How we discovered our desire for the uncontacted savage.

The photos of grass-roofed shelters and hostile, body-painted Indians brandishing bows and arrows spread like brushfire around the globe. Survival International, an indigenous rights advocacy group, described the group as "uncontacted," summoning celluloid fantasies of lost savages who had never seen civilization. Reporters began to describe them as "Earth's last uncontacted tribe" who reacted violently to the "bird god" in the sky. But then the story collapsed. Meirelles stated in an interview that he had been following the group for two decades. The tribe was neither lost nor undiscovered — the outside world had known of them since 1910. It should have been clear from the beginning; the initial Portuguese reports never claimed the group was "uncontacted." Introduced by sloppy reporting, this error fanned suspicions that the photos were just a hoax.

The crucial issue raised by these photos of a remote group isolated from our society is not whether, in an age of worldwide connectivity, surveillance satellites, and explosive population growth, we might still have undiscovered neighbors on a shrinking globe — we don't. In fact, one of Meirelles's friends first noticed the clearing where the tribe was found while browsing Google Earth. In truth, our reactions to and perceptions of these people reveal far more about us than about them. We easily believe that a band of hostile Indians confronting an airplane from a clearing do so out of ignorance and fear. But the likely truth is harder to face: The tribe might have threatened the observers precisely because they had encountered some of the worst aspects of our culture before, and suffered grievously. These images of a people courageously standing against us are not symbols of their ignorance, but of ours.

Meirelles says he released the photos only because petroleum executives and state authorities in Peru claimed that the forests where they wished to drill for oil were empty. A spokesperson for Peru's state oil company, Petroperu, said that nomadic Indians were a figment of activists' imaginations, "like the Loch Ness Monster," and last year even Peru's President, Alan García, questioned their existence.

The publicity may backfire; global curiosity about the tribes could prove insatiable. Since the release, Meirelles has endured a torrent of media requests and business solicitations; travel agents call him to propose "Savage Tourism." A film team already slipped into an Indian reservation on the Peruvian side this past year, violating their travel permits while scouting locations for a reality television program, "World's Lost Tribes." Shortly afterward, a respiratory infection they may have brought with them killed four Indians.

Continue reading at Seed Magazine.

I've had my passport longer than Sarah Palin.

I counted. There are, as of this morning, at least 36 facebook groups mocking VPILF's only recent acquisition of a passport.

From the New York Times:

"Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow. She also visited wounded troops in Germany during that trip."

Also, peep VPILF in a one-piece the year I was born:

That's some Erin Brockovich shit.

The Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from the White House and the Pentagon, is poised to rule as early as today that it will not set a drinking water safety standard for perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns, and young children across the nation.

According to a near-final document obtained by the Washington Post, EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination" - which was extensively edited by White House officials - marks the final step in a six-year battle between career EPA scientists who advocate regulating the chemical and White House and Pentagon officials who oppose it. The document estimates that up to 16.6 million Americans are exposed to perchlorate at a level many scientists consider unsafe; independent researchers, using federal and state data, put the number at between 20 million and 40 million.

"They have distorted the science to such an extent that they can justify not regulating" the chemical, said University of Massachusetts professor Robert Zoeller, an endocrinologist who specializes in thyroid hormone and brain development and who has a copy of the EPA proposal. "Infants and children will continue to be damaged, and that damage is significant."

Continue reading.

I kind of want that sweater on the far right.

And how about those crazy leather jackets these kids got on?

Egomania + internet fuckwithery = profound unreliability.

The top rated professor on ratemyprofessors.com, Robert M. Citino, has been receiving suspiciously grammatical (and square) reviews. I don't buy it.

His ratemyprofessers entry. And his wikipedia entry. Who's managing his web image, and since it's likely him, who spends this much time on his wikipedia entry and isn't a likely candidate for futzing with his ratemyprofessors results? Maybe they're unfuckwithable. But I'm just saying: maybe not.

(On a tangentially related note, some clown already has unfuckwithable.com. I just checked godaddy.)


Oh, and here's what he looks like:

Who's afraid of the evangelical voting bloc?

It helps to make some sense of arguments made by Michael Lindsay and Rebecca Sager, also on The Immanent Frame, that there are “new types” of evangelicals, often relatively progressive in their politics. And with the newly articulated concerns on, for example, poverty, AIDS, and global warming, by Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and others. So, understanding variation, and finding shades of gray in the “evangelical” monolith, may have significant political implications. [...]

Now it is true that in an electorate fairly neatly divided, one need not persuade very many people in order to win an election. Just a few cracks in the Republican base, including that part composed of conservative Protestants, may tip the balance. So perhaps I should not doubt the importance of the actual variation among those Christians who consider themselves “evangelicals.” But after the Saddleback Church “conversations” hosted by Rick Warren, where Obama spoke easily and sincerely about his faith, few churchgoers who attended (and spoke to reporters afterward) seemed to be persuaded to actually vote for a Democrat. He was still too different, too unknown, and, some said, still not right about the “core” social issue of abortion. For many people, there is now almost 30 years of associating evangelical Protestantism with voting Republican—it may well have become a part of evangelical identity for many, a core affiliation.

Thus, at least in an election year, when elected officials, aspiring candidates, consultants, and media all have a lot at stake on shaping their appeals effectively, this practical outcome seems to me to swamp the scholarly concerns scholars have with precision and definition. If we want to know who evangelicals are, how many there are, and what they believe and how they practice, I am all for precision, nuance, and variation. But if we need to know how “they” are going to pull a voting lever regarding an either/or choice in a divided electorate, it seems to me that the global term bandied about in the media tells us what we want to know.

From Rhys H. Williams at The Immanent Frame.

Also see:

A new kind of evangelical.

A progressive evangelical movement?

My increasing guilt surrounding consumption of octopi.

Octopuses are highly intelligent and can learn new tasks even as adults. The learning power of an octopus is only restricted by its short life span, which ranges from six months to a few years. They often manipulate their environment in ways that suggest playing in addition to regular life tasks. In captivity, they play with toys such a Rubik’s cube, and even have preferences like Louis, who is attached to a Mr. Potato Head.

Continue reading at mental_floss.

The artistic subgenre of the visual double entendre.

One day I'll be so wealthy I won't even have to remember anymore.

Someone will edit my memories and remember for me, just how it should've happened in the first place.

Kawaii desu yo!

Awkward, alienating, possibly brilliant (I never decided).

A guy whom I knew in Japan:

What happens if my bank fails?

Answer: The FDIC's got my back because I'm poor and shit, and I don't have over $100k in the bank.

via Yahoo Finance:

Amid the recent collapse and government seizure of savings and loan giant IndyMac Bank and heightened anxiety this week over the financial stability of No. 1 thrift Washington Mutual Inc., consumers are concerned about the safety of their bank deposits.

As of June 30, Seattle-based WaMu and its subsidiaries had assets of $309.73 billion and $181.92 billion in deposits. By comparison, Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac had $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits when it was shut down by federal regulators on July 11.

If Washington Mutual were to tumble, the magnitude of its failure would dwarf the largest bank collapse in U.S. history -- that of Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984, with $33.6 billion in assets.

Besides IndyMac, 10 more federally insured banks and thrifts have failed this year and were closed by regulators, compared with three in all of 2007. Federal banking officials say more institutions are in danger of collapsing as turbulence from the housing slump, mounting defaults on mortgages, and the yearlong credit crisis continues to pile on soured loans for banks.

But officials also are assuring depositors that accounts are secure: Some 98 percent of the 8,450 government-insured U.S. banks and thrifts are strong, and $45.2 billion is in the federal deposit insurance fund -- replenished by premiums paid by the institutions.

Still, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has said she will propose next month to FDIC directors an increase in premiums charged to banks and thrifts.

Some questions that bank customers may be asking:

Q. What is the maximum dollar amount that can be insured at my bank? Does it vary based on the type of accounts involved?

A. The basic insurance amount is $100,000 per depositor per bank. Individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, held in banks are insured up to $250,000. In addition, you may qualify for more than $100,000 in coverage at one bank if you have deposit accounts in different ownership categories, such as single accounts, retirement accounts, joint accounts and revocable trust accounts.

Q. What if my family has multiple individual accounts of those types, but our total deposits exceed the limits?

A. If the accounts are properly structured, a married couple could have as much as $1.1 million in deposits fully insured at one bank, according to the FDIC. With accounts for two children added, up to $1.5 million could be covered.

Q. If my bank closes, what happens to my money in deposit accounts that exceeds the insured limits?

A. You become essentially a creditor of the failed bank. You will eventually recover some of your money, but the amount can range anywhere from 40 cents on the dollar up to a full 100. Recovery of the money could take months. At IndyMac, there are an estimated $541 million in deposits of the total $19 billion that exceed the insurance limits.

Q. How has that worked out for past bank failures?

A. The average return for a depositor in that situation has been about 72 cents on the dollar, according to the FDIC. The amount that depositors recoup can depend on the amount and quality of the failed bank's assets.

Q. What else happens if my bank is shut down: Will the ATMs work? Will my automatic payments for mortgages, utilities and the like be affected?

A. Automated teller machines normally remain available after a bank closure. Checks will be processed as usual, services such as online banking and safe deposit boxes will continue to be available, and interest on accounts will accrue at the current rates. Terms of loans from the bank won't change, according to the FDIC.

Q. What can I do now, before any possible closure of my bank, to protect my assets?

A. The best way is to structure the accounts carefully. The FDIC has a calculator on its Web site, called the electronic deposit insurance estimator, or EDIE, that can help determine how much money, if any, in deposit accounts exceeds the insurance limits.

Sperm's Morphologic Survival After 16 Days in the Vagina of a Dead Body:

Abstract from the Journal of Forensic Sciences backfile:

Sperm's Morphologic Survival After 16 Days in the Vagina of a Dead Body
Wilson, EF
Lane County Assistant Medical Examiner, P.O. Box 369, Eugene, Ore. 97401. Formerly, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, State of Utah, Utah State Division of Health, and Department of Pathology, University of Utah Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah.

In preparation for a murder trial a few years ago, a number of textbooks and the recent English-speaking literature dealing with forensic pathology were reviewed for information concerning length of survival of spermatozoa in the vagina of a dead body. This literature review has been ongoing and has included examination of the most recently published textbook in forensic pathology [1], where it is written, "Even though a definite time scale for the identification of spermatozoa cannot be furnished, it is apparent that a number of days can elapse between the time of death and time of examination with identifiable spermatozoa being present."

Inventors killed by their own inventions:

A list on wikipedia, including:

-Henry Winstanley (1644-1703) was killed in a storm while inside the lighthouse of his own design, after expressing a wish to be inside it during "the greatest storm there ever was."

-Thomas Midgley, Jr. accidentally strangled himself with the cord of a pulley-operated mechanical bed of his own design in 1944.
(It is worth noting that he also invented leaded petrol and may well have died from polio (had he not been killed) which was attributed to him being weakened by lead poisoning.)

-Contrary to popular belief Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the supposed inventor of the guillotine, did not himself directly invent it and did not die by it, nor did Haman invent the gallows — he was simply hanged on the particular gallows he had built.

Boiled peanuts:

Look sketchy, taste delish: http://www.nutsonline.com/nuts/peanuts/boiled.html

What happens to all the things I've never seen and only heard about.

When large container ships can contain or ship no more, they're sent halfway round the world to so-called "breaking yards," where they're dismantled (basically by hand), their metal is salvaged, and their intact structures, down to the doors and toilet seats, are put back onto the global marketplace. Today, these yards tend to be in Bangladesh or India – but location is just a question of cheap labor and (nonexistent) environmental regulations.

via BLDG BLOG.

By the time I get to Arizona.

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. 'He had no idea he was being lit from below,' Greenberg says. And his handlers didn't seem to notice it either. 'I guess they're not very sophisticated,' she adds.


Bonus: Public Enemy calls out John McCain et al. for being AGAINST honoring MLK, Jr.

Just a hominid tryin' to get a piece of that pie.

Fuck Damien Hirst. This here's a bargain.

This is a capitalistic society, and I definitely want to capitalize.

VPILF media summary.

Face to a name and a song.

Suicide bombing is so passé.

“Among all the bombs, explosives and guns, the number of martyred dead is rising. Though this is the will of Allah, it is nevertheless possible to cause the enemy greater damage without exposing the Muslims to danger. How is it to be done?”

Despite countless attempts by Western intelligence agencies, and the many projects by psychologists trying to draw the profile of the average suicide terrorist, we have failed miserably in finding a solution to the “poor man’s smart bomb.” Now, however, attrition may achieve what the experts have not: after years of battle in two main arenas — Iraq and Afghanistan — Al Qaeda’s suicide-recruitment mechanisms are beginning to wear out.

“Martyrdom operations are legitimate, and they are among the greatest acts of combat for Allah’s cause,” said Bashir bin Fahd al-Bashir, a Saudi preacher and one of Al Qaeda’s most popular religious authorities, in a recent sermon. “But they should not be allowed excessively. They should be allowed strictly on two conditions: 1. The commander is convinced they can definitely inflict serious losses on the enemy. 2. This cannot be achieved otherwise.”

The meaning of such dictates is clear: carrying out suicide attacks when there are alternatives that would allow the bomber to survive should be considered “intihar,” the ultimate sin of taking one’s own life without religious justification.

From the New York Times.

So what if I cried while watching this.

Mimic octopus:

In the continuing spirit of marine skin-crawlery:

Strapped 4 Life.

Mid-Century Suppers

http://flickr.com/groups/midcenturysupperclub/pool/

LOL!

Columbia is bleeding / This is the Ivy League

Something so literally gay; what more can I say?

In our Museum we are showing several art reproductions, concerning the various aspects of Homoerotic Art, both in History and around the World.

Not all the pieces were originally made by or for gay people, also because in ancient times there was not such a labeling as "homosexual" or "gay". And not all authors were necessarily people who preferred to love their own sex.

But what we are collecting here, and showing among the masterpieces of the past and of our days, are those we feel more appealing to our homoerotic sensibility.

Of course we cannot expose all the pieces produced in thousands and thousands of years and all over the world, in so many civilizations and made by so many people. But we hope that the choice we made is a good documentation about a feeling we share with other civilizations, other people, and other times.

PS: If you have data about this fruit, please send us an e-mail. Thank you.

Famous (NOLA) GLTB.

Born Kenyon Carter, Katey Red is one of the first openly homosexual, cross-dressing, rap and bounce-music artists to earn respect in this notoriously homophobic world. Katey Red first realized that he wasn't like his friends at age 5, when he put on his mother's fingernail polish.

At 13, he first had sex with a gir, and didn't get nothing out of it. He was always thinking about boys. So he had sex with a man when 15. Then, when he made 16, he had sex with a girl again to make sure he really didn't want it.

Lately, the Times ran a truly bizarre and confused profile of Katey. Writer Neil Strauss refused to accept his subject's preferred pronoun, "she," stubbornly calling Katey a "he" throughout the piece. Strauss never used the terms "transsexual," transgender," or even "cross-dresser". Instead, he referred to Katey as "openly homosexual" - as if that alone explained Red's desire to be a woman.

And he seemed so enchanted by Katey's novelty that he didn't seem to question the odd claims about homosexuality made by some of his interviewees - among them, that "homosexuals" would be drawn to Red in throngs simply because of her sexuality; and that Katey's lack of success outside of her hometown of New Orleans is attributable to D.J.s' fear that playing her records will make people think they were gay.

RNC protest blotter.

Via the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

• Local police are using a combination of pepper spray, concussion grenades and tear gas on a group of breakaway protesters gathered on Kellogg Boulevard in downtown St. Paul. The group of about 150 protesters, many thought to be with the group "Funk the War," had been blocking traffic for much of the afternoon.

• The exit at Seventh Street off Interstate 94 was blocked by a group of about 10 protesters who chained themselves together with lockboxes. The protesters said they were part of the Pittsburgh branch of the Northeast Anarchist Network. "(The purpose) was to shut down the delegates from getting to the RNC," one said. The police have officially shut down the exit.

• There was a Minneapolis police car at Sixth and Wabasha with the windshield bashed in and tires slashed.

• "They've disrupted the lives of so many people, Iraqis, New Orleaners, they didn't help them. The least we could do is disrupt their day for a couple of hours," said Joe, who declined to give his last name.

• One protester was asked: "Why are you doing this?" -- "You're writing about it, aren't you?" he said.

• On Seventh Street near Main, eleven local citizens, clad in bright yellow bibs, assembled themselves with a goal of preventing violence by inserting themselves between cops and protesters. They were mostly middle-aged adults and they talked with authorities to let them know their purpose. They wore armbands that say: "I will not hurt you."

• The crowd was far short of the 50,000 that organizers had hoped to attract, but officers in riot gear were stationed along the route of the march to Xcel Energy Center. Police initially estimated the crowd at 10,000, but then revised it sharply downward an hour later.

• An anarchist group known as the RNC Welcoming Committee had worked for months on strategies to disrupt the convention. Despite preemptive police searches over the weekend that resulted in six arrests, the group issued a statement Monday saying it was "moving forward with a national call to crash the convention."

• At the rally, a 25-foot-long ice sculpture rose 3 feet in the air and spelled "Democracy." Some protesters flew kites, waved American and peace-sign flags and carried homemade anti-war signs.

• Alan Rybak, a real estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., stood along the protest route carrying a sign that read "Support Our Troops." "I'm here to support our troops and to tell (protesters) to get a job and go home," said Rybak, a Republican Party activist.

Surinam Toad:

This makes me itch.

VPILF Update: