Experto Crede posted:

Erm, in 19th Century France, very few people actually spoke French. There were (and are) about three dozen regional languages, which at the time were the first (and often only) languages for the majority.

Soviet Commubot posted:

That map I posted actually reflects the severely biased attitudes of the French towards minority languages in France. I'm a fluent Breton speaker although I live in a part of Brittany that traditionally spoke Gallo, a Romance language that is most likely descended from Old French the same way that Scots is descended from Old English. The problem is that the French are taught in schools that these languages are merely dialects of French rather than languages in their own right. Even people here in the traditionally Gallo speaking areas are often convinced that Gallo is merely a rural dialect of modern French, which is pretty silly. Of course, it's hard to argue that Breton is merely a dialect of French but I've heard on more than one occasion in other parts of France that Breton isn't an actual language but merely a "patois".

Protest signs from a protest against the building of the Grand Ouest airport in Nantes, which is culturally a part of Brittany despite having been moved to a different region under the Vichy regime.

Breizhistance (a socialist separatist group) against the airport! Brittany against the airport!


Death to the Grand Ouest Ayraultport (a play on the name of the Mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France, Jean-Marc Ayrault) this is Brittany!


e: Also, the North American map I posted was language families (or groups, I'm not sure what they're called in English, I generally talk about linguistics in Breton) rather than languages. So imagine each of those colored areas were labeled something like Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugric or whatever.

Rhandhali posted:

Excess mortality from obesity ranks in the hundreds of thousands of deaths per years. A couple of hundred bulimics or anorexics isn't much of an omelette to get a single percentage point drop in a figure like that.

a false posted:

Yeah. If you haven't seen it already, I'd recommend watching Shadow of the Holy Book

(part 1 right here, easy to find the rest of the parts through it, they're all on youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7TElc8n7hU

This documentary shows how western corporations were allowed access into Turkmenistan under Saparmurat "Türkmenbaşy" Niyazov's rule by providing translations of the Turkmen holy book, the Ruhnama, supposedly written by Türkmenbaşy himself.

Here's the huge statue of the book in the capital's central square. It opens and closes and plays passages from the book with accompanying video on a screen in the center.

We never heard much (or anything) about Turkmenistan under Niyazov for the same reason as you mentioned with Kazakhstan, but his cult of personality was the only one rivaling the Kims for utter weirdness in recent memory. His successor has toned it down considerably.

Fire posted:

Don't pretend anything you say is motivated by any desire to help people. The stigma against obesity has everything to do with shame and bullying.

Fire posted:

Gonzo McFee posted:

Don't pretend that any of this "obesity doesn't deserve scorn" Stuff isn't privileged people desperately trying to justify their horrible diets and excessive consumption. It's greed and laziness.

There is a difference between people at a healthy weight feeling ashamed because they can't look like people on magazines and the 5000 calorie a day peeps that don't want to change and don't want to be looked down on.

It's changed from not having enough food, to having enough but poo poo cheap food which they can only afford.

quote:

Working class children suffer greater risk of obesity

Children from the lower classes are more likely to become obese than peers from wealthier backgrounds, a report has found.
At present 6.9% of boys and 7.4% of girls are classified as obese in the UK, but could be set to soar to 10% of boys and 8.9% of girls by 2015.
However, the divide between classes could expand as obesity rates for girls from professional and lower classes are set to diverge, say the researchers from University College London.
By 2015 up to 11.2% of lower class girls could be obese, with just 5.4% from professional backgrounds. Although the trend is set to increase for all boys, again the lower classes will see a greater jump with 10.7% compared to 7.9%.
Recent reports had suggested that obesity rates for England were slowing down and even leveling-off, but this new data shows it maybe largely due to the professional classes reducing their obesity levels.
There is currently just a 0.6% and 1.5% difference between boys and girls in the two class groupings.

quote:

Child obesity trends 'suggest class divide is emerging'
A widening class gap is likely to be seen in the coming years in childhood obesity, a study suggests.
Previous research has suggested rates in England may be levelling off.
But the University College London team found this was happening most in children aged two to 10 from wealthier backgrounds.
Researchers said obesity rates among the lower classes were likely to be significantly higher by 2015 - for girls the levels may even be double.
They analysed data gathered by the government-funded Health Survey for England.
Currently 6.9% of boys and 7.4% of girls are obese - with the difference between the lower and higher classes 0.6% and 1.5% respectively for boys and girls.

But using historical trends, they predicted that by 2015 obesity rates could be above 10% for boys and 8.9% for girls.
Depending on the extent of the "levelling off" reported last month, the overall rates could be even lower.
However, it is the findings for social class that have shed even more light on the obesity problem.
The obesity rates for girls are likely to diverge from now on, the team said.
Among those from lower classes it is expected to keep rising to 11.2%, while for those from professional backgrounds it is likely to fall to 5.4%.
Among boys, both groups are likely to see a rise, but it will be faster in the lower class group, meaning 10.7% of this class boys will be obese compared with 7.9% of those from wealthier backgrounds.
Similar trends will also be seen in older aged children, the report in the Journal if Epidemiology and Community Health found.
Action
Lead researcher Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis said: "This highlights the need for public health action to reverse recent trends and narrow social inequalities in health."
"The widening socio-economic gap may be partly due to difficulties to reach and communicate health messages to families from lower socio-economic groups."
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, agreed awareness was more likely to be greater among wealthier families.
But he added: "It is also often quite expensive and time-consuming to buy healthy food and that puts wealthier parents at an advantage."
He said it was not clear why the differences were so marked in girls, although he said he suspected it was partly to do with the fact that boys tend to be more active generally.
The Department of Health said there was still more to do despite the levelling off which had been seen.
A spokesman said: "Obesity levels are still too high.
"We'll only turn the tide on obesity for good if everyone - government, families and industry - play their part."

quote:

Obesity: understanding the UK epidemic
Studies show society's poorest are most likely to be obese. Shaming and penalising those affected is not the right policy

What does poverty look like in Britain? An emaciated young child, perhaps? Not exactly. Studies about the predictors of obesity in the UK have shown that the poorest are most likely to be obese. For example, one University of Glasgow study found that residents of an impoverished Glasgow neighbourhood were more than twice as likely to be obese compared with residents of an affluent neighbourhood only miles away. This pattern holds among children, teenagers and adults; men and women; and across ethnic groups.

What accounts for this seemingly counterintuitive state of affairs? In places such as Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia (a low-income country that has had several serious famines in recent decades), the cheapest foods are the least calorie-dense; therefore, the poor systematically lack access to energy-rich foods, and have a higher likelihood of suffering from undernutrition and starvation. By contrast, in a city such as Liverpool, the cheapest foods are the most calorie-dense – kebabs, chips, crisps, puddings, soda, etc – so the poor there are more at risk from obesity.

Vexingly, research about the causes of obesity in high-income countries has shown that more deprived areas tend to have fewer outlets offering healthy foods. What's worse, a basket of healthy food would cost more in a poor part of east London, for example, than it would in somewhere like Fulham. In this way, deprived areas in developed countries, termed "food deserts" in the academic literature about obesity, fundamentally limit the food choices that poor people can make, thereby promoting unhealthy lifestyles, and ultimately, obesity.

Another issue is what is termed "food insecurity", or lack of regular, dependable access to food. This can also promote obesity. Imagine that you didn't know where your next meal would come from, and you had a large meal in front of you at the time: what would you do? I would eat the whole thing (probably more than my fill), so that if, in fact, I didn't get a meal later, I would have eaten enough for the day. Now, what if the next meal did come (again, in the same setting of insecurity about where the next meal would come from)? A cycle of insecurity-based overconsumption can set in, ultimately leading to obesity.

As the thought experiment I opened with perhaps demonstrated, obesity often doesn't register when we consider poverty. Conversely, conceptions of obesity typically fail to reflect the structural determinants of the condition: rather, we consider obesity as the accumulation of bad choices that individuals make at the dinner table or at snack time – too many biscuits and not enough exercise – without regard for the structures that influence the choices available to begin with.

While individual agency remains important, and some obese people do make unhealthy lifestyle choices, it doesn't make sense simply to always lay the blame on individuals. A study in the International Journal of Obesity offers poignant evidence: upon following over 11,000 Britons for 33 years, the findings showed that low parental social class at age seven was a significant predictor of obesity at age 33. If a factor as intractable as parental social class can influence obesity risk 26 years later, it is hardly helpful to blame every obese individual for his or her condition.

What's the upshot? Aside from disproportionate ridicule and shame (which have been shown to negatively affect mental health among obese children and adults), society's misunderstanding of the causes of obesity has substantiated calls to directly tax obese people, or to charge them differentially for product usage – as a recently publicised Ryanair scheme proposes to tax obese passengers.

If obesity can be so heavily influenced by factors outside the individual's control and, more importantly, by markers of poverty, than these calls represent a concealed form of discrimination against the poor. Obesity is a societal problem – one that reaches much further than the individuals it claims. Rather than allow this condition to further splinter our society, government, business, media outlets and the public, we ought to unite to address the complexity and seriousness of the epidemic at hand, with an honest, unbiased understanding of its causes and consequences.

Rick Santorum" posted:

“If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?”

Gonzo McFee posted:

Don't pretend that any of this "obesity doesn't deserve scorn" Stuff isn't privileged people desperately trying to justify their horrible diets and excessive consumption. It's greed and laziness.

There is a difference between people at a healthy weight feeling ashamed because they can't look like people on magazines and the 5000 calorie a day peeps that don't want to change and don't want to be looked down on.

quote:

Members of the Aboriginal and Jewish communities have observed the anniversary of a unique protest in Melbourne.

Seventy-four years ago Aboriginal activist William Cooper and his colleagues at the Australian Aborigines League tried to hand a resolution to the German consul-general condemning the Nazis' persecution of the Jews.

But the consul-general refused to see the Aboriginal delegation, which had walked into town from Mr Cooper's home in Melbourne's west.

"On behalf of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, we wish to have it registered and on record that we protest wholeheartedly at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government in Germany," his message said.

"We plead that you would make it known to your government and its military leaders that this cruel persecution of their fellow citizens must be brought to an end."

Mr Cooper's descendants, Aboriginal friends, Holocaust survivors and members of the Jewish community today succeeded in handing a replica of the 1938 letter to the current honorary consul-general of Germany.

Mr Cooper's grandson, Alf "Uncle Boydie" Turner, said he was delighted he had finally done what his grandfather had set out to do.

"It means a great deal to me and to the rest of the family, to be here today and to do that and it's something that the family's been speaking about for a number of years and we've finally got around to it," the 88-year-old said.

Mr Cooper was a Yorta Yorta man who devoted much of his life to campaigning for the rights of Indigenous people and became particularly active after moving to Melbourne when he was in his 70s.

When he heard of Kristallnacht and other attacks on Jews in Germany in November 1938, he felt compelled to give his support to their cause, despite the oppression of his own people.

"My grandfather grew up in a rough tent with a mother that wasn't very well, with three siblings, and that was his life until he moved at the age of 14 years and I think that when he got a bit of education, not much but he got enough to put up a fight for his people," Mr Turner said.

Abe Schwartz, a member of Melbourne's Jewish community who helped organise today's re-enactment, said Mr Cooper had a dream to right the wrongs that he found - whether they were of his own people or those of another people.

"When he heard about the wrongs being perpetrated to the Jews of Nazi Europe he tried to right that wrong from a position of no human or civil rights of his own," he said.

"His grandson and family have followed that dream to pursue their grandfather's wishes. As a proud Jew I could not be more delighted.

"It's phenomenal that he had the capacity, the wherewithal, the lateral thinking, the time, the interest to fight for the rights of others and think about the rights of others when he had so many rights of his own to fight for."

Germany's honorary consul-general in Melbourne, Michael Pearce SC, said the German Embassy fully supported the commemoration.

"I feel it's been an opportunity to right a wrong from the past, 74 years ago the then German consul should have accepted this letter and this resolution," he said.

"He refused to do that."

Mr Pearce said it was unclear whether the consul's refusal to accept Mr Cooper's letter in 1938 was due to the message's content or his race.

"We can only speculate about it but there was a sense, I suppose, in those days in which Aborigines were very much invisible members of society," he said.

"The refusal to receive them may well have reflected that as well as the obvious reluctance to accept any acknowledgement of what was being done to the Jews at the time in Germany."

Israel has planted trees in honour of Mr Cooper in the Forest of Martyrs near Jerusalem and there is also a memorial to him at the city's Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

The William Cooper Justice Centre is one of the main buildings in Melbourne's legal precinct.

Fluo posted:

Obesity is bigger in working class, poor families then in middle and upper class families. Because you know what? The cheapest food is the worst for you. Not everyone can offer organic free range hummus. Atleast in the UK ready meals are cheaper then vegetables.

Thelonius Van Funk posted:

Still doesn't change that fact that it makes a lot of decent people feel like they are loving worthless and don't deserve love/happiness even if they aren't 300+ pounds

T.Worth posted:

Rage against the machine shut down wall street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI

This bullshit has been going on for years...

Fire posted:

Forums Terrorist posted:

You people should check out Fire's thread in FYAD.

Fire posted:

Plutonis posted:

How about we finish the loving Fat people derail with some content.



Oscar Niemeyer, best architect born in Brazil and a staunch communist and proponent of social justice to the end. Died yesterday, only 10 days before his 105th birthday. He left his mark with some of the most innovative buildings ever made.

Fire posted:

a false posted:

Yeah dude 99% of fat people sit down one day and say you know what gently caress it I want to be fat. That is literally what they do, this is what a Choice is so it has to be. It has nothing to do with a media that effectively pushes unhealthy foods and habits on people and a capitalism that allows those foods to be the most easily accessible to most people. It has to do with people sitting down and Choosing to participate in their consumption.

ekuNNN posted:

This isn't accurate at all, I'm a white starving artist and I haven't noticed that fast-track

Fandyien posted:

Noo, the kitties too. What kind of gas are the Syrians reputed to have? NPR kept talking about Sarin and referenced Aum Shinrikyo a few times.



Japanese SDF cleaning a subway train after the attack.

Plutonis posted:

How about we finish the loving Fat people derail with some content.

a false posted:

Do you honestly believe the Iraq war was about saving the people of Iraq who were being killed by Saddam's government, or even if it was (it wasn't) that the civilian toll in Iraq was realistically worth the number that we potentially maybe saved? Or that somehow the civilian toll is more tolerable because those people died in a different way? Or that the effects of the American presence in Iraq (and elsewhere) don't have further-reaching consequences? Remember, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, all of those terrible boogeymen that Americans (rightfully) despise were able to do pretty much everything they've done as a direct result of American involvement in a place we didn't need to be.

But anyway after we drop this bunker buster on Assad without any civilian toll what happens then? We go home, wipe our hands clean and Syria returns to normal in our minds (ie we don't think about them anymore)? Pretty sure it's not quite that simple.

Pic:


There's a company that makes a lot of this poo poo, targeted towards military, coopting Crusader imagery.

Gonzo McFee posted:

Roy Nelson: Fat gently caress athlete

a false posted:

It's not a derail if it's fully within the scope of this thread and people are posting content as per the thread's rules the entire time, which they are.

All of you people who are saying that fat people should be made to feel ashamed need to try applying the same standards you do about this "gluttony" and "gorging oneself on sugar and lard"...

steinrokkan posted:

Nice try, apparently hatred is the only alternative to unconditional support, do I understand it correctly?

a false posted:

It's not "unconditional support" to be somewhat introspective about your disgust for fat people in the absence of disgust for others and realizing hey wow maybe these are just normal loving people and there are complicated factors that go into the fact that they don't diet and exercise exactly the way that I do and maybe I don't need to spend time justifying why they're subhuman scum.

a false posted:

It's not a derail if it's fully within the scope of this thread and people are posting content as per the thread's rules the entire time, which they are.

All of you people who are saying that fat people should be made to feel ashamed need to try applying the same standards you do about this "gluttony" and "gorging oneself on sugar and lard" (as though the image that runs through your head every time you see an overweight person is one of a person literally sitting down at a table and for hours on end, nonstop, cramming their mouth with all of the most fattening things they can possibly acquire and actively scorning the healthier alternatives simply because they are healthy) to other things that are also unhealthy - take your pick, there's a loving lot of them and none of them carry the stigma of being overweight. The reason they don't? Because none of the other ones are born out of a seething loving hatred for anyone who doesn't conform to a certain standard of body image. That is the absolute root of it, no matter how many justifications you've built up for yourself and how many statistics about obesity you can pull out and no matter how well in your head you can tie it to Greed, all of that comes after the fact of just loving hating fat people (and, judging by the pictures posted, primarily fat women in particular). Even if it is a personal decision motivated out of the pure loving greed of the individual (which it's not, can you blame people for buying into something upon which billions upon billions of dollars are spent to make sure people will? that being the propagation of unhealthy food's availability because it's cheap as gently caress to produce), how is the outcome, their size, of any personal concern to you beyond UGH I CAN'T STAND LOOKING AT THIS HUMAN BEING I DON'T FIND ATTRACTIVE? There are other people out there who are much more directly effecting you negatively - drivers that speed (do you? probably) are one group in particular that always comes to mind for me - that do not inspire a fraction of the bile that fat people do. And they're killing someone other than themselves (and also, if it's people killing themselves that makes you so upset about the whole thing, which is one of the myriad justifications, do you feel the same loathing for the suicidal? Smokers?).



Here's Konishiki Yasokichi, one of the greatest sumo wrestlers of the last two decades, also a devoted humanitarian since his retirement, and also a bad human being who is an emblem of greed and laziness, right?

a false posted:

It's not "unconditional support" to be somewhat introspective about your disgust for fat people in the absence of disgust for others and realizing hey wow maybe these are just normal loving people and there are complicated factors that go into the fact that they don't diet and exercise exactly the way that I do and maybe I don't need to spend time justifying why they're subhuman scum.

Plutonis posted:

How about we finish the loving Fat people derail with some content.



Oscar Niemeyer, best architect born in Brazil and a staunch communist and proponent of social justice to the end. Died yesterday, only 10 days before his 105th birthday. He left his mark with some of the most innovative buildings ever made.