Lys (Lily). J.J. Grandville, Les fleurs animées.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Lys (Lily). J.J. Grandville, Les fleurs animées.
From Charly, who notes: A large genus of mushrooms, some edible and good, some with nasty unpleasant or burning taste or even emetics. I do not collect them because I have never spent enough time with someone who is familiar with them enough to safely recognise the edible species. Also there are multiple species that are really similar to one another so precise identification really needs a mycologist. Addendum – only the first orange mushroom is Russula sp., the second one is very probably Amanita muscarina. I got them mixed up, I would have to pick up the mushroom to be sure sure (Russula does not have veil and does not have bulbous foot), and of course that cannot be done in picture, and I do not disturb mushrooms I do not collect. Spectacular photos all, click for full size!
© Charly, all rights reserved.
Yellow-rumped Warbler, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Ann Coulter, who is part of a trifecta of evil speakers, will be at Berkeley this month, but right now, Ms. Coulter thinks it’s fine to rant away about how college students should not be able to vote.
On yesterday’s episode of the “Howie Carr Show,” Coulter vented about The Washington Post’s debunk of claims that massive voter fraud is taking place in New Hampshire; the Post found that many of the alleged fraud cases were actually out-of-state college students from casting legal ballots in New Hampshire.
Coulter first explained to Carr that she didn’t think students should be voting in states where they attend college if they don’t establish permanent residency in that state, but then said that it would be “outrageous” for a college student to change her residency to her college town.
Oh right, you can’t manage to refute the WP’s finding, and you can’t manage any reasonable response, so the answer is “college kids shouldn’t be able to vote! they are too stupid brainwashed!” So, Ms. Coulter, why do you think it’s worth your time speaking at colleges, if it’s not an attempt to radicalize young people into being mindless ragebigots? That is the point, right? After all, you and Bannon and Yiannopoulos aren’t going to Berkeley to whip up a nice froth of hate just to be followed by a “hey, kidding! you’re too young and dumb to matter, thanks for the money, bye.”
On the social level, where humans in general lag way behind in forward movement, things tend to get better with each new generation. Each new generation tends to be more thoughtful, more mindful, more accepting, and more involved in what’s happening in their various worlds. Me, I think that’s a good thing. Us older folks, we have to be careful our brains don’t rust shut while we weren’t listening. It’s important to keep our brains and our viewpoints exercised, and I would never once consider stripping young adults of their right to vote, ffs, that’s barbaric. And damn stupid. Not to say it can’t be a challenge, listening to young people, but y’know, you need to remember that enthusiasm you had long ago before life pounded you into the ground a thousand times.
Coulter then reached the conclusion that “college kids shouldn’t be voting” at all.
“It’s just to get the results of 13 years of Chinese-style brainwashing,” Coulter said. “I don’t think that people should be able to vote until they’re 30.”
Yeah. Could this be retroactive? After all, if you want to strip years of voting eligibility away from young people, then all the voting you did for that 12 years, well, those need to be taken away. Let’s have decades of recounts! Then we could just fuck all the rules, and put certain people in office, or back in office, for periods of time. Fun, right? Calling this nonsense stupid is an understatement. Of course, given that Ms. Coulter is over 30, that makes things very convenient for her, doesn’t it?
Via RWW.
Danillo Villa, “Fuck” (2016).
Conservative assholes everywhere are getting their way anymore. In this case, a bunch of conservative asshole libertarians got an art show shut down a month early.
Santander Cultural, a gallery space sponsored by the eponymous Spanish bank, decided to close Queermuseum after receiving an onslaught of vitriolic criticism on social media and from gallery visitors last week. People have accused the artwork of being offensive as well as harmful to children, citing blasphemy, pedophilia, and bestiality. One of Santander’s buildings was recently tagged with the phrases “the Santander Bank supports pedophilia” and “they are antichrists.” Behind these protests is the libertarian group Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), which has gained traction throughout the country ever since it drew mass support of former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. “Pedophilia, zoophilia, and the sexualization of children definitely do NOT represent the LGBT universe,” the group wrote earlier today on its Facebook page.
In an interview with Hyperallergic, Fidelis, the curator, said he hadn’t been consulted by Santander and was caught off-guard by its decision. According to Fidelis, during the 25 days that the exhibition had been up, there had been no complaints. It wasn’t until last Wednesday that members of MBL began infiltrating the exhibition, assaulting visitors, and taking videos of the exhibition and posting them to Facebook.
In one video, three men pan over the artworks, exclaiming, “See for yourself whether this is art!” Among the images they linger on are Adriana Varejão’s 1994 painting depicting gay and interracial sex and Antonio Obá’s “Et Verbum” (2011), where communion wafers are scrawled with words such as “vulva,” “tongue,” and “asshole.” “This guy should be in jail,” one of the men says, referring to Fidelis. “They are perverting the notions of family.”
Amid intensifying online debate on Sunday, Santander announced on Facebook its decision to take down the exhibition. In the statement, it apologizes to those who felt disrespected and ultimately concludes that Queermuseum was “not in line with our view of the world.” Ironically, Santander critiques the exhibition, which celebrated marginalized artists, for not being “inclusive” and not “generating positive reflection.” The statement, which is worth reading in its entirety, is translated in full below: …
Fernando Baril, “Cruzando Jesus Cristo com Deusa Schiva” (1996) (photo by F.Zago Studio Z).
Katja Novitskova, “Earth Potential (Cuttlefish Love, Earth)” (2017), digital print on aluminum, cut out display, steel and aluminum armature (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic).
Oh, these are all so dynamic and wonderful!
…This fuzzy zone of magical looking is where Estonian artist Katja Novitskova operates, and her current exhibition in New York’s City Hall Park is a wonderfully incongruous reminder that all our photos are manipulated.
EARTH POTENTIAL, a Public Art Fund exhibition, is that rare outdoor photography show that actually works. Instead of the usual billboards or placards clumsily affixed to a wall or fence, Novitskova’s photographs are printed on freestanding aluminum panels between six and eight feet in diameter, lending them sculptural dimensionality. Most combine two elements — one astronomic, the other microscopic — printed on separate, custom-cut supports.
[…]
Two of the seven pieces in EARTH POTENTIAL feature just one scientific image rather than a pair — one is a bulbous cluster of orange stem cell embryos, the other a towering, pale pink strand of E. coli bacteria — and they are the show’s most abstract and ambiguous. Without the humor of juxtaposition and jarring shifts of scale of the other pieces, they confront us with the enormous power of scientific imagery and the frontiers of microscopic photography. They also hint at places where the boundaries of human knowledge are butting up against the limitations of human morality.
Katja Novitskova, “Earth Potential (E. coli)” (2017), digital print on aluminum, cut out display, steel and aluminum armature.
You don’t want to miss any of this, head on over to Hyperallergic to read and see more!
FrizzlingVerb.
1: Frizzle
Verb: Frizzled; frizzling: Frizz, Curl.
[Origin: probably akin to Old Frisian frīsle curl]
(1573)
2: Frizzle
Noun: A crisp curl. (1613)
3: Frizzle
Verb: Frizzled; Frizzling
Transitive verb
1: to fry until crisp and curled.
2: Burn, Scorch.
Intransitive verb: to cook with a sizzling noise.
[Origin: fry + sizzle]
(1839)
“The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent door.” – The Willows, Algernon Blackwood.
Lin (Flax). J.J. Grandville, Les fleurs animées.
Gjallarhorn – I Riden Så. Lyrics and translation below the fold.
From Charly, who notes: Edible and in my opinion good, but it has the disadvantage that it is a lot of work – the slimy cap skin has to be peeled of because it is sticky and all kinds of stuff are glued to it. It also contains a lot of water and therefore cannot be safely stored and has to be prepared immediately for consumption. It does not have maggots very often, but it is very beloved by slugs. Latin: Suillus grevillei. Click for full size!
© Charly, all rights reserved.
Black-Capped Chickadee, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Image credit: STILLFX.
NRA TV host Grant Stinchfield is once again attacking the mainstream media — and this time it’s over articles that describe guns and firearms as “weapons.”
Via Media Matters, Stinchfield went on a lengthy rant against an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that talked about fears that campus open carry laws would lead to college students getting drunk and firing their weapons. Stinchfield singled out the use of the word “weapon” as a textbook example of “media bias” intended to make the general public afraid of guns.
“It’s their use of the word weapon that has me bewildered,” he said of the article. “The reporter uses ‘weapons’ in place of firearms or guns so many times, it just becomes bizarre. Here, ‘Fears of gun owners getting drunk and firing their weapons.’ I firmly believe she uses the phrase weapons over firearms in an effort to scare the uninformed.”
Shall we? To the Dictionary!
GUN
noun
any portable firearm, as a rifle, shotgun, or revolver.
a long-barreled cannon having a relatively flat trajectory.
Oh no, look there, right in the very first, primary definition – weapon! Well, maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for this fuckin’ nonsense. Let’s see:
“I don’t like that name at all,” he explained. “To me, the military carries weapons, guns carried for offensive purposes. I carry a firearm, a tool used for self-defense. To me, it is actually a very important distinction. By Georgia, a state rich in firearms history, using the term weapons in an official capacity, it hurts the perception of law-abiding gun ownership.”
Nope. Not a lick of sense to be found there. Gun fondlers always prove they are not in the least fit to be running about with weapons, or to have them stockpiled in their dwellings. Now, firearm is defined thusly:
small arms weapon, as a rifle or pistol, from which a projectile is fired by gunpowder.
Okay, let them have their rifle, bag of powder, and they can keep it dry. At least people would have a chance to run the fuck away, and maybe with their lives. All the weapons which happen to be guns? Gotta go. No more playing superhero or junior g-man or what the fuckever you think you might be. Just gotta shoot? Fine, keep your weapons under lock and key at the local shooting club.
Via Raw Story.