Monday, December 02, 2013

Returning to a focus on Asia

In recent checks of this blog's statistics, I note with interest that the frequency of visits from China has increased, after the lull which followed Chinese Occupy on G+.  This tells me that I still have minders in China, and they're apparently concerned over what goes out over the Internet regarding their latest belligerence--their unilateral declaration of a new air defense zone.  This post is just for you, containing the factual observation that there's you, and then there's the rest of the world, not just the U.S., that you have to worry about.

I'm sure your new capitalist riches are the basis of your new bravado, but I have previously pointed out that repressive regimes need to have a sustainable income in order to sustain repression/aggression, and your income source isn't guaranteed.  Nobody's is, not even when you forcibly wrest it from others.  You may be feeling glorious now, but so did Napoleon and so did Alexander the Great in their heyday.  You will not be more successful either, and that's the historical record.  This is the gravity you seek to defy, and no one on Earth is capable of defying gravity to the degree that you're attempting to.

The pattern in history that keeps repeating is this: prospect of riches emboldens trade; trade brings riches and the rich want more riches; to get more riches, more power is needed and with riches comes power, so more and more riches are sought; when power is used to intimidate neighbors then the riches that bring the power to keep the neighbors intimidated needs to be sustained--and it's ultimately the case that the need for the riches to sustain the power over one's neighbors causes the fall to occur.  Not immediately, but inevitably.


I thought I'd check the stats just before hitting the sack today, and I have to say that even though Thanksgiving is over and I'd expected all cooks out there to basically take a vacation from cooking (we're all eating leftovers at this point, right?), my Kitchen Tips posting hit a record number of hits, just today alone.

Now, I know that my folks on G+ are largely Whovians and I did include Whovian stuff in that post, but earlier posts about Who didn't make this happen.  For the record, guys, I'm not that Clara.  I'm just a pain in the arse of historians because I ask questions they can't seem to ever be able to answer without a brush-off.  I'm an American time traveler and I've never been inside a Brit police box.  Ever.  I just know how the thing works, and I've got my own--that's all. I bought it fair and square at an estate sale. OK?

Sure, I know the Doctor's name, but so does every other Whovian who goes back to the 4th Doctor.  It's Thete for short.


Okay, I just got a question pointing out that the name Thete was an alias, not his real name, that his real name is unpronounceable.  Well, it's not an alias, but yes, it is unpronounceable in English.  Recall that one of the words of the TARDIS's console passwords was the smell of dust after a rain.  There is no single word in English for that, just the description.  Same principle applies to the English translation of the Doctor's name.  His name, in English translation, is Theta Sigma, but you also know that Gallifreyans aren't Greek, and Greek isn't English either.

So one may accurately conclude that this is a mathematical translation of the Doctor's name into English, which does use Greek.  Therefore know ye that the Doctor's real name is the Gallifreyan word for "summation of turns".  When he's called "Thete" by a fellow Gallifreyan, he's fondly being called "Twisted".

Put another way--my ASL (American Sign Language) sign name is " CLRadio", but the sign for "radio" is also the ASL sign for "crazy"--it's context dependent. Not only context dependent but rife with double-entendre. I fully expect that the Doctor has been cagy about his name because it, too, is context dependent, and if he were to tell you just the Gallifreyan pronunciation, a person who doesn't speak Gallifreyan fluently will get none of the context that is supposed to go with it, and therefore you'll get his name wrong even if he tells you what it is. It follows, therefore, that even though Clara Oswald read his name in a book, she still has it wrong.

Think about this a bit: notice that when the Doctor was on Tranzalore, the issue of an "answer hidden in plain sight" wasn't addressed.  Well, every time he referred to himself as a "madman" he was referencing his real name, but as Thete.  The answer to the question "Doctor who?" has always been Theta Sigma--Thete for short--and it has always been hidden in plain sight.  Oh, I'm sure that Moffat intended to state that it was the question that was hidden in plain sight; I still say that the answer was just as hidden in plain sight too.  Every time he has called himself a madman, he has been saying his own name, while the TARDIS matrix made the translation into synonymic  contemporary English (as in, non-mathematic equivalent).

You're welcome.

Those westerners seeking to understand Islam should also understand that issues like these are why Muslims say that the recited Quran is the purest form of the Quran, while the written form is inferior--it is not just context dependent but also inflection dependent much like Mandarin and other Asian languages are (not just inflection, but tonal, and neither inflections or tones are properly conveyable in writing.  Any time the Quran is translated to a language different than Arabic, and onto paper besides, a great deal of meaning is lost in that process).  In ASL I could very well fingerspell C-L-A-R-A, but it would take insufferably long to fingerspell L-I-S-T-E-N-S-P-R-E-C-H-E-N, so the next best identifier in ASL would be the sign for RADIO, and given that radio is one of my long-standing hobbies, it becomes a unique identifier--personal name--when combined with the initials CL.

Here's a reminder of how Melody Pond became River Song.  English-to-Gamma retranslated back into English. Same principle applies.  River Song is no more an alias than Melody Pond is.  They're different language forms of the same name.

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