THE NEW WILD

 

This gem of a book -- by Fred Pearce, ISBN 978-1-84831-834-2 -- is absolutely the most Erisian read of the year (thus far -- I mean it's only May).

Take a gander.

>> The book is FULL of Erisianic phraseology.  He cites a book by David Botkin, for instance, called Discordant Harmonies.  Elsewhere he says "Disturbance is essential" (pg. 190); "most change is random" (pg. 191); and "trying to maintain stability creates instability" (pg. 193).  On and on throughout the book.  But then he somehow MISSES HIS OWN POINT as he continues.  

>> The book argues with all those who argue -- pretty fiercely -- against any sort of species being introduced anywhere. What could be more Discordian than that!?

>> He backs up his arguments against their arguments by giving LOADS OF EXAMPLES of how introduced species have mostly proven harmless to local ecosystems.  A really fine example he didn't mention was the Monk parakeet, which escaped from captivity in the US (among other places) in the 1950s and have since established themselves in places like the greater Chicago area.  They are noisy and their nests are hideous, resembling nothing so much as giant hornets' nests wrapped around electrical poles.  But they have NOT, as predicted, ended American civilization as we know it.  

>> He also failed to bring up the walking catfish, the sea lamprey or the ubiquitous goldfish -- which lives around the world now -- although he did mention the Northern snakehead and the dreaded Asian carp.  He didn't go into it very deeply, but only pointed out that there is no proof they are laying waste our waterways, or really causing any other trouble.  He slyly points out the parallel between fearing foreign plants and animals and fearing human foreigners, which I find both highly perceptive and VERY important to understanding species prejudice.

>> He points out how in most cases, introduced species have DIED OUT because they couldn't hack it in a new setting.  Again, I wish he had offered more examples, but I suspect nobody keeps track of that very well.

>> One he DID mention was the great and terrible Cane Toad, or Bufo marinus,  introduced decades ago in Australia to control an introduced insect, which was eating the introduced sugar cane farmers were trying to grow.  It was a GLORIOUS DISASTER, which you can learn about by watching this boffo documentary:

We all came away from that movie with the impression that Australia was DOOMED.  But Pearce, in his book, made clear that Australian natives are ADAPTING to the invasion, pretty well in fact.  The local crocs, for instance, have learned to bite the legs off the toads rather than swallowing them whole, so they can eat them without being poisoned.  Other animals have adapted in other ways.  Australia as a whole is STILL RIGHT THERE and happily, so are the quolls who were supposedly facing extinction because of the toads.  He points out that other places in the world with other introduced species are ALSO adapting, usually pretty well.  Scientific dogma (which ought to be an oxymoron, but it isn't) holds that invasive species take you in a STRAIGHT LINE from peace and plenty to ecological meltdown.  But Pearce has found that isn't true.

>> And wait until you read what he says about the great and terrible Japanese Knotweed! I won't spoil it for you.

>> Curiously, this argumentative man DOESN'T QUESTION certain scientific assumptions even as he knocks a lot of the others down.  He assumes, for instance, that the phrase "nature in balance" -- always the goal for those who want to keep invasives out of their backyards -- equals "nature in stasis."  He scoffs at the very idea of nature being in balance.  Dude.  Balancing nature means CONSTANT CHANGE, CONSTANT ADJUSTMENTS.  Pearce even says that this is normal in nature, but he never acknowledges that this IS balance, not the OPPOSITE of balance.  I don't know sometimes, I really don't.

>> Pearce also fails to notice that he treats humans as being somehow OUTSIDE of nature, the usual mistake of human science.  On page 151 I read where he points out that in spite of the pearl-clutching about biological diversity in New Zealand, only a few species have died out there, notably the Moa and the enormous eagles that once hunted them.  "But both these birds died out about 600 years ago, as a result of hunting by the Maori people rather than species introductions," says the author.  HE SEEMS NOT TO SEE THAT HUMANS ARE AN INTRODUCED SPECIES IN NEW ZEALAND.  Dude.  Look in the mirror!

Anyway, this is a great read and I came away from it GREATLY REASSURED.

A Little Smile For You

 

Buckle Your Seatbelts, Everyone...

 

THE SECOND INAUGURATION OF THE MOST CRIMINAL PRESIDENT  EVER IS NIGH.

I Love The Name All By Itself!

 

"Apocalypstick" is one of the greatest names for a perfume ever.  

Does anyone know how it smells?

Apple Roller Of The Year, 2024

 

Yep, it's none other than Jimmy Carter, the U.S. president from 1977 to 1981. 

Think about it.  He was an outstanding type of Libra, ruled by the planet Eris YEARS before she was discovered but acting on her orders daily, in every situation.  He was an incredibly Discordian world leader.  

>> He served on battleships in the U.S. Navy but harmed a fly in his life, in blatant contradiction of what the military wants its sailors to do.  

>> As Commander-in-Chief, he busied himself brokering peace in the Middle East, something nobody else had ever really made much progress on.

>> In an incredibly hateful, violent, bitterly divided country, he's cheerfully worked building houses for Habitat for Humanity and raising funds for whoever might need them.

>> He held out in this lifestyle past his 100th birthday, voted in the 2024 election to show people who he wanted in the Oval Office, and then mercifully EXITED STAGE LEFT before Donald Trump came back into the White House, in an epic snub.

This is the essence of discord, peeps.  Where he saw war, he made peace, even if it looked completely impossible.  He disagreed even with disagreement itself.  He ignored unimportant twiddles like race and class and treated everyone as the most important and deserving person he'd ever met, right in the teeth of the way we do things in this species.

He even sneaked across the border to pretty much eradicate the dreaded Guinea Worm, bringing infections down from 3.5 million per year when he started to only 14 last year.  Just because he wanted to, and because nobody else did.  

In this world, that's purely Discordian.

I don't want to say there will never be another one like him.  I wish I could run him through a copier because this is the kind of discord we need more of. 

Be Of Good Cheer

 

A New Word For Everyone To Use!

 

I WISH I NEW WHO TO CREDIT FOR THIS WONDERFULLY USEFUL NEW WORD.  

101 USES DOESN'T BEGIN TO COVER IT!

Now get out there and identify some fucktangularities!

One Of Those Special Moments of Bureaucracy...

 

So there was this moment of mayhem in a local health establishment.  Not one, but three different people reported the situation to Child Protective Services.  This is how it came out:  

The first person who made a report learned about the other reports at the same time he was instructed to call not one, but 2 different people at Protective Services to provide more information.  One of the people he was told to call said she'd been assigned to investigate the situation.  More emails were flying about it the next day, and he learned about yet another report filed when the child in question reported more mayhem at home.  

That second day -- less than 24 hours from the time he filed the report -- that same guy who filed the first report got a letter from Protective Services saying that his report was screened out because it didn't meet criteria to warrant an investigation.  Huh?  

And one of the emails he'd received an hour before that said the investigator was filing to have the child removed from home.  Double huh?

This is our government at work.

FALSEHOOD IN WARTIME

This little book is a REAL GEM of Discordiana.  The author is Arthur Ponsonby, MP, and the ISBN is 0-939484-39-0.  Ponsonby simply compiled as much as he could find of the spiteful WHOPPERS the Allies spread about the Germans, and the ones the Germans spread about the Allies, during the Great War.  He explained that stories like this help us justify shooting at each other.

WE ALL HAVE TO LIVE WITH OURSELVES SOMEHOW.

Having collected the lies, the author then helpfully debunks them for us.  For example: the very first thing I learned in this book is that a "fact" I learned in history class is untrue.  Ponsonby explained that NO Holocaust victims were ever boiled down into soap.  The rumor started, he says, during the PREVIOUS WAR, when someone said the Germans were melting down their own dead to make glycerine for military use.  It made the papers and everything.  You can see the ancestry here:  glycerine is usually a by-product of soapmaking, and it's used to make TNT.  Somehow that rumor waited until the Holocaust became common knowledge in a later war, and here we are today, still breathing fire at the Nazis for what they did.  It makes everything we did to them, and the Axis powers, seem way beyond justified.

THANK YOU, MR. PONSONBY.  THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.  I remember wondering, decades ago, how much soap you could really make out of Holocaust victims because they were essentially walking skeletons.  Soap is made of rendered fat.  If you're starting from Holocaust victims, you're going to end up with NO SOAP.  But at the time, I didn't really think it through.  MAYBE NOBODY DID.

What I find striking is that apparently the real Holocaust WASN'T BAD ENOUGH for the rumor-mongers.  Or anyone else.  We have an ENDLESS APPETITE for rage and indignation, but we also need to feel like NICE PEOPLE who wouldn't do anything nasty without a good reason.  The lies that spring from this desire to be NICE AND ANGRY are almost immortal, like a magic glob of used chewing gum passed from mouth to mouth, getting MORE FLAVORFUL the farther it travels.  It may finally be stuck under the edge of the kitchen table, but you can always put it back in your mouth and start chewing again.  What flavor is that gum?  APPLES OF DISCORD, I'll wager.  

The book's author quoted one of his colleagues as saying that wartime disinformation will change when human nature does.  

Fat chance.

Can I offer you an apple?