Couple of easy straightforward questions for us to chew on: 1. What is ‘objectivity’ supposed to mean? And 2. does it exist? Lewis Raven Wallace, a journalist and audiomaker fired from his public radio job over his blog post entitled ‘Objectivity is dead and I'm okay with it’, considers the principals and practice of objectivity, and what might be fairer ones.
Read moreAllusionist 134. Lacuna
If you were in Brazil during the military dictatorship of 1964-1985, tried to bake a cake from a recipe in the newspaper, and were served with a sorry mess that tasted disgustingly salty, it wasn't your fault. What you thought was a recipe was actually a message from the newspaper that they were being censored.
Designer and researcher Crystian Cruz opens up the TOP SECRET files, to share the fake weather reports, single nipples vs a pair, soap opera characters getting bumped off, and the problems with kung fu.
Read moreAllusionist 101. Two Or More
Oysters, fragrances, canoeing, space stations, God, hats, and of course people - the word ‘bisexual’ has described a great deal of different things, with different meanings, in its fairly short existence. And that whole time, it has had a pretty bumpy ride.
Read moreAllusionist 5: Latin Lives!
For years, I've been wondering why a radio station in Finland broadcasts a weekly news bulletin in Latin.
And now, I have found out.
Antti Ijäs from Nuntii Latini - now the Finnish Broadcasting Company's longest-running programme - explains how he invents new Latin words for modern concepts, and why the show is important even though, outside of the Vatican, not many people speak Latin any more. Listen now via iTunes, your favoured podcast directory, or RSS.
FOR EXTRA CREDIT:
Examine the vocabularies for Nuntii Latini.
Explore Vicipaedia, the Latin Wikipedia.
Sign up for your free monthly Latin puzzle book, Hebdomada Aenigmatum.
Learn a whole load of interesting stuff from the Reading, Writing, Romans blog
Try to understand the Papal tweets.
Have you seen Plebs? It's worth it for the theme tune alone, but I’m particularly amazed that a sitcom has been commissioned that is not only full of jokes aimed at the ever-rarer breed that is Latin students, but targeted specifically at those who had The Cambridge Latin Course textbooks.
Let's not forget the Latin grammar jokes in Monty Python's Life of Brian.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
skelf
Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.
Valete!
- HZ
CREDITS
Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman.
Antti Ijäs has a blog about etymology, which makes me wish I understood Finnish.
Here is Nuntii Latini's website (OK fine, here's an English translation) and the weekly bulletin is available as a podcast from iTunes.
MUSIC:
'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick
'Latin Lingo' - Cypress Hill
Theme from Carry On Cleo
Theme from I, Claudius
'You Will Be Back Someday' - Kevin Tihista's Red Terror
