2025 increases

 

No relation to Adolf Hitler either!
Credit: MennasDosbin

This is breaking the interwebs right now. I mean, it *is* a bit strange. Especially since this politician represents SWAPO, not the DTA?! See what I just did there? :P

African politician named after Hitler set to win election

WE CONTROL EVERYTHING

- Welcome, seeker,
let me teach you comparative religion!

 

Two quotes from the introduction to "The Occult Roots of Religious Studies" (2021), edited by Yves Mühlematter and Helmut Zander. The entire book seems to be available free at Academia.edu, so I might read all of it when I get the time. Another contribution to the genre "everyone was really an occultist", apparently. Bingo! 

>>>For example, the anthroposophical milieu has not been researched sufficiently. One could think of the anthroposophist Uno Donner, a Finnish industrialist, who donated a chair for religious and cultural history to the University of Turku/Åbo and and also donated/held one of the largest book collections on religion in Northern Europe. 

>>>Another would be the German Diether Lauenstein, priest of the Christian Community, who learned Sanskrit from the Marburg indologist Johannes Nobel, habilitated (presumably) in 1944 at the University of Greifswald, where he subsequently received a teaching assignment for Indo-European Studies and Sanskrit. He was involved in the founding of the Herdecke community hospital (a nucleus of the University of Witten-Herdecke) and died as a supporter of apartheid in South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). We thank Robin Schmidt for the clues.

(...)

>>>However, this problem is not specific to representatives of the cultural sciences; rather, these blurred boundaries can also and especially be found in the “hard” natural sciences, where an even clearer distinction between science and pseudo-science, or religious studies, is often assumed. 

>>>Such examples include Marie Curie, who not only stood in the laboratory, but also attended spiritual seances, or Albert Einstein, who was not only a theorist in the field of physics, but also read Blavatsky and attended lectures by Rudolf Steiner. 

>>>Georg Cantor, the inventor of set theory in mathematics, who was interested in both Catholic theories of infinity and the existence of the “true” Rosicrucians, may be added to this group, along with the mathematician Jan Arnoldus Schouten, the explorer of differential geometry, who was also interested in Theosophy, or Thomas Alva Edison, who not only invented the light bulb and the two-way telegraph, but was also a temporary member of Theosophical Society Adyar (partly for economic reasons, e.g. to better sell his products in India?). 

>>>The separation between the humanities and the natural sciences, which was established in university practice – though always criticised in theory of science – never disappeared on an individual level.

Warboy

 

"Mad Max: Fury Road" is a 2015 motion picture, set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, perhaps in Australia. The film also has strong traits of the fantasy genre. It seems to be extremely popular, but I admit that I don´t understand why. To me, it comes across as a parody of a dystopian post-apocalyptic movie. The tropes are so exaggerated that they are difficult to take seriously. But sure, maybe I´m missing some kind of self-referential irony? (Did you note the rock band atop one of the warrior trucks, by the way?) 

And if you love action, well, the "plot" of this flick is essentially one long road battle. There is also a "feminist" element, since most of the good guys are females, while all of the bad guys are male (or perhaps male-ish mutant creatures). However, the gorgeous looks of most of the women tells us that "Mad Max: Fury Road" probably isn´t intended for a female audience...

The plot, such as it is, doesn´t really revolve around the road warrior Mad Max, who comes across more like a supporting character. The main protagonists are the female warrior Furiosa and a truly bizarre cult leader, Immortan Joe. The latter´s citadel is inhabited by "warboys", some kind of brainwashed mutants convinced that they are going to Valhalla if killed in combat on behalf of Joe. For some reason, there are also ordinary people in the citadel, mostly treated as dirt by the cultists. Do they use them for organ harvesting, or what? Furiosa, who works for Immortan Joe, decides to escape in a large truck (rig), searching for a mysterious green place inhabited by Amazons with Irish-sounding names. She also takes Joe´s wives with her. After various action-packed situations, Max and a de-programmed warboy decides to help Furiosa find the Promised Land...which turns out to be a pipe dream. 

In the final part of "Fury Road", this unlikely band of sisters (and two brothers) decide to turn back to the Citadel and take it by storm. When it turns out that Immortan Joe is dead, both the cultists and the half-crazed ordinary humans apparently start worshipping Furiosa as their new deity, while Mad Max blends with the crowd and presumably absconds, perhaps to a sequel. 

Not sure if this counts as a happy ending, tbh. But there you go. Not sure why this moved people almost ten years ago...

Skeleton Coast

 

Credit: BigSugarDaddy

"Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond" is a BBC nature documentary in the series "Eden: Untamed Planet". This time the BBC crew did manage to find an area almost devoid of Homo sapiens: the Namib, a coastal desert in southern Africa. Unless I´m mistaken, the docu is taped in the Namibian-Angolan border region. 

For a "desert", I have to say that the Namib is teaming with life, both large and small. Among the larger are lions, enormous flocks of ostriches, oryx, giraffes, elephants, fur seals, jackals and hyenas. The elephants consume seeds containing water, while the jackals and hyenas (unsurprisingly) eat dead seal cubs, the seals themselves of course consuming fish. 

100 days of the year, the sand dunes of the Namib are watered by sea fog, the same fog that makes the coastal area dangerous for ships, earning it the nickname "Skeleton Coast". All kinds of smaller animals thrive on the dunes (and in them): termites, ants, frogs, scorpions...

After seeing this, I wonder whether humans might be the only life form that usually avoids this region! 

"Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond" ends with the usual climate change pitch, the temperature in the desert rising, but I somehow suspect that these creatures will survive or even thrive regardless...or simply move. The Namib desert has apparently existed for 55 million years, so it´s not clear to me why it would need "saving" at all. 

Yes, this is Eden.   

The mysterious conqueror

 

Credit: Eric Hill 

Here´s a second and hopefully better attempt to review the French nature documentary "L´abominable mystère des fleurs". Apparently, Charles Darwin regarded the origins and evolution of the flowering plants or angiosperms an “abominable mystery” due to their seemingly rapid evolution and diversification. The documentary tries to shed at least some light on the problematique. One of the scientists featured is named Sarah Darwin and actually is a descendant of Charles Robert!

If I understand the documentary correctly, 90% of all plant species are flowering plants. They are believed to have evolved about 100 million years ago. At the very least, the oldest known fossil of an angiosperm is that old. If I understand it correctly, this fossil is already quite “advanced”. However, genetic studies of Amborella – a peculiar species endemic to New Caledonia and believed to be the last surviving member of a “basal” angiosperm lineage – suggest an origin already 140 – 250 million years ago. This gives ample time for flowering plants to evolve and diversify before they were preserved in the fossil record. Later, 214 million YBP was chosen as the definitive date. Hypothetically, the first flower was believed to have looked like a water lily! Somehow, I´m not surprised – I always got some kind of “dinosaur” vibes from those (but maybe that´s because of some old horror flick).

The most fascinating plant shown in the documentary is easily the Welwitschia, which is a gymnosperm rather than an angiosperm. Only found in Namibia and Angola, some specimens can become 2,000 years old (!). It´s also an extremely ancient lineage. Apparently, the Welwitschia has a kind of “failed flowers”, which has led scientists to wonder if it could be a (failed?) transitional form between Gymnospermae and flowering plants. Genetic studies suggest that there are similarities between how the Welwitschia forms its pseudo-flowers and how real flowers are formed. This could be a missing link establishing that the angiosperms are indeed descended from gymnosperms in truly primordial times.

Other topics covered in the docu are equally interesting. Thus, most flowers aren´t blue, which is also something of a conundrum, since insects apparently “like” blue colors! They are easily drawn to them. It seems most flowering plants have difficulty for various reasons related to chemistry and soil quality to produce blue pigments. However, there are ways around this. For instance, some non-blue flowers can produce the blue color by simply reflecting the light that way. More surprising is the hypothesis that flowering plants can pick up sounds! The buzzing of an insect can somehow be detected by the petals of a flower. The producers of the documentary have humorously placed two musicians in the middle of a poppy field, where they play Rimsky-Korsakov´s “The Flight of the Bumblebee”!

And yes, the documentary is available in an English-language version, with the ridiculous title “Flower Power: The Mysterious Conqueror”.

But Darwin was right

 

Credit: Thomas Schoch 

"L´abominable mystère des fleurs" (The Abominable Mystery of Flowers) is a French nature documentary. The title is apparently a reference to a statement by Charles Darwin, who considered the fast evolution of flowering plants to be a serious problem for his theory. It´s therefore somewhat piquant that one of the scientists featured is named Sarah Darwin. And yes, she really is a descendant of Charles Robert!

The docu takes us to a literally blooming desert in Namibia, an 800-year young (and very bizarre) Welwitschia plant (also in Namibia), the French Alps and assorted laboratories. On the main island of New Caledonia, the scientists pluck an Amborella, the only species left of the oldest flowering plant lineage in Earth history (or something to that effect).

The evolution of flowering plants was clearly stimulated by insect pollinators, and geographical isolation can speed up speciation. 

But somehow, we knew that already. More intriguing is the research done on the Welwitschia plant, which is a gymnosperm. Presumably, the flowering plants (angiosperms) must have evolved from gymnosperms. And indeed, the Welwitschia turns out to have a kind of pseudo-flowers which are genetically similar to the real thing! Is this an actual "transitional form" still around today?

It seems Charles Darwin was right, after all. Next week: Einstein right, too?

Mermaids: The Body Exorcized

 

I didn´t know that possession by mermaid spirits (!) was a thing, and that charismatic Christians try to exorcise them. Not just in Namibia, but also in the United States?! 

Note how the little girl is being publicly exorcized with the full support of her parents. Her "crime" is apparently that she said she was a mermaid after seeing a fake documentary on YouTube...

I knew that some charismatics were wild, but this trumped even my worst expectations!

The clip is narrated by a former exorcist (!!) who is now an atheist.  

Auto-trolling?

 

Credit: Chtrede

Why is this considered "trolling"? A more reasonable explanation is that the Namibian president really wants the Germans to return to their old colony!

I´m old enough to remember when SWAPO was considered a "leftist" organization, but what the heck do I know...

Namibia trolls Germany?

One snake too many

A winged snake? Sounds delicious!

Cryptozoologist (or perhaps folklorist) Karl Shuker strikes again, this time with a highly entertaining article about "flying snakes", which are apparently seen on a semi-regular basis all around the world. Namibia, Bulgaria, ancient Egypt and even London are some of the places where this cryptid (completely unknown to me until now) has supposedly showed its fangs and, I suppose, wing membranes. 

Do I believe it? 

Not a chance. I´m not an anatomist, but I´m sure snakes with wings are as impossible as pigs that fly or moose that hover, so *this* won´t worry me a bit when I take a stroll outside tomorrow morning. But OK, I don´t live anywhere near Namibia (or London, for that matter) so perchance I speak too early?  

Snakes with wings and other strange things

Palme är störtad

1977 publicerade Rabén & Sjögren ett seriealbum av Janne Lundström och Ola Nyberg, ”Uppdrag i Zimbabwe”. Den fiktiva handlingen utspelar sig i Rhodesia, som då fortfarande hade en vit minoritetsregim. Huvudpersonerna är två svenskar på hemligt FN-uppdrag. De understöds av ett gerillaförband ur Robert Mugabes ZANU.

Skurken är en högt uppsatt rhodesisk militär, som lite ironiskt heter överste White. I en serieruta håller han triumferande upp en rhodesisk dagstidning med rubriken ”Sweden expells socialists” och en ovanligt ful karikatyr av Olof Palme. Han kommenterar nöjt: ”Palme har blivit störtad”. Detta syftar alltså på valet 1976.

Överste White är en verklig person. Han bor numera i Namibia och intervjuades för många år sedan av Aftonbladet (eller kanske Expressen). Anledningen? Han hade blivit utpekad som inblandad i mordet på Olof Palme i samband med Sydafrika-spåret!

Ja, det var samma kille. Jag säger inte att han är skyldig, men det är ändå ett jäkla märkligt sammanträffande...

A meme, not an empire

A review of a fake flag sold by Amazon.

This flag is probably a well-intentioned joke (or dank meme). Koenraadistan doesn't exist, and the term "freien demokratur" means "free fake democracy" in Dutch, Flamish or German. I've found two mavericks on the web named Koenraad whom I first suspected might have something to do with this banner, one a controversial scholar of comparative religion with Hindu nationalist sympathies, and the other a Traditionalist and supporter of the New Right. I mean, just the kind of guys you expect to pull a stunt like this, right? However, I now suspect that the real mover and shaker behind "Koenraadistan" is one Benutzer Koenraad, who registered the flag design on Wiki Commons as his own work. Ha, busted! Originally, I assumed we were dealing with some kind of revanschist German settler movement in Namibia, so I suppose Mr Benutzer had me fooled for about three minutes or so. He he, no hard feelings.

Back to the future

"In defense of socialism" is a collection of four speeches given by Fidel Castro in 1988-89, during the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

The speeches are relatively uninteresting in and of themselves. They mostly deal with two subjects. First, the Cuban-MPLA-SWAPO military victory in southern Angola. Second, the so-called rectification in Cuba itself, a kind of "anti-perestroika" in which Castro attempted to bring back the early, "heroic" period of the Cuban revolution. The rectification emphasized voluntary labour in the form of "microbrigades" and special building workers' brigades, and took its cue from the economic ideas of Che Guevara, largely scrapped during the 1970's.

Both topics covered in this book seems to have been dealt with more extensively elsewhere, and it's not clear why anyone should buy this particular volume, except perhaps for nostalgic reasons.

"In defense of socialism" was published in 1989 by Pathfinder, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP), an ex-Trotskyist organization which acted as a virtual propaganda arm of the Cuban regime during this period. The book therefore has a foreword written by a leading member of this party, Mary-Alice Waters. It deals almost exclusively with the rectification campaign, emphasizing the differences between the Cuban and Soviet models (the SWP, somewhat idiosyncratically, was anti-Soviet while being pro-Cuban).

I was actually present at the public launch meeting of this book in Sweden, at which the Cuban ambassador spoke for several hours (almost like Castro himself). I don't remember the exact month, but 1989 was the year when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe. This and the collapse of the USSR two years later forced the Cuban leadership to change course once again, scrapping rectification and the economic thought of Che Guevara in favour of "the special period" and eventually, market reforms. This made "In defense of socialism" seem very dated almost from start.

But yes, Cuba is still broadly socialist, and the SWP still support it...

For how long, remains to be seen.