
Even in absurdity, sacrament. Even in hardship, holiness. Even in doubt, faith. Even in chaos, realization. Even in paradox, blessedness
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"Life expands or shrinks in proportion to one's courage." ~Anain Nin
Boo! It's the Bunny Man! The legend of Bunny Man Bridge has evolved in Northern Virginia over the past 30 years the way most scary stories do -- kernels of truth transform frightening rumors into macabre tales where the location's ripe for fright. jaybird found this for you @ 20:33 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
Extreme Pumpkin Carving We will We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch. October 31st we will light it brightly enough to give visiting children suntans. jaybird found this for you @ 18:10 in Radical Undertakings | | permalink
The Mexican tradition of Dia The Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos, "Day of the Dead." jaybird found this for you @ 17:46 in Culture, People & Customs | | permalink
October's Spooky and Kooky Searches Keeping in monthly tradition, here's October's spooky search requests: and the winner...! jaybird found this for you @ 17:07 in Blogosphere, Tech & Internet | | permalink
Boo: FDA thinks products from Boo: FDA thinks products from cloned animals 'safe.' Happy Halloween! jaybird found this for you @ 06:47 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Ha ha: Legal threat over Ha ha: Legal threat over transsexual show They say they were duped into kissing, cuddling and holding hands with the woman, Miriam, who is in fact a man. C'mon boys, you're only upset because you liked it. jaybird found this for you @ 06:40 in Gay, Lesbian, Queer & Free | | permalink
"Verse for a Friend" I've got a stone in my pocket jaybird found this for you @ 23:47 in Posting Under the Influence | | permalink
Fighting 'fire' with fire, and Fighting 'fire' with fire, and killing animals too: US develops lethal new viruses A scientist funded by the US government has deliberately created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering. Let Georgie do the testing on the animals himself if his conscience is so clear about American WMDs. Canada, please invade and help us stop this lunacy. Please. jaybird found this for you @ 16:53 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Tiny Peewee aims for big A hamster so small he could fit into a match box could well find his way into the Guinness Book of Records. jaybird found this for you @ 16:44 in Cosmic Randomness Grab Bag | | permalink
Soldier faces charcge of 'cowardice' Soldier faces charcge of 'cowardice' The soldier said he experienced a “panic attack” after seeing the mangled body of an Iraqi man and told his superior he was heading for a “nervous breakdown.” jaybird found this for you @ 16:33 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Incredible pics from around the Incredible pics from around the country of the aurorae generated from the solar storm. jaybird found this for you @ 06:52 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Hop on the Blacklist... the Hop on the Blacklist... the NRA blacklist! Started as an internal NRA document of those opposed to the extremist policies of the NRA, it's now the rage to be blacklisted. Get on! jaybird found this for you @ 06:49 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Hopi dancing in pictures and Hopi dancing in pictures and words: Kachina, ladder, rain, butterfly and snake. jaybird found this for you @ 23:00 in Culture, People & Customs | | permalink
Lively discussion on MeFi on Lively discussion on MeFi on the would-be 'outing' of Atrios by a conservative blogger on a bender... the same guy who's stalking Krugman. jaybird found this for you @ 20:51 in Blogosphere, Tech & Internet | | permalink
New Zealand ponders the ![]() New Zealand ponders the use of GMOs. Mothers against Genetic Engineering, led by one of the former Thompson Twins, Alannah Currie, has produced a dramatic billboard showing a woman with four breasts being milked. jaybird found this for you @ 18:20 in Environment, Ecology & Nature | | permalink
Study says gay adoptions more Study says gay adoptions more likely Sixty percent of agencies accept applications from lesbians and gay men and 40 percent have placed children with homosexual couples, according to a study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. jaybird found this for you @ 16:47 in Gay, Lesbian, Queer & Free | | permalink
Krugman: A Willful Ignorance Mr. Krugman: A Willful Ignorance Mr. Bush's ignorance may reflect his lack of curiosity: "The best way to get the news," he says, "is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff." Two words: emperor, clothes. jaybird found this for you @ 06:49 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
This is about the coolest This is about the coolest thing I've ever seen: The Picture of Everything by Howard Hallis I want one. via MeFi jaybird found this for you @ 06:31 in Art, Music, Theater & Film | | permalink
"Ghosts" This week will end with the increasingly bizarre American custom of dressing children up in costumes inspired from our mass media iconography, to scare the demons away for another year. I wonder if squeezing little Johnny into a plastic cartoon suit has a mythic relationship to the ancient revelers in their deer skin cloaks or costume imitation of saints, devils and angels. When I was five and my father made a foam-rubber robot out of me, I was’nt not feeling an ancient kinship to my Celtic forbears… I was falling all over the place feeling so ridiculous to the point of tears. Of course, my little brain had no context at all for what I was doing, Little did I know that as I stumbled down those Delaware suburban streets looking like a Dr. Who prop, that I was engaged in a ritual meant to clear the way for the parting of the veil between this world and the next, to make way for the spirits of our ancestors come to see us with our earthly pleasures and piles of candy on All Saints Day. I always wanted to be a ghost. For one thing, it’s easier to identify who you’re “supposed to be” with a white sheet over your head, stalking neighbor’s houses like a black cat and going “boo,” then as a yard-high, bumbling box of foam-rubber. But also because I grew up with unusual happenings in a house nearly three centuries old. The town itself was a ghost, a billowing reflection of the past with crumbling headstones and a haunted churchyard. As a child, the night was full of visitations, creaking floorboards, whispers and faces. I had no clue then and even less idea now who or what was responsible for all the goings on… it may have easily been the back of my own mind inventing shapes and playthings out of the dark. I was twelve when I walked up to my church one night for confirmation class, and found it was locked tight and dark. As I turned on the worn brick walkway, I saw a man in a tricorner hat, leaning over a grave with a lantern. I shuddered, as if an electric current ran through my brain, and the specter took flight, blowing through me and up into the sky. I nearly peed my pants and ran to my father’s house, lungs rasping in an asthmatic fit, my memory replaying the scene and trying to find the logic in it. There was none. Something happened, and to this day I don’t know what. One night, I was paralyzed in bed, unable to breathe, as the shutters outside banged about as if in a gale, though the trees were still. I have many such stories cobwebbed in my history, and the live without conclusion, and are made of commas and ellipsis… Last night, I went to my mirror, to see myself in it, to momentarily regain a sense of body and cohesion. As I made eye contact with myself, I heard a low female moan very close by, and despite the rigorous picking over by my analytical mind, I again was at a loss to explain and fell asleep with the light on purposefully, reading Shel Silverstein. Could ghosts be wandering thoughts that are “made” by belief, a subconscious image waiting to happen, or the footsteps of a parallel dimension, a mere visitor passing through? Was the moan a spectator instead of a specter? How many thoughts have I lost this week? November 1st, the say the veil parts between the worlds, and the ancestors come to see how we’re doing, and maybe to impart wisdom through the nature we grow oblivious to. The world waits for a cleansed path for those who’ve gone before, and these rituals, no matter how tacky can help rake the illusion from the spirit path and clear the way for memory. As kids carve their Jack-o’-Lanterns and adults apply heavier and darker-than-normal makeup, we somehow manage to spook the lost thoughts out of our minds, chase demons while we’re bedecked as a cartoon, and renew a promise between worlds and all the life that passes through the curtain toward renewal of the mythic and the magic, the unutterable mystery of soul. All preceded in the guise of children stumbling awkwardly down the streets with swinging baskets and a slight willingness to encounter fear, or giggles from tacky costumes. jaybird found this for you @ 23:01 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
NPR's "All Things Considered" had NPR's "All Things Considered" had a great piece on the anger management industry today and it's increasingly ubiquitous presence in many strata of American society. This is the most well known anger management company in the biz, while programs like this promote less orthodox techniques of trumping stressors. jaybird found this for you @ 21:40 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
Bad Mileage: 98 tons of Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon "Can you imagine loading 40 acres worth of wheat – stalks, roots and all – into the tank of your car or SUV every 20 miles?" jaybird found this for you @ 17:36 in Environment, Ecology & Nature | | permalink
Stop making sense: Bush Says Stop making sense: Bush Says Attacks Are Reflection of U.S. Gains Oh, why that's very likely. Irony on a stick. I can't get over the idiocy if this [p]Resident. It's working, so more soldiers die every day. Oh, and those pesky civilians too. While you're at it, Georgie boy, make sure those serach engines don't crawl whitehouse.gov looking for info on Iraq, m'kay? jaybird found this for you @ 17:07 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
One of the most powerful One of the most powerful solar flares in years erupted from giant sunspot 486 this morning at approximately 1110 UT. The blast measured X17 on the Richter scale of solar flares. As a result of the explosion, a strong S3-class solar radiation storm is underway. Update: this WaPo article. jaybird found this for you @ 16:57 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Stunning: The SDSS 3D Universe Stunning: The latest map of the cosmos again indicates that dark matter and dark energy dominate our universe. jaybird found this for you @ 06:52 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
An anxious report from California: An anxious report from California: Eyewitness: 'You cannot breathe' The sky is black from the clouds but there is an orange glow from the fires themselves. When I was speaking to my daughter on the phone earlier today I opened the window and it just hits you in the back of the throat. jaybird found this for you @ 06:38 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Television and the Hive Mind Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that, when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical, responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body's own natural opiates--thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit. jaybird found this for you @ 16:43 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
Startling satellite pic of the Startling satellite pic of the California wildfires. jaybird found this for you @ 16:00 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Unexplained tree-top boulders found in Unexplained tree-top boulders found in forest The mystery began a few years ago when a turkey hunter, scouting in a remote area of the 23,000-acre forest, discovered a large boulder in the top of an 80-foot-tall chestnut oak tree. What he saw wedged among its branches was a boulder about 4 feet wide and a foot thick. jaybird found this for you @ 15:52 in Forteana, Phenomena & the Bizarre | | permalink
Ocean census discovers new fish Ocean census discovers new fish Some 300 scientists from 53 countries are creating a record of all known marine life, in a project reminiscent of an aquatic Domesday Book. jaybird found this for you @ 15:41 in Environment, Ecology & Nature | | permalink
Scroll down this article from Scroll down this article from NYT and, surprise: ...the military had specific intelligence of an imminent attack on the hotel, the Rashid, where senior personnel of the American occupation live and eat, but that no special precautions had been taken. So, they do nothing. Was the guvmint trying to make a martyr out of Wolfowitz or what? jaybird found this for you @ 15:31 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
peacecoup.us: American citizens active for peacecoup.us: American citizens active for peace. 1. The best strategy for achieving long-term security and prosperity is peace. jaybird found this for you @ 07:03 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Indian Snake Charmer Is an Indian Snake Charmer Is an Endangered Species ...activists say that image may soon be a thing of the past as India's fabled snake charmers struggle for survival thanks to a government ban on the possession of many species of snakes. jaybird found this for you @ 06:55 in Culture, People & Customs | | permalink
Vatican: this activity is 'like Vatican: this activity is 'like Ferrari in 1st gear' jaybird found this for you @ 22:27 in Carnality, Naughtiness & Fun | | permalink
(A nebula came through (A nebula came through my window this morning, as I lay half-asleep, baffled. It's a gentle but thorough rain, Daily, we slog through the hinterlands of grace, (As each drop falls, there's a little sing-song in the trees: jaybird found this for you @ 15:18 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
High school senior came 'out' High school senior came 'out' - and was expelled Jeffrey said the teacher assured him they were having a confidential conversation, and then asked whether it was true that Jeffrey was a homosexual. "I told him, 'Yes, I am gay,' " Jeffrey says. "I was just being totally honest with him because I don't lie." Two days later, he was expelled. jaybird found this for you @ 07:32 in Gay, Lesbian, Queer & Free | | permalink
Note tremendous differences in reporting Note tremendous differences in reporting style in these two stories on the Baghdad hotel strike from WaPo (objective), Canned News Network (nearly glowing pro-gov bias). Even the Nixonian Fox"News" had a more balanced report. jaybird found this for you @ 07:22 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
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