"As the global population booms and demand strains the world's supply of meat, there's a growing need for alternate animal proteins. Insects are high in protein, B vitamins and minerals like iron and zinc, and they're low in fat. Insects are easier to raise than livestock, and they produce less waste. Insects are abundant. Of all the known animal species, 80% walk on six legs; over 1,000 edible species have been identified. And the taste? It's often described as 'nutty.'"
One thing about insects for food — beyond the benefits cited in the article — is you don't have to bone them. Instead of bones, they have an exoskeleton, and you know how we humans love crunchy outer shells on our food.
Insect outer skeleton, the cuticle, is made up of two layers: the epicuticle, which is a thin and waxy water resistant outer layer and contains no chitin, and a lower layer called the procuticle. The procuticle is chitinous and much thicker than the epicuticle and has two layers: an outer layer known as the exocuticle and an inner layer known as the endocuticle. The tough and flexible endocuticle is built from numerous layers of fibrous chitin and proteins, criss-crossing each others in a sandwich pattern....
Christianity itself has produced some of the most gruesome images of tortured, dying, suffering, and dead bodies, especially Jesus's own body. From Latin American Roman Catholic piety to German Protestantism, the dead and dying Jesus is a point of power, passion, and ultimately compassion. Take, for example, Matthias Grünewald's Small Crucifixion (early 16th century) in the publicly funded National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. ... mangled limbs, pocked skin oozing pus and blood.
That Christ on the cross is actually dead, and the body so dead that ants might eat it, is both the most orthodox Christian statement, and the most scandalous. But here is where the power of words and images begin to show their differences.
In Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot, the character Ippolit kills himself. In his suicide note he meditates on a reproduction of a 16th century painting by Hans Holbein, The Dead Christ:
The picture seems to give expression to the idea of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subordinated, and this idea is suggested to you unconsciously. The people surrounding the dead man, none of whom is shown in the picture, must have been overwhelmed by a feeling of terrible anguish and dismay on that evening which had shattered all their hopes and almost all their beliefs at one fell blow. They must have parted in a state of the most dreadful terror, though each of them carried away within him a mighty thought which could never be wrested from him. And if, on the eve of the crucifixion, the Master could have seen what He would look like when taken from the cross, would he have mounted the cross and died as he did?
Holbein's is an image, as Prince Myshkin says in Dostoyevsky's story, that could make one lose one's faith.... And yet, the image offers a profound meditation on the power of death, that "dark insolent, and senselessly eternal power." The picture becomes, like so many before and after, a point of great healing, compassion, and understanding about this central, paradoxical thing that Christians hold dear: Incarnation.
The artist who made the ants-on-Jesus video — which is really called "A Fire in My Belly" — was David Wojnarowicz. He died of AIDS in 1992, only 4 years older than Jesus was at the time of crucifixion.
... "Stripped" features a nude male model seated in a chair with a handful of pill bottles covering his lap. Only his chest, arms and thighs are shown....
Thousands of school- and preschool-aged children walk through the hallway known as the Playhouse Gallery each week on their way to Overture shows, and officials were concerned that "a little kid could connect sickness with genitals" by looking at "Stripped," [Overture spokesman Rob] Chappell said.
Two other black and white photos by Oren — one portraying a nude male torso embraced by four male arms and the other showing a nude male covered by a pile of books — remain on the gallery's walls.
"It's the sickness attached to the genitals that we decided could be misinterpreted by a little kid," Chappell said. "It was never the topic that was an issue. We don't see any reason to shield kids from the fact that HIV exists, or that people with HIV are normal people and can express themselves through photography or any other way."
We don't want children to connect sickness with genitals.
"... which I feel insults a huge number of us non-mainstream folks. But I didn't call for the Smithsonian American Art Museum to pull the Rockwell show that runs through Jan. 2, just down the hall from 'Hide/Seek.' Rockwell and his admirers got to have their say, and his detractors, including me, got to rant about how much they hated his art. Censorship would have prevented that discussion, and that's why we don't allow it."
Now, what is there to hate about Norman Rockwell? Very simply answered question: pro-America. Classic Americana. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate the flag. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate biscuits and gravy. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate breakfast. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate farms. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate grandmother. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate the family. What in the world is there to hate about Norman Rockwell?
Ha. I remember when everyone hated Norman Rockwell... and not just because he was regarded as an excessively literal illustrator and not a real artist.
Willow's target, a person named Tre who goes to school with the Palin kids, wrote a status update on the night of the show's premiere, which read "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing so hard right now."
Willow quipped back, "Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I've seen pictures of, your disgusting ... My sister had a kid and is still hot," referring to her 20-year-old sibling, Bristol.
She later added, "Tre stfu. You such a f*ggot," and "I'm sticking up for my family," TMZ reported.
Bristol then came to her family's defense, writing to Tre, "You're running your mouth just to talk sh*t."
Do decent people read a 16-year-old girl's Facebook page? But we've read it, so let's at least be decent enough to be fair to teenagers. It's common and casual speech to use the words "gay" and "faggot" like that. It upsets upright people, and it would better if the kids didn't do it — or so it seems, as we look down on the young from our lofty adulthood.
We might say that anyone who cares about gay people should strike those words from their vocabulary. But not everyone who hasn't already laundered their speech of those offensive words is "homophobic." (And not everyone who has, isn't.) You're "homophobic" if you actually feel antagonism toward gay people. There's absolutely zero indication that Willow has any negativity at all toward gay people. She's just pissed at Tre and talking like a teenager (or a "South Park" character). To tar her as homophobic is like saying if you call someone an "idiot," you hate persons with Down Syndrome.
So leave Willow alone, you creeps. And in saying "creeps," I mean no antagonism toward arthropods.
If we should be talking about the Palin kids at all today, we should be talking about Bristol. A complete underdog, Bristol Palin made it to the finals of "Dancing With the Stars." She had no experience as a performer, certainly not as a dancer, and it's incredible that she kept going at all, as the judges and others either tore her down or — when they saw the votes flowing in? — were modestly supportive. Week after week, she landed at the bottom of the judges' scores, but she made it up time and again as regular people called in enough votes to overcome the disadvantage the judges had imposed.
Last night, Bristol Palin made the finals of Dancing with the Stars, and I think nobody was more shocked than Brandy, who got eliminated. Brandy was so shocked she didn’t even congratulate Bristol! Brandy really wanted that spot; in face earlier in the show, they had shown us a video tape of her saying how much she wants it, and that she “humbly” thinks she deserves it. Most people would agree with her, but Bristol beat her out anyway.
So whatever the reason: Tea Party Conspiracy, Brandy’s arrogance, Bristol getting all the teen votes, Bristol working her “butt off,” or Mark Ballas’ incredibly good teaching…the question remains: Can Bristol win DWTS season 11?
Maybe she will! Congratulations to the shy, unassuming teenager who didn't particularly ask to be thrust into the spotlight 2 years ago, who went through an accidental pregnancy in front of millions of people (many of whom didn't mind insulting her in any manner they found amusing), who didn't hide herself away in shame, and who tried, again, in front of all of us, to dance. How many of the people who snipe at her, are too big of a pussy to dance anywhere, including on crowded dance floor at a local club?
Yeah, I said "pussy." Does that make me a misogynist?
The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.
I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.
These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.
"This," said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here."
With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.
"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?"
"Now it's down to about 10 per cent.... On a warm, wet night they can all come out at once... I was the only person scheduled to patrol that night, and there I was frantically trying to place as many as possible in the bucket to take to the pond, while phoning for patrol reinforcements and trying not to tread on any toads myself."
Toad patrol, in England, home of Toad of Toad Hall.
Maguro said... Ugh...hate those $#%^*! Japanese Beetles!
Meade said... Here, Maguro, I feed them to a toad.
Ann Althouse said... That toad video is fascinating. I watched it 3 times. The speed is amusing, as is the subtly satisfied look on the toad's face. He's not that pleased. But he's pleased. You can tell.
Meade said... Yes, Japanese Beetles are $#%^ers. They devour roses. No roses, no hortporn. No hortporn, and all I'm left with is my monochromatic imagination. That toad has become so addicted to Japanese Beetles, he waits at the greenhouse door every morning for me to bring him his fix. Every day he leaves a toad turd the size of your pinky finger with recognizable Japanese Beetle exoskeletons in them. I feed the turds to the roses and the cycle is oh so satisfyingly complete....
That line appears at 1:58 in this clip from the great Marx Brothers movie "Duck Soup":
It's a funny scene with all sorts of things in it, such as Harpo surreptitiously cutting off the man's pocket and using it as a bag for his peanuts. (Yeah, count the phallic symbols.) But that line — "Will you quit annoying me?" — has stuck with me for many years as a particular type of funniness. I was IM-ing my son John about it this morning.
Me:
do you remember the line "stop annoying me" --- finding that really funny? what movie and how would you explain why we thought it was so funny?
John:
"would you quit annoying me!!!"
Duck Soup [+ link to the above clip]
similar to W.C. Fields in It's a Gift saying, "I hate you"*
In a comedy you expect wit, wisecracks, innuendo .... So it's funny if someone blatantly says the obvious thing you've been watching for several minutes.
Me:
thanks!!!
it's the element of surprise, but the surprising thing is it's flatfootedness
it's surprisingly ordinary
John:
Also, it's funny for someone to openly say what they think of someone as if there are no social inhibitions
Reminds me of a scene in The Office (last episode of season 2) where Michael Scott is talking to everyone in the office about they're going to have a gambling night in the warehouse....
Michael Scott: Oh, and another fun thing. We, at the end of the night, are going to give the check to an actual group of Boy Scouts. Right, Toby? We're gonna...
Toby: Actually, I didn't think it was appropriate to invite children since it's, uh, you know, there's gambling and alcohol. And it's in our dangerous warehouse. And it's a school night. And, you know, Hooters is catering. Is that enou-is that enough? Should I keep going?
Michael Scott: Why are you the way that you are? Honestly, every time I try to do something fun or exciting, you make it not... that way. I hate... so much about the things that you choose to be.
Ha ha.
Speaking of analyzing exactly why something is funny, I put a lot of thought into the title of that blog post last night with the praying mantis. Originally, I had "Non Compos Mentis Campus Mantis," then, thinking it might be off-putting to start in Latin, I made it "Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis." Then, this morning, I was sorry I switched it. "Non Compos Mentis Campus Mantis" seemed much better — kind of like a 3 Stooges title. Looking at all the 3 Stooges titles, I'm not really sure why.
_________
* The key segment is at 4:40:
CORRECTION: "Praying" changed to "campus" 3 times.
It's Saturday night, and the praying mantis at the University of Wisconsin is restless and reckless. We try to help, but he seems lacking in rationality. (WARNING: 1 bad word.)
ADDED: The guy seems pretty clearly crazy, and I hope no one dies and he gets the help he needs, because this manifesto — PDF — is hilarious, but if anyone dies, it might be wrong to laugh.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
Of course, the Squirrels. That's such a childish list of animals, and not just because of "Froggies." These are the animals in a children's picture book or Noah's Ark toy.
The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world....
I disagree. Around my city, geese are crapping everything up. I notice that no birds got on Lee's list of favored creatures.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
How religion-y, and yet he hates religion:
Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down!
He hates everything that human beings have produced. It's all filth. Even the ideas. He gets his ideas from a gorilla:
The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas.
Here's the book. A gorilla tells us what to do. Example from the pages cited:
We could pension off our teachers, close schools, and open up the city to our children. Let them learn anything they want. We could take that risk....
Quinn has been hyped by Oprah Winfrey: Here's an Oprah interview with Quinn:
WINFREY: You say that y--hundreds of years from now, children will look back on our society and call us monsters. Why?
Mr. QUINN: I think so. Yeah, because we're g--we're--we continue to take and take and take and consume and consume and consume everything in sight. And in 100 years, if--if there are still people around to think about it, we're going to look back and say, `My God, these were terribly greedy people. What kind of people were they? They were hard to understand, who had no thought for us, for the future of--of the human race.'
WINFREY: How are we monsters? In what ways are we devouring the world?...
[T]he suspect had "metalic canisters" strapped to his chest and back. When Lee was struck by police bullets, one of the canisters "popped." Police have not confirmed if the canisters were a bomb, but Manger said the "device may have gone off" when he was shot.
"Do you think that's a hummingbird or an insect?" asked one of the women, who seemed quite involved in the identification process. It wasn't easy, because it was small and darted around. The wings were nearly invisible.
I said: "To me, it looks like a miniature flying lobster, so I'm going to guess insect."
She said, "Yes, I think you're probably right, because it keeps hanging around, and hummingbirds are shy."
Instinctively recoiling at sentimentality and remembering this, I said, "Oh? I've seen some very aggressive hummingbirds. I've seen some hummingbirds who were real jerks."
Hey! Look at the tongue. Maybe it is some kind of crazy butterfly.
AND: Peter Hoh thinks it's a snowberry clearwing, and that looks right to me.
AND: Rick Lee said:
I just posted one of those also... I asked my friend the entomologist if it was a hummingbird moth and she said it was a close relative, the bumblebee moth.
Hey, he got his to hold still... plus he's a professional photographer. No fair!
I remember when most girls tried to get their hair to do that. It's not easy, and it takes nerve — or possibly help from Jesus — to tease your hair that big. Funny... it was considered wrong back then — in the early 60s — to tease your hair. There were all sorts of warnings, notably that your hair would fall out, but also that insects would grow in it.
I remember one particularly harrowing — hair-rowing — story about a girl who kept teasing her hair, day after day, teasing and spraying, without washing it. One day, at school, blood suddenly began streaming down her face. Then, she died! Her hair detached from her head in one big clump. Somebody picked it up and then, in horror, threw it against the wall. Thousands of roaches ran out of it!
Think about that when you're teasing your hair. This was back in the days before the coining of the term "urban legend." It would give you pause. Most of us went for a relatively subtle "bump"...
... and denied that we achieved it through teasing.
Anyway, The Faith Tones... What I don't get is... Christian music, but they don't look wholesome. Maybe I'm still scarred from the adolescent lessons about hair-teasing. It would make boys think you were a bad girl. Is this the way to present yourself to Jesus? Sincerely? I couldn't find any Faith Tones music on Amazon or iTunes. They seem to exist entirely as an internet meme, based on mocking this album cover.
Are The Faith Tones themselves an urban legend? Or — alternate theory — is this album cover the work of the devil, who is tempting you to laugh at religion?
There are 54 different types of mosquitoes in Wisconsin, he said. "The ones that will make or break a summer we call summer floodwater mosquitoes."
They can lay eggs and those eggs will stay dormant for as long as three years. "It's almost like little time bombs out there," Pellitteri said. Once standing water hits them, they hatch....
"It's just crazy. This is unlike anything we've ever seen before with mosquitoes, that's for sure," said Tom Leonard, assistant store manager at Elliott's Ace Hardware in West Allis.
"I've been doing this for 30 years. This is the first time where almost every customer through the door says, 'Where's your mosquito repellent?'"
We had a terrible encounter with mosquitoes last week in the Kettle Moraine here in southern Wisconsin. But on Monday and Tuesday, we were all the way north, at the Apostle Islands National Seashore, where we went on a long hike through the woods, wore no repellent, and got no bites. Yesterday, we were hiking a little further south, at Morgan Falls and Copper Falls, and though we were able to hike without resorting to repellent, we got a few bites. So people bitch (and itch) about the mosquitoes in Wisconsin, but the northern tier is also Wisconsin. Check it out! We saw some highly scenic places, and though it's the peak of the season, we were often the only or almost the only people there.
Then, while she is still eating, he crawls onto her back. He seems in this semiheadless state to have found a renewed vigor and sense of purpose. There will be no more showy stunts. His pale penis emerges from the rear of his body, extruded between the plates of his exoskeleton. His abdomen snakes around beside hers and forms a painful-looking curve. They begin to copulate.
Mantis sex. That description! Whew! It goes on...
Turning her face almost 180 degrees, she regards him for a moment, as if his attentions were a distasteful surprise. Then, twisting with some difficulty, she brings her raptorial forelimbs into position and strikes again. This time she retrieves the remainder of his head and a scrap of his thorax, from which one foreleg dangles.
He doesn't seem to mind.
He doesn't seem to mind! Ha. Well, try minding something when you have no mind. Anyway, there's quite a bit more, and the main idea is that the male insect's sexual performance is improved by the absence of a head: "He performs with more gusto once he's decapitated." Apparently, the brain is a source of inhibition.
I have exclamation points in the margin in this passage of the book, which I read a dozen years ago (when I went through a period of intense fascination with the essay form). I just got the book down from the shelf to answer a question over on Ask MetaFilter: "Can you please recommend good books (fiction or nonfiction) or websites about insects and/or spiders..? Not so much identification books, but ones about how they live, interact, etc." It was fun reading that again. I should leaf through other old books of mine and pluck out passages with exclamatory marginalia.
