Things that have diverted me lately

[undyingking]

Just a roundup of a few things which caught my eye / attention, and which other people might find similarly diverting.

• Word Strips, a Flash game of spotting cobinations of lettert aht form words, quickly. There are loads of games like this about, but this is a nice realization and the scoring mechanism is pleasingly straightforward. Also, it's too difficult to be a real time-eater. My best is about 300...
• The Slingshot -- "the Great British Paper for Young Chaps. Its watchwords are Patriotism, Clean Living and Fair Play... Immerse yourself in the healthy, hearty pages of The Slingshot and you will soon understand why it is that the sun never goes down on the British without asking permission first." Very much in the tradition of Ripping Yarns. Not truly brilliant, but with some good bits, especially the adverts.
• When cake-icing software goes wrong. Poor Aunt Elsa, I bet she ends up getting the slice with the code fragment.
• Did you know that Unicode incluides the Hebrew Alternative Plus Sign, for people who find the normal one looks a bit too much like a cross? I didn't.

On a random note, I was interested to see that some people think Barack Obama is not really black. Or, rather, that he may be black, but he isn't "black". That "black" in America refers to a cultural heritage going back to the days of slavery, which Obama, whose father came from Kenya, does not share. Of course, this could be code for being wary of him because his politics aren't those of more traditional black leaders such as Jesse Jackson. I don't know enough about the subtly overtones of American race politics... Did Colin Powell, whose family were Jamaican and thus descended from slaves of the British rather than the Americans, get similar comments?

When I went to university I was surprised to find that the Black Caucus group welcomed people of South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan) descent as well as people of African or Afro-Caribbean descent. It seemed to me a regrettably loose definitiion to say that because we all have darker skin than Caucasians, we are all in some sense "black". (It may have been because at my university there were hardly any actually black people, but loads of South Asians.)

It's sometimes disconcerting when reading Pepys's diary and seeing him talk about the black woman who lives round the corner, etc, that in his day that description just meant that she had dark hair, in the same way you'd speak of a blonde woman. I guess an actual black person would have been described as a Moor.

On a related note, continuing the ramble, T was recently told at a diversity training event that to describe people from China, Malaysia, Japan etc generically as "Oriental" was considered insensitive. Apparently the thinking is (a) it covers some very different countries, cultures and ethnicities, and it shows callousness to lump them all in together under one adjective; and (b) suppose though that you don't know where they're from in any more detail, and so have to use a generic word, "Oriental" is historically associated with harmful ethnic stereotypes and slurs relationg to Fu Manchu, opium dens, cunning Oriental devils, etc -- a better because less value-laden term for such people is "East Asian". This was new to me, but I guess it kind of makes sense.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I love that cake !

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Did Jews not write down arithmetic before the Christians came along?

And frankly, why be so sensitive about it? Claim back the plus sign! Plus pride!

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I'm having problems in my claasic white Guardian-reader way explaining to Small that the "correct" descriptions for people are "black" and "white" rather than her current "brown" and "pinkish". It's a bitch to explain, because a) there isn't a rational explanation and b) I'm reluctant to intrude the "real" world on her current prelapsarian innocence. (Similarly I read recently about US diplomats seeing no reason why they shouldn't refer to visiting Pakistani delegates as Pakis - just as they refer to the UK delegates as Brits - but they're not 4 years old, so it's easier to explain the problem to them).

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

The thing about Obama also brings this news story to mind
OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) -- Officials disciplined students who papered their nearly all-white high school with posters advocating a white student from South Africa for the school's "Distinguished African American Student Award."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/22/king.controversy.ap/