quote:If you google “geomagnetic storms”, you will not get many sources dealing with people’s health. Experts both in Europe and America admit that sometimes the sun’s actions can harm communication with space missions, and one particularly strong storm caused a major power shortage in Montreal. But in Russian search engines, thousands of links and news pieces deal with “magnitnye buri,” and their ill-effects (sometimes mortal) on the human body. Something that happens on the Sun is supposed to affect people from Helsinki to Buenos Aires, not Russians exclusively. Right?
My theory is that geomagnetic storms are sort of a cultural fable--maybe every country has a national malaise, a media-propagated inanimate adversary that just keeps everyone on guard. Or, as some Russophobes argue, it’s just another excuse for Russians to stop working and lounge on a sofa, Oblomov-style.
Finding an entirely corresponding example of an American national malaise is difficult, but realistic. I have always been curious, for example, about why PMS is such a big deal in the United States. Having PMS has almost become a part of being American — if you don’t think you have it, the media will help you find its symptoms anyway. Even if you are a guy. After all, they did discover something called “male PMS” recently. Having PMS is okay, you’re told in a comforting tone, don’t be scared, it’s not your fault.
In Russia no one knows what PMS is. Searching PMS on Russian internet I find an article titled “post modernity today,” and lots of alphabet soup-type administrative acronyms. Younger generation may have heard of it, but we can write that off as sneaky western influence on innocent girls, acting through half-baked translations from “Cosmopolitan.”
posted
If it's a "half-baked" translation from Cosmopolitan, does that mean the information is now quarter-baked? (or would it then be 3/4-baked?)
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I was just questioning whether "half-baked" was reductive or additive. I guess if you had a muffin and you half-baked it, then someone else half-baked it again it would then be 3/4-baked.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I thinks it's more like using pre-baked ingredients.
Let's suppose that for some bizarre reason you bought some Chex that was only half-baked, and made Chex Mix from it. Now only half-bake that Chex Mix. This batch would be even less than half baked, since it would be less baked than half-baked Chex Mix made from fully-baked Chex Mix.
quote: In Russia no one knows what PMS is. Searching PMS on Russian internet I find an article titled “post modernity today,” and lots of alphabet soup-type administrative acronyms.
Because, you know, the words in Russian obviously start with the same initials, and of course they use an abbreviation to refer to it.
Not that I'm saying that it's not a product of our decandant country. Just that doing a search for the American term on the Russian language internet is a pretty piss-poor way of proving a point.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I know it's real. I get weepy, and it goes in cycles. Reading my livejournal is hilarious to me because the emotion pictures go happy, happy, happy, happy, depressed, sad, happy, happy, happy, happy, sobbing, depressed, happy, happy, happy - the sad ones occur at the same time of the month every month.
When I was a teenager, my dad told my brothers to start watching the moon. That was a jerk thing to actually say, but I do believe it's real.
Posts: 1163 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Katie, my husband has pointed out that you and I are apparently on the same schedule. The thing is, I'm still having post-baby few or no periods, but I get PMS anyway. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Looking at her other articles, she's got a dry-ish sense of humor. She seems to write about Russian lifestyle stuff for the international audience.
Posts: 720 | Registered: Oct 2004
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