The
sentimental connotation of "scab" is as terrific as that of
"traitor" or "Judas," and a sentimental
definition would be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far
easier to arrive at what may be called a technical definition, worded
in commercial terms, as, for instance, that A SCAB IS ONE WHO GIVES
MORE VALUE FOR THE SAME PRICE THAN ANOTHER.
[Jack
London]
==========
Their
[the Lacedaemonians’] marriage custom was for the husband to carry
off
his bride by force. They did not carry off little immature girls, but
grown up
women,
who were ripe for marriage. After the bride had been carried off the
bridesmaid
received her, cut her hair close to her head, dressed her in
a
man's cloak and shoes, and placed her upon a couch in a dark chamber
alone.
The bridegroom, without any feasting and revelry, but as sober as
usual,
after dining at his mess, comes into the room, looses her virgin
zone,
and, after passing a short time with her, retires to pass the
night
where he was wont, with the other young men. And thus he
continued,
passing his days with his companions, and visiting his wife
by
stealth, feeling ashamed and afraid that any one in the house should
hear
him, she on her part plotting and contriving occasions for meeting
unobserved.
This went on for a long time, so that some even had children
born
to them before they ever saw their wives by daylight.
[Plutarch]
==========
Jan.
30 [1852]
The
rhymes which I used to see on the walls of privies, scribbled by
boys, I have lately seen, word for word the same; in spite [of]
whitewash and brick walls and admonitions they survive. They are no
doubt older than Orpheus, and have come down from an antiquity as
remote as mythology or fable. So, too, no doubt older than Orpheus,
and have come down from an antiquity as remote as mythology or fable.
So, too, no doubt corporations have ever struggled in vain to obtain
cleanliness in those provinces. Filth and impurity are as old as
cleanliness and purity. To correspond to man completely, Nature is
even perhaps unchaste herself. Or perchance man’s impurity begets a
monster somewhere, to proclaim his sin. The poetry of the jakes, –
it flows as perennially as the gutter. …
I
live in an age when men have agreed to say ‘God’ instead of
‘Jove’. …
Jan.
31. We hear the sounds of
screech owls in our nostrils, and the snoring of men is perhaps not
to be distinguished from that of pigs.
[Thoreau,
JOURNAL]
==========
The
EASTERN GRASSHOPPER SPARROW is a queer, somber-colored, big-headed,
short-tailed, unobtrusive little bird. It did not come by its name
because of its fondness for grasshoppers, though it is never averse
to making a meal of them, but because of its grasshopper-like attempt
at song – if song it can be called. It si so persistent and
persevering in giving forth its attempts at melody that it not only
sings and sings unnoticed during daylight hours, but even awakens in
the night to sing. When the novice first hears this stridulation
coming out of the grass he naturally ignores it or does not connect
it with a bird.
This
little sparrow is not so uncommon as most people believe it to be,
but its insect-like song is barely audible at one hundred yards, and
if the hearer is at all tone-deaf, he will not hear it at all, even
through he passes by the singing bird at a distance of twenty feet.
Then again the bird keeps out of sight for the most part and runs
through the grass like a little mouse. Also it is very local in its
habitat. It may disappear from one town and suddenly appear in
another where it was previously unknown. It may be common in one
locality and unknown in a similar region near-by.
It
is a bird is the coastal plain, river valleys and the lower uplands.
It is rarely found at levels much above one thousand feet. Although
it often nests on rather low ground, even at the edge of salt
marshes, the nest is always on dry land. If in or near a meadow, it
is on a rise of ground. It prefers dry, sandy fields and pastures,
where the white daisy and the red sorrel grow, and I have never seen
one in the woods. It is a ground bird; it eats, nests, sings and
sleeps on the ground, but also sings from weed-tops, tussocks,
driftwood, stones and fences. Rarely it alights in trees, and
sometimes sings from a low tree-top, and in migration it may be seen
at times in gardens or orchards.
Its
habits are much like those of the Savannah Sparrow, but it may be
readily distinguished from that species by its unstreaked breast, the
yellow at the bend of its wings, and the rapid, fluttering, wren-like
flight close to the ground.
[Edward
Howe Forbush]
==========
Violets
and gilliflowers … when the frosts draw near,you should replant in
pots, at a season when the moon waneth, in order to set them under
cover and keep them from the cold in a cellar, and by day set them in
the air or in the sun and water them at such time that the water may
be drunken up and the earth dry before you set them under cover, for
never should you put them away wet in the evening.
[‘The
Goodman of Paris’]
==========
SENSITIVE
PLANT | Mimosa pudica
… when
touched, the leaves of this plant fold up modestly … tender annual
… full sun … soil should be kept moist to wet … said to grow
easily when started from seed … HATES cold; keep above 60° at all
times … ferny leaves; curious flowers …
[BIZARRE
BOTANICALS]
==========
I
had not intended to mention that the heart of the Palmetto … is one
of the finest vegetables and salads in the plant kingdom, for in
order to get this delicacy one must destroy this beautiful palm.
However, on a recent trip … I observed many Palmettos being cut
down to make room for new superhighways, supermarkets, supermotels,
and parking lots. Since these palms were being destroyed anyway, I
determined that at least some of the delicious palm hearts would not
go to waste, and gathered as many as I could use from the felled
trees. …
The
delicious heart, vulgarly and insultingly called a ‘cabbage’, is
really the terminal bud found in the center of the leaf cluster. It
is composed of tightly folded, unborn leaves, and is snow-white,
crisp, tender, sweet, and delicious.
Palm
heart can be cooked and eaten like cabbage, but you will find it far
better than that plebeian vegetable. Thinly sliced, chopped,or
shredded, it makes a wonderful addition to almost any tossed salad.
Even better, serve shredded palm heart alone with your favorite
dressing.
[Euell
Gibbons]
==========
In
early June [1844] the household took lodgings in a farmhouse some
five miles outside New York, in a rural spot now to be identified as
the corner of Eighty-fourth Street and Broadway. Here, in the words
of a contemporary, was ‘a wilderness of rocks, bushes, and thistles
with here and there a farm house’. But the front windows looked
down into the valley of the Hudson, and took in the sweep of the
river. He described the place later as ‘a perfect heaven’ …
[Peter
Ackroyd]
==========
Every
now and then, usually while shaving, I realize that I have lived
through nearly one third of the history of the United States, which
proves not how old I am but how young the Republic is. The American
empire, which started officially in 1898 with our acquisition of the
Philippines, came to a peak in the year 1945, while I was still part
of that army which had won us the political and economic mastery of
two hemispheres. If anyone had said to me then that the whole thing
would be lost in my lifetime, I would have said it is not possible to
lose so much so quickly without an atomic catastrophe, at least. But
lose it we have.
[Gore
Vidal]
__________
»A
Dreary Look Back at Jon Huntsman's Failed Presidential Campaign
It's
a tearful day in the world of cosmopolitan magazines and television
studios, as the infamously sane Republican presidential candidate Jon
Huntsman has dropped out of the race, due to a near-total void of
interest in his campaign among Republican primary voters. How did
this relatively competent-seeming person lose his support so
dramatically? Well, he didn't; he never had any support.
-----
Elton
John and Madonna Are Fighting Again
Elton
John had a sour puss on all night at the Golden Globes, but it got
even worse when Madonna's shitty "Masterpiece" won for Best
Original Song over some crappy ballad Elton wrote for Gnomeo and
Juliet. Then his husband started talking shit about Madonna on
Facebook.
-----
Idiot
Propagandist James O'Keefe Screws Up Voter 'Fraud' Stunt: His 'Dead'
Voter is Still Alive
Last
week conservative "film-maker" James O'Keefe pulled another
supposedly muckraking stunt, attempting to prove that voter fraud is
rampant by having colleagues commit voter fraud in the New Hampshire
primary by obtaining ballots using the names of dead people. What
O'Keefe and his pals succeeded in doing was bringing an investigation
against them, pissing off a number of local officials and injuring
the families of the recently dead.
-----
Astronomers
Getting Ready to Take The First-Ever Photo of a Black Hole
I
wuz cold so… i mades a igloo
-----
MADONNA
PUNCHES OUT ELTON JOHN
-----
Italy's
most hated man: Facebook anger at skipper of doomed cruise liner who
'abandoned ship hours before passengers'
The
captain of the Costa Concordia has become the most hated man in
Italy.
Francesco
Schettino, 52, is at the centre of a Facebook hate campaign after
being squarely blamed for the cruise liner running aground.
Thousands
have taken to the web to vent their fury at the so-called ‘Captain
Coward’, who is now claimed to have ‘skimmed’ past the Tuscan
isle of Giglio not just to salute a retired officer but also to
impress his head waiter’s family on shore.
Many
scorned his decision not to remain with his stricken ship.
The
official death toll rose to six yesterday when a man’s body was
pulled from the tilting wreckage. The number of those still
unaccounted for rose to 29 – 25 passengers and four crew.
-----
Cancer-stricken
Venezuelan president Chavez given 'less than a year to live'
Happy
70th birthday, Muhammad Ali.
-----
Tribalism
Killed Huntsman
Byron
York put it best:
Huntsman's
problem was that, whatever his position on some key issues, he sent
out political and cultural signals that screamed NPR, and not Fox
News, that screamed liberal, and not conservative. Even though
conservatives agreed with Huntsman on many things, they instinctively
sensed he wasn't their guy.
And
what does that mean? It means he thought gay people's relationships
deserved recognition if not civil marriage; that climate change was
real, with the question being what to do about it, if anything; that
evolution was not something still up for serious debate. These are
culturally and religiously anathema to the current GOP, for purely
tribal reasons. Not because these things aren't true, but purely
because Democrats or liberals and the vast majority of educated human
beings take them for granted.
What
you see in the rejection of Huntsman is the Republican body rejecting
a sanity transplant. Based on unreason and hatred of the other half
of America. It's irrational and degenerate. But it's what they have,
sadly, become.
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