This may come as a bit of a shock
But they’re stripping the shelves of “X-Rock”
There’s a problem they saw—
Seems it’s breaking the law
Cos it has an effect on your libido
Headline: Maker recalls ‘X-Rock’ male supplement
[Read more…]
By chance of birth
We’re here on Earth,
More lucky than we know
With such a brain
As can explain
The way these things must go
That life began
Not with a man
Named Adam, and his Eve
But molecules
In tidal pools
That replicate and cleave
To replicate
It is their fate
And thus to reproduce
The Earth revolves
And life evolves
And all this, we deduce
Recycled star
Is what we are
With everything we see
This view of things
Amazement brings
At least, it does to me
Some future day
I know we may
Be swallowed by the sun
For what it’s worth
Protect the Earth–
We’ve only got the one.
(First posted on Earth Day 2008)
From 1797, A Burlesque Translation of Homer. Two volumes, 360 and 432 pages respectively, of bawdy humor. No more dactylic hexameter, this one is in the far friendlier iambic tetrameter. It’s like I have a twin. [Read more…]
Zack started his fight while still in high school. Here he is, testifying in front of the Louisiana Senate Education Committee. (video, after the jump) [Read more…]
We measured the people with surveys and polls
Their political leanings, their spiritual goals
Scientifically balanced, with proper controls
We could see how the data were rangin’
And the answers we got from some two thousand souls
Said the times, they are a-changin’ [Read more…]
Levon Helm has died. On PBS.org’s “Sound Tracks”, there is an interview and a couple of videos from earlier this year. Makes me happy to see such music, and such happiness, so close to the end of his life; I have seen people his age (and younger) who seemingly lost any sort of enjoyment many years before death caught up with them.
Video of The Weight, after the jump, so you can see what I mean: [Read more…]
It’s National “Ask An Atheist” Day again… So, just what is it that atheists believe? I can answer for myself, anyway… [Read more…]
You may laugh, you may snicker, or chortle,
But some thought he’d discovered a portal—
Now, eternal youth’s spark
Has eluded Dick Clark,
And we learn that the man is … mere mortal.
Headline: ‘America’s oldest teen’ Dick Clark dies
Either 82 years old, or approximately 16.
Well, that’s what the email said, anyway.
Ah, automated letters.
First, it’s not my design; it was designed by Michael McRae. Second, although I myself love it, I really wonder if the good people at CafePress really love it as much as they say. I was just tooling around on their designer software, and made an iphone cover–I don’t even own an iphone–just to check out its sheer awesomeness. Image, after the jump: [Read more…]
Zach Houston runs his Poem Store (on any given sidewalk) with these items: a manual typewriter, a wooden folding chair, scraps of paper, and a white poster board that reads: “POEMS — Your Topic, Your Price.”
For five years now, this has been his main source of income. Not that it’s necessarily a steady income, mind you.
I don’t think I could do what he’s doing. There are a few times when my verses flow out as fast as I can type them, but when you work in rhyme and meter, a typewriter is a bit intimidating. Give me a delete button, or better yet, an eraser. Actually, I don’t generally erase–I cross out, and put arrows on the page to move things around. Once in a while, I re-write something I have crossed out, which suddenly fits two stanzas later than I thought it would. But a typewriter? I’d need two drafts, and Zach Houston is putting out poems in mere minutes (at least, the examples in the story).
But he’s not starving, which is nice.
Ironically, I got a payment from Lulu today–two people bought my book last month! That brings the number of books sold in 4 years to 161. (Greta Christina broke a thousand in a few hours; PZ will probably have a few thousand pre-orders already.) But hey, Zach Houston shows that hope springs eternal, perhaps particularly during poetry month. So…
Take a look! (And if that doesn’t work, just look to the “Cuttlestuff” tab at the top of this page, or go to Lulu and look for “Cuttlefish Omnibus” if all my methods fail.)