Crop circles or crap circles? UPDATED

Similar crop circles with triad formations appeared in Germany and England within days of each other: What’s their message for us?

 In July, two "legitimate" crop circles--not to be confused with the barrage of "crap circles" plaguing the earth--have been reported and photographed in Wiltshire, England (around July 8) and in Bavaria, Germany (around July 18). In Germany, the large, complex crop circle was discovered in a field by balloonists near the Ammersee in Bavaria, a little over 30 miles (50 km) from Munich. Its size and geometrical complexity are spectacular.

The Zetas of Zetatalk say crop circles speak a universal language, that they are more effective than words, as they register in many parts of the brain and tell their story with great depth. If so, what are they trying to tell us?

Per the Zetas, "true crop circles" (like some UFOs) speak to the subconscious which sees the patterns and senses their meaning. They say crop circles tell of coming astronomical occurrences and the approaching pole shift. They also say crop circles will appear with increasing urgency as we near the shift. 

Similar crop circles forming triads appeared in these fields within days of each other in July. Why July? Why triads? Could it have anything to do with the coming August magnetic trimester, which according to the Zetas will be a “humdinger.”
What is a magnetic trimester or triad,?

Per the Zetas, a magnetic trimester involves the activity of Planet X (Nibiru) during three four-month periods. There is a Spring trimester (Jan-Apr), a Summer trimester (May-Aug), and a Fall trimester (Sept- Dec). The Summer trimester, which peaks around the end of August, is the most powerful of the three. These dates are, of course, estimates.

Source: Examiner.com

Damien's note: If you read the original article and the comments, you will see the best response to the what-is-the-message question is, "People will believe anything." 

Zetas?
---------------
UPDATE:
Farmer Christoph Huttner, who owns the wheat field near Weilheim, [top photo] couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday but told the dpa news agency Tuesday he didn't create the circle himself. He suggests students on summer holiday may have cut the image with a 75-meter diameter (246 feet) into his field.

The news agency says thousands of visitors have come to sing, dance and even swing pendulums in the giant image.

Huttner says he's not yet sure whether he will leave the circle in his field.

Because who would have thought ...

Well, well. Satanists to use Hobby Lobby to block pro-life

Hm, not sure if the Catholic men on the Supreme Court saw this one coming.  But you know, unintended consequences and all.

In a statement, the Satanic Temple said that it will use the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision to exempt its believers from state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material. 

Informed consent or “right to know” laws state that women seeking elective abortions be provided with information about alternatives to the procedure, often couched in language that attempts to personify the fetus. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 states currently have informed consent laws, and of those, 33 require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus.

In some states, that information consists of pro-life propaganda that links abortion to a higher incidence of breast and ovarian cancers, or discusses “post-abortion syndrome,” a mental condition not recognized by any major medical or psychiatric organization.
Because the Satanic Temple bases its belief “regarding personal health…on the best scientific understanding of the world, regardless of the religious or political beliefs of others,” it claims that state-mandated information with no basis in scientific fact violates its “religious” beliefs.

       And they're making this available to ALL women.

The Satanic Temple set up a website where women seeking an abortion can print out a letter for her healthcare provider explaining why she is exempt from informed consent mandates. 

The letter reads that “[a]ll women who share our deeply held belief that their personal choices should be made with access to the best available information, undiluted by biased or false information, are free to seek protection with this exemption whether they are members of the Satanic Temple or not.”

 

Source: Daily Kos

Not the 1%

According to a report out today, an estimated 1 in 3 adults in the United States with a credit history -- or 77 million people -- are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put "in collections." That's a key finding from a new Urban Institute study. It examined non-mortgage debt, including credit card bills, car loans, medical bills, child support payments and even parking tickets. The debt in collections ranged from as little as $25 to a whopping $125,000. But the average amount owed was $5,200. 

Geographically, no area of the country is untouched. Among the states, Nevada had the highest percentage of residents with debt in collections -- 47% - as well as the highest average amount owed - $7,198. That was helped in part by the Las Vegas metro area, where 49% of residents had debt in collections. 

By contrast, North Dakota had the lowest percentage of residents with debt in collections at just 19%, while the District of Columbia had the lowest average dollar amount owed per person at $3,547. 

Regionally, the South had the highest percentage of people -- as high as 44% in some parts; while the Northeast had the lowest at less than 30%. 

And among the 100 largest metropolitan areas, Minneapolis-St. Paul had the lowest percentage of residents with debt in collections at 20%, while McAllen, Texas claimed the highest percentage at 51%.

This quote is attributed to John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church:

When I have money, I get rid of it as quickly as possible, lest if find a way into my heart.

Lithuanian, you say?

July 28, 1932: The Latin-Chanting Ghost of Joliet

  
As word spread of a ghost that chanted songs in Latin at midnight in the graveyard of the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, crowds of hundreds of people started gathering to hear the phantom crooner. Each night the voice was said to emanate from a different grave. 

Where's Scooby-Doo  when you need him?

But on this day in 1932, prison officials finally located the source of the singing. It was an inmate, William Chrysler, who had night-watch duty at the prison's quarry pumphouse behind the cemetery. His voice carried into the graveyard and seemed to "haunt" it. He was actually singing in Lithuanian, not Latin.

Camel jumping

Among the members of the Zaraniq tribe on the west coast of Yemen are, apparently, the world’s only professional camel jumpers. “This is what we do,” says Bhayder Mohammed Yusef Qubaisi, a champion bounder.

The Zaraniq live in the Tihama-al-Yemen, a desert plain on the Red Sea. One American observer remarked that they leap the camels with skill and grace, and he then expressed wonder that no Olympian broad jumpers come from Yemen.

Well, there you have it. Seems a bit safer than the bull jumping depicted in frescoes from ancient Crete.

Bathe, Brittania!

Queen Victoria's bathing machine

The Bathing Machine

"Drove to the beach with my maids and went in the bathing machine, where I undressed and bathed in the sea (for the 1st time in my life)… I thought it delightful till I put my head under water, when I thought I should be stifled." Queen Victoria's Journal 30 July 1847 

Prince Albert believed that sea bathing was beneficial to health, and a bathing machine was installed at Osborne House, the former royal residence on the Isle of Wight, in 1846 at his request, so that Victoria could enjoy the waters.  

See it fully restored on the beach that Victoria enjoyed with her family. This curious object was used by the queen to preserve her modesty. It has a veranda at the front where curtains concealed her from view whilst she bathed.  

Inside is a changing room and a plumbed in toilet. The whole contraption was run into the sea from the beach along a long ramp, and pulled back using a wire rope and winch.

Damien's note: Those of a certain age may recall these lines from the song, "When I'm 64" by the Beatles:

Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear

Not what I had in mind exactly ... and where's my jetpack, by the way?

Flying Car Company Starts Taking Orders For Its Parajet SkyRunner

ADVERTISEMENT

If a flying car is something you’ve always wanted and you have enough cash to spare, you could possibly own your own flying car in the near future.

Even though the Parajet SkyRunner isn’t really for sale yet, the company that makes the flying car is ready to start taking orders to bring the prototype to the market, according to Bloomberg. Parajet International Ltd. began enticing customers at the Farnborough airshow in England earlier in the month with it’s $137,000 flying vehicle.

While the car isn’t exactly what you might expect when you think of a futuristic flying machine, the vehicle does operate as a standard off-terrain vehicle and flying machine. It looks more like an all-terrain vehicle that has morphed with a paraglider wing than it looks like a car with hovercraft capabilities.

The flying car that anyone can order is a third-generation vehicle, according to Newsmax. Its original predecessor flew and drove successfully from the U.K. to Africa in 2009. Testing in Nevada is currently underway for the most recent model of the flying car.

The SkyRunner flying car has the ability to reach 115 miles per hour on the ground and can fly for up to three hours. Flight time largely depends upon the size of the fuel tank, according to Managing Director Tom Prideaux-Brune.

“We have a lot of interest from the leisure sector, but we’re just evaluating potential uses,” Prideaux-Brune informed the media.

The flying car has a foot-launched powered paraglider that relies upon the use of a small engine and a propeller that is worn on a backpack upon takeoff. Winds as high as 15 miles per hour can be utilized when using the flying car. The pack weighs about 60 pounds.

According to the product website, “In the unlikely event of engine or wing failure, the SkyRunner simply floats softly to the ground on its paraglider, or a ballistic reserve chute can be deployed.”
Inventor Gilo Cardozo flew the first-generation flying car to Africa and said, “Flying over the desert in a flying car is absolutely surreal. It’s an extraordinary experience. In the right environment, when you’ve learnt to fly, it’s very safe.”

Bear Grylls, the celebrity adventurist, reportedly flew one of these flying cars over Mount Everest, according to Bloomberg.

If you want to fly with your friends in a SkyRunner, you will have to wait. The current flying car can only seat one passenger, but soon you may have luck with other companies working hard to bring flying cars to the main market. Terrafugia, a company out of Massachusetts, already sells it’s fixed-wing plane that doubles as a car. That flying car is called the Transition, and two people can conveniently enjoy the one-of-a-kind ride together.

Another parable

My friend's story made me remember a parable that showed up on my friend Michael's blog. This is one that he composed himself, though he attributed it toYeshua ben Yosef -- meaning Jesus [Joshua] son of Joseph.

Parables of Yeshua ben Yosef

Many have undertaken to compile a collection of sayings by the late Yeshua ben Yosef, precisely as those sayings have been repeated to us by hearers of the word. I too have carefully traced the sayings down, and have decided to set in writing for you, O Theophoboumenos, those that seem to have been omitted by others so that Your Beatitude may see how incomplete the instruction was that you received.

Yeshua said,

A king gave a feast to celebrate the wedding of his son. He sent invitations to all the powerful and wealthy people of his kingdom, but when the time came for the feast, they all sent excuses. One said, “I have to lead a protest outside a Planned Parenthood Office and cannot come. Pray, hold me excused.”

Another said, “I have joined a Family Defense League and cannot come. Please excuse me.”

Yet a third said, “I am organizing a letter-writing campaign to the FCC to protest the Disney Channel’s surrender to the gay agenda by including the lyrics 'We’re All in This Together' in that high school musical movie, the one with all those boys dancing. I cannot come.”

When the servants returned with these messages the king was sorely grieved, and he looked with sorrow at his son whose wedding feast would be without guests.

But, lo, his son said unto him, “Do not be sad, Royal Father, for your kingdom is surely larger than just the powerful and the wealthy. Let us invite the people who love you and who will put your feast ahead of their own plans.”

This met with the king’s approval, and he sent messengers throughout the land to invite all who would to come to the feast. They went into bars and libraries, into discount outlets and Laundromats, into coffee shops and burger joints, inviting all who could to come to the feast.

All the people heard the invitation, and some said, “I had planned to go out dancing that night, but who could refuse an invitation from a king as good ours? Of course, I will come and maybe I will even dance.”

Others said, “I was going to visit my aged parents that night, but perhaps they would like to come, too, if I give them a ride. We will be happy to come.”

Yet others said, “My friends and I had intended to go on a pub crawl in Boys Town, but we will be happy to party with a king. We will come.”

When the doors were opened to the banquet hall, the poor, the unwanted, the disabled, the confused, the alcoholic, the addicts, the computer nerds and the old were all there. And the waiters began to seat them.

But the head waiter was afraid there would not be enough room or enough food. And he thought that this might embarrass the king and his son, so he began to look nervously at the crowd at the door. Finally making up his mind, he instructed the waiters at the door to separate those who were arriving and to only allow the best looking, the more prosperous and the better dressed into the feast.

The waiters said, “But the king has invited all of these people. Will he not be angry if we refuse to admit them?”

And the head waiter said, “The king is a good and kindly man, but we know what is best. It makes him feel good to invite this large crowd, but then he doesn’t think about how hard it will be to serve them all, how much mess there will be to clean up and that some of them really have no idea how to behave properly and will ruin everything for the rest of us. We are just saving him the trouble by taking this burden on ourselves.”

And he insisted that the waiters separate out the crowd.

As the feast continued, the king wandered among his guests, talking with them and beaming that they had come to honor his son.

“How good my people are,” he pointed out to his son. “See how many have come to your feast?”

“They are truly a happy people whose king you are, Royal Father,” the son replied. “But what about those who are not here?”

“Oh,” his father brushed those aside. ”They all had legitimate excuses. They are going about doing good.”

“I don’t mean those,” his son said, “I mean those who are hanging about outside the palace.”

The king looked out the window and saw that there was a crowd outside. They were old, they were oddly dressed, they leaned on crutches and walkers. Some of the men had glitter in their hair and some of the women wore flannel shirts. Many were speaking strange languages and others were staring off at nothing.

“But who are these people?” he asked his son.

“They are your people, too” the son answered.

“Why were they not invited?” the king demanded.

“They were,” his son told him, “but they were not allowed in. Your waiters thought they would be too much trouble and that you would not really want them. So to save you from embarrassment and discomfort, they screened them out.”

”All are welcome,” said his father. “All are WELCOME!” he roared.

And he went and opened the doors himself and led the crowds inside. And when the head waiter looked aghast, the father went and seated him at a table and brought him food and drink.

“For no one,” he said to his son, “shall be excluded – not even those who would exclude others.”

-----------------------------
Damien's note: The author of this passage addresses it to a certain Theophoboumenos, in imitation of the opening lines of the Gospel of Luke. That document speaks to Theophilus -- meaning friend of God. Theophoboumenos means God-fearer. It is a term sometimes used in scripture to denote pagans who respect the traditions and beliefs of the Chosen People without ever formally entering into the Covenant themselves, although they may be more faithful to the principles of the Covenant than many within the covenanted community. Such a person is the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10.

Benjamin Franklin and the parable of the unwanted guest

A college friend of mine found me by way of the blog some time back and we are in regular contact. He often sends me stories of queer stuff and really should have a blog of his own. (I had a tremendous crush on him, BTW. Or maybe just lust.)

So he sent me this story that I think is worth sharing:

[Someone] recently found a copy of a little American Institute of Graphics Arts keepsake booklet done in 1927 called- "The Parable Against Persecution. A Proposed New Chapter for the Bible. By Benjamin Franklin".

Why, you ask, was Ben Franklin writing Bible chapters? That's a perfectly reasonable question...

The parable itself can be traced back to ancient times (but it was never in the Bible)- it tells the tale of a visitor to Abraham who is at first welcomed, and then chased into the night when he admits that he does not worship God. God then rebukes Abraham- “Have I borne with him (the visitor) these hundred and ninety eight years, and nourished him, & cloathed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; & couldst thou not, that art thyself a sinner, beare with him one night!”

So Ben Franklin rewrote the original parable in Biblical verse and committed it to memory. When he was in the company of a Bishop or other church figure Franklin would open a Bible and then recite the parable from memory, while pretending to read from the book. He'd then slam the book shut and demand of the churchman what chapter and verse he had just read.

Now was that really very nice?

The fun was ruined when a friend in England published the parable and attributed it to Franklin.  

I had heard a version of the parable before, attributed I think to a Hasidic rabbi. The story is cute and it's too bad more people don't know it and believe it is from the Bible. It strikes me as a message most religious types need to hear.

And no wonder those penguins were enraged!

July 23, 1943: The Death of Ern Malley

The unknown Australian poet Ern Malley was said to have died of Graves' disease on this day, prompting his sister to send the poems she found among his possessions to Max Harris, editor of the Angry Penguins poetry journal, who then decided to dedicate a special issue to Malley's strange poems. But upon publication, Harris discovered Malley wasn't real. He was the satirical creation of two Australian poets hostile to modern poetry. Ern Malley remains Australia's most famous literary hoax.

I think that I shall never see

In the truth is stranger than fiction department, Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes Griffith Park, told Pop & Hiss over the weekend that the pine tree planted in 2004 near Griffith Observatory in memory of George Harrison will be replanted shortly because the original tree died as the result of an insect infestation.

 Yes, the George Harrison Tree was killed by beetles.

Except for the loss of tree life, Harrison likely would have been amused at the irony. He once said his biggest break in life was getting into the Beatles; his second biggest was getting out.

The sapling went in, unobtrusively, near the observatory with a small plaque at the base to commemorate the former Beatle, who died in 2001, because he spent his final days in Los Angeles and because he was an avid gardener for much of his adult life.

10% (No, not that website!)

In an article in The Atlantic, Sam McDougle traces the origin of the often repeated belief that "you only use 10 percent of your brain." He writes:

"According to Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton and the author of Welcome to Your Brain, the catalyst may have been the self-help industry. In the early 1900s, William James, one of the most influential thinkers in modern psychology, famously said that humans have unused mental potential. This completely reasonable assertion was later revived, in mangled form, by the writer Lowell Thomas in his foreword to the 1936 self-help bible How To Win Friends And Influence People. “Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average person develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability,” Thomas wrote. It appears that he, or perhaps someone else in his day, simply plucked the golden number out of the sky."

Although McDougle doesn't mention this, the 10% myth is also often traced back to the work of Karl Lashley in the 1920s. For instance, Dr. Eric Chudler of the University of Washington notes: "Perhaps it was the work of Karl Lashley in the 1920s and 1930s that started it. Lashley removed large areas of the cerebral cortex in rats and found that these animals could still relearn specific tasks."

Damien's Note: Someone may want to let the makers of the movie Lucy about this. 

Good news for dogs

Enric Girona recently donated his prototype pet commode to the town of El Vendrell, Spain, hoping to spark worldwide interest. Conscientious owners would train their dogs on the station--a hole in the ground with a flush handle--which is connected to the sewer system, as is the drain grid next to it (for tinkling). The platform, which appears to occupy about 20 square feet of surface, is self-cleaning, although not too clean, said Girona, because dogs are more easily lured with a lingering scent. 

Spain is already one of the world’s toughest on lazy owners who fail to scoop after their pets, with fines in El Vendrell as high as the equivalent of $1,000 and in Madrid and Barcelona, $2,000. 

Source: The Guardian (London), 7-2-2014

Faux Dino back home!

(CNN) -- A wide-eyed, open-mouthed model of a dinosaur hatchling, the theft of which apparently was captured by surveillance cameras, is safely back in its nest at a North Carolina museum exhibit.

Police said the statue was inside a bag left Wednesday night near a rear service entrance at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.

Museum officials estimated the value of the 12- to 14-inch-long model at $10,000.

Logan Todd Ritchey, 21, and Alyssa Ann Lavacca, 21, turned themselves in Thursday morning, according to the North Carolina State Capitol Police. They have been charged with two felony counts of theft or destruction of property of museums.

 

 

In surveillance images, a male in striped shorts is seen climbing over a low glass barrier.

 

 

 

A surveillance image shows a male putting something into a large, multicolored bag carried by a female accomplice.

 

In surveillance images taken Monday, a male in striped shorts is seen climbing over a low glass barrier into a museum exhibit and bending down. He then hops back out over the barrier and puts something in a large, multicolored purse carried by a female accomplice. Security guards discovered the replica was missing the next day.

Police also suspect the pair in a similarly odd theft of items at the North Carolina Museum of History. Inventory missing from that museum included a prop cabbage head, a prop corn cob and prop doilies, along with a real medicine bottle, said Jackson Marshall, associate director of the history museum.

They were later found at the sciences museum, Marshall said.

Police said the suspects have been cooperative in the investigation.

"I doubt these two individuals realized the seriousness of tampering with artifacts and exhibits in a public museum," said State Capitol Police Chief Glen Allen.

Because, you know, dumb!

In honor of Moon Day -- July 20, 1969

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

Throughout the final week of August 1835, a long article appeared in serial form on the front page of the New York Sun. It bore the headline:

GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES
LATELY MADE
BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c.
At the Cape of Good Hope
[From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science]

The article started by triumphantly listing a series of stunning astronomical breakthroughs the famous British astronomer, Sir John Herschel, had made "by means of a telescope of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle." Herschel, the article declared, had established a "new theory of cometary phenomena"; he had discovered planets in other solar systems; and he had "solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy." Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, the article revealed Herschel's final, stunning achievement. He had discovered life on the moon.

The article was an elaborate hoax. Herschel hadn't really observed life on the moon, nor had he accomplished any of the other astronomical breakthroughs credited to him in the article. In fact, Herschel wasn't even aware until much later that such discoveries had been attributed to him. However, the announcement caused enormous excitement throughout America and Europe. To this day, the moon hoax is remembered as one of the most sensational media hoaxes of all time.

Read the full text of the Sun's lunar narrative

 

Front page of the NY Sun: August 25, 1835

 

Of course, there are still folks who think the July 20, 1969 event was a hoax. And those people help make Damien's Queer World the queer world that it is.

Orange is the new powder blue

Delivery for Officer Wilson!

CORBIN, Ky. (AP) — Police in southern Kentucky say they got a surprise delivery after charging a man with shoplifting — five pizzas showed up at the station.

Officers say 29-year-old Michael Harp asked to make a call on his cellphone Tuesday afternoon while being booked in Corbin. A short time later, police say, a pizza delivery driver showed up to deliver to "Officer Wilson," the name of the officer who arrested Harp.

Police say they linked the call to Harp by tracking his cellphone number. Harp told Lexington statioin WKYT-TV (http://bit.ly/1mjWJ6t) it's all a misunderstanding and that "about 10 people" used his phone.

Harp now faces additional charges including theft of identity, theft by deception, and impersonating a police officer. Jail records did not list an attorney for him.
———
Information from: WKYT-TV, http://www.wkyt.com

I'm speechless!

J Intern Med. 1990 Feb;227(2):145-6.

Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage.

Odeh M¹, Bassan H, Oliven A.

Author information

Abstract

A 60-year-old man with acute pancreatitis developed persistent hiccups after insertion of a nasogastric tube. Removal of the latter did not terminate the hiccups which had also been treated with different drugs, and several manoeuvres were attempted, but with no success. Digital rectal massage was then performed resulting in abrupt cessation of the hiccups. Recurrence of the hiccups occurred several hours later, and again, they were terminated immediately with digital rectal massage. No other recurrences were observed. This is the second reported case associating cessation of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage. We suggest that this manoeuvre should be considered in cases of intractable hiccups before proceeding with pharmacological agents.

PMID:

2299306

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Now the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball!

There's a giant red ball roaming the planet, and when we say giant, we mean quite large. 

At 15 feet and 250 pounds, the scarlet globe has been trekking to major cities all across the world, from Los Angeles to Paris to Perth to Taipei. Squeezed onto suspension bridges, smooshed between buildings and wedged ever so carefully inside lobbies, the little bit of public art just might be the universe's most adorable, inanimate traveler. It looks like this:

As you might have guessed, the massive orb does not in fact wander under its own volition. It's the product of Brooklyn-based artist Kurt Perschke, or, as we like to call him, the brain behind the ball.

"Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday," Perschke writes on the RedBall Project website. "On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it... The larger arc of the project is how each city responds to that invitation and, over time, what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination."

The ball was last seen in Rennes, France as part of the Les Tombées de la Nuit arts festival, where it sat between two pillars, its chubby excess lurching out from behind the architecture. Next up, the sphere is heading to Galway, Ireland on July 17 until the 23, in conjunction with the Galway International Arts Festival.

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No, I am not making tofu and black beans for supper.

Although it would be tasty and good for you! To see what I am talking about click on these two links:

Daniel and the Lion's Den

Adam & Andy

If, unlike Daniel and Andy, you want to give this a shot, here's the recipe:

Scrambled Tofu and Black Beans

by: a Couple Cooks

Makes: 4

What You Need

• 12-ounce container of firm tofu
• 15-ounce can black beans
• 3 cloves garlic
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Cilantro
• Radishes (optional)
• Corn tortillas (optional)

What To Do

1. Dice 3 cloves garlic -- separate out 1 clove for the black beans and 2 cloves for the tofu.
2. In a medium pot, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add 1 clove garlic and cook until just fragrant for about 1 to 2 minutes, before it browns. Add the black beans, along with the can liquid, and 4 sprigs of cilantro. Bring to a boil, then simmer 15 minutes until the liquid condenses.
3. Meanwhile, drain the tofu, and squeeze it a bit to remove extra liquid. Crumble it into a bowl. In a large non-stick skillet, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil. Add 2 cloves garlic and 1 teaspoon cumin and stir for about 1 minute. Add the tofu crumbles and heat until browned and starting to crisp, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and add a good amount of salt and pepper (we used ½ teaspoon each).
4. Garnish with chopped cilantro and sliced radishes. If desired, serve with warmed corn tortillas.

Notes

Beans adapted from It’s All Good by Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen

Corn tortillas will make it fun to eat this like tacos and add a nice flavor. And if you just can't bring yourself to eat this healthy, substitute shredded cooked chicken breast for the tofu. 

And for those of us who are no longer thirty-something, I would use less salt that advised in step 3.

Why didn't I think of this last month during Pride?

Because I saw it on the Bing homepage this morning, although I think I have heard of it before.

Eucalyptus deglupta is a tall tree, commonly known as the rainbow eucalyptus, Mindanao gum, or rainbow gum. It is the only Eucalyptus species found naturally in the Northern Hemisphere. Its natural distribution spans New Britain, New Guinea, Seram, Sulawesi and Mindanao.

The unique multi-hued bark is the most distinctive feature of the tree. Patches of outer bark are shed annually at different times, showing a bright green inner bark. This then darkens and matures to give blue, purple, orange and then maroon tones.

And before you ask, it is widely cultivated but cannot survive frosts. So only tropical and subtropical folks can enjoy them in their yard.

Aloysius

Today my online Signals* ad was for Steiff plush animals. I checked but they did not have a replica of Aloysius for sale.

Aloysius is Lord Sebastian Flyte's teddy bear in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited (1945).

 The model for Aloysius was Archibald Ormsby-Gore, the beloved teddy bear of John Betjeman, Waugh's friend at Oxford and later the English poet laureate from 1972 until his death. Archibald Ormsby-Gore, better known as Archie, together with a toy elephant known as Jumbo, was a lifelong companion of Betjeman's.

Betjeman brought his bear with him when he went up to university at Oxford in the 1920s, and as a result Archie became the model for Aloysius.

In the 1940s, Betjeman also wrote and illustrated a story for his children, entitled Archie and the Strict Baptists, in which the bear's sojourns at the family's successive homes in Uffington and Farnborough are fictionalised. Archie is here described as a member of the Strict Baptist denomination, riding a hedgehog to chapel, and enjoying amateur archaeology, digging up molehills, "which, he considered, were the graves of baby Druids". A version of the story with illustrations by Phillida Gili was published as a children's book in 1977, Jock Murray, Betjeman's publisher, having declined to publish Betjeman's own coloured illustrations on grounds of cost.

Betjeman also wrote a poem "Archibald" in which the bear is temporarily stuffed in the loft for fear of Betjeman appearing "soft" to his father. Archie and Jumbo were in Betjeman's arms when he died in 1984.
 
Aloysius, and in particular his representation in the 1981 television adaptation of the novel, is credited with having triggered the late-20th century teddy bear renaissance.He was depicted by a Steiff teddy bear named Delicatessen, owned by the actor Peter Bull. Aloysius's companion, Lord Sebastian Flyte, was movingly and beautifully portrayed by Anthony Andrews. Jeremy Irons played Charles Ryder in what became his breakout role.

*Signals: gifts that inform, enlighten and entertain offers items related to, and or/inspired by programs on Public Television. If you wish to see what they have available, click on this link. And no, I do not get a kickback or even a thank you for pointing the way.

Of raccoons and rodents

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Daniel and I were wasting time wandering through an Arts & Crafts Mall and saw a small birchwood canoe being paddled by a half dozen raccoons. Some taxidermist had gone berserk, was our first thought. Our second was where it would look best in the apartment ...

At any rate, that rather surreal experience popped into mind when I ran across this ad on Amazon:

Mouse - A Taxidermy Workshop Manual [Kindle Edition] $4.90

Margot Magpie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 9, 2013

A complete guide to creating your own naturalist or anthropomorphic taxidermy mouse.

If you've ever fancied enlivening your mantelpiece with dancing, singing, pipe-smoking or motorbike-riding mice, then this book is for you. Taxidermy has been accepted, both as a craft and an art, for centuries, and is once again making a place for itself in the homes of thousands of enthusiasts. All it takes to learn to stuff your own animals is a little basic knowledge and a creative imagination.

Margot Magpie, who teaches the perennially sold-out taxidermy course at The Last Tuesday Society in London, takes you through the step-by-step process of mouse taxidermy: from ethically sourcing your rodents, to preservation, stuffing, and positioning. By the end, you'll have a happy little mouse, a quirky talking point for your living room and a new experience to tell your friends about.

Seventy easy to follow steps that teach you to skin, prep, preserve, mount and position a mouse in under four hours.

A fully illustrated guide. Each step is accompanied by a close up photograph of the author at work.

I would think the photos of Margot Magpie at work would be worth the $4.90.

And a tip of the hat to Lee for bringing this to my attention

A Swedish Director Has Released A 72-Minute Trailer For His Month-Long Movie

By Evan Harold / 07.09.14

If serious movies are long, then consider Anders Weberg’s Ambiancé (LOL BIANCÉ) the Holocaust of cinema. The Swedish director, who you will not find on Wikipedia, just released his first “short” trailer for his 720-hour magnum opus, about Art Things. From the trailer’s official Vimeo:

Ambiancé is 720 hours long (30 days) and will be shown in its full length on a single occasion syncronised in all the continents of the world and then destroyed.
In the piece Ambiancé space and time is intertwined into a surreal dream-like journey beyond places and is an abstract nonlinear narrative summary of the artist’s time spent with the moving image.

Surreal and dream-like?! Where have we seen that on the back of every Focus Features DVD box for the past decade??? To be fair, I have not and will not ever watch this trailer. I used to work for one of the douchiest theaters on the planet, so I’ve had my dose of ultra-long celluloid vomit (quick shout-out to Gilles Deleuze from A to Z). No review (no matter how many untranslatable French words you italicize!) will convince me to spend 30 days watching a self-indulgent homage to an artist’s “relationship with the moving image as a means of creative expression.” I’m ready to tap out at two and a half hours, which is way under this transparent attempt at notoriety via Guinness World Records. You know what else was long? Pharrell’s 24-hour music video for “Happy,” aka Hell’s national anthem.

In fact, here’s a little Pepsi Challenge for you, Weberg: let me slow down and strobe footage of Justin Bieber watching his own music videos for 30 days, then let’s compare audience reactions. Were both dreamlike? Or more nightmarish, even? Surreal? Unbeliebable? Awful? Grating? Unnecessary? Nearly criminal? For those of you still interested, the film will be released in 2020, and please seek help.
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Damien's note: The article mentions that the film will be destroyed after having been shown in its full length. Anyone interested in betting that either the film or Mr. Weberg may be destroyed much sooner than that?

Back in the day, I and a number of friends once went to see the 1966 Soviet movie version of War and Peace. That ran a mere 427 minutes -- a bit over seven hours -- and when it arrived in the United States in 1968, it was shown in two parts. The first four hours was shown one week, followed by a showing of the last three hours the following week. The original Russian-language version was shown in the Soviet Union in four two-hour segments, a bit like a television miniseries. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1969.

The only thing I recall about that experience was that there was an endless scene of water dripping in a fountain. A perfect visual for the old water torture thing.

We’ll Believe Some Fonts Over Others

 The following font is Comic Sans. 

The mere mention of it is enough to conjure images of a child’s birthday party invitation or an announcement for the local garden club. It’s not used in academic journals or in reputable newspapers, and there’s a reason for that (aside from aesthetics). 

The font used for any given news story, blog, or essay influences how likely we are to believe it. 

In 2012, New York Times columnist Errol Morris tried an experiment. He took a passage from a book on the likelihood of a cataclysmic event happening on Earth, had people read it, and then asked how many of them believed the passage (under the guise of an optimism vs. pessimism questionnaire). The questionnaire was programmed to display in one of six random fonts: Trebuchet, Computer Modern, Baskerville, Georgia, Comic Sans, or Helvetica. At the end of the sample period, 45,524 people had taken the quiz.

Numbers and data were crunched, and in the end, Baskerville had about a 1.5 percent advantage over the other fonts in getting people to agree with the passage. It also out-performed other fonts in terms of strength of agreement. The quiz was weighted (from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”), and once those numbers were factored in, it was found that Baskerville also had the highest rate of agreement and the lowest rate of disagreement. 

And while 1.5 percent might not seem like much, the results could be potentially staggering when they’re viewed in the context of elections or sales. The psychologists that analyzed the study, including Cornell University’s David Dunning, believe that it happens because we lend more credibility to something that looks formal, and we unconsciously process that information. 

Or, in the case of people around the world flaming CERN for releasing earth-shattering news about the Higgs boson particle in Comic Sans, sometimes it can be a conscious thing, too.

WWJD?

Signs of the times

 

Yes, I know how easy it is to photoshop signs and I do not claim that any of these are real.

Well, except for the last one, of course. That's just truth in advertising.