Vertical Farming

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Diss Tracks on Tap

A new Truth Procedures category coming straight at y'all:

First an explanation for the hip-hop averse (from wiki)

A diss track or diss song is a song primarily intended to disparage or attack another person or group. While musical parodies and attacks have always existed, the trend became an increasingly common in the hip hop genre as part of the hip hop rivalry phenomenon.

And without further ado, here are five hot tracks for your earpiece:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iYw2CLtww_A

Royce da 5'9 featuring Tre Little: Malcolm X

for those of you who think Hit 'em Up is as gritty and street as they come, here is the real shit coming straight from Rock City. While it got little to no national exposure, Malcolm X hit Eminem and D12 exactly where a diss track is supposed to - it wrecked their street rep in Detroit and became an instant local classic.

Best line: 'Cause he's in it, Bizarre say G-g-g-g-g-g-unit
I bet you throw some extra "g's" in it
Just like a stutterin' fool, can't reach intelligence
He sweats when he raps, cuz he got a speach impediment

Snoop Dogg: Pimp Slapp'd

One of about a million Suge Knight disses, but by far the best. Snoop rides a classic G-funk beat and attacks Suge in what is usually considered his strong point - his tough-guy street image.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBDIMkE3Qeg

Best line: You so hardcore/why ain't you go to level 4/oh I know/but I walk the main line every time I go down/you can check my G files/I do it L-B-C style

Nas: Don't Body Ya Self

50 Cent is the archetypal studio thug, with the additional annoying tendency to start a high profile beef whenever his record sales go South. Recognizing this, Nas responded to 50's constant shit talking with a wax funeral that didn't even mention his name.

Best line(s): Niggas don't want beef, they vegetarian/Scared of pussy you climbed out of Caesarean

and they want to know why I don't have an answer for niggas/its because I truly understand these niggas/scared of me so they point out family members/like I can't point out somebody's grandma to niggas

Royce da 5'9: Who got Bodied

Royce is the reigning king of beef on wax. When a little known Oakland MC named Mistah Fab won a freestyle battle with Royce, he made the mistake of repeatedly mentioning it on his tracks. Royce took it to the tracks, and came up with perhaps the most ridiculous diss in history. Clocking in at a solid 7 minutes 25 seconds, Royce ridicules Fab's style, his attempts to use Royce's name to get famous, and his claims to know 'real detroit rappers' (Fab named 3 crews from detroit that he was supposedly tight with, and Who Got Bodied includes samples of them on the phone with Royce saying that they don't know or want to know Fab). The industry fears Royce, and this is why.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=izUa_m9IrDY

Best Line(s): im'a sound off/this nigga's a clown y'all/50 niggas with him jerry curls poppin out of clown cars/show's over bozo...

you about to get shot up like a cap gun at a racetrack

KRS 1: Ova Here

For some ridiculous, possibly psychadelically influenced reason, Nelly (yes THAT nelly) felt the need to step up to Chris. No real sick lines in this, just a call to arms to real hip hop heads. I haven't seen or heard shit from Nelly since this dropped, so it probably did the trick.

best line(s):
You better Chillout like Chuck, I kick like three Norrises
One of my sixteen bar rhymes is eight of your choruses

Does it matter to you? My crew
If it does, you know what the hell to do
Throw your guns in the air, pump it like yeah
Let these bitch ass rappers know we in here
Go to the shows huh, boo 'em off stage
Tell 'em KRS told you they at the end of they days
Let me tell you let's give hip hop a lift
And don't buy Nelly's album on June twenty fifth

Running Dogs Unable to Swim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7480026.stm

Forty police officers are feared drowned in eastern India after a police motor boat capsized after coming under attack from a suspected Maoist rebels.

More than 50 members of an elite anti-insurgency force were aboard the boat, which was patrolling the Chitrakonda reservoir in Orissa state.

The suspected rebels - who have been fighting the Indian government for decades - opened fire from a hilltop.

Eight of the officers managed to swim to the shore, but 40 are still missing.

A local Superintendent of Police, Satish Kumar Gajbhiye, told the BBC there were about 60 men on the boat - four of them, including two drivers of the motor launch, from the Orissa police force. The rest were from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Four of the survivors had gunshot injuries and were being treated in hospital, he added.

A rescue operation involving fire brigade personnel and helicopters has been launched.

But the BBC's Sandeep Sahu says that the water level in the sprawling reservoir is about 40m (131ft), and there is little chance of any survivors being found.

He adds that the incident is one of the biggest setbacks for security forces fighting insurgents in the thickly forested border areas of Andhra Pradesh, long considered a safe haven for the Maoists.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist uprising as the biggest internal security threat the country faces.

contd...

Cambodian Freedom Fighters:

from wiki:
The Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF), (Khmer: Cholana Kangtoap Serei Cheat Kampuchea) is an anti-Communist political and paramilitary organization that was established in October 21, 1989, by its founder Chhun Yasith at Poipet near the Cambodian-Thai border. Their headquarters are in Long Beach, California, United States. It was incorporated and registered at the California Secretary of State's office as a political organization in June 1999, aims "to fight against communists to protect the interests of Cambodian people."

The Cambodian Freedom Fighters claim to have 500 members in the United States and up to 20,000 supporters in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

On November 24, 2000, a Cambodian Freedom Fighters team of about seventy (CFF) agents slipped into the center of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. Armed with B-40 rockets and assault rifles, they moved swiftly toward the Defence Ministry building and a military barracks. They attacked the Ministry of Defense and the Council of Ministers, peppering them with fire, then turned their weapons on a local television station and a nearby military base. State security forces engaged the group in a fierce firefight that lasted more than an hour, leaving bullet holes in ministry offices and blood pooled in the street. By daybreak, eight people lay dead. In the wake of the violence, more than 200 people, including Richard Kiri Kim, were arrested by the Cambodian police.

On June 22, 2001, the Cambodian Criminal Court handed down their verdict on the Cambodian Freedom Fighters attack of November 24, 2000. An Mao, Nou Saron, and three Cambodian-Americans: Richard Kiri Kim, Thong Samien, and Chhun Yasith were sentenced to life in prison on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Chhun Yasith and Thong Samien were tried in absentia.

Twenty-four other men and one woman were found guilty of various charges and given prison terms ranging from three to 20 years. Among them were two prominent former Khmer Rouge commanders, Seng Narin and Tumlap Mil, who each received 15 years in prison.

Government of a Free Vietnam:

History

The Government of Free Vietnam is an anti-communist paramilitary and political organization that was established on April 30, 1995, by its founder Nguyen Hoang Dan. Its headquarters are in Garden Grove, California. The organization's goal is to remove the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, either politically or militarily.

In 1995, Nguyen Huu Chanh was chosen as the Prime Minister, General Linh Quang Vien as Vice Prime Minister, Admiral Lam Nguon Tanh as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nguyen Khac Chinh as the Minister of Information, Nguyen Huy Dau as Minister of Justice, Nguyen Son Ha as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Edgar Foshee as Chairman of the International Committee, and Ngo Trong Anh as President of the advisory council.

The Government of Free Vietnam claims 6,000 members and 100,000 supporters who were trained in secret camp locations along the Vietnamese/Cambodian border. They also claim 75 chapters in Asia, Australia, and Europe. Although the GFVN prides itself on its widespread support, many argue that the GFVN never received a true mandate to represent the Vietnamese diaspora community.

They claim to have a base of operations in KC-702, a secret base along the border between Vietnam and Cambodia.^{[citation needed]} Some community members also do not condone the organization's political and paramilitary actions. The doubt and disassociation some have towards the GFVN was either initiated or reinforced by a fundraiser failure.

In July of 1998, 'Prime Minister' Nguyen Huu Chanh was ordered by the California Department of Corporations to cease the marketing of "gold reserve depository bearer bonds." Chanh and other members were selling gold bonds to supporters without a permit, which is illegal under Californian law. The authenticity of the bonds and their investment promises were also held suspect by the California Commissioner of Corporations, Dale E. Bonner.

In 1999, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that the 'Government of Free Vietnam' had engaged in false and misleading sales tactics.

The Government of Free Vietnam (GFVN) says the political goals of the organization are to:

1. dismantle the Communist dictatorship of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam by a peaceful, practical and persistent approach;
2. establish a free and fair elected government of Vietnam;
3. establish a practical free market economic system; and
4. prohibit all forms of provocation.

In September 2000, the Government of Free Vietnam was alleged to be involved in arson at the Vietnamese Embassy compound in London, England.

In April 2001, the Government of Free Vietnam was alleged to have caused a bomb to explode at the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, injuring a guard.

In September 2001, Philippine police charged three suspected members for allegedly plotting to bomb the Vietnamese embassy in Manila, they suspected that the Government of Free Vietnam was involved.

In October 2001, The Government of Free Vietnam gained greater attention when a member, Vo Duc Van, was arrested at John Wayne Airport (Orange County Airport) for the attempted bombing of the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.

This arrest led to an outcry by the Communist Vietnamese government to pressure the United States to shutdown the Government of Free Vietnam and led to FBI investigations into Nguyen Huu Chanh and the organization, and demonstrations in support of Vo Duc Van from Vietnamese American communities.

Recently, three US citizens were arrested in Vietnam for plotting to set up an anti-communist broadcast station within the country.

Jewish Task Force:

The Jewish Task Force (Hebrew: הימין האמיתי, HaYamin HaAmiti, lit. "The Real Right Wing") is a Kahanist organization in the United States that raises money for the claimed purpose of funding radical right-wing Jewish groups in Israel,^[1] puts on television programs through local-access cable and runs a website with the stated goal of saving Israel, America, and The West.^[1] JTF is run by the former national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, Victor Vancier, who is also commonly known as Chaim Ben Pesach, and previously as Chaim Ben Yosef. In October of 1987, he was sentenced to 10 years in Federal prison for taking part in a series of terrorist bombings in the New York area since 1984 to protest Soviet treatment of Jews.^[2][3][4] The group defines itself as "fighting to save America and Israel from Islamic terrorism."^[1] Unlike most Kahanist organizations, which take positions only on issues related to Israel, JTF also has an American agenda; it wishes to stop what it calls the "Third World invasion of America"^[1] and is against America becoming what it calls a "Third World banana republic".^[1] JTF's messages have also caused it to be condemned for alleged racism,^[5][6] and has been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.^[7]

Partial list of terrorists and terror groups currently being funded, supported or sheltered by the US government

Posada-Carilles, Luis:

A militant right-wing Cuban exile, Posada-Carriles was one of the masterminds of the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 in which 73 people were killed. He also conspired, often with Orlando Bosch (see below) to commit a series of bombing attacks both in Havana and throughout Latin America. Posada-Carilles is wanted in Venezuela, but the US refuses to extradite, claiming he may face torture.

Bosch, Orlando:

Carilles major partner in crime and a founding member of CORU, Bosch has been involved in a series of terrorist attacks, including one on US soil (he fired a rocket at a Havana-bound Polish Cruiser in docked in Miami). Bosch and Posada-Carriles were also involved in Operation Condor, and most likely masterminded the assassination of Orlando Letelier in cooperation with Chile's military dictatorship.

Pao, Vang:

One of the bloodiest warlords and most successful opium dealers of the twentieth century, Vang Pao was a CIA asset during the Secret War in Laos. Besides colluding with the CIA in dropping millions of landmines and delayed-explosion bombs throughout the Laotian countryside and selling millions of dollars worth of opium to American soldiers in Vietnam, Mr Pao has also been busy stateside. According to Prof. Alfred McCoy, who has spent literally decades cataloging Pao's misdeeds, he was complicit in "summary executions of enemy captives, fraudulent collection of funds from Hmong-Americans to support his "resistance" to the Lao government, forced conscription of child soldiers, and drug trafficking." Pao was arrested recently on conspiracy charges related to Operation Tarnished Eagle, an alleged plot to destroy a series of buildings in downtown Vientiane, which would likely have killed thousands. He is currently out on bail, despite warnings that he is a major flight risk and capable of having prosecution witnesses killed.

more later

Free Binayak Sen!

Jailed Indian doctor's trial to go on despite outcry: govt

10 minutes ago

NEW DELHI (AFP) — An Indian state government battling a Maoist insurgency said Saturday it will press ahead with the trial of a prominent doctor accused of rebel links despite a campaign by Nobel laureates to free him.

Binayak Sen, who has been charged under a law criminalising dealings with unlawful organisations, denies accusations that he smuggled out letters from an imprisoned Maoist whom he treated in a central Indian jail.

Chhattisgarh state said it would proceed with the case against the paediatrician and rights activist known for working with India's poor and who has already spent more than a year in prison despite an international outcry.

"Why would the prosecution register a case against him if there was no evidence of his involvement (with the Maoists)," the government's chief spokesman N. Baijendra Kumar told AFP by phone from state capital Raipur.

"We have a judicial system in this country and it will decide what to do," Kumar said.

Earlier this month, 22 Nobel laureates wrote to the Indian government asking it to free 56-year-old Sen, who has been vocal in criticising the state government over tactics it has used in fighting the Maoists.

On Thursday, Sen's wife received the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in Washington on his behalf after Indian judicial authorities refused to let him collect the honour in person.

Sen is accused of taking letters out of prison for an incarcerated Maoist leader whom he visited several times.

The doctor insists he could not have taken out any letters because he was always accompanied by jail personnel when he visited the rebels to administer medical treatment.

Activists say Sen is being punished for criticising the government's backing of a controversial anti-Maoist campaign as well as efforts by the government to get tribal people to leave mineral-rich forest areas to boost development.

The Maoist insurgency grew out of a peasant uprising in 1967 and has spread to half of India's 29 states, with Chhattisgarh the worst hit.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of landless farmers and poor tribals in the state, which is one of India's poorest.

"Binayak believes unless we try to change the world it will never change, and he is even now paying the price for following this principle," Sen's wife Ilina said in an acceptance speech at the Jonathan Mann Award ceremony.

"The resources of the world are for us all to share," she said in the speech.

She attributed the violence partly to the Indian government's failure to include hundreds of millions of poor people in the country's economic boom.

These are "basically the problems of non-inclusive growth," Ilina said.

But authorities blame the rebels for a lack of facilities in the region as the Maoists often destroy roads and electricity stations.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and are living in temporary state-run shelters because of fear of Maoist violence, according to officials.

"Around 270 of our policemen have been killed by these rebels. Nobody talks about their human rights violations," said a senior state government official who did not want to be identified.

When we make them fight, ese always wins

In honor of the mighty rabbit Henry, king Pimp of the South Side of Chicago - an open thread. Please avail yourself to the comments section to post the toughest pictures of rabbits you can find. Bad-ass bunnies only, plz.

Cultural history of Penis Panic

Interesting article, I'll try to read the full text soon. The authors have found instances of European penis panic as late as the middle ages, and draw the important connection between koro, potency and the ego-ideal. Check it out:

The aim of this article is to present a summarizing overview on ethnomedical aspects of koro (in Chinese called suo-yang), the panic anxiety state in which affected males believe that the penis is shrinking and/or retracting, and perhaps disappearing. While reduction of penile volume occurs physiologically due to vasoconstriction in cold temperature and intense anxiety, it is believed in certain cultures that genital shrinking leads to impotence and sterility, and eventually to death. Traditional Chinese medicine treats suo-yang, the reduction of the male principle yang, as a dangerous disturbance of the life-sustaining yin-yang equilibrium of the organism. Koro has therefore been held to be a Chinese "culture-bound" condition. However , the koro phenomenon is also known among diverse ethnic and religious groups in Asia and Africa, typically in cultures in which reproductive ability is a major determinant of a young person's worth. Koro epidemics of panic anxiety due to widespread fears of losing one's genitals, procreative ability, and even one's life, are triggered by rumors of genital disappearance supposedly caused in China by female fox spirits, in Singapore and Thailand by mass poisoning, and in Africa by sorcery, usually in the context of socioeconomic or political tension. Today, in contemporary Western societies, ideas of genital disappearance are not culturally endorsed. But historically, it should be remembered that in the late Middle Ages in Europe, a man could lose his membrum virile through magical attacks by witches. The conclusion is that the psychological disappearance of the penis is a universal syndrome that was described recently in Asia and Africa and already in Medieval Europe.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2008) — Investors get carried away with excitement and wishful ‘phantasies’ as the stock market soars, suppressing negative emotions which would otherwise warn them of the high risk of what they are doing, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London). Economic models fail to factor in the emotions and unconscious mental life that drive human behaviour in conditions where the future is uncertain says the study, which argues that banks and financial institutions should be as wary of ‘emotional inflation’ as they are fiscal inflation.

---

See also:

Mind & Brain

• Consumer Behavior
• Psychiatry
• Anxiety
• Disorders and Syndromes
• Relationships
• Psychology

Reference

• Inferiority complex
• Illusion of control
• Ego psychology
• Anger management

The paper, published in this month’s issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, explores how unconscious mental life should be integrated into economic decision-making models, where emotions and ‘phantasies’ – unconscious desires, drives and motives – are among the driving forces behind market bubbles and bursts.

Visiting Professor David Tuckett, UCL Psychoanalysis Unit, says: “Feelings and unconscious ‘phantasies’ are important; it is not simply a question of being rational when trading. The market is dominated by rational and intelligent professionals, but the most attractive investments involve guesses about an uncertain future and uncertainty creates feelings. When there are exciting new investments whose outcome is unsure, the most professional investors can get caught up in the ‘everybody else is doing it, so should I’ wave which leads first to underestimating, and then after panic and the burst of a bubble, to overestimating the risks of an investment.

“Market investors’ relationships to their assets and shares are akin to love-hate relationships with our partners. Just as in a relationship where the future is unexpected, as the market fluctuates you have to be prepared to suffer uncertainty and anxiety and go through good times and bad times with your shares. You can adopt one of two frames of mind. In one, the depressive, individuals can be aware of their love and hate and gradually learn to trust and bear anxiety. In the other, the paranoid schizoid, the anxiety is not tolerated and has to be detached, so the object of love is idealised while its potential for disappointment is ‘split’ off and made unconscious.

“What happens in a bubble is that investors detach themselves from anxiety and lose touch with being cautious. More or less rationalised wishful thinking then allows them to take on much more risk than they actually realise, something about which they feel ashamed and persecuted, but rarely genuinely guilty, when a bubble bursts. Again, like falling in idealised love, at first you notice only the best qualities of your beloved, but when everything becomes real you become deflated and it is the flaws and problems that persecute you and which you blame.

“Lack of understanding of the vital role of emotion in decision-making, and the typical practices of financial institutions, make it difficult to contain emotional inflation and excessive risk-taking, particularly if it is innovative. Those who join a new and growing venture are rewarded and those who stay out are punished. Institutions and individuals don’t want to miss out and regulators are wary of stifling innovation. If other investors are doing it, clients might say ‘why aren’t you doing it too, because they’re making more money than we are’.”

‘Phantastic objects and the financial market’s sense of reality: A psychoanalytic contribution to the understanding of stock market instability’ by David Tuckett (UCL) and Richard Taffler (University of Edinburgh) is published in the April issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.

This research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. The Leverhulme Trust is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing funds of some £40 million every year. For the full list of award recipients and further information about all the schemes that the Leverhulme Trust offers please visit their website at http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk.

Just Say No

A Truth Procedures public service announcement about the dangers of cannabis sativa:

Department of Psychiatry, Athens General Hospital G. Gennimatas, Athens, Greece. ckalaitzi@yahoo.gr

The genital-shrinking syndrome is a transient state of acute anxiety characterized by the triad of a deep-seated fear of penile shrinkage, its disappearance into the abdomen, and apprehension regarding inevitable impotence or even death. It is also known by the Malayo-Indonesian term 'koro'. In the West, koro syndrome has been reported only in relation with various somatic, psychiatric and drug-induced disorders. The vast majority of non-psychiatric cases was related to neurological disorders or intoxication with cannabis or amphetamine. This is the first case of cannabis-induced koro-like syndrome ever reported in Greece. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

For the children.

Zizek on Tibet

What if China now is our past and future?
Tibet: dream and reality

The West is projecting not only its own spiritual fantasies upon Tibet, but its own economic fears upon China, imagining a power struggle quite different from that which has actually happened in Tibet. We have to learn to look at Tibet as it is – and China too.

By Slavoj Zizek

All the media reports impose an image which goes like this: the People’s Republic of China, which illegally occupied Tibet in 1950, engaged for decades in brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the identity of Tibetans as a free people. Recently the protests of the Tibetan people against Chinese occupation were again crushed with brutal police and military force. Since China is organising the 2008 Olympic games, it is the duty of all of us who love democracy and freedom to put pressure on China to return to the Tibetans what it stole from them. A country with such a dismal human rights record cannot be allowed to whitewash its image with the noble Olympic spectacle.

What are our governments going to do? Will they, as usual, cede to economic pragmatism, or will they gather the strength to put our highest ethical and political values above short-term economic interests? While the Chinese authorities did no doubt commit many acts of murderous terror and destruction in Tibet, some things disturb this simple “good guys versus bad guys” image. Here are nine points which anyone passing judgment on recent events in Tibet should bear in mind:

1. Tibet, an independent country until 1950, was not suddenly occupied by China. The history of its relations with China is long and complex, with China often acting as a protective overlord – the anti-Communist Kuomintang also insisted on Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. (The term “Dalai Lama” bears witness to this interaction: it combines the Mongolian dalai – ocean – and the Tibetan bla-ma.)

2. Before 1950 Tibet was no Shangri-la, but a country of harsh feudalism, poverty (life expectancy was barely 30), corruption and civil wars (the last, between two monastic factions, was in 1948 when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited any development of industry, so all metal had to be imported from India. This did not prevent the elite from sending their children to British schools in India and transferring financial assets to British banks there.

3. The Cultural Revolution which ravaged the Tibetan monasteries in the 1960s was not imported by the Chinese. Fewer than a hundred of the Red Guards came to Tibet with the revolution, and the young mobs burning the monasteries were almost exclusively Tibetan.

4. Since the early 1950s there has been systematic and substantial CIA involvement in stirring up anti-Chinese troubles in Tibet, so Chinese fears of external attempts to destabilise Tibet are not irrational (1).

5. As television images show, what is going on now in Tibetan regions is no longer a peaceful “spiritual” protest of monks as in Burma over the last year, but also gangs burning and killing ordinary Chinese immigrants and their stores. We should measure the Tibetan protests by the same standards as we measure other violent protests: if Tibetans can attack Chinese immigrants, why can’t the Palestinians do the same to the Israeli settlers on the West Bank?

6. The Chinese invested heavily in Tibetan economic development, as well as infrastructure, education and health services. Despite undeniable oppression, the average Tibetan has never enjoyed such a standard of living as today. Poverty is now worse in China’s own undeveloped western rural provinces than in Tibet.

7. In recent years the Chinese changed their strategy in Tibet: depoliticised religion is now tolerated, often even supported. The Chinese rely more on ethnic and economic colonisation, rapidly transforming Lhasa into a Chinese capitalist Wild West with karaoke bars and Disney-like “Buddhist theme parks” for western tourists. What the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers and policemen terrorising the Buddhist monks conceals is a far more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation. In a decade or two Tibetans will be reduced to the status of Native Americans in the United States.

It seems the Chinese Communists finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments, compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations? The Chinese are doing what the West has always done, as Brazil did in the Amazon or Russia in Siberia, and the US on its own western frontiers.

8. A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they don’t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism.

The philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote: “If you are snagged in another’s dream, you are lost.” The protesters against China are right to counter the Beijing Olympics motto of “one world, one dream” with “one world, many dreams”. But they should be aware that they are imprisoning Tibetans in their own dream. It is not the only dream.

9. If there is an ominous dimension to what is going on now in China, it is elsewhere. Faced with today’s explosion of capitalism in China, analysts often ask when political democracy, as the “natural” political accompaniment of capitalism, will come.

Valley of tears

In a television interview a couple of years ago, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf linked the growing distrust of democracy in post-Communist east European countries to the fact that, after every revolutionary change, the road to new prosperity leads through a valley of tears. After the breakdown of socialism, one cannot directly pass to the abundance of a successful market economy. The limited but real socialist welfare and security have to be dismantled, and these first steps are necessarily painful.

For Dahrendorf, this painful passage lasts longer than the average period between (democratic) elections, so that the temptation is great to postpone the difficult changes for the short-term electoral gains. Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, pointed out (2) that democracy can only catch on in economically developed countries: if developing countries are prematurely democratised, the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism. No wonder the three formerly third world countries that are the most successful economically – Taiwan, South Korea, Chile – embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule.

There is a further paradox: what if the promised democratic second stage that follows the authoritarian valley of tears never comes? This is the most unsettling thing about China. There is the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past, the repetition of the process of capitalist accumulation which in Europe went on from the 16th to the 18th century, but a sign of the future. What if the “vicious combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market” proves economically more efficient than our liberal capitalism? Might it signal that democracy, as we understand it, is no longer a condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle?

Rebels in Khartoum

Sudan shooting after rebel raid

There was heavy fighting in Khartoum's twin city, Omdurman

Shooting has been heard in two separate parts of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, following a raid by Darfur rebels.

Details are sketchy - in one incident a lot of shooting was heard and roads closed after security forces pursued a small group of suspected rebels.

There was also at least one arrest near the US embassy.

Sudan's Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi has been arrested and accused of links to the rebels, who on Saturday came close to the capital.

Mr Turabi's wife told the BBC that the soldiers who arrested him connected him to the weekend attack on Omdurman, the capital's twin city, just over the River Nile.

Mr Turabi denies any links to the Rebel Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) rebels but its leader used to be close to him - as did Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan says it has proof that neighbouring Chad backed the rebels.

The weekend attack was the closest the rebels have come to Khartoum during five years of fighting.

Hassan al-Turabi fell out with President Bashir in the 1990s

The authorities had said the rebels had been repulsed.

Jem leader Khalil Ibrahim says his group will launch more attacks on Khartoum.

"This is just the start of a process and the end is the termination of this regime," he told Reuters news agency by satellite phone.

He said he was speaking from Omdurman but this could not be independently verified.

Sudan's ambassador to the UN, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, told the BBC that captured rebels had identified Chadian officers killed during the assault.

Sudan has severed diplomatic ties with Chad, which denies any involvement.

A senior official said searches were under way in Khartoum for individuals thought to be insiders who may have helped the insurgents.

State television said earlier that at least 100 people had been arrested.

Reward

Mr Turabi's wife, Wisal al-Madhi, told the BBC's Network Africa programme that her husband had been away from the capital over the weekend.

She said he was arrested first thing on Monday morning.

"They had three cars full of soldiers and munitions and arms, and they took him to the prison in Khartoum North directly."

At least four other members of Mr Turabi's Popular Congress have also been arrested, party officials say.

Mr Turabi was Sudan's main Islamist ideologue in the 1990s before falling out with President Bashir. He has since been imprisoned several times.

Jem leader Khalil Ibrahim used to be one of his followers and retains an Islamist outlook.

Sudan has offered a reward of $125,000 (£64,000) for Mr Ibrahim's capture and information that leads to his arrest.

Chad said it regretted Sudan's "hasty decision" to break off diplomatic ties.

Jem has also denied being backed by Chad.

Oil targets

Senior Jem official Tahir el-Faki told the BBC that they had already exposed the government's weakness in the assault over the weekend.

He admitted that 45 rebels had been either killed or wounded in the heavy fighting.

JEM REBELS Founded by Darfuri Muslims loyal to Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi Led by lawyer Khalil Ibrahim Muhammad Believed to have up to 3,000 fighters Now said to have fragmented into several disparate groups Sudan's Darfur rebels Profile: Sudan's Islamist leader

But he said that as well as further attacks on Khartoum, they would also continue to target oil installations in South Kordofan province to cut off the government's main source of income.

On Saturday, Jem rebels said they had taken Omdurman and the Wadi Saidna air force base about 16km (10 miles) north of Khartoum, and entered the capital itself.

Omdurman residents said there had been more fighting on Sunday morning.

Experts say Chad and Sudan are fighting a proxy war using each other's rebels to achieve their military objectives.

Earlier this year, rebels reached Chad's capital N'Djamena, with Chad accusing Sudan of involvement.

The Jem is one of several rebel groups fighting the government and pro-government Janjaweed militia in the western Darfur region since 2003 over alleged discrimination by the authorities in favour of Arabs.

The rebels have been involved in raids on government forces in the area before.

article from BBC News: There is also an excellent post about this at the SSRC blog Making Sense of Darfur. Highlight:

Spokesmen for JEM have said that they are fighting for the CPA and its fair implementation, but most people who have followed JEM’s politics consider this no more than a tactic to win the support of Southerners who would otherwise distrust JEM’s Islamist origins, its fierce opposition to Southern separatism and the Chadian fingerprints on its operation. JEM’s manifesto speaks of democracy and human rights—justice and equality no less—but its putchist strategy is the antithesis of compromise, democratic politics and civil liberties. Both the Omdurman attack and the inevitable government response imperil Sudan’s shaky path to democratization and the South’s aim of exercising the right of self-determination. First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit saw these dangers when he spoke out against the attack.

The three towns of Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North have enjoyed a remarkable social peace during the last quarter century of war. There has been everyday racism and discrimination but astonishingly little violence. That coexistence may now be in jeopardy. For many Khartoum natives and people of the riverain north—the awlad al balad—JEM’s attack was an assault on their hitherto peaceful and prosperous territory. It was a shock and a horror and many are rallying to the government. Opposition politicians from the north hope that their voices of moderation may help prevent pogroms against the Zaghawa and other suspected JEM supporters and keep alive the prospects of elections next year.

For the Hamsters

"In 1764 there was a great cheese riot in Nottingham, the populace being of the opinion that the country folk were endeavouring to charge too much for their cheese and so they proceeded to destroy as many of the cheeses brought into the market for sale as they could, a proceeding which seems to me to savour of the conduct of the Wise Men of Gotham. As these cheeses were made wheel shape it was found a delightful occupation to bowl them down hills leading out of the Market Place and Peck Lane and Wheeler Gate were found to be very suitable gradients for this purpose. Mr. Mayor, as in duty bound, endeavoured to interfere and stop the riot and unfortunately, somehow or other he got in the way of one of these cheeses which was bowling along Wheeler Gate at a good pace with a result that he and all his civic dignity was bowled over and brought into the terrible mud which graced Wheeler Gate right through the 18th century."

http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/tts/tts1932/itinerary1932p4.htm

Zonky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeedonk

Another Japanese Medical Pic

Early smallpox diagnostic from China

Not sure exactly how early this pic is, but the Chinese were working on smallpox inoculations as early as the 11th century

Death Studies

Aims & Scope

The Institute of Scientific Information Journal Citations Report for 2005 ranks Death Studies 13th out of 27 journals in Biomedical Social Sciences, 6th out of 31 journals in Social Issues, and 32nd out of 101 journals in Multidisciplinary Psychology, with an Impact Factor of 1.099.

Now published ten times each year, this acclaimed journal provides refereed papers on significant research, scholarship, and practical approaches in the fast growing areas of bereavement and loss, grief therapy, death attitudes, suicide, and death education. It provides an international interdisciplinary forum in which a variety of professionals share results of research and practice, with the aim of better understanding the human encounter with death and assisting those who work with the dying and their families.

Chico MacMurtrie

Chico MacMurtrie was born in New Mexico in 1961 and currently resides in San Francisco. He holds a B.F.A. from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A. in New Forms and Concepts from the University of California at Los Angeles. MacMurtrie has been awarded four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and has been Artist in Residence at San Francisco's Exploratorium and at the Chicago Art Institute.

In 1992 MacMurtrie formed Amorphic Robot Works, a San Francisco-based group of artists, engineers and technicians working together to create robotic performances and installations. He describes his vision as ARW’s Artistic Director: "The work is an ongoing endeavor to uncover the primacy of movement and sound. Each machine is inspired or influenced both by modern society and what I physically experience and sense. The whole of this input informs my ideas and work."

some works:

http://amorphicrobotworks.org/works/grt/index.htm

The Amorphic Landscape is a large-scale robotic installation and performance which has been developed, performed and exhibited by MacMurtrie and Amorphic Robot Works (ARW) since 2000.

Central to the 20-meter-long Amorphic Landscape is an organic environment engineered to provide both a physical and narrative structure for more than 100 individual robots. This environment, however, is more than a passive context for its robotic inhabitants, The Landscape is, itself, a robotic form capable of movement and transformation. One-hour theatrical performances of The Landscape depict the formation of the earth, the birth and rise of creatures and communication, the degradation of the environment, and the many intervening life cycles in which everything takes part.

In addition to its already innovative theatrical performances, The Amorphic Landscape has recently been adapted to run as an interactive exhibition by integrating computer vision technologies into the Landscape’s hardware and software.

pics are of Amorphic Landscape

Motivational Poster Aggregator

Achilles choice confirmed

Precocity predicts shorter life for major league baseball players: confirmation of McCann's precocity-longevity hypothesis.

[My paper] Ernest L Abel, Michael L Kruger

We tested McCann's precocity-longevity hypothesis, which proposes that early career achievement is related to premature death, for Major League baseball players (N=3,760). Age at debut was the definition for precocity. We controlled for possible artifacts of life expectancy selection, the "healthy worker" effect, player position, and body-mass index. Statistically significant Pearson correlations occurred between precocity and longevity, and remained significant when adjusted for artifacts. In a hierarchical multiple regression, every year a baseball player debuted before the average age of 23.6 years was associated with life span being shortened by 0.24 years. The results support the hypothesis that earlier achievement is associated with earlier death.

Turns out old Homer was onto something after all.

Journal of Cave and Karst Studies

http://www.caves.org/pub/journal/

Empire of Signs

“If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile.”

Mishima Yukio

WTF??

So weird:

Journal of Artificial Societies and Simulations

http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/jasss.html

Journal for the creation and diffusion of simulations for use in the human sciences. Good stuff. Like this article:

This research note provides a general introduction to REsCape: an agent-based computational framework for studying the relationship between natural resources, ethnicity, and civil war. By permitting the user to specify: (i) different resource profiles ranging from a purely agrarian economy to one based on the artisanal or industrial extraction of alluvial or kimberlite diamonds; (ii) different patterns of ethnic domination, ethnic polarization, and varying degrees of ethnic salience; as well as (iii) specific modes of play for key agents, the framework can be used to assess the effects of key variables — whether taken in isolation or in various combinations — on the onset and duration of civil war. Our objective is to make REsCape available as an open source toolkit in the future, one that can be used, modified, and refined by students and scholars of civil war

Naxalite Herb Connection

Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Orissa are complaining that "huge tracts" of marijuana are being grown to finance the activities of Maoist rebels in the state and neighboring territories, the India News reported Monday. Police reported discoveries of "massive cultivation" in at least eight villages in the Chitrakonda and Kalimela blocks in the Malkangiri district, the agency reported.

Chitrakonda and Kalimela are considered strongholds of well-established Maoist rebels who have been operating in the area for years and who have considered the forested areas of Orissa and neighboring Andhra Pradesh a "liberated zone." From their forest bases, the Maoists have been attacking police and landlords for years.

And local authorities are not having much luck persuading farmers to stop growing pot or even cooperate in their efforts. "We are unable to arrest many of them because we do not get enough information. People do not come to us, fearing that the Maoists would kill them. We have arrested 41 persons and seized 27 quintals of ganja over past weeks," district police chief Jani Koil told the news agency." Even if we conduct raid and arrest people, the cultivation and business that are offences punishable under the country's anti-narcotics laws never stop," Koil said.

Another anonymous Indian official complained that peasant farmers are working with the rebels. "The tribals cultivate them and share a major chunk of the revenue with the Maoists. This becomes a headache for us," the official said, on the condition of anonymity. "We are upset because the illegal activities are not only growing rapidly, it is also contributing in increasing the financial strength of Maoists operating in those areas," he said.

The peasant farmers number at least 500 families in the area, officials said.

According to the official, about 500 families of the Gunthawada and Nalagunthi panchayats (village councils) alone depend on marijuana cultivation. The crops are financed by smugglers from Orissa, Andrha Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Madyha Pradesh who provide farmers with seeds,equipment, and cash advances, the official said.

Nomadic Peoples: The Reziagat

Nomadism is a hot topic around these parts, so we're going to start doing little pieces on various nomad groups.


Rezeigat in the darfur conflict (Alex de Waal)

The Um Jalul are a clan of the Mahamid, who are in turn a section of the Abbala (“camel-herding”) Rizeigat tribe of Northern Darfur and Chad. Their Bedouin roots can be traced back at least five centuries, when their patrilineal ancestors crossed the Libyan desert, entering Darfur from the north-west. The Abbala Rizeigat were thus in Darfur when the Fur Sultanate emerged in the early seventeenth century and a part of its bilingual Arab-Fur identity from the outset. In the mid-eighteenth century, the Sultan granted the Baggara (“cattle-herding”) Rizeigat jurisdiction over a huge area of land south-east of the Sultanate’s heartlands. Known as hawakir, such territorial grants are the basis of Darfur’s land tenure today; who controls them is the subject of bitter political struggle. The Baggara’s Abbala cousins, more mobile and living in the more densely administered northern lands, were less fortunate. Until today, many Abbala Rizeigat ascribe their role in the current conflict to the fact that they weren’t given territory a quarter of a millennium ago. The Baggara Rizeigat by contrast are neutral.

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/sudan0907/6.htm

In January 2007 the intense inter-tribal fighting broke out between the Tarjum and Rizeigat Abbala groups in the Bulbul area of South Darfur. Both have members in Sudan’s security forces. A number of Tarjum men are enlisted in, and were armed by, the Popular Defense Force, and many Rizeigat Abbala are enlisted in, and were armed by, the Border Intelligence force.⁶⁵ By March over 100 people had been killed or injured, thousands of civilians had been displaced, their property stolen and houses burned.⁶⁶ The immediate tensions of the conflict can be traced to the Rizeigat Abbala accusing the Tarjum of murders and the Tarjum accusing the Rizeigat Abbala of abductions.⁶⁷ But political maneuvering, land competition, and government favoritism towards the Rizeigat Abbala probably lies at the root of this conflict.

In 1995 the Tarjum, a traditional farming and cattle-herding Arab group, had been granted stewardship over part of the traditional land of the non-Arab Fur tribe. The Rizeigat Abbala are pastoralists and camel herders, and Bulbul is on their traditional migratory route. Small Rizeigat Abbala settlements have proliferated on the land over the years, creating tensions with the Tarjum. The Rizeigat Abbala have no land of their own, and, according to OHCHR, this may be why they entered the Darfur conflict on the government side.⁶⁸ Indeed, some Rizeigat Abbala have even settled on land from which the Tarjum have been displaced.⁶⁹

In early 2007 the government tried to calm tensions by facilitating a reconciliation agreement between the Tarjum and Rizeigat Abbala and sending security forces to the area, but the agreement was soon broken and fighting resumed.⁷⁰ The intense fighting finally subsided in March, but started again three months later and has now spread to West Darfur, with reports of scores of casualties on both sides, including the killing of Tarjum civilians at a funeral procession on July 31, 2007.⁷¹ A Tarjum tribal leader told journalists that a temporary ceasefire agreement was signed in mid-August,⁷² but history has shown that these agreements are very fragile, and the looting of a few cattle or the murder of one person may spark a return to all-out conflict.

There are currently about 310,000 Reziagat living in northern Darfur. They have inhabited the area for a very long time, and were independent and autonomous until the Anglo-Egyptian ocupation.

Some basic things about Sudanese nomads to keep in mind (from Journal of Mathematical Anthropology)

Pastoral Nomadism And Peasant Agriculture in Darfur

Darfur is the westernmost province in Sudan, the largest country in Africa. The environment of Darfur is typically dry, and much of the region consists of flat scrub, steppe, and desert lands that typically receive 200-500 mm rain annually (Suliman 1996: Table 2). The Jebel Marra massif occupies central Darfur, and this high altitude area receives more rainfall (500-700 mm) and has better soils for farming. Two traditional economies exist in Darfur, cattle or camel pastoralism in the dry flatlands, and subsistence millet farming centered in the Jebel Marra (Suliman 1996). Generally, peasant agriculturalists take on the Fur ethnicity, and are considered the original African inhabitants of this region. Most pastoral nomad groups claim descent from Arab invaders from the 14th Century. Although, so much intermarriage has occurred in ensuing centuries, and ethnic adoption and change is so variable, that any biological differences among the region’s populations have been blurred (Haaland 1969, Suliman 1996). In general, cattle herding nomads in Darfur and Western Sudan are referred to as Baggara, and consist of ethnic groups such as the Arab Rezeigat, Irayqat, Mahamid, and Beni Hussein tribes (Suliman 1996, Teitelbaum 1984). One camel nomad group, the Zaghawa, is considered non-Arab. The relationships between pastoral nomadism and peasant agriculture in Darfur parallels the five patterns enumerated in the previous section.
1. Haaland (1969: 59) makes clear that Fur peasants provide the millet that forms the staple grain in Darfur, and Baggara supply necessary milk and livestock; making the two populations interdependent. Nonetheless, peasants often have small livestock holdings (Haaland 1969), and nomads plant seasonal fields to supplement their pastoral diets (Teitelbaum 1984:56).
2. The climate of Darfur is extremely variable, leading to wild fluctuations in livestock numbers, and widespread displacement of pastoral nomads (Suliman 1996: Table 1, Tobert 1985).
3. It is clear from descriptions of pastoral nomadism in Darfur that pastoral nomads in this region are constantly striving to increase the size of their herds (Haaland 1969, Suliman 1996, Tobert 1985). Other authors note this maximization behavior of Sudanese pastoralists in general (Ahmed 1973, Mustafa 2004, Teitelbaum 1984).
4. The history of pastoral/peasant relations in Darfur has always been tinged with tension. In times of relative peace, there can be substantial cooperation and social mobility between peasants and nomads. Haaland (1969) describes how peasants who acquire cattle make contracts with nomads for the animals’ care, and how impoverished nomads sedentarize and wealthy peasants sometimes nomadize. When this occurs, the parties not only change lifestyle, but also ethnic affiliation. Even religious affiliation can be very flexible and contingent on economic lifestyle (Teitelbaum 1984:57). At other times, extremes of violence erupt between peasant and nomad groups, leading to raiding, homicide, displacement and slavery (Suliman 1996).
5. Despite both Darfur peasants and nomads adhering to the same religion, Islam, Haaland (1969) describes a characteristic difference in bearing, attitude and religious practice between peasant and nomadic sectors. Fur peasants gain access to land through patrilineally held lands, prefer sedentary village life, drink millet beer, and generally view nomadic life as barbaric (Haaland 1969:62,65). In contrast, nomads maintain a haughty bearing, flaunt their martial tendencies, prefer the freedom their mobility affords and feel that milk is a preferred and necessary beverage (Haaland 1969:66, Suliman 1996).

Aristotle on Apes

Some animals share the properties of man and the quadrupeds, as the ape, the monkey, and the baboon. The monkey is a tailed ape. The baboon resembles the ape in form, only that it is bigger and stronger, more like a dog in face, and is more savage in its habits, and its teeth are more dog-like and more powerful.

Apes are hairy on the back in keeping with their quadrupedal nature, and hairy on the belly in keeping with their human form-for, as was said above, this characteristic is reversed in man and the quadruped-only that the hair is coarse, so that the ape is thickly coated both on the belly and on the back. Its face resembles that of man in many respects; in other words, it has similar nostrils and ears, and teeth like those of man, both front teeth and molars. Further, whereas quadrupeds in general are not furnished with lashes on one of the two eyelids, this creature has them on both, only very thinly set, especially the under ones; in fact they are very insignificant indeed. And we must bear in mind that all other quadrupeds have no under eyelash at all.

The ape has also in its chest two teats upon poorly developed breasts. It has also arms like man, only covered with hair, and it bends these legs like man, with the convexities of both limbs facing one another. In addition, it has hands and fingers and nails like man, only that all these parts are somewhat more beast-like in appearance. Its feet are exceptional in kind. That is, they are like large hands, and the toes are like fingers, with the middle one the longest of all, and the under part of the foot is like a hand except for its length, and stretches out towards the extremities like the palm of the hand; and this palm at the after end is unusually hard, and in a clumsy obscure kind of way resembles a heel. The creature uses its feet either as hands or feet, and doubles them up as one doubles a fist. Its upper-arm and thigh are short in proportion to the forearm and the shin. It has no projecting navel, but only a hardness in the ordinary locality of the navel. Its upper part is much larger than its lower part, as is the case with quadrupeds; in fact, the proportion of the former to the latter is about as five to three. Owing to this circumstance and to the fact that its feet resemble hands and are composed in a manner of hand and of foot: of foot in the heel extremity, of the hand in all else-for even the toes have what is called a 'palm':-for these reasons the animal is oftener to be found on all fours than upright. It has neither hips, inasmuch as it is a quadruped, nor yet a tail, inasmuch as it is a biped, except nor yet a tal by the way that it has a tail as small as small can be, just a sort of indication of a tail. The genitals of the female resemble those of the female in the human species; those of the male are more like those of a dog than are those of a man.

In all likelihood what Aristotle calls an Ape is in fact a Barbary Macaque (depicted above). This is not the earliest surviving recollection of a human-chimpanzee encounter, but it may be the founding text in Primatology as a science.

More Paleolithic Art

Chimp Realpolitik

From Highlights 41/2007:

Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum game

Traditional models of economic decision-making assume that people are self-interested rational maximizers. Empirical research has demonstrated, however, that people will take into account the interests of others and are sensitive to norms of cooperation and fairness. In one of the most robust tests of this finding, the ultimatum game, individuals will reject a proposed division of a monetary windfall, at a cost to themselves, if they perceive it as unfair. Here we show that in an ultimatum game, humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), are rational maximizers and are not sensitive to fairness. These results support the hypothesis that other-regarding preferences and aversion to inequitable outcomes, which play key roles in human social organization, distinguish us from our closest living relatives.

Anti-Penis Panic

The reverse of Penis Panic has been reported in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Observe:

V.S. Ramachandran and Paul D. McGeoch

Phantom Penises In Transsexuals: Evidence of an Innate Gender-Specific Body Image in the Brain

Abstract: How the brain constructs one’s inner sense of gender identity is poorly understood. On the other hand, the phenomenon of phantom sensations — the feeling of still having a body-part after amputation — has been much studied. Around 60% of men experience a phantom penis post-penectomy. As transsexuals report a mismatch between their inner gender identity and that of their body, we wondered what could be learnt from this regarding innate gender-specific body image. We surveyed male-to-female transsexuals regarding the incidence of phantoms post-gender reassignment surgery. Additionally, we asked female-to-male transsexuals if they had ever had the sensation of having a penis when there was not one physically there. In post-operative male-to-female transsexuals the incidence of phantom penises was significantly reduced at 30%. Remarkably, over 60% of female-to-male transsexuals also reported phantom penises. We explain the absence/presence of phantoms here by postulating a mismatch between the brain’s hardwired gender-specific body image and the external somatic gender. Further studies along these lines may provide penetrating insights into the question of how nature and nurture interact to produce our brain-based body image.

Correspondence: Paul D. McGeoch, Center for Brain and Cognition, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Email: pmcgeoch@psy.ucsd.edu

Spotlight on Somalia: the Ajuran

http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rop3=100175&rog3=KE

What Are Their Lives Like?
The semi-nomadic Ajuran live in portable huts made of bent saplings covered with animal skins or woven mats. The tents are easily collapsible so that they can be loaded on their camels and moved along with the herds. Villages are made up of several related families. Their huts are arranged in a circle or semi-circle surrounding the cattle pens. The village is enclosed by a thorn-shrub hedge to protect them from intruders or wild animals. The men's responsibilities include caring for the herds. The women are in charge of both homemaking and home building. They milk the animals, cook, and tend to their families.

The moving patterns of the Ajuran are dependent on the unpredictable grazing region and climate of the area in which they live. If water or grazing land becomes scarce, the families pack up their portable huts and move across the desert. The wealth of most Ajuran is in their herds of camels, cattle, goats, or sheep.

According to Islamic law, a man is permitted to have as many as four wives. Polygamy is commonly practiced among the Ajuran. Unfortunately, the divorce rate is very high. The children of divorced parents are usually split by gender; the wife takes the girls and the husband takes the boys.

Formerly the Ajuran's diet consisted almost entirely of milk products; however, maize and rice are now usually included. Chewing qat, a mildly hallucinogenic stimulant, is a favorite social pastime.

Ajuran women lead very difficult lives, usually being treated no better than slaves. Some believe that women have no souls. Occasionally, new brides are beaten by their husbands so that they will learn submission. The men expect their wives to bear them many children, so the women often face back-to-back pregnancies. Because malnutrition is a problem, the women must fight for the survival of their children. The wives live in separate huts from their families.

What are their beliefs?
The Somali tribes were converted to Islam in the 1400's. Today, the Ajuran are virtually all Shafiite Muslims. They are very orthodox in their religious practices. Some of them even believe that they descended from Arab Muslims. However, linguistic research shows this is not the case.

Although the Ajuran are staunch Muslims, few of them have a deep understanding of their faith. They are a very proud people who consider Christians to be inferior. Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, a teacher, and a good man, but not God's son. They also believe that all men and animals will give account for their actions after they die. They believe that they will be judged by their good works and by their knowledge of the Koran. Muslims say prayers five times a day while facing Mecca.

http://www.civicwebs.com/cwvlib/africa/somalia/1994/dawn_of_civilization/chapter_3.htm

These ancient people were pure specimens of the Somali people. They were very intelligent and skilled in engineering works. They could build wells even in hard rocks, make caves and also draw figures in the caves in the mountains in ancient times. They were very beautiful and good people. Some of their descendents are still living in the central region of Somalia and in the Galla Sadame region of Ethiopia. They have a sense of nobility and beauty. Their ancient techniques of boring wells in the rocks is not lost; we do not know anything about them now. Whenever any archeological place is discovered, the Somali believe that the Ajhurans may have built it. The first President of independent Somalia, Ahmed Abdulla Osman, was an Ajhuran; his sub-tribe was Ogaden.

Lascaux to the max! (and assorted other cave paintings)