Electronic Rest

Romania, Croatia, Montenegro, the rest of Europe. The commonality of the earphone, the cellphone, the internet cafe. And the universal frustration. Witness abroad on your own the humanity-wide yearning for -- ba-da-boom -- electronic rest. *
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* Electronic rest. Noun. 1. Transitory state where all gadgets with wires, batteries, network connections, internet access, modes, ink, ring tones, passwords, back-ups, virus/spam guards
or touch-pads can be located and actually work. Not to be confused with regularity, predictability, personal merit, meeting times, due dates, or distance from commercially available substitutes down the road. See Nirvana. Terminates within five minutes of awareness of original state; 2. Period of nap, the body's response to the mental illusion of permanence in electronic functioning; 3. Doze of gratitude while cubicled or home-officed, unaware of pending danger. From Old English dysig: foolish.

Open Spaces - Trust and Get Out of the Car

We find lovely remote spots everywhere. Leave the car and take a hike. Ours was fine and right where we left it, when we got back. We had seen people around when we headed off, but either we'd be ok or not, so no sense fussing. Just go.

This is on the way over the Carpathian Mountains, at the Transfagarasan Pass in Romania. There was supposed to be a fine waterfall just beyond, but this was fall and not spring, and we never did find it. Great little hike anyway.

Toilet variations. There will also be a toilet, or not, when you need one. You soon learn to navigate the "Turkish toilets," as they are called both here and in Greece, fully functioning and sensible, but you put your feet on the markers, and squat or aim over the hole between. No problem. Do carry some TP. Facing the door is best. They also flush, as you would expect. But, at the port-a-type, don't get your hopes up. Like here.

Pogonotrophy: Beard-Growing

You are in a different county, and suddenly start noticing that there are more of some things here, or fewer of some things.

Beards, for example. And the reasons for growing them - religious, other cultural, young people, old people. Look up the words for it. Pogonotomy is beard-cutting. Pogonotrophy is beard-cultivation. Tap the "surprise me" tab at this site: www.worldwidewords.org/index.

Some religious traditions call for the beard, as here - a priest in the Orthodox Christian faith, in Romania. He was hitch-hiking and we invited him to join us in our car for the drive from Bistrita to Castel Dracula. See Romania Road Ways. He is married, grew up in the area, and spoke enough English that we could converse, and not just grunt about and nod vigorously, while not really sure what is being said.

Wonderful. For more of interest to the quirky, look up "weird words" and "turns of phrase" in the Worldwide Word site's left side index. If you once thought yourself reasonably educated, give yourself a vocabulary test at these sites and weep. For more of what most of us do not know, see the Colorado lexicon at www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Ejrblack/class/csci3104/f06/hw/wordlst.txt. Again, if the long address form does not work, just go to the home page and try from there - go to cs.colorado.edu, for example.

Quick. The definition of inspissations. See the CMU lexicon at www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Emjs/F06-15123/labs/lab2/172K-words.txt

Links, posts and archives

References to third-party websites for additional information are given here in word form. See direct-link issues raised at www.bitlaw.com. The slow way (you put in your own search to the address, using your own browser) appears prudent. There must be another way. Interests should be protected reasonably, but is hobbling us the answer?

Posting - Post dating is used to arrange the chronology of the posts. This way, we an put similar issues together.

Archives - These are not necessarily earlier posts. Archives may include new posts put with an earlier topic. Do check often.

Technorati Profile

Animal Themes - Duck Types (then on to chickens, turkeys, geese, others)

Here a quack. Go to this site to find duckworld -- www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/ducks/index. Look each one up and marvel:

There are Muscovy ducks; Call ducks, usually in red-light ponds? and Cayuga ducks, seriously from Cayauag County, NY and isn't that also Cornell? And Khaki Campbells, Pekin ducks, and are these the restaurant variety? and Rouen ducks (did Joan of Arc recognize them?). They are a kind of hyper-mallard, and more. Site has most of these with pictures, some you have to look up further.

For songs and ditties about ducks that you may have tried to forget after elementary school, see England Road Ways . Then try to forget them again. Gotcha. In your ears.

There are posters abroad that we saw, and should have bought, that have species of goat, sheep, cattle.

Cattle, sheep, goats, horses - identifying breeds

Livestock breeds: You will see so many. See the variety of sheep, goats, cattle, horses: at www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/.

One of the most striking of the cattle we saw is the Belted Galloway, or "oreo" cattle breed. They are black with a wide, white belt around the middle. I believe they are being raised in Maine now, or New Hampshire. There was a newspaper article about someone buying a half of a Belted Galloway with a friend, who got the other half, and all the parts went into the freezer.

See Scotland Road Ways for the heavy-coated highland cattle, very long and shaggy coats. There are also wild donkeys in the Highlands there. See Ireland Road Ways for the brown and white, more familiar, cattle walking on the roadways. And for the sheep and goats also on the roads. They are identified by inked blotches, red, blue, yellow, known to the owners. Donegal sweaters? Is that where the blue and red flecks come from, in the wool?

A Day In Our Life Over There - An Inconsequential Poem

We travel oddly, my son and I.
Pick country, cheap airfare, and rent-a-car.
EZ Pack: one for wash, wear, spare. Mostly.
Direction? Clockwise or not, depending.
Lost again? He decides. Elbows cross.
Fingers point both directions and we go.
No goals, nocall-aheads, hardly. Schmooze.
Find: Standing stones. Vikings. Crusades.
Castles. Family graves. Silent loud stories.
Rules: Ferry sign? Take it. Orkney, 5 A.M.
Sing the towns in songs. Fair Citee. Gra- nah-dah!
Volcano up close. El Greco hands. Bulls run.
Menu mystery: Pick the sixth. Bulls' ears?
And here lies the heart of Robert the Bruce.
Where is the rest? Fill in the gaps.
Personal best: Watch one parent, one child,
Now two adults. Joint venture.
Up-looking re-education with my Down son
Who is always Up. Hey, man. Who are we?
We are the Car-Dan Tour Company.
We master airports.
Thinking in the car.
Log on lap. Pencil.
My line of work ill-chosen for my kind.
A maze, unknowable turnings
With no-one at rest. Waiting for an outcome
From choices made, or found in the wood.
Who chose?
You get away, you think back.
Like after the push
When I went down the street.
Intentionally thrust
By the alien children
Abrupt, when I was four, and new
In the neighborhood.
Thought that long forgotten.
Right off the concrete stairs
Of the new addition.
They were silent after.
And my fingers sticky red running home.
The pitch. Again, there. Loud in its waiting.
The tolling. Ears ring ever after.
The mirror and the office.
Where the place.
All turnings. The mosaic reheaves.
Prom ball. Worldwide.
A technicolor ferris.
Fine ride. Next flight.


More blogs about Common Thread Road Ways.

Myths and Legends Sites - and Connections between Cultures

Reading myths can occupy an entire morning, at least, so do set aside the tme. We see statues of ancient gods and goddesses, references in the country's lore. Try this site before you leave for a country, to get a flavor of the old days - www.mythinglinks.org/euro%7Eeast%7EBalkans%7ERomania.

I especially enjoyed the sections with Romania and Central Europe, but just go to the home page (mythinglinks.org) for the best overall starting point. I am interested in the tree image that cultures use in creation stories and other purposes.

Wars and War Crimes; Propaganda Techniques, And What Lack of Transparency Engenders

Here is Hitler's famous stadium in Nuremberg. See Germany Road Ways. The Nazi Documentation Center there is worth an entire day, if not more. Films, resources, guided seatings and transitions given for exhibits to alter your whole worldview. Things we don't want to acknowledge.

All over Europe are memorials and ruins remaining, statues and other strong reminders of conflict. From that, stems an interest in how governments get people to believe what the government wants them to believe, so the people will support them, and think they are making up their own minds. Not.

An overview of the techniques used to get people to support a cause, see www.propagandacritic.com/. Scroll to the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Set up in 1937 by our own government to educate us about such techniques, so we could protect ourselves, and before WWII even. Whether the cause is a good one or not, it is the fact that there are known techniques that is more important. We should be self-educating, so we can analyze before swallowing. Who else will do it? Not the persuaders, certainly.

For an overview of the overall war crimes topic, see www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_warcrimes. The issue comes up in the world wars and the countries involved. Not all agree on who should be tarred and tried as a war criminal. In Bosnia, posters protest against the ongoing search for some people, while trials of others continue at The Hague. Evildoing: Many-sided issue.

Good site for WWI picture history: www.historypictures.com/home_wcppx_l.htm#contents.

This site seems to have it all - news, poetry, songs, and histories and audios: www.firstworldwar.com/index. For military history overviews, various campaigns, see www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/anzio. There are also sites where vets can add their recollections.

Good picture history at Western Civilization Picture Pack, WWII at www.historypictures.com/home_wcppx_n.htm#contents. As with any of these references, go to the home page at the dot com, then use the rest of the address only as needed.
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Where to put people's views of "wars" propagated on us from within, or close to?
Or that show how, without governmental transparency, conclusions of what happened are easily skewed?
Why aren't all the counter-footages, or black boxes, or whatever, showing the areas that now are still withheld, put out there?

• Take your pick here, if you are inclined. These are long, so if you are going to delve in, set the time aside. Let me know of counter-sites that lay issues to rest for you.

• These sites came from a comment on a blog. I did not publish the entire comment.
  

• The sites here to films about these issues, of governmental transparency and remaining questions, are offered only to show a tally of what information is seen as most important by the film-makers, and do not represent a conclusion of the "best" or "right" ones because I am no expert. And, any film reflects the point of view of the film-maker. Do let me know of other film views we all should see for balance before coming to conclusions.

Controlled demolition? See video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003;
related movements at video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5948263607579389947; or
www.scholarsfor911truth.org/. Keep info, ideas flowing.
Already responses: As to 91truth, see a counter-site at 911research.wtc7.net/essays/st911/index.

Amnesia , Persuasion Techniques - and Lili Marlene (Lilli Marleen)

A side mini-rant.

Amnesia is the persuader's friend, all over the world. Represent what happened in a way to elicit certain emotions, perhaps change words, repeat, associate this with that, and people forget what was before, or the other side of the story.

This, in Cetinje, Montenegro. See Montenegro Road Ways.

Is there any country where critical thinking is encouraged, questions are solicited, to fill in details, or where visual and aural persuasion techniques are taught so people can defend against them? Or are persuasion techniques now used everywhere against them. Whether looking at war criminal posters in Bosnia, or seeing war memorials all over, or hearing political rally speakers and people rev up, or hearing war touted again as an answer, we may be at this point, all of us: we have to educate ourselves.

Look up the persuasion techniques listed from 1937 - now being used, at www.propagandacritic.com; and the great prophet of PR, he who could even "warm up" Calvin Coolidge - Edward Bernays from 1928 or so - see the Museum of Public Relations at http://www.prmuseum.com/bernays/bernays_1928.html,
You, too, can do it. Sell. Regardless. See www.aboutpublicrelations.net/. We deserve what we let happen.

Propaganda on a small scale: Lili Marlene. The torch song associated with World War II, both sides singing, hearing Marlene Dietrich's froggy voice, imagining the lamp post in Berlin.

This started with a protest poem by a German soldier in World War I - 1913 - on the way to the Russian front. See www.jazzprofessional.com/report/Norbert%20Schultze.htm#english. That site says that Ron Simmonds (the jazz trumpet player I think) translated the original from 1913. From the words to Lili, perhaps his girlfriend, and the Marleen maybe a nurse, Lili Marleen came about and herself may be already dead in that song. The waste of War. The blood. Who counts the bodies. Who names them. All from pride and greed. That is 1913. Lili Marleen.

But then, the song morphed into its opposite - a torch song in wartime in World War II, and even a Panzer Division marching song. See Germany Road Ways, Lili Marleen post.

So somehow war is not protested in Lili Marlene. It is just a love song. Go to the Germany Road Ways, Lili Marleen post and you can find the audio of the song, in its many variations, and the poem. Small example, but we can't seem to look at truth for long. War protest, too powerful, So turn it into nostalgia for war.