As a person who lives here, let me just speak out and say that none of the flies need to be protected. Does this mean I can face fines if I kill flies? If you try to sit in my yard and eat something or read or just enjoy the day, you will see that…
A note for modern luddites
I’ve always had a strange sort of sympathy for luddites. If Ted K. hadn’t of killed people, his ideas would have been much more powerful. Don’t get me wrong, I like technology, I use it all the time. In our world, you have to, if you want to survive. Of course, that creates certain vulnerabilities…especially…
Lost Hikers Saved By Dead Guy in Palm Springs
This story is both creepy and compelling…the hard part ot figure out is why the experienced hiker didn’t figure out a way to escape like these boys did…. They found identification showing the camper was Donovan, 60, a retired social worker from Virginia. They learned later that he was an experienced hiker who had been…
One Thing They Aren't: Maternal – New York Times
Glad I’m not a rabbit or a panda. Or a pig or a nurse shark… Er, Happy Mother’s Day. Oh, mothers! Dear noble, selfless, tender and ferocious defenders of progeny all across nature’s phylogeny: How well you deserve our admiration as Mother’s Day draws near, and how photogenically you grace the greeting cards that we…
Like Til Ulenspiegel – Superhero Anarchists in Germany steal Rich Food
I love this story. When I used to hang out with the bums and have fires on the beach, Two Dog Tom (who I write a bit about in Rough Living) would sometimes get a little stoned and begin to tell tales of Til Uulenspiegel, the German robber/Robin Hood who would always ask his victims…
The Dread is worse than the Pain
An interesting study…the brain can be much more painful than pain itself…. cd It found that among 32 volunteers who agreed to have a series of shocks to the foot, some of them dreaded each shock so much that they repeatedly opted to have a higher-voltage jolt just so they could get it over with…
Do you like to Party?
This looks pretty cool. Jason in Arizona sent me this link hoping that Mink Hippie and I would write about some of our burning man experiences last year or maybe other great World Festivals we’ve been to. I like it. Things like swimming in Chang Mai canals during Songkran, Monsoon parties in the Indian Ocean,…
Recipe for virility: visit the Asadachi
Someone sent me this video clip of what appeared to be a sushi bar. The sushi was quite unlike any I had ever seen, though. Apparently, all the house specialties are designed to enhance virility. A popular selection is the live frog – it is skinned before your eyes and you are offered the still-beating…
China Makes Artificial Rain for Beijing
This might seem at first glance to be just a simple story, but if you take a moment to think about it further, it raises some very interesting questions….things like 1) Are rain and the water it produces a finite resource? 2) Does creating artificial rain in one place affect rainfall in another place? 3)…
Feliz Dia de la Batalla de Puebla
….or Happy Cinco de Mayo. I realized that I had no idea what the hell happened on Cinco de Mayo. On May 5, 1862, the underdog Mexican army defeated Napoleon III’s French troops at Puebla. What were the French doing there, you might ask… In 1861, drowning in debt, the Mexican government announced that it…