Några inlägg på vår ofrivilliga grannblogg. Medan Sydkorea försöker fjäska för trumpedunsen, har Nordkorea erkänt vad alla redan visste: de stred mycket riktigt på Rysslands sida i Kursk-regionen. A tale of two nations?
Sydkoreas nye president besöker Trump
Nordkorea erkänner officiellt att de stridit på Rysslands sida
Does South Korea have the world´s strangest "men´s rights movement"? The author of this essay, Richard Hanania, is something of a troll, but his contribution is still interesting as "cultural studies". Is it true? No idea. Feel free to do your own research...
Why does Korea have an under-endowed men´s movement?
This shit just won´t go away, LOL. Is "the world´s smartest man" YoungHoon Kim just a recreational liar and cultists? Apparently, he claims to be "persecuted" now and wants people to donate money to his "Church". So he isn´t a Presbyterian, then? Anyway, I still think Mr Kim is a flash in the pan, and will be gone by September by the very latest. Unless Joe Rogan decides to feature him on a certain show...
YouTube videos of skeptics going after some really low hanging fruit.
The first clip tells us what happens if a fairly well-educated skeptic (in a black mask) decides to seriously comment a confused spouter of quasi-quantum woo-woo. It´s funny, after a fashion.
Next, that South Korean guy who pretends to have the world´s highest IQ is apparently still at it. Just wait until the more serious Christians realize that he´s a "heretic". But sure, maybe flat earthers will still take him at face value?
And then there´s some fake "time traveler" who claims he´s the next emperor of North America or something to that effect. LOL. He´s also afraid of catching diabetes because he drinks too much soda?!
The ride never ends. And I want a tastier fruit salad!
With all due respecc to religious people, this is why I can´t take much of religion seriously. The first clip deals with that South Korean guy again, Kim-something, the guy who claims to have the highest IQ in the world and uses this to promote Christianity on X. Note that the muckraker who fact-checked his claims is an atheist. Many media outlets who run with the story were Christian.
The second clip is about Sam Shamoun, an Assyrian Christian and cyber-celebrity who for some time have claimed to be a Catholic. Except that...ahem...he isn´t. Wut?! Entryism sui generis, or what?
The two remaining clips is from a recent "debate" between Orthobros and Catholics on YouTube. Note that Jay Dyer (the bad boy of the interwebs) turned out to be the *moderate* guy in this truly bizarre conflagration!
An one-hour video featuring various religious figures claiming to be Jesus (or something to that effect). Or in one case claiming that *another* guy is the Messiah (who isn´t even in on the show). Geezus! Most of the people featured are cult leaders or just plain insane, but a few more intriguing characters have been included.
For instance, an American faith-healer and evangelist starring the Christ in a play, adressing a huge crowd in Kenya in his Jesus attire. The Internet trolls were soon all over the situation, claiming that the Savior had appeared in the East African nation. There is also the story of a psychiatrist who placed three mental patients who each claimed to be Jesus in the same room as an experiment. Or what about the Jesus who ran for mayor of Tokyo? Note also that some women have claimed or been proclaimed "Jesus"...
I admit that I probably would have preferred the original version.
Richard Hanania isn´t a scholar of genetics or demographics, obviously, but he does make some interesting observations and reflections here. The bottom line is that East Asians are genetically primed to be conformists, and therefore "struggle without a script" when social conformity comes unglued. Which may explain their extremely low birth rates, for instance.
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| Hajlar Selassie? |
Några intressanta inlägg från T.H:s blogg. Den första om hur svenska nazister och högerextremister stödde Haile Selassies kejserliga styre i Etiopien under kalla kriget, vilket ju är lite märkligt av två orsaker. Ett: Haile Selassie var svart. Två: Etiopien var allierade med västmakterna under andra världskriget. Det förstnämnda går väl att förklara bort med lite spekulationer om "hamiter" och liknande. Det andra däremot...
Den andra länken handlar om SD och unghögern, et cetera.
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| America and Russia side by side. Allegory. |
The current geopolitical turmoil continues...
The United States ends intelligence sharing with Ukraine
Trump pauses military aid to Ukraine
This is unfortunately the only YouTube clip I´ve found concerning the interface between General MacArthur and Korean shamanism. It´s fiction. From the 2023 TV series "Behind Your Touch", to be exact. The actor stars a "livelihood shaman" who does indeed pray to MacArthur´s undead soul, offering him American fast food! Note also that he is dressed in uniform.
Well, at least we now know how MacArthur devotees are depicted in South Korean pop culture...
The scholarly (!) YouTube channel ReligionForBreakfast takes on (South) Korean shamanism in this 23-minute long video. First, we learn that shamanism is a problematic term and that many question Mircea Eliade´s classical definition. OK, dude. Then it´s off to the ROK to investigate the many faces of Musok or Mugyo, the terms usually used to denote this cluster of spiritual beliefs and practices. Or folk superstitions!
Due to its folkish and decentralized nature, there are many different forms of Korean shamanism. In some regions, you become a shaman by falling dangerously ill. Sounds familiar? In others, shamanism is based on hereditary family lineages. Some shamans are ecstatic, others are not. Often, shamanism hides behind a (very nominal) Buddhist facade. In South Korea, this means that shamanic shops are marked by swastikas (a Buddhist symbol). Actual syncretism is also a thing, with Korean shamans claiming contact with Chinese deities or even the immortal soul of General MacArthur!
Under Japanese rule, Musok/Mugyo was derided as primitive by both the Japanese colonialists and Western Christian missionaries (who moreover claimed that the shamans were in contact with demons). Korean nationalists inverted the reasoning, claiming that primitive shamanism proved that the Korean nation was more pure and primordial than other Asians. After independence, shamanism was still stigmatized and to some extent still is. When President Park Geun-hye was impeached in 2016, her advisor Choi Soon-sil was accused of "shamanism" due to her involvement in a new religious movement. The term was not intended as a compliment...
On the other hand, shamanism is sometimes seen as a legitimate form of Korean culture. The clip features a young female shaman who acts as an "influencer" on the web and a somewhat exotic life coach IRL.
We learn nothing about shamanism in North Korea in the clip, but Mount Paektu *is* featured. Sacred to shamanism, the mountain is situated at the North Korean-Chinese border. Since China allows South Korean tourism, shamans from the ROK can visit Paektu from the Chinese side. Dramatic visions have been reported, und so weiter. Not sure what MacArthur´s undead soul thinks about that, but there you go.
And yes, through out this YouTube video, we constantly see the shamans handle dead pigs, but the narrator never elaborates! Still, an interesting presentation.
So I did my own armchair research a propos the previous blog post "Emerson´s Dogman". I admit I was...stunned.
In New Jersey, a black bear nicknamed Pedals could actually walk permanently on its hind legs, and quite fast too! It was an adaptation to the fact that one of its front paws had been damaged and rendered non-functional. There are also dogs who learned to walk bipedally for similar reasons. They, too, were quite fast.
Bears walking on their hind legs for longer or shorter distances are (surprise) the main suspects in many purported Bigfoot observations. One clip above shows two normal bears in a South Korean safari park standing and even walking bipedally a short distance. But if bears and dogs can walk upright under certain conditions, what about wolves? While there is no scientific evidence for factultative bipedalism among wolves, who´s to say that it´s intrinsically impossible?
Note that there isn´t any particular contradiction between this and the notion that most (perhaps 99%) of Dogman sightings are misidentifications, hallucinations or hoaxes. Obviously, unusual observations of animals will be sensationalized and later mythologized. And in the Internet age, people will end up "seeing" them pretty much everywhere.
The same logic applied to Bigfoot could yield some interesting results. Or speculations...
Aftonbladets språkbehandling är...tragisk. Deras rubrik betyder alltså "Vi gjorde så att planet kraschade, men tyvärr överlevde två personer".
Båda artikelförfattarna är svenskar, och AB har rimligtvis tillgång till AI. Eller?
Kulturbarn från Waldorf-skolan?
Edward Dutton sounds increasingly incoherent. These are the two latest examples...
Vi får hoppas att "de sydkoreanska arbetarna" även kommer att försvara demokratin om den hotas av Vänsterpartiets gamla broderparti i norr...
Slag under bältet? Ja, kanske det, men jag är tillräckligt gammal för att komma ihåg när Nordkoreas fana ingick i Vänsterpartiets fanborg på första maj!
An interesting article from "Japan Times" about an underreported UN-sponsored conference in South Korea. Yes, it´s about plastics and microplastics. Some quotes from the article (which is linked below):
>>>The rising toll of plastic in the environment is impossible to ignore. In the developing world, plastic waste is clogging beaches and rivers and choking wildlife. A glut of trash in the Congo this month even shut down a hydroelectric dam, forcing power cuts. Plastics are also responsible for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N.
>>>As plastic items break down, they become microplastics. These have now been found in human breast milk, brain tissue and blood. Research has linked a chemical used in some plastics, bisphenol F, to lower IQs in children.
>>>Microplastics are ubiquitous across ecosystems, detected everywhere from the depths of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench to the snow on Mount Everest. One recent study found that aerosolized plastic particles could even affect cloud formation and induce heavier rainfall.
>>>As renewable energy and electrification sap demand for oil, growth in petrochemicals is expected to help offset that, making the sector an important backstop for oil-producing countries and the fossil fuel industry. Petrochemicals’ share of total oil demand could nearly double by 2050, according to research firm BloombergNEF.
>>>"The oil and gas industry is looking at this as a Plan B, or an escape hatch, for surviving the energy transition,” said Dharmesh Shah, a senior campaigner for the Center for International Environmental Law, a nonprofit with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and Geneva.
>>>China is the world’s biggest producer of plastic and has a close trading relationship with Saudi Arabia, the source of much of its imported oil. State oil company Saudi Aramco is investing in plants in China that can process its crude into petrochemicals.
Plan B, indeed!
