ACCORDING to the latest available figures from the Central Statistics Office a total of 487 people died as a result of that thing Ireland doesn’t talk about in 2013.
The deaths continue on from a trend started in 2007 which has seen the numbers of people dying from that thing we don’t talk about increase.
While a number of factors have been attributed to the rise, concerns have been raised about the prevalence of that thing among the youth of Ireland.
“It’s troubling, and I want with every fibre in my body for something to be done about it, but look if it’s alright, I’d prefer you didn’t bring it up at all,” spokesperson for the Irish Commission On Things We Don’t Talk About Suzanne O’Gorran told WWN.
The government also stressed its reluctance to talk about the thing, but is said to be relieved the statistics have come close to levelling off.
“That is a relief as we can now look into how to continue to do nothing about it, if we get this right, we could even cut funding a bit,” a government spokesperson shared with WWN. The government confirmed it was available to talk about the recovery, road safety campaigns and sugar tax.
Many members of the public have admitted to being aware of someone they know doing that thing, but owing to the troubling nature of talking openly about something in Ireland, they remain reluctant to speak.
“Only 2.3 percent of respondents in a July poll by Spain’s Center for Sociological Investigationsconsidered the lack of government the country’s major problem, and the figure is getting even smaller.”
adapted from a Derrick Brose post in TheAnti-Media.org.. with thanks
For more than nine months, Spain has existed without a traditional national government. In the face of this lack of central authority and planning, Spaniards have done ”the impossible”: they have thrived without a government.
Spanish politicians warned the people that allowing the national government to fade away could have disastrous effects. However, as the New York Times notes, “the crisis seems to have offered a glimpse of life if politicians simply stepped out of the way. For many here, it has not been all that bad.”
“No government, no thieves,” Félix Pastor, a language teacher, told the Times. Pastor said the people of Spain were better without a government because the politicians were unable to cause any more harm. Rafael Navarro, a 71-year old pharmacy owner in Madrid, told the Times that “Spain would be just fine if we got rid of most of the politicians ...” Continue reading “Spain doing Fine: There’s No Government like No Government”
If you happen to have been living under a rock this past weeks, there’s a good chance someone turned it over looking for Pokémon. Pokémon Go, Nintendo’s free augmented reality app, has been as ubiquitous in the news as the presidential election in EEUU.
For the uninformed: Game designers have placed Pokémon and in-game items at specific hot spots around the country, encouraging users to venture out into their neighborhoods or others, and to contest for “gyms,” where they can challenge other players for control of a particular location……
…..The long-term viability of Pokémon-based campaign strategies remain to be seen — only time will tell if the game is a passing fad or something with a longer shelf-life. But so long as rare Pokémon continue to send stampedes into Central Park, can it be used for good?
As Dylan Matthews points out for Vox, Pokémon Go one-ups social media’s ability to draw people out, given that it actually gets bodies moving and to a particular location. Rather than retweeting or liking a post, players have to physically flock to lures. It’s why the Clinton campaign has been so eager to put it to use registering voters, turning up to Poké Stops and gyms. Anyone can place Pokémon “lures,” which attract creatures to a certain area, up around a city — and even more so if you happen to be working with a budget.
Even before the Clinton campaign started using it, NextGen Climate, an environmentally-focused voter turnout organization, had begun trying to put the app to work. “In each of our states, NextGen Climate will be dropping Pokémon Go lures in strategic locations, which means we’ll release rare Pokémon in a specific location at a specific time,” said Suzanne Henkels, the group’s press secretary….
NextGen has held Pokémon-themed events across New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa, complete with lures and recharging stations. In Nevada, they hosted a “real life Poké Stop” and had refreshments alongside “organizers there to register attendees to vote and educate them about the importance of electing climate champions in November.”…
…..But its uses, some . go. b.eyond the ballot box as well. Brandon Holmes — a civil rights organizer with the community organizing outfit Vocal New York — identified several ways the app could bolster grassroots movements.
“The more players you have in an area, the more rare Pokémon will show,” he said, suggesting that players “build a large occupancy somewhere like Trump Tower or divestment targets and constantly attach lures to stops.” Organizers, Holmes added, could even plan marches that route through different Poké Stops, though he saw a challenge in “keeping the attendees captivated and not buried in their phones during speeches or chants … You would need some serious marshaling and the world’s best energy team.”
The Black Lives Matter Alliance of Broward [County, Florida] held an event yesterday at a Fort Lauderdale supermarket “looking for new ways to engage the community around the issues surrounding the movement for black lives,” encouraging participants to bring “water, friends” and “lures.”
Another set of activists are also looking into how the game might bring people out to fossil fuel infrastructure sites within their communities, though opted not to be named in this article as the effort has yet to launch.
One model Holmes saw as instructive was at the famously bigoted Westboro Baptist Church, the site of a gym where a Clefairy (“fairy-type”) Pokémon named “LOVEISLOVE” beat out Westboro faithfuls for control. “If we could find gyms that are solid targets, we could nickname Pokémon after our campaign messaging and organize enough folks to train the gym to be virtually unstoppable,” he said. “We could also name them after our organizations.”
Pokémon might also come in handy for fundraising efforts. After a Long Island pizza shop paid to have a rare Pokémon sent to their store front, sales jumped 75 percent by day’s end. “We could host a campaign-specific fundraiser where [a certain percentage] of the funds go directly to Pokémon Go for a rare Pokémon and the rest go to a specific campaign/action,” Holmes said, noting that this could involve lobbying Nintendo and Niantec, the game’s creator, for the ability to purchase rare finds.
Pokemon Go in Gaza. (Twitter / @Nawajaa)
Jeremy Gong, of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco chapter, was more skeptical. “I imagine that one can only do rather shallow organizing with Pokémon Go — like Facebook events, the game could be great for a quick turnout, but there’s no guarantee those Poké-hunters are in it for the long haul,” he warned. “I don’t imagine a lot of people saying, ‘I came for the Snorlax, but stayed for police reform.’”
Like any other new app or new technology, Pokémon Go is no replacement for the day-to-day work of community organizing and well-timed mobilization.
But it might offer a few more pieces to an activist toolbox that — in 2016 — has never needed to be bigger.
This story was made possible by our members. Become one today. photos added by The Free
6.9K SHARES from waterford whispers with thanksA FREAK Climate Change phenomenon is threatening to rain tonnes of peat down on the midlands later today, with Mullingar set to take the brunt of the bog-based storm.Dubbed a “Turfnado”, the deadly storm formed after a category 5 tornado passed over the Bog of Allen, pulling huge amounts of turf into the air.
Most of the jibes in Jan’s diatribe are merely scatalogical , but if he’s going to be encarcerated we hope the prosecution will have to prove they are NOT TRUE.
How will they prove, for example, that Erdogan does not ‘have sex with goats’? (consider the Cameron scandal!) Is it true or false that Erdogan’s ‘testicals are shrivelled’? Will they be able to prove without a doubt that his penis is not ‘small’ and doesn’t ‘smell worse than a pig’s fart’?
And as for the accusation of ‘Kicking Kurds’, there is a lot of evidence that he personally ordered the destruction of the ceasefire and provoked a continuing bloody civil war with thousands of innocents killed, just to win an election and boost his craving to be able to change the constitution ‘to be emperor’. Will they be able to prove he hasn’t ‘kicked Kurds?’ Will the Kurdish parties be invited to Germany to present their evidence? Continue reading “”Moronic, cowardly and inhibited.. Erdogan is president”.”
The all-powerful god of Dinkoism is a… supermouse! Dinkaluyeah!
from Harish C Menon with thanksIndia’s rent-an-outrage industry has given birth to a whole new faith—complete with an omnipotent god, mythology, scriptures, fanatic believers, and, of course, a short fuse when it comes to fickle religious sentiments.
In this video, Dinkoist Amy Watson explains why her faith is the world’s greatest.
This new “religion”—Dinkamatham or Dinkoism—made its presence known in January this year at Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Believers, called Dinkoists, protested against a Malayalam film star, Dileep, for acting in a movie titled Professor Dinkan.
This was in keeping with the best traditions of hurt sentiments in India.
Over the last few years, the country has witnessed a pathological rise in the number of instances where followers of various faiths and members of communities have outraged over stray remarks, cartoons, books, movies or songs that even tangentially broach issues pertaining to them.
Dinkoists, on their part, were angry that the holy name of their beloved lord—Dinkan—was being used for a movie character who is a mere mortal. The film will be released in 2017.
Dinkan, according to their faith, is the saviour of the world, swooping in from nowhere to protect everyone, particularly children. Once abducted by aliens, who then gave him his superpowers, Lord Dinkan is just about anywhere and anytime the needy, well, need him!
He flies, he fights, he comforts. And if you had any doubts about his supremacy, beware: he wears his red underwear over his tight-fitting yellow costume that shows rippling biceps; not to forget the flowing red cape.
But if you are imagining a regular comic book hero with super-human abilities, perish the thought. Dinkan is no flying spaghetti monster either. He is far beyond man, superman, or super-pasta.
The all-powerful god of Dinkoism is a… supermouse! Dinkaluyeah!
Does this sound like a parody? That is because it is. This fledgling movement is said to be a product of rising manifest bigotry and tightening of regressive norms in Kerala. The whole idea, according to one observer who didn’t want to be named, is to hold up a mirror to established religions and expose their vacuousness.
But ask Dinkoists themselves about it, and all you get is pretend-zeal.
“Transcendental” religion
“Dinkoism has existed from time immemorial. It was the first religion. Some people, who lost their way, formed other religions. Everything that the modern world knows today is based on Dinkoism,” Prashant Appul, a freelance video editor based in Kochi, Kerala, told Quartz in mock earnestness.
Delving into Dinkoism’s profundity, 35-year-old Appul said the Big Bang Theory itself is actually based on his religion’s Big Laughter concept, according to which the universe came into being with Dinkan’s first guffaw. Similarly, they knew about black holes in space long before science could even imagine them. After all, Dinkan the mouse is adept at chewing holes, says Appul, an ardent Dinkoist since 2011.
A native of the imaginary Pankila forest, Dinkan was first heard about in the early 1980s when a children’s magazine, Balamangalam, gained popularity in Kerala. However, Appul says, “Dinkan in his true form is cosmic vibrations. Some people made it easy for themselves by imagining Dinkan as yellow-clad mouse. And that became popular.”
He draws a parallel: “Before Raja Ravi Varma began painting Hindu goddesses in sarees, nobody really imagined the goddesses in sarees. This is like that.”
Today, Balamangalam is one of Dinkoism’s “holiest” books. Another such text is the “Pankilasmrithi” or the Chronicles of Pankila, Dinkan’s native forest. This book even has Sanskrit shlokas such as:
Dinkan will protect the children! Dinkan will protect the youth! Dinkan will protect the elderly!
Holy origins
Dinkoism first emerged around 2007-08 on social media. This was a time when Malayalam (Kerala’s native tongue) bloggers were coming of their own and began commenting on and discussing social issues. The term Dinkoism was referred to as a joke back then to ridicule established religions. But soon people were identifying themselves as Dinkoists, sometimes jokingly, sometimes in mock seriousness.
Chants like “Oh my Dinkan, please protect me” came into regular use. As his following swelled, two groups on Facebook—The Freethinkers and The International Chalu Union—began giving Dinkan a lot of currency.
However, it was actor Dileep’s Professor Dinkan that finally pushed them out into public gaze and prompted them to openly proclaim their “faith.” They even formed a group called Mooshikasena (The rodent’s army) to troll the movie on social media. With such moves, Dinkoists are showing up the absurdness of such protests by adherents of other religions.
Open source religion
Since the January event, Dinkoists have begun meeting regularly to give form and structure to their new faith. The idea is to present their mock religion as a legitimate one and seek official recognition. The next logical step would be to claim minority status and right to run educational institutions just like other organised faiths. If they can, why not us—this seems to be the guiding spirit.
“Dinkoism is an open source religion. But when religions in India enjoy so many undeserving privileges, we also demand them for Dinkoism. And we plan to work towards that end,” said Sukhesh Vadavil. Owner of a digital media marketing firm in Kochi, 33-year-old Vadavil became a Dinkoist after he was fed-up of traditional religions’ power structures and brazen business orientation.
These, in fact, were some of the demands Dinkoists voiced at the “mega religious meet” in Kozhikode on Sunday (March 20). Around 450 attended this event. Dinkoism’s Facebook page has more than 6,250 “likes”. Besides, Dinkan’s followers are not restricted to just Kerala or India.
Observers, though, say that in a state like Kerala—often referred to as God’s Own Country—a movement such as Dinkoism has the potential to attract followers.
“This phenomenon is a result of the acute pressure brought in on the youth by extremist religious forces. The vacuum created by the decline of ideology is now sought to be filled by religious fundamentalism, be it Hindu, Christian or Islamic,” said Joseph Antony, senior journalist with the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi’s online version.
Speaking to Scroll.in, Kozhikode district collector Prashant Nair said, “Dinkoism is a religion where you learn to take things lightly and become tolerant to things that you don’t appreciate otherwise… Dinkoists use humour to send the message. Humour is something that everybody appreciates. Therefore, it makes sense to promote this religion.”
Clearly, some of the claims and rituals of this parody religion have irritated the established ones.
For instance, at a Kochi meet in February, Dinkoists “demonstrated” their lord’s power to treat ailments, which did not go well with sects of Christianity that believe in faith healing.
Here a woman suffering from a “deadly disease”—she feels the heat when the air-conditioner is switched off—is shown getting “cured” following fervent prayers by a Dinkoist healer.
Of course, there are certified Dinkoist priests, too…
Certificate of ordination.(Facebook/Holy DInkan religion)
Similarly, a peculiar ritual of stoning jackfruits, which the Dinkoists perform, has annoyed sections of Muslims who claim that it mocks the all-important stoning of the devil that all pilgrims to Mecca must see through.
Lastly, Dinkoists believe the primeval sound of the universe is call “Embakkaar”—Dinkan’s belch. Now, that is naughtily close to the Hindus’ revered “Omkar”.
But nothing is about to stop Dinkoists.
Their next target is Akshaya Tritiya, an auspicious day for Hindus to start new ventures. Broadening its meaning, Akshaya Tritiya has been extensively marketed in the past few years as a day when one can usher in good luck by just buying gold or gold ornaments.
Dinkoists claim the Hindus have hijacked their concept of Akshaya Jettiya—a day when they symbolically pass good luck to laymen in the form or red jettis (underwears).
If the Dinkoists’ plans fructify, this May 9 could see a minor battle between precious ornaments inside jewellery showrooms in Kerala and Dinkan’s red underwears, worn and sold, outside. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.
by Alicia Canter The castle’s derelict, Cinderella’s pumpkin has crashed, and the seagulls are on the attack … Banksy has opened a theme park called Dismaland at a disused lido in Weston-Super-Mare. Take the first look inside…. Continue reading “Banksy’s DismaLand Opens in Lido…take a peek”
When Dolly Parton played at the Glastonbury Festival last month she won rave reviews. However, the media focus was not just on her exquisite singing (or alleged miming) and fabulous costumes, but also turned to feminism.
I was in a med study when the zombie outbreak began. That’s right, a master’s degree in philosophy and the only way I could come up with to pay rent was to sell my still-living body to capitalist science. I know, I know… in retrospect I should have studied something useful, like small engine repair.
Oh, and I wasn’t just in any med study when the zombie outbreak began, I was in the med study where it began. The researchers were testing some kind of acne medication, looking to see if there were any adverse side effects when it was used on healthy adults. There were. Thanks, capitalist society, for pretty much ending the world.
ACCORDING to the latest available figures from the Central Statistics Office a total of 487 people died as a result of that thing Ireland doesn’t talk about in 2013.
As Dylan Matthews 
NextGen Climate will be dropping Pokémon Go lures in strategic locations, which means we’ll release rare Pokémon in a specific location at a specific time,” said Suzanne Henkels, the group’s press secretary….
The Free 
