Monday 18 April 2016
parity or difficulty-setting: hard
fgm, fsm
Around two years back—as improbable as this constellation of outreach and events sounds, the California based UFO cult, the Raรซlians, raised funds in order to have a self-described Pleasure Hospital constructed and staffed with plastic- and reproductive-surgeons in the west African country of Burkina Faso to help victims of the awful, traditional practise of female genital mutilation. The clinic in Bobo-Dioulasso, however, was never allowed to open its doors, supposedly due to violations to the building-code; an alternative site was found and the doctors treated some fifteen women with corrective procedures which restored them cosmetically and alleviated at least some of the physical pain as well.
The main tenants of Raรซlian belief is that extra-terrestrials have always been reaching out and guiding humanity but they will only manifest themselves truly once human kind is at peace with itself in mind and body, and that state is only attainable through the pursuit of pleasure (sort of like the adherents of the anti-abbeys of Thรฉlรจme and Semiquavers in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel) and possibly the cult felt a strong moral compunction to redress these trespasses (as the UN has done) that rob women of the experience of pleasure—and to mention the health problems that this reprehensible practise can cause, but there is no evidence that the cult was interested in proselytizing its beliefs with this mission. None of the medical staff were members and there was no literature passed out, but the doctors quickly had their licenses to practise in the country revoked, citing suspicions over cult activities and promoting deviant behaviour. The government of Burkina Faso is not the complete villain having outlawed the practise and are actively disseminating that edict through the villages, and though this was a grave disappointment to those hundreds of millions of women having suffered their whole lives with the scars of the past, a few were made whole, word spread, and the visiting doctors were able to teach their techniques to local surgeons so that they might be able to champion the fight against barbarity. It’s not a matter people like to discuss—and perhaps introducing aliens averts even more—but avoiding the topics only reinforces those who would believe it to be an acceptable thing to do. There is a very salient difference between violence and intimidation and social norms and obligation. (We do realise his noodliness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is not a UFO cult but know that FSM would also not condone such acts from his worshipers.)
Sunday 17 April 2016
vocoder or all your obnoxious traits are belong to us
The always interesting Mind Hacks informs that every quirk is well documented and studied—but not to the point, I think, of making it less engrossing and perhaps charming (or insufferable) in the ideation that goes by the name of palinacousis—that is, an auditory hallucination that is usually manifested by speaking in the manner of the last person that one has heard.
Do you mean now-now or later-now? Refudiate much? The study, however, that brought this phenomena to our attention was not a harmless case of unsolicited echolalia but rather a more extreme version, wherein a man experienced the voice of the current person he was in dialogue with as the sound and mannerisms of his previous interlocutor. He found this vocal-swapping debilitatingly funny and was not able to hold a proper conversion. This sounds like a very modern, memetic condition to me.
high-mark, water-mark
Having happened to watch the Baraka spin-off of the masterful Koyaanisqatsi trilogy last night, this appreciation showcasing the series’ trailer reconstructed entirely with corresponding stock-footage (retaining those delightful water-marks that immediately make most avert their eyes) from Mental Floss really resonated with us.
The comprehensive look at life on Earth with all its dread foibles and majesty, the narration about our relationship with nature and technology is narrated through tone poems accompanying pioneering cinematography—those kind of sweeping shots that we kind of take for granted nowadays but were groundbreaking in 1982, but is probably even more relevant for worlds out of balance (the Hopi meaning of the title) today. It is appropriate that the homage-maker used stock-footage, the branded mavens and mastheads of intellectual property and media giganticism, being as the films themselves had very limited release through the 2000s over copyright and royalties disputes that never were satisfactorily resolved until deemed by at least one jurisdiction as “culturally significant” and a national treasure. Watch both trailers and learn more about the directors and soundtrack at Mental Floss.
catagories: ๐ช️, ๐ฌ, ๐ถ, environment, lifestyle
Saturday 16 April 2016
calling doctor bombay, emergency! come right away
Though Czech is the adjectival form and perhaps the additional republic makes the country sound as if it has to legitimise its standing somehow, the proposal of the Czech Republic (ฤeskรก republika) to change its English and hence international handle to Czechia smacks to me like a page from Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis, in waking up to find oneself transformed in order to keep up with the times—those times being rather fickle and unperturbable.
Since the divorce from Slovakia, the country has been known as Tschechien in the German Sprachraum, which to my ears sounded too close to Tschetsschenien (Chechnya) and I feel that this forced change is confusing as well—though not exactly without some historical precedence, going back to latinate-loving Englanders observing the Holy Roman Empire’s tenant states. One has to wonder about exonymy and endonymy and the success rate of rebranding.
catagories: ๐จ๐ฟ, foreign policy, language
that glaswegian, tall chavvy fighting idiot of old
Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we learn about the recent surfacing of a list of personae non-grata from the legendary venue, the Half Moon pub of the Herne Hill district in London, which was closed due to flooding in 2013 but has yet to be reopened.
This guide of unwelcome, potentially troublesome patrons is perfectly British, pretty abusive and gangsterish too but pretty amusing all the same and I am glad someone bothered to share, reminding me of that burgeoning practise of asking customers names so they can inform you when your order is ready—one which I hope does not catch on since I rather like us being called the Englishmen or the doctors. There’s no Sodding McSodface on this list and most would require no further explanation, but Deaf Adam earned his lifelong ban for mistaking Coldplay for the Rolling Stones on the jukebox.
Friday 15 April 2016
brav und borrel or thesaurus of feels
Professor and contributor to The Journal of Positive Psychology, Tim Lomas, aims to enrich our emotional landscape with a collection of some two hundred terms that have no equivalent in English. One can see the abstract at the journal’s website that began this continuing undertaking, but Boing Boing goes one further, sharing a selection of some of the terms of endearment (and they are positive and fulfilling sentiments in the main).
Rare English: grok—understanding so thoroughly that the observer becomes part of the observed
Icelandic: aรฐ jenna—perseverance for seeing a boring chore through
Hindi: talanoa—gossip as a social-adhesive
Greek: ฮพฮตฮฝฮฏฮฑ—recognising the importance of hospitality
Be sure to check out Boing Boing’s choices and learn more about the study, perhaps finding a new way of expressing what resonates with you. I especially appreciated how the article was categorized with the tag “the meaning of liff,” in reference to the Douglas Adams collaboration to fill lexical gaps for relatable experiences for which there was beforehand no adequate expression.
Thursday 14 April 2016
biotop oder flyover
It always ends well, in any case, and I was treated to vistas that one could not appreciate at higher speeds, certainly not from the passenger seat of a car, and the islands of industry and the contemplative lagoons at rest and the green verge that buffered the city from the shore. I knew the general direction but away from the clearly marked path, I had a clever application in my pocket that gave me a nudge if I was marching in the opposite directly but did not reign in my exploration overmuch. Truly away from the roads and taking the most direct routes, given my mode of transportation, I was astounded to find myself hiking through a really amazing and unexpected nature reserve just above the river’s floodplain—unseen but infinitely more interesting than some fallow-field of highway median.
I found myself in a landscape of sand dunes (der Mainzer Groรer Sand), whose pronounced topography did not present a struggle but was distinctly not flat, the sort of geometry one grows unaccustomed to along more manicured trails.
This ancient environment was host to tall cypress trees and other flora that belonged in more Mediterranean climes, owing to the fact that although nutrient poor, sand was far better at holding heat. Approaching the boroughs of Mombach and Gonsenheim, the dunes made the transition into a great forest, only gently interrupted with a few paths, that is the largest contiguous one in the region at seven square-kilometers, a wood of some eighteen-hundred acres. Despite being often turned around and stopping to marvel at the landscape, I still made it on time but with none to spare.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, environment, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz