The Ameya by Robert Frederick Blum, 1893. Via Spoon & Tamago.
10 hours ago
Silicon Forest
If the type is too small, Ctrl+ is your friend
In Marxist philosophy, the term Cultural Hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of the society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.The initial phrase "In Marxist philosophy" is superfluous. I think this definition applies equally well in any culture, East or West, Communist or Capitalist, Democracy or Dictatorship.
Our downstairs toilet seat broke, it caught my notice because it was unusually old and of sturdy construction. Looks like it may be almost as old as I. Removing it, I ran into springs, why springs??? looking on the internet the manufacturer, Sperzel in Minneapolis, was one of five toilet seat makers, but is now out of business.
I did find patent information. As detailed as the patent is, it doesn't say why there are springs, rusted necessitating a Sawzal cutting of the thick bolt while not cracking the bowl.
This led to researching Recip blades, Lenox being the best, my craftsman blades were crap. While searching for blades, I was reminded to use the 4.5" angle grinder, which I did, taking a about a minute on the 2nd bolt, much quicker than my hour of hack/recip sawing on the first.
Additionally curious is that the seat designed to have a limited swing is mounted on a standard tank toilet whose tank abrogates the need of a swing limit. My latest theory is this industrial seat was taken from the hospital by one of the previous Doctor owners.
Sperzel is also the name of a Cleveland company that makes guitar machine heads.
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US Patent 2,814,048 |
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Lofoten Norway |
I will venture no opinion on whether their phone will work as advertised or not, but I will say that if you don't want the feds listening to your conversations, the simplest solution is to not make any phone calls.The Vision
Giving power back to the user
Blackphone is the world's first smartphone which prioritizes the user's privacy and control, without any hooks to carriers or vendors. It comes preinstalled with all the tools you need to move throughout the world, conduct business, and stay in touch, while shielding you from prying eyes.
It's the trustworthy precaution any connected worker should take, whether you're talking to your family or exchanging notes on your latest merger & acquisition.
I saw your post on Ambiance. ([Amba] shared it on FB.) I laughed and laughed. Then I realized you wrote it.We’ve all been there.
Lawrence Wright grew up in Dallas, and while he realized early on that one can't be "a Methodist extremist," he also experienced the fiercely seductive nature of religious conviction.
In his subsequent tours of journalistic duty in the Middle East -- Wright won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9-11" -- and the American back roads, he saw lives rearranged and unhinged by faith and zealotry.
"Again and again, I began seeing the influence of religion, driving people toward good and bad ends," the staff writer for The New Yorker said Tuesday at the Heathman Hotel.
And Wright saw far too little reflective coverage of what he calls "the effects of religious beliefs on people's lives -- historically, a far more profound influence on society and individuals than politics, which is the substance of so much journalism."
That's what eventually brought him to confront the Church of Scientology in "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief."
"The thing you have to keep in mind about Scientology is that people go into it for the best of reasons," Wright said. "They want to change the world. They're idealistic. They're willing to sacrifice."
Then they sign billion-year contracts, willingly accept sadistic levels of isolation and humiliation, vanish behind the delusional wall. "The belief system, like with all religious beliefs, acts as a barrier to the rest of the community," Wright said.
"Sometimes, the crazier the beliefs, the higher the barrier, and the more solidified the community inside it."
In journeying to Oregon this week for the Portland Arts & Lectures series, Wright returned to the scene of L. Ron Hubbard's great World War II heroics -- in 1943, Scientology's founder claimed to have destroyed not one, but two mythical submarines while commanding a harbor patrol ship off Cape Lookout -- and the infamous "Battle of Portland."
That's the 1985 spring gala in which John Travolta and another 12,000 Scientologists descended on the Multnomah County Courthouse, claiming they were being persecuted for their religious faith in a suit brought by a young woman, Julie Christofferson Titchbourne, who argued she had wasted $3,200 in college savings on counseling.After the jury awarded Titchbourne $39 million in damages, Judge Donald Londer declared a mistrial, ruling -- Wright notes -- that her lawyers "presented prejudicial arguments to the jury by saying that Hubbard was a sociopath and that Scientology was not a religion but a terrorist organization.
"Church members who had been in Portland would always feel an ecstatic sense of kinship."
Wright is clearly intrigued by that kinship. "Religion is always an irrational exercise, no matter how ennobling it may be to the human spirit," he writes in "Going Clear," but Hubbard -- who got his start writing science fiction and died in 1986 -- had "an incorrigible ability to float above the evidence."
Hubbard argued Earth "was part of a confederation of planets under the leadership of a despot ruler named Xenu." He wrote in "Dianetics," first published in 1950, "However many billions America spends yearly on institutions for the insane and jails for the criminals are spent primarily because of attempted abortions done by some sex-blocked mother to whom children are a curse, not a blessing of God."Give the guy credit, though: From the very beginning, Hubbard insists, "If it's not true for you, it isn't true," brilliantly anticipating the mantra of climate-change denial.Wright calmly lays out the byzantine history and manners of Scientology in "Going Clear." "My work is grounded in reality," he told a group of Oregon writers at the Heathman."'Truth is stranger than fiction' has always resonated with me."So has religious conviction. "There is no point in questioning Scientology's standing as a religion; in the United States, the only opinion that really counts is that of the IRS," Wright notes, and after stripping Scientology of its religions tax exemption in 1967, the agency reversed itself in 1993
What he questions, instead, is why so many souls lock themselves inside such a prison of belief. Is it Hubbard's arresting voice? Tom Cruise envy?Or is it the genius of "finding the ruin" in every potential recruit, as Scientologists have long been trained to do, then offering that lost soul the refuge of belonging, even if that community is a padded cell?
"We can hold strong political views, and it may not affect your behavior at all," Wright said Tuesday. "Strong religious views are different. People often rearrange their whole lives around those beliefs, and it may go unnoticed by journalists."Maybe I thought I served a purpose in calling attention to that."-- Steve Duin
In Mexico they see it from a different perspective. Kind of how children do things that may seem wrong to others but, because of their inocence, its done without malice. The african slave trafficking was virtually unexistant in Mexico back in the days of the Spanish colony so none of this “Black revolution” movement occured like it did in the US with Martin Luther King. We all enjoy Negrito bimbo here in Mexico, its not politically incorrect.This was all I found on the subject of slavery in Mexico:
In 1829 president Guerrero abolished slavery.
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by most societies; in more recent times, slavery has been outlawed in all countries, but it continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage. Slavery is officially illegal in all countries, but there are still an estimated 20 million to 30 million slaves worldwide. Mauritania was the last jurisdiction to officially outlaw slavery (in 1981/2007), but about 10% to 20% of its population is estimated to live in slavery.Mauritania? I've heard of that place, haven't I? It's one of those island nations in the Indian Ocean, right? No, actually not. It's on the West Coast of Africa and it has got to be one of the most desolate places on earth. This should not be a surprise because it is the Westernmost part of the Sahara desert.
Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures. Most slaves today are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations. Human trafficking is primarily used for forcing women and children into sex industries.
In pre-industrial societies, slaves and their labour were economically extremely important to those who benefitted from them. Slaves and serfs made up around three-quarters of the world's population at the beginning of the 19th century.
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From the manufacturers brochure. |
If you wonder why the Confederacy put 75% of their manpower and their best generals to protect Richmond, VA, it was because the Tredegar Works in Richmond were the only place in the entire American South that was capable of building a steam locomotive. And then that idiot Jefferson Davis, who had no understanding of the importance of logistics despite his West Point training, wasted their capabilities casting cannon instead when there were dozens of places elsewhere in the South capable of casting cannon. The South didn't fall due to lack of cannon or gunpowder, the South fell because once their railroads collapsed, they were no longer capable of feeding or transporting their armies. Tactics win battles. Logistics wins wars.
Still trying to decide whether Jefferson Davis's stupidity was a good thing or a bad thing for the USA... - BadTux commenting on one of Comrade Misfits posts.