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The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - Fritz Lang
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 90
About a criminally insane genius who plots the overthrow of civilization and runs a vast criminal enterprise from beyond the grave.
Everyone smokes everywhere they please, the yo-yo is a favourite a pastime of the police, and for a film made in 1933 it's almost entirely modern in it's sets and furniture. There's the deranged patient and psychiatrist - his office filled with for art - masks of different tribes, various deformed human skulls (a-la Mutter Museum), the paintings of patients or other lunatics, Dr. Mabuse is - in a sense - the original "Joker", set out to upend the world for it’s own sake, the pleasure of it, and there are surprisingly innovative techniques - for example the cut from mugshot to the scene.
Still, almost a hundred years later a great film, only we've forgotten who the villains are; Dr. Mabuse's manifesto was not intended to become the roadmap for 20th century capitalism...
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande - E.E. Evans-Pritchard
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 81
I have absolutely no interest in the Azande people, but I do have an interest in the rest. Anyways, an early 20th century "study" by Anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard on the beliefs of the Azande of the South Sudan as pertains to the title. His explanations are excellent and somewhat illuminate the reasoning process behind it all. But - all in all - I preferred Levy-Bruhl's "Primitive Mentality" - which as opposed to focussing on one tribe describes an aggregate of how "all tribes" (worthy of an Anthropologist) arrange their thinking and 'supernatural' beliefs. So while I enjoyed it will be moving on to the bookstore, I can't keep them all...
Sea Change
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 130
This is an interesting tale of a sailor who one day woke up and discovered that the ocean had changed colour. From a formerly beautiful violet to the blue-green we're familiar with today. And how he spoke to other sailors and discovered that many had noted the same as well.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmVbwba8Xk
Now, at first I wondered about Gladstone's Colour Theory (Linked Here) - maybe in Homer's time it was a wine dark sea? What if the sailor's were all victims of the Mandala effect? (Linked Here). Or maybe - from time to time - reality resets itself and / or "reboots" - runs a different, updated program? Anyways, there is much to mull in this - how you can wake up one morning to a profoundly different world than the one you went to sleep in the night before.
'lil Alberta
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 154
This is less an idea or question than a suggestion or solution.
Alberta, political cesspool of half-witted separatists and wing nuts. They want their own country?
Well, have the vote. And then give it to them. Lay aside a portion of Alberta that proportionally represents the land / population, surround it with a barbed-wire fence and armed guards and let the Alberta Nationalists populate and settle it. Move Danielle Smith in and her UCP caucus, they'll need governance. And let them run 'lil Alberta as they see fit.
We don't need to do anything else, don't need to punish treason, grifting or theft. Just move these assholes into their own country just like they want.
This actually solves a few of our incarceration needs as well. Child Molester? 'lil Alberta wants you. There is amongst the UCP just as amongst MAGA's in the US a considerable overlap I'm sure. And 'lil Alberta welcomes anyone that isn't coloured. Oh - White Nationalists? Move them as well to 'lil Alberta. Murderers? Well, where else are you going to send them. 'lil Alberta can be like Australia was for the English, only we won't punish trifles, only those who seem unable to play well or fairly with others.
It gets out of making difficult decisions, costly decisions about repeat offenders in the justice system - what in Alberta or Canada was a crime is - in 'lil Alberta - a virtue. We don't need to police them, provide them healthcare, or even food. Why, they can grow their own! And dig for their own oil and make their own refineries. They'll be rich, those 'lil Albertans.
Everything will be better in 'lil Alberta. Hell, in no time at all the rest of Alberta, nay Canade even, will be clamouring to join. Just like everyone in the UK wants to move to Australia.
Lil’ Alberta - if they voted for it they get it, those who didn’t - don’t. This is a solution that should please everyone.
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