Former choirboys of the Regensburger Domspatzen have told SPIEGEL about sexual and physical abuse at two boarding schools attached to the famous Catholic choir. One former choirboy says it's "inexplicable" that the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, a former head of the choir, didn't know about it. The abuse scandal at the Regensburger Domspatzen choir is bigger than had been thought so far. Therapists in and around Munich treated several former choirboys who were traumatized by sexual and other physical abuse. One man affected told SPIEGEL about cruel rituals in the Etterzhausen boarding school, a preparatory school for younger pupils from which the choir draws its recruits.
The abuse scandal at the Regensburger Domspatzen choir is bigger than had been thought so far. Therapists in and around Munich treated several former choirboys who were traumatized by sexual and other physical abuse.
One man affected told SPIEGEL about cruel rituals in the Etterzhausen boarding school, a preparatory school for younger pupils from which the choir draws its recruits.
Kane Gorny, 22, was so desperate for a drink that he rang police from his bed begging them to intervene. They arrived at St George's Hospital in Tooting, only to be told by doctors everything was under control. But when his mother Rita Cronin found him the following day, he was delirious and died hours later. Homicide detectives are investigating and it is understood they are examining the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against the hospital.
They arrived at St George's Hospital in Tooting, only to be told by doctors everything was under control. But when his mother Rita Cronin found him the following day, he was delirious and died hours later.
Homicide detectives are investigating and it is understood they are examining the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against the hospital.
... After the movie won, the town government issued a short news release. "There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world," the statement read. "It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories." <...> "There are some countries that eat cows, and there are other countries that eat whales or dolphins," said Yutaka Aoki, fisheries division director at the Foreign Ministry. "A film about slaughtering cows or pigs might also be unwelcome to workers in that industry."
... After the movie won, the town government issued a short news release.
"There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world," the statement read. "It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories."
<...>
"There are some countries that eat cows, and there are other countries that eat whales or dolphins," said Yutaka Aoki, fisheries division director at the Foreign Ministry. "A film about slaughtering cows or pigs might also be unwelcome to workers in that industry."
Dolphins, in addition to being food, are also recognized in Taiji as crowd pleasers with their playful natures, leading to odd contrasts. Taiji fishermen capture some to sell to aquariums, and the area is dotted with ocean cages offering dolphin bonding sessions. "Dolphin Base" charges 2,000 yen ($22) for a 20-minute session less than half a mile from the cove where hundreds of the animals are stabbed and dragged ashore in the annual hunt. Like most residents of Taiji, the dolphin trainers repeatedly avoided talking to a foreign reporter - one young woman ran away when asked her opinion. At the nearby Dolphin Resort, a modern hotel complex with its own dolphin pool, manager Kiyo Ikeda agreed to be interviewed, as long as there were no questions about dolphins.
Like most residents of Taiji, the dolphin trainers repeatedly avoided talking to a foreign reporter - one young woman ran away when asked her opinion. At the nearby Dolphin Resort, a modern hotel complex with its own dolphin pool, manager Kiyo Ikeda agreed to be interviewed, as long as there were no questions about dolphins.
Japan Objects to Proposed Bluefin Tuna Ban - WSJ.com
... "We aren't convinced bluefin tuna should be thrown in the same league as the tiger and the giant panda, whose populations number in thousands," Mr. Endo [Hisashi, a negotiator from Japan's Fisheries Agency] said in an interview. ... Japanese officials say other tuna-eating nations like South Korea and developing countries along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean will also likely disregard the ban, though none has formally lodged opposition to the proposal like Japan has. The European Union has expressed support for the ban but proposed changes that would make it less strict. ...
... "We aren't convinced bluefin tuna should be thrown in the same league as the tiger and the giant panda, whose populations number in thousands," Mr. Endo [Hisashi, a negotiator from Japan's Fisheries Agency] said in an interview.
... Japanese officials say other tuna-eating nations like South Korea and developing countries along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean will also likely disregard the ban, though none has formally lodged opposition to the proposal like Japan has.
The European Union has expressed support for the ban but proposed changes that would make it less strict. ...
Kinki University in Oshima, Japan has a maguro farming program, but even if that becomes commercially viable:
The Kinki University bluefin are not completely eco-friendly. Tuna eat a massive amount, approximately 10 percent of their weight per day. The fish are fed wild mackerel by the truckload. Hardly eco-friendly, say critics. Greenpeace says a far better solution is to educate the diner and get them to stop eating bluefin tuna. That won't work, says Okada, who points out there's a multi-billion dollar worldwide market for tuna. Okada says the university is working on a vegetable protein to feed their farmed tuna to make it a greener choice. "I think it's very difficult for people to stop eating bluefin tuna completely. We should be balanced in our solution." <...> The WWF predicts Mediterranean bluefin will be wiped out by 2012 because of overfishing to sate the appetite of gourmet diners. 'Ranching' tuna the eco-friendly way - CNN.com
The Kinki University bluefin are not completely eco-friendly.
Tuna eat a massive amount, approximately 10 percent of their weight per day. The fish are fed wild mackerel by the truckload. Hardly eco-friendly, say critics. Greenpeace says a far better solution is to educate the diner and get them to stop eating bluefin tuna.
That won't work, says Okada, who points out there's a multi-billion dollar worldwide market for tuna. Okada says the university is working on a vegetable protein to feed their farmed tuna to make it a greener choice.
"I think it's very difficult for people to stop eating bluefin tuna completely. We should be balanced in our solution."
The WWF predicts Mediterranean bluefin will be wiped out by 2012 because of overfishing to sate the appetite of gourmet diners.
'Ranching' tuna the eco-friendly way - CNN.com
I've had several arguments with people I know who farm fish about its sustainability. Any food stuff that requires catching large amount of wild animals to produce is not going to work. Perhaps we should measure farm efficiency by the total number of square metres required to operate the farm without fossil subsidies or wild resources per kg of yield. So a low intensive organic farm might be 1m^2/kg, a chicken farm 10m^2/kg, a beef farm 100m^2/kg and a salmon farm 100000m^2/kg
... Mr. Psihoyos's team -- a far-flung band of activists who use film making to highlight environmental causes -- knew they would be together in Los Angeles for the Oscars, and so sting operations two and three were hatched. On Feb. 28, team members split up between the sushi bar and a restaurant table and ordered sushi and communicated via text message with Mr. Psihoyos, who waited in a car in the parking lot. Mr. Psihoyos served as an electronic envoy between the investigators at the sushi bar, who were witnessing the chopping of fish and whale, and those sitting at a table: "They're eating blowfish!" read one of the text messages. "Toro and sea urchin, nothing exciting," another said. "Whale coming now!" Next waiters identified a meaty course of whale, referring to it at times by its Japanese name, kujira, at a cost of $60, according to a federal affidavit. (The total bill exceeded $600 for two, with very little sake.) ...
... Mr. Psihoyos's team -- a far-flung band of activists who use film making to highlight environmental causes -- knew they would be together in Los Angeles for the Oscars, and so sting operations two and three were hatched. On Feb. 28, team members split up between the sushi bar and a restaurant table and ordered sushi and communicated via text message with Mr. Psihoyos, who waited in a car in the parking lot. Mr. Psihoyos served as an electronic envoy between the investigators at the sushi bar, who were witnessing the chopping of fish and whale, and those sitting at a table:
"They're eating blowfish!" read one of the text messages. "Toro and sea urchin, nothing exciting," another said. "Whale coming now!"
Next waiters identified a meaty course of whale, referring to it at times by its Japanese name, kujira, at a cost of $60, according to a federal affidavit. (The total bill exceeded $600 for two, with very little sake.) ...
Let's see how 'not exciting' toro will be when bluefin disappear from the oceans forever and Hollywood hoity-toities have none left to eat. The march of civilizations is a series of defenses that man has put up against the dread of pure existence.
Using Computing Might, Google Improves Translation Tool - NYTimes.com
... Automated translation systems are far from perfect, and even Google's will not put human translators out of a job anytime soon. Experts say it is exceedingly difficult for a computer to break a sentence into parts, then translate and reassemble them. But Google's service is good enough to convey the essence of a news article, and it has become a quick source for translations for millions of people. "If you need a rough-and-ready translation, it's the place to go," said Philip Resnik, a machine translation expert and associate professor of linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Like its rivals in the field, most notably Microsoft and I.B.M., Google has fed its translation engine with transcripts of United Nations proceedings, which are translated by humans into six languages, and those of the European Parliament, which are translated into 23. This raw material is used to train systems for the most common languages. <...> While many translation systems like Google's use up to a billion words of text to create a model of a language, Google went much bigger: a few hundred billion English words. "The models become better and better the more text you process," Mr. Och said. <...> ... Google released a search-by-voice system that was as good as those that took other companies years to build. ...
... Automated translation systems are far from perfect, and even Google's will not put human translators out of a job anytime soon. Experts say it is exceedingly difficult for a computer to break a sentence into parts, then translate and reassemble them.
But Google's service is good enough to convey the essence of a news article, and it has become a quick source for translations for millions of people. "If you need a rough-and-ready translation, it's the place to go," said Philip Resnik, a machine translation expert and associate professor of linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Like its rivals in the field, most notably Microsoft and I.B.M., Google has fed its translation engine with transcripts of United Nations proceedings, which are translated by humans into six languages, and those of the European Parliament, which are translated into 23. This raw material is used to train systems for the most common languages.
While many translation systems like Google's use up to a billion words of text to create a model of a language, Google went much bigger: a few hundred billion English words. "The models become better and better the more text you process," Mr. Och said.
... Google released a search-by-voice system that was as good as those that took other companies years to build. ...
Most of my research involves the communications of corporations and government institutions. Very little involves consumer communications i.e advertising. It is all so-called B2B = business to business, and as such is informational rather than emotional. Google translate does a very good job of translating Finnish and Swedish in these areas. In fact, if anything comes up rather oddly in translation, it is almost always because the original was badly written (a common problem ;-))
So for me, google translate is not simply a way of quickly comparing communications in different languages (I continue, after all these years, to 'think' in English), but also a guide to better communication. You can't be me, I'm taken
I've used it to do some Chinese --> English translations (including a couple of diaries on ET), and while sometimes it gives you funny stuff, not infrequently it provides an interpretation that makes better sense than my own first effort. It's astonishing, and humbling. I'm starting to believe that a Turing test-passing automatic translator, like a black U.S. president, will happen not just within my lifetime, but in the unexpectedly near future.
Sven Triloqvist: I continue, after all these years, to 'think' in English
slightly off topic, but i wonder how many polyglots out there feel that they (1) "think in a language", and (2) if so, are they able to think in a non-native language, and (3) how is it for those who grew up speaking two languages from birth and throughout childhood? for myself, i used to think i didn't think "in a language", but simply translated (or converted) metalinguistic thoughts into language for the purposes of communication. but recently i've started to feel that actually i do "think in English", or if not, my way of perceiving/interpreting/experiencing reality, and thinking through problems, is heavily heavily structured, enriched and limited by the English language -- maybe "mediated in English" is the right way to put it. i find it very hard to pin down, so i was wondering what others' take on this is.
also, for those who are visual artists, or whose work involves intense or primarily non-linguistic cognition, do you find that you "switch" into a non-linguistic mode when doing that work? my brother is a painter, and he has no problem listening to Podcasts and radio talk shows while he paints. but i find it impossible to write or even do software programming while listening to talk radio/podcasts -- in English. but the worse i am in a language, then the easier it is for me to concentrate on my work while listening to talk in that language. The march of civilizations is a series of defenses that man has put up against the dread of pure existence.
Swedish is my native tongue, the rest I learned in school. (English is mandatory, a third language is a commonly used option and a fourth is a possibility.) A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
slightly off topic, but i wonder how many polyglots out there feel that they (1) "think in a language", and (2) if so, are they able to think in a non-native language, and (3) how is it for those who grew up speaking two languages from birth and throughout childhood?
great question.
my native tongue is english, and i definitely feel my thinking is 'mediated' by that, in ways i find hard to language!
i do find myself counting in italian sometimes though, and very oddly i find myself typing an 'a' before or after a word, fr'example: 'you like-a pasta?', giving a sopranos effect to the text, lol.
being half and half, it's difficult to discern what comes through culture, dna, or language, in fact i wonder if one can separate them analytically...
as for going into states of conscious highly resistant to verbalisation, if that's what you mean, yes, sometimes trying to language something too fast devalues experience.
it's like one is narrative, -the experience- and the description is commentary.
some situations demand an artistic response (whatever that is, easy on the PNs), and that is always more interesting, nuanced and complex than a mere observation or witnessing.
sort of like the difference between text and html. the former is more linear and less expressive, but short and sweet. a non-mediated response might be a movement, or a spontaneous clap of the hands, or a desire to rechannel that inspiration into something original.
i can't blog and listen to a talk podcast at the sametime, but i can blog and semi-watch TV talk in the background, although at the beginning it was really brainstretching, especially while reading dkos with fox on in the background, multitasking media studies, or political schiziphrenia, hard to tell lol!
then there's another strange quirk too, that is if i have to listen critically to a piece of recorded music i'm working on, out-takes of a song, i hear mistakes and places for improvement, energy imbalances, and other 'burrs' much better if i'm using the front of my mind for reading, it can be about something totally different.
there is also the forest for the trees syndrome when one listens to a piece over and over, after a while i need to change vibes, either by working on a different song, (preferably with a different 'feel'), or by going and doing something totally different, going for a walk perhaps.
same while cooking and listening to out-takes, often i hear it more detachedly when concentrating on something else, and experiencing the art peripherally.
maybe it's similar to the peculiar relaxing of the vision one has to do to see certain patterns, or 'where's waldo?' type of phenomena.
i noticed it first while staring at whole walls of islamic tilework, on the sides of moroccan mosques.
mind-altering art, it's the most!
opens up the chinks and lets new energy in.
then we play with descriptions, the ephemeral to art's eternality.
i think you might like the work of ellen langor, an eminent psychologist i heard interviewed on the last electric politics podcast. i loved it so much i listened to it three times, and went explored her web presence a bit. one page mentioned, maybe it was FB, that her favourite thing was wry wit, and the podcast was a treasure trove of it. it was called 'empirical monism' and here's the link, if you have time http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2010/02/empirical_monism.html
once you leave monolingualism behind, and especially if you do translation work, i think one of the drollest things is how there are 'cracks' between languages, and some are better for languaging some states of mind. i have a german friend studying medicine in italian, and it drives her crazy,lol!!!
very fertile territory, these 'cracks' whither and whence much meaning can disappear, hide, peek out in, morph or emerge.
there, that should be vague enough! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I first got the sense that I speak German well when I realised that I use it alongside Hungarian when thinking. A decade later, I realised the same regarding English, which is funny: it came all from reading and USENET posting, while for lack of practice, my spoken English was and is awful (and even my written one ridden with grammatical errors). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Te Taka Keegan, a university lecturer in New Zealand, is betting that Google can help him preserve the Maori language of his ancestors. Mr. Keegan uses a tool called the Google Translator Toolkit to upload Maori translations of English texts to Google. Others can then use those translations in their work, increasing the quantity and quality of Maori translations that are available, and creating incentives for children of Maori descent to learn the language. "With this tool, we can actually uplift our language," Mr. Keegan said. "For us, it is about saving our language from extinction. We are trying to help our culture survive." The Google Translator Toolkit may be good for the culture of the Maori people, an indigenous minority group in New Zealand. It's also good for Google. Data from the toolkit helps Google beef up its machine translation system, which I cover in an article in Tuesday's Times. Google's machine translation system feeds on data, including the data that Mr. Keegan and others feed into the toolkit. If enough people use the service, Google will eventually have enough data to add Maori to the list of languages that Google can translate automatically. Google Translate, the company's translation tool, now speaks 52 languages, more than any of the major machine translation systems in use. In a sign of Google's ambitions, the company recently released the toolkit in 345 languages, from Abkhazian to Zulu. ...
Te Taka Keegan, a university lecturer in New Zealand, is betting that Google can help him preserve the Maori language of his ancestors.
Mr. Keegan uses a tool called the Google Translator Toolkit to upload Maori translations of English texts to Google. Others can then use those translations in their work, increasing the quantity and quality of Maori translations that are available, and creating incentives for children of Maori descent to learn the language.
"With this tool, we can actually uplift our language," Mr. Keegan said. "For us, it is about saving our language from extinction. We are trying to help our culture survive."
The Google Translator Toolkit may be good for the culture of the Maori people, an indigenous minority group in New Zealand. It's also good for Google.
Data from the toolkit helps Google beef up its machine translation system, which I cover in an article in Tuesday's Times.
Google's machine translation system feeds on data, including the data that Mr. Keegan and others feed into the toolkit. If enough people use the service, Google will eventually have enough data to add Maori to the list of languages that Google can translate automatically. Google Translate, the company's translation tool, now speaks 52 languages, more than any of the major machine translation systems in use. In a sign of Google's ambitions, the company recently released the toolkit in 345 languages, from Abkhazian to Zulu. ...
Some scholars estimate that at least half of the world's languages may disappear within this lifetime. Paul Christians and Jeff DeKock decided they needed to do something about that, so they started Open Hand Studios. The organization works to preserve cultural heritage. Both Paul and Jeff studied anthropology in graduate school. And Jeff says he and Paul were frustrated with the ways that anthropologists were engaging with indigenous communities.Below is a slideshow of photos from the different regions Open Hands works in. To read the captions which accompany each photo, click on the captions button on the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow. ...
DENVER -- A rock slide punched gaping holes in a bridge and left huge boulders on Interstate 70, closing a 17-mile stretch in western Colorado and prompting Gov. Bill Ritter to declare a disaster emergency Monday.
The slide struck around midnight Sunday near Hanging Lake Tunnel in Glenwood Canyon, a deep, narrow chasm about 110 miles west of Denver, the Colorado Department of Transportation said.
No injuries or damage to vehicles were reported. All lanes were closed from Glenwood Springs east to the town of Dotsero. Up to 25,000 vehicles a day travel that section of the major east-west artery, department spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.
Because of the rugged terrain, the shortest detour adds about 200 miles around the mountainous Flat Tops Wilderness Area. Adding to the traffic mess, U.S. 50 was closed over Monarch Pass due to adverse conditions.
... Sauri [Kenya] was the first of what are now more than 80 Millennium Villages across Africa, a showcase project that was the dream child of Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Harvard-trained, Columbia University economist who runs with an A-list crowd: Bono, both Bills (Clinton and Gates), George Soros, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon and others. His intent was to show that tightly focused, technology-based and relatively straightforward programs on a number of fronts simultaneously -- health care, education, job training -- could rapidly lift people out of poverty. In Sauri, at least, it seems to be working. <...> Mr. [William] Easterly argues that the Millennium approach would not work on a bigger scale because if expanded, "it immediately runs into the problems we've all been talking about: corruption, bad leadership, ethnic politics." He said, "Sachs is essentially trying to create an island of success in a sea of failure, and maybe he's done that, but it doesn't address the sea of failure." Mr. Easterly and others have criticized Mr. Sachs as not paying enough attention to bigger-picture issues like governance and corruption, which have stymied some of the best-intentioned and best-financed aid projects. ...
... Sauri [Kenya] was the first of what are now more than 80 Millennium Villages across Africa, a showcase project that was the dream child of Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Harvard-trained, Columbia University economist who runs with an A-list crowd: Bono, both Bills (Clinton and Gates), George Soros, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon and others.
His intent was to show that tightly focused, technology-based and relatively straightforward programs on a number of fronts simultaneously -- health care, education, job training -- could rapidly lift people out of poverty.
In Sauri, at least, it seems to be working.
Mr. [William] Easterly argues that the Millennium approach would not work on a bigger scale because if expanded, "it immediately runs into the problems we've all been talking about: corruption, bad leadership, ethnic politics."
He said, "Sachs is essentially trying to create an island of success in a sea of failure, and maybe he's done that, but it doesn't address the sea of failure."
Mr. Easterly and others have criticized Mr. Sachs as not paying enough attention to bigger-picture issues like governance and corruption, which have stymied some of the best-intentioned and best-financed aid projects. ...
