Thursday, May 12, 2011

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Nuer Twins

Nuer (NE Africa) twin infants’ bodies were placed in trees due to their purported kinship with birds. Both birds and twins were children of God, gaat kwoth, spirits who dwell in air and clouds. A stillborn twin was left in a reed basket in a tree fork and birds of prey supposedly left them intact. Adult Nuer twins weren’t buried, but were laid on a platform with no ceremonies. Twins did not attend others’ funerals.

That was extracted from an article on the anthropology of twin deaths from the 'Twin Research and Human Genetics' journal. Fascinating stuff.
I originally saw this on Mindhacks

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

That MLK quote

Im sure by now you have seen THAT MLK quote appearing somewhere on your twitter thing and your facebook newsfeed. Oh how the kids love it. Its like Michael Jackson's death all over again......

Anyways, you may also have been hearing that the quote is actually a fake.
Well, as it turns out, it was neither. It was just a bunch of overly excited re-posters playing a global electronic game of 'chinese whispers'. How in the world people can fail at copy and pasting is beyond me, but apparently the whole thing started with this one facebook status. Note the beginning of the quotation marks. Also note the commenters trying to out do each other in the level of self-loving smugness*

So there you have it.....mystery solved, now you can all go back to posting about the more mundane aspects of your lives while I go back to facestalking your girlfriend.......and mother.



*By this comment I have been promoted to the smug lord