This is a great post with a few specifics about gestures that mean something different in other places.
http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2014/07/gestures-shouldnt-making-abroad/
by Michiel Andreae from The Netherlands
( Read more...Collapse )

It's been decades since I read Siddhartha but it had a strong effect on me.  In my youth I was a philosophy major and a seeker, trying on different religious and spiritual approaches.  Eventually I arrived at myself, at the now, at the goals of non-attachment, awareness, compassion, adaptability.  I adopted bits and pieces of many philosophies, most notably Buddhism and Hinduism, without becoming a believer in reincarnation, heaven and hell, or any of the other dogmas.  New age religion in the US is very much a groovified hand-me-down from the culture behind these religions, and reincarnation is the most common belief system I encounter among people who pretend that they are enlightened.  More appealing to me is the stark realism of the German philosophers.  "To exist is to be in the way".

In Demian Herman Hesse suggests that the truth is not any of these religious structures, the truth is something far simpler, but harder to live.  It is not easy to go through this world stripped of comforting beliefs.  Hesse says we create gods and then we fight with them.  Many of his ideas are reminiscent of Nieztsche, for whom I've always had a soft spot.  He is the German philosopher who said "God is dead" and pissed off generations of religious people.

The protagonist of Demian is a young man named Sinclair, and his story begins when he is only 10 years old.  He is early at becoming aware.  Demian is a character who helps him, initially simply to avoid a predatorial character, and later to begin to think critically and to trust in himself.  When they are schoolmates Demian suggests alternate interpretations of Bible stories, especially the one about Cain and Able, and the mark of Cain.  By the end of the book I was thinking that I too must bear that mark, because I have never been a joiner, never been willing or able to submit to authority or dogma.

This book would make excellent reading for a teen who is beginning to sort out a path through all the competing authorities.  It does not provide a blueprint, but it does say that you must find your own path, and that it won't be easy or comfortable.  When Hesse first released this small book in 1919 it was in pieces in a magazine, and anonymously.  Why didn't he want his name attached?  Why didn't someone recognize his voice and thoughts, when they are so distinctly his?  Perhaps it is because Demian is also a commentary on the sadness of war, on the fruitlessness of giving lives for some shared ideal which might be bunk.  Some of the things he writes harken to the Jungian concept of collective consciousness, for example the shared premonitions of the onset of world war one.  Do we really share a consciousness, or do we simply share some of the same inputs, and arrive at some of the same intuitive conclusions?  Jung and Hesse did.

The most fruitful thing a person can do is to become themselves, I agree with Hesse on this point.  To be with people who are also themselves, this is a very satisfying thing.

A group of 30 homeopaths at a conference in Germany became ill from an apparent overdose of a psychotropic medication. The article implies that the trippers had no intention of tripping, but I have my doubts.  Perhaps the food was spiked, or they were told it was "harmless".  Or perhaps they thought themselves ready for an incautious dose of a mind-expanding drug, and got more than they bargained for.

A homeopathy conference descended into drug-induced madness after thirty healers were spiked with a powerful hallucinogen.

Ambulances raced to the conference in Handeloh, south of Hamburg after 29 healers were found suffering from delusions having taken 2C-E.

The synthetic drug is a powerful hallucinogen, with effects similar to LSD, experts say.

German broadcaster NDR said that victims were, ‘staggering around, rolling in a meadow, talking gibberish and suffering severe cramps.’

SOURCE
http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/08/drug-madness-at-alternative-medicine-group-after-30-healers-are-spiked-5382472/

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it.
--Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propagandist

THE LAST NEANDERTHALS:
The Evolution and Extinction of a Species
April Nowell, PhD, is an archaeologist and associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria
Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal remains in 1856 in Germany, this species has generated controversy: questions concerning their genetic relationship to modern humans, their capacity for language and artistic expression, and the reasons for their extinction. Learn about the latest research transforming our understanding of these ancient people.

( from my notes at the science pub the other dayCollapse )

and this was only 1989: things do sometimes change dramatically

According to the World Economic Forum, that is. The US held second until last month, now Sweden and Singapore have passed the US. Switzerland just passed the US to take the #1 spot last year. China's moving up and has reached #27. Germany's also climbing the scale, now in the #5 spot. Japan's #6. Finland is #7 and Denmark is #9 putting Scandinavia as a whole in the top 10. Netherlands is #8 and Canada is #10. At the moment. Things are definitely shifting.

The rating is based on 12 variables: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.

SOURCE
http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20News%20Releases/NR_GCR10

The German economy is bouncing back from the recession with more vigor than the rest of Europe, based mostly on exports of automobiles and machinery. Other EU nations saw fit to provide bailouts to whoever, same as the US did. The Germans kept the purse strings a bit tighter. They paid to keep people in jobs, and at the same time kept labor costs low. And they clung to Quality. Here, we have cheap plastic shit and plenty of time to watch TV.

Here I am eating my eggs and grits, and Suzanne is reading the headlines to me. Mexico drug wars: five human heads in a cooler. Germany: man in military garb opens fire at secondary school. The leading line in that story was that it looked like something that would happen in America. Alabama: 27 year old man with an Irish last name kills his whole family plus a few. The only survivor was 4 months old. If the news is right. Every source has a slightly different story.

Grits and garlic still taste good. I'm comfortable in my large apartment just blocks from the homeless hangout by the tracks. But the insanity is at our door. The desperation is building. I wonder about the Alabama man. Why kill one's entire family? That angry? Or could it have been in part a mercy killing? The news says that he was a mild mannered nice fellow. Being nice on the surface does not mean a person is happy on the inside. Times are hard and getting harder. More people are going to loose it. Drugs will be increasingly valuable. And porn. I read last night that one of the few markets that is showing great gains is the "adult entertainment" sector. This is just the end of the beginning.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/

They're not all the same: the UK, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany, and Japan all provide healthcare for their citizens.