January 9, 2013 archive

Never Mind the Bollocks

I’ve often said that left and right are both important in any political system (or any other system). Too much order (conservatism) and you get rigidity and an inability to react to changed circumstances. Too much innovation and change and the system looses integrity and tends to overreact to situations and the solutions often become worse than the bad shit we want to change. The French and Russian revolutions point so some of these sorts of problems. But in our system the left/right duality is all confused. The right wants change the left wants to hold on to the status-quo and in some areas the situation is reversed. But today the populist right has descended into lunacy and the left has been living in a world of illusions.

The chief illusion is this: that we live in a society that is, more or less, as described by the system we learn about in government class. In short, even the left in America believes in “American Exceptionalism” that somehow the plots we observe in Shakespeare’s plays or read about in history most graphically in Livy’s history or the history of the late Roman Republic or the machinations that were a deep part of European history over the centuries just don’t happen in America.

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

Our regular featured content-

And these featured articles-

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Write more and often.  This is an Open Thread.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

On This Day In History January 9

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

January 9 is the ninth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 356 days remaining until the end of the year (357 in leap years).

On this day in 1493, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three “mermaids”–in reality manatees–and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or “New World.”

Mermaids, mythical half-female, half-fish creatures, have existed in seafaring cultures at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. Typically depicted as having a woman’s head and torso, a fishtail instead of legs and holding a mirror and comb, mermaids live in the ocean and, according to some legends, can take on a human shape and marry mortal men. Mermaids are closely linked to sirens, another folkloric figure, part-woman, part-bird, who live on islands and sing seductive songs to lure sailors to their deaths.

West Indian manatees are large, gray aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a flat, paddle-shaped tail. They have two forelimbs, called flippers, with three to four nails on each flipper. Their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout.

Manatees can be found in shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas – particularly where seagrass beds or freshwater vegetation flourish. Manatees are a migratory species. Within the United States, they are concentrated in Florida in the winter. In summer months, they can be found as far west as Texas and as far north as Massachusetts, but summer sightings in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are more common. West Indian manatees can also be found in the coastal and inland waterways of Central America and along the northern coast of South America, although distribution in these areas may be discontinuous.

Manatees are gentle and slow-moving animals. Most of their time is spent eating, resting, and traveling. Manatees are completely herbivorous.

West Indian manatees have no natural enemies, and it is believed they can live 60 years or more. As with all wild animal populations, a certain percentage of manatee mortality is attributed to natural causes of death such as cold stress, gastrointestinal disease, pneumonia, and other diseases. A high number of additional fatalities are from human-related causes. Most human-related manatee fatalities occur from collisions with watercraft.

Cartnoon

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning


Web Set D

Late Night Karaoke