Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities, typically held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.
Rainbow Gatherings are an expression of a Utopian impulse, combined with bohemianism, hipster and hippie culture, with roots traceable to the 1960’s counterculture. Mainstream society is commonly referred to and viewed as ‘Babylon,’ connoting the participants’ widely held belief that modern lifestyles and systems of government are unhealthy, unsustainable, exploitative and out of harmony with the natural systems of the planet.
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April 25, 2011
Rainbow Gathering
April 21, 2011
Great Ape Project
The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1994, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and other experts who advocate a UN ‘Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes’ that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. The rights suggested are the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. The organization also monitors individual great ape activity in the US through a census program. Once rights are established, GAP would demand the release of great apes from captivity; currently 3,100 are held in the U.S., including 1,280 in biomedical research.
The project is founded on the principle that great apes possess rationality and self-consciousness, and the ability to be aware of themselves as distinct entities with a past and future. Documented conversations (in sign languages) with individual great apes are the basis for this tenet. However, their biological similarity with humans is also key to the traits for which they are valuable as research subjects. For example, testing of antibody treatments can not be done in species less similar to humans than chimpanzees.
April 14, 2011
Musashi
Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1584– 1645) was a Japanese swordsman and samurai famed for his duels and distinctive style. He became renowned through stories of his excellent swordsmanship in numerous duels, even from a very young age.
He was the founder of the Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship and the author of ‘The Book of Five Rings,’ a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.
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April 13, 2011
Sala Keoku
Sala Keoku is a park featuring giant fantastic concrete sculptures inspired by Buddhism and Hinduism. It is located in Thailand, near the Thai-Lao border and the Mekong river. The park has been built by and reflects the personal vision of Thai spiritual leader and sculptor, Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat and his followers (the construction started in 1978). It shares the style of Sulilat’s earlier creation, Buddha Park on the Lao side of Mekong, but is marked by even more extravagant fantasy and greater proportions.
Some of the Sala Keoku sculptures tower up to 25m in the sky. Those include a monumental depiction of Buddha meditating under the protection of a seven-headed Naga snake (Mucalinda). While the subject (based on a Buddhist legend) is one of the recurrent themes in the religious art of the region, Sulilat’s approach is highly unusual, with its naturalistic (even though stylized) representation of the snakes.
April 11, 2011
Beginner’s Luck
Beginner’s luck refers to the supposed phenomenon of novices experiencing disproportionate frequency of success or succeeding against an expert in a given activity. One would expect experts to outperform novices – when the opposite happens it is counter-intuitive, hence the need for a term to describe this phenomenon.
The term is most often used in reference to a first attempt in sport or gambling, but is also used in many other diverse contexts. The term is also used when no skill whatsoever is involved, such as a first-time slot machine player winning the jackpot.
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April 11, 2011
Dream Director
The Dream Director is a touring installation by artist Luke Jerram intended to alter dreams. It continues the artist’s exploration of creating art inside people’s heads (‘on the edges of perception’) rather than in the physical world. Participants in the Dream Director (usually 20 in total) stay overnight in specially designed sleep pods.
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April 11, 2011
Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword
Mike Alder is an Australian mathematician and philosopher known for his popular writing, such as sardonic articles about the lack of basic arithmetic skills in young adults. ‘Newton’s flaming laser sword’ is a philosophical razor devised by Alder in 2004 on the conflicting positions of scientists and philosophers on epistemology (the study of knowledge).
The razor is humorously named after Isaac Newton, as it is inspired by Newtonian thought, and is ‘much sharper and more dangerous than Occam’s Razor.’
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April 9, 2011
Intuition
The term intuition is used to describe ‘thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and without much reflection.’ “The word ‘intuition’ comes from the Latin word ‘intueri,’ which is often roughly translated as meaning ‘to look inside’ or ‘to contemplate.’ Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify. For this reason, it has been the subject of study in psychology, as well as a topic of interest in the supernatural. The ‘right brain’ is popularly associated with intuitive processes such as artistic abilities.
Some scientists have contended that intuition is associated with innovation in scientific discovery. Intuition is also a common subject of New Age writings. In Carl Jung’s theory of the ego intuition was an ‘irrational function,’ opposed most directly by sensation, and opposed less strongly by the ‘rational functions’ of thinking and feeling. Jung defined intuition as ‘perception via the unconscious.’ Bringing forth ideas, images, possibilities, ways out of a blocked situation, by a process that is mostly unconscious.
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April 1, 2011
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem [goh-luhm] is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing. The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance.
In modern Hebrew the word golem means ‘dumb’ or ‘helpless.’ The Mishnah (Jewish oral tradition) uses the term for an uncultivated person. Similarly, golems are often used today as a metaphor for brainless lunks or entities who serve man under controlled conditions, but are hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.
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March 29, 2011
Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude [shahd-n-froi-duh] is a German loanword meaning ‘pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.’ The corresponding German adjective is ‘schadenfroh.’ The word derives from ‘Schaden’ (‘adversity,’ ‘harm’) and ‘Freude’ (‘joy’). An English expression with a similar meaning is ‘Roman holiday,’ a metaphor taken from the poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ by Lord Byron, where a gladiator in Ancient Rome expects to be ‘butcher’d to make a Roman holiday’ while the audience would take pleasure from watching his suffering. The term suggests debauchery and disorder in addition to sadistic enjoyment.
Another phrase with a meaning is ‘morose delectation’ (‘delectatio morosa’ in Latin), meaning ‘the habit of dwelling with enjoyment on evil thoughts.’ ‘Gloating’ is a related English word where ‘gloat’ is defined as ‘to observe or think about something with triumphant and often malicious satisfaction, gratification, or delight’ (‘gloat over an enemy’s misfortune’). The Buddhist concept of ‘mudita,’ ‘sympathetic joy’ or ‘happiness in another’s good fortune,’ is cited as an example of the opposite of schadenfreude. Alternatively, envy, which is unhappiness in another’s good fortune, could be considered the counterpart of schadenfreude. Completing the quartet is unhappiness at another’s misfortune, which may be termed empathy, pity, or compassion.
March 29, 2011
Affluenza
Affluenza [af-loo-en-zuh], a portmanteau of the words affluence and influenza, is a term used by critics of capitalism and consumerism, defined as: a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. Proponents of the term consider that the prizing of endless increases in material wealth may lead to feelings of worthlessness and dissatisfaction rather than experiences of a ‘better life,’ and that these symptoms may be usefully captured with the metaphor of a disease.
They claim some or even many of those who become wealthy will find the economic success leaving them unfulfilled and hungry only for more wealth, finding that they are unable to get pleasure from the things they buy and that increasingly material things may come to dominate their time and thoughts to the detriment of personal relationships and to feelings of happiness. The condition is considered particularly acute amongst those with inherited wealth, who are often said to experience guilt, lack of purpose and dissolute behavior, as well as obsession with holding on to the wealth.
March 29, 2011
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is singling out someone for unmerited negative treatment or blame. A whipping boy or ‘fall guy’ is a form of scapegoat. The word is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word ‘Azazel.’ The Biblical scapegoat was a goat cast out into the desert as part of the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement.
Since this goat, carrying the sins of the people placed on it, is sent away to perish, the word ‘scapegoat’ has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes. In Christian theology, the story of the scapegoat in Leviticus is interpreted as a symbolic prefiguration of the self-sacrifice of Jesus, who takes the sins of humanity on his own head, having been crucified on a cross outside the city by order of the high priests.
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