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September 27, 2008
Should the KKK ever file copyright infringement...
...when rappers talk about 'the hood'?
Just sayin....
Posted by dottie at 2:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The mists of time
Just as 'people of antiquity' (as they might be known in america, north) would never have understood many of our decisions, we can never truly know the mind of our predecessors.
I mean, drainpipe trousers, heavy metal, peach fuzz moustache and long hair - that's just cruisin' for a bruisin'.
Posted by dottie at 2:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sometimes spam email retain the power to make me click on them for some reason other than blacklisting them
Take the following, for instance.
Seven-year-old 'escapes' from Alcatraz
It lights the fire of the imagination.
Hopefully I don't have to tell people that a seven year old gave me an infection :)
Posted by dottie at 1:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My other life is an ethnobiologist
I remember clearly the first time I saw a picture of Machu Pichu. It was the first time I understood that you could be slack jawed in amazement. The very idea of such a city in such a place was incredible. Also, I felt that somehow I had seen it before*. This lead me to dream about spending six months in a mountain village living as and with the locals - I was especially fascinated by quipu and rope bridges.
Holy moley. This kind of stuff strikes deep chords in me. That's why this TED talk sends shivers down my spine. Check this out.
The young acolytes are taken away from their families at the age of three and four, sequestered in the shadowy world of darkness in stone huts at the base of glaciers for eighteen years. Two nine year periods deliberately chosen to mimic the nine months of gestation they spent in their natural mothers womb; now they are metaphorically in the womb of their great mother. For this entire time they are encultured into the values of their society. Values that maintain the proposition that their prayers, and their prayers alone, maintain the cosmic - or we might say the ecological - balance.And, at the end of this amazing initiation suddenly they are taken out and for the first time in their lives, at the age of eighteen, they see a sunrise. And, in that crystal moment of awareness of first light, as the sun begins to bathe the slopes of this stunningly beautiful landscape, suddenly everything they have learned in the abstract is affirmed in stunning glory and the priest steps back and says "You see. It is really as I have told you.It is that beautiful. It is yours to protect".
They call themselves the elder brothers and we, who are the younger brothers, are the ones who are responsible for destroying the world.
It goes up, way up, from there. Seriously - hang in there for the description of the shit knife.
We have a lot to learn about communicating with each other, and a lot to learn about communicating with ourselves, but even more to learn about the different ways we can commune with our world - there is no one true way
* I don't believe in the super natural but this still makes me wonder...
Posted by dottie at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2008
Language is the only religion
Religion, so the devout tell us, is an expression of the soul. In its tenets, rituals, repetition and obeisance the ultimate intent that lies within the soul of the pious is transmuted from the base writhings of inconstant flesh and transmitted into the infinite aether of spirituality, transmitted directly to the mind of god and there transmuted or more aptly sublimated, through the sounding board of the divine being, into solid matter resulting in miracles, moving mountains, conversions and most importantly gossip. We all know that religion, just as any movement driven by xenophobia of some degree, thrives on gossip; chinese whispers ensures that yesterday's serendipitous coincidence becomes tomorrows miracle.
If you control the language of a people you really do control their soul. The 'soul of a people' is their expression, the will made material, their character, their very thoughts.
When you learn a new language you become a new person. The insights you gain from learning the idiomatic expressions of a culture that is new to you leverages new vistas into your own psyche and your own culture and everything you hold dear. It is difficult to be a facist and learn a different language - it takes dedication, or pre-meditation.
Modern culture moves more and more toward ad-hoc social groupings, recent traditions and fadishness. The constant need to relearn the vocabulary, both linguistic and cultural, of these ever shifting cultures means that introversion of any sort is discarded. It becomes very easy for charismatic individuals, or those with ulterior motives to drive the development of these cultures.
The narrowing of language by this constant innovation frames debate by limiting thought. Reducing the active vocabulary to include mostly words and phrases that echo the language of society's nabobs creates individuals who mirror the exemplar.
Limited language produces limited thought. Limited thought generally limits intelligence. Limited intelligence creates leverage.
Religion is the only previous example of a cultural phenomenon that gained more leverage than seems logical. In fact religion is just an applied form of language.
Language is the new religion - welcome to hell.
Posted by dottie at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack