuff exists usually in roles such as back-to-front-end comms on distributed servers) niche, the advantage being the two ends can remain static (as some can be for years) while the bridge between the two remains the more maintenance intensive application programming interface (API), the architecture affording great flexibility in the software stack.

Inquisition

Inquisition (pronounced in-kwuh-zish-uhn)

(1) An official investigation, especially one of a political or religious nature, historically characterized by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments.

(2) In informal use, harsh, difficult, or prolonged questioning.

(3) The act of inquiring; inquiry; research; an inquest; questioning.

(4) An investigation or process of inquiry, especially a judicial or official inquiry.

(5) In technical use, the finding of a jury, especially such a finding under a writ of inquiry.

(6) Historically, a judicial institution (1232–1820) of the Roman Catholic Church, founded to discover and suppress heresy.

1350–1400: From the Middle English inquisicioun & inquisicion, from the twelfth century Old French inquisicion (inquiry, investigation (inquisition in modern French)), from the Latin inquisitionem (the nominative form in Legal Latin was inquīsītiō) (a seeking of grounds for accusation; a searching into, legal examination) the noun of action from past participle stem of inquirere.  The construct was inquīsīt(us) (past participle of inquīrere (to inquire)) + iōn.  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The word is now most often used, sometime critically, to describe bodies such as royal commissions which are by nature inquisitorial.  Inquisition, inquisitionist & inquisitor are nouns and inquisitorial & inquisitional are adjectives; the noun plural is inquisitions.

In 2008, the (not updated since 2017) blog Metal Inquisition was most impressed by Lindsay Lohan donning a vintage Iron Maiden T-shirt.  Whether any inquisitor (or anyone else) ever used the "iron maiden" (reputed to be one of many apparatuses of gruesome torture known in medieval & pre-Enlightenment Europe) for its alleged purpose is doubted by many historians.

The noun inquisitor dates from the early fifteenth century and was the title of the inspector (one who makes inquiries), from the Anglo-French inquisitour, from either the Old French inquisiteur or directly from the Latin inquisitor (searcher, examiner; a legal investigator, collector of evidence), the agent noun from the Latin inquirere.  In the Church, it was the formal title of an officer of the Inquisition from the 1540s.  The feminine forms were inquisitress (1727) & inquisitrix (1825).  In the Church, the role (though not the title) of inquisitor dates from 382, but the ecclesiastical court charged with finding, suppressing and punishing heretics wasn’t formed as an institutionalized standing body until appointments were made by Pope Innocent III (1161–1216; pope 1198-1216) early in the thirteenth century to what was first called the Congregation of the Holy Office.  The English word inquisition began to be used in this sense (and with a capital initial letter) during the 1490s and in the popular imagination has long most been associated with office's reorganization (1478-1483) in Spain, where it fell under the control of the state as what is commonly called the Spanish Inquisition, noted especially for its obsessional secrecy, the severity of its methods of torture and the numbers burned at the stake.

Principle tortures of the Inquisition, woodcut by unknown artist, printed in History of the Inquisition (1850) by Charles H Davie.

Technically, the Inquisition was a group of institutions within the system of the Catholic Church which interacted to varying degrees with the judicial and investigatory offices of secular authorities and it began significantly to grow in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  It expanded from its French origins to other European countries, most famously in the form of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, both of which operated as inquisitorial courts throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  In 1808, Napoleon conquered Spain and ordered the Inquisition there to be abolished although after Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) defeat in 1814, Ferdinand VII (1784–1833; King of Spain 1808 & 1813-1833) attempted a revival but was prevented by the French government upon which his tenuous hold on the throne depended.  With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was defunct by 1834, surviving only in the Roman Curia, renamed in 1908 the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and known since 1965 as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The Inquisitor and a recalcitrant.  The "...not the time to be making enemies." is often attributed to Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) but there's no proof of origin.  Certainly it's something Voltaire on his deathbed would like to have liked to have said to an earnest priest and it's hard to thing of anyone more likely to have done so. 

Except among historians and Church scholars, all of who have their own favourites, the best known Inquisitor is doubtlessly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022; the future Pope Benedict XVI, pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), appointed by Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) to the office of Prefect (the new (touchy-feely) brand-name for the Inquisitor) of the CDF.  The quarter-century Benedict spent as Inquisitor was both an interesting prelude to his still under-estimated pontificate and the just reward for his abandonment of the youthful indiscretion that was his enthusiasm for reform and change in the Church.  He’d been hopeful, optimistic even, about the possibilities for modernization offered by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II 1962-1965) but having witnessed the social convulsions and the riots across Europe in 1968, which at some moments seemed to verge on revolution, he became disturbed at the effect on youth and the challenge to Church teachings.  He was then the ideal Inquisitor with which the Church could enter the third millennium and updated the philosophical doctrine under which he’d been trained, realizing the great enemies of the Church were no longer communism, homosexuality & Freemasonry but were now Islam, homosexuality & Freemasonry.  Unfortunately, his time as Inquisitor coincided with the need to deal with distasteful, worldly matters rather than the heresy and fine theological points in which he’d more happily have allowed himself to become immersed.  Regrettably too, the powers of the CDF were more limited than in medieval times and a defrocking (laicization) was the most extreme punishment he was able to recommend, the last hanging by the Inquisition being a Spanish schoolmaster in 1826, the last burning at the stake seventy years earlier.

Coefficient

Coefficient (pronounced koh-uh-fish-uhnt)

(1) In mathematics, a number or quantity in an equation placed usually before and multiplying another number or quantity; a constant by which an algebraic term is multiplied; a number, value or item that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic.

(2) In physics, a number that is constant for a given substance, body, or process under certain specified conditions, serving as a measure of one of its properties; a number, value or item that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic.

(3) Acting together (rare except in historic references).

1580s: From the Middle English coefficient (that which unites in action with something else to produce a given effect), from the French coefficient, coined by French mathematician François Viète (1540-1603), from the Late Latin coefficient, stem of coefficiēns, which is a nominalisation of the present active participle of coefficere, the construct being co- (together) + efficere (to effect) from efficio.  The alternative spelling is co-efficient and the adjectival sense “acting in union to the same end” was first used in the 1660s.  Coefficient is a noun & adjective, coefficiency is a noun and coefficiently an adverb; the noun plural is coefficients.

In science and engineering, the word is applied for a variety of technical purposes, including:

(1) In physics, as coefficient of friction, the ratio between (1) the magnitude of the force of friction which a surface produces on an object (moving along the surface or being pressed statically against it) & (2) the magnitude of the normal force which is produced by the surface on the object and which is perpendicular to that surface.

(2) In physics, as drag coefficient, a dimensionless quantity quantifying the amount of hydrodynamic drag force experienced by an object with a given area immersed in a fluid of a given density flowing at a given speed.

(3) In statistical analysis, a coefficient of alienation (or coefficient of non-determination), a numerical measure of the lack of relationship between variables.

(4) In physics, as ballistic coefficient, the ratio of the mass of an object to the product of its maximum cross-sectional area and its drag coefficient, used to measure the object's resistance to deceleration by hydrodynamic drag.

(5) In chemistry, as Bunsen coefficient, the number of millilitres of gas dissolved in a millilitre of liquid at atmospheric pressure and a specified temperature.

(6) In statistics, as Dice coefficient, a statistic used to gauge the similarity of two samples.  It is equal to twice the number of elements common to both sets, divided by the sum of the number of elements in each set.

(7) In naval architecture, as prismatic coefficient, the ratio between the total submerged volume of a vessel's hull, on the one hand, and the product of the length of the submerged portion of the hull with the area of the largest cross-sectional slice of the submerged portion of the hull, on the other.

(8) In naval architecture, as block coefficient, the proportion occupied, by the submerged portion of a vessel's hull, of a rectangular prism with dimensions equal to the maximum beam of the submerged portion of the hull, the length of the submerged portion of the hull, and the draft of the vessel.

(9) In measurement, as temperature coefficient, a number which relates the change of the magnitude of a physical property to a unit change in temperature.

(10) In nuclear engineering, as void coefficient, a number quantifying how the reactivity of a nuclear reactor changes due to the formation of bubbles in the reactor's coolant.

Drag coefficient (CD)

Except in a vacuum, objects in motion are subject to drag, the friction created by air or water interacting with the object’s surface.  This friction absorbs energy the object could otherwise use to maintain or increase speed so, except where drag is required (such as the need for a certain amount of down-force), designers of objects which move, shape them to minimise drag. Historically, the drag coefficient was notated as c_d but it’s also written as c_x & c_w (cd or CD a common form in non-specialist literature).  The CD number is calculated according to a equation, the construct of which varies according to the object to be assessed.  For a car, the equation is:

F = 1/2 * rho * S * Cx * v²

F is the dragging force, in expressed in Newtons (N)

S is the frontal surface of the object in square metres (m²)

Cx is the aerodynamic finesse, which varies depending on the shape of the object

v is the relative speed of the object (the car) compared to the fluid (the air), in meters per second (m/s), separated into vc (object speed) and va (air speed) and written (vc - va)

rho is the density of the fluid, the air, in kilograms per cubic meters (kg/ m³) (approximately to 1.55 kg/m³)

The drag coefficient (CD) is a measure of aerodynamic efficiency, expressed as a number and, as a general principle, the lower the number, the more efficient the shape but the CD is often misunderstood.  It’s not an absolute value which can be used to compare relative efficiency of objects of radically different shapes.  A CD for an aircraft needs to be compared with that of other airframes, not those of a train or truck, the CD calculated by an equation using a variable (the reference area) relevant to the function of the object.  For aircraft, the variable is the wing area because it’s relevant for an object moving in three dimensions whereas for road vehicles, it’s the frontal area, cars and trucks almost always moving forward.  That’s why noting a Boeing 747 has a CD of .031 while a Porsche 911 might return .34 is a meaningless comparison.

1963 Jaguar E-Type S1 (XKE) FHC (fixed head coupé) (left) and 1962 Volkswagen Type 2 (23 Window Samba).

Even among road transport vehicles, the variability in the equations needs to be understood.  Just because a Volkswagen Type 2 returns a CD of .42 doesn’t mean it’s a more aerodynamic shape than a Jaguar E-Type (XK-E) which produces a notionally worse .44 CD.  The numbers are a product partly of the variable, the frontal area, so the relative efficiency of the Volkswagen can be assessed only if compared to other, similarly sized vans; the CD is a comparative, not an absolute.

Bling

Bling (pronounced bling (sometimes bling-bling)

(1) Expensive and flashy jewelry, clothing, or other possessions.

(2) The flaunting of material wealth and the associated lifestyle.

(3) Flashy; ostentatious.

(4) A want of resemblance (obsolete).

1997: Apparently from Jamaican English slang bling-bling, a sound suggested by the quality of light reflected by diamonds.  In the Caribbean, bling-bling came to be used to refer to flashy items (originally jewelry but later of any display of wealth) and the term was picked up in the US in African-American culture where it came to be associated with the rap and hip-hop (pop music forks) community.  There were suggestion the word bling was purely onomatopoeic (a vague approximation of pieces of jewelry clinking together) but most etymologists list it as one of the rare cases of a silent onomatopoeia: a word imitative of the imaginary sound many people “hear” at the moment light reflects off a sparkling diamond.  The long obsolete meaning “a want of resemblance” came from earlier changes in pronunciation when dissem′blance became pronounced variously as dissem′bler and dissem′ bling with bling becoming the slang form.  There is no relationship with the much older German verb blinken (to gleam, sparkle).

In the English-speaking world, bling & bling-bling began to appear in dictionaries early in the twenty-first century.  Many languages picked up bling & bling-bling unaltered but among the few localizations were the Finnish killuttimet and the Korean beullingbeulling (블링블링) and there was also the German blinken (to blink, flashing on & off), a reference to the gleam and sparkle of jewels and precious metals.  Blinken was from the Low German and Middle Low German blinken, from the root of blecken (to bare) and existed also in Dutch.  As viral-words sometimes do, bling begat some potentially useful (and encouraged) derivations including blingesque, blingtastic, blingbastic blingiest, blingest, a-bling & blingistic; all are non-standard forms and patterns of use determine whether such pop-culture constructs endure.  Bling & blinger are nouns, blinged, blingish, blingy & blingless are adjectives, bling-out, blinged-out & bling-up are verbs; the noun plural is blingers (bling and bling-bling being both singular & plural).

The preferred repository for bling between wears: Hermès Fuchsia Pink Ostrich Birkin, Lindsay Lohan's seat on a private jet, September 2012.  

In popular use, bling referred originally to the wearing of bright, usually large and expensive accessories, later extended to the adornment of objects such as cars and houses.  The purpose always was conspicuously to flaunt one’s wealth (however obtained) but the word did undergo a bit of down-market mission creep in that it came quickly to be applied also to cheap (even if obviously so) embellishments or products thought in any way flashy.  That movement was a hint that bling, although a thing of prestige in certain classes, was regarded by others as not in good taste, hence the use of the word to describe lifestyles even not associated with the display of bling in its original sense.

Libération's take on Sarko (Nicolas Sarközy (b 1955; President of France 2007-2012)).

Nicolas Sarközy attracted the label "bling-bling president" because of the perception his time in the Élysée Palace came to be associated with pop-culture celebrities, designer accessories and his sudden acquisition of rich friends (the latter noted also of his successor).  There may have been an element of snobbery in much of the coverage, some sections of the press not impressed with any departure from the lineage of tradition and grandeur carried over from the Kings of France and the twice divorced Mr Sarközy’s less than usual background (in terms of both class and ethnicity) probably offended some, his marriage to Italian-born former model Carla Bruni (b 1967) attracting some comment because of the variety in her portfolio.  He did seem unable to resist the lure of bling, even his choice of the smart Hotel Barriere Le Fouquet's (located where the Champs Elysees meets Avenue George V) as the place to celebrate his election victory in 2007 noted.

Mr Sarközy achieved a few political firsts but also made legal history, becoming the first former president in post-war France to have received a prison sentence for corruption, the three year term (two suspended) imposed for influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy, the former president having attempted to bribe a magistrate in return for information on an investigation into his campaign finances.  His wife called the sentence a "a senseless witch-hunt" but, like Lindsay Lohan, he was able to serve the one-year custodial term at home fitted with an electronic tag.  The appeal process is still working its way through the system.  There are also accusations Mr Sarközy received illegal campaign funds from the late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011), that tangled matter resulting in charges of criminal conspiracy, corruption, illegal campaign financing and benefiting from embezzled public funds.

Mayara Rodrigues Tavares (b 1991; former Unicef representative), President Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) & President Sarközy, G8 summit (Russia was briefly thought respectable), L'Aquila, Italy, July, 2009.  The photograph was widely distributed but the impression conveyed was a trick of the camera angle, President Obama exonerated by video footage taken at the time, President Sarközy perhaps not.

Official DPRK Central News Agency Photograph: Ri Sol-ju (b circa 1987; wife of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un) (left), Kim Ju-ae (b circa 2013; daughter of Kim Jong-un) (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) (right), undisclosed location, February 2023.

The appearance of the Supreme Leader’s nine-year old daughter at a banquet and subsequent parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Korean People's Army (KPA) attracted interest because as analysts noted, in the way the Kim dynasty does things, it might suggest she has been anointed as Kim IV to succeed the Supreme Leader when he dies (God forbid).  It was actually her second public appearance, the first in 2022 when she was involved in inspections of the DPRK’s nuclear missile programme so she’s getting well acquainted with big rockets, long a family interest.  Fashionistas were most impressed by the presumptive Kim IV in 2022 because she was dressed in black white & red, matching the color scheme the DPRK uses on its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); everyone thought that a nice touch.  The DPRK has recently issued a range of postage stamps featuring the daughter.

Daddy-Daughter day with ICBM: DPRK postage stamp issue featuring ICBMs, the Supreme Leader & his daughter, Kim Ju-ae.  Like most nine-year old girls, Kim Ju-ae is much taken by the beauty of nuclear weapons. 

Standing behind the ruling family are DPRK generals and admirals, noted for their big hats and bling-bling medals.  Militaries around the world envy the hats but the bling-bling medals are sometimes misunderstood.  Although the DPRK military has not formally been involved in armed conflict since the end of the Korean War (1950—1953), it’s not entirely true the soldiers and sailors have not been deployed in combat, the odd local battle with RoK (South Korea) forces happening over the years and some DPRK soldiers have been loaned to other countries for use in localized conflicts.  Still, there wouldn’t seem to have been sufficient reason to award as many medals as the generals always display.  The reason for all that bling-bling is that the DPRK operates under a three generation hereditary system, one convention of which is that they are entitled to wear the medals awarded to their fathers and grandfathers.  Few armies follow this tradition and regards awards a purely personal possessions (although relatives can wear them in memorial parades on the right-side of the chest).  The DPRK regards the restriction as extreme Western individualism and an insult to the dead and to maintain consistency, applies the three-generation model also to their criminal justice system.  Under the doctrine of "three generations of punishment" individuals found guilty of a crime are sent to the labor camps with their entire family, the subsequent two generations of the family are born in the camp and remain locked up for life.  This includes those convicted of “unspecified offences” all of whom, although never quite sure of the nature of their offence, are certainly guilty.

Blinged-up: DPRK (North Korean) Army generals, in full-dress bling-bling await the arrival of the DPRK Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un.

Unfortunately, the image on the left was digitally altered for a meme, the original to the right.  The generals wear big hats and have lots of medals but never wear them on the sleeves or trousers.  Unfortunately too, the quality of the medals is not what it was though, at a distance, they look still blingish.  Between 1948 and the Sino-Soviet Split in 1957-1958, the medals were made in the USSR on the model of Soviet decorations and rendered from sterling silver with a screw-plate used to attach them to the uniforms.  Because the DPRK was aligned with Peking, Moscow declined to continue the supply so production was moved to North Korea and, lacking the necessary machine tools and other equipment, things had to be simplified: screw-plate was replaced with a pin and instead of silver, the much lighter and cheaper tin was used.  Many have defected from the DPRK so a number of these medals circulate in militaria markets and the later examples sell usually for much less than the genuine, Soviet-made bling.

Ri Sol-ju has her own taste in bling.  Instead of a decadently Western display of gold, diamonds or precious stones over a tempting décolletage, the demurely attired First Lady wears a simple pendant in the shape of the DPRK’s Hwasong-16 ICBM.  Analysts suggest her choice is jewellery is a political statement rather than a hint to her husband about something.

Concordat

Concordat (pronounced kon-kawr-dat)

(1) An agreement or compact, especially an official one Agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) A formal agreement between two parties, especially between a church and a state.

(3) In Roman Catholic canon law, a pact, treaty or agreement between the Holy See and a secular government regarding the regulation of church matters.  In early use it was sometimes a personal agreement between pope and sovereign.

1610–1620: From the the sixteenth century French conciordat, replacing concordate from the Medieval Latin concordātum (something agreed), a noun use of the Latin concordatum, neuter of concordātus, past participle of concordāre (to be in agreement; to be of one mind), from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind)  from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind).  The original definition in Roman Catholic canon law was "an agreement between Church and state on a mutual matter".  Concordat is a noun, the noun plural is concordats and concordatory is an adjective.  Concord dates from 1250-1300, from the Middle English and Old French concorde from the Latin concordia, (harmonious), genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”).  Concordat is a noun and concordant an adjective; the noun plural is concordats.

The Duce, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945; Prime Minister of Italy 1922-1943, right) and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930, left) signing the Lateran Concordat in 1929.

The concordat, a formal agreement between the Holy See and a sovereign state, dates from a time when the relationship between the Church and sovereign entities was different than what now exists.  Indeed, the dynamics of the relationships have changed much over the centuries but, at any given moment, concordats have always been practical application of Church-state relations and, like all politics, were an expression of the art of the possible, a concordat not necessarily what a pope wanted, but certainly the best he could at the time manage, the best known tending to be the controversial, notably (1) the treaty of 1801 with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815), (2) the Lateran Accord agreed in 1929 with Mussolini which created the modern city-state of the Vatican and which was the final step in Italian unification and (3) The Reich Concordat of 1933, the accommodation with Hitler’s Germany which was supposed to resolve the issue of relations which had been unsettled since Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) time but which Berlin repeatedly violated.

La Signature du Concordat aux Tuileries 15 juillet 1801 (The Signing of the Concordat at the Tuileries, 15 July 1801) (1803-1804) by François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837) (titled as Baron Gérard in 1809); the original hangs in the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles.  

At least those violations weren’t wholly unexpected.  Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (1876–1958; Pope Pius XII 1939-1958) had been Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador; 1926-1929) to Berlin and was Cardinal Secretary of State (foreign minister; 1930–1939) when the Reich Concordat was signed and he was under no illusion.  When it was said to him that the Nazis were unlikely to honor the terms, he replied with a smile that was true but that they would probably not violate all its articles “at the same time”.  The sardonic realism would serve the cardinal well in the years ahead when often he would required to choose the lesser of many competing evils.  Some though, for a while, retained hope if not faith.  As late as 1937, Archbishop Conrad Gröber (1872–1948; Archbishop of Freiburg 1932-1948) thought the Reich Concordat proof that “…two powers, totalitarian in their character, can find agreement, if their domains are separate”.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), another cynic though then still a realist, viewed the concordat much as Hermann Göring (1893-1946) would in his trial at Nuremberg describe all the treaties executed by the Nazis: “so much toilet paper”.  Actually an admirer of the Roman Catholic Church which had survived two-thousand years of European rough and tumble, he was resigned to a co-existence but one on his terms, noting the day would come when there would be a reckoning with “those black crows”.

Two of the twentieth century's great survivors, German vice chancellor Franz von Papen (1879-1969) (second from left) and the Holy See's secretary of state Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) (head of the table) meet in the Vatican on 20 July 1933 to sign the Reischskonkordat which some six weeks later was ratified by the Nazi-dominated Reichstag (the German parliament).  The cardinal calculated the Church would gain from the arrangement but had few illusions about the Nazis.  Later, when being driven through Rome where he saw two men fighting in the street, he remarked to his companion "I imagine they've probably just signed a concordat".

That’s not to say there haven’t always been theorists who wandered a bit beyond the possible.  After the Reformation, there were those in the Church who held that the Church sits above the state in all things (the “regalist” position), while others (maintaining the “curialist” position) held that although the Church is superior to the state, the Church may grant certain privileges to the state through agreements such as concordats.  In the modern age, the accepted understanding of concordats is that the Church and the various sovereign states are both legal entities able to enter into bilateral agreements.  Concordats are thus no different than other treaties & agreements in that being executed under international law, they are enforceable according to legal principles.  Church and state may in some ways not be co-equal but canon law does recognise the two exist in distinct spheres and is explicit in respecting the bilateral agreements that the Holy See has entered into with other nation-states.  The Code of Canon Law states unambiguously that concordats override any contrary norms in canon law: “The canons of the Code neither abrogate nor derogate from the agreements entered into by the Apostolic See with nations or other political societies. These agreements therefore continue in force exactly as at present, notwithstanding contrary prescripts of this Code.”  This is an unexceptional statement familiar in many constitutional arrangements where two legal systems interact, the need being to define, where conflict may exist, which has precedence and is no more than an application of a legal maxim known to both canon and secular law: pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be honored).  Concordats can both protect and clarify the rights of the Church by precisely defining relationship between the Church and a state, expressed by the Second Vatican Council’s (Vatican II 1962-1965) pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et spes (Joay and Hope) in the statement:

“The Church herself makes use of temporal things insofar as her own mission requires it.  She, for her part, does not place her trust in the privileges offered by civil authority.  She will even give up the exercise of certain rights which have been legitimately acquired, if it becomes clear that their use will cast doubt on the sincerity of her witness or that new ways of life demand new methods.”

In other words, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, or, at least, enter into peaceful co-existence with them, a position in the modern age possible, if not uncontroversial with sovereign and sub-national entities notionally with Catholic majority populations (eg Bavaria 1966, Austria 1969, Italy 1985) but also with countries where Christians exist only as tiny minorities (eg Tunisia 1964, Morocco 1985, Israel 1993).  Nor does a concordat need to be a complete codification, the agreement between the Holy See and Tel Aviv noting that in certain matters, agreement had not been reached and discussions need to continue.  Such “framework” or “stepping-stone” agreements have been in the diplomatic toolkit for centuries but they’re a statement of professed intent and in the decades since there’s been little apparent progress in many of the unresolved matters important to the Holy See regarding physical property in the Holy Land and the “working document” was never ratified by the Israeli parliament (the Knesset).  At least partially filling this diplomatic lacuna was something which has thus far proved a coda to the Holy See’s official recognition in 2012 of the State of Palestine.  In 2015, The Vatican concluded a concordat with “the State of Palestine” (sic), supporting a two-state solution to the conflict between Palestine and Israel “on the basis of the 1967 borders”.  According to Rome, the provisions in the agreement concern technical (ie financial & legal) aspects of the legal status of Catholic facilities and personnel on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  That may be as boringly procedural as it sounds but what’s aroused interest is that the Vatican has refused to publish the text or comment on the details, thus arousing suspicion that the treaty between with the Palestinians might, at least in part, contradict the earlier concordat with Israel.  From Washington to Tel Aviv, many are interested in the small print.

Rome 1929: The Duce reads the Lateran Concordat's small print.

Interestingly, Vatican II struck the term concordat from canon law, apparently in a nod to the Council's declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae (Of the Dignity of the Human Person) which mused on the evolution of a “…different model of relations between the Vatican and various states [which] is still evolving.”  Whatever might have been intended to be the implications of that, it reappeared with the Polish Concordat of 1993 and seems to be here to stay.

The term concordat can be used of any arrangement by which parties achieve some sort of entente cordiale and it’s sometimes only in retrospect (which can take decades) their true from can be understood variously as a reconciliation (Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan), marriage of convenience (Turkey’s (now the Republic of Türkiye) membership of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Alliance) or a cynical expediency (the Ribbentrop-Molotov (Nazi-Soviet) Pact (1939)).

Lord

Lord (pronounced lawrd)

(1) In historic use, the master of the servants of a household; the master of a feudal manor (obsolete).

(2) A person who has authority, control, or power over others; a master or chief (now used only informally).

(3) A person who exercises authority from property rights; an owner of land, houses etc (a concept which persists in British & (some) Commonwealth land law in the title of Lord Paramount; in historical use, a feudal tenant holding his manor directly of the monarch.

(4) Informally, a person who is a leader or has great influence in a chosen profession; a magnate of a trade or profession (tobacco lords, press lords etc).

(5) In medieval Europe, a feudal superior, especially the master of a manor.

(6) In the UK peerage, a courtesy title granted to the sons of senior peers.

(7) The Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal comprising the UK's House of Lords (always plural).

(8) In the UK, the ceremonial title of certain officials (used with some other title, name, or the like) such as Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice etc.

(9) As “my Lord Bishop”, the polite title of a bishop (obsolete).

(10) In the peerage of the UK, the title informally substituted for baron, viscount, earl or marquis.

(11) The Supreme Being; God; Jehovah (initial capital letter).

(12) The Savior, Jesus Christ (initial capital letter).

(13) In astrology, a planet having dominating influence.

(14) Slang for a husband considered as head of the household (archaic except in the facetious phrase lord and master although use persists in some fundamentalist sects).

(15) In UK slang, a hunchback (obsolete).

(16) In Australian slang sixpence (the five cent piece) (obsolete).

1300s: From the fourteenth century Middle English lord and lorde, from the thirteenth century lourde and other variants which dropped the intervocalic consonant of the earlier lowerd, louerd, loverd, laford & lhoaverd, all derived from the Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard, the construct being hlāf (bread) + weard (keeper, guardian).  The term was already being applied broadly prior to the literary development of Old English and was influenced by its common use to translate Latin dominus.  The equivalent Scots form laird (lord), preserved a separate vowel development (which was the influence of the northern (Scottish & Middle English lard & laverd)), like the Old English compound hlāf-ǣta (servant (literally “bread-eater”)) and the modern English lady, from the Old English hlǣfdīġe (bread-kneader).  The Old English hlaford was a contraction of earlier hlafweard (literally "one who guards the loaves), the construct being from hlaf (bread, loaf) + weard (keeper, guardian), from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (perceive, watch out for).  The Middle English word laford entered Icelandic, where it survives as lávarður.  The modern monosyllabic form emerged in the fourteenth century and was used as an interjection from late in the century, the Lord's Prayer dating from the 1540s and although the Old English hlaford (master of a household, ruler, superior) also used to describe God (translating the Latin Dominus), the Old English drihten was much more common.

Warts & all: Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658) (1650), oil on canvas by Samuel Cooper (1609-1672).

The meaning "an owner of land, houses etc” dates from circa 1300, originally in the sense of “a landlord”.  As “my lord”, it was by 1540 (in England) the usual polite form when addressing a nobleman under the rank of a duke and a bishop" as was an interjection from the late fourteenth century.  As a general term of convenience used for the "peers of England" (especially those represented in parliaments), the use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The Lord's Prayer was from the 1540s and the phrase "Year of our Lord" (ie AD, (translating the Latin anno domini) came into use from the late fourteenth century.  The expressions conveying a state of ignorance (Lord knows” & “Lord only knows” (both often appended with who, what, why etc)) seem first to have been recorded in 1711 although in oral use there may be a long tradition.  The phrase “drinks like a lord”, was from the 1620s, presumably an either allusion to the cost of strong drink or the habits of the gentry.

The verb lord dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "to exercise lordship, rule as a lord" and was directly from the noun, the intransitive meaning "to play the lord, domineer" emerging late in the fourteenth century, the phrase “to lord it over” first recorded in the 1570.  The interjection lordy was first noted in 1832 in imitation of African-American vernacular and was an extended form of the noun.  The noun lordling (puny or contemptible lord) was a late term of disparagement and is long obsolete.  An ancient calling, the noun warlord was coined only in 1856 and was usually considered a translation of the German Kriegsherr or the Chinese junfa.  The early fourteenth century adjective lordly originally had the sense of "haughty, imperious; of or pertaining to lords, noble” and was used as an adverb to convey “despotically” but by the 1530s was used to demote “magnificent, on a grand scale, fit for a lord”.  Lordship was from circa 1300 and was a direct translation of the Old English hlafordscipe (authority, rule, dominion (translating the Latin dominatio) and in common law developed as part of the system of land title.  As a form of address to nobles, judges etc, use emerged and was gradually formalized from the late fifteenth century.  The noun landlord (owner of a tenement, one who rents land or property to a tenant) dates from the early fifteenth century and by then Lord had been a surname for over a hundred years, best known now from the London cricket ground.  The Scottish laird (landed proprietor or hereditary estate-holder) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, having been used a surname since the thirteenth, both forms a Scottish and northern England dialectal variant of lord.  Lord is a noun, proper noun, verb & interjection, lorded is a verb, lording is a noun & verb, lordy is an interjection and lordly is an adjective & adverb; the noun plural is lords.

Keith Miller (1919-2004), fourth Victory Test, Lord’s, August 1945.

The origin of Lord's Cricket Ground, in St John's Wood, London has nothing to do with the peerage.  It’s named after its founder, Thomas Lord (1755-1832) and is the third of three grounds he established between 1787 and 1814.  Lord was approached in 1786 by leading members of the White Conduit Club who wanted a more private venue and offered to underwrite the project so in May 1787, Lord acquired seven acres (28,000 m²) off Dorset Square for his first ground and White Conduit relocated there, soon becoming part of the new Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).  When the lease ended in 1810, Lord secured an eighty-year lease on two fields, the Brick and Great Fields at North Bank, St John's Wood.  The second venue, now referred to as Lord's Middle ground, was built by 1809 but in 1813, Parliament requisitioned the land for Regent's Canal, thereby necessitating a further move.  Lord then moved his ground to the present site, literally rolling up the turf from the old and transplanting it to the new.

Following our Lord and Savior: Lindsay Lohan depicted as a Christ-like figure, draped in a white robe, arms outstretched, crucifixion-style, complete with crown of thorns (a nice touch), Lindsay Lohan, Purple Fashion magazine, Spring-Summer edition, 2010.

The image was one of a series by Terry Richardson (b 1965) and appeared on the cover of the spring-summer 2010 edition of the French magazine Purple Fashion, the photo-shoot featuring clothes by a number of designers including Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen & Emmanuel Ungaro but predictably it was the invocation of our Lord Jesus which attracted most interest.  A spokesman for the French Catholic League was quoted as saying "Not only is the pose inappropriate, the timing is offensive." (the magazine was released on the eve of Lent, the most sacred season in the Christian liturgical calendar).  Although Ms Lohan at the time had not much been associated with penitence and abstinence, not long before she had tweeted that she believed it's "...all about karma...what goes around comes around."  In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is an expression which describes the cyclical nature of an individual's thoughts & actions in this and previous lives, something which decides their fate in future existences.  Noting that, The League's spokesman said "If she believes that, then it behooves her to apologize to Christians before it's too late.", adding that she is "...spiritually homeless..." and "...would benefit by converting to Christianity."  Ms Lohan did not respond to the comments.