Sun in Splendor

Percy Wyndham Lewis 1882 November 18 – 1957 March 7 was an English painter and author (he dropped the name 'Percy', which he disliked). He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST. His novels include his pre-World-War-I–era novel Tarr (set in Paris), and The Human Age, a trilogy comprising The Childermass (1928), Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta (both 1955), set in the afterworld. A fourth volume of The Human Age, The Trial of Man, was begun by Lewis but left in a fragmentary state at the time of his death. He also wrote two autobiographical volumes, Blasting and Bombardiering (1937) and Rude Assignment: A Narrative of my Career up-to-date (1950). [Wikipedia]

[Day 147 - Lucy in the Sky](http://bit.ly/x462) - I got it all under control; my life that is. At least for today. [hydratante]

[China in 1982 made a policy decision to flood the developing world with atomic know-how](http://bit.ly/15nib). Its clients include Algeria, Pakistan, and North Korea. One of China's bombs was created as an "export design" that nearly "anybody could build." The blueprint for the simple plan has traveled from Pakistan to Libya and Iran. … Why did Beijing spread its atomic knowledge so freely? In [The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0760335028/?tag=suninsplendor-20), authors Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman speculate that it either wanted to strengthen the enemies of China's enemies -- for instance, Pakistan as a counterweight to India -- or to encourage nuclear wars or terror in foreign lands from which Beijing would emerge as the "last man standing." [[Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb](http://bit.ly/15nib), by William J. Broad, review of [The Nuclear Express](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0760335028/?tag=suninsplendor-20) and [The Bomb: A New History](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061537195/?tag=suninsplendor-20), in the New York Times]

The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaims this [Universal Declaration of Human Rights](http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm) as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction. [[United Nations Human Rights](http://www.ohchr.org/)]

The Notorious Lucius Beebe. When [Dandyism.net](http://www.dandyism.net/) launched four years ago, we stated as our mission the desire to rescue the dandy from the slag heap of history through rigorous scholarship and unflinching self-righteousness. Now it is time to rescue one particular dandy: Lucius Beebe, an all-but-forgotten American original who barely warrants a mention by the academics of dandyism, who are more concerned with muddled abstractions like "performance" and "self-invention" than the tangible plumage of top hat and tails. To Beebe, this plumage was essential as it was to Fred Astaire. In donning it, Beebe simultaneously defined himself, an era, and the new genre of celebrity journalism. His gold-headed cane cut a wide swath through stuffiness, social conventions, and hoi polloi (he was called a notorious "peasant baiter"). Beebe's patrician style was unmatched, as was the notoriety his wardrobe brought him. [[Dandyism](http://www.dandyism.net/)]