Don't get me started on students.... (<GRIN>
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stan Reber
Marc, I do have a better solution, but nowadays you would be placed into a mental institution for doing so. In 74 our Nike Hurcules electronics instructor was so fed up that he wire our metal top desks to a very large and fully charged capacitor. You rarely went to disneyland, went to sleep or for that matter saw ghosts under Rob's bed :eek:
Love it! Actually, I've been lucky in the past few years - most of my Intro students could at least read (some could even write:eek: ), and all of my 3rd year theory students have been great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stan Reber
Honestly, I had to pay for my follow-on education and took it seriously. I have no clue what young folks today consider significant. Even here, it's hard to find someone that can even write using a pencil and pad. The internet managed to teach these folks how to type, and spell checkers preclude the need for an expensive dictionary.
<wry grin>About 15 years ago, I was looking around to find a class in remedial penmanship since I couldn't read my own handwriting :o . What did I find? 20 classes in calligraphy, but nothing in basic penmanship. Discouraging!
On spell checkers, I would agree, but a number of my students don't know how to change the dictionary! Honestly, I've been thinking about making the Oxford English Dictionary, 1918 edition, the sole textbook in my classes for a while now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stan Reber
I have no idea if there are vampires in Latvia, but the women like in Estonia are dead knockouts. We use 9.5 as the benchmark and that includes ladies over 40.
I think most of the vampires decided to head to New York in the '30's:D . Definately agree with you on the ladies, however!!!
Marc
According to Muslim demonology Jinnis inhabit the earth
Marc,
Are these the very same in Rob's grenades with red eyes under his bed ?
I would rather have ghosts :rolleyes:
My final comment, if these jinnis are ever to inhabit the DRC, they will all get robbed by former Zärois :D
Have a pleasant evening !
Regards, Stan
Was Jim Jones a "Jinn" Jones/ Guyana mass suicide
One of the things about discussions and how they drift off course, but often lead to something interesting or useful. Stalkers often have charismatic personalities and can exert incredible influence over people almost like a hypnotic trance.
This got me to thinking about one of the absolute masters and that was Jim Jones and his ability to convince 908 people to commit mass suicide by drinking poisoned Kool Aid down in Guyana. I think this is what the expression "drinking the Kool Aid" actually means but perhaps people don't realize it. In the late 70's or 80's when this happened it was considered impossible, but it happened.
Think of all the Guerrilla leaders or terrorists leaders like UBL that have the same type of charisma and his ability to influence people. They have that Jinn like quality that can make them very formidable Psy-Op enemies. In contrast if we could come up with a Lawrence of Arabia type we could wheel and deal. So where is the Jinn of Lawrence?? Rob,Stan,Marct need to find him we need him. Might be over there Latville hanging around.
Jimmy Jones and electric kool aid
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slapout9
One of the things about discussions and how they drift off course, but often lead to something interesting or useful....
This got me to thinking about one of the absolute masters and that was Jim Jones and his ability to convince 908 people to commit mass suicide by drinking poisoned Kool Aid down in Guyana. I think this is what the expression "drinking the Kool Aid" actually means but perhaps people don't realize it. In the late 70's or 80's when this happened it was considered impossible, but it happened.
I remember that <wry grin>. Everyone thought Jim Jones was "impossible", but I kept remembering a conversation I had had years before in the mid-60's with a guy who had heard Hitler speak in person. He told me that even though he was Jewish (and spent most of the war in Dachau), Hitler still impressed him with his charisma. He said it was like being the victim of a snake watching, hypnotized.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slapout9
Think of all the Guerrilla leaders or terrorists leaders like UBL that have the same type of charisma and his ability to influence people. They have that Jinn like quality that can make them very formidable Psy-Op enemies. In contrast if we could come up with a Lawrence of Arabia type we could wheel and deal. So where is the Jinn of Lawrence?? Rob,Stan,Marct need to find him we need him. Might be over there Latville hanging around.
Well, I'm convinced that Stan is the anti-UBL dhinn :D - it'sthe bike, mon!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jcustis
I saw a history or discovery channel show on the Jim Jones stuff last night. I can very vaguely remember it when I was a kid. Scared the bejezzus out of me. Jungles, spooky voodoo, cultism. I can remember seeing it on the news and eventually the 60 minutes expose. I have no idea if my parents knew I was watching it, but it was spooky.
Yeah, it can definately have hat effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jcustis
This djinn stuff speaks to an interesting conversation I had with one of my former platoon commanders during OIF 2.0. We had since moved on to other billets, but he was outside the wire almost every day. Because he knew Arabic and was a Middle Eastern studies major, he had a fresh perspective on what was going on.
When discussions turned to Zarqawi, he told me that a lot of Iraqis he'd met during ops didn't believe there was a Zarqawi. It seems that early on many had equated him with an Islamic version of the boogeyman. The notion of Zarqawi was quickly used to scare the heck out of Iraqi kids and keep them in line. If they didn't, Zarqawi would "get them" in the middle of the night. The point to this rambling is that maybe we don't need a djinn, but the counter-djinn, like an Aladdin...
We've seen this effect time and time again over the course of history. This was the sort of thing I was talking about when I said that people play out stories with recognizable plots (or something like that). Both Claude Levi-Strauss (no relation to the Jeans family) and Carl Jung looked at this. I think Levi-Strauss got the structural aspects right (see his Structural Study of Myth) while Jung got the rest of it right.
If you want a counter-djinn, try The Phantom from the 30's-50's. Ideally, a counter-djinn would operate outside of any constituted force and would use assasination combined with psyops - e.g. track down an AIQ cell leader, kill him and display the body in a public place with a listing of his crimes - think Batman after he went psycho. This would fit the mythic patterns. If you really want to freak the Iranian agents and the AQ crowd, have him use the name "Zurvan".
Marc
Where is the Djinn of Lawrence??
Hey Folks !
Slapout, I checked, he's not in Latvia !
Quote:
We've seen this effect time and time again over the course of history. This was the sort of thing I was talking about when I said that people play out stories with recognizable plots (or something like that). Both Claude Levi-Strauss (no relation to the Jeans family) and Carl Jung looked at this. I think Levi-Strauss got the structural aspects right (see his Structural Study of Myth) while Jung got the rest of it right.
Marc,
You're not going tell me we went from Djinns and ghosts to Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, and psychological type framework, are you ? This would be the same Carl Jung, or another Carl from your "Craft Section" ?
Regards, Stan
Rogue Anthropologists (and Shamans)
- are hard to come by these days and I use the term rogue because the current tone and tenure of Academia is decidedly ant-military, anti-Bush and at best, overtly hostile to the GWOT. I've come across some conservative Blogs by Academics who do so anonymously for fear of scorn and even retribution by colleagues. I did follow one professional Anthro blog for a while and the topic of Anthropology per se assisting the American Administration in its foreign policy was brought up and the vitriol expressed was harsh to say the least. On-the-side, hefty consult fees are another matter though.....
Exploitation of the spiritual is a hard sell at best and the Military is not known for fast adaptation - recall the hoopla over SF troops in Afghanistan being told to shave the beards off and get back in uniform. Nope, I don't look for any Shamans sporting fetishes and ju-jus to be leading any patrols to psych out the indigs any time soon nor to be on any operational/policy planning teams either. It's odd if you think about it, not wanting to exploit spirituality when there are tactical advantages to it.
Ontologically Disadvantaged
Not that I am trying to upset any Chaplains or people of faith or anything like that, but I don't see how our lethal enemies can have any fear of our God that is bloody and nailed to a cross with thorns driven into his head. This may be somehow connected to our inability to exploit spirituality.