Let’s all stay at home; let the virus inspire us!
Write musicals, histories, science, and art!
A new generation of “latest and greatest”
(As soon as I get off this couch, I will start). [Read more…]
I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
News accounts of the Trump transition have used terms like “knife fight”, “Game of Thrones”, etc, to characterize the chaos and infighting among the various individuals and groups vying for power in what I assume must be a well-drained swamp. Trump himself dismisses such accounts as bad reporting, insisting that the transition is going smoothly. [Read more…]
You can pry my pistol from me when my hands are cold and dead
And my bigotry is sacred, as the first amendment said
All infringements on our liberty are bad, it’s understood—
But the slaves who built the White House? Well, they had it pretty good. [Read more…]
Breaking News–Justice Scalia is dead, at 79.
I am not the person to eulogize him, but I did write him a thank-you sepielle once, when his Windsor dissent proved a road map to marriage for all: [Read more…]
… I left my first comment on Pharyngula. A couple of days later, I repurposed my “Digital Cuttlefish” blog for reposting of comments on the various Science Blogs, so Saturday will be my 8th blog anniversary. Four years on blogspot, four years on FtB, I’ve seen my readership go from single digits to a thousand a day, and back down to maybe half that on the days I have written something. [Read more…]
Jiggery-Pokery!
Pure, legal, applesauce!
Justice Scalia is
Left in the dark–
Lacking foundation, he
Characteristically
Treats legal molehills with
Mountains of snark. [Read more…]
I remember reading a particular issue of Mad Magazine back in the seventies. As it so often did, it included some song and poem parodies, this time on an environmentalist theme. I can recite two of them from memory–one a spot-on Dr. Seuss, and the other a version of the song “America The Beautiful”:
O cancerous, for smoggy skies
For pesticidal grain
Irritated mountains rise
Above an asphalt plainAmerica, America
Thy sins prepare thy doom
Monoxide clouds shall be thy shrouds
Thy cities be thy tomb!
I shouldn’t be shocked—hey, they’re only the news,
They can say what they want with impunity—
But it took me aback that they called a cathedral
A “symbol of national unity”. [Read more…]
They paved over Richard—that’s Richard the third
The Richard that used to be King.
Will I be remembered? The notion’s absurd!
But who knows what the future might bring?
Will the world of the future seek out where I rest?
Will they quarry in search of my bones?
Will they pore over details of things I’ve professed?
Will they look for the truth in the stones?
Will I live in the memories of those I have left?
Is this rational thought, or mere snobbery?
Will my grave be exhumed? And, for science, or theft?
Archaeology, maybe, or robbery?
They paved over Richard; they’ll pave over me
And a car-park may cover my head
My bones will be hidden where no one can see…
But I really won’t care. I’ll be dead.
In my opinion, the coolest site by far for looking at all the Richard III stuff is this, the University of Leicester page on the search. Great explanations of the dig, of the DNA search, of the analysis of wounds, of the reconstructed face…