Clipmarks | abailart's clips

Entertainment as Ritual in Contemporary Culture

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:29:31 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Interesting article with reference to Michael Jackson's life and productions as an example of entertainment's role in modern 'ritual', and how neuroscience, particularly 'mirroring', is relevant.

Clip Source: neuroanthropology.net

Over the last century, anthropologists have often chosen to study exotic symbolic systems — rituals, myth, art — and frequently managed to illuminate the cultural logic underlying what seem initially to be “irrational” practices.

So why haven’t anthropologists leapt to study one of the most exotic and powerful symbolic systems in human history? I’m talking about the Western (and predominantly American) system of “entertainment”. Not only is this system central to contemporary Western culture, it has arguably played a major role in the breakdown of the cultures of many indigenous communities.

some interest in the topic has emerged in the last couple of decades. Much of this material is promising; often authors pursue the insight that in some ways entertainment activities are similar to rituals. This is not only an accurate observation, but it points to the possibility of beginning to map how entertainment works to establish some of the central meanings of contemporary life.

Tags: anthropology, culture, entertainment

UK Faces "Double-Dip" Recession

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:49:53 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Based upon overall analysis and prognosis initiated two years ago, I would suggest that this is not only an issue facing the British economy.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

The world's central bankers have warned that the British economy faces relapsing into another recession – the much-feared "double dip" downturn.

continuing drought in bank lending, evidenced in the latest figures from the Bank of England

spiralling public borrowing

OECD), which comprises the 30 most advanced economies in the world, added to the gloom, saying that Britain remained "deep" in recession

warnings are at odds with recent market optimism and so-called green shoots suggesting that output in the economy may be recovering. But the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which includes the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, said it feared that the problems of the world's banks are far from fixed and could easily trigger a so-called "double dip" or "W-shaped" downturn. "A major cause for concern is the limited progress in addressing the underlying problems in the financial sector,"

Tags: economics, recession

Grains of Sand Reveal Possible Fifth State of Matter

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:27:21 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: 20 sec vid at the source (wouldn't clip) which may help understanding what they are on about.

Clip Source: www.wired.com

In the formation of droplets in a stream of falling sand, scientists have witnessed a dynamic that points beyond the boundaries of traditional physics, and may represent one aspect of a fifth state of matter.

The droplets formed because of instabilities in the subtle atomic forces that attract sand grains to each other. Something similar happens to water falling from a faucet, but the forces acting on those molecules are 100,000 times stronger.

Measurements of this phenomena

overturn the previous explanation for sand droplets — that grains stick to each other after colliding — and quantify what’s called an “ultralow-surface-tension regime.”

It’s entirely new territory for researchers, and just one of many dynamics governing the behavior of granular materials, which for reasons unknown to science act sometimes as solids, or liquids, or gases — or something in-between

You walk on the beach, and the sand supports your weight. Pick up a handful, and it runs through your fingers, like a liquid

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Tags: science

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:18:02 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.levity.com

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3 Energy is Eternal Delight

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

Opposition is true Friendship.

Albion's coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!

Tags: william blake, marriage of heaven and hell

Swine Disease: key symptoms

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:36:28 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: thetruthburns.files.wordpress.com

Clip Source: saysomethingfunny.files.wordpress.com

Clip Source: 3.bp.blogspot.com

Clip Source: 4.bp.blogspot.com

Clip Source: garynelsonacousticroots.files.wordpress.com

Clip Source: www.funpicsfree.com

Clip Source: www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com

Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are.
You well heeled big wheel, ha ha charade you are.
And when your hand is on your heart,
You're nearly a good laugh,
Almost a joker,
With your head down in the pig bin,
Saying "Keep on digging."
Pig stain on your fat chin.
What do you hope to find.
When you're down in the pig mine.
You're nearly a laugh,
You're nearly a laugh

But you're really a cry.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: pink floyd, animals

Me and You

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:19:59 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.famousquotesandauthors.com

The entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.

- John Andrew Holmes

Everyone needs help from everyone.

- Bertolt Brecht

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.

- Althea Gibson

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

- Benjamin Franklin

He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others.

- Publilius Syrus

Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

- Henry James

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

- Emily Dickinson

Good manners are the techniques of expressing consideration for the feelings of others

- Alice Duer Miller

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

- Plato

Kindness affects more than severity.

- Aesop

The Boss & Co.: Glastonbury

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:23:49 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Springsteen was outstanding. Catch vids if you can.

Clip Source: www.gallery.independent.co.uk

GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND - JUNE 26: Neil Young performs on the Pyramid Stage during day 2 of the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, on June 26, 2009 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

Clip Source: www.gallery.independent.co.uk

GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND - JUNE 26: Terry Hall of The Specials performs on the Pyramid Stage during day two of the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, on June 26, 2009 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

Clip Source: www.gallery.independent.co.uk

GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND - JUNE 26: Lily Allen performs on the Pyramid Stage during day 2 of the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, on June 26, 2009 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

Clip Source: www.gallery.independent.co.uk

Tags: glastonbury

Ars Psychiatrica

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:33:39 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: This is a splendid blog site. Light and intelligent, it is packed full of great topic archives and links to numerous other great sites. Psychiatry, culture, art, philosophy. Something here for most people. Lovely collection of poetry too.

Clip Source: arspsychiatrica.blogspot.com

Ars Psychiatrica

The Arts of Psychiatry...Psychiatry of the Arts

Well, Here We Are

Corporate Mission Statement

Ethos

Prodigious Poems

Tags: ars psychiatrica

Hypnotic Trances: science confirms benefits

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:17:58 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: According to a new study of the neural mechanisms of hypnosis-induced paralysis, Braid's definition was remarkably accurate. The study, published in the journal Neuron, demonstrates that hypnosis does indeed lead to increased activity in areas of the brain involved in attention, as well as in other areas involved in mental imagery and self-awareness. Hypnosis can therefore exert control over bodily movements by enhancing mental representations of the self (or self-imagery) and focusing attention on them.

Read on »

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

THE TERM 'HYPNOSIS' was coined by the Scottish physician James Braid in his 1853 book Neurypnology. Braid defined hypnosis as "a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye". He argued that hypnosis was a form of "nervous sleep", and tried to distinguish his theory from that of the mesmerists, who believed that the effects of hypnosis were mediated by a vital force, or animal magnetism.

Because of mesmerism, and its association with stage entertainment and charlatanry, hypnosis was regarded with skepticism for much of its history. In recent years, though, it has come under the scrutiny of cognitive neuroscientists, and is now thought of as an altered state of consciousness - sometimes referred to as being trance-like - which is associated with increased suggestibility, enhanced imagery and reduced reality testing.

Tags: hypnosis

What is Hatred?

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:37:06 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: findarticles.com

Again, what is anger? Anger is the lust for vengeance. And what is hatred? Hatred is persistent, inveterate anger. . . . It is anger when it is new, and it becomes hatred after time has passed. Anger is a "speck," hatred, a "log." And so Christ says to us, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye" (Matthew 7:3)?

St. Augustine

Adapted from Sermons on New Testament Lessons, 8.7-8,10.

Tags: hatred, st augustine

I felt a Funeral in my Brain

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:43:24 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.cs.rice.edu

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading--treading--till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through--

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum--
Kept beating--beating--till I thought
My Mind was going numb--

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space--began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here--

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down--
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing--then--

	-- Emily Dickinson

Tags: emily dickinson

The Consciousness Conundrum

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:32:00 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.spectrum.ieee.org

In spite of all those advances, neuroscientists still do not understand at all how a brain (the squishy agglomeration of tissue and neurons) makes a conscious mind (the intangible entity that enables you to fall in love, find irony in a novel, and appreciate the elegance of a circuit design). ”No one has the foggiest notion,” says the neuroscientist Eric Kandel of Columbia University Medical Center, in New York City. ”At the moment all you can get are informed, intelligent opinions.”

Adding to the complexity, synaptic connections constantly form, strengthen, weaken, and dissolve. Old neurons die and--evidence now indicates, overturning decades of dogma--new ones are born.

Within a decade or so, computers will surpass the computational power of brains, many singularitarians say.

We've heard such prophesies before.

predicted that computers would exceed human intelligence within a generation.

But even Minsky admits that computers are still idiot savants.

Tags: 1-operation, 1-understanding, 2-lack, 3-research, 3-theory, 4-intl

Existentialism in Literature and Film

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:02:50 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Haven't checked it out yet, but it seems promising.

Clip Source: webcast.berkeley.edu

Phil 7: Existentialism in Literature and Film - Spring 2006. The course will be organized around various attempts to reinterpret the Judeo/Christian God, and to determine in what sense, if at all, such a God is still a living God. We will study Dostoyevsky's and Kierkegaard's attempts to preserve a non-theological version of the God of Christianity, as well as Nietzche's attempt to save us from belief in any version of God offered by our tradition. We will view and discuss three films that deal with related issues.

Introduction: What is Existentialism?

'Fear and Trembling' - Preamble from Heart I

Discussion of Film 'The Third Man' - Rough audio quality

'Sickness Unto Death' (xeroxed excerpts) I

'Brothers Karamazov', Part I

Film: 'Breathless' - No Lecture

Tags: art, cinema, existentialism, film, literature

Difference betwen Art and Science

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:25:37 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

The difference between art and science is that science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. DONALD KNUTH

Tags: 49

Difference between Rabbits and Hares

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:16:02 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: blog.bioethics.net

Clip Source: www.lerwick.shetlandsales.com

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

The difference between rabbits and hares is that rabbits are born bald with their eyes closed; hares are born with hair and eyes open. Rabbits run for short distances; hares for long ones. Rabbits have short legs and ears; hares have long legs and long ears.

Tags: information sharing, internet