Direct Democracy, 2.0
Angelika Warmuth/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Members of the Pirate Party attended a conference in Neumünster, Germany, last month. I FIRST took real notice of the Pirates last summer during the campaign for city elections in Berlin. German electioneering is quaint, even faintly musty by American standards. “Why am I hanging here anyway?” When the Pirates captured a surprising 9 percent of the vote, I ventured out to their election-night party at a scruffy club in the traditional counterculture neighborhood of Kreuzberg. Though the Pirates are mostly known as a one-issue party advocating Internet freedom, Mr. The idea of electing someone as your proxy for two, four or even six long years may have been a necessity in the days of the American Constitutional Convention, when representatives rode to the capital by horseback. “Written language allowed people to communicate over time, the printing press to reach people en masse,” Mr.
Runic calendar
A Runic calendar (also Rune staff or Runic Almanac) is a perpetual calendar based on the 19 year long Metonic cycle of the Moon. Runic calendars were written on parchment or carved onto staves of wood, bone, or horn. The oldest one known, and the only one from the Middle Ages, is the Nyköping staff from Sweden, believed to date from the 13th century. Most of the several thousand which survive are wooden calendars dating from the 16th and the 17th centuries. A typical Runic calendar consisted of several horizontal lines of symbols, one above the other. Special days like solstices, equinoxes, and celebrations (including Christian holidays and feasts) were marked with additional lines of symbols. The calendar does not rely on knowledge of the length of the tropical year or of the occurrence of leap years. Marks[edit] On one line, 52 weeks of 7 days were laid out using 52 repetitions of the first seven runes of the Younger Futhark. Additional runes[edit] Primstav[edit] Modern use[edit]
The US government should cede territory back to Native Americans | Timothy Snyder
Does the federal government mean to cede the territory of the United States back to the Native Americans? The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has altered its mission statement, removing the characterization of America as a “nation of immigrants” in order to emphasize the new goal of “securing the homeland”. Some critics made the point that most citizens are immigrants or their descendants, while others noted that most Americans believed that immigration should remain stable or increase. Yet the problem with the change in language lies deeper. According to our own legal tradition, Americans claim sovereignty over the territory of the US as immigrants, precisely because the territories in question were someone else’s homeland: the Native Americans’. Since our country exists, we don’t ask ourselves how or why. Portugal, Spain, France and England claimed territory by planting a flag, a symbolic action known as “discovery”.
The Eugenics Crusade | American Experience
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Native cartography: a bold mapmaking project that challenges Western notions of place
‘More lands have been lost to Native peoples probably through mapping than through physical conflict.’ Maps have been used not only to encroach on Native Americans lands, but to diminish their cultures as well. With every Spanish, French or English placename that eclipses a Native one, a European narrative of place and space becomes further entrenched. In an effort to help reclaim his region for his people, Jim Enote, a Zuni farmer and the director of the {*style:<a href=' A:wan Museum and Heritage Center{*style:</a>*} in New Mexico, has organised a unique project intended to help bring indigenous narratives back to the land.
Coca-Cola influences China’s obesity policy, BMJ report says | Business
The Coca-Cola Company has shaped China’s policies towards its growing obesity crisis, encouraging a focus on exercise rather than diet and thereby safeguarding its drinks sales, an academic investigation has alleged. Susan Greenhalgh, a Harvard academic and China scholar, says Coca-Cola has exerted its influence since 1999 through a Chinese offshoot of an institute founded in the US by the then Coca-Cola vice-president Alex Malaspina with substantial company funding. The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) has been heavily criticised in the US and Europe for promoting exercise and downplaying the need for people to cut down on excessive sugary drinks. China has a serious and growing obesity problem: 42.3% of Chinese adults were overweight or obese in 2011, up from 20.5% in 1991. Its 1.4 billion people constitute Coca-Cola’s third-largest market by volume. ILSI-China, says Greenhalgh, has influence in government circles.
Amazing Planet
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Water scarcity could affect 5 billion people by 2050
A new report claims that half of the world’s population may struggle to quench its thirst in the coming decades. The news: UNESCO’s new World Water Development Report says that 3.6 billion people currently live in places that can suffer from water scarcity for at least one month of the year. It projects that the figure will rise to five billion—half of the world’s predicted 10 billion population—by 2050. The problem: More and more demands are being placed on the water cycle by industry, agriculture, and a growing population. The solution: Might not be entirely technologocial. Image credit: Jeremy Brooks | Flickr
Moodle
The long-awaited christening celebration for Edward would have marked a high point in the decadent feasts at Hampton Court Palace. But what would have been on the menu? Undoubtedly the feast which accompanied the christening was a monumental affair, however we actually know very little about what was served. What we do know is that this was a court which ate well and enjoyed food as a spectacle on a day-to-day basis, and so the menu for this momentous occasion must surely have been truly magnificent. We know meat rarely formed part of the average Tudor person’s diet, being expensive to procure and to roast. However this was not the case at court, where the amount of meat consumed by the Tudor aristocracy was immense. • 1,240 oxen • 8,200 sheep • 2,330 deer • 760 calves • 1,870 pigs • 53 wild boar And these figures don’t take into account the additional requirements of lavish, one-off feasts, such as Edward’s christening! Figure 2: Live cookery in the Great Kitchens © Historic Royal Palaces
