OK, I'm going to say it, despite knowing that at least one social-media-powerhouse friend disagrees: I like "Marvel's Agents of Shield." A lot.
It's full of humanity in a Chekovian way: the humor is often the natural output of a character's frailty -- even more commonly, it's the natural result of the combination of several characters' frailties -- and all the while the sympathetic (I know not all of you!) audience is left with a hole in the heart for the pain the same frailty causes and inevitably will cause. The Whedon family team again picks apart the genres it has been handed; I wonder how much of that is inherent in, and automatically flows from, their assumption of non-religion and gender equality where our inherited definitions of genre include, at some level, old Western Civ religious tropes (and end-games) and extreme gender-inequality. (Sometime maybe I'll talk about the convention we are all taught in school defines "a story" -- preposterously masculinized and totally therefore derogatory toward many forms of story-communication, especially in academic settings.) I continually wonder, watching this show, how many people at Marvel really understand what they have done in handing such a culturally subversive and revolutionary set of writers a substory that is deliberately supposed to question their own superhero genre.*
Last week I realized how satisfying it was to watch Coulson, the equivalent of a single parent with several children, trying to subtly and quietly assess a personal health/growth/identity crisis over the season's arc ... I'm sure some people are very grumpy as being "dragged along," but you know what? That's how it really *works.* Diagnosis and healing are hard to come by when your time is spent being The Grownup(/the leader). I am appreciating watching the gradual, increasingly both inescapable and incredibly fundamental, pain of Coulson's mental processes. Holy crap, the questions he is dealing with, most of which are acted but unstated! (I am glad I saw the Avengers movie, which definitely adds interpretive layers to my experience.)
* I also think "Marvel's The Runaways" (you have to look for it under "M" instead of "R" at bookstores, seriously : P ) was one of the most stunningly honest breakaway-but-stay-within comic series I've read (particularly I love Wolverine's occasional savvy appearances; but then Wolverine is such a writable character :) ); it carries some of the same "but wait, the moral issues surrounding this whole superhero thing actually almost completely suck for everyone involved" idea-set, but avoids the hubris of the Superman and Batman workovers. Because if heroes exist, the rest of us have still only got our lives to live.
(All of which makes me sound like I read a lot more comics than I do. Actually I mostly read DC, and mostly in the 80s.)
So anyhow, so far so good, *I* think. There is lots of good set-up so far, and interesting below-the-super-radar-but-genre-appropriately-still-super-ridiculous plots, and dialogue and characters I love to listen to. I am interested in where this writing team takes this media opportunity.
And Clark Gregg is anchoring the show so intensely, and the three younger characters are totally believable, and if the two intermediate agents aren't fully believable, that's because they are starting as declared successes from the comic-book world of SHIELD ... and I expect they will probably follow Coulson as he steps back into being a full, independently-thinking human again (or they won't be able to last on the team, psychologically). I think "Nick Fury" set Coulson up on purpose, but I wonder whether SHIELD (and Marvel) will be comfortable with the results.
I'm excited :).
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
GMOs and Washington's Initiative I-522 (voting Nov 5)
Mimi posted this from the Cornucopia Institute, nicely summing up the Grocery Manufacturing Association's money-laundering scheme/recent exposure:
http://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/I-522.poster.1023.jpg
(too small to really read, below, for full size click the link ^ and then click on the image there to enlarge)
The GMO fight is so frustrating. I just want actual *food* for my kids. I just want people to stop pouring poison on plants, earth, and animals. I want farmworkers' children to not suffer the exposure effects of pesticides. I want to know that we will stop loading toxins into the oceans, that maybe someday the few sea animals (and plants) who escaped our dragnets can recover their ecosystems from our factory-food mindset -- that we haven't poured so much non-bioddegradable poison into the water that the remaining individuals will be too sick to repopulate.
Increasing the toxicity of our production methods makes no sense in any situation at this point -- but for *food*?!? Wow, you have to be soooo wrapped up in the industrial/profit mindset to *not* see how ridiculous that "goal" is ... !
How does "Wow, great! This gene switch allows you to use Roundup with impunity!" not trigger a "hey ... wait ... what now?" response?
Kudos to the Washington State Attorney General for exposing the money laundering.
Frankly, kudos also to the GMA for realizing they had made an unrecoverable error and simply 'fessing up. In some ways, this is maybe better, in terms of political fallout, because this made these funders a "newsworthy story" instead of just 'annoying trivia.'
I hope the lawyers, pencil pushers, janitors, and scientists working for the profit-suckers all take a step back and realize how unsustainable their relationship (social and material) to the world is as long as they are supporting Dow, Monsanto, Bayer, etc ... . The brain trust in these corporations is huge. Why, people, why?
These are some of the same companies that produced chemical weapons in the 1960s/70s, sucking up taxpayer money to create pain and destruction for profit (most famously, Agent Orange -- officially a "defoliator," meant to remove the leaves from the jungle so Americans could see enemy troops) ... these same companies are now producing GMOs to justify use of their chemicals (new and old), and again they are being shielded and abetted by the federal government in profitting from selfishness and destruction.
Because of this preposterous and disgusting historical parallel, I am thinking about painting my van with this historically referential slogan:
... At least in Portland I really have no any fear that some freaky GMO proponent will roadrage me or scare my kids because I'm referencing a hippie slogan and protesting Important American Institutions like the 1%, profits-uber-alles, "Better Living Through Science," and that unbesmirchable absolute in a world that doesn't really like absolutes anymore, "progress" : P.
.
http://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/I-522.poster.1023.jpg
(too small to really read, below, for full size click the link ^ and then click on the image there to enlarge)
The GMO fight is so frustrating. I just want actual *food* for my kids. I just want people to stop pouring poison on plants, earth, and animals. I want farmworkers' children to not suffer the exposure effects of pesticides. I want to know that we will stop loading toxins into the oceans, that maybe someday the few sea animals (and plants) who escaped our dragnets can recover their ecosystems from our factory-food mindset -- that we haven't poured so much non-bioddegradable poison into the water that the remaining individuals will be too sick to repopulate.
Increasing the toxicity of our production methods makes no sense in any situation at this point -- but for *food*?!? Wow, you have to be soooo wrapped up in the industrial/profit mindset to *not* see how ridiculous that "goal" is ... !
How does "Wow, great! This gene switch allows you to use Roundup with impunity!" not trigger a "hey ... wait ... what now?" response?
Kudos to the Washington State Attorney General for exposing the money laundering.
Frankly, kudos also to the GMA for realizing they had made an unrecoverable error and simply 'fessing up. In some ways, this is maybe better, in terms of political fallout, because this made these funders a "newsworthy story" instead of just 'annoying trivia.'
I hope the lawyers, pencil pushers, janitors, and scientists working for the profit-suckers all take a step back and realize how unsustainable their relationship (social and material) to the world is as long as they are supporting Dow, Monsanto, Bayer, etc ... . The brain trust in these corporations is huge. Why, people, why?
These are some of the same companies that produced chemical weapons in the 1960s/70s, sucking up taxpayer money to create pain and destruction for profit (most famously, Agent Orange -- officially a "defoliator," meant to remove the leaves from the jungle so Americans could see enemy troops) ... these same companies are now producing GMOs to justify use of their chemicals (new and old), and again they are being shielded and abetted by the federal government in profitting from selfishness and destruction.
Because of this preposterous and disgusting historical parallel, I am thinking about painting my van with this historically referential slogan:
HELL NO
G.M.O.'s!
but I can't quite decide if I want to be 'swearing' (and aggressive) so incontrovertibly ... G.M.O.'s!
... At least in Portland I really have no any fear that some freaky GMO proponent will roadrage me or scare my kids because I'm referencing a hippie slogan and protesting Important American Institutions like the 1%, profits-uber-alles, "Better Living Through Science," and that unbesmirchable absolute in a world that doesn't really like absolutes anymore, "progress" : P.
.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Oct 20 2013 Fb Status: on being suicidal
My friend ~N posted this:
http://mattfraction.com/post/63999786236/sorry-to-put-this-on-you-but-i-have-an-honest-question
I responded there:
And then I FbShared the link:
My comments/reactions follow, in the Comments.
Thank you, ~N.
And here is my story, bulletted as I entered it into my own comment-string:
And then some responses from my awesome community :) ...
.
http://mattfraction.com/post/63999786236/sorry-to-put-this-on-you-but-i-have-an-honest-question
I responded there:
- I didn't notice this was Matt Fraction until the little subscribey-thing at the end. I saw him live at W00tst0ck ... that experience and this read are adding really interesting color to each other.
- I'd forgotten how universally it sucked to be a nerd when we were growing up : P : (.
- (Long comment just turned into my own Fb post. Sharing this.)
And then I FbShared the link:
My comments/reactions follow, in the Comments.
Thank you, ~N.
And here is my story, bulletted as I entered it into my own comment-string:
- Firstly, I saw this guy live on stage doing what I suppose was kind of a secular testimonial during this amazing cultural nexus called "w00tst0ck" ... he is clearly valued by a huge number of people. Although I have never gone to find his blog before, the person who asked this question clearly expects the straight shit from him, and I am a *giant* fan of that.
- And then on a personal scale, I feel like this calls out my testimonial as well. Whenever I was what I call "actually suicidal" (actively on the edge of killing myself, as opposed to "just" feeling like I couldn't go on), whatever part of my psyche was like "oh, crap, NO!" about the overall 'desire' to be dead-and-gone pushed to find and lock onto something singular-but-significant -- in my case I needed to make myself responsible to someone outside my head ... just one person, but they needed to not only care about me but be daily in my life right then. Like, I knew they would be someone who would walk in the room and be both wrecked and incredibly angry that I had given up.
There are only two periods, in my long walk with severe depression (ages 12 to 30-something, I suppose, although I wangled a couple of good years in my early 20s), when I was "actually suicidal" -- but I was "suicidal" (thoughts of ending it all, "how can I go on?," etc.) a LOT. All of high school, for sure. - In college my one-thing was calling my college-bestie [C]. In true [C] style, her response was along the lines of "WHAT THE FUCK?!?" -- but she held me accountable ;).
When my ex left, I stayed alive for the baby inside, and then for the helpless nursing baby, and then for the kids whose dad wasn't really ready to be a single dad, much less a single dad with four wrecked children because Mommy was dead. Luckily/blessedly, the weight of my incapacitating depression lessened slightly more slowly than my ex's capabilities as a parent, because if at any point during that long upward trek I had perceived that he could handle the kids sans Mommy, I was wayyyyy too close to the edge to guarantee I'd still be here.
There are so many what ifs.
If I had believed in the choice of abortion (really believed, personally, not as a theoretical), I can tell you right off John probably wouldn't have been born ... and in a period when I literally believed, with all my injured heart, that I was worthless, but I couldn't argue that the little person inside would agree, his life provided a frame of reference that did not allow me to kill myself.
If ex had gotten his gun(s) before he left the house -- I actually don't know whether he did, because i told him that if he did, he *had to* NOT tell me, because I knew I was too close ... would I have found some one thing to hold me back, even with a handgun around? I don't know. - After ex had been gone a while, I realized I didn't remember what it felt like to be happy ... that I hadn't laughed, literally I think, in over two years.
It was about a year later, well after I had stopped being "actually suicidal" (although still pretty frikkin' overwhlemed and tired) that something happened (I don't remember what) and I realized I felt "happiness" ... oh. my. God. - But life has been so worth living.
- So thank you to everyone who is a part of my life :).
And then some responses from my awesome community :) ...
- [CWF:] More happy hugs in hallway on Monday, glad you are part of my parenting support circle and more!
- [JC:] I am stunned speechless and in tears at the depth and courage of what you are sharing here, Kirsten. Thank you for touching me deeply, and for teaching me so much. Love to you.
- [me:] :). thanks, [CWF] :).
- [me:] Wow, Fb, way to fail to update : P (glad I hit refresh just in case!) ... and: thank you, [JC] :). Not enough people in my life know that which was so hidden. I am glad this opportunity came up to share, and that "my peeps" value real connection and emotional safety enough that I (feel like I) can share this.
.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
On art: a reaction to quotes from Brian Eno
About a week ago, my friend Brian (not Brian Eno) posted this on Fb:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/happy-birthday-brian-eno-the-father-of-ambient-music-on-art/
I had this reaction (which I didn't end up posting on his Fb acct bcz it doesn't look like it doubles as a conversational blog the way mine does):
The quotes cited do not suggest an attachment to the universal subconscious, though ... for a variety of reasons, I am not surprised that this is lacking, but the lack creates the impossibility of any given piece of art/ artistic effort having any predictable or even actual effect on humanity beyond the strictly visceral (and the psychological/emotional changes that can be wrought through strictly visceral channels). It is no wonder that the thoughts quoted, then, are not only basically ontological but at some level nihilistic.
Art produced with this lack of intention is very unlikely to touch the underlying levels of creation in a positive manner, although certainly because of its separated'ness it can affect our universal mind/world in a negative, destroying way ...
If one is willing to admit the existence of a universal subconscious and/or a God (either route will get you there), then the creative ideas, the forms, the energy of the colors, the resolution, the frequency of the sounds, the dance, the making -- they all *can* (not always do) become the motions of energetic/spiritual transformation for the artist(s), the surrounding people, and the people who encounter the art, and I would argue, also, the world in general ... a fundamental act of creation: literally sharing in the eternal creation of the universe. Even a purely secular view of the universe as shifting and interactive mathematical equations has led some thinkers to perceiving this type of malleability in the base levels of existence.
This is why I think art matters.
This is why every breath matters.
Interactivity, intentional awareness, and deepening understanding of the 'most real' things are the only way we can learn a workable, sustainable -- hopefully true -- morality. I can understand how it is that many people perceive that the judgements of people are, in the end, what determines value ... theirs is an extremely rational and quite logical worldview based on what many people consider the only reasonably 'provable' level of existence ... but I deeply, deeply disagree with them.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/happy-birthday-brian-eno-the-father-of-ambient-music-on-art/
I had this reaction (which I didn't end up posting on his Fb acct bcz it doesn't look like it doubles as a conversational blog the way mine does):
The quotes cited do not suggest an attachment to the universal subconscious, though ... for a variety of reasons, I am not surprised that this is lacking, but the lack creates the impossibility of any given piece of art/ artistic effort having any predictable or even actual effect on humanity beyond the strictly visceral (and the psychological/emotional changes that can be wrought through strictly visceral channels). It is no wonder that the thoughts quoted, then, are not only basically ontological but at some level nihilistic.
Art produced with this lack of intention is very unlikely to touch the underlying levels of creation in a positive manner, although certainly because of its separated'ness it can affect our universal mind/world in a negative, destroying way ...
If one is willing to admit the existence of a universal subconscious and/or a God (either route will get you there), then the creative ideas, the forms, the energy of the colors, the resolution, the frequency of the sounds, the dance, the making -- they all *can* (not always do) become the motions of energetic/spiritual transformation for the artist(s), the surrounding people, and the people who encounter the art, and I would argue, also, the world in general ... a fundamental act of creation: literally sharing in the eternal creation of the universe. Even a purely secular view of the universe as shifting and interactive mathematical equations has led some thinkers to perceiving this type of malleability in the base levels of existence.
This is why I think art matters.
This is why every breath matters.
Interactivity, intentional awareness, and deepening understanding of the 'most real' things are the only way we can learn a workable, sustainable -- hopefully true -- morality. I can understand how it is that many people perceive that the judgements of people are, in the end, what determines value ... theirs is an extremely rational and quite logical worldview based on what many people consider the only reasonably 'provable' level of existence ... but I deeply, deeply disagree with them.
Fb statuses: Oct 11 2013: Monsanto ate my posts!
Post1 (you would not BELIEVE the adrenaline rush I was running on ... this is a very tame explosion, here):
Hey. Who stole my March Against Monsanto post?!?
The event is tomorrow (Saturday); as I recall it's a 10am gathering in Holladay Park followed by an 11am march in the Lloyd District ...
I'm creeped out that my post doesn't appear on my timeline ... ewww. I've always asserted that Monsanto is evil, but it's NOT COOL that they apparently have inside agents warping Facebook.
Post2:
AND it's been removed from my Events Calendar.
!!!!!
OK, clue to the brothers and sisters who are trying to take over the world: you are supposed to be friggin' SUBTLE.
In the voice of the soup nazi: NO STYLE POINTS FOR YOU! Crsly. PR FAIL. Now you are just more yucky than you already were.
(Subnote to Post2: AND it was gone from my Likes. Which was where I looked for it first when I couldn't Search it, again, using Fb's Search function)
Post3:
Sent to Facebook's "Feedback" feature, since their "Report a Problem" feature was essentially useless:
A post on my Timeline regarding the march Against Monsanto Oct 12 2013 has disappeared. The related event in my Events Calendar has ALSO disappeared. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after the Fb page for March Against Monsanto, and specifically the links within the Portland Oregon event page, were flakey, but I find I *am* surprised. I strongly recommend someone at Fb trace all activity in the last month or so related to that event name, and see who has been accessing the systems and destroying both data and the user experience. It blows my mind that they are being so overt!!
Sincerely, [KR]
Comments (attached to Post1):
* TT: nothing new here....
* KR: I'm just surprised they care about my level of "organizing" ... clearly, regarding Monsanto, I am an extremist, even among natural-food advocates; I would think leaving me out at the edge looking like a crazy-person would not be a worry worth their time : P. Messing up the interfaces for the actual event pages makes more sense. This makes me worry about how much time and money they feel like they can essentially throw away on nothing-problems. Or maybe I have a bigger Fb readership than I think I do ; ).
On the other hand, this little blowup might have just convinced my mom, who is naturally skeptical when I get extreme, that Monsanto (or some group supporting them) really *is* as horrible a global citizen as I've been asserting ... it also was an unexpected crash-course for my kids in information suppression!
Post4:
Here is an umbrella event that mentions it:
https://www.facebook.com/events/618008444906773/
Well. I wasn't sure I was going to get the kids up to go, but now ... WELL.
As followup, the Bees and Seeds event that was actually staged was not overtly (although determinedly) aggressive, and although very anti-GMO, the anti-GMO message was held within the larger picture of positive steps people are taking and can take (bees, heirloom seeds, creativity, accessing traditional ways of interacting with the land ... and then a lot of political action groups). So that was very Portland of them, although a few younger protesters had shown up with red+black aggressive signs and were clearly disappointed to not be marching and yelling (frankly, a couple of my kids and I were, too).
Having listened to the event, I am realizing that perhaps this is my current issue. And maybe, when I paint my van, it will have a theme beyond just "flowers." I sent a text to my ex that he'd better get his 4-child-capable vehicle out of the shop bcz I'm thinking about politicking-up my van and then he might not want to drive it anymore ... . Because I'm not necessarily feeling "aggressive," but I am feeling "determined," and that is far more dangerous actually. I've hit the IanMcKellenAsGandalf "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" stage, on this issue. And I'm done being private about it.
Now I need to get my house cleaned out and sold so I can pay attention to the things I care about.
.
Hey. Who stole my March Against Monsanto post?!?
The event is tomorrow (Saturday); as I recall it's a 10am gathering in Holladay Park followed by an 11am march in the Lloyd District ...
I'm creeped out that my post doesn't appear on my timeline ... ewww. I've always asserted that Monsanto is evil, but it's NOT COOL that they apparently have inside agents warping Facebook.
Post2:
AND it's been removed from my Events Calendar.
!!!!!
OK, clue to the brothers and sisters who are trying to take over the world: you are supposed to be friggin' SUBTLE.
In the voice of the soup nazi: NO STYLE POINTS FOR YOU! Crsly. PR FAIL. Now you are just more yucky than you already were.
(Subnote to Post2: AND it was gone from my Likes. Which was where I looked for it first when I couldn't Search it, again, using Fb's Search function)
Post3:
Sent to Facebook's "Feedback" feature, since their "Report a Problem" feature was essentially useless:
A post on my Timeline regarding the march Against Monsanto Oct 12 2013 has disappeared. The related event in my Events Calendar has ALSO disappeared. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after the Fb page for March Against Monsanto, and specifically the links within the Portland Oregon event page, were flakey, but I find I *am* surprised. I strongly recommend someone at Fb trace all activity in the last month or so related to that event name, and see who has been accessing the systems and destroying both data and the user experience. It blows my mind that they are being so overt!!
Sincerely, [KR]
Comments (attached to Post1):
* TT: nothing new here....
* KR: I'm just surprised they care about my level of "organizing" ... clearly, regarding Monsanto, I am an extremist, even among natural-food advocates; I would think leaving me out at the edge looking like a crazy-person would not be a worry worth their time : P. Messing up the interfaces for the actual event pages makes more sense. This makes me worry about how much time and money they feel like they can essentially throw away on nothing-problems. Or maybe I have a bigger Fb readership than I think I do ; ).
On the other hand, this little blowup might have just convinced my mom, who is naturally skeptical when I get extreme, that Monsanto (or some group supporting them) really *is* as horrible a global citizen as I've been asserting ... it also was an unexpected crash-course for my kids in information suppression!
Post4:
Here is an umbrella event that mentions it:
https://www.facebook.com/events/618008444906773/
Well. I wasn't sure I was going to get the kids up to go, but now ... WELL.
* * * * *
As followup, the Bees and Seeds event that was actually staged was not overtly (although determinedly) aggressive, and although very anti-GMO, the anti-GMO message was held within the larger picture of positive steps people are taking and can take (bees, heirloom seeds, creativity, accessing traditional ways of interacting with the land ... and then a lot of political action groups). So that was very Portland of them, although a few younger protesters had shown up with red+black aggressive signs and were clearly disappointed to not be marching and yelling (frankly, a couple of my kids and I were, too).
Having listened to the event, I am realizing that perhaps this is my current issue. And maybe, when I paint my van, it will have a theme beyond just "flowers." I sent a text to my ex that he'd better get his 4-child-capable vehicle out of the shop bcz I'm thinking about politicking-up my van and then he might not want to drive it anymore ... . Because I'm not necessarily feeling "aggressive," but I am feeling "determined," and that is far more dangerous actually. I've hit the IanMcKellenAsGandalf "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" stage, on this issue. And I'm done being private about it.
Now I need to get my house cleaned out and sold so I can pay attention to the things I care about.
.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Oct 10 2013 Fb status: Is the clitoris the source of the ankh?
OK,
so I just have to get this off my chest. Go look at the clitoracy
article again ... the (blue+)yellow medical illustrations ... the one on
the left: now, as it turns out, what looks like a loop there is
actually two lobes that wrap around ... but visually, it looks like a
loop, right?
And therefore is that based-on-MRI-images form not ...
... THE ANKH?
!!!!!
Mysterious symbol of life and power, with no (previously 'discovered') clear physical inspiration, and which, transmuted from Egyptian symbology to Greek, became the symbol of Aphrodite, and then of the Roman Venus?
Feminista prose (unlike wikipedia) sometimes assigns the ankh as the uterus, with the fallopian tubes oddly in the wrong place. (This "ancients were savvy enough to notice the fallopian tubes but too dumb to draw them in the right place" assertion has always made me itch. Itch so much, that I've never looked into whether there was academic backing for the feminista adoption of the symbol, or whether we just made up the affiliation in 1972.)
WHAT A REVOLUTION, then, in modern feminista assertions/ancient power-perceptions, if the ankh is actually the clitoral organ and not the uterus!!
I am actually somewhat boggled by the potential psychological/social/
If I happen to be right, I have to admit that I am ecstatic that the uterus would not then be held up as the center and source of a woman's power, which has always bothered me as being entirely the judgement of a physical worldview, and therefore misguided at best when applied to valuing a woman/valuing women in general ... the uterus is an outflow of what a woman is, not the initial defining force of her being, and to consider it her source of greatest magic is to misunderstand her, and to miss the point, entirely.
I am also excited to potentially have a FRIGGING REASONABLE explanation for this theoretically all-important ancient symbol. I was way more amenable to the ankh being a cross-section of a bull's vertebra (see wikipedia) than it being a carelessly-messed-up uterus drawing, but neither assertion really came with a tenable explication : P. Not that I'm an expert, but when a basic, important, and (at the time) COMMON cultural thing makes *that* little sense to an intelligent, well-learned reader ... well, then the academics have probably not yet found the right answer.
The ankh as a clitoris neatly (and powerfully) explains the feminine/sexual love association (removing the ridiculous assignment of the uterus to Venus/Aphrodite) and corresponds reasonably to the actual shape ... although I am terribly unfamiliar with Egyptian lore and these neat-and-tidy correlations might not reasonably reverse-engineer from Aphrodite to the Egyptian pantheon/mythology ...
Thoughts?
And therefore is that based-on-MRI-images form not ...
... THE ANKH?
!!!!!
Mysterious symbol of life and power, with no (previously 'discovered') clear physical inspiration, and which, transmuted from Egyptian symbology to Greek, became the symbol of Aphrodite, and then of the Roman Venus?
Feminista prose (unlike wikipedia) sometimes assigns the ankh as the uterus, with the fallopian tubes oddly in the wrong place. (This "ancients were savvy enough to notice the fallopian tubes but too dumb to draw them in the right place" assertion has always made me itch. Itch so much, that I've never looked into whether there was academic backing for the feminista adoption of the symbol, or whether we just made up the affiliation in 1972.)
WHAT A REVOLUTION, then, in modern feminista assertions/ancient power-perceptions, if the ankh is actually the clitoral organ and not the uterus!!
I am actually somewhat boggled by the potential psychological/social/
If I happen to be right, I have to admit that I am ecstatic that the uterus would not then be held up as the center and source of a woman's power, which has always bothered me as being entirely the judgement of a physical worldview, and therefore misguided at best when applied to valuing a woman/valuing women in general ... the uterus is an outflow of what a woman is, not the initial defining force of her being, and to consider it her source of greatest magic is to misunderstand her, and to miss the point, entirely.
I am also excited to potentially have a FRIGGING REASONABLE explanation for this theoretically all-important ancient symbol. I was way more amenable to the ankh being a cross-section of a bull's vertebra (see wikipedia) than it being a carelessly-messed-up uterus drawing, but neither assertion really came with a tenable explication : P. Not that I'm an expert, but when a basic, important, and (at the time) COMMON cultural thing makes *that* little sense to an intelligent, well-learned reader ... well, then the academics have probably not yet found the right answer.
The ankh as a clitoris neatly (and powerfully) explains the feminine/sexual love association (removing the ridiculous assignment of the uterus to Venus/Aphrodite) and corresponds reasonably to the actual shape ... although I am terribly unfamiliar with Egyptian lore and these neat-and-tidy correlations might not reasonably reverse-engineer from Aphrodite to the Egyptian pantheon/mythology ...
Thoughts?
Sep 29 2013 Fb status: Cliteracy Project
OK. As an interesting followup to the more
self-declaredly holistic vagina article I linked, here is BASIC BIOLOGY I
*completely didn't know* about the clitoris. Which should ALSO be part
of basic sex education! (insert Viking YARRRRRRR! here : P! ) Wow, are we repressed. Also: Boy, that explains A LOT.
The ongoing performance art/determined public information campaign (thank you Lara for this eye-opener):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html
One of the articles linked within this one points out that the physical biology was recorded (in Euro/US history) at least in the 16th century, in 1841, and in 1949, but has just been essentially rediscovered in 1998ish. I kinda wish I'd paid more attention in BodyWorlds ... but if you don't know to look ...
I am curious how many of you knew about this, and when you were told/found out? I'll go first: I found out at about 10:30pm tonight, thanks to one of the many awesome school-moms I have the good fortune to have been thrown together with :).
And now I am going to go do another load of laundry.
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The ongoing performance art/determined public information campaign (thank you Lara for this eye-opener):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html
One of the articles linked within this one points out that the physical biology was recorded (in Euro/US history) at least in the 16th century, in 1841, and in 1949, but has just been essentially rediscovered in 1998ish. I kinda wish I'd paid more attention in BodyWorlds ... but if you don't know to look ...
I am curious how many of you knew about this, and when you were told/found out? I'll go first: I found out at about 10:30pm tonight, thanks to one of the many awesome school-moms I have the good fortune to have been thrown together with :).
And now I am going to go do another load of laundry.
.
Sep 29 2013 Fb status: vagina as co-indicator
I rather wish the author hadn't brought the
word "soul" into it, and I might reconstruct her basic assertion to say
that the vagina is a *co-indicator* with the brain of historical and
current stress/relaxation (fear/safety), but generally it seems quite accurate to my experience and my observations of the people around me.
Thank you to Neilstrom for this one:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/23/naomi-wolf-vagina/
Those of you who have heard me talk about sex and/or gender roles will recognize my assertions about *feeling safe* are here scientifically (albeit confusingly) validated ... what's amazing is how many of us learn to function (or seem to function) *despite* how messed up society still is.
Thank you to Neilstrom for this one:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/23/naomi-wolf-vagina/
Those of you who have heard me talk about sex and/or gender roles will recognize my assertions about *feeling safe* are here scientifically (albeit confusingly) validated ... what's amazing is how many of us learn to function (or seem to function) *despite* how messed up society still is.
- JC, NM, and ILV like this.
- JC: Thank you for sharing this, Kirsten. So much good information here. I think the first part of the article helps explain why--as I have been told and as I have read--what is erotic for a woman can change from one day to the next, and why that should be respected. How wonderful it would be if this were required reading for both women and men in all colleges and universities!
- KR: JC -- or high school, frankly . I'm planning to teach my kids a lot deeper biology of female reproductive health than I ever got in school ... not least because I want none of them to ever think "hormones" make women dismissable : P. This article had a more positive-action spin I thought ... I could really see how to show "next positive steps" (rather than a more basic "don't be an ass, nor accept jerkishness from others" ... I always look for how to be part of the solution, not just part of the revolution ).
Sep 27 2013 Fb status: Americans are "WEIRD"
This is intellectually yummy, incredible,
awesome, and a giant DUH, all at the same time. It is also sooooo long
that I haven't quite gotten through it, but even partway through, quite
useful.
Thank you, Travis :).
www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/
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Thank you, Travis :).
www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/
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Sep 5 2013 Fb status: on learning cursive
On learning cursive:
In reply to a Friend's FbShare of the modern curriculum question, is learning cursive handwriting nowadays a waste of time? ... the end gets a little intuitive and probably doesn't qualify as a sentence, but I think this level of "educating the whole child"/"integrated education" be considered:
The Waldorf Ed folks have a whole neurological/pedagogical set of assertions about learning cursive ... among other things, it is a kinetic help to children in learning to literally string together the letter-sounds, and then the words-into-visible-sentences/
In reply to a Friend's FbShare of the modern curriculum question, is learning cursive handwriting nowadays a waste of time? ... the end gets a little intuitive and probably doesn't qualify as a sentence, but I think this level of "educating the whole child"/"integrated education" be considered:
The Waldorf Ed folks have a whole neurological/pedagogical set of assertions about learning cursive ... among other things, it is a kinetic help to children in learning to literally string together the letter-sounds, and then the words-into-visible-sentences/
- JZ, AZL, and RB like this.
- TL: Russians learn it at a young age and many from what I've seen, it's often impeccable. As well I'm often envious. When observing them writing they seem very full of intent and thought. I'm pro cursive.
- NE: Better off learning to type. By far the majority of my text is typed. Watch a typist type and tell me they don't string together the letters. Just my two-cents...
- RB: In order to be graduated from high-school, I had to successfully take a semester of public speaking (at which I was dreadful, until I discovered acting Shakespeare a year later) and a semester of personal typing, at which I was a natural, because, as a classmate pointed out, I'd been playing the piano since I was 4. Let's add music to the required curriculum! (I had at least one English teacher who required that all assignments be handwritten, in cursive; she was the one who introduced me to Shakespeare by having her students memorize and deliver speeches from his plays when we needed extra credit. To this day, I could go on as the Priest in Romeo & Juliet.)
- KR: NE: typing is not excluded, this is not an either/or proposition ... the stringing together of letters in typing would be (is) much more like the knitting, though. It lacks the visceral, indeed inescapable, connectiveness that learning to see and then to express oneself in cursive opens in the mind. I would argue that the latter type of [thinking]/[experiencing the world] is sorely, sorely needed by humanity ... and that the younger our children learn it/the more they are supported in not losing what many say they are born with, that better ...
- KR: RB, the Waldorf curriculum assumes music as such a fundamental need for human learning that it is woven into and across all subjects and also is given its own focussed time, both chorally and on wind instruments (and, in schools with adequate funding, on string instruments as well) ... so, yes :). While I don't hang with my Waldorf homies about everything, the attempt to integrate human learning capabilities is the strongest I have yet run into.
- NE: Hmmm, while you describe a beautiful experience, I'm not sure that can really describe everyone's experience learning cursive. And what's not visceral about typing? The tippity-tap of a great idea being carved from light and electricity? I can barely write in cursive, but can still see the connectivity of the world, the grace and flow of language like leaves in a late-autumn stream. And it IS an either or thing, if you're inside learning cursive, print and typing, you're not outside exploring the connectivity of the world or in the music room stringing together notes (perhaps you view cursive to thought as many view music to math). School is a time of opportunities, and yet every opportunity taken is at the cost of another lost. Time is a finite quantity, we should spend our children's wisely (and I argue, not on cursive :-P). My two-cents, and sending good thoughts to you and the kiddos.
- KR: On an amusing Shakespeare/cursive juncture ... anyone who wants to retain proper cursive skillz should NOT ever try to imitate The Bard. I used to have beautiful cursive handwriting, until for a graphic art assignment I taught myself to copy his style. Of course it's rampantly mechanically efficient (although quite tricky to parse unless you already know English), because he wrote all those plays (and all of the sides the actors worked from) by hand (the only way to try to keep them out of the hands of publishers, in the era before copyright). My writing has never been the same, and several of my shorthand marks are cribbed from the master ;) ...
- KR: thank you, :) NE :). We must recall that in the end I am a firm Unschooling advocate, and as far as I am concerned trapping any child (much less all children) in a curriculum or even a classroom is at best morally questionable and probably essentially unethical. Free public school? alright, and probably a good thing as long as it's understood by everyone involved to be a resource ... compulsory "education"? not so much. As I co-parent with a man who does not trust the assertions of Unschooling, and probably still doesn't trust me to homeschool his children, I sought a curriculum and a place to institutionalize my children that would (1) do them the least harm and (2) do them as much good as a forced institution might do. So, yes, there is opportunity cost. But I think kids will generally learn to do the obvious things (nowadays: type), and might miss the things our modern world makes less obvious (cursive).
And I didn't mean typing wasn't visceral, nor that the thoughts worked through via typing couldn't be connective. But cursive is *viscerally connective* -- it cannot be avoided -- and indeed, even the motion of one hand (with the pen) from the right to the left of the page sparks a different (not better) type of cross-brain processing than the typing of two hands on a keyboard (with little or no crossing of the visual/physical midline, if one types 'correctly' ;) ). It is essentially like being a polyglot ... learning to think, perceive, and process the world we live in through a really quite different lens, while still coping with the same material or ideas, is a good thing for our brains (and, in the macro, for all of humanity and then, presumably, since we are one aspect within them, all of the world/universe). - KR: awwhell, I have stayed up all night again. #reversedsleepschedule ... at least I got the laundry done ...
- KR: gonna catch a couple of winks before I get the kids up for school, but I look forward to coming back to see what folks said/see here :)
- NE: I agree with everything in your above comment, and if it means anything, I'd let you teach my children anytime... now, go to sleep, perchance to dream. :)
- RB: Wow..."O brave new world that has such people in it!" Y'all bolster my hope for humanity (Mrknz in particular), and I thank you!
- SGH: An article in the Wall Street Journal described how, by using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers found that writing by hand helped with learning letters and shapes, could improve idea composition and expression, and aid fine motor-skill development. Another study demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.How Handwriting Trains the Brain, Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2010
- KR: NE: aww :), thanks -- but I'm actually a pretty crap "teacher," much more along the lines of you taking your kids on a hike every day and just seeing what happens ... I guess that makes me an OK adult ;). And at least one of my kids is doing their darnedest to never learn cursive, sigh ... ;P. RB: :). SGH: YAY! You still had the article on hand :). I hadn't retained that, thanks :).
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