The first etymology given by the OED suggests that religion comes from the Latin root religare, “to tie or bind together,” and thus religion shares its origin with the English words ligature and ligament. Augustine recognized this usage. This derivation suggests that religion somehow binds our lives together in a meaningful way, just as our ligaments hold our bones together and allow them to function. Without our ligaments, our bones would be rather randomly organized. With them, our bones work together effectively. In this sense, religion should “re-ligament” us.

Gary Eberle | from Dangerous Words: Talking about God in the Age of Fundamentalism

[photographer unknown]

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was a clinical study, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 (plus 201 control group without syphilis) poor — and mostly illiterate — African American sharecroppers were denied treatment for Syphilis.

This study became notorious because it was conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they were told they had “bad blood” and could receive free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death in return for participating. In 1932, when the study started, standard treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with these toxic remedies. For many participants, treatment was intentionally denied. Many patients were lied to and given placebo treatments—in order to observe the fatal progression of the disease.

By the end of the study, only 74 of the test subjects were still alive. Twenty-eight of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.

(via earlyfrost)

When Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and his ensemble played at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1971, the audience broke into rapturous applause at the first short pause. “Thank you,” said Shankar. “If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.”

When we listen to music from another culture, it’s easy to get it badly wrong. Even if our misunderstanding isn’t quite as embarrassing as the Shankar faux pas, we are likely to miss most of the nuances and allusions, think it all sounds the same or even dismiss it as a racket. Most 20th-century ethnomusicologists who compared the music of different cultures argued that this was because the way we make music and respond to it is learned, and therefore culture-specific.

Philip Ball | Harmonious Minds: The Hunt for Universal Music

Hikikomori (ひきこもり or 引き籠もり, Hikikomori, literally “pulling away, being confined”, i.e., “acute social withdrawal”) is a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive people who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement because of various personal and social factors in their lives. […] The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines hikikomori as people who refuse to leave their house, and isolate themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months. While the degree of the phenomenon varies on an individual basis, in the most extreme cases, some people remain in isolation for years or even decades.

Wiki | Hikokomori

Samuel Bourne | Mussucks for Crossing the Beas River (Kulu, 1866)

The commercial potential of India attracted an increasing number of professional photographers after the Uprising of 1857-58. Samuel Bourne was among the most successful of these, spending seven years in the subcontinent from 1863. This photograph comes from a series of Bourne’s images from the Himalayas and features a group of ‘mussuckmen’. A ‘mussuck’ was an ingenious method for crossing the rivers of northern India, taking the form of an inflated buffalo hide.

(via Creative Review)

Next, I pack the throat and nose with cotton wool to stop fluid seepage. If the deceased doesn’t have teeth, I put cotton around the mouth to plump it out a little; if they have dentures, I put them in place. I then stitch the mouth closed from the inside. Sometimes glue is used but I do not like the white residue it can leave after it has dried. I dry the eyes and insert plastic half-moon caps under the lids to help them hold their shape, and a touch of Vaseline helps to hold them closed. If the eyes are not dried, they can give the appearance of having a tear, which may be distressing to the family.

Rebecca Atkinson and Sarah Tavner | What really happens when you die?