nancylebov | Apr. 6th, 2009

Apr. 6th, 2009

This is extremely skilled and extremely silly. Does anyone know the name of the ballerina and if she's got anything else online and whether Cirque du Soleil has enough sense to hire her?

http://dteleki.livejournal.com/497.html

Imagine that the English language has a similar writing system. (The specifics here are a simplified example that I invented, not Grandma’s original explanation, which was more abstract and general, with many books and essays and dictionaries and photographs of cuneiform tablets waved about.)

Suppose, then, that a stylized picture of a bee represents either the insect "bee", or the sound of the syllable /bee/, or the word that sounds like /bee/ that means "to exist" (to be). And a stylized picture of a deer represents either the animal "deer", or the sound of the syllable /deer/, or the word that sounds like /deer/ that means "precious" (dear). The symbols [deer] [bee] put together also represent the similar-sounding word "Derby", which can be a place in England "Derby", the horse-racing contest held there "the Derby", a style of small round men’s hat that originated there "a Derby" or a particular hat in this style, or a racing contest in general e.g. "roller derby", "demolition derby". Or [deer] [bee] might represent the name of a "deer-bee", an insect that likes to bother and sting the animal.

While we are at it, over the centuries (in my example) the stylized picture of the bee has evolved into a square with stripes across it and two lines sticking diagonally out of the top like a rabbit-ear antenna to represent the bee’s wings; at the same time that a symbol representing a stylized picture of a prison cell window has turned into a square with the stripes without the rabbit-ears antenna, and it represents the concept "bar" or "bars" meaning "rod" or "rods", and also "chocolate bar", and the syllables /bar/ and /barz/, and by extension the words "barbarian" and "barbaric". And sometimes a scribe drawing the [bee] symbol accidentally leaves off the rabbit-ears antenna, or draws it badly so it is hard to recognize, or the inscription has become damaged; so that the [bee] symbol more or less looks like a [barred-window] symbol, even though that is not what the scribe intended. And sometimes the [barred-window] symbol grows a decoration that looks vaguely like the rabbit-ears, due to style drift. And sometimes the symbol for "television", a square with rabbit-ears and no stripes, grows one or more stripes after all, or acquires damage that looks like stripes, and sometimes the [bee] and [barred-window] symbols lose some or all of their stripes due to style drift, or the stripes become damaged so it is hard to tell if they are stripes or not.

It's amazing that anyone could read Sumerian-- I'm reminded of a Lafferty story (sorry, title forgotten) in which it turns out that the only reason people can talk to each other is that language is supplemented by telepathy. (I don't think the story explained how text could possibly work.)

Link from this discussion of how to use long boring stories to answer questions you don't feel safe not answering directly. I'm not surprised that the discussion branched to include a long interesting story.

http://dteleki.livejournal.com/497.html

Imagine that the English language has a similar writing system. (The specifics here are a simplified example that I invented, not Grandma’s original explanation, which was more abstract and general, with many books and essays and dictionaries and photographs of cuneiform tablets waved about.)

Suppose, then, that a stylized picture of a bee represents either the insect "bee", or the sound of the syllable /bee/, or the word that sounds like /bee/ that means "to exist" (to be). And a stylized picture of a deer represents either the animal "deer", or the sound of the syllable /deer/, or the word that sounds like /deer/ that means "precious" (dear). The symbols [deer] [bee] put together also represent the similar-sounding word "Derby", which can be a place in England "Derby", the horse-racing contest held there "the Derby", a style of small round men’s hat that originated there "a Derby" or a particular hat in this style, or a racing contest in general e.g. "roller derby", "demolition derby". Or [deer] [bee] might represent the name of a "deer-bee", an insect that likes to bother and sting the animal.

While we are at it, over the centuries (in my example) the stylized picture of the bee has evolved into a square with stripes across it and two lines sticking diagonally out of the top like a rabbit-ear antenna to represent the bee’s wings; at the same time that a symbol representing a stylized picture of a prison cell window has turned into a square with the stripes without the rabbit-ears antenna, and it represents the concept "bar" or "bars" meaning "rod" or "rods", and also "chocolate bar", and the syllables /bar/ and /barz/, and by extension the words "barbarian" and "barbaric". And sometimes a scribe drawing the [bee] symbol accidentally leaves off the rabbit-ears antenna, or draws it badly so it is hard to recognize, or the inscription has become damaged; so that the [bee] symbol more or less looks like a [barred-window] symbol, even though that is not what the scribe intended. And sometimes the [barred-window] symbol grows a decoration that looks vaguely like the rabbit-ears, due to style drift. And sometimes the symbol for "television", a square with rabbit-ears and no stripes, grows one or more stripes after all, or acquires damage that looks like stripes, and sometimes the [bee] and [barred-window] symbols lose some or all of their stripes due to style drift, or the stripes become damaged so it is hard to tell if they are stripes or not.

There's drama attached to putting political prisoners in mental institutions, but here and now, people are stuck in mental institutions for being poor, inarticulate, and/or deaf:

---from The Last Psychaiatrist:

Worse, much worse, is how many people I see that I say are competent and still wind up recommitted for two months. Six months. A year. Think I'm kidding? It is impossible to even estimate how many charts I have read that indicate no psychiatric contact-- not medication, not therapy, not psychiatrist-- for the entire duration of their commitment. And why should there be? The treating psychiatrist doesn't see anything to treat.

At least they aren't using psychiatric treatment as part of the punishment. I believe the US is massively fucked up in important ways, but this doesn't mean this is anywhere near the worse country in history.[1]

You're probably thinking about murderers and rapists; but the majority of these cases are theft, assaults, drug possessions. Can anyone explain to me what possible justification exists for locking up a guy charged with possession for eight months, no trial? And I'll pretend the guy is whacked out of his nut psychotic. Ok? Any justification at all?

I'm not saying you can't sentence him to eight months-- cane him, for all I care; I'm saying you can't jail him for eight months without a trial. Is anyone listening to me?

From the comments:
How about a deaf girl kept in county jail for a year (and had been returned there many times for vagrancy) because she didn't qualify for any programs of help and there were no resources to so much as communicate with her!! Once someone who practiced sign language was incarcerated along with her she was able to tell of being diagnosed with all manner of psychiatric problems including schizophrenia and medicated for it and kept locked up because she couldn't document a place to live or go if they released her. But, **No one could talk to her to explain what was needed*** so she stayed in jail unaware of what needed to be done!!! Arghh!. And though I'm no psychiatrist, it was clear this was someone very much in fear and isolated to an extreme but with little indications of mental health problems. She was amazingly tough, resigned to her condition and clearly badly affected by how "the world" was treating her, no trust whatsoever for anyone. Who can blame her. The best that could be done was urge her to get out of the state and go somewhere where they would at least talk to her. What about that jail's psychiatrist?!?! No moral or ethical issues at all as far as he was concerned, even agreed it was a "population management" issue nothing else.

[1] That last is a holdover from a conversation with a friend who's come to believe that the US has used torture and it's a bad thing, but needs to keep saying that other countries have been worse.

Link thanks to dglenn.

Worse, much worse, is how many people I see that I say are competent and still wind up recommitted for two months. Six months. A year. Think I'm kidding? It is impossible to even estimate how many charts I have read that indicate no psychiatric contact-- not medication, not therapy, not psychiatrist-- for the entire duration of their commitment. And why should there be? The treating psychiatrist doesn't see anything to treat.

You're probably thinking about murderers and rapists; but the majority of these cases are theft, assaults, drug possessions. Can anyone explain to me what possible justification exists for locking up a guy charged with possession for eight months, no trial? And I'll pretend the guy is whacked out of his nut psychotic. Ok? Any justification at all?

I'm not saying you can't sentence him to eight months-- cane him, for all I care; I'm saying you can't jail him for eight months without a trial. Is anyone listening to me?

From the comments:
How about a deaf girl kept in county jail for a year (and had been returned there many times for vagrancy) because she didn't qualify for any programs of help and there were no resources to so much as communicate with her!! Once someone who practiced sign language was incarcerated along with her she was able to tell of being diagnosed with all manner of psychiatric problems including schizophrenia and medicated for it and kept locked up because she couldn't document a place to live or go if they released her. But, **No one could talk to her to explain what was needed*** so she stayed in jail unaware of what needed to be done!!! Arghh!. And though I'm no psychiatrist, it was clear this was someone very much in fear and isolated to an extreme but with little indications of mental health problems. She was amazingly tough, resigned to her condition and clearly badly affected by how "the world" was treating her, no trust whatsoever for anyone. Who can blame her. The best that could be done was urge her to get out of the state and go somewhere where they would at least talk to her. What about that jail's psychiatrist?!?! No moral or ethical issues at all as far as he was concerned, even agreed it was a "population management" issue nothing else.

[1] That last is a holdover from a conversation with a friend who's come to believe that the US has used torture and it's a bad thing, but needs to keep saying that other countries have been worse.

Link thanks to dglenn.