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steinrokkan posted:Nice to see that most Slavic peoples apparently have to borrow myths from random neighbours. Yeah, it's not even accurate -- they leave out the huge similarities between Baltic, Norse and Slavic religion. It's less a matter of borrowing than being descendants of an earlier (hypothetical) proto-Indo-European religion. Some borrowing did go on, since Novgorod and Kievan Rus' were Varangian entities, but in general there's enough natural overlap.  Here's Perun, pretty similar to Thor (just replacing a big hammer with a big axe), or Baltic Perkūnas.
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Jun 2, 2013 17:33
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Earth fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2013 17:43
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OwlBot 2000 posted:Yeah, it's not even accurate -- they leave out the huge similarities between Baltic, Norse and Slavic religion. It's less a matter of borrowing than being descendants of an earlier (hypothetical) proto-Indo-European religion. Some borrowing did go on, since Novgorod and Kievan Rus' were Varangian entities, but in general there's enough natural overlap. Indra is kind-of Thor like too (and the "d-r"/"th-r" coincidence is pretty interesting): 
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Jun 2, 2013 18:14
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OwlBot 2000 posted:Yeah, it's not even accurate -- they leave out the huge similarities between Baltic, Norse and Slavic religion. It's less a matter of borrowing than being descendants of an earlier (hypothetical) proto-Indo-European religion. Some borrowing did go on, since Novgorod and Kievan Rus' were Varangian entities, but in general there's enough natural overlap. Given all the shared stories between the Indo-European, Semitic, and Sumerian religions, sharing seems very common between religions in general. For example the storm god fighting a serpent is a very common story. Thor/YHWH/Marduk fighting Jormungandr/Leviathan/Tiamat. Given how easy it seems, I wouldn't be surprised if the similarities were due to a mixture of sharing and common descent.  Backstory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtyYlAH0f_M
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Jun 2, 2013 18:44
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OwlBot 2000 posted:Yeah, it's not even accurate -- they leave out the huge similarities between Baltic, Norse and Slavic religion. It's less a matter of borrowing than being descendants of an earlier (hypothetical) proto-Indo-European religion. Some borrowing did go on, since Novgorod and Kievan Rus' were Varangian entities, but in general there's enough natural overlap. In case what I was trying to convey got lost and it came out as a sincere comment; I was making a sarcastic jab at the arbitrary way they sub-divided the continent without much regard for actual local folklore.  The Celebrations of Svantovit
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Jun 2, 2013 18:56
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steinrokkan posted:In case what I was trying to convey got lost and it came out as a sincere comment; I was making a sarcastic jab at the arbitrary way they sub-divided the continent without much regard for actual local folklore. Oh no, I understood you. I was joining you in your criticism of the graphic.  Bishop Absalon destroying Svantevit at Cape Arkona, Rügen.
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Jun 2, 2013 19:05
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OwlBot 2000 posted:
Booo to this man! Also as an interesting thing it appears as if some anthropologists believe that this guy:  Is actually Heracles by way of India, Tibet and China. http://moondesignpublications.com/blog/jeff/heracles-another-name
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Jun 2, 2013 19:26
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 Istanbul press room. http://goo.gl/0a389
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Jun 2, 2013 19:47
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Earth posted:Yeah, kind of like the whole religions taking over previous religion's holidays. How Easter was something about fertility instead of Jesus returning. Or the Christmas tree is about decorating a tree with "fruit." Sure it's not accurate, but it's a nice visual.  Back to the dual-faith. Instead of just slowly evolving culture/religion to shift away from pre-Christian paganism, Russians just shifted the valencies of paganism from + to -, with Christianity overriding it. They took the bureaucratic structures from Byzantium (not too successfully, though) and made everything that was of Byzantium into a +, while everything pagan and Western was bad. That's why you can find a lot of writing where Russians equate Catholics as pagans--though obviously Orthodoxy has a lot more in common with Catholicism than paganism. It's beacuse there is no middle-ground in the Russian mind (again, per Lotman/Uspensky, not me)--everything fits a binary model. Over time, Russians tried to cancel out or neuter the pagan holidays and gods of their content by making Christian holidays/saints out of them--Perun the lightning God because Elijah, Veles became a number of saints (St. Blaise, Nicholas, and others), and so on. This same thing happened all throughout Europe, of course, but there was some more dramatic results with Russia. You can find old priest handbooks in the late 19th/early 20th centuries that go through everyday of the year and specifically tell priests to not let the peasants do certain things (pagan rituals) on certain days (pagan holidays), and instead have them do the church-mandated holiday. For example, don't let peasants (who held onto the pagan traditions or remnants of them much more strongly than the urban population) go out and drink liquor in the graveyards on spring holiday A to contact the pagan god of the dead B, instead make them stay in town and drink in the marketplace to celebrate for church holiday C and celebrate the name day of saint D.  We see this in the Soviet times as well--just think of Lenin being turned into a deity. You can't completely displace the Christian/religious impulse of the Russians, so just channel it into worship of the Soviet pantheon of Marx/Engels/Lenin/Stalin/Gorky. The traditional corner where you put your icon, the "красный уголок," went from having icons of Mary/Christ to Soviet propaganda.    Now I'm not sure if I totally buy Lotman/Uspensky's model, but it's very helpful in thinking about how Russian intellectual history has developed and why it's so different than the West. But I'm really not sure how it fits into today's Russia. You've seen a lot of neo-paganism in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, along with newfound semi-worship of the royal family that was repressed for so long. Think about how Russia relates to its Soviet past and its antithesis (the West, capitalism, Orthodoxy) today as compared to before. bearic fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jun 2, 2013 |
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Jun 2, 2013 19:55
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Jun 2, 2013 19:55
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vegaji posted:But I'm really not sure how it fits into today's Russia. You've seen a lot of neo-paganism in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, along with newfound semi-worship of the royal family that was repressed for so long. Think about how Russia relates to its Soviet past and its antithesis (the West, capitalism, Orthodoxy) today as compared to before. Does it relate at all, you think, to how popular magical realism/the supernatural has become in literature? Max Fray for example. Also speaking of Fray, I've only scratched the surface on this so maybe the similarities are superficial, but I keep seeing the image of the labyrinth pop up as a sort of metaphor for 21st century Russia. 
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Jun 2, 2013 20:55
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That Lotman/Uspensky thing strikes me as ridiculous Orientalism and I don't think there's much validity to it. Different political and religious forces were present at different times, and different circumstances cause people to react in different ways. The Orthodox rejection of Purgatory has much less to do with "hurr the Slavs think in black and white!" (presumably the Greeks, too?) than it being an innovation with very weak support from Scripture or Patristics. In other words, the whole drat thing seems patronizing and like it bends over backwards to support itself. Edit: and the 1917 revolution wasn't a result of "binary thinking"; it was genuinely the best way to improve the lives of the greatest number of people. The regression to capitalism wasn't a result of binary thinking, it was the result of a military defeat and conditions imposed by "Black and White" Western economists and politicians. It's a stupid thesis through and through. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jun 2, 2013 |
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Jun 2, 2013 21:57
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 This is what Mitt Romney's White House would have looked like. So much business speak, ugh. quote:In the months before the 2012 election, a group of high-powered consultants and political operatives prepared a secret report for candidate Mitt Romney, explaining how he should take over and restructure the federal government should he win the presidency.  Heckuva job, guys.
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Jun 2, 2013 22:34
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The Everest thread in D&D directed me to this highly interesting piece about the Siachen conflict between India and Pakistan. The Siachen is a large glacier in the middle of Kashmir, directly at the frontline between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of it. For almost twenty years, the two nations fought a secret war about this completely barren piece of land, sending thousands of troops into a battlefield in which altitudes would sometimes reach 22,000ft. It was a completely pointless and bizarre war (they agreed on a ceasefire in 2003) with far more soliders being killed by the extreme environments than by enemy fire. Pakistani soldiers in the Siachen sector, 2012  Indian infographic (2005) The two World Wars saw some high altitude fighting as well:  Austro-Hungarian soldiers at the Italian front on the Ortler mountain (3,850m)  Austrian military position in the Rotwand (  ) Catholic mass on the Marmolada (2,600m) German soldiers in the Caukcasus during WWII (For some reason imgur won't let me upload this one) And today:  A soldier of the 10th US Mountain Division on patrol in Nuristan (2006)
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Jun 2, 2013 22:41
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OwlBot 2000 posted:That Lotman/Uspensky thing strikes me as ridiculous Orientalism and I don't think there's much validity to it. Different political and religious forces were present at different times, and different circumstances cause people to react in different ways. The Orthodox rejection of Purgatory has much less to do with "hurr the Slavs think in black and white!" (presumably the Greeks, too?) than it being an innovation with very weak support from Scripture or Patristics. In other words, the whole drat thing seems patronizing and like it bends over backwards to support itself. My main problem with their thesis is that it does ignore all of the progressives in Russian history--for every Bakunin there is a Herzen, for every SR there were Kadets. However, these guys couldn't get through and make meaningful change, whether it was because the more revolutionary group (that would back up L/U's thesis) was much more effective or because the existing power wanted none of it (how depressing would it be to be a progressive liberal in the time of Nicholas I?). The only people who got marked down in the history books were the ones who "fit" into the binary model, making everything far too convenient. That said, I think it's a bit disingenuous to describe 1917 in the way you do. Lenin won out in 1917 not because he had the best plan to improve the lives of the most people, but because he was the most ruthless and the best organizer. If only WW1 wasn't such a disaster, there were actual, genuine plans for a constitutional monarchy on the way. If I recall correctly, Alexander II had a plan written up to create a Duma in 1881, but was murdered the day before he was going to create it. Maybe Russia just never had the time for that gradual progress that L/U claims to be impossible in Russia.
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Jun 3, 2013 00:28
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vegaji posted:That said, I think it's a bit disingenuous to describe 1917 in the way you do. Lenin won out in 1917 not because he had the best plan to improve the lives of the most people, but because he was the most ruthless and the best organizer. If only WW1 wasn't such a disaster, there were actual, genuine plans for a constitutional monarchy on the way. If I recall correctly, Alexander II had a plan written up to create a Duma in 1881, but was murdered the day before he was going to create it. Maybe Russia just never had the time for that gradual progress that L/U claims to be impossible in Russia. I'm saying the 1917 revolution won out because it supported, and was supported by, the workers' councils (Soviets) who had been tremendously popular across much of the Russian working class since the aborted 1905 revolution. They had created an alternative that blew Western-style "representative democracy" out of the water in terms of improvement to material conditions and real democracy, and people understood that. So they weren't supported just because they were ruthless (though they had to be; over a dozen nations sent in troops to support the Autocracy), or because Russians think in black and white, but because they offered a better program than did the others.  In any case, I think Lotman/Uspensky is specious and falls apart under close examination, and doesn't explain actual phenomena as well as more traditional readings of history based on economic and political circumstances which necessarily confined peoples' options at various points in time. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 00:42
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Jun 3, 2013 02:02
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Earth posted:This one is just awesome. Pity he never said it; it's a great line. whoa 
PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jun 4, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 02:19
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PainterofCrap posted:Pity he never said it; it's a great line. That's a universal negative, and therefore impossible to prove  (also post a picture) 
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Jun 3, 2013 02:59
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Earth posted:Yeah, kind of like the whole religions taking over previous religion's holidays. How Easter was something about fertility instead of Jesus returning. Or the Christmas tree is about decorating a tree with "fruit." Sure it's not accurate, but it's a nice visual. Just to get on the  with this map, South America has the highest diversity of extant indigenous societies and languages of any continent, so the map is cherrypicking on that level with a tiny sample. It's also not representative of great antiquity, because Arawak is a relatively recent arrival in the Caribbean and is in fact extant mostly in Amazonia but also as far south as the La Plata basin. For some reason it lists Quechua and Inka as separate too?. Furthermore, pee pee doo doo its a bad map (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 3, 2013 03:37
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Earth posted:Yeah, kind of like the whole religions taking over previous religion's holidays. How Easter was something about fertility instead of Jesus returning. Or the Christmas tree is about decorating a tree with "fruit." Sure it's not accurate, but it's a nice visual. Abrahamic is listed. Judaism is listed. Christianity is listed. Where is the myth of Islam on this map?  e: pic. NewtGoongrich fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 04:48
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Dayyyyum, 2 posts in a row with no pics  This young man lived in a barn raising horses outside of Moore, Oklahoma. He was interviewed after this year's may 20 tornados because he somehow survived a direct hit from the tornado that destroyed his barn and killed lots of horses
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Jun 3, 2013 04:55
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It's pretty much a done deal that "should of" will be the correct way to write that in a few years, isn't it?
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Jun 3, 2013 06:58
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NewtGoongrich posted:Abrahamic is listed. Judaism is listed. Christianity is listed. Where is the myth of Islam on this map? It's there, under Persian Mythology... to recap, Islam is as native to Persia as Judaism is to the Semetic people and as Christianity is to the Mediterranean people, but it is foreign to Arabian peoples? Also the Romani people are not Slavs and yet their religion is listed under Slavic mythology. Yeah a lot of Roma ended up in Eastern Europe but the way the Romani people entered Europe was via South Eastern Europe, so I'd imagine there would be more Romani in the Mediterranean region than Eastern Europe during whatever timeperiod this is supposed to be. Also, Poland seems to be in the Scandinavian region which seems questionable to say the least. Well that's enough of mapchat. Time for flagchat!  The Romani flag purposed by the General Union of the Roma of Romania back in 1933.
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Jun 3, 2013 08:39
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Tohid Tunnels, Iran.
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Jun 3, 2013 09:03
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System Metternich posted:
My fiancee's family grew up on a mountain nearby, the Col di Lana (2,462m), specifically in a town called Livinallongo. This is the seal of the municipality:  The top right-hand image of the seal is interesting: In 1915-1916 the Col di Lana changed hands between the Italians and Austrians several times. The winter was particularly bad and claimed many lives, especially on the Italian side as they had higher numbers on the mountain. Both sides dug-in defensive positions and fortifications in the bare rock, tunneling by hand.   In April 1916, in an attempt to retake the peak, the Italians filled a hand-dug mine with 5 tons of gelignite, and quite literally blew the top off the mountain, forcing the austrians to surrender it. After the war the region of Livinallongo was rebuilt almost exclusively by women, all of whom had lost their sons, husbands brothers and fathers to the mountain and the war. The mountain itself is considered a 'sacred place' by the locals- they've fought off plans to build ski lifts on it, and building anything other than traditional mountain huts is frowned upon. The land is still littered with remnants of the war: bullets, casings, shrapnel from shells, and occasionally UXO pops up. This plaque outside the chapel commemorating the war is covered with pieces walkers have found:  I've tried looking for the 'before' and 'after' photos of the mountain, which are really incredible- they have them on display in a museum about halfway up, but they're not online. Wikipedia has a bit more on the place here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Col_di_Lana Edit: I only found this out now, but this guy:  Is the one who made the plans to blow up the mountain. He went on to become Italian ambassador to the US during Mussolini's reign. StarkingBarfish fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 09:40
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Sorry that last map was problematic, here's a better one. Forgive the impact font
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Jun 3, 2013 12:30
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wayfinder posted:It's pretty much a done deal that "should of" will be the correct way to write that in a few years, isn't it? 
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Jun 3, 2013 14:28
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 quote:During his political career, Rob Muldoon developed a good relationship with some gangs, especially Black Power, helping them to find accommodation and form work trusts. They treated him with respect, and Black Power performed a haka at his funeral. Thea Muldoon visited the Black Power marae in Wellington after a memorial service for Muldoon at Wellington Cathedral in September 1992. She is shown seated between Bumpa Mahauraki (left) and Lani Clark. Rob Muldoon was the Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975-1984. He later narrated a New Zealand production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (Thea at his side in this pic): 
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Jun 3, 2013 16:21
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Is there a thread in D&D about Turkey? (couldn't find one, maybe I'm blind) GIS Siege of Vienna 1683
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Jun 3, 2013 16:32
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An illustration done in the Seiz Breur art style in Brittany of the events at Camp de Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War. quote:After the defeat of French forces at the Battle of Sedan, and the fall of the monarchy of Napoleon III, a new republic was proclaimed. The new government decided to form a new army and continue the war. Major General Émile de Kératry was made responsible for establishing a camp at Conlie in the region of Le Mans and mobilized volunteers from the west of France to form an "army of Brittany". The mobilized quota from the five departments of Brittany was 80,000 men. It was intended that these troops would be equipped with the weapons left over from the American Civil War, but these promised weapons failed to materialize. quote:Gambetta decided to send 12,000 men from camp Conlie, armed with only 4000 badly maintained rifles, against the forces of the Duke of Mecklenburg. Given the repeated refusal of the Government to properly arm his men, Kératry resigned in protest on November 27, leaving the command to his deputy, General Le Bouëdec. General Marivault, who succeeded him, called, from December 10, for the partial evacuation of the camp, because of the poor conditions. This was denied by Gambetta, who visited the camp, declaring the situation to be excellent. The General Staff were evacuated. Gambetta eventually agreed to evacuate the camp at the end of December, at the insistence of General Freycinet. From time to time Breton nationalists "rename" the various "Rue Gambetta"s that can be found throughout Brittany. Usually they rename it after Yann Fouere, a nationalist writer.     Or rename it after Camp de Conlie. Kerfank is literally "Mudville" in Breton, the name used by Breton speaking soldiers in the camp.  The whole Camp de Conlie affair did allegedly give us the first picture postcard in the world, made by the owner of a local bookshop to try to sell to the Breton soldiers. 
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Jun 3, 2013 16:37
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This link leads to a video which is very DnD. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/a-publications-spirit-captured/276465/ Edit: An embeddable version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khYtTOQCypg Bip Roberts fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 18:56
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The desk of Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) today in the Senate.
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Jun 3, 2013 19:11
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Dusseldorf posted:This link leads to a video which is very DnD. That woman is not a human. Look at her dull, glazed eyes, her jerky unnatural movements. She is a homunculus, her soul long ago carved out. “Bike Lobby!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-sIl0lNYfs
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Jun 3, 2013 19:12
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Dusseldorf posted:This link leads to a video which is very DnD. 
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Jun 3, 2013 19:14
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 "For those who still think this is just about trees...." *Ataturk*
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Jun 3, 2013 19:19
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Napoleon marches to hell
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Jun 3, 2013 19:33
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Equal marriage is making its way through the House of Lords today, and already the homophobes parroting about people being in danger of losing their jobs for opposing homosexuality: Olly Neville, former leader of UKIP's youth wing Youth Independence, sacked for supporting equal marriage, and the only person whose dismissal is directly linked to that support.
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Jun 3, 2013 19:54
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In regards to the bike chat, I came across this video earlier and as a biker here in Brooklyn, seeing something like this makes me sick to my stomach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKhgBye5K0 *warning: youtube comments are as classy as usual* To sum it up a cyclist is riding through south Williamsburg and is cut up multiple times by the same car. The driver eventually gets out of the car and confronts the rider and threatens him while refusing to allow him to go on his way. The biker is quickly surrounded by residents of the hasidic neighborhood, which the driver is apart of, in an effort to prevent the biker from leaving the scene. http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/05/10/watch-cyclist-harassment-captured-on-camera-in-south-williamsburg/ Upon looking further into the story I found that this has been an ongoing problem in that particular neighborhood, at least for the past couple of years, where members of that particular community will chase down and harass bikers simply because they do not want them on their roads, citing religious reasons. They went so far as to have lobbied the city to sandblast the bike lanes off of the road. http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/18/wb_bikeconflict_2011_5_6_bk.html http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/10/new-york-city-erases-bike-lands-to-appease-hasidic-men-who-object-to-seeing-women-in-bike-shorts/ Phlairdon fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 20:40
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Like, I enjoy biking. I ride often, and I wish my city was more bike friendly. I wish I didn't live in a city as sprawled out as Detroit so I wouldn't need a car. At the same time, I don't feel comfortable when bikers are in the same lanes as cars. As in, they go well under the speed limit and that's kinda dangerous, especially when you're on a bike. Hell, I'm not that fond of motorcyclists for similar reasons. It's just stupid dangerous. I dunno, I admit I get irritated by bikers who slow down traffic so I'll probably get yelled at for this opinion. Regardless, the driver in that video is an idiot and in the wrong. 
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Jun 3, 2013 21:27
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