It’s dangerous, bloody, and hot
And a media spotlight (or not)
Assad hit Assi Square
Greeting everyone there
With a message of “Tanks. Tanks a lot.”
Headline: Syria Sends In Tanks to Storm Center of Rebellious City
What good is a Holy Month, if everybody keeps killing each other?
From the old blog–only had to change one sentence to apply it to today–thanks to PZ’s Botanical Wednesday.
Sigmund Freud (in)famously opined that “anatomy is destiny”, that (to oversimplify greatly) one’s personality and one’s potential were, to a large part, determined by what equipment one possessed between one’s legs. Penis envy (he has one, and I don’t!), castration anxiety (she doesn’t have one, maybe they’ll cut mine off, too!), and other Freudian concepts stem directly from whether you are an innie or an outie (so to speak).
The phrase has evolved a bit, and now is also seen as “biology is destiny”, with somewhat fewer genital-related shades of meaning, but the earlier meaning is sometimes (often? I have not done a thorough review, so cannot say) lurking just under the surface. Whether our reasons are Freudian or Darwinian, there seems to be enough interest in that one set of complementary organs to support several industries… and the continuation of life as we know it.
We have long known that the brain includes multiple areas involved in face-detection; I begin to wonder if the entire rest of the brain might not be involved in genital-detection. We see them everywhere.
Take plants. I have a cousin, an artist, who (decades ago) exhibited a number of paintings of plants, and of close-ups of parts of plants. It probably won’t surprise you to know that a split-open peach pit, in the proper perspective, will make the vast majority of a family gathering blush. It looks quite like the anatomical wall chart I once saw at an OB-GYN’s office. Robert Heinlein’s “Notebooks of Lazarus Long” includes a phrase that puzzled me when I first read it: “Have you noticed how much they look like orchids? Lovely!” And today, as often, PZ Myers’ “Wednesday Botanical” post celebrates the carnal aspect of vegetation (or perhaps that is all in my perception).
Oh, underused powers
Of beautiful flowers;
They tantalize, tempt, and entice,
Whether insect or human,
When flowers are bloomin’
There’s something that makes us look twice.
The curves I adore, kids,
I oft find in orchids
(Such flowers are dear to our hearts)
It’s not quite the same in
A pistil or stamen
But sometimes, it seems, parts is parts.
In just the right lighting
It’s rather exciting
When beautiful form follows function
In plant pollination
Or *our* fornication
When parts can perform in conjunction
That such an attraction
Creates a reaction
Is fact that a blind man could see
You might think me crazy–
I’m off to find Daisy
To ask if she’ll just let me bee.
You’ve never really given it thought;
You just don’t do it, and really, you ought;
I blame your parents. You just weren’t taught
To close the lid when you flush.
But think—enclosed in a tiny room,
Each flush creates a fecal plume
Which bathes the place in shit perfume
While you might floss and brush.
To leave the toilet open wide
While stirring up what’s there inside
Creates a sort of toxic tide
And everything gets hit
So, please oh please, I think it best
To close the lid and keep it pressed
And never hear the words expressed
“My toothbrush tastes like shit.”
Yes, this was written for a particular person. No, I won’t really be able to show it to that particular person. SO… I need your help. Print it out and pin it up next to every toilet in the world. Just in case. And I’m not making the fecal plume phenomenon up.
US stocks have been diving once more
And the future? Who knows what’s in store?
While markets go reeling
From raising the ceiling
They’re trying to bust through the floor
Headline: US Stocks Trade Near Session Lows As Economic Woes Continue
(The title is satire, not hate speech. I don’t want anybody killed.)
Atheists are hateful (1); they’re annoying, rude, and loud;
They’re a total waste of oxygen (2), the godless and the proud
They are spiteful un-Americans, rejecting Jesus’ call—
The solution? Let’s just shoot them. Shoot them all(3).
Those atheists are radicals, and militants as well;
For their blasphemous beliefs they’ll all be heading straight to hell
We could wipe them from the planet, and be grateful for the loss—
The solution? Fucking nail them to the cross(4).
They deny the Holy Spirit; they deny a God above
They deny that Christ was crucified to save us through His love
By rejecting God’s forgiveness, they choose nothingness instead
So they all deserve a shotgun to the head(5).
We should crucify their leader; shove a spear into his side
Let him know the pain that Jesus felt, the hours before He died(6)
So that maybe he’ll appreciate what Jesus Christ is worth—
Nah, let’s wipe the fucking godless from the earth.
I follow in Christ’s footsteps; I adore the Prince of Peace,
But these atheists grow bolder as their numbers have increased
It’s my patriotic duty now, to walk where Jesus led
And He wants these godless bastards fucking dead.
(1) Michael Perri
(2) Casey M Jones
(3) Joe Martinez, Casey M Jones, Bob O’Connell, Joseph Sneckenberg
(4) Chris Dunn, Mike Holeschek
(5) Joe Martinez
(6) Chris Dunn
Source.
Edited to add: Here’s another source for a bit more of the background. It is noted there that, although these comments were taken down quickly by site owners (Fox News’s facebook page), Chris Dunn’s comment got 19 “likes” in the few minutes it was up.
Image: Michael McRae
Oh, the cephalopods have their Octopus Gods,
With tentacles stronger than steel,
Who have taken down ships with their powerful grips
And made many a sailor a meal.
They win wrestling matches with submarine hatches
Like popping a tin of sardines
Then it’s horrible cries, and tears in the eyes
Of the witnessing Merchant Marines.
Survivers are few, but they swear it is true—
“The monster, it started to throttle us!”
You can vividly note, from the scar on his throat
He survived the attack on the Nautilus.
These powerful deities loves spontaneity,
Thus, are well-loved by their followers
Who all serve as one, having octopus fun
Whether tiny, or submarine-swallowers
When I tell you (no lie) that the octopus eye
Is superior even to Man’s
It’s clear that this creature’s the centerpiece feature
In a sinister deity’s plans
They’ll take down a shark, like a walk in the park—
You’ve seen it on YouTube, I know
And to get to their goal they can squeeze through a hole,
Up the drain, in your tub, to your toe!
So guzzle your Folger’s—these octopus soldiers
Are coming for you while you sleep!
These eight-legged beauties will all do their duties;
Invisible devils, they creep.
So the next time you think, “could one hide in my sink?
Or my bathtub, or even my toilet?”
As a Cuttlefish, I would be seen as a spy
If I told you (besides, that would spoil it).
If you find an appeal in an octopus meal—
Say, for sushi you’ve got a real itch—
The cephalopods have their Octopus Gods
And I’m telling you, payback’s a bitch. [Read more…]
In China they’re saying, among us is fungus—
This new one’s a record, a king of the giants!
It grew where a log was decaying, they’re saying,
And this is the largest recorded by science!
The years that it grew, maybe twenty, were plenty
To see that it reached its improbable size
Such wonderful things may be found all around us
Just all the more reason to open your eyes!
Via the BBC, a story on the world’s largest yet documented (I love that phrase–not “world’s largest” but “world’s largest yet documented”–it gives me the same feeling that pirate stories used to when I was a young cuttlesquirt, that there are wonders out there for those willing to look for them) fungus fruiting body, weighing in at half a ton.
It’s a bracket fungus (or shelf fungus); I had always heard that all bracket fungi were edible, but wiki tells me (I know, I know) that bracket fungi are grouped by appearance rather than phylogeny, so there is no guarantee that they have just found dinner for 2,500.
One side claimed, “Our planet is flat!”
The other, “It’s round!” There they sat.
No chance of agreement,
And compromise, see, meant
“It’s oval—let’s leave it at that.”
Headline: Obama and Leader Reach Debt Deal
I am accident on accident
And chance on random chance
I’m the product of environment
And changing circumstance
The odds of my occurrence
Are incalculably small—
If you round off to the m b trillionth place
I don’t exist at all!
Every atom in my body
From an ancient star’s collapse;
I’m a long time in my making—
Several billion years, perhaps!
In a corner of infinity,
A cold and hostile place
On a tiny blue oasis
Set adrift in empty space
I’m a subset of the universe
That’s learned to look around—
And which cannot help but wonder
At the marvels I have found!
The descendent of bacteria,
Of annelids, of fish,
I’m a member of the primates,
Just an ape-man, if you wish
Through the engine of selection
Some would live and some would die—
“From so simple a beginning”
Just how fortunate am I!
And I pass along my molecules
And take my place in line
So some distant, future life form
Will have carbon that was mine
And perhaps my DNA as well—
Unlikely, though, my friend—
I have ridden quite a lucky streak,
And lucky streaks must end.
So it is, and so it must be
When so much depends on chance
But…
Since the music plays so briefly,
Can you blame me if I dance? [Read more…]
