On August 31, 2004, a naked, bruised man was
discovered behind a Burger King at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Highway 17 in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He had
no memory of who he was. Fingerprint and DNA searches were
unsuccessful. His identity
continues to remain
missing.
posted by vidur
on Dec 5, 2011 -
90 comments
Male, Female, X - you know what you are Australian passport holders will now get to choose what gender they want to be listed as, with the choices including 'X' for intersex.
(Apologies for the single link. An amazing topic, but I am not the most knowledgeable on this and hope those who are can come and comment on it).
posted by Megami
on Sep 15, 2011 -
76 comments
Odessa, Texas, may be best known for its Permian Panthers high school football team. Their 1988 season was chronicled H. G. Bissinger's non-fiction book
Friday Night Lights, which in turn inspired a
movie and a
tv show. But in 2010, it was another Permian Panthers -- the school's lesser-known basketball team -- that received media attention when it came to light that their star point guard, 16-year-old Jerry Joseph, was in fact a
twentytwo-year-old man named Guerdwich Montimere. Now Montimere is facing up to twenty years in jail, but not for lying about his age on the basketball court. During his time at Permian High, he had sex with a fifteen-year-old girl.
posted by Georgina
on Jul 11, 2011 -
42 comments
What Do You Do When Your Only Online Identity is a Pseudonym? In a move reminiscent of recent Facebook purges, a well-known Second Life user (whose only online presence is pseudonymous) finds his
new Google+ account deleted, allegedly for not being a real person. Whether this move is directly related to the limited-beta status of Google+ or not, questions remain for those who have been 'unpersoned' by Facebook and hopeful that Google's laissez-faire attitude toward personal identification would make G+ a friendlier environment - particularly given Google's encouragement -
as recently as February of this year - to "be who you want to be" when using Google services.
posted by tpoh.org
on Jul 8, 2011 -
189 comments
"How is one to know which
aspect of a person counts as that person’s
true self?" Does it lie "precisely in our suppressed urges and unacknowledged emotions, while our ability to reflect is just a hindrance that gets in the way of this true self’s expression?" Or is "the most distinctive and essential to a human being is the capacity for rational reflection?" Or is the authentic self "the
ideologically-validated self"?
posted by AceRock
on Jun 9, 2011 -
51 comments
Microaggressions. This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt - acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.
posted by prefpara
on Jan 21, 2011 -
56 comments
Why does Futura work here but Slanted Futura doesn't? Enter
FONTS IN USE: A breakdown, explanation and appreciation of type design out in the real world.
posted by The Whelk
on Jan 3, 2011 -
17 comments
Paul Rand was one of the great graphic designers of modern times, designing among other things, logos for Westinghouse, ABC, IBM and UPS. The website has
galleries of
book design,
posters,
logos, and much more (open images in new tab or window to see the full-sized image, some books have image galleries, look for a "see inside" button). You can also read his
thoughts on design,
watch interviews and videos about him, and follow the
many links to interesting online Randiana.
posted by Kattullus
on Aug 9, 2010 -
24 comments
The End of Men , in The Atlantic. An article about the rise of women (now over 50% of the U.S. workforce), and implications of the attendant changes for both women and men.
[more inside]
posted by marble
on Jun 10, 2010 -
161 comments
A well-dressed man wakes up in a Seattle city park. He has $600 in his sock and no memory of who he is or how he got there. He is fluent in English, French and German and has an apparent deep knowledge of European cultural history. He seems to have traveled the world. And he says he is a widower. Doctors suspect he is not faking it but they don’t know how to help. Police are stumped as well.
[more inside]
posted by bz
on Aug 20, 2009 -
75 comments
Slavoj Žižek
recently gave five talks under the title Masterclass - Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture. It sez 'ere, "The master class analyses phenomena of modern thought and culture with the intention to discern elements of possible Communist culture. It moves at two levels: first, it interprets some cultural phenomena (from today’s architecture to classic literary works like Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise) as failures to imagine or enact a Communist culture; second, it explores attempts at imagining how a Communist culture could look, from Wagner’s Ring to Kafka’s and Beckett’s short stories and contemporary science fiction novels." Audio of Zizek's talks and subsequent discussion is now online:
Part I Utopias;
Part II Architecture as Ideology;
Part III Wagner’s Ring as a Communist narrative;
Part IV Populism and Democracy;
Part V Environment, Identity and Multiculturalism. Those who like to watch the beard in motion will find links to video of some of the talks posted
here.
posted by Abiezer
on Jun 22, 2009 -
29 comments
The commercials are all over television — and they certainly are attention-grabbing. They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought — including a bustier. Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned. Identity theft is a serious crime — one that is occurring with an alarming frequency. The
Identity Theft Manifesto explains
how criminals get your personal info, and
what you can do about it.
posted by netbros
on Jun 1, 2009 -
15 comments
At nightfall youth gangs transform the streets of Kinshasa's townships into arenas of the fight. Although many of these boys and young men are trained in foreign fighting styles such as judo, jujitsu and karate, in the public clashes between the fighting groups, these boys and young men perform
mukumbusu.
This fighting style, inspired and based on the gorilla, was invented during the last decade of colonialism, and is an original mixture of a traditional Mongo wrestling practice,
libanda, and Asian and Western fighting practices.
An essay from
Edinburgh University's Center of African Studies (PDF - or
accessmylibrary link)
[more inside]
posted by Smedleyman
on Jan 13, 2009 -
15 comments
"In Loveland, Colorado -- population 61,000, 92 percent white and heavily evangelical Christian -- Michelle didn't know what to expect when she began to work with the school to facilitate her daughter's transition from a boy to a girl. At first, it was difficult. The school 'freaked out when I told them,' Michelle says. 'When we started with M.J.'s transition, I was envisioning riots.' And so Michelle became an advocate for transgender people -- those who identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Michelle organized trainings for the faculty and staff and prepared 'cheat sheets' in case any of their students asked prying questions.
But on the first day of school, nothing happened." -
Trans in the Red States by Jeremy Bearer-Friend and Daniel Redman.
[via Obsidian Wings]
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 13, 2008 -
21 comments
HEMA (Hollandse Eenheidsprijzen Maatschapij Amsterdam) is a quintessentially Dutch department store chain, specialised in selling unbranded no-nonsense goods at low prices. It is also known for its whimsical (
previously) advertising and strong corporate identity.
The art collective
Mediamatic decided to have a few multicultural laughs by launching
"El Hema", an Arabic/Muslim version of the Dutch classic.
[more inside]
posted by Skeptic
on Nov 12, 2007 -
13 comments
A Website about Corporate Identity. A large archive of corporation logos with design credits, typeface identification (or, at least the typographic roots of the ID's.) and Pantone color information. Not at all complete, but it's a very nice start. Hopefully it will continue to expand.
via:
Grain Edit (design blog)
posted by JBennett
on Nov 7, 2007 -
11 comments
