Wonders of the Fruneaulogical World

[rain_gryphon]

Fukubukuro. Apart from the perverted-sounding name, I find this interesting because selling grab-bags used to be a fairly common practice when I was little. It's pretty much died out these days. Now I wonder if it was an idea the occupying troops brought back from Japan?

I'd like to see them again. Grab-bags are always fun if the dealer's honest about them. Radio Shack especially used to have good ones, filled with weird discontinued stuff, stuff in damaged packaging, and samples.

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Our Goodwill store never has live ordnance :/

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They're locking political opponents in buildings and burning them alive in Kenya now. I'd always considered Kenya an orderly sort of country, where that kind of thing didn't happen.

When I was a child, there was so much hope for the Anglophone ex-colonies: India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Burma, etc. To Americans, at any rate, these looked like young versions of the States. They were new and energetic countries, blessed with British law and philosophy, and with lots of help and encouragement available to them. They should have prospered. Where does the fault lie, I wonder?

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We're finally going back to paper ballots here, after the last six years of ill-conceived 'easy to use' voting machines. I still think that if someone's not smart enough to successfully operate a card punch or fill out a scantron form, then they have no business voting to begin with. There are some things that shouldn't be simplified for the benefit of the incompetent.

I'm just about willing to bet that the lines will move more rapidly with scantron ballots too.

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I've had a strange revelation about post-medieval texts. If you read, for example, "Wonders of the Invisible World" in the original typesetting, you'll see a lot of italic and capitals dropped into the text at odd points. It seems to break the narrative flow. If you read it aloud, though, and lightly stress capitalized nouns, and stress the italic bits (excepting the Latin phrases) a bit more heavily, it acquires a distinctive rhythm. This, I'm pretty sure, is the rhythm of Cotton Mather preaching. This is probably a 'Well Duh!' moment for Humanities majors, but it's complete news to me :)

It makes sense. They're from the age when not everyone could read (or afford books, for that matter), so those who could tended to read aloud to their fellows. These books were designed to facilitate that.

There'd have to have been some sort of markup language in use as well for sending texts to the printer. Odd to think that the beginnings of HTML may lie in 17th century religious tracts.

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It remains a lifelong source of delight and wonder that I can read the words of someone long dead, and know him thereby just as well as many of his contemporaries might have.

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It's hard from my 21st century perspective to read of someone being an 'anti-paedobaptist' without imagining wrong things :)

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I find myself already looking forward to the Olympics.

Comments

[pyesetz]

the rhythm of Cotton Mather preaching
It's too bad he didn't use *asterisks* and boldface and embedded large type (which was probably beyond the abilities of his typesetter).  The font used for "DEVILS" seems rather uneven, with the notable exception of the 'S'.  The smaller section headers throughout seem to be in the same squiggly face.  There's no accounting for taste in fonts, I suppose.

blessed with British law and philosophy, and with lots of help and encouragement available to them. They should have prospered.
These things are not why Anglo-majority colonies prospered.  A belief in the need for restraints on capitalism (inheritance tax, somewhat-free press, social welfare to prevent the pauper class from becoming too impoverished to participate at all) is what the Anglos have but most of Africa never had.  Unrestrained capitalism eventually leads to ballot-stuffing, looting of the treasury, and serfdom.

I can read the words of someone long dead, and know him thereby just as well as many of his contemporaries might have.
Frankly, I don't think this is possible.  The meanings of words depend on their social context, which is imperfectly preserved.  For most people, when they read in the Bible that Lot's wife "turned into a pillar of salt", they have no idea that this was a common expression at that time (meaning roughly "turned white with fear") and that original readers would have laughed at the idea that her molecules actually became NaCl.

There is a theory in Linguistics that the meaning of an utterance consists of the set of conventions that it violates.  A sentence that says exactly what the reader would expect the writer to say in that situation is a sentence with no semantic content.  When we read Cotton Mather today, we do not have the feel that his contemporaries had for "what a man like Cotton Mather would be expected to say" and thus we do not detect all of his deviations from the norms of the time.  For a modern example of this, try reading some of Richard Stallman's writings—much of the "madman" or "Chicken Little" feel that his early work used to have is gone now because the world has become much more like the Corporatist Nightmare that he always predicted.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

On the parts you mark with asterisks, I shall picture you standing waving your arms like a semaphore as you speak. This will, if nothing else, afford me entertainment.

A belief in the need for restraints on capitalism (inheritance tax, somewhat-free press, social welfare to prevent the pauper class from becoming too impoverished to participate at all) is what the Anglos have but most of Africa never had. Unrestrained capitalism eventually leads to ballot-stuffing, looting of the treasury, and serfdom.

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. What's afflicting Kenya (and what you describe) are the evils of unrestrained democracy. It's not a very long slide from the notion that the majority is right simply because they are the majority, to the practice of killing all who oppose the majority. When a society's highest measurement of civic virtue is that the majority has voted for some course of action, then there are no restraints whatever on the rights of government, and no guarantees whatever of the rights of citizens.

British philosophy and law provides the notion of the rights of the common man against authority, summarized in the idea that a man's home is his castle. For whatever reason, this didn't take firm hold in east Africa. Personally I suspect it's because the people see themselves more as members of the village and tribe rather than as individuals. That conceptual barrier between self and community isn't there for them like it is for us. In the West, we grow up with that awareness of being an individual in a community formed from individuals. The notions of freedom of conscience and dissent come from that awareness. It seems to be gone in Kenya.

A sentence that says exactly what the reader would expect the writer to say in that situation is a sentence with no semantic content.

That's an interesting idea, and one that will take some mulling over...

Bukafuk, and Revelations

[stu-ath.livejournal.com]

Many fine thoughts and words here. esp. The "readings" from those long gone

Formula 1 Olympics! Kimi to win again?

And, you won the poll, Xololo!

Re: Bukafuk, and Revelations

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Pigeons!

Indeed, manypigins!

[stu-ath.livejournal.com]

Interesting nose:

http://www.f2008.it/

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Wow...munitions in the bargain bin at a VoA store would be cool. Grenades held intacts with rubber bands, with a note "Missing Pin - $2.00".

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I find myself tempted to buy a dealer's table at Morphicon...