The Veganza Diaries

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:30:22 +0930

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

- Sylvia Plath

5 examples of how the languages we speak can affect the way we think.

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:24:52 +0930

5 examples of how the languages we speak can affect the way we think.:

divineirony:

To say, “This is my uncle,” in Chinese, you have no choice but to encode more information about said uncle. The language requires that you denote the side the uncle is on, whether he’s related by marriage or birth and, if it’s your father’s brother, whether he’s older or younger.

“All of this information is obligatory. Chinese doesn’t let me ignore it,” says Chen. “In fact, if I want to speak correctly, Chinese forces me to constantly think about it.”

This got Chen wondering: Is there a connection between language and how we think and behave? In particular, Chen wanted to know: does our language affect our economic decisions?

Chen designed a study — which he describes in detail in this blog post — to look at how language might affect individual’s ability to save for the future. According to his results, it does — big time.

While “futured languages,” like English, distinguish between the past, present and future, “futureless languages,” like Chinese, use the same phrasing to describe the events of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Using vast inventories of data and meticulous analysis, Chen found that huge economic differences accompany this linguistic discrepancy. Futureless language speakers are 30 percent more likely to report having saved in any given year than futured language speakers. (This amounts to 25 percent more savings by retirement, if income is held constant.) Chen’s explanation: When we speak about the future as more distinct from the present, it feels more distant — and we’re less motivated to save money now in favor of monetary comfort years down the line.

But that’s only the beginning. There’s a wide field of research on the link between language and both psychology and behavior. Here, a few fascinating examples:

Navigation and Pormpuraawans
In Pormpuraaw, an Australian Aboriginal community, you wouldn’t refer to an object as on your “left” or “right,” but rather as “northeast” or “southwest,” writes Stanford psychology professor Lera Boroditsky (and an expert in linguistic-cultural connections) in the Wall Street Journal. About a third of the world’s languages discuss space in these kinds of absolute terms rather than the relative ones we use in English, according to Boroditsky. “As a result of this constant linguistic training,” she writes, “speakers of such languages are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes.” On a research trip to Australia, Boroditsky and her colleague found that Pormpuraawans, who speak Kuuk Thaayorre, not only knew instinctively in which direction they were facing, but also always arranged pictures in a temporal progression from east to west.

Blame and English Speakers
In the same article, Boroditsky notes that in English, we’ll often say that someone broke a vase even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers tend to say that the vase broke itself. Boroditsky describes a study by her student Caitlin Fausey in which English speakers were much more likely to remember who accidentally popped balloons, broke eggs, or spilled drinks in a video than Spanish or Japanese speakers. (Guilt alert!) Not only that, but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims, Boroditsky argues.

Color among Zuñi and Russian Speakers
Our ability to distinguish between colors follows the terms in which we describe them, as Chen notes in the academic paper in which he presents his research (forthcoming in the American Economic Review; PDF here). A 1954 study found that Zuñi speakers, who don’t differentiate between orange and yellow, have trouble telling them apart. Russian speakers, on the other hand, have separate words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). According to a 2007 study, they’re better than English speakers at picking out blues close to the goluboy/siniy threshold.

Gender in Finnish and Hebrew
In Hebrew, gender markers are all over the place, whereas Finnish doesn’t mark gender at all, Boroditsky writes in Scientific American (PDF). A study done in the 1980s found that, yup, thought follows suit: kids who spoke Hebrew knew their own genders a year earlier than those who grew up speaking Finnish. (Speakers of English, in which gender referents fall in the middle, were in between on that timeline, too.)

veganpizzafuckyeah: SFIZY VEG VEGAN SPAGHETTERIA...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:22:46 +0930

veganpizzafuckyeah:

SFIZY VEG VEGAN SPAGHETTERIA PIZZERIA!

Add to travel plans.

Thrones be damned. But I would totes watch Game Of Cats.

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:20:23 +0930

Thrones be damned. But I would totes watch Game Of Cats.

animalstalkinginallcaps: WERE THERE REALLY SO MANY AWESOME...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 05:45:29 +0930

animalstalkinginallcaps:

WERE THERE REALLY SO MANY AWESOME FEMALE MUSICIANS IN THE ‘90S THAT THEY HAD TO MAKE A FESTIVAL JUST FOR THEM?

OH, ABSOLUTELY, AND THAT WAS JUST FOR THE SORT OF EASILY PALATABLE MAINSTREAM “CHICK ROCK” WITH THE WIDEST APPEAL. YOU STILL HAD PJ HARVEY AND BJÖRK AND PORTISHEAD RUNNING AROUND, NOT TO MENTION GARBAGE AND ELASTICA AND THAT WHOLE SCENE, PLUS THERE WAS A HUGE RIOT GRRRRL THING HAPPENING IN THE UNDERGROUND. THEN YOU HAD YOUR CAT POWER AND SLEATER-KINNEY AND WHATNOT FOR THE SUB POP SET. THAT’S STILL NOT REALLY SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF IT ALL. THERE WERE TRIP HOP VOCALISTS, TORI AMOS AND HER PIANOS, ALANIS MORISSETTE’S NEVERENDING SUPPLY OF HAIR, COURTNEY LOVE’S ONE-WOMAN WRECKING BALL ACT, GWEN STEFANI’S ABS … A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK EDDIE VEDDER WAS A GUY, BUT THAT ‘S NOT TRUE. SHE JUST HAD A FAIRLY DEEP VOICE. AND THESE WERE ACTUAL MUSICIANS, NOT JUST POP STARLETS. ACROSS ALL DIFFERENT GENRES. IT WAS CRAZY. BASICALLY, IT WAS LIKE THAT TIDAL WAVE AT THE END OF THE ABYSS, ONLY MADE OF ESTROGEN.

THAT SOUNDS AMAZING.

IT WAS, HONEY. IT REALLY WAS.

CAPS-ANIMALS KNOW THEIR 90S LAYDEE MUSIC YEY

"Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great..."

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:43:01 +0930

“Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.”

- Twelfth Night: Act I, Scene 3

bornofsaltandsmoke: scooby-dooby-who: pizzaforpresident: creeds-thoughts: I like how America is...

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 15:27:12 +0930

bornofsaltandsmoke:

scooby-dooby-who:

pizzaforpresident:

creeds-thoughts:

I like how America is freaking out like “AHHH SAME SEX MARRIAGE AHH TAXED HEALTH CARE OMG AHHHHHH!!! THE WORLD WILL BURN!!” and literally right next to them is their most similar country doing perfect with both of those things like it’s a no-brainer.

what the hell is that beaver doing

quietly reveling in its stable economy.

Lolmerica.

More Addam’s Family fun.

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 15:25:12 +0930

More Addam’s Family fun.

Happy trails. Noice.

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 13:42:30 +0930

Happy trails. Noice.

"What’s the weather like out there? “It’s hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things..."

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 13:37:27 +0930

“

What’s the weather like out there?

“It’s hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.”

Well, can you tell me what it feels like.

“Fool, it’s hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It’s damn hot! I saw - It’s so damn hot, I saw little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It’s that hot! Do you know what I’m talking about.”

What do you think it’s going to be like tonight?

“It’s gonna be hot and wet! That’s nice if you’re with a lady, but it ain’t no good if you’re in the jungle.”

”

- Good Morning Vietnam/Christmas In Darwin

10 Reasons Why The Addams Family Is Awesome(ly Feminist)

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 08:48:02 +0930

Perhaps. Interesting, at least.

soapboxinggeek:

1. Anjelica Huston was 40 when she played Morticia. Considering that it’s very hard for women over 40 (who aren’t A-listers) to get lead parts, that’s already a milestone. But she’s also sexy. Incredibly sexy. Yes, she’s playing the mother of a pair of preteens, but she appears immaculately (and eerily) beautiful in every scene she’s in. How often do we see a mother character who is genuinely sexy?

2. Morticia and Gomez Addams are famously in love with each other. What set the 1960s series apart from all other sitcoms was that this was a married couple who were crazy about each other, instead of fighting. In the film, this tradition of their great love affair continues. There are no mother-in-law jokes, both take responsibility in raising the children, and have a very healthy sex life. So many stories have the love story end at marriage, or have the couple grow to loathe each other over time. Just think of it - a loving marriage was groundbreaking.

3. Addams Family Values explicitly challenges conformist WASPs at the Summer Camp that Wednesday and Pugsley stay at. The siblings absolutely refuse to compromise themselves and pretend to be happy or to enjoy sickeningly sappy things (like Annie the musical). The camp counsellors show favouritism to the traditionally attractive blonde white rich kids, and it’s made quite obvious how hateful and hypocritical they really are. At the end of the movie, Wednesday and the other “outcasts” (meaning everyone remotely considered a minority) deliberately sabotage the counsellors’ tremendously racist Thanksgiving play by symbolically enacting revenge for the genocide that Native Americans suffered at the hands of white people.

4. Despite the Addamses having both a boy and a girl child (at least in the first film), it is the girl that gets the good parts. That doesn’t happen very often at all - other examples of media that have a male and female sibling almost always emphasize the brother. Christina Ricci’s sarcastic and deadpan portrayal of Wednesday is one of the highlights of an already perfectly cast set of films. It contrasts sharply with the cheerful Wednesday from the TV version, but I can’t be the only one longing for more sardonic brunette girls in family movies…who aren’t the villains.

5. The climax of The Addams Family seemingly has a damsel-in-distress situation…except that it’s been turned on its head. Morticia…enjoys…being tied up and tortured. Yep kiddies, here’s your first introduction to bondage and BDSM! It’s played for laughs of course, as it always is, but notice that when Gomez and Morticia discuss her predicament, it’s with absolute passion. Their kinkiness is just another aspect of their already healthy sex life. And in the end, the damsel-in-distress isn’t really in distress at all! Sure, she needed to be untied, but Morticia was definitely not in any danger.

Read More

“Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife -...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 08:33:18 +0930

“Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for Peace on Earth.” - David Coats, Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm

"Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists..."

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:23:07 +0930

“Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

"The event “occurred as a result of predominantly strike-slip faulting at intermediate depths..."

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:33:53 +0930

“

The event “occurred as a result of predominantly strike-slip faulting at intermediate depths (170 km) near the complex plate boundary between the Australia and Sunda plates in the eastern Banda Sea,” according to the United States Geological Survey website.

“At the location of this earthquake, the Australia plate moves towards the north-northeast with respect to Sunda at a velocity of approximately 76 mm/yr.

“Motion between the two plates is dominantly convergent, and sections of the Australia plate have subducted beneath Sunda; the earthquake likely represents faulting within the interior of that subducted slab.”

”

- Last night’s earthquake - http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/12/11/315781_ntnews.html

How to Make a Baby by photographer Patrice Laroche and Sandra...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:18:11 +0930

How to Make a Baby by photographer Patrice Laroche and Sandra Denis, the mother of his new baby daughter Justine.

ROFL! Yo wishin it were so easy to make a baybeh.

coerulescens: Can we just take a second to appreciate that the...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:14:23 +0930

coerulescens:

Can we just take a second to appreciate that the smart, non-white, female person who is the main character of this (very funny) show called out her white male co-workers for not actually apologizing after they were assholes.

And then took $10 from one of them.

And then [not pictured] they actually did apologize with the words “I’m sorry.”

Loved it.

Documentary: Sex, Death and The Meaning of Life

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:58:48 +0930

Alice, 3yo: Who's that?
Mummy: That's Richard Dawkins.
A: What does he do?
M: He's a scientist. He knows lots about animals and also about religion.
A: Is that why he's telling us to be happy?
M: Yes. The hidden message is "be happy now." Good point.

Glargh.

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:46:36 +0930

Glargh.

getoutoftherecat: get out of there cats. this is not film...

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:45:13 +0930

getoutoftherecat:

get out of there cats. this is not film noir.

Le chat noir! <3

Teach children mindfulness… and then… ? ( links...

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:44:10 +0930

Teach children mindfulness… and then… ?

( links to post about Vipassana by SN Goenka at dhamma.org )