Lawns
were often planted in cloister garths. Grass was just as troublesome
during the Middle Ages as it is today, for it had to be weeded,
mowed, and rolled. The complicated process of making a beautiful lawn
for a pleasure garden was described by Albertus Magnus in the
thirteenth century: first weeds were dug up by the roots and then
boiling water poured over the earth to kill any remaining roots and
seeds. After that, turf was laid down and beaten with wooden mallets
to compress the grass. The ideal lawn was level and thick.
Albertus
recommended planting trees around the lawn for shade, but he warned
that they should not be planted in the middle of a lawn, where people
were apt to walk, for ‘spiders’ webs stretched from branch to
branch would interrupt and entangle the faces of the passers-by’.
[SWEET
HERBS AND SUNDRY FLOWERS]
==========
LOVE-IN-A-PUFF
| Cardiospermum halicacabum
… is
invasive in the cotton south … not hardy … can be grown in a
container …
STRAWBERRY
BUSH | HEARTS-A-BURSTIN’ | Euonymus americanus
… zones
5-9 … shade-sun … the seeds are ‘screaming orange’; birds
‘think’ they are ‘fabulous’ … native plant; related to
bittersweet …
[BIZARRE
BOTANICALS]
==========
There
are literally hundreds of stories about Octopuses attacking divers,
holding swimmers until the tide came in and drowning them, and even
overturning boats to get at the occupants. I would hesitate to say
that every one of these stories is pure fabrication, but I have
caught dozens of Octopuses, and have seen hundreds caught, and I have
yet to see a diver or fisherman even slightly endangered by this
creature. The ~ is clever, evasive, agile, and strong, yes, but
dangerous, no. it might be humiliating to my own species, but it is
my opinion that the ~ views human beings with the same kind of horror
that most human beings view it – and with good reason. A creature
that has been accustomed to dine on the very finest of crustacean and
molluscan shellfish would hardly fine ordinary human flesh palatable.
In
Hawaii, we caught Octopus by dragging shiny lures made of cowrie
shells across the bottom. We also speared them on the reef during the
day, or went out at night and speared them by torchlight. We
sometimes speared Octopus while diving for Spiny Lobster of fish. In
California, I have caught them with spears and gaff hooks by poking
around in likely holes at extremely low tide.
[Euell
Gibbons]
==========
RED
CROSSBILL | Loxia curvirostra pusilla
… ‘handsome’
… ‘strange’ … ‘erratic’ … ‘seemingly irresponsible’
… has a hankering for salt – ‘it eats almost anything that is
well salted’ … it may start the nesting process anywhere from
January through midsummer; nest may be built in a dense conifer or a
naked branch … the birds are (were) tame – ‘I have lain on the
ground under a tree watching Crossbills feeding among the two
branches only a few feet away, and they completely disregarded my
presence’. …
[Edward
Howe Forbush]
==========
In
the autumn of 1843 Poe told a fellow writer in Philadelphia that ‘his
wife and Mrs. Glemm were starving’. So fifteen dollars were
promptly raised from journalists and others; an hour after the money
had been given to Poe, ‘he was found in a state of intoxication in
Decatur Street’.
[Peter
Ackroyd]
==========
Though
the forests of the Pacific coast provided furs of almost every kind,
the great prize was the sea otter, found nowhere else in the world.
Herds of several hundreds at a time splashed about from Kamchatka to
Alaska and all the way down the American coast to Lower California.
The animals were about four and a half feet long, with a loosely
folded skin that could be stretched to a full six feet. They haunted
the thick beds of kelp near reefs and rocky islands. The Pacific kelp
formed a kind of submarine jungle in which the animals were safe from
their only enemies – sea lions, sharks, and killer whales. Said to
be able to swim under water for a mile at a time, they lived almost
entirely in the water, almost fearless of man. The Indians had always
killed a few; but as late as 1803 the otters were still tame enough
to allow boats to come very close before they dived. After the white
man had begun his ruthless killing, they grew so alert that they were
believed to flee from smoke or human scent several miles down wind.
Like all otters, they were playful, juggling bits of seaweed as they
lay on their backs in the water, or playing with their pups, which
paddled about in the water with their mothers, ‘when no larger than
rats’. John R. Jewett, a sailor captured and enslaved by the
Indians about 1803, wrote after he had been rescued: ‘Nothing can
be more beautiful than one of these animals when seen swimming,
especially when on the lookout for any object. At such times it
raises its head quite above the surface, and the contrast between the
shining black and the white, together with the sharp ears and a long
tuft of heir rising from the middle of its forehead, which look like
three small horns, render it quite a novel and attractive object’.
[EYES
OF DISCOVERY]
==========
In
that day, for a
man
to speak out openly and proclaim himself an enemy of negro slavery
was
simply to proclaim himself a madman. For he was blaspheming against
the
holiest thing known to a Missourian, and could NOT be in his right
mind.
…
Robert
Hardy was our first ABOLITIONIST--awful name! He was a journeyman
cooper,
and worked in the big cooper-shop belonging to the great
pork-packing
establishment which was Marion City's chief pride and sole
source
of prosperity. He was a New-Englander, a stranger. And, being a
stranger,
he was of course regarded as an inferior person--for that has
been
human nature from Adam down--and of course, also, he was made
to
feel unwelcome, for this is the ancient law with man and the other
animals.
Hardy was thirty years old, and a bachelor; pale, given to
reverie
and reading. He was reserved, and seemed to prefer the isolation
which
had fallen to his lot. He was treated to many side remarks by
his
fellows, but as he did not resent them it was decided that he was a
coward.
All
of a sudden he proclaimed himself an abolitionist--straight out
and
publicly! He said that negro slavery was a crime, an infamy. For a
moment
the town was paralyzed with astonishment; then it broke into a
fury
of rage and swarmed toward the cooper-shop to lynch Hardy. But
the
Methodist minister made a powerful speech to them and stayed their
hands.
He proved to them that Hardy was insane and not responsible for
his
words; that no man COULD be sane and utter such words.
So
Hardy was saved. Being insane, he was allowed to go on talking.
He
was found to be good entertainment.
[Mark
Twain, WHAT IS MAN?]
__________
»Joel
J. Tyler, Judge Who Pronounced ‘Deep Throat’ Obscene, Dies at 90
Joel
J. Tyler, who as a Manhattan judge ruled, in a particularly explicit
and colorful opinion, that the pornographic film “Deep Throat”
was obscene and that the New York City theaters showing it were
breaking the law, inadvertently helping it become perhaps the most
popular X-rated movie of all time, died in Yonkers on Nov. 9. He was
90.
…
On
March 1, 1973, Judge Tyler came down stridently against the film,
though not without literary flourish. In an opinion that came with a
long appendix, he called “Deep Throat” “this feast of carrion
and squalor,” “a nadir of decadence” and “a Sodom and
Gomorrah gone wild before the fire.”
“Oh,
yes! There is a gossamer of a story line — the heroine’s
all-engrossing search for sexual gratification, and when all sexual
endeavors fail to gratify, her unique problem is successfully
diagnosed to exist in her throat,” he wrote, adding, “The alleged
story lines are the facade, the sheer negligee through which clearly
shines the producer’s and the defendant’s true and only purpose,
that is, the presentation of unmistakably hard-core pornography.”
Judge
Tyler fined Mature Enterprises $100,000, which was later reduced on
appeal.
-----
Hulk
Want Money. Hulk Need Money. Hulk Hold Up Bank To Get Money.
-----
Teen
atheist showered with Christian love …
I
HATE ATHEISTS AND LIBERALS COME FUCKING FIND ME WEIRDOS
When
I take over the world I’m going to do a holocaust to all the
atheists …
I
honestly think I’d rather be a Satan worshiper than an atheist…
Hey
guys I fucking hate atheists too …
for
the record, when you die you will NOT grow into a tree or some other
bullshit athiests believe in …
-----
A
new Pew Research Center poll suggests that most voters have little
idea about even the most basic facts regarding the backgrounds of the
men seeking the Republican presidential nomination this year.
Pew
asked registered voters four questions: 1) “Which candidate served
as the speaker of the House” 2) “Mitt Romney was the governor of
___” 3) “After Iowa and New Hampshire, the next primary is in
____” 4) “Which GOP candidate opposes U.S. involvement in
Afghanistan”
Pretty
basic stuff right? Um, no.
-----
Scientists
Still Searching for the Beagle 2 Crash Site on Mars
Since
its disappearance in December 2003, scientists and citizen scientists
alike have continued the search for Europe’s Beagle 2 lander which
likely crashed on Mars. Its disappearance is a mystery and if the
spacecraft could be located, it might be possible to discover what
went wrong.
The
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s powerful HiRISE camera has been
regularly taking high-resolution images of the Isidis basin region
where the Beagle 2 lander was supposed to touch down.
“Nothing
resembling the Beagle lander has been seen in any of the HiRISE
images …
-----
What
Ever Happened To Chatroulette?
Austin
Carr checks in on the website. How Chatroulette's naked man problem
was solved …
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