VIRGIN BIRTH
Parthenogenesis (from the Greek παρθενος parthenos, "virgin", + γενεσις genesis, "birth") describes the growth and development of an embryo or seed without fertilization by a male.
As Jesus' mother is said to have done 2006 ears ago, the biggest lizard species on earth is about to give virgin birth of her own!
If the female has only XX chromosomes and reproduces without a male, shouldn't its offspring all be female? This makes me wonder about Jesus...
Which reminds me of Herland, the 1915 novel by Charlotte Gilman about an oasis of women isolated in the woods for centuries, who have developed their own society and survived for generations through parthenogenesis. The novel's narrator, one of the men who penetrated the secret society, describes these women thusly:
Never, anywhere before, had I seen women of precisely this quality.
Fishwives and market women might show similar strength, but it was coarse
and heavy. These were merely athletic--light and powerful. College
professors, teachers, writers--many women showed similar intelligence but
often wore a strained nervous look, while these were as calm as cows,
for all their evident intellect.
(click image to enlarge)
a memorial mural, in San Antonio, to a 27 year old named Angel. the wall on the right has a list of tags (Angel's friends?). He was born in 1979 and died in 2006. 
There are naked cherubs in the doorways and Angel's hair spread along the wall in wavy strokes. This painting transforms the plain industrial building into either a sacred or a profane one, depending on how you read the graffiti style.
San Antonio art museum. It falls into the butt ugly beautiful category. The color looks like it came from the mismatched section of the paint store for 50% off. And the building is basically a rectangular prison shape. But in the true style of the decorated shack, described by Venturi, an interesting window shape and some conceptual art balls rolling out of it, make this building surreal and admirable. This is the cheap and resourceful way to make the ugly into the eye catching.
much like this pig crouching over a little shed. The decorated shack is effective in intriguing the driver from a distance and cheap. Basically bargain price architecture.
Venturi described this is as “inclusive architecture” that makes for a more vital city. Modern architecture tends to be too concerned with good taste and order, rendering the place uninteresting and sterile. Modernists got rid of small decorations on buildings and unconsciously created mega-structures that themselves became expensive ornament (Seattle Public Library for example). Venturi argues for the ugly and ordinary architecture (decorated with sign) over the heroic architecture (building is the sign) as being more socially responsible because decoration is more flexible, cheaper and adapts better to our environment.
Not sure if I agree because a solid building that is art in itself is more likely to last longer and more resources are saved when a building is built with good materials and to last. Too often the shack is so flimsy that it needs to be demolished and replaced and no one cares because the materials and craftsmanship are so crappy and plastic.
but i sure do appreciate the decorated shack over the homogenous strip mall. Like this Safeway plaza turned into a Megachurch! You can still see the faded ghost signs of the pharmacy and the Safeway sign replaced by the small abstract painting of a cross.
i thought that the most horrible thing about Michael Richards' racist ranting was not the "N" word that the media is so focused on ( see for example "Richards' rant might merit a thank-you". gross.), but what he said about lynching.
so i wanted to post these lyrics to a song that Billie Holiday sang and that a jewish school teacher named Abel Meeropol wrote:
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
today was a memorial for Deb. there was an article in the Daily.
Deb's older brother and his daughter and son were there, Deb's neighbor and friend, journalists, students and professors. there were some pictures of Deb. some really great pitures of her as a baby, as a journalist in Detroit, laughing, playing with a dog. i wish i had some to post.
Deb Kaplan was a terrific person, activist and a professor in our deprtment. She died on Nov. 12th and we found out about her death at the NCA conference. Smoking was our way of lighting a candle for Deb.
Here is a thoughtful article about her in the Seattle PI.
also David has a nice post (scroll down to Nov. 15) on his blog with many great comments left by people who had been lucky to know Deb.
BEN'S LAST HALLOWEEN PARTY IN OLY
M scarecrow and bubby
MC mosquito in a tutu. his proboscus is turned around to the back.
gi being cute, dancing
nutty professor, aunt Ruth and the Warewolf
aunt Ruth serious
aunt Ruth got legs and the one eyed, one horned flying purple people eater
caveman and his supergirl
i decided to start posting stories about my trip to russia to the urban archivist blog, since we have it for that purpose. so check it out if you haven't already. tom has been writing some nice stuff, he even wrote about oly. i just blogged on it today.
Urban Archivist
beck with the puppet of the white rabbit that she was making for an Oly children's theater production of Alice in Wonderland.
cute kitty Pishka Meeshka (English spelling)
i'm sleeping with new haircut and kitten
the mouse from my house that i trapped in this cordless phone box. this is what she looked like moments before i set her free in the park. she survived the night on rations of parmesan cheese, coffee cake and raisin.
i had to remove all those videos from the blog because they were clogging the download. but they can all be found in Google videos by typing "gay ads" and "banned ads" into the search field.
also, this is a great website -- Commercial Closet. it has a nice collection of print and tv ads that have LGBTQ themes in them. great resource for teaching and also a time suck because you'll want to see everything. Mike Wilke and the folks running the organization write nice annotations for most of the ads and they rate the ads based on level of sensitvity, stereotype, homophobia, etc. also each ad has a comment section where people leave interesting comments.
found on the commercial closet website
Why Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Totally Rock !
Gi and I were pleased to read this in the Stranger's Last Days:
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 The week continues with some striking words from an unlikely source: Brad Pitt, whose forthcoming Esquire profile finds him announcing that he and Angelina Jolie won't be getting married until the United States' marriage laws aren't riddled with bigotry. "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," says Pitt in the Esquire hitting stands September 19, instantly making Last Days worship him. Scoff if you must, but this is huge—Pitt and Jolie are two of the biggest movie stars in the universe, and their willingness to attach themselves in all of their hyperprivileged, heterosexual glory to gay marriage is celebrity deployed for as good a purpose as any, and we love them for it.
set up tile painting again today and met some nice people. 
the guy with a great big smile is Theo the owner of the restaurant near my house, next to him is his daughter Carlie. They both came out of the restaurant to paint some tiles. Carlie goes to middle school and works for the family business on the weekends. The man in the yellow hat is CT, a neighborhood jazz musician and to his right is Sam the cook and then Carl who is family and who was helping me with the tiles and who was just crowned the chair of the beautifying committee.
some tiles from the tile painting project for the CD traffic circles. we just got 70 painted tiles fired.
on September 11th early evening, i set up a table on the street and this little girl turned out to be a prolific painter. 
her dad got really into it too. he started out being very timid, but then produced four tiles of his own. he came up with this cool design where he painted his hand and made a print of it, but since it was black glaze on white, all of the lines of his hand came out really clearly so that the tile looked like a map. then he took his daughter's hand, painted it red and made a print in the middle of his hand map. the red print looked like a poppy over the web of lines. can't wait to see what it looks like fired.
| In 2001 EDS made a funny commercial which showed a group of Cowboys Herding cats. | |
Eskimo child bundled up in winter clothing and resting against base of a totem pole, Alaska, 1909 
Four Inuit girls standing on beach wearing fur parkas, Nome, 1903
from UW Digital Collections
