Marginalia

Arab Spring or Tornado? | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:32:04 +0300

Arab Spring or Tornado? | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese:

Syria does not need more arms. Syria needs more financial aid, more relief to millions of Syrians who have lost everything and more relief to thousands of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and other countries.

"There’s a growing recognition that the way we’ve outsourced death to the medical profession and to..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:31:18 +0300

““There’s a growing recognition that the way we’ve outsourced death to the medical profession and to funeral directors hasn’t done us any favors,” Mr. Underwood said. He envisioned Death Cafe as “a space where people can discuss death and find meaning and reflect on what’s important and ask profound questions.””

- Death Be Not Decaffeinated: Over Cup, Groups Face Taboo - NYTimes.com

"We got home at 4:30, having covered 538,7 km from Serowe, 1140.5 from Maun, 1545 from Shakawe,..."

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:19:30 +0300

“We got home at 4:30, having covered 538,7 km from Serowe, 1140.5 from Maun, 1545 from Shakawe, 1836.4 from Rundu, and 2338,4 from Odibo, which was about the furthest point we had reached from home. Over the whole trip we used 5,6 litres of fuel per 100 km.”

- Homeward bound | Notes from underground

"thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail..."

Thu, 30 May 2013 07:19:23 +0300

“thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was “for what does it serve?” “‘Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.””

- Wilhelm Loehe on Liturgical Freedom | The First Premise

"Working in the dereliction of South London in the 1960′s I first became a socialist, then in the..."

Mon, 27 May 2013 23:57:32 +0300

“Working in the dereliction of South London in the 1960′s I first became a socialist, then in the 1970′s a Marxist. None of these political options in my view sat comfortably with the Gospel. Only in anarchism have I found an approach which it seems to me both emerges from and fulfills Christian principles.”

- A Pinch of Salt: Freedom, Justice & Christian Counter-Culture (2013) by Michael C. Elliott

Daily Maverick - Why Zambia’s Vice-President doesn’t like South Africa – and why he might have a point

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:30:19 +0300

Daily Maverick - Why Zambia’s Vice-President doesn’t like South Africa – and why he might have a point:

“The South Africans are very backward in terms of historical development,” he told Smith. “I hate South Africans. That’s not a fair thing to say because I like a lot of South Africans but they really think they’re the bees’ knees and actually they’ve been the cause of so much trouble in this part of the world…I have a suspicion the blacks model themselves on the whites now that they’re in power. ‘Don’t you know who we are, man?’” He continued in this vein: “I dislike South Africa for the same reason that Latin Americans dislike the United States, I think. It’s just too big and too unsubtle.”

Tumblr's reduced functionality

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:48:03 +0300

Tumblr used to be a useful blog aggregator, but now it doesn’t seem to work any more.

Public Shaming: The Definitive "People Who Thought Chechnya was the Czech Republic" Collection

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 05:40:52 +0300

Public Shaming: The Definitive "People Who Thought Chechnya was the Czech Republic" Collection:

publicshaming:

Two brothers from Chechnya. That was the official word early morning on Friday April 19th, 2013 as to who were behind the Boston marathon bombings. “Chechens.”

So, naturally, who do some brilliant citizens of the United States of America blame? The CZECH REPUBLIC, of course!

Here are those…

"the fundamental spiritual hunger, in the West at least, is no longer about salvation but about..."

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:44:29 +0300

“the fundamental spiritual hunger, in the West at least, is no longer about salvation but about self-realisation”

- Being a church in exile – what changes? | Elizaphanian

Waterloo Disabled Village | Arms Open Wide

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:35:32 +0300

Waterloo Disabled Village | Arms Open Wide:

The Village is one of the projects of the Orthodox Mission in Sierra Leone, an Australian Orthodox Christian initiative led Fr. Themi Adamopoulos, located near Freetown, the capital of this west African country. The effort will be sustained and thrive as Orthodox

Interview: How Russia’s ‘Sistema’ Leads To The ‘Modernization Trap’

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:51:29 +0300

Interview: How Russia’s ‘Sistema’ Leads To The ‘Modernization Trap’:

He said, “You know, it is no good to punish people individually. You need a whole change of sistema in order to get rid of corruption.” And that is where I picked it up and I thought it was fascinating to learn what that sistema actually is. And when I started to study, I realized it is a very elusive term. It is a shorthand term for a system of governance that usually refers to things that are not to be named. It is like the open secrets of governance. That’s where we talk about “the sistema way of doing things” or “sistema pressure” on people. We never explicitly refer to what they are, but we assume we all understand what we are talking about.

And how similar to South Africa!

"Applicants [for loans] who type only in lower-case letters, or entirely in upper case, are less..."

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:27:03 +0300

“Applicants [for loans] who type only in lower-case letters, or entirely in upper case, are less likely to repay loans, other factors being equal, says Douglas Merrill, founder of ZestFinance, an American online lender whose default rate is roughly 40% lower than that of a typical payday lender. Neo’s efforts to improve accuracy include recording borrowers’ Facebook data: Mr Bathija reckons that within a year there will be enough evidence to determine if making racist comments on Facebook is correlated with a lack of creditworthiness.”

- Credit scores: Stat oil | The Economist

So what your teacher and your mother told you is true — bad spelling is a sign of poor character!

Court acquits police officers in Andries Tatane case | National | BDlive

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:52:16 +0300

Court acquits police officers in Andries Tatane case | National | BDlive:

THE Ficksburg Regional Court on Thursday acquitted all seven police officers accused of the death of local protester Andries Tatane. Regional magistrate Hein van Niekerk found the state could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Tatane died on April 13 2011 after police used rubber bullets and batons to subdue him during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg. The case received huge media attention after footage of the alleged assault by police members was broadcast nationally.

"Hippies were rude, dirty, Satan worshipers, according to a paragraph that apparently appears in a..."

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 07:29:54 +0200

“Hippies were rude, dirty, Satan worshipers, according to a paragraph that apparently appears in a Louisiana state-funded school’s history book.”

- Hippies were Satan worshippers according to history book | The Daily Caller

Ramphele’s Agang aims to save SA from party bosses | Politics | BDlive

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:27:41 +0200

Ramphele’s Agang aims to save SA from party bosses | Politics | BDlive:

Ms Ramphele said the country first went wrong back in 1994 when it “underestimated” the work needed to transform the “mind-set” of citizens from being subjects of an authoritarian regime under apartheid to becoming subjects of a constitutional democracy. “When you look at South Africa for the past 19 years you haven’t seen that activism. People move between being passive, complaining in their own homes to being publicly violent or violent within the home,” she said.

"With the Marikana Massacre we seem to have finally become what we have been threatening to become..."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:23:39 +0200

“With the Marikana Massacre we seem to have finally become what we have been threatening to become for a while now, namely, a country where state and citizens compete fiercely in both violence and corruption. Such contests are usually won by the state - hands down. The state alone is legally and constitutionally given the power to use and invoke violence – with our authority, in our name and on our behalf. In both the killing of Andries Tatane and Marikana Masscre the state was ostensibly acting for us and in our name.”

- Writing Africa - Tinyiko Sam Maluleke’s Website: South African Government Insanity: Is it Temporary or Permanent?

New scam or cable theft?

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:19:33 +0200

I recently paid Telkom for a DSL top-up, because we had run out of Internet
bandwidth, but it wasn’t credited, so we still don’t have web access. Ususaly
I enter the credit card number, say how many gigs I want to buy, the bank
send a one-time pin, I enter that, and it is paid. I did that, but Telkom say
they have no record of the payment. The SMS from the bank saying the amount
has been debited to my account has two phone numbers, one marked for queries
about the payment, I dial the number. “The number you have dialed does not
exist”. I dial the other one, “The number you have dialed does not exist”.
What can have happened? One possibilitiy is that the banks telephone lines
have been nicked by cable thieves, which would explain why Telkom didn’t get
notified of my payment and I can’t contact the bank. The other possibility is
that it is a new scam of some kind…

My Father's "Eviscerated" Work - Son Of Hobbit Scribe J.R.R. Tolkien Finally Speaks Out -

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:10:30 +0200

My Father's "Eviscerated" Work - Son Of Hobbit Scribe J.R.R. Tolkien Finally Speaks Out -:

first ever press interview of Christopher Tolkien, the official executor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate, and the interpreter of his father’s unpublished works. This original article and interview appeared in Le Monde on July 9, 2012. With the film version of the The Hobbit hitting theaters, we are publishing it for the first time here in English.

Second Terrace: Things to Think About This Year

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:15:22 +0200

Second Terrace: Things to Think About This Year:

That the Absolute is Person. Oneness-and-Threeness, and Oneness-and-Twoness. Instead of one-or-the-other. That Pattern and Freedom unite in Dance. That Necessity can be transfigured by Love. That Children, who should be most easily fascinated by Wonder, know better than to break Friendship by lesser things, like politics. Adults do this all the time. Sad.

"England has 39 police forces, headed by 39 chief constables or commissioners. In the past 18 months,..."

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 17:35:21 +0200

“England has 39 police forces, headed by 39 chief constables or commissioners. In the past 18 months, seven have been sacked for misconduct, suspended, placed under criminal or disciplinary investigation or forced to resign. That is not far off a fifth of the total.”

- Have the men in blue crossed the line? - Telegraph

So if you were worried about corruption in South Africa, take heart, we’re not alone.