|
|
Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 29, 2024 18:31:03 GMT
That was my thought as well. I'd have thought one would want an actual saint with good reviews on Trustpilot. As it were.
|
|
|
|
Post by terentiusfaber on Sept 29, 2024 18:45:48 GMT
Too Catholic? I suppose Baptists reject Anglicans for being too Catholic as well...
|
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Sept 29, 2024 18:47:09 GMT
The kind of stuff I mentioned earlier: people being upset because the Pope makes statements against abortion, or homosexuality, or whatever. |
|
|
|
Post by terentiusfaber on Sept 29, 2024 18:48:43 GMT
But... new candidates have a reputation for obtaining miracles since God wants to prove their sanctity to earth-dwellers. Then there are those who have a personal attachment of some sort to the candidate. For Belgians, the proposal will probably beaud oiell.
|
|
|
|
Post by terentiusfaber on Sept 29, 2024 18:49:27 GMT
The kind of stuff I mentioned earlier: people being upset because the Pope makes statements against abortion, or homosexuality, or whatever.  |
|
kizolk
Indecisive 
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Sept 30, 2024 18:14:54 GMT
The place where I used to practice with my bands (not my current one though) is closing. It was funded by the city and ran by a musician who always tried to help the local bands, for instance by inviting them to play at the mid-sized festival I mentioned in the TFaaT game thread. It also had a studio that was like 6 euros/hour, when comparable studios would usually charge something like 50. For band practice, it was 3 euros, even though you could use their gear (amps, drums, etc.).
The local musical scene was already in bad shape since covid, but it won't help. And I don't know if there are reliable numbers on that, but I've read a few things about young people not picking up instruments anymore. I like hip hop and electronic music, and people will keep making music of all kinds, but it looks like guitar-based music is bound to die out.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 6, 2024 10:58:23 GMT
Not that it's any surprise by this point, but Musk spoke at Trump's rally. In the beginning he says he's "Dark MAGA", a reference to a current within Trump's following that advocates for a more radical version of Trumpism and is commonly associated with the alt-right. I actually wonder how close to being a genuine white nationalist Musk is. He has made at least one anti-Semitic remark in the past, and he's in effect a proponent of the Great Replacement white nationalist conspiracy theory, even though he denies it. He's known to spend time on 4chan, where the alt-right was born, and which always been a meeting place for white nationalist kids, although to be fair it also had (and maybe still has) good sides. And of course, he's a Trump supporter. I don't know if Trump's a white nationalist himself, but he certainly is friendly with them, has adopted some of their talking points, and has used inflammatory language against immigrants on several occasions. That's one more reason to want to see Trump lose the elections: maybe it will put an end to Musk's political aspirations. |
|
|
|
Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Oct 6, 2024 11:08:28 GMT
I don't think Trump has much of a political philosophy as such, much like Boris Johnson. They're just narcissists who want to be in powerful positions, and are willing to ally themselves with anyone and anything that is likely to help them do so.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 6, 2024 12:04:49 GMT
I agree. And I think Musk is slightly more politically minded, but he has shown the same kind of opportunism as Trump has. I seem to remember him saying he's voted Democrat most of his life. Very relatable: don't you hate it when you've been voting for moderates all your life and then suddenly change your voting pattern the first time a Mussolinoid shows up in an election??
|
|
|
|
Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Oct 6, 2024 12:55:50 GMT
Trump used to be a Democrat as well. He even donated money to Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 6, 2024 16:15:32 GMT
That's what I meant by the same kind of opportunism.
By the way, I've just remembered he was not an American citizen by birth, and probably couldn't have "voted Democrat most of his life". So have a quote rather than an inadequate paraphrase: "I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically" (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-republican-voting-election-day-b2081531.html)
As the article says, he had never voted Republican before, so that "overwhelmingly" probably means he has voted for third-party candidates in addition to Democrats. Probably libertarian since that's how he sometimes describes himself.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 6, 2024 19:15:29 GMT
Still haven't smoked a single cigarette since Portugal, so almost two months. The first time I tried vaping some ten years ago, I *think* I was still regularly smoking all along, like many vapers do, so I take it as a sign that this time it might work in the long run.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 8, 2024 4:17:36 GMT
I remember bits and pieces of the dream I was having when I woke up. I was accompanying someone who seemed to be some kind of radio host. We met with a few people who supposedly were fans of his yet somehow never recognized him, which was better than it sounds since the point of those visits was to shoot Candid Camera-type pranks, except there was no camera as far as I can tell. Nor were the pranks elaborate: he brought them games or toys, had them play it, then his real identity would become known one way or another.
I only remember the last visit. The person we met was a youngish girl who ran a store, where the meeting took place. I noticed there were Chinese characters written all over the place. The girl was black, I think. She told us she had three names: Shinken, Nagani, and the third one I forget, but it was one that used on'yomi, i.e. the Sino-Japanese readings of Chinese characters. Shinken does too, while Nagani uses kun'yomi, native Japanese readings that were assigned to Chinese characters. I don't think the name is actually used though, but Shinken probably is.
She played the game, which in my fuzzy recollection looked like some kind of cup-and-ball. I told her it was interesting that all of her three names sounded like Japanese, to which she replied it could also be Korean (which to my knowledge it couldn't), and she started discussing the history of North Korea, followed by Mongolia, which she mispronounced.
The End
|
|
|
|
Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Oct 8, 2024 22:40:16 GMT
I wonder how this relates to the question of reading in dreams. Did you actually recognise the Chinese characters when you noticed them, and were they the same if you saw them a second time, which is supposed to be impossible?
As for the rest, it obviously has a much deeper meaning, but I lack the imagination to interpret it. Or perhaps you just ate too much cheese.
|
|
kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,475
|
Post by kizolk on Oct 9, 2024 4:18:58 GMT
I recognized a few, for instance the character for "moon" on what was possibly a calendar. But a lot of them were unfamiliar, which, together with the fact that I looked for kana and couldn't find any, made me think it was Chinese. Japanese uses a relatively small subset of the characters that are used in Chinese, often in a slightly and sometimes in a very different form because they didn't undergo the simplification process the Chinese ones did, and in addition to these Chinese characters, Japanese also uses kana, a different set of characters that Chinese doesn't have. My brain must have made up some Chinese-looking characters. I remember one that was a bushu, i.e. one of the constituents of Chinese characters, that sometimes also exist in isolation as full-fledged characters. This one doesn't exist in isolation in Japanese as far as I know, but maybe it does in Chinese.
I can't remember if I saw any of them a second time.
As for the meaning, well, this is a baffling one. I think one of the themes is my problem with people lumping "Asians" together as if Asia was a country, and its people and languages were all the same. Maybe the broader theme is identity: the radio host hides who he really is, and when his identity is revealed, nobody cares; the girl is black, runs a Chinese store, has three names that sound Japanese but she seems to wonder where they're from. One of the meanings of "shinken" is "honest". I sometimes think about the fact that there aren't that many black people in Japan: it's a culturally very open country and has historically been so pretty much since its beginnings, but demographically pretty closed.
Makes what you want of all this.
|
|
