I understand D.H. Lawrence better when watching this turtle--

(The blog-title is only funny to other lit majors, probably. The video is probably funny and poignant to most people, though.)

Strange Meetings--Pavarotti and Tracey Chapman

This works for me right now:

Appropos the previous, Lady Gaga has Explained her Attire--

Lady Gaga Says She's "Not a Piece of Meat":

"If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones," Lady Gaga, 24, told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres on her TV program broadcast on Monday.

"And, I am not a piece of meat," she added.

There. That's been said. And I think she has a really great point there--we aren't just objects. We think, we feel, we want things--and we are too often objectified, carved into who we ought to be according to someone else's ideas of what our "select" parts are. That makes me say this: I am not your Filet Mignon. I am the whole heifer. And my happiness lies in kicking down human veal pens, personally.

That was insanely metaphorical. But I hope my drift carried.

Anyway, I stole fair-use "borrowed" this picture of Gaga hugging Cher, I love Cher. She's been like, a constant source of awesomeness for me, ever since the Sonny & Cher Show which I was riveted to as a kid, and I honestly sang along to her greatest hits like a weird loner throughout my adolescence, acting out karaoke-style performances. She is iconic and one of my favorite folks.



For what it's worth, I appreciate that Gaga represents all of her "little monsters". She's young, but her heart is totally in the right place--and no, not just a piece of meat.

Slightly less Random Meat--Again with Gaga---

What is she trying to say with the "carnographic" duds? I think it might be a commentary on the transitory nature of fashion, and how fashion is a form of "consumption" and has little to do with practicality or even attractiveness, but then again, I could just be getting too deep.

Something really inspirational about a dog--Oogy!

I'm both seriously disgusted with people when I can fathom the idea of a fellow creature being used as a "bait" dog, and then warmed right back up to humankind to know a dog with the serious drawbacks Oogy had could find a "forever family" to rehabilitate him and let him have a happy doggy life. I kind of hope there are more nice people in the world, who would take in Oogy's, than the kind of people who would make a dog like Oogy suffer, hurt, be alone, and even let them die that way.

There are two things that actually make me feel violent--and those things are the injury to innocent animals, and to children. I just think mature, well-adjusted people shouldn't ever want to see any sentient being suffer. And that people who abuse the helpless are bullies--and to me that means "Scum of the earth". You are among the worst of people living if you feel better knowing someone or something is beneath you, and especially so if you act from that. And my experience with dogs mostly tells me that dogs are pretty good "people". They are honest, they are loyal, they are empathetic, and considerate. They try to get along, they show courage, and always return affection.

There are humans who really don't get all that I think dogs know instinctively. They don't get that they are their brothers' keeper, the way guidedogs know. They don't understand that they are a part of a pack--which every dog I ever knew knows.

It's funny--I feel happy for a dog like this who is rescued from certain destruction, but I know people get used, too, and also need rescued. And do we hear those stories, too? Or those of used and abused people, rescued, and called back to our gentle world?

But we understand a dog so much better--how he was misused, and how he was rescued.

And we might let our recognition of what it truly means to be used like a dog, let alone be talked about as one, simmer for another day. Once we grasp what that might mean. And how awful it can be.

Now, this could even be a 'shop, but still-- BIG FISH!!!

Now, this picture is of a mind-bogglingly big goldfish. Something about the hand-position, particularly the left hand's fingers, if you can see'em, makes me think this is a really, really cool Photoshop. But I've raised Comet fish, which are the Koi's boisterous American cousins as far as goldfish go, and I think the fish in this pic is too still to be alive. If he let that thing go, it floated, because what I know about big old goldfish like comets and koi is--they are all swimming muscle. If you snatch them up in a net to move them to a tank for quarantine or whatever, they writhe and make a hell of a fuss. They do not pose for a picture.

On the other hand, I have experienced the weirdness of goldfish growth. It seems like the more room you give them to grow, the more they do. I know they can be pretty self-sufficient in man-made ponds, so I can easily imagine them thriving in lakes given the opportunity. But part of their coloring is enhanced by the commercial feed they get. So I kind of think if they were let go in a lake or large natural pond, they wouldn't be as pretty as the big ol' boy in this pic is because their color would fade a bit. But maybe having been bred for color, a truly orange/red koi might hang on to the color, too.

Anyway, as a fish-fancier, I thought that was a really neat picture.

Duck and Cover (from the 1950's--shown to kids)

I think the grown-ups of the 1950's very well-meaningly messed-up some young kids' minds with this sort of thing. I went to school in the '70's and '80's--we didn't go through this. We just understood we could be vaporized, but it never felt real. We understood "duck and cover" wouldn't really do anything--you'd just be dead.

But what are they talking about? A coat? Getting under a table? Really? What was the point of this?

"Glass may fly through the air, and it may cut you!" "Even a thin cloth can save you."

WTF? I mean seriously--WTF? Were they trying to calm kids down by making them feel like they had some control of a possible scary situation? Or were they pre-conditioning them to adopt a defensive posture in the face of potential threat--that "duck and cover" would become a coping mechanism that would be generally used in disasters not necessarily as dire as "the bomb's coming?" Get down, follow instructions, avoid danger.

I don't get it, myself. My world was entirely different growing up. When I was six, I had a first grade teacher who would count down the days of the hostage crisis in Iran. My dad and his contemporaries went through the draft during the Vietnam War--most served. I watched M*A*S*H* on tv. War was a thing people did to each other, and the idea of a nuclear war was just....in hindsight, not anything I absorbed as plausible. This film doesn't talk in terms of "if" but "when".

I wonder if stuff like that programmed some people for feelings of inevitability about nuclear war. I wonder if the enormity of that legacy makes people search out another big enemy on the horizon because it feels more natural than just assuming that various actors on the international scene are playing roles so much as trying to sort out various needs.

Just weird stuff I think about. When I'm not reading sf and eating weird things.

Today's Random Meat Brought to You by--Lady Gaga.

We presume that that bikini in question is intended for one wear and is then....barbecued?

Orinoco Flow--Celtic Woman

This is totally pretty.