Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.  So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.  So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.  Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

If Arne Quinze had an army it might look something like this… Read the rest of this entry »

It is a common misconception that toiletia moscovius mate solely for reproductive purposes. Beginning with observations from European zoos in the late 1960’s toiletia were noticed to engage in sex for pleasure and a number of other reasons. Sex, it turned out, is key to their social life. Further study both in captivity and in the wild has revealed many interesting facts. When communities of toiletia from different areas of the city meet, the females of each tribe initiate sex with males from the other thus avoiding territorial violence and agression common to similar species. Also in regards to territory and possession, if two toiletia approach a cardboard box thrown into their enclosure, they will briefly mount each other before playing with the box. Such situations lead to squabbles in most other species. But toiletia moscovius are quite tolerant, perhaps because they use sex to divert attention and to diffuse tension. The most curious find is perhaps moscovius’ most typical sexual pattern, undocumented in any other toiletia —  genito-genital rubbing, or GG rubbing, between adult females. Males too may engage in pseudocopulation unique to the species but generally perform a variation. Standing back to back, one male briefly rubs his scrotum against the buttocks of another. Or quite commonly the activity in which two males hang face to face while rubbing their erections together, the practice of so-called penis-fencing.

The City Wildlife Conservation Commission’s web site notes that only six of Moscow’s 44 toiletia species are venomous. Most toiletia are harmless, beneficial and remove extra rodent populations. Even the venomous species are not particularly dangerous, unless stepped on or otherwise provoked. The commission warns residents to pay special attention during sprintime when toiletia are apt to crawl out from under bushes to sun themselves after the long winter.

News is culture. It seems so obvious. Has it been stated like that before? News is a cultural phenomenon. So is media. News media is culture. This is what the rise in participatory journalism is teaching us. A nation’s news is like its cuisine or literature. People are raised with sets of beliefs about their homeland, a “Small but Mighty Nation”, or the “Land of Kings”, or the “Greatest Country in the World”.

A nation has a mandate, a character, a set of goals, a place in the world, a dream, an idea, a conception of self, an identity. News media utilizes national character to structure its communication. Information must be conveyed in the terms and methods the audience understands.

This underlies the basic problem surrounding debates over its objectivity. It is not the case that news reporting cannot be objective because every individual has a personality with opinions that get in the way. But because news is inherently framed within cultural contexts and modes of representation. The individual is not the problem. That’s the wrong debate. News is simply culture. And journalism is culture too.