Monday, May 24, 2010

More interests

7. World Geography and Culture
  • Geography instruction for K12 (Geoculture Club | Geoclub )
  • Demographic trends
  • Anthropology and ethnography
  • Statehood and minority populations
  • Immigration policy and impact
8. Vestiges of Proto-Indo-European religion and mythology
9. Women's Rights Abuses
  • Female genital mutilation (circumcision and infibulation) 
  • Honor killings
  • Lack of birth control
  • Female infanticide (India, Tibet, China)
  • Female as property
10.  Russian Literature
11.  Useful Languages to Improve my Proficiency
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Russian
  • Arabic
  • Hindi
  • Mandarin
12. Ancient languages
  • Biblical Hebrew
  • Sanskrit
  • Biblical Greek
  • Avestan
  • Latin
  • Old English
13.  Organized Extremism which threatens American Democracy
  • Muslim extremism (funded by Gulf-state and Iranian extremists)
  • Libertarian extremism (tea-baggers, Rupert Murdoch, etc.)
  • Other religious fundamentalists (Christian, Mormon, Jewish, etc.)
  • ? (What will happen when there is a critical mass of people out of work?)
14.  Adoption Issues
  • Identity formation in adoptees in closed adoptions who know they were adopted
  • The Adoptee and orphan in world mythology and art
  • Adoption and Abortion - unfortunately, they really are linked for mothers who want to deny having ever given birth
  • Reconnecting - One candy-coated can of worms many adoptees desperately desire
  • Being adopted as an existential state
  • The concept of adoptee rights vs. a mother's desire to get rid of her baby
 15. Theater
16.  Cinema
17.  Mongols

18. Religion

19. Speciation

20. Rationality and Mysticism - How they co-exist
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    Saturday, May 22, 2010

    The Interest Files

    Geneva called yesterday and told me that she is cleaning her stuff out of her mom's garage and that she is trying to make files out of various items compiled over the years which correspond to 20 of her broad areas of interest.  As a journalist, she said that this is especially helpful in solidifying what information you have on a given topic.  I thought it might be helpful if I did the same, at least in the abstract, trying to organize my broad interests into neat categories and subcategories.  Here we go.

    1. Displaced and Misunderstood Minorities
    • The Jews
    • Gypsies/Roma
    • Zoroastrians/Parsees
    • Adoptees
    2. Zoroastrianism and its permutations
    • Zoroastrianism's impact/shared features with Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Mazdaism, Manicheaism and other early Eastern faiths
    • Remnants of Zoroastrianism in modern communities: Parsees, Iran, The Yazidi Kurds, Central Asian remnants
    • Avestan and the Avesta, shared properties with Sanskrit and other IE languages
    • The hedgehog in Zoroastrian theology and mythology 
    3. Tribal Supremacism and Mob Mentality
    • Northern European ("white") supremacist groups such as Nazis, Aryan Nation, StormFront, National Front, etc.  
    • Religious supremacist groups such as Al Qaeda, Kahane Chai, Hindutva movement, etc.
    • Caste systems such as in India, pre-Thatcher Great Britain, etc.
    • Anti-miscegenation laws in religious and secular law
    • Notions of race and culture
    4. Poetry
    • Forms of poetry
    • Translation of poetry
    • Performance of poetry (The Raven, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, etc.)
    • Poetry slams
    • Poetry games such as those we used to create "wacky tapes"
    • Teaching poetry
     5. Linguistics
    • Comparative Indo-European linguistics, Historical IE linguistics
    • Endangered languages
    • Second language learning and instruction
     6. Web Technologies
    • Want to learn Flash to make instructional games
    • Want to learn Joomla
    I'm sure I'll think of more later, but these are the ones that come to mind the most right now.
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