Milgram Obedience Study replicated 50 years later

Stanley Milgram was an assistant professor at Yale University in 1961 when he conducted the first in a series of experiments in which subjects – thinking they were testing the effect of punishment on learning – administered what they believed were increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person in a separate room. An authority figure conducting the experiment prodded the first person, who was assigned the role of "teacher" to continue shocking the other person, who was playing the role of "learner." In reality, both the authority figure and the learner were in on the real intent of the experiment, and the imposing-looking shock generator machine was a fake.

Milgram found that, after hearing the learner's first cries of pain at 150 volts, 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks; of those, 79 percent continued to the shock generator's end, at 450 volts. " Jerry M. Burger, PhD, replicated one of the famous obedience experiments of the late Stanley Milgram, PhD, and found that compliance rates in the replication were only slightly lower than those found by Milgram....

Read about it here.

Voice Authenticity While Blogging--Part 2

If anyone's reading please comment! (Pssssst, especially those who knew me in real life first) Greenbetty says she experiences me as very different online. *VERY* different? Really? I wonder if this is because we "met" through blogging first? My friends who knew me in real life first often tell me that they can hear my voice, can see *ME* in my posts. Fascinating! These are the themes I tried to explore in my novel--the facets of our relationships within different mediums.

I agree that there might be different aspects of Self coming through more clearly in different modes of expression, I definitely try to facilitate the conversational "me" in these posts. I don't compose my posts, I type my thoughts as they come--for this very reason. This is what I meant by authenticity of voice.

Enough with lemons

Making lemonade now.

Voice authenticity while blogging

Over the years I've noticed that some of my friends sound differently on their blogs than in real life. It's like their on-line personality is different. I wonder sometimes whether the voices I hear in my head when I read blogs of strangers correspond to their real voices. Ever since taking seminars in personality psychology I wondered about personas that we assume on-line--consciously or unconsciously (this was almost my thesis).

I hope to sound on my blog the same I sound over a cup of tea, if we were sitting in my kitchen and chatting. Here I am now. In my kitchen. In my pyjamas. My tea isn't ready yet. This is me. I don't draft or revise my posts. I type very fast--thank you Ms. Z. of Riverdale C.I. who insisted I take keyboarding in grade 13 when I first came to Canada (Key? Boards? I was confused). I enjoy an good laugh at myself. I hope this all results in a rather conversational, easy going blog.

To get me going at blogging again, I promise to write a post a day for the month of January. Thirty-one in Thirty-one in 2009!

I woke up with a sore throat.
My tea's ready.

I haven't blogged for almost a year

Well, helloooooooooooooo! Anyone still here? That's okay, don't feel bad. Or I'll feel bad too, and that's not good.


I'll be blogging again. Everyone says I should, and besides, I like it. So I'll briefly update. I'm no longer on Baffin Island. For the last seven months we've been in Nova Scotia. We came for a visit and fell in love with Nova Scotia, and we are staying here, at least for now. It's been good to us--to my writing, to our kids. I finished my novel and even sent it out. The waiting begins. I started a new novel. Set in Nova Scotia, of course. There'll be ghosts, and a murder--I'm quite surprised by this development, but it is coming along nicely.

I miss Iqaluit. We'll be visiting it in April or May--for several months. I'm glad we have a chance to go back.

There's a flash of mine in new elimae, check it out!

i have a Neo!!!

my wonderful husband got me a neo. oh, how i love you, neo!

i don't think i can write a novel on it--i'm too used to having a large white page in front of me (i.e. my computer screen). but i think it is perfect for flash--my mind works differently when i write flash. i don't need to see a lot of text. my focus is more on sentences, word choices.

i've been toying with an idea of a themed flash collection, reciting little snippets in my head. now i have the most perfect tool--so light, so portable, so easy to use. and, apparently, indestructible.

flash fiction--you have time for this

You Have Time for This: Contemporary American Short-Short Stories  
Edited by Mark Budman & Tom Hazuka

For only $10 (amazon.com) and $11 in Canada I even have the money.

"Love, death, fantasy, and foreign lands, told with brevity and style by the best writers in the short-short fiction genre. You Have Time for This satiates your craving for fine literature without making a dent in your schedule. This collection takes the modern reader on fifty-three literary rides, each one only five hundred words or less. Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka, two of the top names in the genre, have compiled an anthology of mini-worlds as diverse as the authors who created them. "

I'm going to order this gem with my next under $39 CND order--if someone ships for free to Iqaluit, I'd better use it.

russian mat

ever wonder what iqaluit writers talk about?

yesterday's writing group discussion motivated me to look up origins of russian mat. i still didn't find anything definitive but the above wiki article is very informative. i have to admit that my understanding of mat's nuances is rather rudimentary; i've never uttered a mat word out loud, though boiling oil splashing on my hand will elicit a mighty array of fucks and shits. english profanity feels very tame to me.

this article was also very interesting, as well as the discussion after it. and this one.

points of interest, at least to me:

- the term mat comes from a word meaning "loud yell"

- The mat belongs to the ancient layers of the Russian language (the first written mat words date to Middle Ages)

- "All the basic elements of mat relate to sexual activity, which, in Russia, is considered far dirtier than defecation...." (from Erofeyev's article)

- The German and Finnish interjection for surprise or admiration—Hui!—sounds identical to the Russian and Polish swear word literally meaning "penis" (Polish chuj, Russian and Bulgarian xyй)--there's an entire article on Wiki devoted to profanities in general.

- The appeal of mat has to do with the synthetic character of Russian: using only five roots, one can form a multitude of terms to use in any real-life situation

* * *
i still haven't googled the OTHER topic we discussed. more to come. maybe.

Leon Rooke--poetry in Grain

in Grain, volume 35, number 2, autumn 2007 issue

yesterday: i fell in love with the three poems by Leon Rooke. immediately ordered Painting the Dog--short stories. also realised that my 3 year old understands more english than previously thought: upon hearing "Painting the Dog" he demanded a white dog to paint.

http://leonrooke.com/