zman bouillabaisse

More zbouillabaisse!

1. Inspiration from rob

rob's last post motivated me to post Nina Simone's version of House of the Rising Sun.  The last 30-or-so seconds will remind you that she was a classically trained pianist who turned to jazz when she didn't get into Juilliard.  

2. Inspiration from Professor G. Truck

Prof. Truck's recent post motivated me to tell you that many of the old Spider-Man cartoons from our childhood (the 1967 version) are available on Youtube.  zdaughter is into Spider-Man and she likes to watch a video before bedtime and these short cartoons fit the bill perfectly.  New ones go up and get taken down by whoever owns the copyright (Jack Urbont?)--until today they were all available in a playlist but now you have to scroll through them all.  This one reminds me of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

3. Politicians crack me up

New Hampshire state Rep. James Spillane (no relation to Mickey) endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2024 but has suddenly switched to Ron DeSantis, stating “I can no longer continue endorsing former President Trump. I am officially withdrawing my endorsement, as his most recent attack on Kayleigh McEnany is beyond comprehension and explanation .... Against my deepest hopes that Trump had learned some measure of control, he has attacked those who have been his staunchest supporters with no regard for their loyalty."  

Spillane further opined "The reason being that when I did endorse Trump I thought that he would be able to continue with a positive message, learn from his past mistakes and give us a way forward to continue the policies that he started before … But it’s become evident, especially with the latest attack on Kayleigh McEnany that there’s no loyalty in him.”

To be fair and balanced he added that "The people of NH, and the people of this nation, deserve messages of positivity and hope, not negative attacks and degradation as we have seen is the hallmark of the Biden administration."

Trump's "attack" on McEnany was his calling her a Milktoast (sic) RINO because she said Trump was 25 points ahead of DeSantis in the polls when he thought he was up 34 points.

So just to be clear, Spillane is fine with the coup and extorting Ukraine, but calling Kayleigh McEnany a Milktoast is a bridge too far for him.  I guess we shouldn't be surprised given his history.

Also, Mike Pence joined Sons of Anarchy.

4. Texas cracks me up

Like the citizens in most red-leaning states, many Texans have been conditioned to believe that "The Government" is their enemy, coming to steal their "Freedom!" with malign "Regulations!".

Texans won't stand for that hooey.  For example, Texas proudly deregulated their electricity utilities in 2002.  Electrons need freedom too!  That experiment didn't turn out exactly as expected, but Texans won't get fooled again by slick corporations and their externalities.

Or not.  Elon Musk's Boring Company (boring because they dig tunnels, not because they're dull, get it?) broke ground in Bastrop County Texas and they're running roughshod.  Or perhaps not, depending on your view of Freedom! and Regulations!.  

A local organic farmer commented “Between Elon Musk coming in here and all the sand and gravel mines ... suddenly this bucolic, pastoral prime farmland is now more than a thousand acres of an industrial site. There’s no zoning, there are no rules. It’s the Wild West.”

The local county commissioner replied “This is Texas. This is called property rights. If you own the property and you stay within the state laws, you can pretty much do what you want.”

A local real estate agent perhaps summed up things best when he said “I love Elon, and we need more industry here.  I just don’t want him to dump his poop in the river.”

If only The Government could protect the little guy's Freedom! from Musk's musky dung.  Maybe with some Regulations!.  Nah, that's awful stuff.  

Your New Neighbor

I have finally figured out how to turn rob and Dave into Build-the-Wall, anti-immigration, anti-globalization, pro-isolation, full-throated Trumpists:  the Joro spider.

That's a little one.  They can be up to 4 inches across.  The Joro spider, or Trichonephila clavata to the cognoscenti, is indigenous to Asia but a bunch of them snuck into a cargo freighter and wound up in Georgia.  According to the Washington Post, they tolerate cold weather and are migrating north, towards Leesburg and eventually Highland Park.  Here's an entomologist's take:

You'll know they're in your neighborhood when you start seeing giant yellow cobwebs on your power lines.

Apparently you will also encounter them while riding your bike, riding a horse, skateboarding, running, walking, really just doing anything outside--you will walk into one of their giant webs and the spider that lives in it will land on your face.  They are big and venomous, but don't worry!  Their mandibles are typically too small to pierce human skin, except for the big females' mouths, and their venom is irritating but not deadly.  You will survive the bite, if not the ensuing heart attack.

There's more!  They can spin a web like a parachute to catch the wind and fly for miles across the land.

On the plus side, they serve as an additional food source for native birds, and will help control other invasive species like the (dreaded) spotted lanternfly.  

Enjoy your time outdoors this summer!

It's Tick Season so Listen Up

The most difficult class I took in college was, without hesitation, General Entomology with Dr. Fashing.  Yes, one should expect a 400 level biology class to be hard, but I figured it's a class about bugs, how hard could it be?  I majored in biology so I was used to getting my lazy ass kicked, and friend of numerous GTBers Bekkah took Insects and Society with Dr. Fashing and raved about him and how low-stress the class was.  Insects and Society is a 100 level course designed for Art History majors to fulfill their Area I requirements so in hindsight this wasn't the best recommendation to follow.  

Dr. Fashing is a very nice guy and he's passionate about the subject matter, but the class was insane.  The lab component was 1/4 of the grade and it was entirely taxonomy.  He would start every lab with a quiz which involved him throwing 10-15 dead bugs on a table and he would ask you "What Order is this one?  What Family is this one?" and I would write down "bug" or "cricket" or "butterfly" which was never the right answer.  The lab required a project:  go out and collect (i.e., catch and kill) forty different Families of insect.  Not a mom and dad and sibling group of bugs, but a taxonomic Family.  That's really fucking hard.  Why you ask?  Well, they all look the same so you can spend three hours out in the field collecting fifty insects but when you get back to the lab and key them out you'll find you only have four different Families.  It was awful.

And it was bad socially.  I rare knew anyone in any of my biology classes, usually it was everyone's favorite ER doctor but he wouldn't take bugs with me.  Luckily Langdon from Sig was in there too so we would forage for bugs together.  Everyone was assigned a butterfly net and a killjar (a mason jar with some substance mothball-like glued to the bottom that smothers the bugs) so I would wait for Langdon on the back porch, then we would meet up and go to the woods or a field or whatever.  On one such occasion, erstwhile GTB contributor Dennis's girlfriend came flouncing by in a nightie with four or five of her similarly-attired fellow sorority pledges--they were off to perform some task which apparently called for "sleazy and demure."

Ever the gentleman, I said "Hello" and she replied, as sarcastically and sing-song as possible "Hey butterfly boy!" and all her trampy little friends giggled and tittered.  It's my experience at W&M in a nutshell.

We had to save all the dead bugs we collected and mount them on pins in a box and turn them in at the end of the year.  I didn't get to forty, all I ever had was a bunch of flies that mimicked other bugs to avoid being eaten--apparently this is their jam.  The rugby girl with the leg brace took pity on me at the end and gave me a weevil and some evil looking creature I don't remember the name of and that got me to maybe thirty-eight, which is more than half-way to sixty-nine but not enough to get full credit for the lab. 

It was also bad for rootsy because my box of dead bugs attracted live bugs--ants swarmed my collection which I kept on top of my wardrobe which was next to his face on the top of our cave.  So he awoke to a facefull of ants.  I, of course, was panicked--not for rooty's health but for the integrity of my box of bugs.  No one had bug spray so I stole spray starch from one of the ROTC guys and surprisingly that did the trick.  Between what the ants ate and the starch destroyed, I lost a few precious bugs for my project.

As you can see in the link to his bio above, Dr. Fashing's research centers primarily on mites which are arachnids, not insects.  We were only allowed one arachnid for the collection so everyone had one spider.  But we would've gotten credit for a tick, which is also an arachnid.  And also gross.  Here is without hesitation the most entertaining video I've ever seen about ticks.  You should watch it because it's tick season and you need to know what you're in for if you go out in the woods.  My friend got Lyme disease and now she's out from work on disability so it's serious business.  You should watch even if you have no plans to go outside this summer.  If not for yourself, watch it for Dr. Fashing, all his miserable bug-collecting students, and their ant-swarmed roommates.

And if you don't like that deer tick video, check out this Deer Tick video.

The Test 29: Let Freedom Rev (Art History)

I vaguely describe seven famous paintings in this episode of The Test, and the ladies attempt to identify them. I must warn you, though, things get surreal quickly: Stacey shows off a rather odd work of art that she acquired in a rather odd way, I forget my middle name, and Cunningham reveals her vast knowledge of Salvador Dali . . . or maybe she doesn't.

And there are spiders.

This is one of my favorite episodes . . . you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss thirty minutes of life good-bye, and you might even learn something. Good luck.

Nightmare Fuel

We've unquestionably come a long way as a species. From the primorial ooze just yesterday (in geological terms) to massive electronic pleasure palaces full of men wearing synthetic fibers, drinking magical mood-altering elixirs and watching other men compete in athletic contests from far-flung locales. Verily, we're near the pinnacle.

But we're not there yet, and there are reasons to fear we'll never get there. I don't mean to be alarmist, but I've been paying attention over the last three weeks. And there are some things you need to know about, in order to prepare.

First, NASA astronaut and physicist Dr. Edward Lu tells us that there's a 30% chance that a five megaton asteroid will hit Earth this century, whether or not James Garner is still around. Dr. Lu's matter of fact tone is perhaps the most terrifying part of this entire thing:



In more terrestrial terrors, scientists in Sri Lanka recently discovered "a new type of tarantula about the size of your face" living in trees and and abandoned hospital. Poecilotheria rajaei has a legspan of up to 8 inches across. Full disclosure, I'm deeply, deeply afraid of spiders. My cat brought a good-sized one (maybe two inches across) up from our basement last week and dropped it at my feet, all proud-like. I almost jumped out of my skin. A tarantula the size of my face? Gaaaaaah.

And imagine all the places in the world we've never been. It's a near certainty that man-sized spiders exist somewhere. Can we send Ed Lu there to shoot them into space and deflect the asteroid?

Closer to home, Virginia gubernatorial candidate and all-around Renaissance Man (in the sense that he probably would be much more comfortable living in that era from the perspective of male/female roles) Ken Cuccinelli has asked the U.S. 4th Circuit of Appeals to review its decision deeming Virginia's anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional. Just another small-government conservative who wishes to dictate what consenting adults (straight and gay) do in the privacy of our bedrooms.

In the real world, the fact that the birther-dabbling, homophobic, climate skeptic Cuccinelli has a reasonably decent chance to be the Governor of my state is scarier even than man-sized spiders. Can we shoot him at the asteroid?

I will refrain from making any jokes about his nickname, which in this context would be juvenile and silly. It's 'Cooch', though.

Finally, - and I must warn you, children should only see this under very close supervision - I saw something on Monday that was so awesomely terrifying that words cannot describe it. I offer you this visual instead:

Stay safe, my friends.