Tag Archives | Culture

Does The Internet Mean The End For Organized Religions?

By on February 10, 2013 in News 15

Tweets from the Pope aren’t going to help—mainstream organized religion requires closed systems of information, and will inevitably be destroyed by the Internet, Valerie Tarico argues via Alternet:

The biggest threat organized religion has ever faced [is] the Internet. A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some Christians are forbidden to marry nonbelievers, and moms home-school their kids with carefully screened textbooks.

Religions have spent eons honing defenses that keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas.

… Read the rest

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American Football As Ritual Homosexuality

By on February 3, 2013 in News 76

Via Outsports, in honor of the Superbowl, enjoy some excerpts from Cal-Berkeley anthropologist Alan Dundes’s classic 1978 text Into the End Zone for a Touchdown: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of American Football, which breaks down the meaning of your red-blooded Midwestern relatives’ favorite sport:

The whole language of football is involved in sexual allusions. We were told to go out and “fuck those guys”; to take that ball and “stick it up their asses” or “down their throats.” Over the years I’ve seen many a coach get emotionally aroused while he was diagramming a particular play into an imaginary hole on the blackboard. His face red, his voice rising, he would show the ball carrier how he wanted him to “stick it in the hole.”

It is highly likely that the ritual aspect of football, providing as it does a socially sanctioned framework for male body contact…is a form of homosexual behavior.

… Read the rest

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Coca-Cola’s Superbowl Commercial Is A Microcosm Of The Idea Of America

By on February 3, 2013 in News 18

If you want to understand our culture, watch our commercials. Via Salon, Michael Shaw writes:

With the West in an endless struggle in the Middle East not just for resources but mindshare, we see the Coke bottle — the symbol of globalization and American commercialism — sitting there in the hot sand, the object of desire for, first of all, a hapless Gulf prince/camel jockey. Resonating with [the looming] immigration debate, we then have a Hispanic desperado evoking the desert as if the province of thirsty Mexicans looking north.

It’s funny but not-so-funny when you consider that what America has to offer is, in fact, a mirage. What the ad people realize I’m sure is that, after more than a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea of “quenching” — no matter how much you “put down” the Arabs and Islamists — couldn’t be more ironic.

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From Security Checkpoints to Predator Drones – Teaching Our Kids To Love Authority

By on January 30, 2013 in News 2

If you’re intent on bringing about a police state marked by an increasing level of authoritarianism while carrying out crimes against humanity in faraway lands, it’s important that you have the support of your citizens. After all, as Aldous Huxley once said, “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

Of course, if you leave it until it’s too late the citizens might develop unsavoury traits such as questioning authority and employing critical thinking, so it’s vital that the State ideology is drilled into them while they’re young. What better way to do this than with a series of exciting toys?

As Barack Obama continues his killing spree via Predator drones in the Middle East, killing innocent children in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere even as the UN launches a major investigation into civilian deaths, American kids can get in on the action as well, with Maisto’s UAV Predator drone toy.… Read the rest

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Ancient Whistling Language Still Spoken On Spanish Island

By on January 14, 2013 in News 1

The BBC reports on an almost-musical language:

On a Spanish island, an ancient whistling language that once seemed to be dying out is now undergoing a revival. Silbo gomero or Gomeran whistle is an ancient language the locals have assured me is still in use.

This method of communication, in which the Spanish language is replaced by two whistled vowels and four consonants, has a peculiarity perfectly suited to this landscape of deep valleys and steep ravines. It has the ability to travel up to two miles, much further and with less effort than shouting.

It is known that when the first European settlers arrived at La Gomera in the 15th Century, the inhabitants of the island – of North African origin – communicated with whistles. The arrival of the Spanish, the locals adapted the whistling language to Spanish. So the most likely theory is that the whistle came with the settlers from Africa, where there are records of other whistled languages.

… Read the rest

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World’s Largest Historical Collection Of Deviant Erotic And Drug-Related Cultural Works Now At Harvard

By on January 11, 2013 in News 4

Harvard Gazette on a treasure chest for anyone looking to explore the darkest corners of human experience:

Harvard’s newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection is the largest of its kind in the world. It includes a vast collection of boxes, drawers, shelves — whole rooms — full of art, literature, and popular culture artifacts dating back to the 16th century, related to the chief avenues to altered states of mind: sex and drugs.

The Santo Domingo collection is on long-term deposit at Harvard. “We do not own it,” said Morris, but the owners “want us to catalog it, and they want it available for research.” The largest collection of its kind in the world, it will gradually be available to scholars of literature, fine art, photography, film, history, medicine, popular culture, and more.

It has an estimated 30,000 books and 25,000 posters, photographs, and other ephemera assembled by Colombian businessman Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr., who died in 2009.

… Read the rest

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Connecticut Town To Hold Mass Burning Of Violent Video Games, Films, And Music

By on January 4, 2013 in News 22

Connecticut makes progress in the war on fictional violence. The Guardian reports:

A Connecticut community is to hold an amnesty of violent video games in the wake of last month’s mass shooting in Newtown. Organizers Southington SOS plan to offer gift certificates in exchange for donated games, which will be burned. The group, a coalition of local organisations, argues that violent games and films desensitize children to “acts of violence”.

The video game amnesty will take place on 12 January in Southington, a 30-minute drive east from Newtown. The town of Southington has provided a dumpster, organisers said, where violent video games, CDs or DVDs will be collected.

… Read the rest

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China’s Top 10 Internet Memes Of 2012

By on January 2, 2013 in News 2

When the first lolcats emerged, who imagined they would morph into a key tool for transmitting political dissent? The Wall Street Journal runs down ten Chinese memes of note of the past year, including Liu Bo is Very Busy, seen at right:

Protestors scored a double victory in the Sichuanese city of Shifang in July, scuppering plans for a molybdenum copper plant while simultaneously giving Chinese Internet users their own version of the Occupy movement’s Lt. John Pike (aka Pepper Spraying Cop).

The overzealous policeman in China’s case, identified by web sleuths as Liu Bo, was wielding a baton instead of pepper spray. Posting under the hashtag #LiuBoisVeryBusy in Chinese, Sina Weibo users published images of the rotund Mr. Liu bearing down on a variety of victims, including the distressed subject of Edward Munch’s “The Scream,” Chinese track star Liu Xiang and a terrified-looking puppy.

… Read the rest

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Cultural Shifts And Styles To Come In The 2010s

By on January 2, 2013 in News 6

As we begin 2013, here’s DIS Magazine looking forward to our happy, creepy future:

For humanity, gender bending will extend down generationally, all the way to the unborn. Gender for infants will be predetermined and hormone treatments will become standard treatment for children who reject their pre-natal assignments. Trannies will subsequently grow in numbers and be afforded a great deal of respect—especially transgendered pop stars.

Clearly, the current trend of heterosexual promiscuity will continue to accelerate in direct proportion to the rise in gay monogamy. “Republican sex” (formerly known as “the missionary position”) will become a popular term and it will be considered the most risqué, dirty sex a pervert could ever have.

Animal farming will soon reel from unfathomable scandal and animals will develop severe eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Animal obesity will also become a chronic issue. Domesticated family pets will deal with these same emotional eating issues due to the simple truth that these diseases are psychologically contagious and animals are psychic.

… Read the rest

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