September 17, 2010
Omertà [aw-mer-tah] is a popular attitude and code of honor, common in areas of southern Italy where criminal organizations like the Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, and Camorra are strong. A common definition is the ‘code of silence.’ Omertà implies ‘the categorical prohibition of cooperation with state authorities or reliance on its services, even when one has been victim of a crime.’ Even if somebody is convicted for a crime he has not committed, he is supposed to serve the sentence without giving the police any information about the real criminal, even if that criminal has nothing to do with the Mafia himself. Within Mafia culture, breaking omertà is punishable by death.
The code was adopted by Sicilians long before the emergence of Cosa Nostra (some observers date it to the 16th century as a way of opposing Spanish rule). It is also deeply rooted in rural Crete, Greece. The origin of the word is often traced to the Spanish word ‘hombredad,’ meaning manliness, through the Sicilian word ‘omu’ for man. According to a different theory, the word comes from Latin ‘humilitas’ (humility), which became ‘umirtà’ and then finally omertà in some southern Italian dialects.
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September 17, 2010
Mars Blackmon was a fictional character from the 1986 film ‘She’s Gotta Have It.’ He is also the alter-ego of filmmaker Spike Lee. In the film, he was a ‘Brooklyn-loving,’ die-hard New York Knicks fan. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Blackmon became the primary pitchman in Nike commercials for Air Jordans, the basketball shoes worn by Michael Jordan. In these commercials, Mars Blackmon popularized the phrases ‘Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? … Money, it’s gotta be the shoes.’
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September 17, 2010
Gianduja [gee-an-du-ya] is a sweet chocolate analogue containing about 30% hazelnut paste. It was invented in Turin, Italy by choclatier Caffarel in 1852, after taxes on cocoa beans hindered the production of conventional chocolate. It takes its name from a Carnival and marionette character who represents the archetypal Piedmontese, the Italian region where hazelnut confectionery is common. Ferreo Nutella is a giaduja spread first sold in Piedmont in 1963 and now available in over 75 countries.
Pietro Ferrero, who owned a patisserie in Alba, in the Langhe district of Piedmont, an area known for the production of hazelnuts, sold an initial batch of 300 kilograms (660 lb) of ‘Pasta Gianduja’ in 1946. This was originally a solid block, but in 1949, Pietro started to sell a creamy version in 1951 as ‘Supercrema.’ In 1963, Pietro’s son Michele revamped Supercrema with the intention of marketing it across Europe. Its composition was modified and it was renamed ‘Nutella.’ The first jar of Nutella left the Ferrero factory in Alba on 20 April 1964. The product was an instant success and remains widely popular. The estimated Italian production of Nutella averages 179,000 tons per year.
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September 16, 2010
Rococo [ruh-koh-koh] also referred to as ‘Late Baroque’ is an 18th century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly more ornate, florid, and playful. Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. It was largely supplanted by the Neoclassic style.
In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo ‘usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XV’s reign.’ The word Rococo is seen as a combination of the French rocaille, meaning stone, and coquilles, meaning shell, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration. It may also be related to the Portuguese barroco (which refers to an irregularly shaped pearl), or Baroque style.
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September 16, 2010
Malchik was a black mongrel stray dog living in Moscow, Russia. For about three years, Malchik lived at the Mendeleyevskaya station on the Moscow Metro. Malchick became a popular station ‘resident’ among rail employees and commuters, and territorially protected the station from drunks and other dogs.
Malchik was killed when a 21-year-old woman Yulia Romanova stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Later it was revealed that Romanova has a long history of cruelty to animals and psychiatric treatment. The incident sparked a wave of public outrage regarding the treatment of animals, and, in 2007, a monument was erected in Malchik’s honor at Mendeleyevskaya station.
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September 16, 2010
The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book that contains instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications hacking devices, and other quasi-legal and contraband items.
It was written by William Powell to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Since writing the book, Powell has converted to Anglican Christianity and attempted to have the book removed from circulation.
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September 16, 2010
Esperanto [es-puh-rahn-toh] is the most widely spoken constructed language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means ‘one who hopes’ in the language itself. Zamenhof’s goal was to create an easy to learn and politically neutral language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding.
Esperanto has approximately one thousand native speakers, i.e. people who learned Esperanto as one of their native languages from their parents. There is controversy over the number of people who are fluent in Esperanto. Estimates range from 10,000 to as high as two million. The users are spread in about 115 countries. Although no country has adopted the language officially, Esperanto was officially recognized by UNESCO in 1954, and is also the language of instruction in one university, the Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj in San Marino.
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September 16, 2010
Pass the Pigs is a commercial version of the dice game, Pig, which is a folk game commonly used to teach probability concepts. Each turn involves one player throwing two model pigs, each of which has a dot on one side only. The player will have points either given or taken away, based on the way the pigs land.
For example, a ‘double trotter’ (both pigs standing upright) is worth 40 points. A ‘pig out’ (both pigs lying on their sides, one spot showing) resets the score for that turn to 0 and ends a turn. If both pigs are ‘makin’ bacon’ (touching) the player’s total score is rest. Each turn lasts until the player throwing either rolls the pigs in a way that wipes out their current turn score or decides to stop their turn, add their turn score to their total score and pass the pigs to the next player. The winner is the first player to score a total of 100.
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September 15, 2010
Smegma [smeg-muh] (Greek for ‘soap’), sometimes described as a ‘cheesy substance,’ is a combination of exfoliated (shed) epithelial cells, transudated skin oils, and moisture. It occurs in both female and male mammalian genitalia. In human females, it collects around the clitoris and in the folds of the labia minora.
In human males, smegma is produced and can collect under the foreskin. In healthy animals, smegma helps clean and lubricate the genitals. In veterinary medicine, analysis of this smegma is sometimes used for detection of urogenital tract pathogens.
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September 14, 2010
For the Love of God is a sculpture by English artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, which weigh over 1,106.18 carats in total, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead. Costing £14 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London in an exhibition called ‘Beyond Belief’ with an asking price of £50 million. The work’s title was supposedly inspired by Hirst’s mother, who once asked, ‘For the love of God, what are you going to do next?’
Hirst said that the work was sold on August, 30 2007, for £50 million, to an anonymous consortium. Christina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, claims that Hirst had failed to find a buyer and had been trying to offload the skull for £38 million. Immediately after these allegations were made, Hirst claimed he had sold it for the full asking price, in cash, leaving no paper trail. The consortium that bought the piece included Hirst himself. Art critic David Lee commented, ‘Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn’t sold the skull. It’s clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work.’
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September 14, 2010
In psychology, the term jamais vu (from the French, meaning ‘never seen’) is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before. It is linked to the linguistic concept of semantic satiation (a cognitive phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener).
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September 14, 2010
The Settlers of Catan is a board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany, where board games enjoy especially great popularity. It has sold over 15 million games and been translated into thirty languages from the original German. The players in the game represent settlers establishing colonies on the fictional island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they develop the island.
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