TIL: Today I Learned

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TIL that the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed much later than I expected. And it's interesting to note the amount of time needed to change societal views.
Many members of the business community opposed the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Testifying before Congress, Greyhound Bus Lines stated that the Act had the potential to "...deprive millions of people of affordable intercity public transportation and thousands of rural communities of their only link to the outside world." The US Chamber of Commerce argued that the costs of the ADA would be "enormous" and have "a disastrous impact on many small businesses struggling to survive."[21] The National Federation of Independent Businesses, an organization that lobbies for small businesses, called the ADA "a disaster for small business."[22] Pro-business conservative commentators joined in opposition, writing that the Americans with Disabilities Act was "an expensive headache to millions" that would not necessarily improve the lives of people with disabilities.[23]
 
Li Bai, one of the greatest Chinese poets (whose influence in the Sinosphere, along with other important Chinese poets like Du Fu, have been compared to Shakespeare in the Anglosphere), was born in Afghanistan. Or Tajikistan. Or Kyrgyzstan. Somewhere in Central Asia, basically. His mom may have even been Turkish. Really a testament to the interconnectedness of the world in the past.


Also learned that ancient Iranian musical forms, while pretty much dead elsewhere, "survives" to this day... in Japan, of all places, via Japanese imperial court music. Long story short ancient Japanese picked up the music in China during the Tang Dynasty, as the Chinese then were obsessed with Persian stuff at the time including Persian music. Anyhow I actually knew this and learned it ages ago but forgot about it. Also a very nice testament to the diffusion of culture and ideas past (and present).
 
Li Bai, one of the greatest Chinese poets (whose influence in the Sinosphere, along with other important Chinese poets like Du Fu, have been compared to Shakespeare in the Anglosphere), was born in Afghanistan. Or Tajikistan. Or Kyrgyzstan. Somewhere in Central Asia, basically. His mom may have even been Turkish. Really a testament to the interconnectedness of the world in the past.


Also learned that ancient Iranian musical forms, while pretty much dead elsewhere, "survives" to this day... in Japan, of all places, via Japanese imperial court music. Long story short ancient Japanese picked up the music in China during the Tang Dynasty, as the Chinese then were obsessed with Persian stuff at the time including Persian music. Anyhow I actually knew this and learned it ages ago but forgot about it. Also a very nice testament to the diffusion of culture and ideas past (and present).
Dang these were really cool to learn.

Our ancient times interconnectedness is very real. Our most recent common ancestor (of virtually all people! Like 99.9999995+%) was, after all, born only sometime between 2050-9000 years ago.
 
Dang these were really cool to learn.

Our ancient times interconnectedness is very real. Our most recent common ancestor (of virtually all people! Like 99.9999995+%) was, after all, born only sometime between 2050-9000 years ago.

So I'm a lot more closely related to you than I thought, huh? :hmm:


But yeah it's fun finding out how ideas and customs and stuff gets spread around all over the place and people forget about where it came from.


Also, minor addition to what I re-learned above: the Japanese court music style I discussed above, Gagaku, is rather slow and for those who are inexperienced with listening to it it can be a bit of a drag due to its slowness. I remember now that my professor told me (in the class where I originally learned this) that what may have happened was that over centuries, as generations of Japanese court musicians learned from one another, the music got gradually and gradually slower as it became more of a ceremonial thing. So what you hear nowadays as Gagaku was probably once music with a more "normal" tempo (and one I suspect may have been even rather lively, given that Persian music was often accompanied by dance during its days of popularity - Yang Guifei and An Lushan, two famous figures in Tang history, for instance, were apparently quite good at dancing to that sort of Persian music). And music that wasn't necessarily so "refined" and "classical"-like, either.
 
read a beautiful religous quotation today

only speak when your words more beautiful than silence!
 
So I can't talk to emergency responders about a horrible incident that happened?
 
No, your words will be more beautiful than silence then, since they will lead to help arriving. Silence will cause the horrible situation to remain unchanged.
 
African-girl-in-human-zoo-e1392748580716.jpg


African girl in human zoo, Belgium 1958

This girl is in a human zoo in Brussels, Belgium in 1958. Human zoos with African people put on display go back to at least 19th century Europe. The ''visitors'' here are feeding her just like you feeds animals in the zoo.


I just learnt there is such thing in history today.
 
1958?
 

I'm not an expert on this matter and I just know it today, according to the article over here:

People would be kidnapped and brought to be exhibited in human zoos. It was not uncommon for these people to die quickly, even within a year of their captivity. This history is long and deep and continued into the 1950s. Several articles below with lots of photos so we can see the reality of this terrible legacy.

and

Only decades before, in the late 1800′s, Europe had been filled with, “human zoos,” in cities like Paris, Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, and Warsaw. New York too saw these popular exhibits continue into the 20th century. There was an average of 200,000 to 300,000 visitors who attended each exhibition in each city.

and

The World’s Fair, in 1889 was visited by 28 million people, who lined up to see 400 indigenous people as the major attraction. The 1900 World’s Fair followed suit, as did the Colonial Exhibitions in Marseilles (1906 and 1922) and in Paris (1907 and 1931) which displayed naked or semi-naked humans in cages. Paris saw 34 million people attend their exhibition in six months alone.

however if anyone can verify this information or even make a deeper commentary about this it will be more interesting.
 
TIL (well yesterday but w/e): Graduate students are unionized in the California state schools! I want a union:p
 
Bender and Marcus Fenix have the same voice? That's just weird.
 
African-girl-in-human-zoo-e1392748580716.jpg


African girl in human zoo, Belgium 1958

This girl is in a human zoo in Brussels, Belgium in 1958. Human zoos with African people put on display go back to at least 19th century Europe. The ''visitors'' here are feeding her just like you feeds animals in the zoo.


I just learnt there is such thing in history today.

That just looks extremely horrible.

And one should also have in mind that Belgium was quite related to the nice years in the Free Congo State :(

I too have to wonder if the pic is from 1958 (or anything post WW2), but maybe the african people there were paid to be seen as part of a rare exhibit or something (which again should place this before the 1950s and electronic media). Still very sad.
 
and she is so cute also, how can they fail to see how human she is.
 
Concerning the human zoos, aye, it was pretty common place in 18th and 19th century Europe, even into the 20th century. I remember studying in one class a case where a Khoisan woman from South Africa was captured and turned into a live exhibit in England in the late 18th century. If I remember correctly somehow she ended up getting out of there and learning to speak/write/read English a bit, though she unfortunately spent some time as a prostitute - her unusual appearance (particualarly her large buttocks (I kid you not)) certainly were interesting to some of the English men.
 
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