 Japanese chopper show borrows Nazi terminology. Now this is interesting. In our constant digging for pulp from all countries, we are always struck by how symbols, images, and terminology are appropriated by different cultures or subcultures, and how the meanings of those images mutate from their original form. So here we have a promo poster for Japan’s New Order Chopper Show, this year’s version of which takes place tomorrow, August 9. Anyway, you’ll notice the above figure is sporting a Prussian helmet, or Pickelhaube, emblazoned with a Prussian Iron Cross. Or at least that’s what they look like, but a biker will tell you these are entirely different symbols that have nothing to do with Prussia or Germany, save that the shapes were borrowed, much like Hitler borrowed his swastika from a similar Hindu shape. So, symbols evolve—we get that. The Pickelhaube was phased out during World War I and was just a relic by the time World War II arrived, so the many people who associate the helmet with Nazism are mistakenly mashing up two distinct eras in Prussian/German military history. But here’s the question—when people already tend to think your symbol has something to do with Nazism, why call one of your biggest events the New Order show? After all, that was the name of Hitler’s grand vision of world domination. And since Japan was neck deep in this scheme, via an agreement to evenly divide Asia, millions of Japanese, as well as Westerners, know what the term means. Bikers tend to get bent out of shape about these kinds of discussions, but the reaction strikes us as hollow indignation. Which is to say, even though they pretend otherwise, they’re deliberately mindfucking us and we know it. Okay, enough of that. We only brought it up because it would have seemed strange to post the art without addressing the point. And what art it is, by the way, painted by one of Japan’s foremost illustrators, who goes by the name Rockin’ Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean specializes in these sorts of voluptuous cyberbikers and has built a worldwide cult following. He’s often imitated, but never duplicated. You can see more of his work here, and below.     
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison. 1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down
German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is "Kaputt." The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes. 1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity
An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.
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