Category: Culture

Troll Bridge

If you’re familiar with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books you’ll love this. This is a fan made animation of a short story he wrote in 1992.

If you aren’t familiar, this is a good intro.

Enjoy!

The Forgotten Medieval Habit of ‘Two Sleeps’

 

Nearly 300 years later, in the early 1990s, the historian Roger Ekirch walked through the arched entranceway to the Public Record Office in London – an imposing gothic building that housed the UK’s National Archives from 1838 until 2003. There, among the endless rows of ancient vellum papers and manuscripts, he found Jane’s testimony. And something about it struck him as odd.

Originally, Ekirch had been researching a book about the history of night-time, and at the time he had been looking through records that spanned the era between the early Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. He was dreading writing the chapter on sleep, thinking that it was not only a universal necessity – but a biological constant. He was sceptical that he’d find anything new.

So far, he had found court depositions particularly illuminating. “They’re a wonderful source for social historians,” says Ekirch, a professor at Virginia Tech, US. “They comment upon activity that’s oftentimes unrelated to the crime itself.”

But as he read through Jane’s criminal deposition, two words seemed to carry an echo of a particularly tantalising detail of life in the 17th Century, which he had never encountered before – “first sleep”.

Perhaps insomnia is normal?

Source: The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

Archbishop Vigano’s message to America – profound truths

How was it possible to arrive at such a betrayal? How have we come to be considered enemies by those who govern us, not in support of the common good, but rather to feed a hellish machine of death and slavery?
The answer is now clear: throughout the world, in the name of a perverted concept of freedom, we have progressively erased God from society and laws.We have denied that there is an eternal and transcendent principle, valid for all men of all times, to which the laws of States must conform. We have replaced this absolute principle with the arbitrariness of individuals, with the principle that everyone is his own legislator. In the name of this insane freedom — which is license and libertinage — we have allowed the Law of God and the law of nature to be violated, legitimizing the killing of children in the womb, even up to the very moment of birth; the killing of the sick and the elderly in hospital wards; the destruction of the natural family and of Marriage; we have recognized rights to vice and sin, putting the deviations of individuals before the good of society. In short, we have subverted the entire moral order that constitutes the indispensable basis of the laws and social life of a people. Already in the fourth century B.C., Plato wrote these things in his last work The Laws and identified the cause of the Athenian political crisis precisely in the breaking of the divine order — the cosmos — between these eternal principles and human laws.
 

On The Feast of Stephen…

Good King Wenceslaus went out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even.

O.K., Christians of the world: Church history for one hundred. When is the Feast of Stephen and to whom does it refer? (Pause for hemming and hawing.)

It’s December 26, the day after Christmas, when the death of the church’s first martyr, Stephen, is traditionally commemorated. Trivial, yes, but most Christians can’t give me the correct answer.

Source: The Feast of Stephen: Christmas Traditions: – John Loeffler – Koinonia House

For over 60 years I did not know this. The reference to the “feast of Stephen” in the carol was lost on me. Therefore I didn’t really understand the carol. Proof (to me) that Western culture and traditions have not been passed down to the younger generations. We are seeing the results of this now. Ignorance is causing societal chaos.

Today is traditionally the “Second Day of Christmas” in the Western church, or St. Stephen’s Day, aka the “Feast of Stephen”, as referenced in the carol “Good King Wenceslas.”
Stephen was the first Christian martyr as recorded in Acts 7:
58. And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
59. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Acts 7:1-57 is basically Stephen bearing his testimony of the risen Christ, which is what enraged the crowd.

Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same | City Journal

It’s Stone Age magical thinking:

Based on his study of a Stone Age culture in New Guinea, Bronisław Malinowski argued that when people face uncertainty, they turn to magic to propitiate the capricious spirits responsible for their incomprehensible misfortune. Being ever-so-sophisticated people who attended business school, corporate executives don’t hire shamans to replenish fisheries or to avoid a storm. Instead, they bring in consultants to help the firm embrace best practices. But as Charles Fain Lehman explains, John Meyer and Brian Rowan’s 1977 paper in the American Journal of Sociology, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” argues that this distinction is a farce—that much behavior as practiced by modern corporations, NGOs, and government agencies is not about technical efficacy that rationally orients means to ends but ritual, vaguely intended to elicit good fortune by achieving legitimacy with the firm’s “environment.”
So “wokeism” is the new Stone Age “magical thinking.” I’m reminded of a quote from Walden by Henry David Thoreau:
“The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
He was talking about clothing fashions but it works for social fashions too. Just substitute ‘government’ for Paris and ‘corporations’ for America.

Source: Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same | City Journal

MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

I dislike videos. Especially videos posted as “news”.

I know that’s not the point of the article but this passage stood out to me as the best description of the problem with video news.

Watching TV is no substitute for reading, because TV can never convey ideas faster than human speech (i.e., about 150 words per minute), whereas a collegiate-level reader can absorb the written word much faster. This blog post is about 1,600 words. It would take 10-12 minutes to read it aloud, but you’ll probably reach the end much quicker. Also, the written word has a permanence that the spoken word does not. To absorb complex ideas, and to commit them to memory, the written word is superior.

Agreed. Give me a written article or column.

Source: MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

[TRANSLATED] “Dégénération” – Quebecois Traditionalist Song

Thought this was a powerful mental image…
 
[TRANSLATED] “Dégénération” – Quebecois Traditionalist Song
Your great-great-grandmother she had 14 children
Your great-grandmother had just about as many;
And then your grandmother, she had 3, it was enough;
and your mother didn’t want any, you were an accident.
And then you, my little girl, you change partners all the time,
When you do stupid things, you save yourself with an abortion,
But there are mornings you wake up in tears, when you dream at night
Of a big table surrounded by children.

U2 – With Or Without You – Luca Stricagnoli – Fingerstyle Guitar

“With Or Without You” by U2, arranged and performed by Luca on his Reversed Triple Neck Guitar built by Davide Serracini. The third neck, reversed, has an e-bow attached to it that keeps the central string vibrating, producing a constant high pitched sound that imitates the iconic original version of the song. The wooden percussive device on the guitar is called Multi Clap.

Impressive talent.

Report: Professor Tells White Student if He’s Breathing, He ‘May Have Oppressed Somebody’ Today

The teacher then asked Brian if he’d oppressed anybody that day.

The kid said No.

Sam posed a potent Gotcha:

“You’re breathing. Have you left your house today?”

Busted.

Academia for the win:

If that’s all it takes… if it’s that easy to oppress you… you deserve it!

Source: Report: Professor Tells White Student if He’s Breathing, He ‘May Have Oppressed Somebody’ Today