Howdy y’all!
ICYMI
While he waren’t everyone’s cup o’ joe, he does help us prove a point. If you’re over or under reacting to the news of his sudden death, it is good indication that you’re burned out.
There is some intriguing and replicated work on who is lucky and who isn’t. Somehow the way our world is structured, auties turn out to be unlucky. Go figure.
In one of those moments you’re glad you’re reading a blog from the otherside of the International Date Line, it turns out Sunday 17 April is a trifecta: Easter, Passover, and Ramadan! Of course, it may only be a bifecta since, as I understand it, they found the body.
This week was Khmer New Year, so lots of things were closed, some for weeks at a time! Traditionally, the celebration is a month long, but as capitalism sinks its talons into the helpless Cambodian populace, some people don’t get any time off at all! Yay, progress, amirite? Some lucky people get to carry on working their twelve hour days for two bucks a day straight through the holiday! No interruption of income! Who doesn’t love them some of that?
It has been a glorious week away from school and real work. We wrote a couple of great blog posts this week, had some good wine and take out, cleaned the house — Cambodia is such a dusty place! Who knew? — and furthered our training for the Phnom Penh Half-Marathon on 18 June! Didn’t I tell you? I’m running 21K or 13 miles in the sweltering Cambodian dry-season heat and humidity! I ran three marathons while living in Viet Nam, all you have to do is run at 4:00 AM to beat the heat! I’m up to 10K, so I’m well on my way!
Reading
Here are links to things that I read this week that I thought were interesting enough, important enough, and unlikely to have come across your browser enough to include in this week’s reading list. They come from the legacy media, professional alternative media outlets, blogs, and friends of Ye Olde Blogge! Let me know what you think in the comments!
Professional Media
- JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE! Once was we thought we had syphilis on the run and might could even eradicate it, then complacency and the if-we-just-make-the-punishment-severe-enough brand of Christian Republican fundamentalist got legislative control and syphilis and its ugly step-child, congenital syphilis came roaring back and has killed an unprecedented number of newborn infants. Y’all be careful out there and wear condoms. (Medscape)
- ASSHOLES ARE AS ASSHOLES DO! Some fun loving psychologists tried to figure out which personality traits assholes have in common, so they asked people about the biggest asshole in their life. Haha! What fun! Boy did they get an unexpected earful! Turns out, no one has a problem with figuring out who the assholes are in their lives, and most of us don’t keep them around. Spoiler alert: They were aggressive, entitled, manipulative; mostly middle-aged men; and didn’t care if their behaviors were harmful. Sounds like personality disorders to me. (Neoscope)
- GANGS OF NAIROBI are reforming themselves and their slums into kinder, gentler, more nurturing places. Several gangs around the city all came to the same conclusion about the same time: instead of robbing, stealing, and mugging, they should take some of the unused spaces in their slums and turn them into eco-parks and playgrounds and provide services like trash pick up that the city government wouldn’t provide. Not only did they make some money, but they unified their neighborhoods, and they fought police corruption. Having lived in Nairobi and loved it and spent some time in the slums there, I’m very glad to hear it, and not at all surprised. (Newlines Magazine)
- DOCTORS TO THE RESCUE! A Ukrainian child and adolescent psychiatrist and his wife living in London packed up their car with first aid kits and a portable ultrasound and drove to the Polish border. Putin’s war started on 24 February. They arrived on 27 February. And, the portable ultrasound was in use by 3 March. The ultrasound is needed to find shrapnel in bodies. (Medscape)
- GOING TO THE DOGS! A new study in PLOS-ONE reports that a vegan diet for dogs might could be just possibly be better for your dog than commercial meat-based dog food — no surprise there, amirite? — and even raw-meat-based diets, although there is some counter evidence to that one. Dogs did evolve to have diets more closely matched to human diets, so it shouldn’t be surprising that high protein and fat diets cause them as much trouble as they cause us. (Medscape)
Blogs
These articles are found mostly from the blogs I subscribe to. A few were discovered in other ways, but subscribing to blogs is one of the easiest ways to keep up with your favorite bloggers, hint, hint, subscription links can be found in the right-hand column and at the end of the post.
- TEN MILLION PEOPLE CAN’T BE WRONG! Every year the jostling for position on the beaches of South Florida begins with stiff competition for the prime spots between residents, immigrants, and tourists. Who needs the Everglades when you can be visiting a beach, amirite? Let someone else worry about the wEtLaNdS. I’m on a beach and I’ve got wetlands of my own to tend to. Okay, the post is more about an oasis amid the jostling and well worth the look! (Snippets of a Traveling Mind)
- HOLIDAY SPECIALS! In a nostalgic twist we are reminded of all those cool holiday movies that we used to watch as kids: Wizard of Oz and The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Halloween, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas on Christmas, and our summertime favorite, You’re a Father, Charlie Brown! And, now we’re given a list of Easter movies to choose from. Which is your favorite? Tell us in the comments! (bluewater)
- EVERYDAY! Reminding us that life is unpredictable and nothing is guaranteed, we get this sweet reminder to hold our loved ones tight and be mindful. (On Being Gay and Grieving: My Personal Journey)
- HYPERVIGILANCE is important whether you’re a PTSD survivor, paranoid, or just suffering from narcissistic personality abuse. It is no laughing matter. Here is a good summary of its symptoms, consequences, and causes. (Carla Corelli)
- LESS SAVORY NEWS! Here’s a rundown of some of the less than savory news that you might have missed, especially if you are concerned about criminal cops and other illicit behavior by those in government. (The Honest Courtesan)
Friends!
Here are links to the posts and articles that these friends of Ye Olde Blogge have put up this week. Be sure to tell ’em I sent ya!
- LAMENTING THE PASSING OF LANGUAGE! Why are our language skills diminishing? Why are people reading less? Why do we live in an age of memes and emojis? Will this pendulum ever swing back, or have we lost it forever? A thoughtful reflection on the changing of an age. (Of Cabbages and Kings).
- IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER A newish survey reveals that 57% of Repubes think that the 6 January Insurrection was an act of patriotism, democracy is about individual liberties, and that Democrats are a mortal threat. We are being set up for open violence in our streets. (Mock Paper Scissors)
- SHELLACKED You heard it hear first! The Repubes are setting up to play the victim card when they lose in November by claiming the election they rigged was rigged against them. Of course, if the last rigged election resulted in the 6 January Insurrection, what is this rigged election going to result in? (Homeless on the High Desert)
- POPPING PUTIN! Our favorite list on all the Interwebs is over at Burr’s blog! This week it details the sinking of the Moskva, the Hitler model for housing the homeless, inflation, and transrights under assault. Must read reading, y’all! (Fair and Unbalanced)
- TESTICLE TANNING! Apparently, this is a thing. Who knew? Tucker Carlson is very concerned that the testosterone levels of America’s men is so far depressed that he had Kid Rock on his show to discuss the restorative powers of testicle tanning. Well, there’s that, I guess. (Scottie’s Playtime)
- SURPRISE! The consumer confidence index took a hefty jump from 59.4% to 65.7% of the respondents confident in the future of our economy. It is under reported because a Dem is in the WH. Is that because we have such high expectations of Dem presidents and low of Repube, or is it because there’s inherent bias in the news media? We may never know. Mike’s Blog Roundup is being curated by driftglass. (Crooks and Liars)
- THE PAPER TIGER! There is some speculation that China has puffed itself up just before it’s great fall. A video — I know no one watches video — tells the story of falling birthrates, geography, resources, and military issues, (Infidel 753)
Huzzah!
Jack
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“Sisowath Quay at night” by Jonas Hansel is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
The Psy of Life 
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack brings his weekly raft of observation. and links
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The chariot race in Ben Hur is exciting. I only have one Easter themed movie I really liked, and it isn’t on the list, The Life Of Brian. It’s not that the one on the list don’t have some great performances, but I could never get in the spirit of the mythology.
Candice did offer up a banquet of food for thought in the piece on language. Thanks for the shout out.
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Howdy Bob!
You’re right! “The Life of Brian” IS an Easter movie! I never thought of it before. One of their best film efforts. Right up there with “Time Bandits” and “Brazil.”
It never ceases to amaze me all of the interesting and good posts that are out there in the blogosphere. You just can’t keep up with it all.
Huzzah!
Jack
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But, still, we try.
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It is the trying that is the pay off.
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Indeed
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I’ve never understood this thing people with such a bad attitude about darker skinned people have with putting so much effort into making their skin darker. It’s like some kind of envy …
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It is weird, isn’t it. But there is history behind it, and signs of class. In former times, from way back (In the Iliad, beautiful noble women are described as “white armed”, indicating that they spent their days indoors doing things like spinning and weaving, not out working in the fields getting tanned.) That pattern continued until the industrial revolution. Then it was the new industrial working class who seldom saw the sun, and the people who could afford the leisure to go to the beach and play golf and such, out in the sun. So a tan became a mark of class and health, and a commodity to be marketed. The catch is that it can’t be your un-tanned color. The most visible exception is the super models of color, but that comes in part from a fetish in the fashion industry for the exotic.
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Interesting you brought that up, in light of yesterday’s preview of Tucker Carlson’s latest “special.” To make light of it I found the Village People YMCA version much more appropriate than the published 2001 Space Odessey slash Lucy score ~ but seriously, this whole bare-chested thing is starting to get creepy. I can tell you from born in a log town spent fifteen years cutting trees down and hooking them out with helicopters nobody goes out in the woods and cuts down trees bare-chested. In fact we left very little of our skin exposed to bugs, branches and briars. Only a greenhorn works in a teeshirt, and they didn’t usually last very long. Same with working out on a ranch, my first job in life, where baths were few and far between.
One of the bad habits I was able to finally break with the advent of the Trump-Flu was/is lifting weights. Got a whole new regimen going I’m real happy with, thank you, but not applicable to the matter at hand. I’m reminded of gym-rats looking at themselves in the mirror. You know the kind: the smelly, loud, grunting, farting, pumping more iron than they should, slamming them down on the floor ~ oh, look at me … I am. They’re fake, a facade, pumped up without the underlying stamina ~ while they’re making all that noise/stink pumpin’ two hundred pounds a couple times, I’m pumpin’ a hundred pounds fifteen or twenty, a hundred fifty (my weight) ten or twelve. And I have had weight-lifters, body-builders, out in the woods … and they didn’t last very long.
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The only lumberjacks I ever got to know a bit were the crew that did tree work at a house I used to own a few year ago. They weren’t big buffed guys, shorter than average, actually (Well, probably average where they came from. When they talked among themselves it didn’t sound like Spanish and I can’t tell Aztecan from Quichean.), but for tough and stamina you couldn’t beat them. They worked old style, no crane, just limb it, and cut and drop the logs. The guy who went up the 120 foot pine (It was lightning struck.) got quite a ride when he cut and dropped the top. That kind of work will definitely separate the merely buffed from the genuinely strong.
Bay the way, do you stir your coffee with your thumb? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gXr31zLBxM
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Howdy Bob!
Nothing impresses more than an expert in their field, especially a very physical field like tree cutting. The thing that separates the expert from the novice is thinking. The expert doesn’t really have to. They just react based on their years of experience and understanding of what is involved. Their knowledge is now instinctual and out of the realm of conscious awareness.
I would show part of the film version of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” to my students when we studied hunter-gatherers. What always struck me was how little fat and the even muscle development those people had. Since they were in the rainforest, they wore very little by way of clothing — luckily the segment showing the man dressed only in a penis sheath was short and your attention was focused elsewhere — so when the women were chopping sago trees, you see the development of their lats, triceps, and biceps very clearly. It always impressed our pudgy seventh graders, especially the boys.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Humans and hominids were H&Gers for about four million years, and a precious few still are. We evolved in and for and by that way of life. A time use study of the Saan people (“Bushmen”) found that despite their arid environment they had the highest percentage of leisure time of anybody in the world, which they spent playing with their children and telling stories and making music.
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Howdy Bob!
I remember reading an account of the views of the Plains Indians in the mid to late 1800’s. They were astonished that the white settlers worked so long and so hard. They worked hard during the spring and summer collecting food and resources and then bedded down for the fall and winter. What more did you need? It didn’t make any sense to them. I’m sure it doesn’t make any sense to any of the H-G’ers now either.
I also remember a quote from a Mennonite, who said something like, Who needs TV when you have the children to watch play? It makes perfect sense to me. What didn’t make sense to me was my Southern Baptist aunt and uncle who wouldn’t allow music or cards in their house because music might lead to dancing which might lead to sex and cards might lead to gambling.
I think we’ve gone far wrong in the balance of thing.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, very far, but it is so profitable for the owners.
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Don’t drink coffee, but when I did …
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[laughing]
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Howdy Ten Bears!
The muscular physique from doing hard physical labor is not the same as the one you develop from weight lifting. And lifting doesn’t bring with it the other benefits of hard labor, the cardiovascular development and heat processing. One of the greatest benefits of distance running is a well developed set of lungs that have a high percentage of fill and efficient exchange of oxygen, low heart rate, and efficient cooling of the body. You wouldn’t recognize it unless you experienced it.
I’ve long maintained that hunter-gatherers would adapt more quickly and efficiently to our modern world than we would to theirs. One of our worst mistakes is to believe that indigenous and less technologically developed peoples are stupid. They just don’t know the same things that we do, and we sure as shit, don’t know what they know.
Back in my misspent youth some friends and I were skinny dipping one hot summer’s day in a creek on a farm when some cattle came up and stood over our clothes. We had no idea how to scare the cattle away. Okay, I had some ideas as probably had the others, but we had fun trying to impress the cattle with all of our knowledge like knowing calculus and the names of the stars. It had no real effect on them. Luckily, the farmer showed up, chewed us out for trespassing, and took the cattle away. Quite disappointing. I thought the names for the stars things would do the trick.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Howdy Bob!
The other thing about the tanned wealthy is that they have the other ostentatious signs of wealth: clothes, jewelry, coiffed hair, exquisite make-up, cars, accessories, and what have you, so that no one can ever mistake them for laborers who came by their tans and muscles as a necessity and not a choice.
I guess it is one of the chief ironies that skin cancer and blown plastic surgeries plague the rich and famous, and in several notable cases, ended careers and public ostentatious displays of their wealth and status. It isn’t particularly funny, though. Bungled plastic surgery can be a severe blow to one’s mental health and appearance, and skin cancer doesn’t discriminate.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It is almost as if we still had sumptuary laws regulating what people can wear and display based on rank, class, and cast.
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Howdy Ten Bears!
I can tell you from having spent twenty some-odd years in Far East Asia — I was here from the beginning of the skin-lightening fad — that there are few skincare products that don’t have a whitening agent in them over here. In Korea, the girls hated walking and climbing stairs because they feared developing toned muscles in their legs. I put lighter skin and muscle tone together and came up with, they didn’t want to look like laborers and the poor. I think it is all a product of classism.
Huzzah!
Jack
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