March 16, 2011
Knitta is the group of artists who began the ‘knit graffit’ or ‘yarnbombing’ movement in Houston in 2005. They wrap public architecture—e.g. lampposts, parking meters, telephone poles, and signage—with knitted or crocheted material. The mission is to make street art ‘a little more warm and fuzzy.’
Knitta grew to eleven members by the end of 2007, but has now dwindled down to one member, founder Magda Sayeg, who continues to travel and knit graffiti. Internationally, as many as a dozen groups have followed Knitta’s lead.
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March 13, 2011
The Kōreisha mark is a statutory sign in Japan which indicates ‘aged person at the wheel.’ The law decrees that when a person who is aged 70 and over drives a car and if his/her old age could affect the driving, he/she should endeavor to display this mark on both the front and rear of the car. Drivers aged 75 and over are obliged to display the mark.
Conversely, the green and yellow shoshinsha mark or wakaba mark denotes new drivers. Both marks are designed to warn other drivers that the marked driver is not very skilled, either due to inexperience or old age.
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March 10, 2011
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands-Posten’ in 2005. The newspaper announced that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Danish Muslim organizations responded by holding public protests. The cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than 50 other countries, expanding the controversy.
Critics of the cartoons described them as Islamophobic or racist, and argued that they are blasphemous to people of the Muslim faith, are intended to humiliate a Danish minority, or are a manifestation of ignorance about the history of Western imperialism. Supporters have said that the cartoons illustrated an important issue in a period of Islamic terrorism and that their publication is a legitimate exercise of the right of free speech, explicitly tied to the issue of self-censorship.
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March 10, 2011
The Federal Reserve (sometimes called ‘The Fed‘) is a large central bank that loans money to other smaller banks. The presidentially appointed, Federal Reserve Board is a group of financial leaders who work for the Federal Reserve and decide how much interest to charge these banks for borrowing money. The Federal Reserve interest rate is decided by the Federal Reserve Board after studying the condition of the US Economy.
When the economy is growing too fast, the Federal Reserve makes borrowing more expensive by increasing the interest rate, which means people and companies spend less which discourages inflation. When economic growth slows, the interest rate is decreased so that borrowing will increase and there will be growth.
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March 10, 2011
TerraPower is a nuclear reactor design spin-off company investigating a class of nuclear fast reactors called the traveling wave reactor (TWR).
One of TerraPower’s primary investors is Bill Gates. Whereas standard light water reactors such running worldwide use enriched uranium as fuel and need fuel reloads every few years, TWRs, once started, use depleted uranium instead and are considered to be able to operate for up to 100 years without fuel reloading.
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March 10, 2011
The Strauss-Howe generational theory, created by historians William Strauss and Neil Howe, identifies a recurring generational cycle in American history. Strauss and Howe lay the groundwork for the theory in their 1991 book Generations, which retells the history of America as a series of generational biographies going back to 1584.
Former U.S Vice President Al Gore called Generations the most stimulating book on American history he’d ever read, and sent a copy to each member of Congress. Some reviewers of the duo’s books, such as the New York Times’ Michael Lind have criticized their theories for being too vague, and for verging into the realm of pseudoscience.
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March 10, 2011
The Stolen Generations is a term used to describe the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although in some places children were still being taken in the 1970s.
The extent of the removal of children, and the reasoning behind their removal, are contested. Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales. Motivations evident include child protection, beliefs that given their catastrophic population decline after white contact that black people would ‘die out,’ a fear of miscegenation by full blooded aboriginal people.
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March 10, 2011
The ‘Lost Generation‘ is a term used to refer to the generation that came of age during World War I. It was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, ‘The Sun Also Rises.’ In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to fellow novelist Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron.
In ‘A Movable Feast,’ which was published after Hemingway and Stein had had a famous feud and fallen apart, and after they were both dead, Hemingway reveals that the phrase was actually originated by the garage owner who repaired Stein’s car. When a young mechanic failed to repair the car in a way satisfactory to Stein, the owner shouted at him, ‘You are all a generation perdue. That is what you are. That’s what you all are…All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.’
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March 9, 2011
The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is an ethical code: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. It is arguably the basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others. A key element of the Golden Rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people with consideration, not just members of his or her in-group.
The ethic of reciprocity was present in certain forms in the philosophies of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, Judea, and China. Examples of statements that mirror the Golden Rule appear in Ancient Egypt, for example in the story of ‘The Eloquent Peasant’ which is dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2040–1650 BCE): ‘Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do.’ The label ‘golden’ is believed to have been applied by Confucius (551–479 BCE).
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March 9, 2011
The World Federalist Movement (WFM) is a global citizens movement with member and associate organizations around the world. The WFM International Secretariat is based in New York City across from the United Nations headquarters.
Founded in 1947 in Montreux, Switzerland, the Movement brings together organizations and individuals which support the establishment of a global federal system of strengthened and democratized global institutions with plenary constitutional power accountable to the citizens of the world and a division of international authority among separate global agencies.
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March 9, 2011
Individual sovereignty (or self-ownership) is the concept of property in one’s own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his own body and life. According to Marxist philosopher G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership is that ‘each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply.’
Sovereign individuals have supreme authority over their own choices, without the interference of governing powers, provided they have not violated the rights of others. This notion is central to classical liberalism, abolitionism, libertarianism, objectivism, and anarchism. Sovereign-minded individuals would then seem to prefer an atmosphere consisting of decentralized administrative organizations acting as servants to the individual.
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March 9, 2011
The Ludovico technique is a fictional drug-assisted aversion therapy from the novel and film ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ It involves the patient being forced to watch violent images for long periods of time, while under the effect of drugs that cause a near death experience. The idea is that if the patient is forced to watch the horribly graphic rapes, assaults and other acts of violence while suffering from the drug effects, the patient will assimilate the sensations and then become incapacitated or very ill either attempting to perform or even just witnessing said acts of violence.
The concept is an artistic semblance of the psychological phenomenon known as classical conditioning which is a form of associative learning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. The typical procedure for inducing classical conditioning involves presentation of a neutral stimulus along with either the presentation of a positive stimulus or the removal of an aversive stimulus. The neutral stimulus could be any event that does not result in an overt behavioral response from the organism under investigation.
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