The Columbine massacre was on this date in 1999. Instead of energizing our country to get gun violence under control, it kicked off a new normal. One of the best explanations ever of journalism's destructive impact on mass shootings came from Roger Ebert in his review of Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant.”
Today I am jaded by cuteness kawai is making me slightly seasick afloat in a boat of digital saccharine everything's too sweet too much too oversimplified and not in the least organic give me the real the vital the down-in-the-dirt is-ness of life the slightly imperfect robin with its wholly imperfect worm the tulip arranged by nature's whim not algorithm stop lying to me everybody it's spring let's touch grass not Astroturf™ Image composite: Robins, real and imagined, by Grok and DG, and an unruly red tulip by Tavaron da Quirm. Read the h2g2 Post at h2g2.com for real photos of real things every week.
If you watch anything today, make it be this clip of @bencollins.bsky.social talking about what real strength is:
behold the ruins of wars past the waters heal the undersea boat has become home for fishes of its bones are coral made it dealt death it supports life man proposes Earth disposes land and water have their sabbaths there is nothing an ecosystem cannot contend with if you give it enough time Image: U352, sunk by the US Coast Guard off Cape Hatteras in 1942. NOAA.
Baa, baa.
www.youtube.com/shorts/z6ZR-...
to the scammers on my telephone & their friends in the government trickery requires initial trust can't scam if I won't buy in so play your mindgames if you must but we all know you're lyin' the cheap little thrill you got in your heart the first time you broke the bond is all you get, pal: don't even start that stick's not a magic wand fool me once, the saying goes after that you're on your own even the man in the Vatican knows you reap what you have sown if the only reason you've come my way is to tell me another lie then you and I have nothing to say please kindly pass on by Image: Old wall telephone called Williams' coffin, Gutenberg.
This week's title is Look Who's Looking. Clockwise from upper left: A Celebes Crested Macaque looking at you, Burg Kreuzenstein towering above you, a cormorant offering you a chance to admire it as it perches on a pole in a mere, a skier completely ignoring you as they climb a snowy slope, a woodpigeon wowing you with its massive profile, some beautifully-dyed Ukrainian-style Easter eggs in a bowl doing nothing but being nice to look at, an awe-inspiring view of a still lake, mountains, and a bank of fluffy clouds undder a blue sky and sunlight, a swan taking off from the water with other swans around, a black-and-white cat named Bandit staring at you challengingly from a wooden staircase, and a bald photographer pointing a camera through a window in a nature blind. He looks deadly serious, doesn't he? He's pranking the twitchers: there's nothing out there but a big rock. Read the stories behind these intriguing images in this week's Post.
Explore the world with us. Climb a mountain. Experience Liverpool from the waterline and through its ghosts. Follow the feral bird photographers as they prank the twitchers and, maybe, us. All this and fiction, humour, cinema. h2g2.com/entry/A88085...
Then I’m cast away like hawthorn flower storming from the thorn,
or like a small bird’s egg, chilled and cracked, in the bitter grass of morn.
Sweet friend, please do not meet my gaze: I grieve the gold I bring,
a poisoned spring made beautiful, a ruin taught to sing.
2/2
O pale estuary, hold your breath where the last light sifts through reeds;
my investiture was always made of loveliness and weeds.
I’m worn like evening on the water, soft, immense, and gold,
till my hidden poison kisses ‘pon the hands that thought to hold.
1/2
#vss365
A commotion ensued as the servants pursued nine-year-old Edward across the palace grounds to give him a bath before his investiture as king.
#vss365 #vss #investiture
I am fascinated by these 'cowless angels'.
Are they 'all halo and no cattle'? 😇🐄
Rory tutted and groaned at the #investiture of the new king. For one, it took too long for the scene to play out and for another, Rory wasn’t that impressed by kings.
Either born into the role or by killing enough people to win it, he didn’t think monarchy was ethical form of leadership.
#vss365
some people visualise their arrival in the next world as a homecoming they'll get off the horse (the coach, the train, the bus, the motorbike) and be greeted by their childhood dog and a friendly human face the pompous think of it more as an investiture what's an investiture, you say? You know, like the Mickey Mouse Club here's your hat, here's your ears only with more glitter no lie I once stood in a very nice museum in Cologne while our instructor explained about Bishop Anno who lived a thousand years ago it seems he got real sick one time and had what Dr Kübler-Ross would have called an NDE anyway he got to heaven and they started the Mickey Mouse song here's your mitre, here's your staff when suddenly the voice of Jimmy Durante yelled 'Stop the music!' and he looked down he had blood all over him, natch, he wasn't exactly Pope Leo XIV, if you take my meaning so he decided to wake up and fix his karma which is why Bishop Anno is always depicted surrounded by monasteries and churches he built to make up for putting down that general strike he died in 1075 and people guess he got back into heaven all right at least that's what all the rich powerbrokers hope will happen I'm not too sure about that Image: Bishop Anno and four of his pet monasteries, Wikipedia.
I maybe should have reposted this during Artemis II, when we saw lots of interesting lunar lighting effects.
It's all about sun angles & their effects on crewed lunar surface operations. That'll be super important when astronauts land at the poles.
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2019/03/high...
I was just thinking that, too! I have the uneasy feeling that similar things could have been said, oh, around the time of Nicene Council when they were all busy arguing about how many heads God was allowed to have and all the cool kids made the sign with 3 fingers to virtue-signal.
Thank you for that heartfelt and concise description of this very dangerous trend in Christianity. I would only add that in my experience this sort of thing was happening as far back as the mid-60s and drove me nuts even then. You're right: they never wise up, either.
'The sea of faith was once, too, at the full...' Oh, can it, will you? 'Ebb and flow of human misery,' indeed. If Sophocles had sat here in Abdera, he would have pointed out that the ebb and flow of human misery amounted to no more than a foot-and-a-half every twelve hours. I think we can roll with that tide, don't you? Seafoam tickling my toes, a surreptitious little crab burrowing in damp sand, a carelessly-discarded shell gleaming white against the brightness of Apollo's daily fire. My idea of paradise. Yes, yes, Paradeisos is close to Kavala. I hear you. I apply sunscreen and dodge nude toddlers. I found an ancient joke book, The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius. They were about as bad as the average standup routine. One whole section was devoted to claiming the people of Abdera were dumb. They were smart enough to live near this beach, so there. And now, whenever I feel sad, or lonely, or in despair about the state of the world, I close my eyes and go to Abdera. Image: Aegean Sea at sunset, h2g2.
if I had a hammer wait, I do have a hammer brother-in-law got tired of coming over to fix something and saying, hand me a hammer and hearing, wait, do we have a hammer? the lack of proper tools in a writer's house can drive a farmer nuts so he got me this hammer for my birthday it's a good hammer it's from an Asian company the instructions are in an exotic script (to me) they probably thought they had named it appropriately I thanked him I put the hammer in the desk drawer in case I need to nail down an idea it's next to the all-purpose screwdriver and the tape measure in inches and centimeters meanwhile I'm typing again and thinking about Goethe am I the hammer or the anvil in this metaphor? I think I'm the anvil but maybe I'm a mislabeled hammer you see what you've done, Asian tool company? I hope you're proud of yourselves Image: Hammer that says 'Anvil' on it in large, authoritative letters. DG
Blue 1933 car from behind, showing small trunk or rumble seat (closed, so not sure) and elegant running board for hanging onto and spraying the coppers with gats.
Rest of car:
Oh, thank you thank you!
“Would you —?”
“You’ve hit your #word count,” his comms device blared. “To continue, please insert more LinguaFrancs.”
Muted, he picked at the coins in his palm. Not enough for vowels; double letters were extra too. Damn inflated vocab prices!
So he slid the diamond on her finger and hoped. #vss365
👏 Good one!
Hood ornament with wings: sort of a flying fish or snake? It has beady eyes. On a car that looked like late-1930s, probably from a kit, very shiny and un-dented, with nice, new tires. Or else they're making cars with running boards now, what do I know?
Does anyone have a clue about this hood ornament?
in the beginning was the deed said Mr Goethe Besserwisser but we know it was the word but what was the word and more important what language was it in? German or English said the theologian just before he left the faculty and started his own seminary he had the final word but we suspect he should have left that to the Deity what is God's native language anyway? I'll bet he's fluent in all of them even Frog Image: A frog in water. DG
Dankie vir alles!
Have you seen Joseph Doddridge's book about early settlement? He grew up watching climate change due to forest clearance. I wrote about him here. The change from forest to fields in terms of birdsong, available food, etc, was eye-opening to me. h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/bru...
A faculty colleague of mine, originally from Amsterdam, told me this story. His wife was a major force in the local business community and was also very civic-minded. She talked him into hosting an exchange student from the Netherlands. Jan was a pleasant, well-behaved boy, but...well, you shall hear. The high school enjoyed having Jan. They decided to have a special Netherlands Day, with a program dedicated to the subject and a luncheon with Dutch specialties. My colleague and his wife were to be honored guests. As they walked into the school's entrance they were met by a welcoming committee of enthusiastic students - who grinned proudly and said, in chorus, 'Loop naar de pomp!' The couple were taken aback, but didn't say anything. The kids took them on a tour of the school. Everywhere they went, they were greeted with smiles and a hearty 'Loop naar de pomp!' They avoided looking at each other. This was really too good. They met up with Jan in the cafeteria. He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. 'How did you like my surprise?' he asked. 'Loop naar de pomp' means literally, 'Walk to the pump.' In other words, 'Go jump in the lake.' Image: Kids running, a lady fussing about them picking her flowers, a hand-pump for water.
Pass out earplugs, kids.
PS Lasciate ogne disperazione, voi ch'intrate = Abandon despair, all ye who enter here.
PPS o homo fuge = O man, flee
I am become the thing we feared in English class: the poet with footnotes.
the corridor, mysteriously lit as if it held a delicious secret that was way too much fun to give away too soon the walls inscribed with messages - jokes, mostly - in every script of every tongue from cuneiform to kanji to the elder futhark o homo fuge nah, take your time for a good time call CAnticles 1:2 Salome will talk your head off, signed John the Baptist finally, over the gate (it was worth the walk) in large, friendly letters, the words every pessimist from Koholet to Nietzsche has feared in his gloomy heart: Lasciate ogne disperazione, voi ch'intrate you can hear the laughter all the way to the Third Empyrean: another one incoming, says an angel Image: Doorway by FWR (h2g2)
