Taking on sleep
It turns out that humans are sleeping entirely all wrong. Thomas Edison eff'd us up good with that little incandescent lamp of his. He took us out of our primitive state.A study from the '90s found that people taken out of their normal pattern and placed under regulated sleep, slept first for four hours, then awakened for one to two hours before going back to sleep for four more. There are more than 500 known references to "first sleep" and "second sleep" in historical text, including "The Odyssey." Alternet's Lynn Parramore elaborates on what is known about the "waking period" between the two.
This waking period, known in some cultures as the “watch," was filled with everything from bringing in the animals to prayer. Some folks visited neighbors. Others smoked a pipe or analyzed their dreams. Often they lounged in bed to read, chat with bedfellows, or have much more refreshing sex than we modern humans have at bedtime. A 16th-century doctor’s manual prescribed sex after the first sleep as the most enjoyable variety.
Many of you probably have difficulty sleeping for eight hours at a time. Not me. I sleep like a baby. But if you do, this may be the reason why. The "eight hour" standard is very much a product of the 20th century. As best I can tell, this news article linked above is a tacit endorsement for midnight house calls on your friends and neighbors, and it probably wouldn't hurt if we let people out of work at 3 in the afternoon also, instead of 5. Better to get a head start on the first sleep. We don't want to be up all night.
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A group of exiled Iranian women living in Europe are posing nude for International Women's Day to protest sexual discrimination and repression in the Islamic religion. Their video is here. It's fascinating to read the reactions of outrage from nearly every all sides on an American (liberal) news site. These women are taking a political stand. They're not selling a product, "being exploited," or "selling themselves out." They're risking their lives in fact. They're of all ages and sizes being presented on black and white video without sexy clothes and in front of a plain blackdrop. Can the female human body ever be shown without the presenter being accused of attempting to "sexualize" it? That's a thin (and thinning) line between Iran and here.
posted by CM @ 6:00 PM
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