Youtube Video: Eleanor Janega Explains The Medieval Hussite Wars

Teh Al Gory Rhythm recommended this video to me, and I listened to it whilst heating the house:

I am not a historian, but from what I remember from elementary school, this is a pretty good summation of that particular part of Czech history. So if you are interested in that, I recommend listening to this too.

Unfortunately, Eleanor’s pronunciation of Czech people’s and places’ names is a mixed bag. That is not her fault – it is very, very rare for a foreigner to get this right; our language is really difficult, especially for Anglophones. Although I do find some of it a bit baffling, tbh.¹

One example of bad pronunciation: Tábor. She pronounced the “á” as “a” in “baker”, whereas it should be pronounced in every word more akin to how it sounds in “father”. I had real trouble finding an English word that has this sound. “Á” differs from “A”, which is always pronounced as in “gap”.

On the other hand, she pronounced “Žižka” correctly, which I would expect to be more difficult for an English speaker since English doesn’t have “Ž”. Go figure.

¹ I find it a bit baffling that Anglophones, when learning Czech, insist on trying to guess the pronunciation of each unfamiliar word based on how they would instinctively pronounce it if it were an English word, given that English does not have any rules for pronunciation/transliteration whatsoever.² For example, “oo” in English sounds differently in: flood, floor, moon. In Czech, in an absolute majority of instances, each letter in the word is pronounced, and it is pronounced always exactly the same. The three aforementioned English words would be transcribed as: flad, flór, můn. Yet every Anglophone whom I have ever met struggles with learning these strict and easy pronunciation rules and insists on guessing as if English had rules (it doesn’t).
There are, of course, exceptions and difficult grammatical problems, but silent letters and similar nonsense are very rare, and cases of the same letter/letter combinations being pronounced differently in different words are almost nonexistent. At least I cannot remember any from the top of my head.

² One rule for pronunciation is to pronounce short Czech names for each letter quickly after one another, and in 99,9% cases the word emerges. We teach little children to read this way. And boy, are Czechs caught off guard when learning to read English after that.

Of Boomers and dogs

Before you “not all men” me: of course, not all boomers…

A small tricolour dog is trying to steal a colourful sheet from the couch

©Giliell, all rights reserved
Putting fresh sheets on the couch actually requires zero dogs….

Boomers largely grew up with dogs. They were something you just had, much the same way you had kids and they were treated much alike: they were supposed to be quiet, well behaved and functioning, and the means to achieve that was violence. Becoming adults, many of them stopped having dogs but not children, but the children were still raised much the same. Maybe the belt was replaced by the bare hand, but violence was still very much the preferred method of “teaching” kids. Gen X and Millenials mostly put a stop to this, making grandparents catch up with the 21st century or cutting them off and protecting their children.

While not every popular trend in current child rearing is actually good, today’s parents are much more consciously thinking about how they want to raise their children. Many read books or go to parenting classes. While they may not always achieve it, they do want to raise their children without violence and trauma. And actually, much the same is happening with dog training. We don’t just expect dogs to function. We see them as creatures with both needs and also somelevel of understanding. We actively learn how to interpret their body language correctly. A wagging tail does not mean a happy dog. A wagging tail means an excited dog, but not whether he’s positively excited or actually upset. (With Socks you can tell a genuinly happy wag by the fact that he’ll also wag his entire butt. Which is extremely cute.)

If the boomers didn’t choose to keep dogs, there was no such pressure on them to catch up with the time. Or as my dad said: “We didn’t have doggy school back then and we didn’t need it. You kids these days.” Enter my father in law, who is like the poster boy for a certain kind of old white man. Not the virulently capital letters Racist or Misogynist, just the ordinary type. A guy who got through life by simply ignoring things he didn’t like, who got his family to not contradict him or have fights with him by being loud. A guy who never had his beliefs challenged. Back to the topic: a guy who thinks he knows how to handle dogs, even though he hasn’t kept dogs in 60 years.

Socks is still learning many things and one of them is to tolerate people in “his” space. He’s a rescue who has finally found his safe place, a rescue who, like almost all rescues, has an issue with big loud men, and a kokoni, who was bred over two millenia to protect the home. This means that when people enter our home who have not been added to his expanding list of trustworthy humans, he is often insecure. That means barking and keeping his distance, but it also means giving warning signs. Growling, showing teeth, snapping at the air. Which my father in law all takes to mean “please keep getting closer, especially reaching over me with your big hands and try to touch me, preferrably on my head”. And no matter what you say, he’ll keep doing it. The father in law, not the dog. The dog is much more teachable. This is the way biting happens, but of course it’s the dog who gets blamed then.

YouTube Video: Why I Stopped Being Anti-Woke

I used to watch DarkMatter2525 in the early years of online atheism but I unsubscribed from him after his “What if God was SJW” video, because I considered it lame and daft, as I did about 99% of the anti-SJW content at the time and ever since. Today, the YuTub algorrhythm recommended this video of his.

I listened to it while gluing up kitchen boards in the workshop. I think it is good. I do not quite get his current opinion of Anita Sarkeesian, but I completely agree with his view of the current “Anti-Woke” brigade. He does admit that he was wrong in the past with his anti-sjw stance, which I consider to be a good thing. Thus, I recommend this video; it does deserve some traffic.

Habsolutly Hamazin Dhance!

Usually, I am indifferent to looking at dancing and hate doing it. but this video captivated me completely. It is a rare case of me being amazed.

I like the original song a lot but I did not listen to it for a long time. Thus I do not know why the algorithm recommended it today, but it done did do good this time. I think the performance is simply stunning in every aspect, starting with the choice of venue, the lighting, the color scheme of the costumes, the choreography, and simply everything. It must have been a lot of work and rehearsing, but the result is simply amazing. And it really is difficult to impress me with a dance routine enough to want to share it.

When Gun Regulations Fail

I have long held that our weapon laws are sensible and functional – not too strict, not too loose, and I still think they are more on the reasonable side than not. But they do sometimes fail, as they did just now.

Czechia had yesterday the worst mass shooting in our history. Mass shootings do occur here, unfortunately, every once in a while. This one was perpetrated by a person who held multiple firearms, legally, because he had no criminal history or mental health diagnosis. His motives are so far unknown, he did not appear to be targeting any specific demographic – his goal was apparently just to cause as much pain as he could.

This does not happen here even remotely as often as in the USA, but even once would be too many. And I am afraid that this incident will be used to argue for further loosening of our already loose gun laws by idiots who think adding more guns to the situation would somehow prevent it, instead of multiplying it.

Cultural differences: Immigrants in Germany

This is a bit of a light hearted post, but with an interesting observation. I quite enjoy watching videos of people who move to Germany. Their surprise at things taken for granted gives me food for thought as well as amusement. Some themes seem to be constant: Germans walk. For fun. No matter whether the immigrant is from the US or Vietnam, they are both fascinated and appalled by the German passion for going for walks.

Or the utter confusion of rental flats not having a kitchen. The answer to that is: Germans don’t move and love their kitchens. We plan them more carefully than the bedroom. And we really don’t like moving. There’s a saying that goes “moving twice is like burning down once”, so once we moved in, we try not to move out again. The idea of “buying a starter home” is as alien as the idea of buying an AR 15 at Walmart. So unless you’re moving into a student flat or a shared apartment, bring your own kitchen.

These matters are constants, but of course, other things will seem more or less strange, depending on your country of origin. But then there’s a noticeable difference not in between people from different countries, but of US Americans of different genders. American women will often be full of praise: they can easily and cheaply get fresh produce! Childcare is only 150 bucks a month! Oh, and did I mention healthcare? US American men on the other hand complain about not being allowed to kill endangered species and pour oil down the drain. It’s tyranny, I tell you!*

 

  • Yes, you need a fishing license. Yes, you have to pass a test, showing that you know the fish, if and when you’re allowed to catch them, minimum size and what bait is ok. Oh, and that you can kill a fish quickly. No “I’ve been fishing in the USA since I was 5” does not count. No, you are not allowed to wash your car at home. Washing it with soap will introduce pollutants into the wastewater. You have to go to a carwash where the wastewater will be filtered to remove motor oil and other pollutants.

Children, Accessibility, and being an entitled ass

This post was brought to you by my brother in law, so it might get ranty.

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely support people being child free. Honestly, I don’t know anybody working in education and with families who isn’t a strong supporter of contraception, family planning and thinking long and hard about whether being a parent is something that you should do.

I’m also the first to admit that children are not smallish adults, but have certain characteristics beyond age and height that make them different from adults. It’s something that makes people who like working with children enjoy their company, it is something that makes parenting an amazing journey, and it’s something that makes others not enjoy either of these things.

Nevertheless, children are people, they are part of society, they should have their needs met and accommodated. There are very few spaces where children don’t belong, and those are for their own protection, say a Shisha bar. For the rest of spaces: think about how this space can be made child friendly. Many restaurants already do this: they have a children’s menu, they have play corners (one of our favourite Asian buffet places has a whole room), and if you think about it, it’s a smart move, because children will only grow up to value a sit down meal in a nice restaurant if they learn how to behave there while young.

But there’s another level of accessibility and that is for parents. We’ve talked about this before: If you organise something, say a sceptics’ conference or something like that, think about how you can provide childcare. Because if not, overwhelmingly women will be unable to attend your event. I mean, you can go full Sam Harris and blame your sciency manly vibes that scare off fragile little damsels, or you can ask yourselves: what can we do to make sure parents can attend?

Which gets me to a different level, which is private life. And of course you get to set all sorts of boundaries  here, but you also have to live with the consequences. There’s a plethora of “Am I The Asshole” posts on Reddit where somebody decides to have a child free wedding and is then super offended when the parents in their lives decline, especially when it’s their siblings. Sorry, but weddings are expensive, and getting childcare on top of it costs a lot of money, the people who are usually watching your children are probably at the wedding as well (Hey mum, could you watch our kids while we go to your daughter’s wedding?), not to mention trusting some babysitter enough to leave them for several days. And, yes, let’s face it, parents do take this shit personal. Their children are pretty important people in their lives and if you frame their existence as a complete nuisance and burden to everyone who is even just in the same room, they might decide that your friendship isn’t worth it.

Which gets me to my brother in law. He is and has always been super entitled. He’s 11 years younger than my husband and didn’t grow up so much with a sibling than with a third overindulgent parent and he’s used to the whole family catering to him. The last two times he moved, my husband of course helped him, which meant driving a few hundred kilometres each time. I can’t remember even being reimbursed for the fuel, and I especially can’t remember him lifting a single finger when we moved. Because those are services he thinks his family has to provide.

Now he has invited us to his birthday. Come on, Giliell, you say. You said he was super entitled, but now he’s inviting you, that’s nice! Only… Well, remember the couple of hundred kilometres? Going there means spending the night. Spending the night means getting hotel rooms. For the great honour of being invited to his birthday he already expects us to spend a few hundred €. He lives in the Black Forest. Hotels ain’t cheap there. And well, we would have coughed that up, if not for the original subject of this post. We’re still in a raging global pandemic, the little one isn’t vaccinated yet, and sleeping in a hotel with her is totally out of the question for us. So we asked him, could the children stay with him for the night? I mean, his flat is bigger than our house, he has a guest room where his parents are staying, and a living room, and a studio, and a fucking library, but he doesn’t have space for his nieces. He really doesn’t want them to be in his space, because you never know. It’s not like we asked them to watch two toddlers who would paint the walls with his acrylics, or tear the pages from his books. They’re two well behaved teens who basically just want the Wifi password and food. Also his parents, who are watching the kids regularly, are also there. But nooooo, he’s afraid for his precious belongings. Which is totally reasonable in his eyes. Yet our fear for our kid is totally irrational, you know? Guess who’s currently being made out to be unreasonable…

Woman Gamers on Youtube – Chess Player – Anna Rudolf

Anna Rudolf has a few tales to tell about sexism in Chess, although she does not talk explicitly about sexism. However, I do think that her false accusation of cheating has a lot to do with some men’s fragile egos being hurt by losing to a woman.

The tale has a happy-ish ending in the sense that she was vindicated and her accusers were reprimanded for wantonly accusing her sans evidence. However, I do wonder if she would have won the tournament and the GM title if she were not so emotionally distraught in that last game.

In Which Yours Truly Almost got Caught Up in the Bystander Effect

The Bystander Effect is an interesting phenomenon, in which people become less likely to do the right thing if there are more people present*. In short, everybody thinks that if there was something that should be done, somebody else would already have done it, resulting in nobody doing anything. This is why in an emergency you never say “somebody should call the emergency hotline”, but “You there in the red jacket, call the emergency hotline”.

Today we went for our usual walk at our usual lake. The weather was lovely. Temperatures had risen to 4-5° above zero, sun was shining, no wind.

©Giliell, all rights reserved           The picture is from January, I didn’t take the camera today

Before the current cold spell (and we got off lucky here with -10° C at the lowest) we had lots of warm (+10°C) rain, so when I went to the lake on Wednesday it was still completely open. It froze over since, but of course not completely, and I will not speculate on the thickness of the ice. But when we arrived there, there were people on the ice. Mostly young men (who else…) but a few people with small children as well. Everybody around exclaimed “are they mad???”, but nobody did anything. And… neither did I at first. Because there are so many emotions at once. Disbelief, worry, anger (how stupid can you be, how dare you take the children), but also fear about what will happen if I do something (Including the fear of being accused of wasting emergency service time) and of course the idea that you don’t tattle to the cops. Mr was exactly the same. When I said “I should call the emergency hotline” he was “yes, you should”. Not calling it himself.

Well, I did. It took some time until I got to the person who was responsible, who apparently hadn’t left his office in a while, because he asked me “how many people were there” and I said “about 10” and he said “not at the lake, but on the ice” as if you could find a nice quiet place right now with only 10 people in sight. We walked away after we informed the emergency hotline, because there was nothing left to do. If they’d fallen in, we couldn’t have done anything, so we went to the woods where there are less people.

At least when we returned, the Office of Public Order was there and yelled at people who still thought it was funny to step on the ice but on the other side of the lake. Dudes, when 100 people around say that you’re a fucking idiot, you’re probably not some edgy rebel fighting against the forces of evil. Chances are that you’re just a fucking idiot. Mr said I’d probably saved a life today, but I’m pretty sure the person whose life I possibly saved is pretty angry with the asshole who called the cops. As they say, there’s no glory in prevention.

 

*Though, as numbers increase so does the likelihood of somebody finally doing something

 

The Art of …

… modern American Artist, Frank Morrison

Morrison began his career as a graffiti artist but has become known for his work portraying black culture. According to the artist’s web site,

Morrison strives to capture people as they are, translating emotions through his paintings and leaving a memoir of our life and times today. His work depicts African-American livelihood in a way that is both familiar and comforting to those who often feel histories have been forgotten and culture has been usurped.
Citing both Ernie Barnes and Annie Lee as forebearers of this tradition, Morrison remarks on his practice, “My work dignifies the evolllution of everyday, underrepresented people and places within the urban landscape. I seek to both highlight and preserve the soul of the city through the lens of hip-hop culture and  urban iconography. I want people to experience the visual rhythms that choreograph life for the average, everyday person.”

Picture That, by Frank Morrison. Image from Afropunk

“What!” by Frank Morrison. Image from Afropunk