Social worker and blogger Jae Ran Kim applied a “social worker’s perspective to the wholesome characters in popular Disney movies” and asked, “How many of these beloved characters live in a married, two-parent (hetero) household?”
• Aladdin (Aladdin) — orphaned and homeless; petty crimes for food and shelter
• Annie (Annie) — orphan adopted by rich single dad
• Ariel (The Little Mermaid) — dead mother, rebellious teen who runs away to be with a man
• Aristocats — Marie, Berlioz and Toulouse — three kittens raised by a single mother
• Bambi (Bambi) — raised by single mother who is murdered, has never met his absent father
• Belle (Beauty and the Beast) — dead mother, raised by single father
• Cinderella (Cinderella) — dead mother, raised by abusive Stepmother and neglectful, absent father
• Dumbo (Dumbo)— raised by a stigmatized, depressed single mother
• Elliot (Pete‚Äôs Dragon) — orphaned, runaway from abusive foster parents, adopted by single mother
• Hercules (Hurcules) — son of gods transracially adopted by humans
• Lilo (Lilo and Stitch)— orphaned, raised by older sister
• Mowgli (The Jungle Book)— orphaned, raised by 2-male heads of household (bear and panther)
• Mulan (Mulan) — cross-dressing teen girl with intact, multi-generational family unit
• Nemo (Finding Nemo) — dead mother, raised by single overprotective father
• Oliver (Oliver & Company) — orphaned kitten transracially adopted by rich girl
• Peter Pan (Peter Pan) — orphaned, troublemaker and gang leader of Lost Boys
• Penny (The Rescuers) — orphaned girl kidnapped from orphanage
• Pinocchio (Pinocchio) — wooden toy adopted by aged creator Gepetto
• Pochahontas (Pocahontas) — dead mother, raised by single father
• Quasimoto (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) — physically disabled male adopted by evil church minister Frollo
• Simba (The Lion King) — father murdered by uncle, raised by 2-male heads of household (meerkat and warthog)
• Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty) — parents transferred custody to 3 fairies
• Snow White (Snow White & the 7 dwarves) — dead mother, raised by abusive Stepmother and neglectful father
• Tarzan (Tarzan)— orphaned, transracially adopted by gorilla family
2. Top 10 Myths About The Middle Ages
3. The Astrophysics of Bedtime Stories
SteelyKid is a big fan of the classic children’s book Goodnight Moon, which, if you haven’t spent the last sixty-odd years in a cave, you probably know features a bunny saying goodnight to a variety of objects in a great, green room. The attentive toddler will find a lot to look at in the pictures– there’s a mouse in every one that SteelyKid delights in pointing out– but an inquiring adult might well ask “Just how long does it take this bunny to say goodnight to all this stuff, anyway?”
Well, we can answer this question with SCIENCE! You see, there are six pictures in the book showing the moon through one of the room’s windows, and as the book goes along, the moon moves higher in the window. This provides a way to estimate the passage of time in the book.
4. Conspicuous Consumption of the Week: The craze for vanity mobile phone numbers in Kuwait has reached a new level after the easy-to-remember number 55555555 was sold for [$750,000 U.S. dollars].
5. Fact of the Week: Average teen sends 3,339 texts per month
6. Weird News of the Week: Crocodile on plane kills 19 passengers
A stowaway crocodile on a flight escaped from its carrier bag and sparked an onboard stampede that caused the flight to crash, killing 19 passengers and crew.
The croc had been hidden in a passenger’s sports bag – allegedly with plans to sell it – but it tore loose and ran amok, sparking panic.
A stampede of terrified passengers caused the small aircraft to lose balance and tip over in mid-air during an internal flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
7. LBJ Almost Accidentally Shot Hours After JFK Assassination
A former Secret Service agent says in his new book that he nearly shot President Lyndon B. Johnson hours after John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
In “The Kennedy Detail,” Gerald Blaine recalls standing guard outside the Washington home of newly sworn-in President Johnson in the early hours of Nov. 23, 1963.
Blaine heard footsteps approaching. He picked up his submachine gun and, in the darkness, pointed it at the chest of a man who turned out to be Johnson.
Blaine writes that the enormity of what had almost happened left him chilled. He realized that, 14 hours after losing one president, the nation had almost lost another one by his hand.
8. Quote of the Week: “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” – Andy Warhol
9. Do Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol?
The next time you’re inclined to enjoy an extra glass of wine, consider that it may be a reflection of your intelligence.
That is one of the findings from data from the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States.
[. . .]
More intelligent children in both studies grew up to drink alcohol more frequently and in greater quantities than less intelligent children. In the Brits’ case, “very bright” children grew up to consume nearly eight-tenths of a standard deviation more alcohol than their “very dull” cohorts.
10. Top 10 Lesser Known Mysteries
11. 2012 Mayan apocalypse calculation might be off
It’s a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan “Long Count” calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn’t end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will — or if it has already.
12. Image of the Week: Bence Mate, Fly to Eye
13. Art Tool of the Week: Mural Locator – Locate Murals Around the World
14. Founding Fathers’ papers to be accessible online
History buffs will soon be able to explore the private thoughts and official writings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers in a public, online clearinghouse of their letters, journals and other documents.
The University of Virginia Press is putting the published papers of Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin on a National Archives website that is expected to be accessible to the public in 2012.
When complete, the website will allow users to read, browse and search the text of tens of thousands of documents from the period.
15. Top 10 Unusual or Unique Flags
16. Spain Holds National Siesta Competition
The competitors started off by lying down. On blue sofas. Some in pajamas. Most fast asleep and a few on the verge of snoring.
What is billed as Spain’s first national siesta championship is underway in Madrid.
It’s something of a wake-up call for a country that’s become so fast-paced that many say the traditional siesta is at risk.
“The modern life is a danger that we feel is against the siesta. When you sleep la siesta everyone has the image that your life is calm, you have a good life. And then, the modern life is a direct attack,” said Daniel Blanco, president of the National Association of Friends of the Siesta.
(Via: Neatarama)
17. Infographic of the Week: Just How Massive Is Google, Anyway?
18. Airplane food tastes bad because your brain can’t handle the noise
Generally speaking, it’s not just that airplane food tastes bad – most passengers, when asked, report that the food is bland and a bit flavorless. Airlines have been very heavily seasoning and salting their foods for years in an attempt to counteract that, but they don’t have much success to show for it. As it turns out, it might have been easier to just figure out a way to make the engines run silently.
That rather strange conclusion comes from a new study at the University of Manchester. Researcher Andy Woods noticed airplanes weren’t the only place where food had to be heavily seasoned to get any flavor, and he wondered about a possible connection . . .
19. 20 mad scientists who turned against their creations
20. Ten Things Learned from Watching ‘Mission: Impossible’ Reruns
If the mission takes place in a foreign country, don’t worry about not being able to speak the language. Native speakers communicate in accented English, even when no English speakers are around. (Corollary: to convince a native speaker that you are from his country, put on the appropriate accent.)
22. HistoricalLOL of the Week
23. 8 Natural Disasters of Ancient Times
24. World’s Most Considerate Computer Thief Backs Up Victim’s Data, Mails It to Him
When a professor at Sweden’s Umea University had his computer stolen, he was devastated by the loss of his data more than anything. But a week after the theft, he got a package in the mail: A USB drive.
The thief had backed up his data and mailed it to him.
25. Monet 2010 is an interactive experience celebrating Claude Monet for the historic exhibition at Grand Palais, Paris, France. By clicking on ‘Journey’ you can see Monet’s work at a glance through a unique digital experience. (Via: The Presurfer)
26. Understanding Alphanumeric Phone-Numbers
These days, telephone numbers are just…numbers. A sequence of digits which, when entered into your phone correctly, should bring you in contact with the owner of number who should be the person you want to speak to. Simple, isn’t it? And yet, some of us may remember a time, perhaps not too long ago, when a telephone-number didn’t start with a number, but rather a series of letters or a word. Welcome to nostalgic and at times, confusing world of alphanumeric telephone numbers.
(Via: Neatorama)
27. How-To of the Week: Buy a Home at a $100,000 Discount
28. 10 Notable Buildings People Hated
29. Engineer Uses Knowledge Physics to Save a Life
Driving to a Mariners game, Duane Innes saw a pickup ahead of him drift across lanes of traffic, sideswipe a concrete barrier and continue forward on the inside shoulder at about 40 mph.
A manager of Boeing’s F22 fighter-jet program, Innes dodged the truck, then looked back to see that the driver was slumped over the wheel. He knew a busy intersection was just ahead, and he had to act fast. Without consulting the passengers in his minivan — “there was no time to take a vote” — Innes kicked into engineer mode.
“Basic physics: If I could get in front of him and let him hit me, the delta difference in speed would just be a few miles an hour, and we could slow down together,” Innes explained
(Via: Geekosystem)
30. Top 10 Fast Food Recipes You Can Make at Home
31. A Rainfall Theory of Democracy
hy have some countries remained obstinately authoritarian despite repeated waves of democratization while others have exhibited uninterrupted democracy? This paper explores the emergence and persistence of authoritarianism and democracy. We argue that settled agriculture requires moderate levels of precipitation, and that settled agriculture eventually gave birth to the fundamental institutions that under-gird today’s stable democracies. Although all of the world’s societies were initially tribal, the bonds of tribalism weakened in places where the surpluses associated with settled agriculture gave rise to trade, social differentiation, and taxation. In turn, the economies of scale required to efficiently administer trade and taxes meant that feudalism was eventually replaced by the modern territorial state, which favored the initial emergence of representative institutions in Western Europe.
(Via: Marginal Revolution)
32. 5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident
33. How to (Safely) Set Yourself on Fire
Note: Don’t actually do this.
October 22nd, 2010 | 8:46 pm
It is often the case, errors and exaggerations in one direction cause an equal and opposite reaction which is just as erroneous in the other direction. Such is the case in “Ten Myths About the Middle Ages”, which is a conflation of misdirection, exaggeration, straw men and outright error, with only a couple of instances of reality.
Specifically:
1. The death penalty was common in the Middle Ages. As compared to when? Certainly, things were not as bad as in Georgian England, where some 200 offenses (mostly against property) were punishable by death, but as compared to today, or even in 19th century America, it was a relatively common penalty. The article states that only the most important offenses were subject to capital punishment–but then neglects to note how common those capital offenses were, particularly murder. At the end it brings in execution for heresy, which really was not a major issue until the 15th century. On the other hand, at different times and in different places, the death penalty was imposed more often, and for a wider range of crimes (including sodomy and homosexual acts).
2. The starving poor. The article falsely implies that the poor were “kept’ in a state of near starvation, and then goes on to imply that they had a wholesome, balanced and plentiful diet. The truth is, while nobody deliberately starved the peasantry, all of Europe lived on a near-subsistence level through the Middle Ages, and, due to poor transportation and the collapse of international trade, a local surplus one year could become a local famine the next. Even when food was plentiful, the diet was unbalanced, leaning heavily towards starches and, in the winter, dangerously short on critical vitamins and minerals.
The introduction of legumes was largely responsible for the rise in population in the 11-13th centuries, but with the onset of the Little Ice Age in the 14th century, repeated crop failures led to widespread hunger and in some areas, outright starvation, which, combined with the arrival of the Black Death, reduced Europe’s population by at least one third.
3. Thatched Roofs. Yes, thatch roofs are watertight and durable. But yes, they are prone to infestations of vermin, particularly rats and fleas. Rats, of course, simply eat their way through the thatch. In medieval houses, which have what we would call “cathedral ceilings”, rat droppings and fleas would simply fall through the bottom side of the roof onto the floor of the dwelling below. Also, thatch was quite prone to fire, which is why municipalities gradually required them to be replaced by fireproof (and more sanitary) clay tiles.
4. Smelly people. While people in the Middle Ages did bathe, they did not do so with the frequency of Americans, but more importantly, they did not (and could not) wash their clothing with the frequency and thoroughness that we do. Even the modern French would think the people of the middle ages stank. Anna Comnena though the Franks stank–but then, the Byzantines were truly civilized people.
5. Peasant life. Anyone who does not think the peasantry led a life of drudgery and back-breaking work, is welcome to give it a try for a week.
6. Violence everywhere. There was. War was endemic, as was murder, assault and robbery. A look at the assize rolls shows that personal security was tenuous at best. Again, the article brings up the irrelevancy of the Inquisition, and puts the Middle Ages in comparison with the slaughter of the 20th century, ignoring the differences between the manual slaughter of the Middle Ages and the mechanized slaughter of the industrial age. Moreover, in the 20th century, in the developed world, at least, the most horrific violence has been limited to periods of international conflict or civil war, whereas in the Middle Ages, violence was endemic at all times. Feuds and private wars did inordinate damage to persons and property, especially given the much smaller size of the population at the time. Read the Paston Letters, for example.
7. Oppressed Women. Depends on what you mean by oppressed. Upper class women had a certain degree of freedom and were capable of accumulating considerable power and wealth in their own right; on the other hand, they were generally pawns in dynastic politics, living in arranged marriages and viewed largely as brood mares. As for lower class women, they, like lower class men, were pretty much oppressed by our standards. That’s why there were peasant rebellions all the time.
Those items aside, the article is correct in stating that the medievals were not the ignorant yahoos frequently depicted in popular culture; they did not think they were living in the “Dark Ages” (or, as William Manchester put it, “An Age Lit Only By Fire”). They read the Bible (those few who could read, and could afford books). They knew the Earth was round. They could design and build elaborate castles, magnificent cathedrals, water- and wind-powered mills, and ocean-going sailing vessels. They brought agriculture to a level it had not known in the classical period, developed the rudiments of modern scientific method, and laid the foundation for the Renaissance. On the other hand, nobody in his right mind would trade our world for theirs.
October 22nd, 2010 | 9:57 pm
“In Praise of the Inferiority Complex”
—Rémi Brague, Au Moyen Du Moyen Âge: Philosophies médiévales en chrétienté, judaïsme et islam, tr. Lydia G. Cochrane “The Legend of the Middle Ages,” U. Chicago (2009), pp. 38-39.
October 22nd, 2010 | 11:28 pm
Thanks for the alpahnumeric telephone number link. I’ve wondered how those worked many times when I watched old movies or TV shows.
October 23rd, 2010 | 1:57 am
It’s puzzling, maybe disturbing, to describe a white human raised by gorillas as “transracial adoption.”
October 23rd, 2010 | 3:53 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Krista Lee, Francis W. Szarejko. Francis W. Szarejko said: Thirty Three Things (v. 20) » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog: http://bit.ly/cjbsDC via @addthis Check out this week's edition. [...]
October 23rd, 2010 | 7:28 pm
That license plate in Kuwait (eight “5″s) would look like this, using Arabic numerals:
00000000
October 23rd, 2010 | 8:32 pm
One notes that Mrs. Grundy would not even blink at at many of the families described as abnormal. Widows and widowers raising their children alone, or with a stepparent, would raise not an eyebrow. Neither would a sister raising her orphaned sister.
October 24th, 2010 | 7:50 am
On the subject of dysfunctional families in literature and entertainment: as Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are the same, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. That’s why, from the beginning, literature has focused on the dysfunctional: it creates conflict and unique situations, which in turn leads to great stories.
What family could be more dysfunctional than that of the Olympians? What’s more depraved than the story of Oedipus Rex? How good was the home life of Agammemnon, or Odysseus? Hercules had both mommy and daddy issues.
Moving down into modern times, find me one happy family in Shakespeare, or Dickens. Pushkin certainly showed us a happy family in Eugene Onegin, Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, Flaubert in Madame Bovary. Let’s not get started on Dostoevsky, either.
Go to the kid lit side, and simply look at the original (unexpurgated) stories of the Brothers Grimm.
And, finally, there is the Bible–one long, extended discourse on the most dysfunctional family of all time–mankind.
Tolkien wrote, “Every great story is really about the Fall”. That’s because the story of the Fall is not only our story, but God’s story, and man, as a subcreator created in God’s own image and likeness, is working out variations on a theme.
October 24th, 2010 | 10:13 am
“It’s puzzling, maybe disturbing, to describe a white human raised by gorillas as ‘transracial adoption.’”
It’s not so puzzling when you read the link to the article and discover that Jae Ran Kim, the social worker who made the list, has been published in an anthology on “transracial adoption” and describes herself as a being part of a “mult-racial family.” Looks like she was poking fun at herself.
October 24th, 2010 | 5:01 pm
[...] HT [...]
October 24th, 2010 | 6:07 pm
Re #1, My favorite movie as a kid was Pippi Longstocking, not Disney but similar. She lived alone with barnyard animals while her pirate Dad was out at sea, no Mom at all. She was very nice. I miss Pippi.
October 24th, 2010 | 8:52 pm
There is a huge Pippi Longstocking museum in Stockholm–which, when you think about it, is really a big come down for a country that was once the terror of Europe.
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