My ventures of late outside the Burrow continue to lead me into undesired but either morally necessary or just plain unavoidable encounters-unto-conflicts (expressed or a hair's breadth from being expressed) with raving flailing nutcases, scofflaw immigrants...And such (I'm trying to avoid Bad Words). And tonight is the next-to-last episode of Monk --!!!!!!!!! I'm seriously considering going to live with AMBROSE.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
R.I.P. Uga / Deformed Breeds
Uga (pronounced UH-geh) VII, The University of Georgia's beloved and hereditary mascot, has died at the hardly-mor'n-a-pup age of 4 years. By (capital B, no modifying adjective) Bulldog standards, he was gorgeous... But Bulldog standards are the problem.
http://www.akc.org/breeds/bulldog/index.cfm Note how extremeness is built into the show ideal. Callous human conceit from the showdog world deformed the original, functional bulldog into a collection of unhealthy, cartoonish exaggerations that have caused untold misery for the animals--and their sympathetic owners, the latter of whom, unless they were rescue-adopters, came to grievous lessons in the mistakenness of perpetuating signal deformity. At overlong last, responsible efforts are being made to correct these sources of affliction and grotesquery:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5512620.ece
Several attempts have been made successfully, and continue to be made, of restoring the original, healthy bulldog type. Some can be found perusing breed links found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_breeds
It's easy, seeing winsome pictures of dogs and cats with short legs and concaved noses, to understand some of the urge we humans have to DEFORM (that's what it truly IS) animals in ways that make them seem more endearing to us--like (breeding to perpetuate) achondroplastic dwarfism, which gives them a pseudo-babyish physiognomy, or other mutations that have served more functional purposes. Some of these selectively bred mutations are harmless, or even truly helpful to the domestic creature as well as to human wants. There are wild canids and felids and other carnivores with short legs. Whether the domesticated species ought to have them when their nearest wild relatives do not is at least questionable--though recognized histories of breed problems with such things should never be trivialized. There is also a kind of latent intelligent design that morphologically relates to selectively breeding wild species for a calm, friendly (thus domesticable) disposition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tame_Silver_Fox
But, when mutation and other breeding practices obviously have resulted in building ill health (including psychological ill health) INTO breeds, we should stop perpetuating those breeds, at least in the same unhealthy form.
The Ugas have been darlings, as have innumerable misshapen individuals, God bless 'em all. The Elephant Man was sweet and saintly, but arncha glad he didn't add to the gene pool! If his deformities were 'cute' but caused him as much affliction, the same principles should apply... And apply to animals, too.
We must stop breeding animals to have miserable lives (however nobly thy may bear them!) on account of our own conceits. I hope and pray that the University and the Sieler family will set a good example and choose the next Uga from one of the classically formed bulldog breeds. The Peachtree State even has its own breed: The Antebellum Bulldog!
http://www.akc.org/breeds/bulldog/index.cfm Note how extremeness is built into the show ideal. Callous human conceit from the showdog world deformed the original, functional bulldog into a collection of unhealthy, cartoonish exaggerations that have caused untold misery for the animals--and their sympathetic owners, the latter of whom, unless they were rescue-adopters, came to grievous lessons in the mistakenness of perpetuating signal deformity. At overlong last, responsible efforts are being made to correct these sources of affliction and grotesquery:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5512620.ece
Several attempts have been made successfully, and continue to be made, of restoring the original, healthy bulldog type. Some can be found perusing breed links found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_breeds
It's easy, seeing winsome pictures of dogs and cats with short legs and concaved noses, to understand some of the urge we humans have to DEFORM (that's what it truly IS) animals in ways that make them seem more endearing to us--like (breeding to perpetuate) achondroplastic dwarfism, which gives them a pseudo-babyish physiognomy, or other mutations that have served more functional purposes. Some of these selectively bred mutations are harmless, or even truly helpful to the domestic creature as well as to human wants. There are wild canids and felids and other carnivores with short legs. Whether the domesticated species ought to have them when their nearest wild relatives do not is at least questionable--though recognized histories of breed problems with such things should never be trivialized. There is also a kind of latent intelligent design that morphologically relates to selectively breeding wild species for a calm, friendly (thus domesticable) disposition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tame_Silver_Fox
But, when mutation and other breeding practices obviously have resulted in building ill health (including psychological ill health) INTO breeds, we should stop perpetuating those breeds, at least in the same unhealthy form.
The Ugas have been darlings, as have innumerable misshapen individuals, God bless 'em all. The Elephant Man was sweet and saintly, but arncha glad he didn't add to the gene pool! If his deformities were 'cute' but caused him as much affliction, the same principles should apply... And apply to animals, too.
We must stop breeding animals to have miserable lives (however nobly thy may bear them!) on account of our own conceits. I hope and pray that the University and the Sieler family will set a good example and choose the next Uga from one of the classically formed bulldog breeds. The Peachtree State even has its own breed: The Antebellum Bulldog!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Payin' for Pavin' Paradise...
Tony Barboza's story from the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6th:
'Developer ordered to pay settlement for draining Huntington Beach Wetland'
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wetlands-fine6-2009nov06,0,1471823.story
'Developer ordered to pay settlement for draining Huntington Beach Wetland'
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wetlands-fine6-2009nov06,0,1471823.story
Lovely Garden 'Hood: The South Bronx
I can't get the URL below to go hyperlinky properly, but this is a great story of local stalwarts reclaiming the worst street of 'the worst slum in America', standing fast for what was right against 'expert' outsider notions, and making a charming, clean, safe suburb of individual family homes in what had been a burning Gehenna (Charlotte Street, the South Bronx). A truly wonderful story. Those who effected it ought to be given the Medal of Freedom. Copy and paste this whole URL to your taskbar and click 'Go':
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/09/real_estate/greatest_neighborhood_turnaround/index.htm?icid=main|
htmlws-main-n|d|8|link4|http://money.cnn.com/11/09/real_estate/greatest/neighborhood/turnaround/index.htm
R.I.P Edward Woodward
See him in Breaker Morant, The Wicker Man, and The Equalizer (among others). No matter how complex or high in probity the characters he played, one always believed them to be true, full, high-and-wide lives. Standing O's and deep bows from the audience. Gloriously Ever-Living Peace be with you, noble Edward Woodward!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2914603.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1228216/Screen-veteran-Edward-Woodward-dies-79.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2914603.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1228216/Screen-veteran-Edward-Woodward-dies-79.html
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Happy 60th Anniversary to GOLDEN GUIDES
Favorite books and friends forever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Guide !!! Hugs 'n wuv fum Mummy, Sweeties!
Roger Corman for President?
Pop-shlock filmmaker Roger Corman is getting an honorary Oscar this Saturday (Nov. 14, '09). It's probably because (1) he's '...Never Lost a Dime' (part of the title of his autobio), and (2) has otherwise been so influential: (a) as a mentor to others who make high-risk, wildly expensive, often arty and Oscar-winning epics, and (b) showing that the greatest profit$$$$ are usually made by aiming 'entertainment' at the limbic, the id, the lowest-common-denominator dipstick demographic.
Since the office of the PrezUS, and any other Major Power head-of-government is, de facto, an office in which willingness to be a MEGA-MASS-MURDERER is presumed and usually acted-upon, and that (war) continues to be immensely POPULAR with the cannon-fodder masses (especially when the powers-that-be in their countries save all the peaceful jobs for slavey foreigners), it makes a kind of sense that the office ought to go to someone who is unabashed, un-conflicted and un-hypocritical in enthusiasm for splatter, yet has a qualified, experienced and positively-tested engineer's ability to plan things ahead so precisely that we (as in, the Actual Teeming Masses Public, as opposed to the Plutocracy) Never Go Over a Small Budget and Always Make a Profit.
Now, I would rather we all, once and forever, would Try to Do What Jesus Said for Us to Do when He wasn't being wildly ironic ... Or at least would insist that prezzies would do, and we be the kind of benign ideal thing* ever churned out in big speeches, without it being (at least,subliminally) understood and effected as Orwellian Newspeak (*like 'we are a peace-loving nation which upholds equal rights and comforts the poor and downtrodden' [stress-induced deranged laughter ensues]). But, since there's much less chance of that than of Roger Corman becoming President-- well, then, imagine If Roger Corman Were President!
Since the office of the PrezUS, and any other Major Power head-of-government is, de facto, an office in which willingness to be a MEGA-MASS-MURDERER is presumed and usually acted-upon, and that (war) continues to be immensely POPULAR with the cannon-fodder masses (especially when the powers-that-be in their countries save all the peaceful jobs for slavey foreigners), it makes a kind of sense that the office ought to go to someone who is unabashed, un-conflicted and un-hypocritical in enthusiasm for splatter, yet has a qualified, experienced and positively-tested engineer's ability to plan things ahead so precisely that we (as in, the Actual Teeming Masses Public, as opposed to the Plutocracy) Never Go Over a Small Budget and Always Make a Profit.
Now, I would rather we all, once and forever, would Try to Do What Jesus Said for Us to Do when He wasn't being wildly ironic ... Or at least would insist that prezzies would do, and we be the kind of benign ideal thing* ever churned out in big speeches, without it being (at least,subliminally) understood and effected as Orwellian Newspeak (*like 'we are a peace-loving nation which upholds equal rights and comforts the poor and downtrodden' [stress-induced deranged laughter ensues]). But, since there's much less chance of that than of Roger Corman becoming President-- well, then, imagine If Roger Corman Were President!
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