sorinf @sorinf

@thaddeusthought @HHS3239 Ro here. Not with us today, however they went to the Lord rather recently: Fr Proclu Nicău. Fr Arsenie Papacioc, Mother Siluana Vlad, St Elisabeta from Pasărea Monastery, Fr Cleopa Ilie and many more. There are clips of them on yt. St Elisabeta just a few years older than me.

@eftimie Mda, ca la Ioan 12: 4-6

I made this graph explaining the complex relations and influences between the late Chalcolithic and early Bronze age cultures in Romania and Pannonia:

Mexico paid $20 million for eight minutes in this movie. Then those eight minutes forced them to invent an entire cultural tradition. Before Spectre, Mexico City had no Day of the Dead parade. The holiday was celebrated at home, at cemeteries, with family altars. Quiet, intimate, centuries old. Sam Mendes fabricated a massive street parade for the opening sequence, shot it with 1,500 extras in skeleton costumes across the Zócalo, and audiences worldwide assumed they were watching a real annual event. Mexico's government had negotiated hard for the placement. Leaked Sony hack emails showed officials offered up to $20 million in tax incentives for four minutes of positive portrayal. Sony was drowning in a $300 million budget. The deal included script changes: the Bond girl had to be a Mexican actress, the villain could not be Mexican, and the city's modern skyline had to appear on screen. Then the movie opened in 182 countries and tourists started booking flights to Mexico City for the parade. The parade that did not exist. Tourism authorities panicked. Visitors were arriving expecting the spectacle they saw in the film and finding nothing. So in October 2016, the government spent $500,000, hired 650 volunteers, built dozens of floats and giant skeleton marionettes, and staged the first real Día de los Muertos parade in Mexico City's history. 250,000 people showed up. They openly called it a "Spectre-style parade" in press materials. Ten years later, the parade draws millions. Anthropologists call it the "pizza effect," where a cultural element gets exported, transformed abroad, and reimported as authentic. Mexico's most famous public celebration of its most sacred holiday was invented by a British director shooting a $300 million spy movie. That tracking shot is doing more for Mexico City's economy every November than the $20 million they paid for it.

cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic

2 months ago

The opening of Spectre (2015) is so good it almost tricks the brain into thinking the entire movie is about to be a masterpiece. That Día de los Muertos tracking shot through Mexico City is pure Bond flexing for five straight minutes.

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People living among the ruins of a great civilization. The paintings of Hubert Robert deliberately contrast the monumental scale and grandeur of a past civilization with mundane activities of ordinary people. This painting is titled Roman Ruins with Laundresses, made c. 1777.

@rorysutherland @Noahpinion East Europeans, as well. Would even go so far to suggest all Europe but for Anglo&Germanic peoples (in the ancient sense, incl Scandinavians).

@Peter_Nimitz @FistedFoucault Kinda yes with Saxons in Transilvania. Brașov which covers the trade routes from South and Black Sea. Sibiu. Covered routes from Wallachia, as well. Bistrița - Năsăud. Covered routes from the East. Later Swabians in Banat were a different thing

The male and female algorithms are more different than ever, and its not just effecting how we consume, but how we interact. A glimpse into the dominant male and female social media feeds for gen-z and younger millenials👇

I just had the craziest experience at the airport. We are about to board a flight to Atlanta when the pilot from the incoming plane walks out of the jetway. Guy is probably late 50s, salt and pepper hair, military look. The kind of pilot you instantly feel good about seeing on your flight. Pilot walks over to the counter, gets on the PA system, and starts addressing everyone. “Folks, I’ve been doing this a long time. Flying one of these jets is easy. The hard part is looking at 130 people and telling them their flight is going to be delayed.” Audible groans throughout the boarding gate. Most people here are flying to Atlanta as a layover before another flight. 130 people just had their day become a complete mess. The pilot goes on. “I get it, trust me. But here’s the deal: During our landing, we had a small mechanical issue. I’m not your pilot for the next leg, but I don’t feel confident the jet’s safe to fly until we have a mechanical team look it over, and I don’t feel comfortable asking the next pilots to fly you guys until we get confirmation.” He points at the agents next to him behind the counter: “Now, none of this is the agents’ fault. Please be kind to them. I’m the one who made this decision, not them, so any inconvenience you experience is my fault. Just please know that I don’t do this lightly, and I’m only doing it because I believe it’s in the best interests of everyone’s safety.” Now this is where the story gets crazy. The pilot puts the microphone down, grabs his suitcase, and all the people in the gate… Start clapping. I’m not joking, everyone starts clapping for the guy. 130 people who just had their travel plans ruined give an ovation to the guy who made the decision and delivered the message. All because he addressed them with decency and transparency, took ownership of the decision, made it clear that it was necessary, and explained why it was in everyone’s best interest. It’s honestly one of the best examples of strong communication—of strong leadership, for that matter—that I’ve seen in a long time. @Delta, whoever your Atlanta to Wichita pilot was this morning, he’s one of the good ones. Please tell him the delayed passengers of flight 1637 appreciate what he did.

(Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade wheat and K.C. wheat futures climbed by their daily trading limits on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected the nation's harvest will drop to the lowest level since 1972.

@aledeniz @Jesuislibis Kipchak / Cuman, most likely. Some later Tatar maybe?

@LandsknechtPike A festival of East European, pre 1990, historical movies would be awesome.

@Andric1961 Yeah, he really scared the elite by cutting from already vulnerable sectors (education for instance).

Interesting that if you have three kids you’re probably either very rich or very poor

@thaddeusthought The upper part around the fortress is the most beautiful for me. The peaceful side of the city. And the area next to the Church of Prophet Elijah.

This is just pure unadulterated propaganda by The Economist, as is so often the case with their coverage of China (reminder that, if you read The Economist, the Chinese economy should have collapsed more or less every year for the past 20 years). I actually come from a country - France - where our minorities did actually get squashed, so I have a pretty decent understanding of what that concretely means. For instance in France our regional languages (Basque, Alsacien, Corsican, Breton, Occitan, etc.) have ZERO official status, cannot be used in government, and - under French law - were prohibited in classrooms under threat of punishment (kids at school were made to wear a necklace of shame around their neck if they spoke their regional language: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha#…). The first line of Article 2 of the French constitution (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_2…) - as amended in 1992 - specifies that French is the exclusive language in France and constitutionally excludes every other language from any official role whatsoever. There was, in France, an official policy of linguicide. The net result, according to official French statistics (ined.fr/fr/publication…), is that regional languages like Corsican or Breton went from being spoken in 70%-80% of local families at the end of WW1 down to sub-10% numbers by the end of the 20th century. Even Alsacien, the most resilient regional language, still saw its transmission rate collapse from 70% to 18% in just 2 generations. That, folks, is "squashing." Same thing, incidentally, in the UK - The Economist's own country: a reminder that in Wales schools used the "Welsh Not" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not), a token of shame that a child would need to wear around their neck if they were heard speaking Welsh. Compare and contrast this with this new Chinese law. First of all, fact is that if you look at minorities with their own language in China, the immense majority of them still speak it and use it in their daily life. For instance, a 2017 survey conducted by 国家语委 (the National Language Commission, the authoritative Chinese body on language policy), only 30% of people in Tibet had functional Mandarin proficiency (tibetology.ac.cn/2023-02/10/con…). In other words, Tibetan, not Mandarin, remains the dominant working language of daily life for the overwhelming majority of the population in Tibet. Same story with Mongolian: according to China's Sixth National Census (2010), 85.25% of ethnic Mongols still used Mongolian in daily life (nmlr.muc.edu.cn/info/1119/2132…). Which means, as a starting point, that China already did a far better job than virtually any Western country at protecting their minority languages. Important context when we're speaking about Western media lecturing China on the topic... Heck, a good case could be made that they did TOO GOOD a job given that - among some ethnic minorities - most people speak ONLY their regional language, and can't even speak Mandarin, which is actually one of the main points of the new law. So let's look at this new law (full text here: neac.gov.cn/seac/xwzx/2026…). Does it officially recognize and protect minority languages? Yes, the law literally says "The state respects and protects the learning and use of minority languages and scripts, promotes the regulation, standardization, and digitalization of minority languages." Does it ban minority languages in schools? No. The new law does tilt education further toward Mandarin - requiring nationally unified textbooks and designating Mandarin as the basic language of instruction - but it does not abolish minority-medium schools (民族语授课学校 in Chinese, literally "minority-language-instruction schools") which can continue to operate with state funding in their respective regions. Does it ban minority languages from government? No. Article 15 explicitly states that "where relevant laws require documents to be issued in minority languages, both the national common language version and the minority language version shall be provided" (依照有关法律规定需要使用少数民族语言文字发布文书的，应当同时提供国家通用语言文字版本和少数民族语言文字版本). Does it ban minority languages from public signage? No. The law requires Mandarin to be displayed "prominently" alongside minority scripts in public settings - not instead of them. Does it undermine autonomous regions? No. Article 8 of the new law explicitly reaffirms "upholding and improving the system of ethnic regional autonomy" (坚持和完善民族区域自治制度). Which means that the 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law remains in force, with their local regions' legal authority to adopt regulations suited to local ethnic conditions. So all in all, what you CAN say is that the new law does indeed promote Mandarin and pushes to ensure every Chinese citizen can speak a common national language - which is, frankly, a pretty normal thing for any country to expect. What you CANNOT say - unless you are writing propaganda rather than journalism - is that this law "squashes" 55 ethnicities. Actual squashing is hanging a wooden clog around a child's neck for speaking his mother tongue. Actual squashing would be making minority languages or culture anticonstitutional. A law that funds minority-language preservation, preserves minority-medium schools, reaffirms regional autonomy, requires bilingual government documents and operates under a Constitution whose Article 4 guarantees all ethnic groups "the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own traditions and customs" is not "squashing" anything. It's a level of minority-language and cultural protection that the French Republic - or the UK - has never offered its own citizens in its entire existence.

The Economist @TheEconomist

3 months ago

There are 56 ethnicities in China—and 55 are getting squashed. A new law passed by the Chinese legislature is a grim milestone in the Communist Party’s harder-line approach to ethnic politics econ.st/4vK4oX4

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@DeanAbbott @hookskat 2/ there is this aversion to Eros and aversion to vulnerability in the younger generations. my 2cents is because everything is documented via mobile. one faux pas and I am an "social media star", the wrong way for eternity.

@DeanAbbott @hookskat 1/ would the same question on a different social network lead to a different outcome? not sure how much is twitter, as platforms as aggregate. Would love to see how the social feeds look for different cohorts, men/women etc.

@thaddeusthought "indeed" semantically seems to require my agreement with the statement. Which should not be the case, as He has risen regardless of my opinion 😁. "truly" seems to carry a testimony, a confession of veridicity. Not a native speaker, tho. My2cents

@GeopolRomania Hihi, reluăm conversația peste 20 de ani? Îs curios cum iese.