Molecule Of The Day - DDT

+heroes of nusantara: multatuli

YES, I, Multatuli, “who have suffered much,”—I take the pen. I do not make any excuses for the form of my book,—that form was thought proper to obtain my object…. I will be read! Yes, I will be read. I will be read by statesmen who are obliged to pay attention to the signs of the times; by men of letters, who must also look into the book of which so many bad things are said; by merchants, who have an interest in the coffee auctions; by lady’s-maids, who read me for a few farthings; by governors-general in retirement; by ministers who have something to do; by the lackeys of these Excellencies; by mutes, who, more majorum, will say that I attack God Almighty, when I attack only the god which they made according to their own image; by the members of the representative chambers, who must know what happens in the extensive possessions over the sea which belong to Holland….  

Ay, I shall be read!

Eduard Douwes Dekker was born in Amsterdam, March 2nd 1820. His father was a ship’s captain and intended for his son to have a career in trade. This humdrum prospect disgusted Douwes Dekker and in 1838 he obtained a post as a civil servant on the island of Java. During the period between 1848 and 1851 Douwes Dekker eventually rose to serve as assistant resident in various regencies in the Indonesian archipelago including Natal, North Sumatra, Manado in Sulawesi and Ambon in the Moluccas. In 1857 he was transferred to Lebak, in the Bantam residency of Java (now Banten province). By this time, however, all the secrets of Dutch administration were known to him, and he had begun to openly protest about the abuses of the colonial system. Consequently, he was threatened with dismissal from his office for his openness of speech. Douwes Dekker resigned his appointment and returned to the Netherlands.

He was determined to expose in detail the scandals he had witnessed, and he began to do so in newspaper articles and pamphlets. Little notice, however, was taken of his protestations until, in 1860, he published his novel Max Havelaar under the pseudonym of Multatuli. Douwes Dekker’s new pseudonym, which is derived from Latin, means, “I have suffered much”, or, more literally “I have borne much” referring to himself, as well as, it is thought, to the victims of the injustices he saw. An attempt was made to suppress the inflammatory book, but in vain; it was read all over Europe. Apologists for colonialism accused Douwes Dekker’s horrific depictions of being exaggerated.

[ his statue in amsterdam ]

Although it was translated into English in 1868, the text wasn’t available in the author’s home country until over a century later in 1972. Collectively, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar has been translated into 34 different languages worldwide since its initial publication. Credited as the stirring initiation of the nationalist movement responsible for the termination of Dutch colonization of Indonesia following World War II, Max Havelaar’s legacy is not confined to literary accomplishment, but can be considered a work of great political success and inspired social liberation. Max Havelaar’s influence on the national movement ultimately culminated in the passionate command to end decolonization worldwide. The story of Max Havelaar illuminates the inhumane and political injustices brutally imposed upon the native peoples of the region.

Sigmund Freud listed Multatuli as one of his favorite writers. Multatuli’s brother, Jan Douwes Dekker, was the grandfather of Ernest Douwes Dekker (also known as Danudirja Setiabudi, a National Hero of Indonesia). There is a museum for him in Amsterdam. Multatuli is also known as the person who coined the term emerald of equator, a poetic nickname of Indonesia.

This book is an introduction….  I shall increase in strength and sharpness of weapons, according as it may be necessary.    Heaven grant that it may not be necessary!…    No, it will not be necessary! For it is to thee I dedicate my book: WILLIAM THE THIRD, King, Grand Duke, Prince,… more than Prince, Grand Duke, and King,… EMPEROR of the magnificent empire of INSULIND, which winds about the equator like a garland of emeralds!…    I ask THEE if it be thine IMPERIAL will that the Havelaars should be bespattered with the mud of Slymerings and Drystubbles; and that thy more than thirty millions of SUBJECTS far away should be ill treated and should suffer extortion in THY name!

source: wikipedia; culture trip

quotes from bartleby, excerpt of max havelaar

further reading: paper on multatuli

In 1992, a man named Wu Anai, near a Chinese village in Longyou County, based on a hunch, began to pump water out of a pond in his village. Anai believed the pond was not natural, nor was it infinitely deep as the local lore went, and he decided to prove it. He convinced some of his villagers and together they bought a water pump and began to siphon water out of the pond. After 17 days of pumping, the water level fell enough to reveal the flooded entrance to an ancient, man-made cave!

The cave has twenty-four rooms. There are pillars, staircases, and high ceilings over 30 meters (98 ft!) up. The work was done by humans, we know, because they left visible chisel marks in uniform bands of parallel groves. With over 30,000 square meters of space, all meticulously chiseled, this would have been a huge undertaking. Even if people were simply enlarging caves which already existed, it would still have required a lot of manpower working in a coordinated system for a long period of time.

Since the project would have been so large, it seems amazing that no record of it exists in China’s extensive written history. But there is not a word. Based on the cave alone, it is estimated to have been completed around 200 BCE, near the Qin Dynasty or Han Dynasties.

He really put himself into the character.

Useful :)

A degree with a difference: using South African sign language instead of the written word

This Masters degree sets a precedent in South Africa and gives universities that want to be truly inclusive a lot to think about.

Nyeleti Nokwazi Nkwinika was a year into her Master’s dissertation in English, and she was struggling. This has nothing to do with her work ethic: the problem lay with her hearing. Nyeleti was born deaf and like many others in her situation, she battles with written language.

Most deaf people are born into hearing families who don’t have any skills in Sign Language. In Nyeleti’s case, she only learned to use South African Sign Language fluently at school. When she got to high school she attended a mainstream hearing school with several other top performing deaf pupils from her previous school.

By then, she had missed out on too many years of access to English. South African Sign Language and English are differently structured. This can make it hard to learn for deaf people who’ve only ever used sign language to communicate. It’s also very difficult to learn written English when one has never heard the language or used it for conversational purposes.

Rishi coffin for a commoner

Second Intermediate Period, Dynasty 17, 1580–1550 B.C. (find spot unknown)

In Dynasty 17 a new type of coffin appeared in Thebes: anthropoid, but no longer conceived solely as an inner coffin, and resting on its back because of a change in funerary customs whereby the deceased was no longer laid on one side. The anthropoid coffin was to become the burial container of choice among royals and commoners alike. The earliest examples are decorated in paint with a feather pattern, and so they are known by the Arabic word for “feathered,” rishi. Carved from local sycamore because the Thebans no longer had access to imported cedar, all rishi coffins, royal or private, show the deceased wearing the royal nemes headdress. This example was clearly a stock item made for a commoner, for a blank space was left for the owner’s name to be inserted at the end of the vertical inscription on the lid (a conventional offering formula for the dead).

Great vulture’s wings envelop the legs and lower abdomen. Even the top of the headdress is decorated with a feather pattern so that the deceased appears as a human-headed bird according to the concept of the ba, or mobile spirit. The ba could travel to any place and transform itself into anything it desired. The face on the coffin is painted black, not to represent the unknown owner’s race but to reinforce his identification with Osiris. The flesh of the god of death and resurrection was often shown as black or green to signify the black silt that fertilized the land with each year’s Nile flood, and the new life in the form of green vegetation that it brought forth. Painted on the chest is a pectoral, or chest ornament, in the form of a vulture and cobra, symbols of Nekhbet and Wadjyt, the tutelary goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Source: Museum of Fine Arts Boston

IT’S FOLLOW A LIBRARY DAY!! (according to Twitter)

In honor of this excellent bookish occasion, allow us to give special shout outs to all of the libraries that we have followed and/or have followed us here on Tumblr. For all of you bookworms and library cats out there that can’t get enough Booklrs, make sure to check these pages out and #followalibrary!!

@alachualibrary (The Alachua County Library District)

@badgerslrc (The Klamath Community College’s Learning Research Center)

@bflteens (Baker Free Library’s Tumblr For Teens)

@bibliosanvalentino​ (Biblioteca San Valentino [San Valentino Library])

@boonelibrary (Boone County Public Library)

@cheshirelibrary (Cheshire Public Library)

@cmclibraryteen​ (Cape May County Library’s Teen Services)

@darienlibrary (Darien Library)

@dcpubliclibrary (DC Public Library)

@detroitlib (Detroit Public Library Music, Arts & Literature Department)

@dplteens (Danville Public Library Teens)

@fontanalib (Fontana Regional Library)

@gastonlibrary (Gaston County Public Library)

@glendaleteenlibrary (Glendale Public Library Teens)

@hpl-teens (Homewood Public Library For Teens)

@myrichlandlibrary (Mansfield/Richland County Public Library)

@othmeralia  (Othmer Library of Chemical History)

@petit-branch-library (Petit Branch Library)

@pflibteens (Pflugerville Public Library Teenspace)

@schlowlibrary (Schlow Centre Region Library)

@southeastlibrary (Southeast Branch Library)

@tampabaylibraryconsortium-blog (Tampa Bay Library Consortium)

@teencenterspl (The Smith Public Library Teen Center)

@teensfvrl (Fraser Valley Regional Library)

@teen-stuff-at-the-library (White Oak Library District)

@ucflibrary (University of Central Florida Library)

@waynecountyteenzone (Wayne County Public Library’s Teen Space)

Hopefully we didn’t miss anyone! (And, you know, if you’re not already following US, now’s a good a chance as any. ;) Just putting it out there.)

Complex learning dismantles barriers in the brain

Biology lessons teach us that the brain is divided into separate areas, each of which processes a specific sense. But findings published in eLife show we can supercharge it to be more flexible.

Scientists at the Jagiellonian University in Poland taught Braille to sighted individuals and found that learning such a complex tactile task activates the visual cortex, when you’d only expect it to activate the tactile one.

“The textbooks tell us that the visual cortex processes visual tasks while the tactile cortex, called the somatosensory cortex, processes tasks related to touch,” says lead author Marcin Szwed from Jagiellonian University.

“Our findings tear up that view, showing we can establish new connections if we undertake a complex enough task and are given long enough to learn it.”

The findings could have implications for our power to bend different sections of the brain to our will by learning other demanding skills, such as playing a musical instrument or learning to drive. The flexibility occurs because the brain overcomes the normal division of labour and establishes new connections to boost its power.

It was already known that the brain can reorganize after a massive injury or as a result of massive sensory deprivation such as blindness. The visual cortex of the blind, deprived of its input, adapts for other tasks such as speech, memory, and reading Braille by touch. There has been speculation that this might also be possible in the normal, adult brain, but there has been no conclusive evidence.

“For the first time we’re able to show that large-scale reorganization is a viable mechanism that the sighted, adult brain is able to recruit when it is sufficiently challenged,” says Szwed.

Over nine months, 29 volunteers were taught to read Braille while blindfolded. They achieved reading speeds of between 0 and 17 words per minute. Before and after the course, they took part in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment to test the impact of their learning on regions of the brain. This revealed that following the course, areas of the visual cortex, particularly the Visual Word Form Area, were activated and that connections with the tactile cortex were established.

In an additional experiment using transcranial magnetic stimulation, scientists applied magnetic field from a coil to selectively suppress the Visual Word Form Area in the brains of nine volunteers. This impaired their ability to read Braille, confirming the role of this site for the task. The results also discount the hypothesis that the visual cortex could have just been activated because volunteers used their imaginations to picture Braille dots.

“We are all capable of retuning our brains if we’re prepared to put the work in,” says Szwed.

He asserts that the findings call for a reassessment of our view of the functional organization of the human brain, which is more flexible than the brains of other primates.

“The extra flexibility that we have uncovered might be one those features that made us human, and allowed us to create a sophisticated culture, with pianos and Braille alphabet,” he says.

Ojiya chijimi summer kimono, seen on

This type of kimono is made in Niigata prefecture (old Echigo province). Hemp kimono fabric bolt (tanmono) are laid outside to be whitened by sunlight reflecting on the snow. This process is similar to the one used for yuki-tsumugi kimono, and both are registrered as UNESCO Immaterial Heritage.

This process is depicted in Kawabata’s Yukiguni (Snow country)

The chijimi creased effect is considered very chic. Snow-made fabrics are especially appreciated for summer clothings.