BOO-yah!!!

Nine years. Nine years the opposition waited to give the presidential foreces in Venezuela even a minor setback. Hell, I think they would have settled for giving him a little scratch.

And yesterday, after nine years of overwhelming tit, opposition finally gave a bit of tat.

 

Meanings of playing cards, dealing with reality

I stumbled on this article this morning, and I found it pretty interesting. But I also found out something just as interesting in that same piece. First, read up:

Playing Card	Historical Personage
King of Hearts	Charlemagne
Queen of Hearts	Judith (of the Book of Judith, an Apocryphal Book of the Bible)
Jack of Hearts	“La Hire,” a famous French warrior a.k.a. Etienne de Vignoles
King of Spades	King David
Queen of Spades	Pallas, a.k.a. Minerva
Jack of Spades	Hogier the Dane, one of Charlemagne’s paladins
King of Diamonds	Julius Caesar
Queen of Diamonds	Rachel (of the Bible)
Jack of Diamonds	Hector of Troy alternately, Roland of France
King of Clubs	Alexander the Great
Queen of Clubs	Argine An anagram of Regina
Jack of Clubs	Lancelot

Pretty neat, huh? Now for the kicker: this is the traditional menaing for the characters on the deck of cards. Historically, there is no hard confirmation that this is so, so scholars will just tell you that these are random paintings. It just goes to show, popular folklore is one thing, but cold, hard historical fact is another. And also, sometimes History just isn’t as cool as fiction, no matter how true it is.

Thanks for peeking into my Mind…

 

New Constitution for the country, new job for me

Yeah, I know, you missed me. But hey, it’s hard to keep up four blogs, gimme a break.

The two topics are stuff that have been being announced for quite some time. First, something much more global.

The Constitution of Venezuela is set to undergo its fifteenth modification since first proposed in 1811, and the second one in President Chávez’s almost-eight-year presidency. He proposed the reforms in 33 articles that I wish were in English so you can see the dang thing for yourself.

 

KAMIYA SATOSHI — Divine Dragon (and so on)

This is Japan’s origami wünderkind . The talent this kid has is absolutely astounding. I mean, just look at his work. I can’t wait to meet him.

Thanks for peeking into my mind…

 

And the world keeps shrinking

I read a really cool article in Newsweek about a month ago about the phenomenon that English has become in “recent” years. The numbers are mind-boggling: native English speakers are outnumbered 3 to 1. At this rate, a third of the world population will speak English at least as a second language. Esperanto was supposed to be the international language, but English kicked it into the dirt. There are English language school in puny little towns in Bombay. Go to a world conference and you see executives from Korea, Belgium, Venezuela and Arabia are talking English. And there are hybrids: Japlish, Hinglish, Spanglish (my own favorite)… English is everywhere. In the future, if you don’t speak English, it’s as bad as not using a computer.