From an alert, Preventing Deaths of Farm Workers in Manure Pits, issued by the American National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: On July 26, 1989, five farm workers died after consecutively entering a manure pit on their farm. The pit measured 20 by 24 feet and was 10 feet deep. The victims were a…
The head of the Balearics tourism authority, Juan Carlos Alía, has just had to resign following the revelation – brought out by some smart work by socialist deputy, Antonio Diéguez – that he tried to include a trip to one of Moscow’s top brothels, Rasputin, on his expenses claim. Alía was in Moscow to give…
The excellent Jivha reports the arrival of Italian lingerie depicting Hindu deities in the boutiques of Godhra, Gujarat, where it has been protested by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in a move that will presumably lead to catastrophic inter-communal rioting. This ritual coyness is very difficult to understand for those of us originating from a part…
From a lovely bit of work, Formatting the Word of God: The Charles Caldwell Ryrie Collection, produced by the Bridwell Library at SMU in Dallas: This [a 1551 Estienne bible, published in Calvin’s Geneva] is the book to which we are indebted for our custom of quoting the Bible by chapter and verse. It is…
I have been up the coast a couple of times this week (off again tomorrow) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many spring flowers. Their profusion is partly a consequence of heavy rainfall, and partly of the fires last summer that burnt away heavy shrubbery and young pine woods, clearing the ground. However,…
Ronaldinho was following a venerable tradition when he broke a window in Santiago de Compostela’s cathedral while attempting a fancy kick for a TV spot. Bryan Griffiths tells us that back in 1330 the priest of Winkfield, William Pagula, wrote a Latin poem proposing an end to churchyard games: Bat & bares and suche play…
I’m just trying to work out what will now happen to the hypothetical French girl whose parents tattoo “Dubya is Love” on her forehead at birth. Will she be able to attend school normally, or will she have to wear the hijab? An interesting interim solution would be to let everyone wear what the hell…
Interesting report in this morning’s Vanguardia: The man who in mid-November calls the police station of the Mossos d’Esquadra in Vic says that his 11-year old son has witnessed a kidnapping in Taradell (Osona). The report alarms the autonomous police force, which puts its incident plan into action; the description provided by the infant is…
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953): I contemplate a face, and then suddenly notice its likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience “noticing an aspect…” And I must distinguish between the ‘continuous seeing’ of an aspect and the ‘dawning’ of an aspect…. I…
