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Money Talks

    Is money a good medium to spread messages? At first Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist and noted blogger, was skeptical. But then he did the maths: if 5,000 Russians stamped 100 bills each, every citizen would encounter at least one of the altered notes as they passed from person to person.

    Members of Iran’s Green Movement used this tactic in 2009, writing slogans on banknotes during their antigovernment protests. This prompted a ruling that defaced notes would no longer be accepted by banks. Similarly, supporters of the Occupy movement had added slogans and infographics about income inequality to dollar bills. And members of China’s Falun Gong movement wrote messages on banknotes attacking government persecution.

    The use of money as a communications medium, distributing words and images as it passes from hand to hand, is ancient. The earliest coins, minted in Lydia (now part of Turkey) in the 7^th century BC, depicted the head of a lion, thought to have been a royal symbol. Later rulers had their names and images inscribed on coins, along with symbolic images of various kinds. In the era before printing, this was a very efficient way to project their image directly to the people.

    But their subjects were also aware of the messaging power of money, as the recently revamped exhibit on the history of money at the British Museum in London reveals. It includes a Roman coin from 215 AD, on which the Christian “chi-rho” symbol has been scratched behind the emperor’s head; a French coin from 1855 overstamped with an advertisement for Pear Soap; and a 1903 British penny on which Edward VII’s face has been stamped with “Votes for women” by suffragettes. Mr. Navalny’s call for Russians to stamp messages on banknotes is just the latest incarnation of a centuries-old idea – a pioneering example of what we now call social media.

(The Economist, September 29^th 2012, p. 80. Adapted)

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TEXT

Everyday conversational narratives of personal
experience might be regarded as the country
cousins of more well-wrought narratives. The work
of archaeologist Nicholas Toth revolutionized the
[5] understanding of Stone Age tools. Prior to Toth’s
studies, the received perspective was that early
hominids chipped a cobble in such a way that it
could be used as a pick or a hand ax. Researchers
considered the splintered flakes as waste products
[10] and examined them for information about techniques
used to shape the stone core tool. While others were
analyzing the morphological shapes and cognitive
correlates of the chipped cores, Toth, in a radical
turnabout, discovered that the flakes were the primary
[15] tools and that the large stone was an incidental by-

product, possibly a secondary tool. The flakes turned
out to be “extremely effective cutting tools” for animals,
wood, hides, and other work. We posit that, like stone
flakes, mundane conversational narratives of personal
[20] experience constitute the prototype of narrative activity
rather than the flawed by-product of more artful and
planned narrative discourse

OCHS, E. & CAPPS, L. (2001) Living Narrative – creating lives in everyday storytelling. Harvard University Press, England, p.3.

Glossary:

Chip – small piece of something, like wood or glass, mainly when it has broken off something.

Cobble – small round-shaped stone; cobblestones.

Well-wrought – skillfully shaped or decorated

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT

Everyday conversational narratives of personal
experience might be regarded as the country
cousins of more well-wrought narratives. The work
of archaeologist Nicholas Toth revolutionized the
[5] understanding of Stone Age tools. Prior to Toth’s
studies, the received perspective was that early
hominids chipped a cobble in such a way that it
could be used as a pick or a hand ax. Researchers
considered the splintered flakes as waste products
[10] and examined them for information about techniques
used to shape the stone core tool. While others were
analyzing the morphological shapes and cognitive
correlates of the chipped cores, Toth, in a radical
turnabout, discovered that the flakes were the primary
[15] tools and that the large stone was an incidental by-

product, possibly a secondary tool. The flakes turned
out to be “extremely effective cutting tools” for animals,
wood, hides, and other work. We posit that, like stone
flakes, mundane conversational narratives of personal
[20] experience constitute the prototype of narrative activity
rather than the flawed by-product of more artful and
planned narrative discourse

OCHS, E. & CAPPS, L. (2001) Living Narrative – creating lives in everyday storytelling. Harvard University Press, England, p.3.

Glossary:

Chip – small piece of something, like wood or glass, mainly when it has broken off something.

Cobble – small round-shaped stone; cobblestones.

Well-wrought – skillfully shaped or decorated

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT 

An effort to count the world’s sloths

A paper in the Lancet, shamelessly timed to coincide
with the Olympic games, compares countries’ rates of
physical activity. The study it describes, led by Pedro
Hallal of the Federal University of Pelotas, in Brazil,
[5] is the most complete portrait yet of the world’s busy
bees and couch potatoes. It suggests that nearly a
third of adults, 31%, are not getting enough exercise.

That rates of exercise have declined is hardly a
new discovery. Since the beginning of the industrial
[10] revolution, technology and economic growth have
conspired to create a world in which the flexing of
muscles is more and more an option rather than a
necessity. But only recently have enough good data
been collected from enough places to carry out the
[15] sort of analysis Dr Hallal and his colleagues have
engaged in.

The high rates of inactivity he found in his paper are
worrying. Paradoxically, human beings seem to have
evolved to benefit from exercise while eschewing it
[20] whenever they can. In a state of nature it would be
impossible to live a life that did not provide enough of
it to be beneficial, while over-exercising would use up
scarce calories to little advantage. But that no longer
pertains. According to another paper in the Lancet,
[25] insufficient activity these days has nearly the same
effect on life expectancy as smoking.
The Economist Jul 21st 2012, from the print edition.

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TEXT 

An effort to count the world’s sloths

A paper in the Lancet, shamelessly timed to coincide
with the Olympic games, compares countries’ rates of
physical activity. The study it describes, led by Pedro
Hallal of the Federal University of Pelotas, in Brazil,
[5] is the most complete portrait yet of the world’s busy
bees and couch potatoes. It suggests that nearly a
third of adults, 31%, are not getting enough exercise.

That rates of exercise have declined is hardly a
new discovery. Since the beginning of the industrial
[10] revolution, technology and economic growth have
conspired to create a world in which the flexing of
muscles is more and more an option rather than a
necessity. But only recently have enough good data
been collected from enough places to carry out the
[15] sort of analysis Dr Hallal and his colleagues have
engaged in.

The high rates of inactivity he found in his paper are
worrying. Paradoxically, human beings seem to have
evolved to benefit from exercise while eschewing it
[20] whenever they can. In a state of nature it would be
impossible to live a life that did not provide enough of
it to be beneficial, while over-exercising would use up
scarce calories to little advantage. But that no longer
pertains. According to another paper in the Lancet,
[25] insufficient activity these days has nearly the same
effect on life expectancy as smoking.
The Economist Jul 21st 2012, from the print edition.

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The Power of Train Travel

Posted by Annie Fitzsimmons in Urban Insider on April 25, 2013

  I blame luggage for all my troubles on trains
– whether I’m whizzing down to Washington, D.C.
or wending my way through Wallonia. I try to avoid
clunking other passengers with my elbow as I navigate
[5] tight aisles and haul my wheeled carry on over my
head, but it’s not easy.
  Despite these challenges, traveling by train is by
far my favorite mode of transport – especially when I’m
in Europe. Trains are more civilized there, and more
[10] convenient. The extensive network of interconnected
tracks makes it a breeze to zip around the continent.
  On a recent trip to Europe, I boarded a Thalys train
in Amsterdam to discover a vibe that was refined and
polished, and fellow passengers who were courteous
[15] and quiet. As I opened my laptop to take advantage
of the free WiFi, a full breakfast was served to me in
my Comfort 1 seat. When I arrived relaxed and calm
in Brussels two hours later, I didn’t want the journey
to end.
[20]   Though there are plenty of low-cost flights
available in Europe (which can be good choices for
longer distances), why deal with airport security and
extra luggage fees if you don’t have to? And you can
learn so much about a place on a train by watching the
[25] landscape change – from the snow-capped mountains
in Switzerland to the hills and rivers of Austria.

(Adapted from the National Geographic site.)