Why is most vintage contortion / dance stuff kind of crappy? Were bodies back then just different in general? Has the training made so much improvements in the last 80 years? Is it more popular, so more people are trying to do it, and then trainers can pick from among the best? What’s the deal??
“We are all stupid,” wrote Mark Twain, “just on different subjects.” Ain’t that the truth? Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think about all the blanks in my education and the ignorance that pockmarks my understanding. The good news for me — and for all of you, my fellow Cancerians — is that we’re now in an astrological phase that’s ideal for getting a crash course in any subject we’re dumb about. If you’re brave and humble, you could fix several holes in your intelligence.
Don’t tell me you have nothing to be thankful for, Aries. Your parents could have named you “Hooligan” or “Lightsaber” or “Flu,” and they didn’t. There are no photos floating around the Internet that show you riding a pig in the nude. No one has ever broken up with you via text message. Now please keep going in the direction I’ve pointed you. Count your blessings up to at least 101. Create an ongoing list of all the things in your life that work pretty well and make you feel at home in the world. Why do this now? Because it’s Massive Explosions of Gratitude Week for you — a time when you can attract even more good fortune into your life by aggressively identifying the good fortune you already enjoy.
“The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground,” says an ancient Egyptian proverb. Keep that thought in mind as you head into the thick of your new phase of growth, Aquarius. What part of you needs to deepen as you rise up? What growth needs to unfold in the hidden places as you gravitate toward the light? How can you go about balancing and stabilizing your ascension with a downward penetration?
- from Rob Brezsny’s horoscopes
Beautiful!
I love stop-motion. My favourite is when she goes underwater.
…but this t-mobile commercial just made me cry.
Definitely inspired by Improv Everywhere.
Voice-draw!!!
“low volume curves counterclockwise, medium volume is straight, high volume curves clockwise.”
I am going to sing my favourite songs in slow motion and see what pictures it makes.
This is interesting to think about! Don’t read too much into it!
Tim Harford: Excerpt from “The Logic of Life” – Divorce is Good for Women.
If abortion were illegal…What would happen to women who had abortions? Jail? Death penalty?
No… anti-abortionists say we should “just pray for them – the crime has been done… she’ll get her punishment in the end.”
So… then why make it illegal – I assume they mean to make it comparable to murder?
I don’t necessarily agree with this jump in logic: “They believe abortion to be murder. Murder deserves severe punishment. Thus, women who have illegal abortions should receive severe punishment — like life in prison or the death penalty. That’s the logical conclusion. But they can’t accept this conclusion. They know it’s absurd and unfair — which means they know abortion is not really murder.”
LOTS of people don’t think through the things that they do.
2 years IS a pretty long time not to have thought through the possible legal implications of your actions, though.
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One of my favourite comments from the comments:
“if the baby you save from abortion turns out to be gay, will you still fight for their rights?”
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Here’s an interesting comment from “cello”:
“…there is a symbiotic relationship between mother and fetus – a unique biologically closed society between only those two where one is host to the other. As such, those outside that relationship do not have moral say as to what happens within that closed biological society.”
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The difference between legalization and decriminalization.
I didn’t know that!
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In Chile, abortion is illegal. Here’s what it’s like there, according to Wikipedia.
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Tucker Wright has a good point:
“…some of them truly believe that if abortion were illegal, women would just stop having them.”
So they don’t need to think about a consequence, because it would just stop happening.
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I enjoyed John Swaine’s very much:
I am a Libertarian, politically speaking. I put a high value on individual liberty and abhor the involvement of government in the lives of its citizenry.
I am also a Catholic. I believe that live begins at conception (which is not a uniquely Christian or Theistic perspective) and as a consequence, I consider the intended termination of pregnancy tantamount to murder.
However I am against the outlawing of abortion for two reasons.
Firstly such laws merely cause the act to be driven underground, in back alleys or spare rooms with primitive tools, unskilled physicians and very often considerable danger for the mother-to-be. They do not prevent abortion, they merely endanger more lives.
Secondly, I cannot in good conscience accept the level of invasion of personal privacy necessary to police such laws. A state which outlaws abortion takes an egregious, intrusive step into the lives of its citizenry in order to see that its laws have effect. This is, in my mind, unconscionable.
That said, the argument proffered here is fallacious. It begs the question:
If Abortions are Murder
And Murders are to be punished severely in civilized society
Then should not a person who has an Abortion be punished severely
Therefore if a person who has an Abortion cannot be punished then Abortion is not Murder.
Begging the Question fits the following format:
Apples are good for you
Therefore if you eat a truckload of apples, you will be healthy
Now, to explain why it begs the question, I’ll expound upon the principles of an illiberal anti-abortionist (I use the actual meaning of the word liberal here, not the mind-boggling double-speak which passes for its use in American political discourse – a lot of American ‘liberals’ are some of the most illiberal people imaginable).
Abortion, the termination of another life, is a crime. Ergo it deserves punishment in the same manner as other unlawful acts of taking a life in our society.
Punishment, as per the western justice system has two primary purposes:
1) To offer Restitution to the victim of a crime or their estate
and
2) To safeguard the public against further such acts of criminality.
So firstly, Restitution. Well, the victim is dead, the victim’s estate are those who killed him and as a consequence there is simply no one with justifiable claim for Restitution.
Secondly, safeguarding the public. Well, the nature of the crime is such that the only person against whom it can again be perpetrated is a hypothetical foetus who does not currently exist. The only means by which one could prevent the repeated perpetration of this crime involve sterilization (surely a greater violence against the hypothetical future-foetus given that it entirely negates the possibility of his coming into being) or ensuring that the next child conceived by the perpetrator is carried to term. Both these actions represent so heinous an invasion and contravention of individual liberty as to fall foul of the Human Right to avoid strange and unusual punishment. (Including the right of the same ilk vested in American Citizens by the Bill of Rights).
In short, the crime cannot be punished with any degree of regard to principles of natural justice or fairness. The justice system is not a hammer of retribution.
As such, those who oppose legal abortion tend to focus upon medical practitioners who can very easily be punished with the intent of safeguarding the public from future criminality.
The fact that such I consider such punishment to be not only unlawful and egregiously ineffective but also, wholly counterproductive is neither here nor there. It demonstrates the following:
Simply because one party to the an illegal act cannot be punished within the bounds of what we consider to be natural justice, it does not follow that the act is not illegal. There exist other parties, for whom punishment is practical in this instance (yet its ethical nature is not contingent upon this fact as will be shown).
There exists one further scenario: The mother-to-be commits the act of abortion entirely on her own. Here is where the ultimate limitation of abortion legislation occurs. There is no party to this crime who is capable of being punished within the framework of natural justice.
Although I don’t agree with it, anti-abortion legislation can criminalize the abortion as carried out by a party other than the mother-to-be.
It cannot punish the mother-to-be within the boundaries of our justice system but it does not follow that considering Abortion to be an evil as heinous as murder is illogical – it merely demonstrates that we have no way of punishing that party and still maintaining the frameworks of our justice system.
One can assert that it is precisely as unethical as murder but one cannot make its commission wholly illegal within the constraints of our society, merely ancillary acts.
And it is those ancillary acts, which proposed legislation usually targets.
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