LUNAR MISSIONS

Japan Trying to Bring Dead Moon Lander Back to Life

Victor Tangermann
Mon, January 22, 2024 


Bring Me to Life

Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lander had to be shut down just three hours after touching down on the lunar surface last week.

The lander, which technically speaking still managed to make Japan the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, didn't quite stick the landing. For hours, teams at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency struggled to get the spacecraft to charge its batteries using its solar panels.

As it turns out, the issue is that the panels were pointing west and away from the Sun.


While that may sound like the small spacecraft's fate is sealed, JAXA isn't ready to give up just yet. There's still a chance SLIM may jump back to life, giving it a potentially new lease on life.

"If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there's a possibility of power generation, and we're currently preparing for restoration," JAXA wrote in a new statement.
Going Under

At first, the mission appeared to go as planned, with the spacecraft making a controlled descent to the Moon's cratered surface. Several hours of radio silence from JAXA followed, triggering speculation about the lander's fate.

Behind the scenes, teams had to act quickly as battery capacity was diminishing quickly.

"The battery was disconnected according to our procedures with 12 percent power remaining, in order to avoid a situation where the restart (of the lander) would be hampered," the latest statement reads.

Scientists are now poring over the data SLIM managed to collect before it went dark.

"We were able to complete the transmission of technical and image data acquired during the descent and on the lunar surface before the power was switched off," JAXA said. "We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained."

It's a glimmer of hope — with the possibility of the Sun charging the spacecraft's solar panels still on the table, scientists are eager to have SLIM jump back into action.

And even if it doesn't, it's still a considerable feat that's worth celebrating, especially considering all of the failed landing attempts that preceded it.

"The post-landing posture didn’t go as planned, but we may be able to produce plenty of results and we’re happy that the landing succeeded," JAXA's statement reads.

More on the mission: Japanese Moon Lander Dying After Touching Down on Lunar Surface
Sunlight May Reignite Japan’s Struggling 'Lunar Sniper' on the Moon
George Dvorsky
Mon, January 22, 2024


Artistic depiction of SLIM on the Moon.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, achieved a historic soft landing with SLIM on Friday morning, but the lander ran into instant trouble by not being able to collect solar energy and generate electricity. Hopeful for some westerly sunshine, JAXA is cautiously optimistic that SLIM could spring back to life in a couple of weeks.

Shortly after its landing on Friday, January 19, JAXA reported issues with SLIM’s solar cells, which were not generating sufficient electricity. On Monday, JAXA revealed that it had shut down the system approximately three hours after landing to conserve its remaining power, as the space agency noted on X. The decision was made when SLIM’s battery level fell to 12 percent, as this low battery level threatened to cause issues for future recovery if mission controllers didn’t disconnect it in time.

Despite these challenges, there is some positive news from JAXA. The agency reported that technical and image data acquired during SLIM’s descent and active time on the lunar surface were successfully transmitted back to Earth before power was switched off. JAXA plans to release more details by the end of the week, including word on whether SLIM managed to land within its constrained target area. We’re looking forward to seeing the photos taken from the surface as well.

In addition to its primary mission (the precision landing), SLIM carried two smaller rovers, which preliminary data suggests were ejected as planned before the lander touched down. It also housed various scientific instruments, including an infrared camera, thermometer, and radiation detector. The success of these elements of the mission remains to be fully assessed.

This milestone for JAXA comes in the wake of a recent setback in lunar exploration when Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander failed shortly after reaching space due to a propellant leak. Landing on the Moon remains an incredibly challenging endeavor, even with 21st-century technology.

Japanese lunar lander touches down and Axiom space launches its third mission with SpaceX

Aria Alamalhodaei
Mon, January 22, 2024 

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! For the second week in a row, we have lunar lander news to report on. Plus, a final update on Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, news on the Artemis program and the first crewed launch of the year.

Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send me a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You can also send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and links to encrypted messaging apps.
Story of the week

How could the story of the week be anything other than SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), the Japanese lunar lander that touched down on the moon on Friday?

This makes Japan the fifth country to put a lander on the moon, joining the ranks of the United States, China, Russia and India. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that they had received telemetry data from SLIM just after 10:20 AM EST.

While the landing was a success, not all went to plan, unfortunately: JAXA later said that the lander's solar cells are not currently generating electricity, which means that the mission lifetime will be greatly reduced. There's a small chance that the solar cells could charge as the angle of the sun changes, but that depends on whether the cause is due to a pointing issue or some other anomaly, JAXA officials said in a press conference.

But even with the issue, the mission achieved a huge portion of its goal, which was to demonstrate a soft lunar landing using optical navigation technology. This new type of technology can help ensure "pinpoint" landings, or landings with an accuracy of around 100 meters, as opposed to many kilometers.

Image Credits: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Launch highlights

We saw our first crewed mission this year – but even more notably, it was a completely private mission (as in not a NASA astronaut mission). Axiom Space launched its third mission with launch partner SpaceX on Thursday, with the crew successfully docking with the International Space Station at 5:42 AM EST on Saturday, January 20.

Axiom's plan is to continue flying these private missions to the ISS at a pace of around two missions per year through 2026, which is when the company hopes to launch its first commercial space station module, Derek Hassmann, chief of mission integration and operations at Axiom Space, said during a prelaunch press conference. Axiom's fourth flight, Ax-4, is scheduled for later this year, though a specific launch window has not been announced.

axiom 3 mission
Image credit: SpaceX

Loren Grush very nicely lays out some of NASA's forward-thinking strategy with its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program: accept some risk. The program was established to help kickstart the development of payload delivery surfaces to the moon's surface, and it stands in sharp contrast to NASA's standard quo.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, which suffered a fatal propulsion leak that prevented the spacecraft from having any chance of landing on the moon, is the result of a CLPS award. While Astrobotic did not complete the mission, Grush describes how NASA designed the program to be more risk-tolerant than its other endeavors.

peregrine astrobotic ula vulcan. lunar laner loaded in nose of rocket
Astrobotic Peregrine Lunar Lander

This week in space history

Thirty-two years ago this week, microgravity research was born. In 1992, NASA launched the first International Microgravity Laboratory on board the space shuttle Discovery, and it carried a number of scientific research and experiments looking into the effects of zero G on materials and living organisms. The lab was pressurized, so the mission also carried a crew of seven; they returned to Earth after eight days in space.

Crew of STS-42
Image credit: NASA


NASA bounces laser off 'Oreo-sized' mirror on the moon for 1st time, paving the way for high-precision lunar landings

Harry Baker
Mon, January 22, 2024 

The Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lander photographed on the moon's surface by the Pragyan rover.

NASA has successfully bounced a laser beam off of an "Oreo-sized" mirror on India's historic lunar lander and back to the orbiting spacecraft that fired it. This feat is the first time that such a maneuver has ever been carried out, and it could help facilitate high-precision landings during future missions to the moon.

In August 2023, India became the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on Earth's largest satellite when the country’s Chandrayaan-3 mission deployed the Vikram lunar lander near the Manzinus crater in the moon's south pole region. The lander, which was also carrying the Pragyan rover, spent weeks collecting data on the moon — including valuable evidence of moonquakes — but failed to wake up after a scheduled power down in September. But the defunct lander is still of great interest to NASA.

Before the misssion began, the agency arranged to have a small, multi-sided mirror, known as a laser reflector array or retroreflector, attached to the lander. The 2-inch-wide (5 centimeters) device, which is made from eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame, is designed to reflect lasers to orbiting spacecraft from almost any incoming angle.

Related: Humanity's future on the moon: Why Russia, India and other countries are racing to the lunar south pole

Ever since the lander went offline, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is the only laser-armed spacecraft currently circling the moon, has repeatedly tried to bounce lasers off the retroreflector with no success. But on Dec. 12, 2023, after eight failed attempts, LRO finally hit the array from 62 miles (100 kilometers) away and received a laser ping in return.

The long-awaited success is an important proof-of-concept for NASA, which is planning to use more retroreflectors in future missions to the moon, including the upcoming Artemis missions.

"We've showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon's orbit," Xiaoli Sun, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who led the mission, said in a statement. "The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future."

A gold colored semi-sphere covered with 8 round mirrors

This is not the first time scientists have bounced lasers off the moon. In the past, NASA has successfully reflected Earth-fired lasers off reflective panels that were left behind on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. This has revealed that the moon is slowly moving away from Earth by about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) every year.

However, the new retroreflectors were designed with a more practical use in mind. NASA plans to use the devices to help unmanned spacecraft land next to existing objects on the moon by being able to measure exactly how far away they are from the surface (based on how long it takes for the lasers to bounce back to the spacecraft).

This would be important for building future lunar bases and could also allow astronauts to land in complete darkness on the far side of the moon. Similar "precision markers" help incoming astronaut capsules and cargo pods to dock with the International Space Station's airlocks.

Related: 15 incredible images of Earth's moon

An aerial view of the Vikram lunar lander from orbit

It took LRO multiple attempts to successfully reflect lasers off the Vikram lander because the orbiter was not designed with such precise maneuvers in mind. The spacecraft, which is currently operating 13 years past its original mission parameters, was designed to map the lunar surface. To do this, it fires bursts of thin laser lines toward the moon and measures how long it takes for them to bounce back to the spacecraft. But because these lines are spaced far apart, it made it hard to accurately hit such a small target.

Future spacecraft that target the retroreflectors will have more precise lasers and likely be firing them from much closer distances. So, in theory, they should be able to hit their tiny targets every time, according to NASA.

related stories

—NASA's 1st successful 2-way laser experiment is a giant leap for moon and Mars communications

—South Korea's lunar orbiter unveils jaw-dropping images of Earth and the moon

—Earth receives laser-beam message from 10 million miles away in new NASA experiment

NASA is planning to put more retroreflectors on the moon to run similar experiments in the future. However, their last few attempts have not gone well.

One of their proposed retroreflectors was onboard the privately-owned Peregrine lunar lander, which recently burned up in Earth's atmosphere after suffering a catastrophic propellant leak shortly after launching on Jan. 8. Another was attached to Japan's SLIM lander, which successfully landed on the moon on Jan. 19 but may already be dead after a problem with its power source. (It is currently unclear if the retroreflector on the SLIM lander could still be used by NASA.)

These issues may have set back NASA's research into retroreflectors. But since the first manned Artemis mission has been delayed until 2026, they will likely get several more chances before those missions come around.

Albertans have a message for UCP

LEAVE OUR PENSIONS ALONE!

 

Members of the provincial government will be back in the Legislature soon, but right now they are supposed to be in their local communities hearing from their constituents like you.

Albertans have a message for them. You can help make sure it’s loud and clear - LEAVE OUR PENSIONS ALONE!

There are so many urgent priorities for our communities right now, like fixing our buckling health system and reducing cost of living. It doesn’t make any sense to spend public resources promoting a scheme that will put our pensions at risk. We have to tell this government to stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken and focus on solutions to real problems.

On January 28th and 29th, take a post-it-note or a piece of paper (or many!) along with painters’ tape (or masking tape) to stick on your local MLA's office window or door telling them to keep their "HANDS OFF OUR CPP!"

Leave your email address on your note if you’d like to hear back from your MLA. Some will respond.

Don't forget to post a photo using the hashtag #HandsOffOurCPP

Los Angeles Times to lay off 20% of newsroom, one of the largest staff reductions in paper's history

3/12

LA Times-Layoffs
The Los Angeles Times newspaper headquarters is located in El Segundo, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. The Los Angeles Times plans to lay off 94 newsroom employees starting Tuesday, according to the head of the journalists' union who said the number, while substantial, is less than feared. 

LA Times Walkout
Members of the Los Angeles Times Guild carry signs and chant slogans in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881.

 (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Associated Press Finance
Tue, January 23, 2024 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Times said it planned to lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — starting Tuesday, one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper's 143-year history.

The announcement came after the LA Times Guild walked off the job last Friday to protest the imminent layoffs, the institution's first ever newsroom union work stoppage.

Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, which encompasses the Times' union, called Tuesday a “dark day.” He said at least 94 union members would be let go.

“Many departments and clusters across the newsroom will be heavily hit,” Pearce said in a statement. “This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the number of layoffs the Bargaining Committee was expecting last week.”

He said some of those selected for layoffs by management may be eligible for buyouts under the union contract.

Senior editors, photographers and members of the video unit were also part of the purge, the Times said.

The cuts were necessary because the Times could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising and subscription revenue, the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said Tuesday.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said.

Layoffs and buyouts have hit a wide swath of the news industry over the past year. The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and Vox Media are among the many companies hit.

An estimated 2,681 news industry jobs were lost through the end of November, according to the employment firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That was more than the full years of 2022 and 2021.

The latest round of job cutting at the LA Times comes after more than 70 positions — about 13% of the newsroom — were slashed last June.

“This staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher, and no clear direction,” the union said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “We remain grateful for the Soon-Shiong family’s investment in the newspaper, and we remain committed to be good-faith partners in the business and at the bargaining table. But it’s clear that those entrusted to steward his family’s largesse have failed him — not the rank-and-file staff members with no say in editorial priorities.”

Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, acquired the Times in 2018, returning it to local ownership two decades after it was sold to Tribune Co. The purchase raised hopes after years of cutbacks, circulation declines and leadership changes.

Earlier this month, Executive Editor Kevin Merida abruptly left after a 2 1/2-year tenure.

Pearce said the union's bargaining committee would meet with Times management on Wednesday to start discussions about the layoffs as set out by the contract

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs and chant slogans during a rally in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Matt Hamilton, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, talks to staff and supporters during a rally in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs across the street from Los Angeles City Hall during a rally on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times have participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs and chant slogans across the street from Los Angeles City Hall during a rally on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times have participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Georgia Geen, multiplatform editor for the Los Angeles Times, joins other staffers and supporter carrying signs and chanting slogans in front of City Hall, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Los Angeles, Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Myung Chun, center and Irfan Khan, right, photographers for Los Angeles Times, join a rally in downtown Los Angeles. Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Sonja Sharp, Metro reporter for the Los Angeles Times, talks during a rally in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

THE BOSS(PARAPHRASING)TOLD THEM

ARYAN FASCISM

India's Ayodhya Temple Is a Huge Monument to Hindu Supremacy

Audrey Truschke
Mon, January 22, 2024

On Jan. 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a three-story monument made of marble, sandstone, and teak that features 44 gates and 392 intricately-carved pillars. But the structure, built on a vast 70-acre plot, may be the least remarkable part of the new Ayodhya temple. Its controversial inauguration atop the ruins of a 16th-century mosque marks the culmination of a three-decade promise made by Modi, his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and other Hindu nationalist groups—and serves as the biggest political testament yet to Hindu supremacy over Indian Muslims.

Ayodhya is a town in northern India that, for centuries, was home to the Babri Masjid. The mosque was built in 1527 by a general associated with the Mughal Emperor Babur and was a rare surviving example of the architecture of the early Mughal Empire, which ruled parts of India from the 16th to 19th centuries. Muslims, India’s largest religious minority, worshipped in the mosque for more than 300 years without issue.

In the 1850s, when India was largely under British colonial rule, the first signs of trouble arose as the Babri Masjid emerged as a key site of Hindu nationalist attempts to rectify perceived historical wrongs by Muslims, an idea inherited from British colonialists. Hindus claimed that Lord Ram, a major god and mythological hero, had been born at the very spot on which the mosque stood. Competing claims of Ram’s birthplace were once attached to many sites in Ayodhya, but the Babri Masjid drew particular fervor because it was a mosque. Some imagined further historical wrongs associated with the Babri Masjid, including claiming that the mosque was built after Babur’s general destroyed a Hindu temple at that location.

None of these claims stand up to historical scrutiny. But in the 1980s, Hindu nationalist groups began tapping into these claims to argue that the mosque needed to be destroyed to clear the way for a new Hindu temple, declaring Mandir wahi banayenge (“The temple will be built right there!”). After years of agitation, their efforts resulted in an explosion of Islamophobic violence on Dec. 6, 1992, when a Hindu mob numbering at least 75,000 descended on Ayodhya and dismantled the Babri Masjid, brick-by-brick. The mob’s anti-Muslim iconoclasm extended to people, and many Muslims in Ayodhya fled the city that day, fearing for their lives. In the days that followed, communal riots that rocked various Indian cities claimed about 2,000 lives, most of them Muslim. A subsequent report commissioned by the Indian government found dozens of people—many of whom are now BJP political leaders—responsible for orchestrating and encouraging the attacks.

The BJP benefited from stirring up Hindu nationalism around the Babri Masjid, and in 2014 swept into power, displacing the more pluralistic Indian Congress Party. The BJP then began to remake democratic India into a Hindu supremacist state. Following a second BJP national victory in 2019, India’s Supreme Court—whose autonomy has been undercut by the Modi government—issued its final judgment that decided the fate of the Babri Masjid site. The court called the mosque’s destruction “an egregious violation of the rule of law,” but nonetheless ruled that a Hindu temple could be built on the mosque’s rubble. Modi laid the foundation stone at a groundbreaking ceremony in August 2020, and will finish what the BJP and other Hindu supremacists began more than 30 years ago by consecrating the Ayodhya temple surrounded by his Hindu nationalist peers.

A local man looks on through barricade on street near Hanmuna Gadhi temple in Ayodhya on Nov. 9, 2019, ahead of a Supreme Court verdict on the future of the Ram Temple. Ritesh Shukla—NurPhoto/Getty Images

Still, the event will be marked by conspicuous absences. Leaders of the opposition Congress party will skip the festivities, in protest over what they rightly see as a consecration that is more a political ploy than a religious ceremony. Even some Hindu leaders agree, arguing that the Ayodhya temple cannot be consecrated since it remains incomplete, and therefore violates Hindu scriptures. They also object to the participation of divisive political figures like Modi.

Yet the Indian Prime Minister is pressing ahead with inaugurating an incomplete temple—even at the price of alienating Hindu religious leaders—because of India’s May 2024 general election in which the BJP hopes to secure another national victory. If history is any guide, this tactic of harnessing majoritarian sentiment for political gain may well succeed.

The Ayodhya temple’s inauguration portends dark times ahead not just for India’s Muslims but also many Hindus who remain committed to pluralism and tolerance. Hindu supremacists have long sought to reduce the broad-based Hindu religious tradition to their hateful political ideology. The Ayodhya temple is a sizeable step toward that goal.

Muslims are second-class citizens in Modi’s India, regularly subjected to human rights violations. Freedom House now classifies India—once heralded as the world’s largest democracy—only “partly free” on account of the “rise in persecution affecting the Muslim population.” And there are signs that the Ayodhya temple may only mark a new era of the Hindu supremacist war on mosques. There are numerous cases in Indian courts seeking to demolish more of them in favor of building Hindu temples in Varanasi, Mathura, and other cities. Such demolitions may unleash more violence on India’s beleaguered Muslim minority, and further cement the feeling that the country is for Hindus, and Hindus alone.

The New York Nazis Who Loved Hitler, 

Hated Jews, and Packed MSG

Chris Vognar
Tue, January 23, 2024 

Hundreds of German Americans give the Nazi salute to young men marching in Nazi uniforms at Camp Sigfried on Long Island, NY. - Credit: Getty

On Feb. 20, 1939, more than 20,000 yelling, cheering people packed New York City’s Madison Square Garden. They weren’t there for a basketball game or a concert. They were supporters of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization that was ready for an alternative to democracy. They waved Swastika flags and raised quite a ruckus. And they were hardly alone in their mission, as the new PBS American Experience documentary Nazi Town, USA makes abundantly clear.

While most Americans identified fascism and the Third Reich as existential threats to civilization, many saw an opportunity to ride the hate toward their vision of a purified white Christian country, free of all those Blacks and Jews and foreign languages (except German, of course). Remember, this was a country that had millions of Ku Klux Klan members in the Twenties, and which considered raging antisemites Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh national heroes. Father Charles Coughlin regularly thundered against Jewishness on his popular radio broadcast. Into this milieu stormed a German immigrant named Fritz Julius Kuhn, who saw the U.S. as an ideal place to plant the Nazi flag. The Bund, based in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Yorkville, started summer camps for their aspiring Aryan offspring, including Camp Siegfried, on Long Island, where little towheaded kids frolicked and learned the ways of the so-called “master race,” and where visitors could march down Adolf Hitler Street. It can’t happen here, you say? In a sense, it already did.

American Experience puts a stable of eminent historians on the case, as it is wont to do, including Beverly Gage, William Hitchcock and Sarah Churchwell, who lay out cold, hard, and hard-to-believe facts that, upon reflection, are actually all-too-believable. Is it really that big a jump from embracing eugenics, as too much of the American scientific community did, to throwing up a Nazi salute? Nazi Town, USA argues that the U.S. was fertile ground for such social experiments, and, if you read between the lines, suggests it could be again. As Churchwell puts it, “Fascism is always homegrown.” In other words, even if Kuhn and his cohorts used Nazi ideology and symbolism to further the cause, many natives were already primed to sign up.

The black-and-white footage can be both terrifying and hilarious. You have American Nazis marching through American streets, and American flags proudly displayed alongside Swastikas (the Bund loved to wrap itself in patriotism). You also have pathetic little men in their paintbrush mustaches trying to emulate their ideological daddy, the Fuhrer. Fiction has tackled such circumstances in the past, including The Plot Against America, Philip Roth’s novel that imagines a Lindbergh presidency, and The Man in the High Castle, the Philip K. Dick novel (which became a TV series) about what happened when the Axis powers won World War II and ruled over a partitioned America. But in many ways the truth is more jarring, largely because it’s more mundane. FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, for instance, was no fan of the Bund and its ilk. But he was in no hurry to crush them; he found their staunch anti-communist crusade rather useful. Strategery! (Gage, it should be noted, is the author of a superb Hoover biography, G-Man, published in 2022).

The German American Bund march in New York City on February 20, 1939.

Of course not everyone rolled over for the American Nazis. Dorothy Thompson, the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934, sounded the alarm early, and was on hand at Madison Square Garden as a heckler, as thousands more protested outside. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia worked up an investigation of the Bund’s finances, District Attorney Thomas Dewey got an indictment, and Kuhn was convicted of forgery and larceny, which landed him in Sing Sing. He was eventually deported. World War II over, the head of the snake exiled, the snake itself withered.

But it never really dies. Aside from capturing an overlooked chapter of 20th century American history, Nazi Town, USA is a bracing reminder to never take democracy for granted. There will always be those who see it as a threat and stand ready to uproot it, preferring the bullying rhetoric of strongman leaders. Hopefully they will never again sully the Garden.

 The ‘ravening wolf’ priest who led a doomed revolution

Daniel Brooks
Mon, January 22, 2024 

A 19th-century engraving of Thomas Müntzer’s marauding peasants - Alamy

The decisive battle of the German Peasants’ War was fought on May 15 1525, upon a hilltop outside Frankenhausen, a small town in the central state of Thuringia. An army of around 8,000 peasants, gathered under rainbow banners, were demanding the overthrow of the existing social order. Their leader, the radical preacher Thomas Müntzer, pointed to the sky – where a rainbow-like halo seemed to have formed around the Sun – and reassured his troops that they should “fight with their heart and be of courage”. Within hours, the artillery-equipped army of the Saxon and Thuringian nobles had crushed the rebels’ flimsy fortifications and killed some 5,000 of them.

Andrew Drummond’s history steals its outstanding title, The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer, from a pamphlet printed, soon after Müntzer’s execution, by his rival Martin Luther. The men were both important figures in the Protestant reformations that swept Europe at the start of the 16th century but, while Luther remained an ally of the aristocracy, Müntzer was a true revolutionary who demanded nothing less than the dissolution of feudal and religious structures and the full emancipation of the peasantry. As Drummond puts it, the latter approach was “playing with fire in an age of theological arson”.

It’s easy to understand why some were drawn to such lofty ambitions. Drummond begins by outlining the miserable state of your average Holy Roman peasant, and the apocalypticism that had taken root in Germany at the end of the 15th century. Müntzer too believed the world was ending, and that only the spiritually pure “Elect” were equipped to change the tide of history. There was a feeling – it may be familiar to those who remember the turn of 2000 – that some great but unknown change was on the horizon, accelerated by the emergence of a new form of communication technology: in their case, the Gutenberg printing press.

The echoes of the present day are not accidental. While Drummond conjures a sense of historical place – with credit due for capturing the religious lives of his subjects while largely dodging the dense mire of theology – The Dreadful History and Judgement… is very much a book in the New Left tradition of materialist history. We get a tightly narrativised case study of local conditions from which we can draw easy parallels to modern social movements, but we sometimes lose sight of history’s specific power-centres. The figure of the “early capitalist”, for instance, receives more frequent mention than Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Printing allowed for the spread of ideas by prominent intellectuals, but it also became a vehicle for some impressive mudslinging. In the various tracts that emerged, Müntzer was branded a “ravening wolf” and a “false prophet”, while a fellow firebrand, Heinrich Pfeiffer, was said to want “to introduce murder, riot, overthrowing of authority”. Müntzer’s ripostes laid into the “lavish mimicry of the Godless” and painted the nobility as a “dribbling sack”. Luther, he claimed, couldn’t have drawn crowds as big as his “if he were to burst”.

An 18th-cenutry engraving of Thomas Müntzer - Hulton Archive

When he wasn’t writing, Müntzer’s career took him from town to town, preaching and agitating. His first real controversy arose in Zwickau in 1520, where he, along with a weaver named Nicholas Storch, incited a series of riots against the local Catholic clergy. He was firmly told that he had to leave. In Prague in 1521, things continued in much the same way, and he fled under a hail of stones. He was run out of several other towns, climbing over the walls of Allstedt in August 1524 after a warning from local leaders, and slipping out of Mühlhausen a month later after the townsfolk voted to get rid of him. In both of the latter cases, Müntzer left his wife Ottilie and his young child behind.

And that’s the thing. Even accounting, as Drummond does, for the fact that the historical record was largely written by Müntzer’s enemies, Müntzer at no point comes across as a pleasant man, much less one who lives up to the ideals he ignites in the peasants whom he’ll eventually send to their deaths. The reformist Philipp Melanchthon, whose second-hand account no doubt reflects plenty of Lutheran bias, presented him as a charlatan who told the peasants that he would “catch all the bullets in his sleeves”.

After the massacre, Müntzer somehow escaped the hill and was captured at a nearby inn; he would be executed soon after, but not before sending a final letter to his remaining acolytes. Here he claimed, in the tone of all failed revolutionaries, that his enterprise collapsed because it didn’t go far enough – that those who had died “only considered their own profit and thus destroyed God’s truth”.

Drummond has written a blisteringly good book about personal enmity, and the difference between revolution and reform. Müntzer’s head ended up on a spike outside of the gates of Mühlhausen, but Luther changed Christendom forever. The Frankenhausen hilltop was flattened in the 1970s by the East German government. They built a museum there, with a panoramic mural dedicated to the more-than-100,000 peasants killed in the war. Under the rainbow, defiant to the last, stands Thomas Müntzer.

The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer is published by Verso 

Marxists.org

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/index.htm

The Peasant War in Germany by Frederick Engels 1850

Jun 6, 2023 ... The Peasant War in Germany was the first history book to assert that the real motivating force behind the Reformation and 16th-century peasant ...

Libcom.org

https://libcom.org/article/third-revolution-popular-movements-revolutionary-era

The Third Revolution: Popular Movements in the Revolutionary... 

Jun 15, 2020 ... pdf (17.78 MB). ThirdRevVol2Pt1.pdf (12.23 MB). ThirdRevVol2Pt2.pdf (28.3 MB) ... Audiobook of Murray Bookchin's Ecology and Revolutionary Thought.

The Snow Queen, by Edmund Dulac [1911] (Public Domain Image)
The Sorceress (La Sorcière)
by Jules Michelet
tr. by Afred Richard Allinson
[1939]

But the greatest revolution the Sorceress brought about, the chief movement of all in contradiction, in direct contradiction to the spirit of the Middle Ages, is what we might well call a rehabilitation of the belly and its digestive functions. They boldly proclaimed the doctrine that "nothing is impure and nothing unclean." From that moment the study of physical science was enfranchised, its shackles loosed, and true medicine became a possibility.--p. 86

This is a translation of Jules Michelet's La Sorcière, originally published in Paris in 1862. I have titled this text The Sorceress because that is a literal translation of the original French title. The original title of this translation was Satanism and Witchcraft, and it was later retitled Witchcraft, Sorcery and Superstition. However there is no need to sensationalize this book; the material is already sensational enough. And women are at the center of this book: peasant healers, aristocratic noblewomen, and nuns; we get an unparalleled look at the misery that medieval women faced, and some of the ways they rebelled.

 RIP

Death of man thought to be Burma Railway last survivor

Charlotte Cox - BBC News
Mon, January 22, 2024 a

Schoolchildren sang Happy Birthday to Mr Jennings when he turned 103

A former soldier thought to be the last surviving veteran of the infamous Burma Railway has died aged 104.

Jack Jennings was among 60,000 Allied prisoners forced by the Japanese to build a railway between Thailand and Myanmar, then Burma from 1942 to 1943.

In his final weeks at a Torquay care home, Mr Jennings was still playing his harmonica which he had used to entertain fellow troops.

His family said he had lived "a wonderful life".

Daughter Carol Barrett said: "I think we've been very lucky, that we had such a long time knowing him, loving him."

Mr Jennings' family believed he was the last survivor of 85,000 soldiers killed or captured when Singapore fell to the Japanese in World War Two.

The story of the World War Two prisoners of war camp featured in the Oscar-winning film starring Alec Guiness, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Mr Jennings marked his 103rd birthday with a sing-along to the sound of his harmonica

Tens of thousands of people died during the construction and it became known as the "death railway".

The railway project led to the deaths of 90,000 Asian civilian workers and 16,000 prisoners of war.

Daughter Carol Barrett told the BBC: "He played his harmonica as a prisoner, I'm sure it helped him, and he was still playing it a week before he died.

"He was a carpenter and joiner by trade and he also made his own chess set, it gave them something to do while they were prisoners."

Captured on 15 February 1942 in Singapore as part of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, Mr Jennings remained a prisoner of the Japanese until the end of August 1945.

He survived his ordeal, and overcame a period of serious illness, to return to his childhood sweetheart Lilian Mary, whom he married in December 1945.

They were together, said Mrs Barrett, until her mother's death 20 years ago.

Mr Jennings did not talk about his experiences "for many years".

However, after penning a memoir aged 73, that changed, said son-in-law Paul Barrett.

"Once he wrote the book and found people were interested in what he had written he then spoke about nothing else," he said.

A member of the Far East Prisoners of War association, the great-grandfather-of-three attended regular reunions, Mrs Barrett said, including four trips back to Singapore and Thailand, often with other family members.

Mr Jennings recalled being captured in Singapore and held for five days with 500 fellow prisoners on a tennis court before being taken to Thailand, where he was held at various camps along the railway.

On his return to the region many years later, Mrs Barrett said, "he remembered everything".

"But the scenery had changed so much and he was greeted with such generosity, so much respect, he found it quite cathartic, it was a healing process for him and he was able to lay his ghosts to rest," she added.

Mr Jennings died at a care home in St Marychurch, with his family by his side.

Originally from the West Midlands, Mr Jennings moved to Torquay in 2007 to be closer to his daughter Hazel Heath.

"He absolutely loved Torquay - going to Oldway Mansions, playing his harmonica," said Mrs Barrett.

The BBC met Mr Jennings in March 2022, when he celebrated turning 103 at the Oldway Tearooms in Paignton, with a sing-along to some tunes on his harmonica.

The Royal British Legion laid on an honour guard and schoolchildren from Oldway Primary sang Happy Birthday.

"I was surprised to see so many people here," said Mr Jennings at the time.

"If they are here and enjoying it, that's the thing in life isn't it?"

ARCHAEOLOGY

Remains of ancient Roman triumphal arch unearthed in Serbia
Story by Reuters
Tue, January 23, 2024 at 11:03 PM MST·2 min read

Braving bitter cold and wind, archaeologists in Serbia surveyed the site of an ancient Roman triumphal arch, one of only a handful in the Balkans, that dates back to the third century.

The triumphal arch was discovered in December at the site of Viminacium, a Roman city near the town of Kostolac, 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of Belgrade.

Miomir Korac, the leading archaeologist, said the discovery was made during excavation of the main street of Viminacium, the capital of the Roman province of Moesia.


“This is the first such triumphal arch in this area… It can be dated to the first decades of the third century AD,” Korac told Reuters on Monday.

Archaeologists estimate they have only scoured 5% of the 450-hectare excavation site, which they say is unusual in not being buried under a modern city. - Branko Filipovic/Reuters

Viminacium was a sprawling Roman city of 45,000 people with a hippodrome, fortifications, a forum, palace, temples, an amphitheatre, aqueducts, baths and workshops. It existed between the first and sixth centuries.

“When we found square foundational footprints made of massive limestone pieces… there was no doubt that this was a triumphal arch,” Korac said.

A fragment of a marble slab with letters reading “CAES/ANTO” suggested that the arch was dedicated to Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known as Caracalla, who reigned from 198 to 217 AD.

It is believed that Caracalla was elevated to emperor in Viminacium, said Mladen Jovicic, an archaeologist.

“We are hoping to find more pieces… We have found one finely made pillar, beams, but we would like to find more from the inscription on the arch,” Jovicic said.

Archaeologists made the discovery while excavating Viminacium, the capital of the Roman province of Moesia. - Branko Filipovic/Reuters

Excavations of Viminacium have been going on since 1882, but archaeologists estimate they have only scoured 5% of the site, which they say is 450 hectares — bigger than New York’s Central Park — and unusual in not being buried under a modern city.

Discoveries so far include two Roman ships, golden tiles, coins, jade sculptures, religious items, mosaics, frescos, weapons and remains of three mammoths.


Inscribed blade hid under grave for almost 1,900 years — until now. What does it say?

Moira Ritter
Tue, January 23, 2024 at 7:19 AM MST·1 min read

Nearly 1,900 years ago, an ancient inhabitant of what is now Denmark was cremated and buried in an urn. Before they were buried though, a hole was dug and a treasured knife with a special inscription was placed beneath their grave.

That’s where the blade has stayed — until now.

Archaeologists from the Museum Odense recently unearthed the runic blade, according to a Jan. 22 Facebook post from the museum. The discovery marks the oldest known runes in Denmark.


Archaeologists said the knife dates to approximately 150. Møntergården Museum of Odense and Funen

Experts said the small knife dates back to about 150 A.D., and it is inscribed with a message using the oldest known rune alphabet.

The five runes spell the name “hirila,” which translates to “little sword” in Old Norse, the museum said in a news release. Archaeologists are unsure whether “little sword” referred to the blade’s owner or the blade itself.

Photos shows both sides of the blade: one with the runes and the other with an intricate chevron-like pattern followed by three holes.

The runes are the oldest known in Denmark, according to experts. 

All rights reserved photograph Rógvi N. Johansen, Museum Odense

The blade was buried beneath an urn grave, experts said. 

All rights reserved photograph Rógvi N. Johansen, Museum Odense,

The grave and knife were found in Tietgenbyen, less than 10 miles from the site where a similar discovery was made in 1865, experts said. That’s when archaeologists unearthed a comb from the same time period with a runic inscription meaning “harja.”

Archaeologists said the knife was likely a treasured possession to its owner.

Google Translate and Facebook were used to translate a news release and Facebook post from the Museum Odense.



Grave robber looted 2,400-year-old tomb in China — but left these treasures behind

Aspen Pflughoeft
Tue, January 23, 2024

In a cemetery in central China, a grave robber started to dig. The thief tunneled into an ancient tomb, stole some artifacts and vanished. The robbery, however, was only partially successful.

When archaeologists excavated the looted tomb, they realized the robber had left some rare treasures behind.

The Taosi Relic Site and Cemetery is a massive ancient cemetery in Shanxi Province that may have as many as 10,000 tombs, according to a 2018 news release from China Archaeology Network. Excavations of the cemetery have been ongoing for years, but archaeologists have only explored a fraction of the site.

During these excavations, archaeologists uncovered a 2,400-year-old tomb that had been looted by a grave robber, according to a Jan. 21 news release from CCTV News via the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archaeology Network.

The robber had entered the tomb in 2016 through a hole in one corner, the institute said. The thief stole artifacts from this corner but left most of the grave undisturbed.

Some of the chimes found at the 2,400-year-old tomb.

Archaeologists unearthed a large number of high-quality artifacts from the 2,400-year-old tomb. They found a set of 16 chimes engraved with sayings, weapons and jade artifacts.

A photo shows some of the ancient musical instruments found in the tomb.

A close-up of a chime found at the 2,400-year-old tomb.

The tomb also contained a bronze drum base, archaeologists said. The base has a hollow shape where a drum would be inserted. Measuring about 33 inches across, the newly found base is among the largest of these types of artifacts ever found in China.

Based on the artifacts found in the 2,400-year-old tomb, archaeologists believe the tomb belongs to a high-ranking aristocrat with significant power.

Another artifact found at the 2,400-year-old tomb.

Officials recovered some bronze artifacts stolen from the Taosi Cemetery in 2022, the institute said.

Taosi Relic Site and Cemetery is in Shanxi Province and about 250 miles southwest of Beijing.

Google Translate and Baidu Translate were used to translate the news release from CCTV News via the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archaeology Network.

Don’t use magnets to seek treasure, experts warn after technique damages Viking sword found in river

Craig Simpson
Tue, January 23, 2024 

A magnet fisherman shows his equipment

The British Museum has urged detectorists not to go “magnet fishing” to retrieve treasure after a Viking sword was damaged while being dredged from a river.

A record number of finds, from Iron Age coin hoards to Tudor rosary beads, are being unearthed in the UK, according to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) run by the British Museum.

But experts are determined to persuade those seeking treasure to stop using the increasingly popular technique of “fishing” for artefacts in waterways using powerful magnets.

They say the risks of the method include blowing up unexploded ordnance, and damaging artefacts.

The warning from the PAS comes after a Viking sword was damaged while being pulled out of the River Wallers Haven in Suffolk. The remains of the hilt fell off and were lost in the river.

Risks include explosives and drowning

The scheme experts wrote: “‘Fishing’ for metal objects with powerful magnets in lakes and waterways has become increasingly popular. However, there are many risks involved, including finding unexploded ordnance and possibly drowning.

“There is also the risk of damage to the object and its archaeological context, particularly at sites of ritual deposition. The PAS advises against this activity, which is banned by the Canal and River Trust on its waterways.”

The method also erases important archaeological context which offers clues as to the meaning of objects, and what they were used for.

In 2022, a record haul of archaeological finds were made in the UK, with detectorists largely responsible for the 53,490 discoveries.

Among the finds were an Iron Age hoard of coins in a flint container, and an eerie rosary bead carved in bone during the Tudor period, when the position of Catholics in Britain was precarious.

Thanks for detectorists

One side of the delicately carved object, found on the banks of the Thames near the City of London, shows the face of a young woman, but the other depicts a skull, reminding the owner of their mortality.

Mark Jones, the interim director of the British Museum, said: “The information about finds is being recorded by the PAS to advance knowledge of past peoples, where and how they lived.

“As such, it reflects every part of human history, from the Palaeolithic to more modern times, across the whole of England and Wales.

“Most of the finds recorded have been found by members of the metal-detecting community and I wanted to especially thank them for recording these items with the PAS.”

State Department responds to Putin on Alaska: ‘Certainly he’s not getting it back’

Miranda Nazzaro
Tue, January 23, 2024 


The State Department on Monday brushed off reports of Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering his government to look into the nation’s former “real estate” abroad, saying Alaska would be staying in American hands.

Putin signed a new decree last week to allocate funds for the research and registration of Russian property overseas, including that in former territories of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Russian state media TASS reported.

The decree, which comes amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, did not specifically mention Alaska, though it caught the attention of military bloggers, who argued Putin was using the decree to declare the 1867 Russian sale of the Last Frontier State to the U.S. is illegal.

“Well, I think I can speak for all of us in the U.S. government to say that certainly he’s not getting it back,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a Monday press briefing, prompting laughter from his audience.

The Institute for the Study of War last week noted the “exact parameters of what constitutes current or historical Russia property are unclear.”

“The Kremlin may use the ‘protection’ of its claimed property in countries outside of its internationally recognized borders to forward soft power mechanisms in post-Soviet and neighboring states ultimately aimed at internal destabilization,” the institute wrote in an assessment of the Russian offensive campaign.

It pointed to a Telegram post from a military blogger who suggested Russia could start enacting the law in Alaska and parts of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Putin, in a 2014 question-and-answer with a studio audience, called the 1867 sale “inexpensive,” and argued people should “not get worked about it.”

“We can calculate the equivalent amount, but it was definitely inexpensive. Russia is a northern country with 70 percent of its territory located in the north and the far north. Alaska is not located in the southern hemisphere, either, is it? It’s cold out there as well. Let’s not get worked up about it, all right?” he said.

While Putin appeared to downplay the sale, Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov in December hinted at Moscow reclaiming its previous territories in the future.

“Did you want a new world order? Receive and sign. Venezuela annexed a 24th state, Guyana-Essequibo. This is happening right under the nose of the once great hegemon of the United States. All that remains is for Mexico to return Texas and the rest. It’s time for Americans to think about their future. And also about Alaska,” Mironov wrote on X, formerly Twitter, last month.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev joked about the State Department’s response later Monday, writing on X, “According to a State Department representative, Russia is not getting back Alaska, which was sold to the U.S. in the 19th century. This is it, then. And we’ve been waiting for it to be returned any day. Now war is unavoidable,” with a laughing emoji attached.

'Outrageous' CEO pay targeted in new bill from Bernie Sanders, US Democrats

Reuters
Mon, January 22, 2024 

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders waits to speak during a rally in support of striking United Auto Workers members


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and a group of Democratic lawmakers are pushing to raise taxes for companies that pay their chief executives at least 50 times more than their typical worker's salary, saying the bill was needed to limit corporate greed.

The union-backed proposal, which could impact some of the nation's biggest companies and largest employers, would also require Treasury Department guidelines to prevent companies from avoiding the tax by using contractors rather than employees, the senators said in a statement on Monday.

The bill could generate $150 billion in U.S. revenue over 10 years, while companies could avoid the tax hike by raising workers' pay and reducing CEO salaries, they added.


Walmart, Alphabet's Google, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Nike and McDonald's could all face millions more - in some cases billions more - in taxes, the group said.

"Americans across the political spectrum are outraged by the extreme gaps between CEO and worker pay," the group said. Sanders, an independent, generally caucuses with Democrats.

The bill would need 60 votes to clear the Senate, which Democrats narrowly control 51-49. It also likely faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which would also have to pass the measure in order to send it to Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden to sign into law.

U.S. elections on the horizon in November could also further complicate any effort to pass such a bill with the economy looming large in Biden's bid for re-election.

Representatives for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business lobby, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which was introduced last week.

The measure would raise the tax rate on companies whose CEO-to-worker salary ratio was above 50 to 1, starting with a 0.5 percentage-point increase when the top executive earns 50 to 100 times more than the company's average worker, according to the proposed legislation.

Companies that pay their top executives more than 500 times what a typical worker makes would face a maximum tax penalty of 5 percentage points.

If the CEO did not receive the largest paycheck in the firm, the ratio would be based on the highest-paid employee, the senators said. CEO-to-worker pay data for privately held companies would also be made public, they added.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)