Thought I’d share, hope you don’t mind.

Autumn Legs, by LouFCD @ Flickr

A few more below the fold.

Boots, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Pushing, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Pulling, by LouFCD @ Flickr

From whence came the art:

Those images of my beautiful, sexy wife Jane are titled Autumn Legs, Boots, Pushing, and Pulling, by LouFCD and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical-Share Alike license.

Turtle Nest, by LouFCD on Flickr

I’ve been in the field a few times in the last several weeks. Though my classwork has me about buried, I really enjoy these little stress relievers where I can just enjoy the surroundings and take a few pictures. It started around Labor Day weekend, when I spent several nights sitting a nest of Loggerhead Sea Turtles down on North Topsail Beach. The turtles were due to hatch about any day, so I was very excited. Alas, they never did hatch out while I was there, but it was a relaxing time for the most part anyway.

In fact the Sea Turtle Hospital has no record of a hatch to date (nest 55). There are several possible reasons for that. They may have hatched during a storm while no one was looking, with the storm erasing every trace of their leaving the nest. That happens sometimes. The turtles could have been drowned by a storm as they were hatching, too. Also, while the possibility exists that this was a false nest, the Sea Turtle Hospital folks were pretty sure this was a real nest.

So it was a bit frustrating, sad, and disappointing, but I got some photos of other things that I thought I’d share here anyway. They are below the fold.

We got an especially pretty sunset the first evening.

Sunset over Topsail, by LouFCD on Flickr

And moonrise over the ocean was pretty gorgeous, too.

Moon on the Ocean, by LouFCD on Flickr

The next night, I had a clear view of the moon through the cloud cover just as it rose. It had a somewhat different feel.

Blood Moon, by LouFCD on Flickr

On the third evening, I did manage a few shots of this Great Black-backed Gull,

Wary Gull, by LouFCD on Flickr

who was fine with my taking his picture right up to a certain point. Then he very suddenly let me know that I had gotten too close.

Piss Off! by LouFCD on Flickr

I even pointed my camera at Jupiter during a break in the cloud cover, and managed to pick up all four Galilean moons. I took this with just my camera mounted on a cheap tripod, no telescope, using a 300mm lens wound all the way out. If you look carefully, you can see from left to right: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Jupiter (the bright one), and Europa. (They are annotated on Flickr, so click the pic if you can’t pick them all out.)

Jupiter and His Four Moons, by LouFCD on Flickr

I caught a nasty head cold that later moved into my chest and had me feeling like warmed-over garbage for weeks, but I was better by the time the next few excursions came in quick succession. (Blog posts with photos forthcoming.)

From whence came the art:

Those photos are all taken by me, LouFCD on Flickr, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. More photos from the nest sitting excursion can be found here in my Turtle Nest Sitting set on Flickr.

Bianca, by LouFCD on Flickr

My good friend and Zoology classmate Bianca (pictued above – forget it, she’s married) noted to me at school that Crowded Head has been very ranty of late. While it’s true that this is my own special place for venting, I’d rather not allow that to become the general tone here, either.

With that in mind, I’ve been looking for something to write that doesn’t involve a great deal of venom and spittle. I’ve not really been inspired to write much lately though, what with school sucking up all my creative energy like a sponge on a bar.

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted any of my recent photos here, however, so I’m going to share some of my favorites that I’ve taken lately.

I’ve shot a handful of friends from school, and I have an idea about doing a specific collection (I’ll write about it when it’s done). Meanwhile, these have begun to grow into a bit of a personal yearbook.

More photos of my friends and schoolmates lie below the fold.

Most mornings before class I can be found on the patio, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with Kaitlin. She’s one of the first people I met at Coastal. She’s a very talented artist from Boston, and I’ve had the privilege of seeing about all of her work over the last year before it’s even ready for public consumption. She insists she’s not photogenic (doesn’t everyone?). I disagree.

Kaitlin, the Artist, by LouFCD on Flickr

We’re usually joined by Katy, who really really really needs her morning coffee before she winds up for the day. Once she gets going though…

Brown Eyed Red, by LouFCD on Flickr

In the event you got the idea that only our womenfolk are dangerously good looking, Easy Cool Brandon will set you aright. He wears those shades most days, and I think it’s so that he doesn’t have to keep calling EMS to pick up the girls who’ve fainted upon seeing his Rutger Hauer baby blues. I imagine that gets old after the first 1500 times.

Smirking MIB, by LouFCD on Flickr

I don’t usually see Laura outside of Zoology class, and when I do she’s hustling off on her way to some other class. She’s very studious and on-the-ball. I actually met Laura last semester, when she was one of my PASS students. Her mom taught Biology over at White Oak, and actually had my daughter Kay a few years ago, so there’s a neat connection.

Laura, from Zoology, by LouFCD on Flickr

Sam is proudly a member of G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised In The South), and has become my officially designated critter model for Zo field trips. She asked me once why that was, and though I replied at the time that she was the only one dumb enough to just do whatever I told her without question, the truth is that she’s just really cute and doesn’t mind holding bugs and frogs and stuff while I take pictures of them (photos in a subsequent post).

Sam in Profile, by LouFCD on Flickr

Sarah and Dwayne are a really cute couple, at least one of whom is almost always on the patio. They’ve asked me to do their engagement photos, with an eye toward my flying to Michigan next summer to do their wedding photos. We’ll see how the first round goes before I decide on the shots for The Big Day.

Sarah and Dwayne, by LouFCD on Flickr

This shot of Rachael was totally an accident, but I love the way it turned out.

Censored by Coke, by LouFCD on Flickr

…and sans Coke can to show off her legs a bit better.

Rachael, by LouFCD on Flickr

There’s a bit more to my virtual yearbook, and I’ll be adding to it as I go. The entire set can be found here, on my flickr page.

From whence came the art:

All images in this post were taken by me, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Clicking them will take you to their respective pages on Flickr, where larger sizes are available by clicking the “All Sizes” link above each photo.

My Instructor's remark.

This is my second reading and response for Paul Verlaine (read the first here). The poem I chose to read and respond to was “Wooden Horses”  (1874), wherein Verlaine takes aim at using a carousel as symbolic for life. While this could have been his best of the lot, the didacticism of his Victorian mores is as sophomorically simplistic as it is blatant. “Wooden Horses” has all the subtlety of a sixteen-pound sledgehammer wielded by a bridge troll.

He uses gross stereotyping to create a strawman version of hedonistic pleasure, with as much negative imagery as humanly possible. I was particularly annoyed by “… the fattest maid / riding your backs as if in their chamber”, roughly translated into modern English as “the big fat ho / fucking the wooden carousel horse like nobody’s business”. Could he be anymore derisive or crass? I found it offensive in the extreme, what with my modern feminist sensibilities and all. That kind of crap is uncalled for in any time period, though it’s pervasive in the writings of fuckaphobes throughout history.

Fuck you in your dead ass, Paul.

I cannot stress enough how much I disliked reading Verlaine. Trite and unimaginative, puritanical and offensive. These are not the traits I look for in a decent writer, much less a poet. Fortunately, we have moved on through Mallarmé and now we’re on to Chekhov, writers with a bit of sense and perspective.

The poem by Verlaine (again translated by C. F. MacIntyre) and my response in rhyming couplets lies below the fold.

Wooden Horses

By Saint-Gille
let’s away,
my light-footed bay.
- V. Hugo

Piss Off!, by me @ Flickr

Turn, good wooden horses, round
a hundred turns, a thousand turns.
Forever turn till the axles burn,
turn, turn, to the oboes’ sound.

The big soldier and the fattest maid
ride your backs as if in their chamber,
because their masters have also made
an outing today in the Bois de la Cambre.

Turn, turn, horses of their hearts,
while all around your whirling there
are the clever sharpers* at their art;
turn to the cornet’s bragging blare.

It’s as much fun as getting dead
drunk, to ride in this silly ring!
Good for the belly, bad for the head,
a plenty good and a plenty bad thing.

Turn, turn, no need today
of any spurs to make you bound,
galloping around and round,
turn, turn, without hope of hay.

And hurry, horses of their love,
already night is falling here
and the pigeon flies to join the dove,
far from madame, far from the fair.

Turn! Turn! Slow evening comes,
in velvet, buttoned up with stars.
Away the lovers go, in pairs.
Turn to the beat of the joyous dream.

*(note that sharper was a term for pick-pocket)

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Wooden Horses

Unbrushed, by me @ Flickr

Perhaps something’s lost in my translation,

Ever a pitfall from nation to nation.

Perhaps it is timing or being pedantic,

But I don’t care much for this damned Romantic.

Spend your time wisely on life’s carousel,

Think briefly of Death and think of her well.

Then listen to Herrick, to Hell with Verlaine,

While carousels spin there’s no time for just pain.

Don’t worry ’bout stopping at the end of the ride,

Have sex on the carousel and don’t even hide.

You only live once so enjoy sight and sound,

Live life to the fullest on the merry-go-round.

From whence came the art:

Those images are titled Piss Off! and Unbrushed, by Lou FCD (me) and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

My instructor's remarks.

Paul Verlaine was a French poet whose 19th century work sort of straddled the Romantic and Symbolist movements. Critics seem to love the guy, but I found his stuff rather uninspiring. While the case has been forwarded that Verlaine only sounds trite and prosaic now because it’s old and been done over and over since then, I would argue that it had all been done before by better poets (The Bard of Avon comes to mind).

Our assignment for World Lit was to read two of the five offered (translated by C. F. MacIntyre) selections and write a paragraph in response to each. As I was bored to tears with him and his shallow fling, I went a bit creative with my responses. About the only thing I found interesting about Verlaine was the progression of his style over time.

For my first response, I actually read and addressed two related poems, “Moonlight” (1869) and “The White Moonglow”  (originally untitled from 1870). Those poems and my Sonnet in response lie below the fold. (Read the second reading and response here in another post.)

Moonlight

Moon in the Clear, by me on Flickr

Your soul is like a painter’s landscape where
charming masks in shepherd mummeries
are playing lutes and dancing with an air
of being sad in their fantastic guise.

Even while they sing, all in a minor key,
of love triumphant and life’s careless boon,
they seem in doubt of their felicity,
their song melts in the calm light of the moon,

the lovely melancholy light that sets
the little birds to dreaming in the tree
and among the statues makes the jets
of slender fountains sob with ecstasy.

[The white moonglow]

Moonshine, by me on Flickr

The white moonglow
shines on the trees;
from each bough
a voice flees
as the leaves move…

Oh, my love.

The pond reflects,
a mirror deep,
the black silhouette
of the willow tree
where the wind weeps…

Oh, reverie.

Now a tender
and vast appeasement
seems to descend
from the firmament
with the irised star…

Ah, exquisite hour.

English 262 Section 1

Ms. C.

August 20, 2009

Sir, You Do Not Know the Moon

Blood Moon, by me on Flickr

I’ve read your White Moonglow and Moonlight too,

How odd the chord you struck in minor key!

You see her light in melancholy hue,

Songs melt, not swell in nineteenth century.

Moonglow’s reflections on the night water,

They miss the gist of the Romantic name -

Ignore Passion and bare Lust her daughter,

French Dickinson you cause me to self-maim.

But Juliet knew her inconstancy,

Infatuate, her charms and passing need.

Edwin and Neil knew her intimately,

With her, more conjugal you must concede.

But like abandoned Collins almost kissed,

You reached for her with your lyrics and missed.

From whence came the art:

Those images are titled Moon in the Clear, Moonshine, and Blood Moon, by Lou FCD (me) and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. They were taken this past weekend while I was nest-sitting Loggerhead Sea Turtles down on North Topsail Beach, NC.

Our textbook, Animal Diversity, by Hickman, et al

I’m going to get back to the Blogging My Biology Class series, finish out 111, do up 112, and tack on my Zoology class as well. It’s going to be a bit jumpy, though, but on the main series page they’ll all wind up in order by date of the class, rather than date of posting.

For now, my classmate Kristy needs notes from a particular day, so that’s up first.

We started out with a few announcements, a reminder that anyone wanting to do 20 hours of service learning would receive 4 points on their final grade, but that forms were due in to the Student Services office by Friday, 11 September. It’s more than half a letter grade in our 7 point grading system, so it’s worth the price of admission.

Next up was Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nest Sitting down on Topsail Island. There are several nests ready to hatch out any day, and anyone wanting to see this was welcome to head down and hang out. I wound up sitting at a nest on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, several hours each night, but no turtles thus far. I may or may not be able to make it tonight. It’s pouring down the rain, I’ve developed a head cold, and I have an 8 AM English class tomorrow. Of course, if I don’t make it, they’ll hatch tonight just to spite me. Little bastards.

Wary Gull, by LouFCD @ Flickr

I took a bunch of pictures of other stuff while waiting, and I’ll be posting them here on the blog for your viewing pleasure.

With that, we got back to where we had left off on Wednesday, with the Tissue Level of Organization.

There are several types of tissues in animals, and for our purposes they can be broken down into four groups.

1. Epithelial tissues cover or line structures in the body. The epidermis (the skin) is an example. An interesting little side note here is that it takes about 2 – 4 weeks for a bottom layer of the epidermis to make its way to the top. The top layer gets sloughed off (and becomes the dust in your house and feeds your bedbugs), and the body replaces the bottom layer with fresh epithelial cells. The second layer is now the top layer, etc.

2. Connective tissues have few cells, made up of many fibers. Some examples are cartilage, tendons, ligaments, bone, blood, and adipose (body fat).

3. Muscle Tissue comes in three varieties:

a. Skeletal (a voluntary type of muscle tissue) can have very long, multi-nucleic cells, some of which are over a foot long (in your inner thigh area).

b. Cardiac (involuntary type of muscle tissue) that keep the heart beating without thinking about it, are made up of contractile cells.

c. Smooth (another involuntary type of muscle tissue) which line the gastrointestinal tract and are responsible for peristalsis, the contract/release mechanism that moves food through the bowels.

4. Nervous Tissue responds to stimuli, and is responsible for conducting nerve impulses. Nervous tissue comes in two flavors:

a. Neurons – Really long cells – There is one cell from the spinal cord to the big toe, for instance. I had no idea.

b. Neuroglia Cells – supporting cells that support the neurons.

And at this point we moved into Chapter 4, Taxonomy and Phylogeny of Animals.

We talked a bit about Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist and medical doctor who categorized about 30k species and created the system of binomial nomenclature we use today. The two part, Latin and Latinized scientific names we use to categorize living things is composed of a genus and a specific epithet. Latin is the language of choice because it’s a dead language, thus the meanings of words are not subject to change in the same way words do in a live language like English.

Consider the bald eagle. When named, the word “bald” meant white. It was an obvious choice for the white-headed predatory bird. Today, “bald” means to be without hair or covering. Obviously, the bald eagle has a covering of feathers, so the name doesn’t really apply literally anymore. This sort of thing isn’t such a problem in a language nobody speaks anymore. So the Bald Eagle’s scientific name is Haliaeetus leucocephalus.

We humans, for instance, are categorized as Homo sapiens. Remember that the genus is always capitalized, the specific epithet is never capitalized, and the entire name is always either italicized if in print, or underlined if hand-written.

Side Note: Linnaeus is said to have lost (meaning they died) as much as 1/3 of his students while collecting and categorizing those 30,000 species. He used his students in a way not unlike the way in which a scientist might use his grad students today, except that scientists today mostly try to keep their grad students alive. (…mostly.)

Doc III left us with two more scientific names before the end of the class.

The youpon (similar to a holly): Ilex vomitoria, which breaks down –> Ilex (holly genus) vomit (self explanatory) oria (to eat). So in plain English: “It’s like a holly, eat it, puke.”

Our American Alligators here: Alligator mississippiensis, which should be pretty easy to figure out.

It was a lightish day, and here is where the class ended.

From whence came the art:

The first image is of our textbook, Animal Diversity, by Hickman, Roberts, Keen, Larson, and Eisenhour.

The second image (of a Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus) is titled Wary Gull, by me, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike license.

Sonnet XVIII, by Lou FCD @ Flickr

Back in the days of yore when I went to high school, there were two kinds of Literature classes: British and American. With few exceptions, our reading selections were confined to the standard pantheon of a select few dead white guys from England or the United States. Both classes were as predictable as the sunrise; Brit Lit started with Beowulf, then Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, then one of Shakespeare’s plays, and probably finished with Dickens‘ A Tale of Two Cities. Variety was defined by whether the class read Hamlet or Macbeth. Poetry hit the five or ten standards like an old country church. Not comparing thee to a summer’s day would have been like not singing “Amazing Grace”. American Lit did the same thing for literature on this side of the pond, with Poe standing in for the Bard (“The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Raven” were the old standards).

To round out my English requirements, lo these many eons hence, I took English 262 this semester. World Lit II looked like it would give me something new and fresh, and it’s already doing just that. Among our first selections was “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public“, the 1729 political satire by Jonathan Swift. Of course, in my mind to this point, Swift = Gulliver’s Travels. No matter how hard pressed I might have been, that would have been his only work I could have named, his being Irish and all. I’d read it on my own time as a kid. We’ve since moved a bit further from jolly old England and are now reading pieces by Russians and Germans and (gasp!) some of them are even women not named Dickinson or Bronte.

Our first written assignment of the class was to write a response to A Modest Proposal, organically incorporating the answers to five of the six following questions in the response.

Smoothies for cannibals, by DavidDMuir @ Flickr

1. What is “the reading” about? Give the simple and most obvious answer. (Substitute title for “reading”).

2. Is there an experience of your own of which “the reading” has reminded you? Describe it.

3. What is the most important “word” in the “reading”? Look it up in the dictionary and define it. Explain your choice.

4. What is the most important statement or line in the “reading”? Directly quote the line if it is short, and paraphrase if the quote is long. Use an in-text citation that lists the page number (or line number). Explain your choice.

5. What word, not in the “reading,” would you say best explains the “reading”? Define the word and explain your choice.

6. Pretend that the “reading” is not about the subject you mentioned in #1. Pretend that there is something else, less obvious, that the “reading” is about. What is this “something else”? Define the word and explain your choice.

My response, for which I received a grade of “check +” (oh how I loathe this system already!), lies below the fold. I suggest you read “A Modest Proposal” first, if you’re not familiar with it, to really understand what’s going on.

Louis Shackleton
English 262 Section 1
Ms. C.
August 20, 2009

A Modest Response

Swift’s contribution to the Republican Party Platform titled “A Modest Proposal” is appropriate and only surprising in that he managed to write it so long after his own death. It’s quite a feat for a man 264 years in his grave. It will fit rather snugly between the “Rich People Shouldn’t Have to Pay Taxes” and the “Only True Americans ™ Who Were Born Here and Love Jesus Deserve Jobs and Health Care” points. It’s a testament to the grand idea that great writers will always be relevant.

By dressing the dining tables of the uber-wealthy with the freshly fattened haunches of the lower class yearlings, Swift’s proposal will cull the herds of beggars and homeless vermin that sully American loafers and clutter the cramped quarters of Wall Street. (Perhaps proper oxidation will even return to the testes of the Merrill Lynch bull in New York City. It’s about time somebody put a stop to the unseemly and shameless behavior of the poverty stricken tourists out there.) After all, there are only so many Mexican gardeners and homosexual sommeliers required in a civilized society. The rest are just overkill.

Swift rests his entire case on the following premise:

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

Clearly, the word parties is the key to the entire essay. In his use of this word, Swift of course does not in any way refer to the entire body of humanity within the borders of This Great Nation (under God ™ ), or even the entirety of the citizenry. While a dictionary might define “all parties” as fully inclusive, such an encompassing usage would be ridiculous. He certainly means only the whole of the people who matter. One can hardly be disposed to give the time of day to the sheep earning less than seven figures per annum. Such plebes contribute little to the free market or the Gross Domestic Product and are fit only to assist the illusion of conformity to the founding documents of The Nation (under God ™ ). A kind and generous reading might extrapolate “all parties” to include the sheep herding dogs down to a quarter of seven figures, but such an interpretation seems without merit. Seven figures is the Traditional Cutoff ™ like one man and one woman is a Traditional Marriage ™ . Extending the benefits of a voice too far would set a dangerous precedent on a very slippery slope. Who would demand a say next? The barely-six-figure earners who inherited nothing? Perish that egalitarian thought before it leads to socialism, communism, and Nazis!

What’s that you say? Swift’s piece was meant as satire? So you are seriously suggesting that this monument to present day Republican Party Values ™ was meant to ridicule through the use of irony? Hogwash, I say. Further, True American Republicans Who Love Jesus ™ don’t even know the meaning of such words, as anyone with half a brain can see from our Well Thought Out and Well Supported Rhetoric ™ .

Works Cited

Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2^nd ed. Ed. Sarah Lawall and Maynard Mack. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. 483 – 489.

From whence came the art:

The first image is titled Sonnet XVIII, by LouFCD and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

The second image is titled Smoothies for cannibals, by DavidDMuir and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license.

Cementerio St.Giles-Cambridge from Teresa Marín

The Miami Herald asks, “Is God protecting Fla. at Gov. Crist’s request?”

According to the story, Crist claims he’s sent little prayer post-its to the Western Wall in Jerusalem each year since his election, and lo and behold, no hurricanes have hit Florida since! Is this proof of the power of prayer?

Hardly.

First, Crist actually says that his first note went to the special holy wall in 2007. Florida’s last major hurricane strike came in 2005. How does he explain 2006’s lack of major strikes? Was it just a coincidental off year (or was the request retroactive)? Yeah, ponder that a moment before buying into this purported cause and effect of prayer/no hurricanes.

Second, let’s look at what the governor actually sent on his little indulgence requests and match it to reality. In his own words, he’s sent the exact same note every year, and it reads, “Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.”

Ok, so Charlie didn’t exactly ask for “no major hurricane strikes”, did he? No, he begged relief “from storms and other difficulties”. Is that what happened? Not exactly.

More below the fold.

I took five minutes to poke around Google just a bit. In those five minutes, these are some stories I found from the time Governor Charlie Crist first asked his god to protect Florida “from storms and other difficulties”.

February 2, 2007:

A deadly tornado event occurred across the NWS Melbourne County Warning Area within Lake and Volusia Counties during the early morning hours of February 2, 2007. A discontinuous swath of damage was observed from the town of Lady Lake (Lake County) to New Smyrna Beach (Volusia County) – a distance of over 70 miles. A total of 21 fatalities occurred within Lake County.

I’d say that falls under the “storms” part. In that same tornado event, 17 of 18 juvenile whooping cranes being tracked by Operation Migration were killed. Was Governor Crist’s prayer inclusive of only Homo sapiens? (In all fairness to Crist, this may have occurred before his visit. But if we can’t count this as a negative, he can’t count 2006 as a positive.)

January 9, 2008:

( RED HUBER, ORLANDO SENTINEL / January 9, 2008 )
The accident scene at a 70-car pileup with 4 fatalities, that blocked at least 14 miles of Interstate 4 in Polk County on Wednesday, January, 2008.

Surely that would fall under “other difficulties”, right?

August 18 – 24, 2008:

Tropical Storm Fay makes landfall in Florida not once, not twice, not thrice, but a record four times (.pdf)! It’s hard to believe that Governor Crist has so quickly forgotten a storm from last year that caused extensive flooding and “heavy rainfall in excess of 20 in to occur in Brevard County, Florida” alone.

June 9, 2009:

With the rapid death of a 9-year-old-boy from swine flu, health authorities say that people with asthma can be susceptible to attack even if the strain is not virulent.

The boy, who had a history of chronic asthma, had flu symptoms and died a day later. He was Florida’s first swine flu fatality.

That’s some protection agreement you got there, Governor Crist.

“Is God protecting Fla. at Gov. Crist’s request?” No. He is however granting selective memory loss and confirmation bias in abundance, apparently.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Cementerio St.Giles-Cambridge by Teresa Marín and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

Sharp as usual, boiling the biblical nonsense down to its essence.

I Support Sex Workers' Rights

What do anti-sex crusaders and the sellers of creationist bullshit have in common?

I mean besides quotemining, deliberate conflation, obfuscation, and general disregard for reality. Well it turns out they’re both examples of scum sucking dirtbags.

Look, two academics squaring off against other academics, including one who HAS been an actual supporter of sex workers, and one who does listen to what we have to say, over what, you might ask? Prostitution in Rhode Island.

Read the rest at Renegade Evolution, because I don’t even want to repeat the fucking dishonest, disgusting, filthy garbage that Donna Hughes put out. I just don’t have the stomach to print that pile of shit, so read it at Ren’s.