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This reminds me of a coworker who, after a particularly contentious work meeting said, "There's a difference between laying down and taking cover."

I saw a Dobbshead sticker on a brand new Dodge Charger. Now I can't get that old Don Henley song out of my head.

Birds cannot be trusted.  They are not on our side.

I warned everyone.

A single blow to the back of the head, and my perspective is irrevocably changed.

Is this a kind of enlightenment?  But it came not from the cudgel of a well-meaning Buddhist monk, but from a black-winged devil.

The crows are everywhere.  How did I not notice this before?  Every time I leave the house, they're there, shrieking, rasping, lurking, glaring with soulless eyes.  They're almost always in groups of 3 or 4, and seem to have a affinity for parks.  They are intensely territorial, and will scream continuously if they consider me an intruder....which seems to be about half the time.

Now, whenever I hear a crow, or see one, I snap into a heightened level of awareness.  I need to know where they are and what they are doing.  I am beginning to learn their language.  When I walk past a group, I turn to watch them, in case one decides to swoop down on me.

And one did, this morning, in a park far removed from the earlier attack.  As I passed, it started circling at a low altitude, perhaps just warning me off, but maybe looking for an opening to attack.  But I kept turning to face it, maintained eye contact, and it broke off and perched on a lamppost.  If it had actually dove, I would have tried to knock it away.  I don't know what the outcome of that would be, but I think I'd rather take damage to an arm than to my face.

I'm starting to think about maintaining air cover while I walk.  Directly under a tree, I'm likely safe; but a short distance from a tree, or anywhere out in the open, I'm a target.  There really aren't many safe spaces, when you start to think about it.

Crows, it turns out, are the only creatures other than humans to "know what they know".  They do this intentionally, not as some kind of instinct.

Exterminate the brutes.

I lived in Adelaide for a year, and the crows were crazy for swooping at cyclists. We used to paint eyes on the back of bike helmets so they wouldn't bumrush you. If you don't see them swooping it scares the pants right off of you which then catches in the spokes of the bike and the birds feast on your broken body.

"Serious parody: Discordianism as liquid religion" by Mäkelä & Petsche, Cult. & Rel., 14(4):411-423

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14755610.2013.841269

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260383131_Serious_parody_Discordianism_as_liquid_religion

The second link has a better chance of having the full text. The first may work better for people with library access.

It's a short article. It does a good job of describing my experience as a Discordian. The whole business of this "religion" - it's a parody - or is it? No, seriously, it's a joke.

But the more you look into it, the more there is to seriously laugh about. Horrormirth, GRINs and all.

Liquid Religion refers to the infusing of sacred concepts and actions into the behavior of otherwise non-religious people. The concept of 'liquid religion' is enticing. The idea seems to be that religiosity seeps through the cracks or that elements of worship or gathering in faith are useful and enlightening for atheists or people from different faiths.

Poor Norton. A *drum* of nitric acid is terrifying. We might have a wider variety of chemical horror at the university, but you guys make up for it with sheer volume. I'm glad it's just a move across town though.

Louis Cole & Knower provide funk for the end of the world dance party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxEIQQkhyeI

Shake, shake shake indeed! Perhaps KC stands for King Cramulus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgZOYt5kH9Q

3/24
The news is painful. And it's not going to get better. The outlook for mortality, mental health and the economy will worsen by waffling. Stay at home. We're at home. My neighbors are at home. We're trying to work from home. But I hear the cars roaring around the roads still. Where are you going? I hope it's because you're an essential worker and you're washing your hands.

The structural biologists online have been going nuts. There's tons of new collaborations. Everyone wants to be a computational biochemist or a bioinformaticist. Most of us can't get back to the lab. My research may be shot. My student's are writing theses or review articles from home. But for those who can get to the lab, precious X-ray beamtime has been opened up for solving SARS-nCov-2 protein structures. I'm stuck at home wondering if I couldn't have holed up in my lab instead. I have a cot and a fridge and a microwave there, right? Or maybe I should've brought the lab home. Would the university freak out if I brought home about $20k of equipment to set up a lab in my garage? We've organized collections of gloves, masks, reagents and PCR kits for donation. It's inspiring to see people help out. Why hasn't the gov't done more? Much of the US gov't is unreliable, mostly at the federal level. Either way, it looks like the way out is to clamp down, stay home, stay safe and slow the spread - not a little slowing but a drastically enforced slowing. Transmission rate below one. I can do without the moccacinofrappelatte or make one at home. Out of rice flour, carob and chickory I guess.

None of this would have happened, had I been elected a few years back.

You were, in fact, elected to be our 21st Century, so this is actually all your fault.

Don't blame me. I voted for Howl. Who was the running mate again? TGRR?

Anyway, our school has just stated they're planning to stay online through the first summer session. They'll decide go/no-go on May 1 whether or not to have activities on campus after July 1.

In the meantime, I've had 7+ zoom meetings in 2 days and their stock is soaring.

Pinegrove - It's weird how familiar they sound to my old ears. They remind me of all the old shoe-gazer bands I liked 25 years ago in college.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtGGZjVRdo&list=PLokQE3_m0zHZKPE7Tsu0Jn4rglYFhsQJ6&index=1

I'm a little concerned about the extent of my excitement for your career. I look forward to your autobiography. It's more exciting than the backhanded compliments and comments where I work.

I think part of the problem lies in our ability to tolerate our own hypocrisy. I think we can look at a villain, even one getting their just desserts, and say to ourselves, "Yeah, I may have done something similar but my circumstances were different." Plus, a lot of the villains on TV get away with it for a season or two. I see some true crime shows and it's like they're drawing out the story in order to make it fill time. Sometimes they seem to show things from the point of view of the convicted criminal. Maybe the TV producer's motivation is to get people to realize how close we all are to committing crimes. Maybe they're trying to get their show to have more drama. On the other hand, at least for my wife's favorite, "Dateline", I sometimes get the sense there's a definite "moral fable" quality to the story telling.

I am not on here much. But, I was just in a meeting where someone said FAPT. And I had to stifle myself. Faculty Affairs and Promotion to Tenure is apparently not a laughing matter. 

I've always been bothered by people who declare they did everything themselves. I have probably been guilty of saying it. But I still have a gut instinct to spew at others about how they couldn't possibly have built their empire with their own two hands.

In this light, I submit a bit of a rant:

"We've all heard you talking about how great you are. Bootstrap-puller-upper. You need nothing but a knife to survive.

Well, show us. Demonstrate it. Do. The. Experiment.

You must remember how it started. When your dad drove you through the forest and mocked you for not being able to survive one night in the wild. "If I dropped you off right here, with nothing but your underwear and a pocket knife, how long do you think you'd last?" Well, got an answer yet? When was the last time you tried? You can take it easy on yourself and you don't even have to report the results to anyone. Bring a sleeping bag and some GORP and iodine tabs. I'm curious though, how much fear does just thinking about actually trying that engender in your guts?

Oh, so you're more of an intellectual? You'd make your money in the stock market, if only you had enough seed money? Well Sparky, you can do that experiment too. It doesn't have to be real money. Give yourself whatever you think you need to start. Maybe 1k, 10k, $100,000? Give yourself whatever time you want. Two months, 6 months, two years? It's fake money so just keep track of your buys and sells with a spreadsheet. I want to know - have you actually done it and reduced it to practice? Or are you full of shit?

Oh but you're an artisan? Fine. Give up your day job. Move to a new country. Truly start over. Make your own workshop. Build your own equipment. Trade goods for canvas and mix your own paints. Document the whole thing and sell the movie rights. There are a few people who've done it. I look forward to hearing your story.

But if you haven't done the experiment. Do me a favor? Vote. Pay your taxes. Stop for the school busses. And otherwise - Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

You will note that I don't need to address those that do the experiment. The real world has a way of humbling the prideful. It helps us realize how well we work with others and how much we depend on the kindness and altruism of other bipeds."

Thanks for bumping this.  I've never seen it before and now I know why. I'll just leave this link here for the unwary.

https://www.vintag.es/2017/11/these-awkward-christian-music-album.html

Someone should womp a few political faces onto these.