Don’t tell anyone, but I might occasionally read poetry for fun…and right now, this would be my favorite, “The Mask of Anarchy”, by Shelley.
Yeah, it’s long, but I love the ending.
And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, –
What they like, that let them do.With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand –
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again – again – again –Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number –
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.
If you’re wondering, it’s about the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 — with which all you fans of popular labor movements are well acquainted, I’m sure.
(Episode CCCXXVI: Singing scientists, sorta.)
Yes. Awesome!
[Fair warning: I’ve been semi-busy and wasn’t keeping up with the SC thing very well, so if you’re done talking about it feel free to skip past this comment. Also, I would’ve preferred I posted this in the last thread, but I got portcullis’d.]
Okay, I know it took me quite awhile but I’ve caught up with (most of) the stuff involved in the SC drama.
I think I can sort of understand where SC is coming from because I’ve struggled with paranoia as a mental health issue in the past (disclaimer: I know nothing nor am I claiming anything about SC’s mental health; I’m talking about MY mental health; paranoia is not necessarily related to mental health either).
I used to believe people were talking behind my back about me, to the point that I accused people who were being nice to me of trying to trick me. It’s not a nice feeling, but it’s also not true. I realized that when I realized people simply do not care enough to do that kinda shit, at least not once they get old enough that they have chores and jobs and relationships and crap like that to worry about.
Second, despite my education in history and civics, I apparently do not have the same definition of democracy as SC. Democracy does not mean, at least in my understanding, that everyone everywhere should be privy to everything everyone says at any time. Privacy exists for several very good reasons, and just because people, whether that’s two people or twenty or two hundred, are having a private conversation does not mean that there’s anything “undemocratic” about it unless these private discussions impact the actual lives of people the private group has power over.
The people in PET, even if it were some exclusive, private group, have no such power. Nothing in PET does anything to people in TET or Pharyngula in general. It can’t; there is no mechanism for it to do so. Even if people in PET were saying someone over here should be banned or something ridiculous like that, it wouldn’t happen.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Someone close to me has launched into the what Mitt Romney did to the gay kid in school was 40 years ago and besides it was just peer pressure. The Spawns are aggressively not buying this, but it’s a horrid thing to hear someone say.
It is a great poem. But it’s actually “Masque” of Anarchy, as in carnival procession, rather than “Mask” as in face covering. Admittedly the two spellings were interchangeable in the early nineteenth century, but the first edition was definitely published as Masque.
We pedants are many, ye are few!
Ugh. That’s infuriating, Mattir. “Peer pressure” is a partial explanation, but it’s not a defense.
Actually, I would presume that Mitt was not the one being pressured…the others expressed regret while he did not. That seems to indicate to me he was the one exerting pressure.
We few, we happy band of pedants… “Masque of Anarchy.” Thanks for digging this up!
Oh, Mattir. We used to let people get away with it, but now we know that it’s wrong and harmful. That’s why so many gay kids commit suicide. It’s terrorism on a personal level. Like lynching. Like rape. Like killing people for being atheists or communists or Jews. I hope xe wakes up and realizes that.
Peer pressure is the new following orders
Mitt appears to have been the ring-leader. And since he hasn’t thought about it, doesn’t even remember it, it’s a good bet he hasn’t realized what is so wrong in harming people just because you can.
*cough* Bain Capital *cough*.
Giliell, yesterthread:
Interestingly, the silver holders are stamped “Germany US Zone” but the glass liners inside each have a sticker that says “made in Western Germany”. The parts were definitely made to fit together (not a later cobbling of odd bits) and they’re just inexpensive little things so I don’t imagine that someone, say, ordered newer replacement liners for the older silver parts. So my guess has to be that the manufacture of these particular pieces straddled the founding of the two Germanies. Maybe 1949 was the exact year they were produced.
I took a pic, but for no apparent reason my camera is not speaking to my computer at the moment so I can’t upload it. *eyeroll*
My fave poem (long time running) Sailing to Byzantium. Not sure why I like it, just always have since I first discovered it.
I have pics of baby turtle, anyone care to see?
Ing, 12
YES. Please. Pretty please?
Mr. Mattir – ask that person what would happen if that sort of thing went on today. And then show them the articles about that Amish hair cutting assault guy from last year.
Check out Charles M. Blow’s twitter feed (and follow it, he’s great!) He mentions bringing it up in context, that Romney could have used the event to make a forceful anti-bullying statement but didn’t, wonders if Romney remembers who WAS the target of ANY of his high school hijinks, and that he could have apologized to those he bullied at any time in the past and also…didn’t. You could tell your person that it’s really not even about the incident itself, it’s about how Romney is handling it NOW, as the adult he presumably is. Claiming he doesn’t remember and then offering an “IF I offended anyone” notpology is not anything even remotely close to good leadership, nor is it even being a decent human being. I judge him a little bit for what he did, but I judge him a lot more now for what he’s doing about the public revelation of it.
Ing,
Turtles! Yes!
Oh, yeah, Mitt Romney was just joking. He was just a prankster having fun. And everything in the past has no bearing on there here and now.
Excerpt above is from here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/opinion/collins-the-anatomy-of-a-jokester.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120512
Moggie (last thread):
Because then they’d have to do something for women and girls.
Giliell (last thread):
It does feel like they’re doubling down.
Okay, so where are the baby fucking turtles then? I see baby turtles promised but not delivered.
I’m not well you know. I feel like shit and I bloody well need me some baby turtles.
Jesus Fucking Christ. Can’t a person get a dose of too-cute-to-live when needed around here?
Much shorter favorite poem.
This poem is from the book, Written on the Sky, Poems from the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth.
When I went out in
The Spring fields to pick
The young greens for you
Snow fell on my sleeves.
–Emperor Koko
On the subject of poetry, Maurice Sendak said he didn’t believe in god, but he did believe in Emily Dickenson.
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak
*flops on its back in front of Lynnna and playfully juggles the heads of its enemies in all four talons*
~;> (srsly, *hugs*)
Wasn’t he the one doing the pressuring, though?
It seems everyone else in the article was busy feeling bad about what they’d done – as one would hope they’d do as decent human beings.
Check the tureen.
Somehow I can’t the the RCC putting much effort into rounding up and grooming large camps of girls.
I’m sure they’re very jealous of the Mormons for having monopolised the Boy Scouts, though.
Lynna, I loved that poem! Sometimes the translators get it just right.
Don’t forget his little “I’d lie a pink tie.” joke with Hannity that the Fox News mole leaked, which happened just days ago. I think its highly probable he was making fun of a man he thought was gay or knew was gay who was nearby off-camera when he said that.
I printed and framed that last stanza for my daughter on her first birthday. She is 11 and still has it next to her bed.
Romney may not remember attacking his fellow humans in high school, but he had tender feelings for animals:
The whole Romney-as-bully thing is dragging up so many memories that I really wish I could stuff back down the hole.
I don’t want to dwell on it, so let me simply say that I grew up in a small town in the rural Midwest, a town that was near-universally white, conservative Christian (with a near 50/50 split between traditionalist Catholics and evangelical Protestants), and conservative anti-government Republican. Oh, and racist.
I was a brainy girl who was unwilling to perform the required female role, I asked questions incessantly, and was openly irreverent. Add autism and physical awkwardness to the mix, and it got ugly.
Thankfully, I haven’t had a flare of my PTSD for several years now. Not even this news triggered one, but I can tell that it was a close one.
__
My favorite poem:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Well, I’m more than a little amused. I bought a used copy of one of my textbooks; it’s a Latin edition of Plautus’s Casina. It was produced probably somewhere a little before 186 BCE (there’s trouble pinning the dates of these works down, but that was about when Plautus was working). The book explains that in the introduction.
Somebody has penciled their reading notes in the margins of this copy.
One slave says to another:
“quin edepol etiam si in crucem vis pergere,
sequi decretumst” (93-94)
Roughly translated:
“No, indeed, by pollux, even if you want to proceed onto the cross,
it is decreed that I must follow you.”
The editor’s note on this in the back of the book explains how telling slaves to go “in crucem” was kind of like “go to hell,” since crucifixion was a typical slave punishment.
In the margin beside the Latin, a previous owner has written, “an example of Plautine attempt to attack reverence for the church.”
Plautus the time traveler!…?…!
By “somewhere a little before” I mean “somewhere a little after.” FTR, that was actually bad editing and not forgetting how to work BCE. :P
Has anyone seen the story from Arizona where a school has forfeited a championship baseball game because the opposing side has a girl on second base?
The school that has forfeited the game is aptly named “Our Lady of Sorrows”. Apparently this school belongs to a sect called “Society of St.Pius X” and the separation of sexes is a key tenet.
What a lovely way to educate children.
Don, yep the girl-cooties story turned up a few places. Here’s one post:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/05/ew-girl-cooties/
A comment from there:
Oy, the stupid.
Pteryxx:
I love it when you do that.
I just saw him called Shitt Romney on Joe.My.God, which does fit him and goes well with his magic undies.
Thanks, Aratina, that’s much less incongruously endearing than Mittens.
Aratina – I saw him called Willard Scissorhands on Twitter.
I can’t believe how long it took me to get that joke.
To steal the terminology used up-thread by kristinc, this refers to the subject started ‘yesterthread’ about the Girl Scouts:
If the Catholic Church is intent on investigating the Girl Scouts, then the Girl Scouts must mount a serious investigation into the wrongdoings of the Catholic Church.
Sheesh. This could take a while.
——————-
In order to give you a sense of the depth of culture and sophistication I carry, I present to you my favorite poem, in the spirit of today’s thread and since it’s PZ’s weblog:
‘The Octopus’
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus
If I were thou, I’d call me Us.
Ogden Nash
(Ogden Nash is perfect for this bear of little brain. Much easier to remember than Yeats).
Ooh, I hope that sticks!
Aratina Cage:
From your mouth to glue’s ears.
Glad you liked it. Here’s another from the same book.
Everyone is asleep
There is nothing to come between
the moon and me.
— Enomoto Seifu-Jo
Mitt Romney speaking at Liberty University:
Quoted from Joe. My. God’s blog.
Whoops. Shit. I see I missed PZ’s Mitt Romney thread.
I’m gonna have to cease to struggle for now.
aw Lynna, go ahead and be imperfect for a while. I won’t tell. >_>
That is OK since you interspersed stuff about him with beautiful poetry.
The conclusion of the Shelly poem makes me wonder if Mohandas Gandhi ever read it, perhaps during his time studying in Britain. It seems like a perfect blueprint for his later work.
Shelly wrote one of my favorites, too – Ozymandias. I often wonder what future “travelers in an antique land” will think of the American era when nothing remains but the lone and level sands.
If you have dyscalculia (and I do), is it proper to say “I’m dyscalculic?” And could there be a more awkward word, really?
I just mopped every single room of my apartment. Morgan was not amused. She kept trying to chase the mop.
Then she’d try to lick up the puddles and go WTF THIS TASTES BAD (yep, Pine Sol is nasty shit), sulk for a few minutes, then go back to chasing and licking.
Next up: cleaning the counters.
Oh, and Ing! Yes to the turtle.
So getting married is good, which means… gay people can’t have it?
I think that Netflix* ought to be legally obligated to, when you search for a movie that isn’t there, have a big screen with the message “We don’t carry this movie because we suck, and the movie distribution companies suck, and none of us really want you to use streaming video anyway because we can’t quite figure out how to make enough money from it, and that is why you can’t have nice things.”
*yeah, Hulu too.
Ing!
Where the hell is this turtle that you promised?
Aww, somebody just got married!
(I live behind a banquet hall. It’s the season for outdoor weddings. They’re loud.)
Ah poetry. Where to start. Dover Beach still makes me blub, Ben Jonson’s The Noble Nature I still have framed on the wall, but for profundity I don’t think you can go past John Cooper Clarke’s Haiku:
TO CONVEY ONE’S MOOD
IN SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES
IS VERY DIFFIC
Oh wow, this is awesome!
As much as I just complained about netflix, I just discovered Rosemary & Thyme. A British show about a gardener and a plant pathologist (both women, both older, not conventional beauties), who solve crimes? It’s like Cagney and Lacey with botany! Sign me up!
There is a line between practical joke and bullying. Mitt didn’t just cross that line, he stomped on it and then set the remains on fire.
——————————————-
Talking of poetry, I recently started reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” At first I was put off by the length, but I like what I’ve read so far, and so I will continue to the end. And for some reason, this piece from Edna St. Vincent Millay has been popping into my head a lot recently:
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Oddly, I catch myself quietly reciting the line “But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep” whenever I’m having a bad day or am just in a down mood. Considering that line is associated with death in most analyses I’ve seen, I’m not sure why I would find it comforting.
——————————————
The RCC, get off its bejewled and be-silk-robed ass and DO something to help women and girls? Surely you jest. Those fuckers don’t even bother giving a small portion of their wealth to the Catholic schools they claim to care about (at least not that I’m aware of).
I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, most of it goes over my head I’m sure. Having said that I recommend Shelley’s The Cloud – an extraordinary wordsmith, and not a god in sight.
Would it be presumptuous to suggest that the poem above could apply equally well to Kent State?
Damn. Someone beat me to Ozymandias. Don’t care …
Mah favorite.
carlie:
Looked up Rosemary & Thyme on YT. Fangirl-type squeal when I saw Pam Ferris listed in the cast. And I LOVE the use of bits of “Scarborough Fair” in the opening song. It’s one of my favorite songs.
As there was a slight discussion of Baudelaire and Fleurs du mal recently, I’ll go with Les Bijoux, translated by Jacques LeClercq, 1958:
Naked was my dark love, and, knowing my heart,
Adorned in but her most sonorous gems,
Their high pomp decked her with the conquering art
Of Moorish slave girls crowned with diadems.
Dancing for me with lively, mocking sound,
This world of stone and metal, brittle and bright,
Fills me with rapture who have always found
Excess of joy where hue and tone unite.
Naked she lay, suffered love pleasurably
To mould her, smiled on my desire as if,
Profound and gentle as the rising sea,
It rode the tide toward its appointed cliff.
A tiger, tamed, her eyes on mine, intent
On lust, she sought all strange ways to please:
Her air, half-candid, half-lascivious, lent
A new charm to her metamorphoses.
In turn, her arms and limbs, her veins, her thighs,
Polished as nard, undulant as a swan,
Passed under my serene clairvoyant eyes
As belly and breasts, grapes of my vine, moved on.
Skilled in more spells than evil angels muster
To break the solace which possessed my heart,
Smashing the crystal rock upon whose luster
My quietude sat on its own, apart,
Her waist, awrithe, her belly enormously
Out-thrust, formed strange designs unknown to us,
As if the haunches of Antiope
Flowed from a body not yet Ephebus.
Slowly the lamplight sank, resigned to die.
Firelight pierced darkness, stud on glowing stud,
Each time it heaved a sharply flaming sigh
It steeped her amber flesh in pools of blood.
PTI – I’m pretty fun so far. Entirely predictable, but the interactions between the two leads are really good.
Carlie, you’re always pretty fun. :D
Charlie, I used to watch Rosemary and Thyme all the ,well, time. It’s generally a good show with well written storylines.
And I’d like to put my hand up as an Ozymandias lover too. It’s the only poem I can remember when sloshed so with suitably grandiose hand gestures it makes for a good party trick.
Cipher, oops! Now there’s a narcissistic typo.
Bride, eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! It is so good to see you. I’ve been thinking about you lately – we were talking awhile back about people we hadn’t seen around in awhile, and a bunch of us were hoping you’re ok. Have you recovered from all the flooding and everything?
Bride! :tackles and hugses: How are you?
Hi Carlie I’ve been lurking for a while just waiting for a nice inoffensive topic to dip my toe back into the Pharyngula waters on. I’ll be back to troll skewering capacity shortly I imagine as soon as I work out the new gen trolls here. I suspect all the old ones I used to chew on have either self imploded by now or are busy running their creation museums.
Hi Caine darlin!! I promise I’m back for proper now. I went away for a few reasons to have a well needed break but all is sorted now so looking forward to some tag-team religobot destroying in the near future.
Skrello Bride of Shrek!
Never met you, I’m new here :)
*hugses*
A BoS sighting???? *Praises the Pullet Patrol™, and passes out the grog and swill!!!*
I’m waiting for that slut Patricia to come greet me. If she doesn’t I’ll get all huffy,twirl my skirts and show her the seams of my pantaloons. Screw her house painting plans keeping her busy, I’m more important than her getting her bordello retouched.
Bride of Shrek
you don’t know me but
welcome home!
*glitter*
*chocolate bacon*
I have an extremely awkward confession to make.
I washed my comforter today.
I cannot remember the last time I washed it. Quite honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever washed it.
I bought it in 2003.
EWWWWW
Oh, I have missed you! I’m so glad you’re okay. Oh, trolls. In TZT, the new quarantine pen, there’s Misogyniraj (rajkumar), who is a blend of obtuse stupidity, what passes for stoner wisdom and misogyny. There’s also scifi, who is pretty much shiloh, who I am sure you remember. There’s also mikmik, who has put on a dazzling display of misogyny.
In other threads, there’s an idiot going by joey, godbot variety.
Esteleth:
Um…yeah.
Joey is the one who constantly argued the pro-life position that we should kill babies, IIRC. He’s an “atheist”
Caine:
But! It is clean now.
Victory?
Incidentally, Caine, I’m pretty threadrupt. I like your new nym. But can I ask why you’re an elastic ghost?
@Esteleth
It’s okay. It’s like me and pillowcase washing. If it weren’t for my mom’s reminders, that thing would be smelling worse than rotten watermelon (seriously, have you ever smelled rotten watermelong?!).
@Caine
Oh I am so sick of rajkumar. He is the stupidest troll I have ever seen in Pharyngula, and that is saying a lot.
ibeya:
I have never smelled rotten watermelon. I have, however, smelled the result of blowing a watermelon up using nitroglycerin.
I loved AP chemistry.
Ing:
Ooooops, thanks for the correction. It’s a pity Dano took a powder, Bride would have had so much fun batting him about.
Esteleth:
Elastic phantom. :) Like Fleur du mal, it’s from Baudelaire, La Prière d’un païen (Pagan’s Prayer):
Ah, damp not yet the living coals!
Heat once again my heart in thee!
Voluptuousness, thou scourge of souls,
Goddess, incline thine ear to me!
Spirit abroad in the bright air,
Flame in our dark and secret ways,
Freezing I bring thee — grant my prayer! —
A song of brass to bruit thy praise!
Siren, be still my sovereign; keep
Thy kingdom; wear thy mask, whose mesh
Is half of velvet, half of flesh!
Or pour me out thy heavy sleep,
In mystic and amorphous wine:
Phantom elastic and divine.
— translation by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1936
@Ibyea
He’s going for personal attacks now and trying to hit bellow the belt. He is Whimp Lo from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
Ibyea:
He’s not the stupidest I’ve seen (there are many a contender for the top spot), however, he is one of the most repetitive, which is its own assault on the brains of others.
@Esteleth
Rotten watermelon has the worst rotten smell out of all food. Worse than rotten crab, rotten meat, rotten veggies, rotten stew, etc.
Oh, and I wish I could have done cool stuff like that in chemistry in high school, even if I wasn’t in AP chem. But no, the only cool thing was when a little chunk of sodium is lit on fire as it spins around in the glass of water, expelling flammable gas while the chemical reaction is taking place. For a subject with empirical tradition, they sure focus way too much on the theories.
PTI @58, I love that poem! It was especially powerful in my romantic teens, along with her
Wordsworth’s “Surprised by Joy” is about his daughter, who died when she was three.
@Ing
Oh my god, that movie was weird as hell. I liked it, though.
@Caine
My memories of the various pharyngula troll must be faltering, then.
Ing, Misogyniraj has once again flounced. And doesn’t seem to know what time it is where he lives. (Honestly, he thought he was the only bloody person from Melbourne on Pharyngula?) Yikes.
Raj thinks he knows lots of things.
ibyea:
Depends on how far back you go, I suppose. Go through the dungeon at Sciblogs Pharyngula for a refresher.
Ok. Just did a quick wrap up of the Dungeon’s contents. I’ve come to two observations.
1) it’s the same old bullshit just with new names
2) PZ called someone a douchecanoe which, on it own, was worth returning for.
My favorite PZ dungeonism remains “bliss ninny.”
Having said that there never will be more fun than Kwok *sniffs in sadness because of the “good ‘ol days “. Did anyone ever buy him his camera?
“Douchecanoe” is one of my favorite insults.
Not just a douchebag, an entire fucking canoe of them
I think, though, that “douchecruiseship” should be used occasionally. When “douchecanoe” just won’t do.
Snif. I am on a self imposed soap-buying ban, because I have a truckload of odds and ends and half bars that I’m dragging my feet on finishing up and if I get shiny new bars I’ll only want to use those. But, but, but, beautiful new soap!
@Bride of Shrek
I still laugh at the fact that he said he would defriend PZ in facebook, and used that as a threat.
Seeing you back just gives me all the warm fuzzies, BoS. :)
Like this plushie cup of tea.
Did you know that P. Shelly got kicked out of Oxford for writing a pamphlet called “The Necessity of Atheism,” and refusing to recant it? You’ve got to admire that.
And to those who were asking — many say that this poem was the first real recorded example of the concept of civil disobedience. Thoreau was probably influenced by it when he wrote his essay on the subject, which influenced Ghandi, who influenced ML King, who went on to inspire pretty much every subsequent civil rights struglle for the past fifty years. So in a sense, Shelley truly did achieve the role he always wanted, as a prophet of revolution.
Here’s another great quote for you from him: “Poets are the unacknowleged legislators of mankind.” By which, of course, he meant all artists. It’s always a fun quote to start a discussion in a classroom. Agree or disagree?
Carlie:
Stop that, right now. I do not need more
uselessendlessly cute stuff.Oh my goodness, this octopus looks just like the one in the PZ shirt!
Oh, sorry Caine. :)
Speaking of old trolls, Lion IRC showed up again, in this thread.
This is the source of the teacups, but she doesn’t seem to be selling them at the moment.
Carlie! :stomps foot, looks stern:
Part-Time Insomniac, I love Stopping By Woods (Robert Frost), from which the line “…and miles to go before I sleep” comes. I do not associate it with death (have never read any critique nor studied it in school). My father could recite poetry from memory to suit almost any occasion – and this was one of his favorites for us for bedtime. His gentle, expressive voice always made me picture the inquisitive horse, shaking its head and snorting steaming breath out into the cold air. I just loved it then and I love it more now that he is gone.
Actually, my other favorite poem was also a great favorite of my father’s. He would recite the opening lines every morning when calling us kids for school :
“Awake! For morning in the bowl of night
has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight
and Lo! The hunter of the east has caught
the Sultan’s turret in a noose of light!”
The Rubaiyat (Omar Khayyam) is long and lots of people dismiss it but I love it with the passion of a child whose father loved it and would frequently recite verses of it from memory.
I can remember lively evenings full of laughter and Dad – rising to refill drinks for people at a well-timed moment (usually after telling a joke at his own expense) – would chuckle, “another and another cup to drown the memory of this impertinence!”
I wasn’t very curious about this poem throughout life maybe because of just how constantly I heard various verses (“here with a loaf of bread beneath the bow, a flask of wine – and thou” he would recite as he prepared a lunch for us up in the hills while berry-picking) but after my father died, I became the happy recipient of many of his books, including several editions of the Rubaiyat which people had given him over the years. So, I read it. Later my aunt gave me my grandfather’s tattered copy (which she had rebound).
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
That’s not orthodox Christian talk there!
I am now convinced that my grandfather (born 1892) and my father, both products of strict Catholic schooling, were quietly agnostic at least, and probably atheist. What a relief that was to me!
Esteleth, I’m sorry, I didn’t really answer you. Why elastic phantom? Just because it makes me laugh.
Already broke my soap-buying ban. Samples don’t count, right? I mean I have to know what soap to get when I do use up my backlog. Research is important. *nodnod*
I think I washed my comforter a year or so ago. I just remember going to the laundromat with that, my blanket, and my mattress pad, and I guess it was aggravating enough that I came away thinking, “I’m never doing that again.” But of course, that’s silly.
Hello Bride of Shrek! I am new here, too (longtime lurker though).
Love your nym!
kristinc, I’m the kind of person that only buys liquid soap.
*shrug*
I did get myself a gift though.
Goes with my 2 caffeine shirts and my glycosyl lanthium telluride (better eating through chemistry) shirt.
kristinec- absolutely samples do not count!
Plus, life is short enough – indulge yourself in fresh new soaps! Melt the old ones together and put them in bits in the laundry or a workspace for washing up!
kristinc
Put all those old soap scraps in a mesh bag an use for rough washing.
(in from the garden, after cleaning the kitty litter)
The new stuff is for indulgence.
Haha chigau, great minds etc.
niftyatheist
yup!
We get alot of gift soap.
Their ultimate fate is the meshbag.
I currently shower with Ivory+honeylemon+patchouli+aloe+goatsmilk+++
niftyatheist, there’s also this tidbit:
Omar Khayyám and the Rubáiyát take up pages 7-11 in the Portable Atheist.
I’m sorry, Caine. I won’t do it again.
I was thinking “hm, those don’t look too hard to make”, which is dangerous, because it would end up looking like it should be on the front page of regretsy, something like this.
You can also donate sample soaps to a homeless shelter or food bank.
Carlie:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha :hee: :hahahahaha: :thud:
Oh, fuck me, I like that much better than the teacup.
E:
I have been known, on occasion, to use doucheyacht*.
*waves at BoS!*
Anyway, this evening I’ve made two quiches– both crustless ‘cos I fucked up the first crust bad, which I guess I deserve for being lazy and buying store-bought pie shells. Bah. Next time I’m going to actually make the goddamn crust.
Anyway, now I’ve got my mom’s cheesecake in the oven and it smells FANTASTIC. :)
*I hate the word “yacht”. It’s one of those words that I can never ever ever EVER spell. *grumbles*
Hello (Former) Bride!
Nothing to say right now; just Hello.
I just got Esme an oreo so she can be Cookie Monster, Cookie Thief Extraordinaire! She’s getting fat.*
*No, I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.
Why does ftb think I’d logged out since my last comment?
Anyway, they’re not little half used nubbins of soap — due to my really quite shameless soap-ho nature I tend to cut bars into halves or thirds so I can switch between types more rapidly. So they’re perfectly fresh soaps that were interesting at the time that I bought them but have lost their novelty for spoiled me, and having to use them up will be good for me. Builds character.
I collect the wee used up nubbins in an old sugar bowl and melt them down for laundry when it’s full. There have been some interesting smelling laundry loads. Gift soap is also usually for the laundry, because it comes mostly from my mother in law, who means well but is unable to distinguish between “high quality soap” and “soap that comes in a fancy box and is on clearance” so she ends up buying me a lot of nicely scented soap for washing towels.
Possibly my very favorite soap will be back in stock in June, and then I’ll indulge.
Caine, I remember seeing it in the Portable Atheist! That was kind of the aha! moment for me. (dashes to bookshelf to pull out TPA)
Hey, BoSOM!
(WB)
Aha. that’s right- it isn’t the Edward Fitzgerald translation. Still awesome (just not a version I can hear in my mind in Dad’s voice). But Hitchens is right, this Richard La Gallienne version has a distinctly pungent rendering of these lines:
“and do you think that unto such as you,
a maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the secret, and denied it to me? –
well, well, what matters it? Believe that too!”
Oh yes.
But I prefer Fitzgerald for the lines you quoted above (though I botched the quote myself – first two lines are “Threats of hell and hopes of paradise! One thing at least is certain – this life flies. One thing is certain and the rest is lies…”
brucegee1962, not the shabbiest of self-introductions.
(No, I did not know that)
Pestilential popping parentheses! I forgot to close that bracket again! Apologies to all.
brucegee1962 my uncle told me that tidbit about Shelley a couple of years ago. I was delighted by the story! I like your icebreaker – what sort of discussions have you started with that?
Even as a child, I found it droll that my mum’s bookshelf had Omar Khayyám’s famous work quite near The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis.
(My eclecticism is perhaps not entirely mine own)
chigau, your shower soap combination sounds frighteningly appealing! :D
PS Marcus Aurelius also featured on said bookshelf.
Speaking of Shelley, there is an essay of his in the Portable Atheist “A Refutation of Deism” on page 50 (thanks a heap, Caine – I’ll be up all night now! lol)
[last one, really!]
Carlos Carlos Castaneda’s Teachings of Don Juan also featured.
(As a young teenager, it sure seemed plausible :|)
John Morales, your family library sounds a bit like mine was. Maybe our parents were greater freethinkers than we imagined! I don’t know if yours were outwardly practicing religionists (mine were, but less over time), but the existence of these libraries had to count for something! :D
Also, further evidence (though only anecdotal – OK it is not evidence it is anecdotal data- cut me some slack you sciency types, I am not a scientist only a science fangeek! :D) anyway….further data supporting the claim of Catholicism that it has long been open to evolutionary theory. One of the books I have inherited from my father’s collection was an early 20th century edition of Origin of Species inscribed inside “My Father’s Name: History Prize. St School Name”
John Morales, I think your mother simply pined for warmer climes!
John:
I read Casteneda when I was 10 or 11. What intrigued me most was the whole ‘confirmation’ business. That lasted about a week before I both got bored with it and realized it was a complete crock.
You know, the last stanza of PZ’s poem selection (Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy) would make a not bad rallying chant!
*Chants*
BoSOM! BoSOM! BoSOM!
All well on West Island?
Lynna, the two Japanese poems were beautiful. Love the moon one. Lots of children can probably relate to that one, too. I hope you are doing better every day.
The story about the 15 year old baseball player riled me. I wrote about it on my blog. Here is the thing: WTF CNN? The reporter phrased it as Paige’s fault that the game did not happen. Then quote after quote about how everyone “respects” the fundieCatholics misogynist beliefs.
Between all that undeserved “respect” and the pandering, simpering, enabling media coverage, it was sickening. People need to start saying YOu know what? I DON’T respect those revolting beliefs! UGH!!
*sigh* 7th state amblebury, 7th state. What is it with you Kiwis and your geographical dysfunction?
Gosh darling, don’t know.
We sent you Russell Crowe and Derryn Hinch to try and find out
Bride of Shrek!!!!
It’s so good to see you back; we were worried about you.
Just spent a delightful night and day chez Ms. DaisyCutter and met her awesomest gal pal. Woke up to go on a trip and Francine had a flat—ugh. Awesome gal pal found the best mechanic in town who was actually open past noon (lolwut?). Decided to get F four new whitewall tires as they were all ready to go. Sigh, money, but safety first or something.
We went to Boston and shopped our asses off at the best Russian and then Lebanese markets. I came home bearing piroshki of every strip, plus delicious lasagne from Ms. Daisy.
Something else I just thought of – obviously many other people noticed the outpouring of “respect” in the articles about that stupid baseball fiasco (it was so mind-blowingly inappropriate I noticed it was what many people were commenting about), so is it possible that some of the people that reporter spoke to might have expressed similar thoughts but simply not have been quoted?
I wonder about that, seriously. When you see every story that references religion or gods, people are constantly quoted bowing and scraping and paying undue reverence to the batshit scary of religion – and the media itself tiptoes around even the most bizarre manifestations of religious idiocy! Is it even worse – does the media actually suppress views which do not reflect this nearly universal genuflecting to Christianity? Bah! (flounces off to fulminate over this possibility)
[TMI]
My mum is unschooled other than desultory primary school; she was a teenager during the Civil War.
(DOB 1932, her mind is sharp as a tack and she’s a devout Catholic and her body is decrepit and not long for this world. And she was both mother and father to me and my siblings)
Hi Josh! Good evening! Glad you had a nice visit with Ms Daisy and pal.
All right. Mutti’s Day progresses apace, and after a glass or two of the finest sparkling $9.00 NZD can buy, a wee lie-down might be in order.
Here’s something soothing.
http://calmingmanatee.com/
John Morales, your mother is of the same era as my father. I’m happy to hear that she is sharp. Unschooled she may have been, but it sounds like she had a curious mind (judging by the bookshelf). My hat is off to her having raised you and your siblings on her own.
Darn it, I hate to leave but..sleep. Night all!
Ugh, not “had” a curious mind but HAS a curious mind (sorry!) this is why…sleep!
Misogyniraj just told me I was pretending to be who I’m not, forcefully. Heh.
Heya yourself, niftyatheist:))
Oy. There’s some property I’ve been working to clean up for the last two years or so. Earlier today, I locked the gate behind me, and almost flung the keys into the woods. The job is done. The buyer has been notified. I never have to go back there again.
The last day was actually kind of good, work-wise. I used my machete get some landscape timbers out of the bushes. See, I have a heavy Chinese-made machete with a very upswept end, and I sharpened the back of the blade’s end, and I was able flip it over and to chop the point into the timbers and drag them out. There was no need to dig and pry and try to grip wet wood—I just thunked and pulled.
It was hot work, but it went a lot faster than it would have without the modified machete. So I was proud of that, and damned glad to be done.
(I salvaged a nice little doghouse. I’ll clean it up and put it in the back yard for my dachshund. He’ll be speechless.)
Good morning
Carlie
Those teacups don’t look too difficult to make. I’d use two circle, a slightly cylindric piece for the “body” and a custom made handle.
Menyambal
Cleaning space with a machete has a very satistfactory aspect to it, doesn’t it?
the catholic school that flounced
I’d ban them from the championship, clear and easy. If the rules allow mixed teams and they can’t play by the rules they can’t play in the competition.
Hey Josh! Glad to hear you had a nice outing. Been catching up on the Obama gay marriage thread. Take care of yourself, darling. Sorry I missed that one.
So… any takers on the Balkan Beat Box concert in Rochester NY? There’s also Rusted Root, but I’m less excited about them personally. Anyway, it’s free. June 21.
Giliell,
Thanks again for that gugelhupf recipe. Mum loves it, so I’m making it today again. She doesn’t usually eat more than a slice of any cake either of us makes (silly worries about weight), but she devoured a couple of slices of this one so I’m taking that as a success to be repeated.
beatrice
Glad it was a success.
Talking about desserts, here’s a quick one I made last night.
1 bought dry cake
1 cup of curd
1 cup of cream
1 big jar/glas of cherries
sugar and cinnamon to taste.
2 tbsp corn starch
put cherries with juice into a pot (keep a bit of juice) and bring to boil. Add cinnamon and sugar. Mix cold juice with starch, pour into the boiling juice, stir, boil again, take off the stove and let cool.
Cut cake into slices. Use a cookie cutter and cut stars, hearts, whatever.
Mix curd with sugar (and vanilla essence), crumble the rest of the cake-slices into it. Whip cream and gently mix with the rest
Put everything onto plates, enjoy.
So, I might’ve posted this over on TZT, but there’s a creepy guy hanging out whom creeps me out.
Anyway, I went to karaoke tonight with my daughter and her new husband and her friend. The friend was just freaking weird. I have no other way to say it. Weird in the way I was as a kid — awkward, and uncertain in how to relate to people, and unsure how to figure out my own life.
They sang I Kissed A Girl together, and it wasn’t long until I realized, this friend is in love with my daughter Not from the song, by by the way the friend acted. She was in love.. With my newly wed daughter.
I feel so fucking bad. It’s not like it’s my fault, but unrequited love has always been my kryptonite.
Damn, but it hurt.
And I still don’t know what to do. I just know I’m not saying a damned thing to my daughter or her husband.
:( *hugs to nigelthebold* Sorry to hear you’re feeling bad, nigel. That makes my heart hurt too.
Hey Josh *big ol gay wave*. I’ve missed you lot. I need to catch up hunky spunky. I’ll bet in my absence you’ve gone from the young lad about town to being a boring old fart like me. If you’re knitting I’ll choke
thunk,
Forgetting “must be practiced by everybody” since no one in fact said that, let’s consider a non-strawman, that killing animals unnecessarily is wrong.
It may be that human needs are more important than the needs of nonhuman animals, presumably because we have more to lose when we lose our lives. This can be granted for the sake of argument.
But it does not follow that human desires are more important than the needs of nonhuman animals. Indeed, this leads to some horrific conclusions.
In fact, when you say “human drives and emotions supersede nonhuman animal pain and suffering”, you are endorsing torture for fun. The logical outcome of your statement is that it’s okay for some guy to blowtorch his own dog, since he is driven to do so and gets emotional satisfaction from it, which supercedes the dog’s suffering.
So I imagine you’ll want to go ahead and alter your statement, try to find a less obviously thing to say.
I’ll go ahead and offer you the best that you’ll be able to do. You could try to say that human desires supercede nonhuman animal lives, but not pain and suffering. This means it’s not okay for dude to torture his dog. And it lets people pretend that they live in a fantasy where the animals they eat weren’t caused any suffering. Everybody likes that.
But it still leads to something that most people would consider unacceptable. If human desires supercede animal lives, then it’s okay to adopt a dog for the purpose of killing it just for fun, just so long as it’s done without suffering. Go down to the pet store, buy a golden retriever puppy, bring it home, take it out back and blow its head off with a shotgun. Watch TV, go to bed, get up and do it all over again. It’s totally moral to murder as many puppies as you want, just for fun, as long as you don’t miss and merely blow the puppy’s face off.
If you find this unacceptable, there’s another reformulation you can try, that human lives supercede animal lives. Now it’s not okay to kill puppies for fun, since you don’t need to do that to live. But then it’s also not okay to eat meat unless you will die without it. And most people in modern western nations won’t die without it.
Is setting the bar pretty low. Don’t we normally accept a higher standard of “need”, at least when we’re talking about other things? Most people won’t die without a proper education, or the right to marry their same-sex partner.
It is possible to live without animal protein. However, for some people, it is extremely difficult to achieve optimal health without it. Not all, but some.
Which is more important? Not killing cows and chickens, or achieving optimal human health?
BTW, thanks for the reply earlier. It was a better answer than any I’ve received so far WRT to animal rights. So, I’m wondering: is it okay then to eat elderly animals who are on the cusp of senescence? Or is it necessary to allow them to die of natural causes before eating them?
What the ? Err, WB, BoSOM…
Aratina,
Ugh, I didn’t think of that. I figured it was that he wanted a pink tie, which made gender policing salient in his mind, so he did an I’ll call myself gay first so no one else will move.
Which would be bad enough already. But if you’re right then it’s even more upsetting. Jayzus and I can imagine it now too.
Great to see you back, Bride of Shrek!
Sally,
Thanks! I’ve had a lot of practice.
I’d say that when animal health professionals can say that an animal’s days are beginning to be dominated by suffering, like during late-stage kidney failure or something else for which we already typically use euthanasia, then go ahead and do euthanasia. And now it’s a corpse, do whatever you want with it.
It’s hard to imagine this becoming the norm, rather than a transition to widespread veg. If it did become the norm, there’s be some conflicts of interest which veterinarians would have to go through a lot of ethics classes to prepare for; the current pressure is to delay euthanasia, but in this hypothetical there’d be some other pressures to do it unnecessarily early.
Yes but we don’t say it’s okay to violate others’ more fundamental needs to do it. Many of us would say it’s sorta okay to steal some money to eat, but not to kill the person while you’re robbing them.
If simply fulfilling any human “need” at all (and we can be pretty creative about calling our wants needs) was more important than any nonhuman animal need, then it would be obvious that since I need shoes, it is totally okay to kill an animal to get leather for those shoes.
But this is not totally obvious, and the reason it’s not is because there are other options. There are lots of shoes made without leather.
Taking animals’ experiences seriously at all, which is what we purport to care about we say we don’t like suffering, must mean at least taking seriously all the options that would avoid ending their experiences.
Again the caveat that this is not really true for most people who claim it. Most claimants really have not explored their options; they tried a few obvious things and it didn’t go well.
But it seems like it could be true for some. They would be able to do less harm by restricting their animal intake to those animals which probably have less experience than vertebrates, such as arthropods and insects.
It is probably a problem with a solution. If everyone who can go vegan relatively easily would just go ahead and do it, the change of priorities in the economy would very likely open up many more new options for the few for whom it might be difficult now. So the people who don’t feel motivated to go vegan ought to take note of one more motivation: doing so will ultimately help make it easier for the people you care about who are highly motivated but have had trouble.
Ing,
Haha what?
In what way is that alleged to be pro-life?
This has been a great thread. On the subject of inhumanity this by Wilfred Owen is a stark comment on WW1
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
Owen became skeptical of Christianity before the war but his experience in the trenches probably confirmed his atheism.
I have always been touched by the classic WWI poem by McCrae:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(in other news, I’m a pacifist)
Haven’t caught up with last subthread (or the several before), just this one.
I think my favorite poems are all parodies.
*hugs for Esteleth*
…Wait. “Doom” rhymes with “become”???
I think she means that when leaders (yes, she really used that word) in the atheist movement get together behind closed figurative doors and talk about important issues there, they end up only presenting results to the rest of the movement and not letting them have a share in the decisions.
That’s all true in the abstract and in general. It’s just not what’s going on on PET.
“Just”, or “peer pressure”?
Exactly.
Definitely. In traditionally Catholic countries, the scout organizations are all affiliated with the Church.
I had remarkably cheap, possibly questionably MSC-certified place yesterday, steamed in the butter in which I had steamed/fried salicornes just before. A delight.
GAH! These kooks have schools!?!
They’re reactionaries who used to reject the 2nd Vatican Council. I used to think they’re just a few priests, but apparently they’ve got a whole parallel society of their own???
Poor children. They’re being robbed.
Why “Will”?
I like “Mittbot 3000”.
Meh. That kind of thing sounds much better in the original. (Scroll down for a translation. And those are just the first 3 sentences; it goes on to the 9th, translated here.)
:-D
*envy* We made nitroglycerin once in the Chemistry Olympics course, but it was still moist, so when the teacher took the hammer to it, nothing happened :-(
(You can dry it. But you can’t take it out of the exsiccator.)
Well, he said all his friends would defriend PZ, too, so PZ would suffer massive losses. And there was much chirping of crickets.
*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
I can’t look at that photo again. Cute overload: i can has it.
It all makes sense in the original Dutch.
(I mean, the ch does. The y is English.)
Seconded. :-)
LOL!!!
I haz a sad.
Heh. I submitted instead of refreshing, but my comment got caught in moderation anyway! And there was a stupid typo and a missing </a> tag in it! So, part 1:
=================
Haven’t caught up with last subthread (or the several before), just this one.
I think my favorite poems are all parodies. Well, one of them might be original… and it’s about WWI. In German.
*hugs for Esteleth*
…Wait. “Doom” rhymes with “become”???
I think she means that when leaders (yes, she really used that word) in the atheist movement get together behind closed figurative doors and talk about important issues there, they end up only presenting results to the rest of the movement and not letting them have a share in the decisions.
That’s all true in the abstract and in general. It’s just not what’s going on on PET.
“Just”, or “peer pressure”?
Exactly.
Definitely. In traditionally Catholic countries, the scout organizations are all affiliated with the Church.
I had remarkably cheap, possibly questionably MSC-certified plaice yesterday, steamed in the butter in which I had steamed/fried salicornes just before. A delight.
Polenta is roasting.
Part 2 of 2:
==============
GAH! These kooks have schools!?!
They’re reactionaries who used to reject the 2nd Vatican Council. I used to think they’re just a few priests, but apparently they’ve got a whole parallel society of their own???
Poor children. They’re being robbed.
Why “Will”?
I like “Mittbot 3000”.
Meh. That kind of thing sounds much better in the original. (Scroll down for a translation. And those are just the first 3 sentences; it goes on to the 9th, translated here.)
:-D
*envy* We made nitroglycerin once in the Chemistry Olympics course, but it was still moist, so when the teacher took the hammer to it, nothing happened :-(
(You can dry it. But you can’t take it out of the exsiccator.)
Well, he said all his friends would defriend PZ, too, so PZ would suffer massive losses. And there was much chirping of crickets.
*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
I can’t look at that photo again. Cute overload: i can has it.
It all makes sense in the original Dutch.
(I mean, the ch does. The y is English.)
Seconded. :-)
LOL!!!
I haz a sad.
Fun.
I’m listening to the choral evensong on the BBC, and the lesson for today was a piece from Paul about the resurrection of the body, that I’d just heard explained by a proper New Testament scholar on Itunes U yesterday.
It must be a sign! God wants me to know that the Bible is crap.
In Canada I’m shore it doos.
–o–
For some reason In Flanders Field always makes me tear up, despite it’s disgusting message.
Sili, I don’t know what you are talking about.
If it wasn’t so cruel, I’d suggest people begin taking duck calls along to his campaign appearances.
@140 <blockquote?Lynna, the two Japanese poems were beautiful. Love the moon one. Lots of children can probably relate to that one, too. I hope you are doing better every day.
Good point about the suitability for children. I usually have something to do with judging 5-line poems by local 6th graders every spring. The teachers could use some better sources for their lesson plans.
I am doing ever so slightly, and haltingly better. I still don’t have a goddamned diagnosis. But one thing is for certain, I have a “well formed corpus callosum.”
Dhorvath, OM
That makes two of us.
I seem to have been infected by my kids, so I have absolutely no filter between my brain and my fingers. I just type whatever comes to mind.
David Marjanović:
Willard is Mitt’s first name; Mitt is his middle name. The joke works better with a two-syllable first name.
Reminds me of this.
Sili,
You made a joke about Canadian O pronunciation. I am Canadian, eh!
Pardon me for a bit, while I go over into the corner to objectify you.
David, it’s Willard Scissorhands because it’s Willard Mitt Romney. Willard sounds closer to Edward (Scissorhands) and it has the benefit of using the first name Mitty obviously doesn’t care for overly much.
IMPOSTER!
Huh?
I coulda sworn it was Willard Mitt von Romnington III.
Dude, we can spell fine, it’s the speaking that’s a bit off.
Jessa:
In this case, I don’t know. I like the sound of Mitt Scissorhands and one could make awful puns about Mit Scissorhands.
Mother’s Day experience, as reported by a mormon mom on her way out of religion but still attending church (in part to please a still-believing husband):
Here is the Mothers Who Know talk to which she referred: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know?lang=eng
Excerpt:
And here’s an amusing Slate article about the effects of “correlation” on mormon culture.
CNN produced a puff piece about mormons. It is one-sided and comes off as provided to CNN by mormon PR hacks.
Excerpt:
The whole thing is scary, and includes a gushing video interview with a brain washed woman.
Another reassuring quote from the CNN article about mormons in DC:
Good evening
David M.
They do, in Germany, too. The history is sickening, not only about the fucking theocrats, but also because the courts always back down and rule in their favour even though even the conservative government of the Saarland tried to shut the school down several times.
Oh, talking ’bout WWI poetry,
The Green Fields of France always gets me worked up.
Also, I passionately dislike Mothers Day *barf*
But #1’s kindergarten has invited all parents for a Mothers and Fathers Day coffee break and I like that.
Via BB, a 2009 anthropology blog about Christian same-sex marriage rituals:
Link to blog: http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html
Referencing the work of historian John Boswell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boswell
The referenced article is no longer at the link, but this has some of the translated texts:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/2rites.asp
re Lynna’s link to “Mormons are wonderful and taking over government because they’re just so wonderful”, ugh ugh ugh:
Here it is. Appears to be the same as is already quoted there, but there’s some more argument over interpretation at the bottom of the page.
Trigger warning for anti-gay sexual violence, described by commenter “ubuntu”.
http://web.archive.org/web/20091124234916/http://www.colfaxrecord.com/detail/91429.html
Mmm.
Today at Meeting, there was lots of “yay moms!” messages, which is to be expected.
Someone went of on a LONG ramble that can be summarized as “I’m a crunchy granola mom and you should be too. Because mother’s intuition knows better than science.”
*facepalm*
Then someone read the original Mother’s Day proclamation, from 1870, written by Julia Ward Howe. While I’m not 100% on board with it, the overall sentiment is rather nice. I rather prefer it to the some of the more common MD messages.
The ad banner at the top of my screen is some nonsense about praying to St Jude. Whoever paid for it ( links to some religobot site that I don’t want to click on, even out of curiosity ) is getting gypped. Way to go to miss your target audience.
’tis the morn!
In my fitful slumber, I realised no-one had posted Philip Larkin’s best known poem. He wasn’t too fond of it, I believe, particularly in his later years. Much of his other work is worth a look, too. Aubade springs to mind.
Props to Esteleth. If more people read any of the poetry inspired by WW1, it would be a good thing. Reading Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth would be too.
Philip Larkin – This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Glad you’re feeling better Lynna – bugger about the lack of a definitive diagnosis as yet. I’m totally unsurprised you have an Awesome Colosseum.
BoS, the ads are keyed to you, not the site. Fun fact. But yes, I get ads about seminaries. And baby gear.
Esteleth, I knew that but I’m completely baffled as to why they’ve tagged me as a target audience. It’s not like I ever do searches about catholicism (fuck you very much autocorrect -stop fighting me to capitalise that word).
Actually, ad sense picks up on site content. There was recently a thread which involved baby/parenting stuff, religion is brought up all the time, etc. Given the wide range of subject matter here, no ad should be a surprise.
Oh, okay. I figure I get those ads because I read FJ, and I see the same ads there.
Of course, why FJ would have ads about Christian seminaries and baby gear is another mystery.
My Facebook page wants me to date “Christian Men!” And another ad misses its mark.
I figured all of the baby ads were ‘cos of me. Sorry everybody!
Anywho, my SIL bought me a beautiful purple flowering plant. :) I have no clue what it is, so here’s hopin’ it’ll survive on my deck (full sun).
Lynna, my FB gives me those ads. Also, “Shop at Target!”, “Become a nurse!”, and “Hot singles in your area!” (this last has a picture of a woman).
IDEK.
Pic, Audley? Maybe we can identify it. :)
esteleth
well, even if that proclamation has some serious faults (well, the god part, mainly, but what do you expect in 1870), it’s a hell lot better than all the stuff you mostly getnowadays.
Oh, but I have something positive to tell from the gender wars. Mr’s brought home some little booklets, made in cooperation between the chemical company he works for and a publisher who makes small, cheap children’s books. It’s a series about professions in the chemical industry.
It’s 4 STEM jobs and they have 2 men and 2 women. And since they’re written out of the perspective of twins, they go “our mummy is/daddy is/cousin is/uncle is”. And they’ve given mummy the “better” job, better educated, qualified and paid.
I use Ad-Block so I get to miss out on a lot of that crap. Still does not stop the spam. Why would I want to communicate with a Terry Wet-Wet and why tell me that my life is empty and I should fill it with their drugs?
I only see ads when I’m at the computer lab on IE. I get the Christian singles ads too. I was rather amused at the one with the comely young lass in a tight-fitting T-shirt that appeared to have a very large monochrome image of Christ’s face on it.
E,
I found the tag! It was stuck in the gift bag. My plant is a Cleome hybrid which apparently is called “Señorita Rosalita”.
And it is full sun. Woo hoo!
Aruging that, as a prochoicer he was clearly fine with promoting baby killing and that the only reason why we wouldn’t id because of some idea that a fetus is a person.
It’s a new anti-choice meme to promote the idea that pro-choice are in favor of killing born babies.
Audley, feel like sharing the cheesecake recipe?
Would anyone be interested in my rhubarb-and-a-shitton-of-berries pie recipe?
It’s a goodie. :D
Muse,
I’ll drop a link to the cheesecake recipe when I get home later. :)
(I’d write it out, but I don’t remember the cooking times or temps. D’oh!)
Thanks Audley!
And Esteleth I’m always up for a recipe.
I have so much baking to do.
Been out in the countryside today. Saw some birds, but the best spot of the day (no bins required) was PL965/G-MKXI on a flyover.
(Thankfully, not quite as low as this.)
Muse:
Rhubarb-and-a-shitton-of-berries Pie à l’Esteleth:
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Crust:
Sift together 2 cups flour and 1 tsp salt
In a separate bowl, mix 2/3 cup cold leaf lard or shortening and 2 TBS cold butter
Cut half of the shortening into the flour and work in until the grains are small. Cut in the remaining shortening until the grains are pea-sized.
Add 4 TBS water.
Roll into ball, then separate into halves. Roll half into bottom of 9-inch pie pan. Roll out other half, and cut into strips 1/2 inch wide, approximately 1/8 inch thick. Set aside.
Filling:
1 cup (about 3 stalks) rhubarb, chopped
1/2 cup chopped strawberries
1/2 cup chopped raspberries
1/2 cup chopped blackberries
1/4 cup red cherries
1/4 cup blueberries
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 1/2 tbs tapioca
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
Mix filling, then spread evenly in bottom of pie pan. Lay strips of dough crust on top to create lattice.
Bake 20 minutes at 425, then reduce heat to 375 for another 20 minutes.
Good with vanilla ice cream.
I believe he was just trying to blur the line between a fetus and a baby to get a rise out of people. In other words, trolling.
So, I would really love if anyone could help me out here.
I’m trying to get my parents to move with me closer to where my school is. At the moment I’m commuting but that’s a 40 mile drive round-trip, it’s wreaking havoc on me and my car. I’ve found a few apartments I’d like us to live in, I’m already taking out money to help pay the rent, and from my side of things it seems like a perfect arrangement: we get to move out of this craphole and live somewhere nice, I don’t have to spend an hour commuting, and it’ll make me and my parents’ lives generally much easier.
However, my parents are being super weird about it. My mom has admitted that while she despises the place we live, she’s scared to move and won’t elaborate on why. She also keeps stalling me on the pet issue. We have two dogs that we can’t take with us because they’re unrepentant piss-machines. Every time I bring up finding them a home or taking them to a shelter or rescue, she gets upset and tells me she doesn’t wanna talk about it.
My biggest fear is that they’re going to keep stalling me, waste time, we won’t get this done and we won’t be able to move.
(I’m not sure how much I’m asking for advice vs. just venting. Sorry about that.)
Best new thing in the world, Friday, Marilyn Münster edition.
RahXephon, is there some reason you can’t move to more favourable position on your own? I may have missed something.
Back from an impromptu camping trip. I’m sunburned, exhausted, and my hair has half a forest worth of mossy crap stuck in it, and that’s AFTER brushing.
Slept outside with a thin blanket. Got cold. Only thing to do was fish a hot rock out of the fire and spoon with it all night long. Also, at 3-4 am or some ridiculous hour, both nights, someone was shooting flares into the sky. Big bright ones. It might have been a military exercise?
Just caught up now. That is all.
Donald “Duck” Dunn has just died.
I will be linking to songs that he has played bass on but I will start with this.
Sun King
Mean Mr. Mustard
Polythene Pam
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
It is from McLemore Avenue which was Booker T & The MG’s reworking of Abbey Road. McLemore Avenue was where the Stax recording studio was located.
Turtles as promised
Huh?
https://picasaweb.google.com/101491646383347443531/Turtles?authkey=Gv1sRgCNCk2ovH7aSZMw
Try again
About damn time, Ing! Sheesh!
In other news: SQUEE, OMG TURTLES!
Muse:
Here you go: Basic cheesecake with sour cream topping.
That’s adorable, Ing! But I missed the part where you tell us what species it is, I think.
Diamondback Terrapin? The famous “Soup Turtle” (though I’m assuming not destined for the pot)?
Ing:
Eeeeeeeeee turtles!
Ing, eeeeeeeeeeee! Adorable, too cute! Thanks, I needed that.
Last Night-Mar-Kays
Born Under A Bad Sign-Albert King
Hold On I’m Coming-Sam & Dave (Live)
Hip Hug-Her-Booker T & The MG’s
So the pan today is to bake Audley’s cheesecake – coworker asked for one for her birthday, and make white gazpacho (which I think I also got from the Horde) I guess it’s a Hordely day. Thanks Audley!
Oy. I woke up an hour ago and I think it’s time to go back to bed.
I am making lunch (!) and the timer beeped at me, so I went into the kitchen and started to get my stuff out of the oven, but it kept beeping. So I looked at it, puzzled, and said “SHH!”
…Or push the button, Cipher.
Lynna, great to see you back with them Mormon Madness newsflashes.
Because/You Never Give Me Your Money-Booker T & The MG’s
Shake/Respect/I’ve Been Loving You Too Long/Satisfaction-Otis Redding
Try A Little Tenderness-Otis Redding
Melting Pot-Booker T & The MG’s
We’re not sure about the species. It was found near a group (troop, herd, halfshell?) of Eastern Box Turtles but this one lacked the distinct shell coloration.
Thanks for the cheesecake.
I really need to have at go at that one of these days. (Weds. I’ve asked my kids to sit a mock exam for practice on Ascension.)
Getting some artsy cheesecake as well. Amusing since I’m not usually comfortable whacking off to lesbians.
O.o
ING: I’m no turtle expert, but it looks somewhat like a diamondback terrapin judging by google images. Either way, very cute.
Sorry. I’ve been drinking.
–o–
In other news: it appears my ISP has just gone bankrupt. Dunno how that escaped my attention.
I guess that means most of you will be spared my presence for a while, once they cut the access.
(I have a backup solution, so Colognic matters should still reach me via email.)
Extrovert.
About the disgusting message? It seems to be “keep fighting”, “keep believing in the fallacy of sunk costs”.
Oh. I didn’t know that.
I thought Mitt is short for Mitchell?
Teh awsum!
Perfect response.
…what… the fuck. I had no idea of any of this.
They’re keyed to the site and to where you are (based on your IP address).
^_^
That’s a sea turtle.
David M,
I am not invested in that poem whatsoever, and would not disagree that it is wretched. I am merely trying to perpetuate the meme that Canadians can’t pronounce the letter O. Canadian Bacon
I know it’s a horrible slander that Canadians use /uː/ in place of /aʊ/.
We all no you say /ɔʊ/.
Marjanovic: I could be wrong, but I swear I always remember reading that it was the diamondback terrapin that was the main ‘turtle soup’ turtle, until overcollecting made them a bit scarce.
I may be misremembering though. I’m exhausted and had too much sun.
http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html
Muse,
You’re welcome! I just had a piece of the cheesecake and it’s super smooth and dense and not too sweet. OM NOM NOM
Waaaah. No no no. My stint in a detergent research lab taught me this: skin soaps are designed to froth; washing machine soaps are designed not to froth.
—
Gah. You put this in my head.
—
David M:
Samphire? Yum.
But, you know how the plaice get their eyes on the top of their bodies? [Insert flatfish embryology here.]
Ninty Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)-Wilson Pickett
Knock On Wood-Eddie Floyd
I Just Want To Make Love To You/Rock Me Baby-Isaac Hayes
Stone Cold Sober-Rod Stewart
Whew. Got back from fishing this afternoon and I’ve finally caught up with the Thread.
(Eeee! Turtles!)
The fishing was pretty good considering that the water’s still quite cold. I caught a nice 17-inch smallmouth on my first cast, a couple of decent-sized perch, and a bunch of small pike. My dad caught a few male walleye that were releasing milt. When we cleaned them, the testes were highly visible, which none of us had seen before. We had delicious salsa walleye for lunch on Saturday. Since it’s a recipe day, here you go.
Salsa Walleye (or other mild white fish)
Fillet the fish. Make a fire.
Cut up some tomatoes, sweet peppers, and a bit of onion. Place these on some heavy-duty aluminum foil. Place fillets on top of veggies. Add enough salsa to cover the fillets in a thick layer. Fold the aluminum foil up into a tightly sealed package.
Build the fire up so that it will last for 20-30 minutes, and put a grill over top of it. Put the foil package on top of the grill, and leave it there for 20-30 minutes. Remove from heat, open, and serve.
You can also do this over a medium-heat barbeque, or in a casserole dish in your oven at about 375F for an hour.
Semi-threadrupt, due to a visit from the Spokesgay this weekend. Much fun was had.
Hanging on the wall next to me is a little … wall hanging printed with Dorothy Parker’s “Résumé.” Those unfamiliar with the poem should be warned that it is a sardonic look at suicide.
I should add that Rainer Maria Rilke makes me wish to learn German so I can read his work in its original language.
Oh my god, I had a terrible day. Starting from the afternoon, a gazillion people came to buy crabs from my parents’ store. The customers were losing patience in how slow it was due to an overflow of orders and we felt like our head would explode from the amount of orders and noise. This could have been better if it weren’t just THREE PEOPLE managing everything (including myself)!
Ok later all, I’m off to China tonight, back in 3 weeks. Might pop in occasionally, access permitting.
Ugh, not feeling well. Lots of sneezing, pressure in the head with a bit of a headache, stuffy nose. I’d rather not go into work, but the stupid spring concert is at 1, and I have to be there. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I’d like to fast-forward to June 8, please.
———————————————–
Still trying to decide what to do with the week off before summer school starts. There’s talk of a trip to Maine, but who know when that will be, and I’d like to travel by myself just once this summer. Washington DC sounds nice, but then so does heading back to Costa Rica for some beach-hopping and surfing.
———————————————–
Hmm . . . chia seeds taste a bit odd, but once you mix a bit of juice with the water, not bad. I kind of like the consistency of this mix, a bit of gel and a bit of watery-ness.
———————————————-
The book I’m reading about bicycling suggested a motorcycle helmet rather than the usual headgear if a rider is concerned about both head injuries and facial injuries. I don’t know, they look like they’d have your head feeling very hot and sweaty not long after you’ve started out on your bike. OTOH, I don’t like the idea of a piece of my bike helmet getting torn and caught, thus netting me a torsion injury. Decisions, decisions.
*sigh*
Threadrupt yet again; and no likelihood of catching up tonight.
–
Orthodox Christian funeral services are very different from the Protestant ones. (At least, if the one I went to is a fair sample.)
For one thing, they are very long.
For another, they are very reptititous.
For another, they are very reptititous.
And though, out of respect for my dead friend, I tried to simply pay attention to the service, my snarky mind kept riffing on the liturgy.
*solo, chanted in sing-song style*
“I-i-if your All-Seeing-All-Powerful-Omnipresent-God didn’t hear you the fir-er-est time…
Or the fifth time…
Or the twelfth time…
Or the twent…ti…eth time….
What makes you think He’s li-i-ist’ning to you now??”
*chorus*
“Lawdamercy, lawdamercy, lawdamer-er-ercy!”
–
cicely
*snort*
Was there incense?
I like catlick incense.
@cicely
I guess it is like Catholic mass.
I like Ozymandias, too; but my favorites are Jabberwocky and The Cremation of Sam McGee.
And with that, ‘night, all.
–
Welcome back, Bride of Shrek. You won’t remember me, but I’m happy to hear you are well.
Lynna:
I’m glad you’re feeling a bit better. Hearing about your lumbar puncture made me wince and brought back horrible memories of when I had that particular procedure done a very long time ago.
cicely, I’m sorry about your friend. *hugs*
Kat, *hugs*
Ing, ♥ ♥ ♥ Thank you for posting the turtle pictures. They are amazing and wonderful. I squealed when I saw them and got a disapproving look from my formerly sleeping cat.
Caine:
♥ ♥ ♥
My Mom crocheted a Doctor Who scarf for me about 20 years ago. Naturally I still have it and in excellent condition. Best of all, the present was a complete surprise.
With lots of necessary but unfortunate skimming, I’m finally caught up on TET.
Josh, Caine, Esteleth, Janine, Ing – Thank you for fighting the good fight and opening my eyes to the privilege I as a white straight woman possess. I stand with you in the fight for gay (human) rights. Recognizing that my credentials are a little shaky, I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can join the Gayluminati? Please.
Wikipoo say that Willard Mitt Romney was named “Willard” after Willard Marriot, his father’s friend, and “Mitt” after a semi-cousin, Milton, who was nicknamed “Mitt” even though he played football. There was a horror movie about a boy who loved rats, titled Willard, in 1971, which might have put him off his first name—I remember the promo being just screams of “Willard”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_%281971_film%29
There was a sequel, Ben. The theme song was rather popular. It was sung by Micheal Jackson.
For all the people who squee over pictures of rats, I am sorry.
Just popping in to say good-night and thanks for the turtle pictures, Ing! OMGs too cute! The little fella peeping out of his shell like that just made me smile so hard!
Long day weeding in the garden – felt good, but now to bed!
‘Night!
*random* Just pledged to my ancestral radio station, which funds I’ve been hoarding from myself for months waiting for pledge drive time to roll around. In return they’re playing one of my favorite songs.
*beakbangs*
Bah. It’s fine. I’ve used soap in my washing machine for years. Of course, we have very soft water, which means that soap works well for us without using a lot of it. (For a period of several very financially lean years I personally made all our laundry soap, in big 10-pound batches, from lard past the expiration date. The reason being that we could get lard with food stamps but not laundry detergent. It worked really, really well on both clothes and dishes.)
Nowadays my favorite thing to wash bedlinens in is Jergens soap. The scent hits exactly the right clean-sheets spot.
Hello pharyngula! Did you miss me? Apart from going very quiet while I was off at a rather good conference in Perth, I also caught a horrible terrible nasty no-good cold, and felt quite grumpy and antisocial for a while. Then when I started to feel better, I was very busy catching up with work, and also visiting friends in Sydney. Of course I am totally, utterly threadrupt.
*waves*
*waves back*
I do recall thinking things had been a little quiet on the Alethea front.
Good morning
Ing
Cuuuuuuuuuuuute!
soap in washing machines
Soap’s a good and cheap replacement for those horribly expensive wool and silk detergents. Because soap works well with your hair, too.
baby killing pro-choicers
It’s that fucking “why not kill neonatals” paper. Suddenly we all have to explain why pro-choice isn’t about baby-killing. And the worst thing is, it actually was pro-choicers who made that point. Thank you sooo much
Cheesecake time
No crust Apple Cheesecake
3 eggs, separate whites and yolk
125g butter
250 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
->whip creamy with yolks
1kg curd (10% fat)
1 packet for custard
100g of foine semolina
1 teaspoon raising agent
-> mix into butter mixture
heat oven to 180°C
750g apples, peeled and diced
50g raisins (I use more)
juice of 1/2 lemon
->mix, then incorporate into mass
beat eggwhites, gently incorporate into the rest
put into form (12″ round), bake for 60-65 min on the low rung. Turn off oven, let sit there for 10 more min.
German cheesecakes usually uses curd, which is also called white cheese.
PTI,
What kind of riding? A DOT helmet is a tolerable substitute for a full face dowh hill helmet where your helmet comes off every ten minutes to let you cool down and rest your neck muscles. On the other hand if you are aiming to commute, or worse yet tour, with a DOT you will have neck issues in short order. Bike helmets are made light for a reason, you are exerting yourself in a manner that motorcycles do not require and most especially without benefit of the same level of isolation from road shock afforded by just about any working motorbike.
OOH Bride of Shrek!!! Welcome back.
Rotten watermelon is not as bad as rotten onion.
@Giliell, when you say “curd”, is that like a ricotta or smooth cottage cheese? And one packet of what, “for custard”?
And my goodness, not vegetarian morality again? Pitbull, have you come up with any new solution for the ecosystem damage and the mass slaughter of rodents, birds and smaller animals done by large scale grain and soy farms? Is it worse to kill one kangaroo, or to kill 1000 marsupial mice and lizards and ruin a few hectares of bushland?
And poems, excellent. I must reread the Rubaiyat sometime. And props to other people who like the rather obscure Edna St Vincent Millay. Esteleth, I love the langauge of Flanders Fields but the lines about carrying on the fight ruin it for me. Here’s an Australian pome of grate nashunal significerance.
South Of My Days
South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country,
rises that tableland, high delicate outline
of bony slopes wincing under the winter,
low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-
clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced,
willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple
branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;
and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.
O cold the black-frost night. The walls draw in to the warmth
and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle
hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses,
thrust its hot face in here to tell another yarn-
a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter.
Seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones.
Seventy years are hived in him like old honey.
Droving that year, Charleville to the Hunter,
nineteen-one it was, and the drought beginning;
sixty head left at the McIntyre, the mud round them
hardened like iron; and the yellow boy died
in the sulky ahead with the gear, but the horse went on,
stopped at Sandy Camp and waited in the evening.
It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees.
Came to the Hunter, three hundred head of a thousand-
cruel to keep them alive – and the river was dust.
Or mustering up in the Bogongs in the autumn
when the blizzards came early. Brought them down; we
brought them down, what aren’t there yet. Or driving for Cobb’s on the run
up from Tamworth-Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill,
and I give him a wink. I wouldn’t wait long, Fred,
not if I was you. The troopers are just behind,
coming for that job at the Hillgrove. He went like a luny, him on his big black horse.
Oh, they slide and they vanish
as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror’s cards.
True or not, it’s all the same; and the frost on the roof
cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.
Wake, old man. This is winter, and the yarns are over.
No-one is listening
South of my days’ circle
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country
full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.
TLC is correct: it’s a hatchling diamondback terrapin. (I’ve got a couple hundred growing up in the lab right now.)
He’s also correct that DBTs were the gourmet-foodie fad of the 1880s-1920s in the USA. (Traditional European-style turtle soup was made from the green sea turtle, as per DM’s assertion.)
“Ozymandyas” played an imprtant role in “Watchmen”.
— — — — —
“Rosemary & Thyme” is now written down in my wish list.
— — — — —
Good new urban gothic: Check the book series that includes “The Midnight Mayor” and “The Minority Council”.
— — — — —
Rats are smart, cuddly critters. Good that Mitt changed name to Mitt.
Alethea
Ah, ok, I see, cultural differences again
A quick google image search seems to indicate that you use bigger boxes of custard powder. So, enough custard powder for about 1/2 l of milk
Curd, farmer’s cheese, quark, smooth cottage cheese (has to be really creamy when whipped a bit). Ricotta is lacking a bit in acidity.
Don’t use normal cream cheese as it would make it damn heavy
afterthought: Ing, somebody at your state’s fish & game dept. would probably appreciate an e-mail as to the location of the DBT plus box turtles. (Had to have been coastal.)
Poetry: I recommend the Ctulhu song of the first Johannes Cabal novel.
—- — — —
WTF? Andersson overtaking Johansson as Sweden’s most common surname
“Swedes bearing the surname Johansson are in for a tough match if they wish to defend their title as Sweden’s most common surname.” http://www.thelocal.se/40808/20120513/
I don’t think so (grabs chain saw and hockey mask).
Chas,
Yup. I have multiple cookbooks from the first half of the 20th century that have sections on “turtles and terrapins”. Apperently, you were supposed to buy them live, like lobster. :-/
Morning Pharyngulistas!
I’ve begun the planning stage of my second book I’m writing – which is currently named “War of Seven Thrones” but very likely will be changed in the future cause of the fact that’s almost the same as “Game of Thrones” and I’d rather not have lawyers on my arse.
The story is not going to involve much of the war itself cause the war was rather… dull? It involves seven houses, not seven kingdoms. At most they could field a few house guards, their retainer, and a few loyal peasants. It was a war of politicians, a war of diplomats, and a war of assassins and spies.
The story is going to be a tale of love versus loyalty. The retainers of two of the seven houses, at the start of the story, are in love and become engaged, and then the war happens and they’re forced to work against each other despite their love for each other. Tacked onto that is the fact that they are both well-worn, older fighters – years past their prime.
I hope it’s gonna be interesting enough to read.
1) Welcome back Bride of Shrek, very good to see you!
2) Bon voyage Rorschach, have a great time.
3) Love, hugs and chocolate bacon to all.
4) Threadrupt.
5) On day two of hangover. I have Ruinated™ a grand total of: two good friends, one of said friend’s new girlfriend, her friend, 4 of other good friend’s colleagues, a random assortment of around 10 people we met in pubs (aka Randoms), myself.
I am become Drunk. The Destroyer of Livers!
Woe betide anyone who drinketh with me.
It was a bloody good weekend. I predict fallout however. My beloved has been amused by the tales coming from a legendary meetup with my two best chums, I am not sure said tales will amuse universally, however. I am hoping for a swift and pleasant resolution to strife caused by ruination.
Louis
On the subject of cross-purpose soaping, the first time I was asked to start the dishwasher on my own, I didn’t realize there was a difference between the dish-washing soap in the sink and the dish-washing-machine soap. Hours of bubbly fun ensued.
Ah, sweet poetry:
(From Jonathan L. Howard’s novel ”Johannes Cabal the Necromancer –a devilishly thrilling comic fantasy”
— — — —
“Cabal dimly recalled that the musical genius who had decided to put on “Necronomicon: The Musical” had got everything he deserved: Money, fame and torn to pieces by an invisible monster.” (here is the 1st verse of the masterpiece:)
“Big Squidhead lies a-sleeping at the bottom of the sea,
And one day, when the stars are right, he’ll wake up presently,
And then may wipe us all out, which sounds worrying to me,
While the Tcho-Tcho sing this song…
Aie! Ftagn! Ftagn! Chtulhu!
Cosmic horror coming to you,
The Old Ones are back now with a view to
Sucking out your brains.”
Unnecessary hostility.
Relatively speaking, the solution is not to turn around and feed that to cows and chickens who will then also be slaughtered.
The choice you offer is between killing X rodents and birds, or X rodents and birds plus Y cows and chickens; the better choice is obviously the former.
Grass is not a viable alternative.
Since you’re not proposing that it’s plausible to replace all meat consumption in Australia with grazing kangaroos — nor could you be claiming all that bushland accounts for the caloric equivalent of a single kangaroo — it’s unclear how this question relates to reality.
Good morning everyone!
My elder child is at home sick AGAIN. I swear, he has a gnat-sized immune system. I’m toying with taking him to the doctor today. On the one hand, it’s either a cold or a sinus infection, neither of which much can be done about at the moment, and I hate using health care when I shouldn’t. However, this is the same kid who was laid out flat for almost a month last year with a sinus infection, so that set of symptoms makes me a bit twitchy. Plus I don’t want this dragging out a few days without a doctor’s note to hand over to the school to prove that I’m not coddling him. Ah, parenthood.
Giliell,
Like Peter Singer says, variations on this type of pro-infanticide argument have been published in ethics journals since 1972:
“Of course, 40 years ago no articles were published online, and there were no pro-life Web sites, so since that time it has become much easier to stir up opposition to articles published in academic journals.”
I realize you’re just expressing frustration, but I wonder if you also think it would be better if such papers were not published?
Message to Ing:
I hardly use Google+ at all, but upon seeing your turtle pictures there, I decided to log in and add you to my circles. However, I expected an opportunity to add an invitation, which you could accept or reject — the way LinkedIn does it.
That didn’t happen. You were added automatically to a new circle ‘Pharyngula’. If you have any objection to this — I don’t know how much of this is visible — please let me know.
O, and sorry, of course.
Good morning carlie and Kat!
Carlie,
:( for your kid being sick again.
Louis: I might be able to scare up a few pig livers for xenotransplants. (Yes, even an Englishperson’s liver will eventually go wonky.)
ॐ: If you haven’t already, check out TZT, the last few incarnations have been troll-stomping festivals.
@Audley:
Gmorning!
Thank goodness my ancestry is mostly Scot-Irish…
carlie: Hope kid feels better. Taking him to the doctor might not be a bad idea given what you mentioned.
Rev: Those livers are frikn indestructible.
I do get very sick of how totally US-centric all that debate is. Grass (or scrub) is a perfectly viable option in Australia. A lot of land is totally, utterly, 100% unsuitable for growing grain. It’s cattle, roos or nothing. Northern Territory cattle stations would consider one cow per hectare to be on the high end. Mostly not viable; maybe possible in a good wet. And anyway, we don’t even feed grain to cows very often – a little bit occasionally, either for the high end export market, or when they are in bad condition such as in times of drought.
Tell me about it. My doctor was amazed at how good my lever tests came back last physical.
And knowing what i know about my “habits”, needless to say, so was I
Audley – the recipe worked out beautifully! I have happy coworkers.
Canada teen discovers tree pulp has [potential] anti-aging benefits (Update) http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-canada-teen-tree-pulp-anti-aging.html
“Economists list cheapest ways to save the world” http://phys.org/news/2012-05-economists-cheapest-ways-world.html
— — — — —
I never got into poetry, except the few lines in Lord of the Rings.
Muse,
Awesome! I just got a call from my mom– she sliced some fresh berries over the top of a leftover piece and tried to convince herself that it was a balanced breakfast. :D
This news op-ed article by Kathleen Parker was in the local paper this week-end. Its title is “Keep Obama, Romney narratives in perspective”.
*blink* How refreshing to see rational thought on the issue from the media.
/snerk
For Caine: the most expensive camera in the world.
Rev and AR,
I had a liver/kidney test recently. My doctor complained that I had no right to be as healthy as I was, no right at all.
I enjoy annoying him with continuing health!
Louis
SQB,
Kwok will be along to ask for one annnnnny minute.
Louis
Yes as I was telling Mrs. BDC, that just means I’m not drinking enough
She didn’t see the obvious humor in that. Unless raised eyebrow scowling is some other way of laughing.
Yep old Leicas have a serious cult following. They’re nice cameras for sure but there’s a lot of LOOK AT WHAT I OWN involved in it.
Rev,
Like Apple products?
*runsandhides*
I had a liver/kidney test recently. My doctor complained that I had no right to be as healthy as I was, no right at all.
Clearly, you picked your grandparents to specifically annoy him/her.
Tethys, you left out Parker’s apologetics for Romney:
Haha! (Almost) nobody (straight) knew who was gay because (almost) nobody (straight) was using that word, see? Gotcha there, queers.
I don’t believe it. My mom is incredulous that anyone is getting away with making this claim; she remembers differently.
Parker says none of this gay stuff is “the real story”, and goes on to complain that Democrats are forcing us to talk about contraception, which is also of course not “the real story”.
RBC
As long as there was no tappin’ o’ the feets, you’re probably safe.
re Tethys’ SacBee link: not bad, but I bristle at this excuse-making for Romney:
For petes sake. “The Gay” might not’ve been openly attacked back then, but gender-policing was in full bloody force. “A boy/girl shouldn’t be doing that; THAT’S JUST WRONG” is exactly what I heard as a child, a decade at least before any of us church-sheltered kids knew what “gay” was. “That’s just wrong” is what I hear to this day.
I was in high school in the early 70s.
Homosexuality was the favored, all purpose, all occasion insult.
Does that count as “high on the radar”?
Sili @180
LOL. I’d rather be objectified for my well formed corpus callosum than simply for being a woman. Maybe my T-shirt should read “Well Formed Corpus Callosum = Sexy.”
My spellchecker doesn’t know the word “callosum,” which makes it as uninformed as most of the non-Pharyngulites to whom I brag about my well formed version.
That’s her job.
Wikipedia says she’s the most accurate conservative prognosticator. She must be very proud.
In response to 190, I like the Betty Bowers presentation of biblical marriage.
(YouTube cliphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw)
Check out Hallq on how he was treated by Korean healthcare:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/05/14/the-korean-health-care-system-rocks
Ing @ 222
Awwwwwww. Cute overload. That did work to brighten my day.
And about goddamned time.
Ing, you can tell I was joking with all the ire about not being promptly served photos of baby turtles, right?
“promptly served”? I see what u did there…
They shouldn’t have done it, but boarding schools until recently were not widely known as incubators of sensitivity.
Fine, maybe prep schools bred jerks in those days, maybe they still do. But 4 out of the 5 boys who participated in that assault grew up to be men who were ashamed of their behavior and made at least some attempt to apologize. The fifth was Romney. I think I’d rather have any other of Lauber’s assailants as a presidential candidate. At least they appear to be capable of thinking about their actions and repenting their vile acts. Unlike, Mitt “I don’t recall” Romney.
Romney’s behaviour was appalling, but it also reminds me that I was a homophobic asshole in high school. (I don’t fit into a box easily, since I was both bullied and a bully; I was bullied for being a geek and for my emotional problems, but I also treated other kids badly.) I’m deeply ashamed of the shitty things I said in those days, and I wish I could undo it.
Then again, at least I’m not asking anyone to trust me with political power.
(I would oppose Romney in any event. Anyone who takes advice on immigration from arch-bigot Kris Kobach should never be trusted with power. Kobach was a leading figure in the campaign to kill the DREAM Act, went to federal court to try to stop states granting in-state tuition to undocumented kids, and has been a strong proponent of oppressive measures like SB 1070 and HB 56.)
As for poetry, I like John Betjeman, who was a more serious poet than most people think.
I also write my own poems from time to time, of highly variable quality; some are good, many are self-indulgent crap.
Birger at 266,
I see what you did there.
Good evening
I allow nurses to take my blood-pressure twice. After that they simply have to accept that it’s textbook standard healthy in spite of me being fat.
carlie
Sorry about the kid. Hope he gets better soon.
Alethea
Well, don’t let nuances get into the way of being better than thou ;)
re: #285,
The liver is the Wolverine of human organs. Not indestructible, but capable of regenerating like a mutant psychopath.
IIRC, in live donor liver transplantation, the donor can give 2/3 of his or her liver, and the remaining third will regenerate the whole organ as if nothing happened.
…Oh. Yes. Google found the article about the species, not the one about the genus, and the species doesn’t have its own in English…
Yes! That’s famous. :-)
Pffft.
Repetitious and reptilian? Creeping? Creepy?
Subthread won.
Oh no. Maybe like Catholic masses 300 years ago, except with a lot more gold.
No evidence for a beak in Archaeopteryx, if that’s what you mean.
I wondered if this kind of thing was going on. Thanks!
X-D
*hug*
…Lomborg…
In one of the episodes when there was no research money at all whatsoever in Austria for a few months (each time a scandal that made it all the way to Nature), I woke up and modified the text of the national anthem accordingly. I still have that somewhere.
David brings up an anthem, good enough reason to post this.
I like how the you who posted it to YouTube kept the end of the preceding song and beginning of the next song in, showing how much care that Jimi Hendrix put into the song. He was showboating his way through the first song (Playing guitar with his teeth.) and the change when it segues to the anthem. He fucking meant it.
(Remember, Jimi was in the Air Force.)
Okay, this has gone far enough. I have a co-worker who is writing a note on my Area of Responsiblity without talking to me about it in the first place. I went and told my boss about it and he said he’ll talk to them about it, between my telling my boss and now, they decided I’m not working fast enough for their liking and they’ve gone to another person with a request they made of me while also including me in the Reply All e-mail to that other person.
Is it bad form to e-mail my boss the chain?
Kristinc, how can you not love a soapmaker with the handle “Dirty Sanchez” who writes like this:
Re Pteryxx’s interesting link at #190: Comments are, naturally, homophobic fundies plus lots of No True Scotsman™.
The thing about Romney is that he was chuckling while he “couldn’t recall.” It seemed completely disingenuous.
Interesting. Then how did the gay kids all know that being gay was something they needed to hide?
If it wasn’t on their radar, then a gay person would feel free to express themselves, because why not? But then if they were all expressing their gayness, then it would have to be on everyone’s radar because it would be in front of them.
doi 10.1177/1948550610379506
«Experimental studies show that violent video games cause people to behave more aggressively, but how long does the effect last? In most experiments, aggression is measured immediately after gameplay. The present experiment is the first to test the long-term causal effects of violent video games on aggression. By the flip of a coin, participants played a violent or nonviolent game for 20 min. Within each group, half ruminated about the game. The next day, participants competed with an ostensible opponent on a competitive task in which the winner could punish the loser with painful noise blasts through headphones. Results showed that violent video games increased aggression 24 hr later, but only among men who ruminated about the game. Rumination keeps aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies active. If players ruminate about the violence in a game, the aggression-stimulating effects of the game persist long after it has been turned off.»
Katherine:
No, it’s not.
Your boss is, hopefully, the kind who tries to help you and keep the department working smoothly. That means xe needs to know about potential issues or concerns before xe gets broadsided by someone else with them.
So, a quick “FYI, this is going on” kind of email, with a little bit of backstory, is perfectly justified to me. I used to fire off two or three a day to my last boss (that company had a lot of internal political drama).
Ruminants ruminate.
Gamers game.
Walton, if Romney would have used this opportunity to speak out about how bullying is terrible, gender policing is terrible, and homophobia is terrible, instead of just doing personal damage-control and notpologies, I think far fewer people would be holding it against him.
I have a friend who was in private schools in the late 50s and 60s. He was actively picked on for being gay (I think he said it was “queer” at the time, but I could be wrong). Even in 7th grade, when they didn’t necessarily know the word for it, gender roles and stereotypes were still enforced.
True. It just makes me feel bad because I know I’ve been an asshole, in the past.
The difference:
The turtles were found in a residental area on thw shore. Ill see if I can find that counties game commision and email them the pics and address. Should I have taken it to turn it in to a sanctuary or something? We didn’t want to remove it from the environement (we picked it up because it had crawled onto a walk path)
Conformity in general is enforced. I was bullied a lot, and I think I was never accused of being gay or girlish.
From PET:
Early diagnosis of psychopathy.
Numbers on rape in the US.
The most awesome thesis of all time. Srsly.
Aardvark baby pictures!!! Astonishingly cute. Well, they are related to elephants. ^_^
um
ok
@David M:
Ohmygawshbabyaadvarksaresocute!!
Katherine: Cute, but fucking bizarre looking! I like how their front limbs vaguely resemble huge, gnarled hands with uncut nails
I keep getting an ad that suggests I pray to St. Jude (patron saint of hopeless cases).
Is this a message from You Know Who?
Rev,
It makes about as much sense as anything else RON PAUL has done.
One million moms killed good christian bitches.
Sorry, I could not resist.
Watch as a brain dead reactionary group takes credit for market forces.
Say, is JC Penney still in business?
Why Things Happen.
–
Bride of Shrek, welcome home! :)
–
Ah, memories! Chem lab, sodium, magnesium ribbon…there was a reason why the instructor wouldn’t trust me and/or my lab partner with unmonitored access to the storage closet! (Though he did profess to enjoy our enthusiasm, and supervised us through some after-hours, not-part-of-the-curriculum fun and games.)
–
I like Mad Magazine’s parody of Jabberwocky, too.
:) :) :)
AFAIK, no-one’s parodised The Cremation of Sam McGee, but then, it’s already pretty tongue in cheek. Not sure where you’d go with that.
Yea, verily; and blowing of tumbleweeds as well.
–
Son and DiL got me a Nook Color for Mother’s Day! Completely unexpected.
–
Squee-worthy turtle is squee-worthy.
:)
–
Ha. While I haven’t seen that specific thesis before, it’s the kind of thing I studied on my last degree (the MSc in Social Science of the Internet). I will never forget Bonnie Nardi’s “My Life As A Night-Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft.”
Walton:
I was sort of the same way in most of high school; I was a downright asshole to people I found weird, but skateboarding and punk rock weren’t yet in vogue so I got quite a bit of negative attention myself. I have a reunion coming up and I hope I can make my apologies to the people I wronged then.
I had a nostalgia attack over the weekend that culminated in me looking up McGee and Me on youtube. For those that weren’t subjected to such things in their younger days, it was a show made by Focus on the Family that follows a kid and his weird sentient cartoon character, McGee, as they try to live the good Christian life in a world of public school problems, or something like that. I watched an episode about the Good Samaritan parable where the main character challenges a bully to a high-stakes skateboard race: if the bully wins, main character kid has to be his slave for a week! If bully loses then he has to leave this other kid alone. Cue a rockin’ behind-the-times Christian tune being played over a skateboard training montage and GUESS WHO WINS THE RACE?
I became very angry at the parents who used to stuff us into basements to watch that tripe while they were upstairs eating shrimp cocktails or whatever went on up there.
Argh. I could punch my laptop in the face right now. I’ve never read such a masterpiece (for certain values of the word) of pompous, vile mansplaining in my life as this comment I just found on a post at A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss about sexual harassment, assault, and weight gain. Here’s the author’s response to the mansplainy comment. A brief excerpt, complete with tone trolling, gaslighting, and victim-blaming, among other obvious derailing tactics that I don’t have brief names for:
In really hopeless cases, it is better if you go ahead and summon the king of monsters and patron saint of collateral damage.
…Or you just get Firefox and Adblock Plus. That might be easier.
Awesome. I have long suspected that IKEA has cosmic importance.
What’s wrong with leggings, though? I mean, in reasonably clement weather.
:-) :-) :-)
Awesome.
Skateboarding wasn’t???
*immediately triples vague estimate of Predator Handshake’s age*
Hekuni Cat:
I think it’s safe to say you’re an MQG (Motley Queer Groupie). ♥
SQB, wow. Some people take being a gear head waaaaaaaay too seriously.
Lynna, glad you’re doing better; hoping that soon you will be doing betterer.
–
*hug* for P-T I. Unfortunately, real-time has no fast forward button.
–
chigau
Oh, wasn’t there just! Great, billowing, sinus-afflicting clouds of it, in at least three different ‘flavors’. The dominant one smelled/tasted strongly like soap; fair enough, I guess, if it’s supposed to be purificatory. We also had something acrid that smelled like it had burning insulation somewhere in its ancestry, and another something that would have been rather pleasant (if my head wasn’t already pounding) that had a kinda honey-like smell.
–
I’ve never been to a Catholic funeral mass, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
–
Welcome home, Alethea!
–
birgerjohansson, just remember not to sign your work. And to dispose of the empties properly.
;)
–
I did this too. Though only the once. That once sufficed me for a lifetime.
–
carlie, sorry to hear about your offspring.
–
Whereas Wilfredoric Mittenford Rmoney the Third does not perceive that any harm was done, or that it didn’t look like a harmless prank from the other side; i.e., Lack of Empathy Error; Redo From Start.
–
Cicely,
A Nook color? Awesome. I can’t say this enough– as much as I love books (you know, the old analog kind) having an e-reader has made life so much easier. :)
Your son and DiL deserve high fives.
David,
Skateboarding really didn’t really start to become mainstream until late 90s, at least here in the northeastern US. Depending on where PH is from (assuming US), it could have been even later than that.
Speaking of Romney Paul.
I think I could handle the Perry, but that’s as far as I go.
@343: “The pharmaceutical business is in cahoots with the Virgin Mary. Long story.”
Um…huh?
Thank you, cicely. My good moments are as brief as a haiku. I treasure them.
David Marjanović @344:
I don’t think a tripling of my perceived age is necessary; Tony Hawk was just starting to get video games published, but skateboarding was definitely not something that everyone was familiar with like it seems to be now.
The X-Games were a thing, sure, but keep in mind that this was the US South. Our hair was long, like a GIRL’S HAIR! Not only did (most of us) not drive trucks, but we drove things that weren’t made by Ford! Plus our pants weren’t the right size.
Uh, it’s, a, uh… *furtively looks about* I have noooo idea what you’re talking about.
*unties string and stuffs beak-mask behind sofa cushions*
Predator Handshake:
Same country, worlds apart.
I’m in my 30s. My dad taught me to skateboard; he learned in is 20s. But then, the whole phenomenon was born in the region (I’m a second-generation Angelino). I actually still have my last skateboard.
Couple of notes for non-TPM readers.
Ron Paul is suspending his campaign efforts (but still trying to gain delegates)
Rhode Island governor issues executive order to start recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states.
Unintentional humor is unintentional. But funny. Hail Tpyos!
I’d go with “creepy” as a description; the way the priest kept invoking forgiveness (overandoverandoverandover) for god’s “faithful handmaiden [redacted] who has fallen asleep”…and then I thought, “And when this intersects the kiddies’ bedtime prayer, “If I should die before I wake”….”, and the fact that the coronary did not treat my friend well, visually, to the extent that she barely resembled herself and I do so wish I hadn’t looked in the coffin, on accounta the way it’s trying to plaster itself over my memories of happier times…. I know I would have had nightmares and insomnia, after that. Call me over-sensitive.
This being a small church, probably goldish. Quite a lot of it slathered on the wall icon-wise. For a while (after the first hour, when anticipating the chords in the music waned as a sanity-saver) I picked the iconography apart in my mind, as if it were presented as an SCA A&S entry under “Illumination”. The artist seemed very uncertain as to where the light was coming from; not necessarily anachronistic.
–
Apparently someone in Brazil took the thorny buttered-toast-vs-cat conundrum … and made it into an advert.
http://tinyurl.com/7qqcn7h
Walton:
Oh, me too. I was about one link away from the absolute bottom of the food chain, so in retrospect I desperately pity the poor kid who was the very bottom link. Of course I picked on him: eat or be eaten. But it was wrong and cruel, and I wish I could apologize to him. He was a sweet kid too.
Daisy:
You can’t. You can’t not, that’s how you can. Uh. Anyway. It’s very good soap too, a bit softer than my Platonic ideal but super gentle. Special Delivery is an Egyptian musk that goes with everything. BTW, it’s worth reading the feedback she leaves for buyers too.
David M:
I’m An Aardvark
David M.:
Jesus fuck, why do I read NYT comments? There’s whining about the “ableism” of diagnosing someone with psychopathy, lots of mother-blaming, woo about children becoming psychopathic because they ingested “chemicals,” the “He’s just being a child!” nonsense, “Some people just don’t like sharing and Michael is one of them,” blaming of circumcision, and of course the one knuckledragger who thinks military school would “shape him up.”
Ahhhh, this version of the aardvark song is better. Happier aardvarks and better aardvarky action. Should have done me research before I posted.
Just now seeing Janine’s note about “Duck” Dunn’s death. Sad news, such a magnificent bass player. In memory of Dunn I wanted to post an elegy to another deceased musician that feels appropriate for the news of Dunn’s death, and for this thread’s poetic feel, but I’m not sure it falls under fair use. So, instead, I’ll quote the title, author, and a relevant reference work in which the poem may be found.
“Elegy For Thelonious” by Yusef Komunyakaa, 1984 (1)
___________
Reference:
(1)
Komunyakaa, Y. (1984). Elegy for Thelonious. In M. S. Harper & A. Walton (Eds.), Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep: An Anthology of Poetry by African Americans Since 1945. (1st ed., p. 251). Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
A brief Google search turned up a few places where the full text of the poem is posted, but it’s not clear to me that those links are operating under fair use, either, and there are a number of links that are dead ends.
So, basically, this comment has not been the elegy that I had wished. I wish I could find a legitimate link, or an audio recording of Komunyakaa reading it (his voice is fantastic. If you’re interested in learning more about him, and hearing him read some of his poems, this is a good link. The audio on feature at that link has some introductory comments; Komunyakaa starts reading at approximately 2 m 18s).
Anyway, “Elegy For Thelonious” is one of my favorite poems, simultaneously heart-breaking and uplifting. Thanks to Janine for the news, sad though it is.
Still learning,
Robert
Ah, I see that there are a lot more comments on the psychopathy article than there were last night when I read them. The earlier comments expressed a fair amount of empathy with the parents and how difficult it must be to parent a callous-unemotional child, along with hopes that treatments can be found for such children and that the kid profiled will somehow escape criminal sociopathy. This is why I try to read comments with the oldest first.
Having worked with kids I suspect were sociopathic, I can say they are very very frightening and treatment and early intervention harm reduction would be a very good thing.
Sigh.
Daisy:
This is my favorite excuse/reasoning for everything. I mean, it’s so vague! What’s not to love? You could be blaming industrial pollutants, or Mr Clean, or the hormones found in milk for any kind of vague problem your child may or may not have. Brilliant conspiracy.
(My mom blames “chemicals” (interchangeably with “toxins”) for her (not real) problems ‘cos she’s all wooey like that.)
Dhorvath:
Right now I’m mostly riding for fun and exercise, but eventually I do want to try commuting. I see it all the time, people biking around to and from work. The street I live on goes straight downtown, so it would be a matter of navigating the bumps and hilly bits (and the nastier parts of town) . . . and the crazy drivers. I swear, it’s like everyone who got their licenses out of boxes of CrackerJack thought it would be a wonderful idea to live in my city.
—————————————-
Been going back and forth between feeling better and feeling worse all day. I’m tempted to simply stay home tomorrow regardless of how I feel. I think I somehow caught the nasty cold Althea had.
Guess who has recently been groped by the TSA?
(I didn’t even realize that Kissinger was still alive.)
What about yeast? That’s a favorite for some of my friends.
Food cravings for sugar and carbs? Yeast!
Fatigue? Yeast!
PCOS symptoms? Yeast!
Having a hard time losing weight? Can’t be because diets don’t work, must be yeast.
Piercings making stinky cheesy secretions? Can’t be because you need to clean your damn piercings, must be yeast.
Holy crap, in Googling about yeast, I found the one that tops them all:
Autism? Yeast!
*headdesk*
kristinc:
Yeast? That’s one I haven’t heard yet. Of course, my friends and family who are food nutters tend to blame all of their problems on gluten.
My boss gave me a wedding gift!
Lots and lots of time off!
God fucking damn it.
Ing,
Oh noes, that sounds like you were let go.
:( *hugs*
Utterly threadcrupt. Condolences or congratulations as appropriate.
So glad to see Lynna and hear that she’s doing better at least for the moment.
I have a kid who was very sensitive to phenols and yellow food coloring (tartrazine) up until he was 8 or 9, and 30 minutes after ingesting more than a little could go instantly from fine to trying to throw himself out of the minivan because I have him the wrong spoon for his yogurt. This irritability is fairly typical of those sorts of food additive/ingredient sensitivies and nothing remotely like what was described in the article. Sure, the kid might be sensitive to something, but that’s not his problem. And even though a dietary intervention helped SonSpawn, I get massively provoked with the people who respond to every child problem with Teh Ebil Kemiculz™ and carefully ignore the massive amounts of evidence that something else is going on.
Food sensitivities are not all that rare or little known in child mental health circles, so do these fools seriously think that NONE of the professionals have suggested that the parents try a dietary intervention and that it hasn’t worked out? Really?
Ing: I’m really, really sorry to hear that.
((((Hugs)))) for Ing. And some spiked hot chocolate should be coming out of your usb shortly – better put a mug under it.
@Ing, I’m so sorry. That is shitty and made more so by the timing.
kristinc,
Now that I think about it, I have heard some of the yeast woo. Actually, it was Mr Darkheart, who was told that his hair loss was caused by consuming too much yeast*. It was news to us that yeast had the ability to block healthy hair follicles.
Also amazing considering that yeast dies when you bake with it. Industrious little buggers.
*Never mind that all of the men in his family started balding in their 30s. Both grandfathers, his dad, his uncles (both sides), his older brother, etc. But it can’t be genetically caused, oh no!
Extra *hugs* for Ing. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that won’t sound like a platitude, but… best wishes. FWIW, I have a lot of respect for you.
*hugs Pteryxx* ^_^
Huh. …I guess we’ll soon have identified all states that Springfield is not in. I grew up in the late 80s with every boy except my brother and me skateboarding. If anything, it’s less popular now than then; the rollerskates partially supplanted it.
Ah-HAAAAAAH!!! Springfield is in Hollywood, just like Duckburgh!!!
I know what you mean. *hug* *big heap of chocolate*
Those people are themselves sociopaths.
That makes sense, so I stick to it.
*slow-motion headdesk with really dramatic impact, splinters of wood flying around and all*
He can’t die. He’s, like, doomed to wander the Earth forever.
Autism? Anything and everything at all!
Kernel of truth: Candida albicans is not nice.
~:-|
Are you fired?
Oh, man, Ing, I was trying to figure out why you would say dammit about time of for a wedding present, and then I saw Audley’s post and I got it. That sucks big time.
ME: Older Kid, does [friend who frequently hangs out here] own a pair of black slippers with fur inside?
Older Kid: No.
ME: Is he missing a pair?
OK: No.
ME: Did he bring a pair when he spent the night here?
OK: No.
ME: Because I found a pair in a plastic bag in the backyard last week and I’m trying to fig —
OK: Oh yeah, he did leave those here in a bag.
ME: headdesk headdesk headdesk headdesk
Apparently, judging from everyone else’s reactions.
So…
*hugs*
*chocolate*
*cocoa shell tea*
*sweet chai (with honeybush)*
*more hugs*
“Oh, yeah, those, the ones that are… black and have… fur inside. Those. I was imagining another shade of black and a completely different kind of fur, so I didn’t remember those.”
That kind of thing? Because if so, I don’t understand your reaction.
My position was eliminated in this funding cycle due to budget being lowered…specifically by being lowered the exact amount of my salary. That and talk of hiring a part time replacement pretty much synches that it’s an end around dealing with the union. Again, I am the ONLY person still working at the lab.
Boss also seemed offended/annoyed that I took the news well and didn’t make a scene.
however this counts as a success because laid off=/=fired and thus makes potential unemployment and future job interviews better!
David:
1) There is no mystery about where Springfield is: Groening has spilled the beans that Springfield is in Oregon.
2) We knew what skateboarding was obviously*, it just took a little bit a time before every kid was doing it and not just the “outcasts”. *shrugs*
*Hey, I grew up on TMNT.
Interesting.
:-)
Oh, fuck, Ing. >_<
What is TMNT?
*heart sinking to chair level*
How could he!?!
Greetings, Horde:
I’ve been away for a few days and haven’t been following things as diligently as I might. Sorry about that. Hope all of you are well or will be well soon, as the case may be.
Yesterday I went to a funeral, for an old friend and mentor of my husband’s (who died three days after my husband’s brother). He was an atheist, as it happens; he used to pass his FFRF newsletters on to me after he was done with them.
Fortunately (and unusually for Indiana) there was no minister nor any god-talk at all, just people sharing their memories of the man. The only eye-rolling moment for me was when his daughter said something about him returning to the energies of the universe or whatever. But she didn’t lay it on too thick.
A nice surprise, and just the sendoff he would have wanted.
My BPAL arrived today, with six free samples. ♥
Ing, I’m sorry you lost your job. Here’s hoping for a much better one in the near future.
David:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Heroes in a half-shell.
Noooooooooo…
Ing that sucks! Your ex-boss is such a jackass. I suppose he expected you to beg for your job back or something?
Hey, Ikea has this nifty light that recharges from sun and wind. Cool.
Oort. Sorry, Ing. I hope you can find someplace less toxic and nasty. It’s “nice” the way they can side-step the union like that, ain’t it?
Also, Oort is autocorrect’s answer to Ooff..I think it works.
Caine:
Jealous!
Kristinc, Anne Bonney was one of the samples I received. It’s delicious.
Ing: I hope this all works out for you.
Ing, I’m so sorry. *hugs* *chocolate* Good luck in your search for a job I hope is much better.
Audley:
You should have yours soon, right? The samples I received are Anne Bonney, Yorick, Hunger, Wanton, Dragon’s Heart and Defututa.
I don’t have enough bodies. ;D
Ing, if your @369 means what I think it means, *hugs/boozes/chocolates/bacons/kittens*
I’m so very sorry to hear it. That has to rank right down there with firing people just in time for Christmas.
–
Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dude.
And also, Cowabunga!
–
LDTR, sorry for the loss of your friend, but the service sounds…optimal? ‘Cause nothing can make it ‘good’; just less bad and painful.
I swear, gang; when the time comes, just cremate me, stuff me in a pottery jar, stick it in the ground, plant a tree over top…and roll out some dice in my memory. !st Edition. Accept no substitutes or “she’s in a better place now” platitudes. Pelt any lurking religiots with water balloons (in biodegradable wrappers, or use reusable sponge balls) until they fuck the hell off.
–
“Oort” indeed,
–
Ouch ing and LDTR; free thunkie hugs will be provided to those who need them.
Also threadrupt; end of the semester madness.
Caine, isn’t it just gorgeous? It gets better with age — totally worth it to order an extra bottle and tuck it away for a year or two or three. And if you like it you may well like Aureus. And Cathedral. And Clemence, although as far as I recall she’s not available right now.
Ooh, and Sri Lanka.
*koff koff* Off my lawn, yout’!
I built my first skateboard in, I’d guess, 1968, out of a piece of 1×6 with the wheels from a pair of all-metal clamp-on-the-shoe rollerskates nailed on.
*koff*
No hills. The cool kids could go up over the curb.
where’s my fuckin geritol
I’ll take two, please. One for me and one for my husband.
My commiserations to Ing as well. :-(
@cicely, no, it certainly wasn’t a “good” occasion, but still, as such things go, it was fitting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NKWRvDFiTY
Holy shit, yes! I watched this when I was a little kid, and I’ve waited literally years for some kind soul to upload it somewhere.
Awesome.
ChasC
My brother used my skate without asking me.
I used the board only long enough to lose a square foot of skin.
Kristinc:
Gads yes. I already had Dracul on, so Mister put on a bit of the Anne Bonny. I haven’t stopped sniffin’ on him. :D Dracul is fabulous, smoky and dark and rich; but my heart is all over the Black Tower. Can’t even say how much I love that stuff.
Mister was wanting to know what was in everything, so I was finding it all on BPAl for him. He ended up reading through a bunch of their stuff for a couple of hours. Hee.
Ing, various of the Super Sekrit Ravelry group wish to know what you and your co-Ing’s favorite colors are and if either of you are allergic to or otherwise opposed to wool, panda undercoat, or the silk produced by larval weaver ants.
Yeah, we did that, too. But the wheel “tires” were made of wood, for some damn reason. I remember being on the thing when a wheel disintegrated.
Whoohoo! I just acquired my second ukulele. I’d been keeping an eye on Craigslist and my Christmas money in a safe place. Craigslist, around here, is not a place to find bargains, but this one was $15 for a $60 soprano ukelele in good shape, so I drove across town and got it. It’s lavender in color, with a wooden dolphin as the bridge, so it isn’t as macho as my all-wood tenor uke—nor as expensive. I think I’ll keep it in the vehicle for emergencies—I was able to pick it off the passenger seat and play it during waits at red lights.
Fuck me but these big-ass house flies are disgusting. Do they have to get so damned fat and . . .buzzy? Prepare to die, fuckers. I have spray chemicals and I. Don’t. Care.
Every time there is a Big Fuzzy Fly™ in the house, my mom has to tell the story of my first day of preschool, and how I screamed and cried and refused to enter the classroom because there was a Big Fuzzy Fly™. I have no memory of this event, but those flies still make me cringe a little.
Mr Mattir: Panda undercoat? Now that’s interested. I’m definitely finding myself intrigued with this spinning thing and if I ever find myself in the same room as any of you spinners I’ll be sure to learn what I can.
Josh, if you want a fun few minutes, get a sprayer bottle with an adjustable nozzle, fill it with water, and go hunting the flies with that. When the flies are soggy with water they can’t fly any more. The water doesn’t damage the house much, although things can get broken.
Big buzzy flies are likely to be earthworm parasitoids. This doesn’t make them less annoying, but does make me less worried that they’ll give me gangrene or something and keeps me killing them with flyswatters and sticky paper instead of sprays. Now clothes moths, on the other hand…
I don’t give a damn whether I get gangrene or not. These nasty-ass fat-fuck disgusting flies must die. And the most expeditious means to dispatch them is with Spray™. They should have known better than to come up in my house.
Oh, and look at this self-satisfied dumb-fuck who’s going to man-judicate the question of whether women are “actually” unwelcome in skepticism.
Rockin’ ‘do, bro!
No, no, no! You’re sacrificing the pleasure of the hunt and the satisfying thwack for the aether of Spray™? That’s just perverted.
DaughterSpawn has, for several years, been able to catch them using a technique described by EO Wilson in his memoir. I can’t recall it, but apparently it made a big impact on her when we listened to the book on tape when she was 9.
I’m perverse; what can I say? Yeah, just. .no. I have enough on my hands trying to wrest control of the house from the Centipede Queen of the Cellar. I’m so not wasting time on fuckin’ flies:)
Oh my sweet dead Jew on a stick, you have got to check out the speaker’s photograph and bio.
Really, click the link. Please.
Tell me about it, Mattir. Like I need some 26-year-old (shut up. . I’m not dissing you, random-26-year-old) hipster douche-troid-4000 discoursing on whether women and “minorities” like me are actually put off by hostile segments of Skeptikal Culture. Cuz, ya know, the dude-bros are just, maybe, “unwittingly” alienating “women and minorities.”
Way to be a study in irony bro!
Can you tell I’ve lost all my patience with douchebaggery and don’t give a flying fuck how off-putting it is even to people who’d like to think they’re my allies?
Yeah. Don’t care. So done with that.
I don’t think he’s a hipster. I think he’s a pretentious pseudointellectual twerp who got a 5 for 1 deal on I’ll-fitting tweed blazers at Salvation Army. After all, he has a Masters in social psychology.
I like hipsters more.
Ill fitting,not I’ll fitting.
Then you have a warped and/or over-generous concept of “hipster.” He’s a classic, Mattir. Hair carefully pomaded to emulate natural greasiness, pushed over to the side with a jagged devil-may-care sloppy-ass cut. Earnest look, chin in hand.
Just who, pray tell, do you think is a hipster if not this asshole? He’s Chris Stedman with a master’s, honey.
Again, I’m sorry, but really. Are we reading from different lexicons? Because that’s about as succinct a definition of contemporary hipster as I’ve ever seen. Without the Pabst Blue Ribbon plug-in.
Excuse me, does anyone have a decaying porcupine to spare? I have an IT person who needs it. Mr “I don’t know anything about UNIX or SAS why not reboot your PC and see if it helps?” kept me waiting FOUR HOURS for someone to type “kill -9 123456” (*not the real process number.) I cannot wait until we get our own unit IT.
I’d just like to take the photo and put,
“Why are you laughing?”
underneath it.
Girl, I’ve got a baker’s dozen I’ll sell you for cheap. Been roosting a boatload of ’em because you never can tell when the next douche-zombie invasion will strike.
I’m a bit unsure about the hipster. Maybe his dudebros will listen to him and learn something. Babysteps. So until I hear more, I’m inclined to give him a little slack (because I am optimistic) and just condescendingly pat him on the head and ask him “Who’s a cute widdle baby-noob? Awww! Yes you are!”
Ooh, thanks for the porcupine, Josh. I haven’t seen many dead echidnas lately, though there was a fine wombat on the side of the road yesterday.
Amblebury: Good idea.
http://tinypic.com/r/14d3nrb/6
Dissing someone for how rhwy present themselves in a promotional photo?
(tsk)
[oops]
(Stupid left hand)
John Morales: Why the hell not? It’s not like it’s something he ‘can’t help’.
Thanks, clever you!
I think I’ll be sharing that :)
Totally failing to recognize semiotic cues in promotional photographs?
(tsk)
It was my pleasure, Amblebury. Once you suggested the punchline, I couldn’t NOT do it.
Try jerking off with the regular hand.
Naturally, he’s probably a reasonably good-looking guy, (insofar as I am any judge of these things.)
It seems to me, and I’ll admit it could be my interpretation only, that the bookshelves, the suit, the tie, the earnest gaze, yeah verily even unto the sideburns – in accompaniment to the bio, indicates and individual who takes himself very seriously indeed.
And I found it hard not to find that a little funny.
Josh, looks much like Brian Cox (the physicist) to me.
If you were even dancing near the edge of “I’m a straight dude, so I don’t know,” then don’t even. No, really. Don’t.
Oh, it’s not just you. Verily he is ridonkulous.
I mean, honestly. As if the carefully greased Emo hair weren’t enough. . .he has to do the chin-on-fingers thing? Lord. I nearly shit my pants laughing.
Josh:
Such drollery!
What does that have to do with your stupid, snarky comment?
Josh: For me, it’s the eyes. He’s trying very hard to look deep and soul-searching, a man dedicated to thinking hard about the answers to Tough Questions (TM).
FOR ME TO POOP ON!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, I’m really laughing that hard.
Oh shit. .thank you, Coyote. I needed the comic relief.
Oh hell no, Josh – not the straight dude thing at all.
I’m female, and considerably older than the man pictured.
I have a bit of a ‘thing’ about not sexualising in any way people who are significantly younger than me – it totally creeps me out, hence my reluctance to attribute any attractiveness or lack thereof.
In fact I hope I wouldn’t do that at all.
Except for Christopher Eccleston as Dr Who. Hey, I’m only human.
Ah, OK, Amblebury. Sorry to have mis-aimed my guns at you:)
Josh:
Both seem equally “ridonkulous” to me, if for slightly different reasons.
(But then, I hardly claim expert semiotician status; perhaps we can compare our understanding of the field?)
[sigh]
Never mind, Josh.
I really don’t want to argue with you, certainly not about such trivia.
I find the bookshelf to be the most offensive element of the posing.
The closest I ever came to damaging a book was when I was rooting through a thrift store’s book selection, and a couple of people were loudly selecting books by how they would look in a lawyer’s office. There was a big dictionary there, with a nice, grippy cover …
Dawwww, the little one is dressing up like Daddy! Look at him being all important and educated! He can has books! Isn’t he a cutey-wutey liddle baby philopsycholologist! Don’t you just want to pinch his widdle chubby cheeks?
Oops, I think I just made myself throw up.
Good morning!
kristinc
I know that small children are literally minded (a friend of mine learned that she needed to say “chew up before you speak” instead of “empty your mouth before you speak” the hard way) but I would have expected your oldest to be past that stage.
YEAST! Elebenty!
I suppose these people have never actually eaten apples, pears, plums, cherries and the like and did not pay attention in biology.
As I said, I love the “no chemicals” idea. I’m always wondering what those people actually ingest. Pure energy? Sorry, even plants need chemicals in order to do photosynthesis.
CFI
So, they took a young, white, able-bodied guy to explain all the wimmenz and minorities why they’re not feeling welcome…
fwiw, I think it’s the loud clash between the expertise he specifically claims (“interests in the natural and social sciences. … BA (Honours) in psychology … MA in social psychology … As an experimental social psychologist he studied persuasion and prejudice, and taught psychology”) and the incompetence he demonstrates (the facial expression, and the “thinker” pose) in attempting to convey (presumably) gravitas and (especially) sincerity. Well, that and the severe risk of mansplaining writ large in the description of the event (“claim to feel unwelcome … may unwittingly alienate”). If it weren’t for those little details he could of course get a pass on the bookshelves and his age, neither of which are any problem in themselves. Why, a bloke of exactly his age, appearance and sartorial preferences could in principle have done a lovely job of researching the issue, organising this event and inviting a couple of people to speak who actually knew what they were talking about. For him and the rest of the audience to listen to, ask questions of, discuss it with.
Right, that’s enough terminal prepositions all in one helping. Brrr.
Giliell,
Alas, I haven’t.
I actually have to intellectualise most such locutions (and even process them if they’re not in my knowledge-base).
I assure you, as I child I would have understood that to mean that if I thoroughly masticated the food in my mouth, it would be fine to speak then. No swallowing required!
(Took me decades not to respond to “How are you?” with a summation of how I was. Finally, I learnt to say “Hello” back to them)
opposablethumbs, it couldn’t possibly be that the guy imagines he just looks serious and thoughtful, and that the photo was taken in his office?
(I note both SG and I have recently mentioned the fundamental attribution error)
Some breaking news:
Rebecca Brooks, who was editor of both the News of the World and Sun, former Chief Exec of News International and protege of Rupert Murdoch has been charged, along with her husband, of perverting the course of justice is connection with phone hacking.
BBC report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18062485
John Morales
Well, you’re unusual in many aspects.
But it’s one of the parenting lectures you hopefully learn with food being spit out or the command of “don’t go into livingroom” being ignored via crawling. A friend of mine had been thorougly instructed never to put her finger into the socket. She used a hairpin instead.
opposablethumbs:
“incompetence”, as evinced by your opinion of a photograph. Right.
“age, appearance and sartorial preferences”, eh?
<shakes head sadly>
Mr. Mattir, I think Livingston is covering up a mole on the photo. Or maybe he is like me, I rest my head on my hand a lot, being a lazy slob.
Or L. might be leaning forward to get within striking range for his camouflaged mandibles, I don’t know Merkun morphology well enough to tell.
Blond hair: Cilia? I don’t know about the books but I have whole dune fields of second-hand paperbacks at home (they would probably not look good on a photo, being strewn out everywhere)
.
Good books for striking back at dumbasses: “Rich Democracies” (proves many countries with much different systems are just as successful)
“The Privatization Decision” (proves the devil is in the details; privatising services just for ideological reasons without thinking hard about the options will often result in spectacular failures)
And the hardback versions are good secondary weapons in combat.
Now, if only Rupert Murdoch goes down as well…
Giliell, !
—
I had a similar episode in my childhood — the reasons given for not so doing were safety reasons, so when I chopped off the plug end of the cord to an old lamp in the cupboard, separated the wires and experimented with applying mains AC current to salted water, I was very careful of my safety.
(When the fuses blew, I got into big trouble. The stink was secondary)
[… and I just wrote “AC current” :|]
I admit I don’t like his hair either, but I know it’s because we didn’t do that when I was young. May the fashion muse protect me from worrying aloud over who walks across my lawn.
*guffaw*
He’s clearly worried his head will fall off if he doesn’t keep it balanced on top of his neck.
KG, evidently, you find chin on hand a powerful signifier.
Oh, Ing, I’m so sorry. But you’re right about the layoff instead of fired – unemployment benefits! Did you at least get a severeance package?
Guy presuming to talk about whether or not women actually have problems in the skeptic movement – Tim Daly (the actor) has a web series with a catchphrase that is appropriate here; the guy needs to be “a little less douche”.
Catching flies (scroll down to Sleight of Hand).
====
Lucky bastards! I was in my early 20s when it started. Solved it with a razor.
====
Very interesting read, thanks. I’ll skip the comments.
====
Wow, one of the original Z-boys!
And Ing, I’m sorry to
hearread that! I hope you’ll find something better real soon.Lucky bastard! I was 14.
Ing
I’m sorry to hear. I hope it won’t dampen your wedding spirits too much.
++++
Well, I actually don’t care about the picture as much as about the shit he’s written
My hair started receding when I was in my mid-twenties, but for some reason stopped, so I am just a bit lacking around the temples. However the last couple of years have seen my hear turn almost completely grey. My facial hair has been grey for more than a decade.
Caine,
I haven’t ordered any BPAL scents yet, but I’m planning to this coming weekend after I get paid. :) (Burial, Even Horizon, and Highwayman. No more.)
SQB,
Mr Darkheart is 30 and he has zero hair on the top of his dome. I like to give the top of his head smooches. :D
Or, “Event Horizon” if I could type.
Matt,
I’m getting a (very) thin patch, but I went grey in my (very) early thirties.
(Musical interlude via free association: Barbie Girl)
[Actually, the impetus was more Audley than Matt]
You can touch my hair, caress me everywhere?
Well, actually, I was in my late teens when it started, but I refused to acknowledge that. I don’t think I can beat your 14, though. I can imagine that being no fun.
====
Audley, do you by any chance have short, dark hair? It’s my wife’s pet hypothesis that bald white men match up with white women with short dark hair.
John,
Sorry, I’m not gonna smooch your bald patch.
I started getting grey hair when I was 16.
ॐ,
It’s fantastic!
If early intervention could strenghten empathy it would be a great achievement!
— — — —
In regard to receding hairlines:
“Scientists successfully test first gene therapy against aging-associated decline” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-scientists-successfully-gene-therapy-aging-associated.html
The crucial part is that the treatment did not trigger cancer.
Now, off with you and get the GM virus!
SQB,
Well, another data point for you wife: most of the time I do keep my hair short (not now ‘cos I’m too lazy to get it cut) and it’s very dark brown. Mr Darkheart and I are both white.
(I can’t see your alt text. Stupid phone.)
[anecdote]
When I was in high school, one of my friend/acquaintances was grey-haired. At 18.
(He seemed very mature)
[meta]
Audley, Ye alt-test: “I don’t think her hypothesis extends to black men or women.”
Hell yes it would. And I’m not at all optimistic about this; rather I’m 100% certain that it’s possible. As soon as reliable techniques are empirically demonstrated, they should be adapted for schools to use with all the children, too.
hooo boy (video and audio at link)
Audley, my wife as well. Is there a large mirror somewhere on the Atlantic Ridge?
Gracias, John.
OT Little help from hive mind please:
Someone on TET once referred to a female godesse who does the self-sacrifice and/or harrowing of hell better than Jeebus.
anyone know that goddesse’s name ?
Need the example for a particularly thick “Pastor”
Apologies, the “goddess” Typo obviously cursed me above
hooo boy (tried to post this but it didn’t like the link I guess… the article is at lgbtqnation (dot) com)
Let’s try the link again
re: hair
I just dyed mine. Which means that the greys will be gone for like two weeks. Doesn’t matter which type of dye I use, what brand, cheap, expensive, old or new. Maybe I need to switch to some brown instead of black.
Mr.’s become quite grey over the years, but funnily his left breast is still pretty brown while the right one is pretty grey.
My dad lost his hair early, so when I first saw a wedding picture of my parents it was like “who’s that guy with the hair and where’s dad?”. Both his brothers are a bit short in the hair department, although not as bald as dad, but grandpa still had pretty full hair when he died.
Oh, and #1 has one single grey hair on her 4yo head :)
RBDC: what.
exactly
Rev,
So the shorter would be: icky gay sex tied up with a pretty pink implied child abuse bow. *barf!*
I really hope that shit like this is the death knell of mainstream conservative Christian thought, but I’m worried they’re going to destroy the rest of the country on their way out.