Tag Archives: satire

Pseudoscience Meme

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I fear that I must own up to this little piece of satire as it is my own casual observation that birthed it. 🙂

Critical commentary on this particular instance will follow at some later date, but for plenty of prior discussion, please feel free to browse my blog archives.

Peace,
-Steve

UPDATE Oct 14: Quite conveniently, Christian Brady over at Targuman posted an interesting entry about satire. As I employ quite a bit of satire on my blog here as an illustrative tool (…and I admit enjoyable) I feel it’s a good read given recent postings. 🙂

I also believe that there is an important line to draw between satire, and simple mockery or ridicule. The former acts as a statement of criticism often showing where something may be improved, where the latter two on their own may simply be malicious.

It’s the difference between criticizing someone with a bit of humor to illustrate one’s point vs. a bully at a playground making fun of another kid because it makes them feel good. Satire’s purpose is to fuel conversation where simple mockery or ridicule’s purpose is to squelch it.

I generally make satirical memes as a means to illustrate problems and stimulate further the debate about things that happen in the academic world. In the age of Facebook and other social media — riding upon the very same mechanism that spreads pictures of LOL-cats at lightning speed — there are fewer methods that move as quickly to prompt discussion as visual vignettes that point out poignant problems in an entertaining manner. 🙂

Food for thought.

UPDATE Dec 29: HT to Antonio Kuilan on Facebook:

Neil DeGrasse Tyson‘s watermelon bid (which is larger and more threatening). Since he’s an actual Astrophysicist, however, he might know what he’s talking about. 😉

If anyone has any further “academic watermelon memes,” I will be happy to post them here.

UPDATE Jan 7 2014: The first watermelon of the year, that has upped the ante.

Pat Robertson seems to be doing… something to his invisible watermelon. I’m honestly not sure what to say.

Peace,
-Steve

The Manuscript Revealed!: A Transcription

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I’ve taken the time to “transcribe” a good portion of the document, and I’m “curious” as to what some of my more academic readers out there think. 🙂

פתגם מולדא יום ואתר מולד שתה בירחה שתיתי בשנת שתיתי
זי דריהוש מלכא בבל
שם ברך הסין אובמה תנינא
אב שם שנן אתר מולד פלח ברך הסין אובמה כ קניא
תלמידא אם שם שם בתולה אתר מולד סטנלי חנה אובמה
דונהם יח קנסס יום פתגמא שבע בירחה שתיתי בשנת שתיתי
זי דריהוש מלכאעל בית פקידא לחוד

And then the final paragraph which I’ll type in later (but 20 points to whomever does it before I do).

Comments? 🙂
Peace,
-Steve
UPDATE ABOUT 6 YEARS LATER: If you haven’t “gotten” the joke here, please read this post. 🙂

The Manuscript Revealed!

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Above is a photo of the entire document that I had discussed in:

“Barack Hussein Obama” Mentioned in Ancient Manuscript?

Before I say any more: Does anyone notice anything interesting about it? 😉

(Give it a click to see a much larger version.)

Peace,
-Steve

UPDATE ABOUT 6 YEARS LATER: If you haven’t “gotten” the joke here, please read this post. 🙂

“Barack Hussein Obama” Mentioned in Ancient Manuscript?

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I’ve seen a lot of oddities come across my desk from individuals looking to have Aramaic identified and translated. Pottery sherds, pottery shards (yes, there is a difference), incantation bowls, old Ketubahs that people find in their attics (my personal favorite), prayer books, jewelry, and even a copper scroll (not “The” Copper Scroll, but *a* copper scroll, no joke); but, when this came to me, I was a bit stunned. This is the very first time I have ever seen an artifact this unique.

It is a rather crumbling piece of papyrus that was once sealed with a wax impression. It is old. The handwriting and dialect unmistakably place the text as Imperial Aramaic.

At the top I can make out “ש[נת] ש[תי]תי ז[י] דריהוש מלכא” == “the si[xt]h [yea]r o[f] King Darius,” (placing it during the Persian Administration) and the rest of it seems to be dealing with matters of inheritance within a family.

However, in the meat of the document, I immediately came upon some trouble with the phrase “ברך הסין אובמה” which was sticking out in the middle of the text. It gave me some serious difficulty.

“ברך” is certainly from the root “to bless” and “אובמה” seemed to come from the root “יבם” (“to marry a brother’s widow”). Given this, I thought might be able to interpret “הסין” as the name “Hasin” and the context would be that this individual was cause to marry his brother’s widow to continue the family line under the blessing of the widow’s father.

However, this would require “יבם” to be in the Causitive form, specifically Aphel. Simply put, it couldn’t be in Aphel, given the dialect, and given other demonstrated use of the Haphel elsewhere (the Haphel Causitive didn’t become Aphel until after Imperal Aramaic).

After relaxing with a hot cup of tea and staring at that bit of text in context, I made the following strange connection:

ברך הסין אובמה
brk hsyn ‘wbmh
barak huseyn ‘owbamah

Even when writing this I’m still in a bit of shock. Am I seeing things? I feel that I’ve looked over that blasted YouTube video one too many times and that it’s affecting me in a horrible way. I’m going to try and get some photos of this up ASAP so that others can take a closer look before I take the time to properly photograph the document in high resolution.

Peace,
-Steve

PS: Today is his birthday, no? I need some sleep… This day has been too much.

PPS: First photo is up. Not only do I have poor light this time of the evening, but I now feel I need to upgrade my iPhone.

UPDATE ABOUT 6 YEARS LATER: If you haven’t “gotten” the joke here, please read this post. 🙂