July 21, 2009

At the Stag Beetle Café...

Stag Beetle

... we like it when you come in alone. Why not meet somebody? Or creep about in your solitary way, you dorcus?

***

Photo taken last night on the campus of Berea College, where the young people of Appalachia receive free tuition and are required to do work, which, historically, included making the bricks upon which crawls the hideous insect.

36 comments:

Peter Hoh said...

Is this one of the guests from Meade's Stag Party?

former law student said...

I realized this morning that the ideal Republican judicial candidate would be a sociopath, because he lacks all empathy.

But are we ready to have a Ted Bundy on the highest court of the land?

Chris said...

Hope they gave them straw, at least.

traditionalguy said...

Be a little goofballsy and sneak dorcus into someone's pillow case, all in good fun. That would be a daring act, and would take your friendship over the superficial level, or end it. But don't be silly and put dorcus into your own pillow case, which just makes you mentally ill.

David said...

Berea is one of the most unique and admirable colleges in the country. I was introduced to Berea by my now long deceased law partner Joe Barnett, a Madisonian, a UW Law graduate, a fine tax lawyer, a WW II B-24 pilot who flew numerous missions over the beaches on D-Day and a quiet modest gentleman. I write this mainly to say something about Joe, one of the most decent men I have ever met.

traditionalguy said...

Berea produces good people.

traditionalguy said...

FLS...Did you see the column by Cohen in the NYT? Their biggest progressive/liberal columnist complains about what a stick in the mud Judge Sotomayor turns out to be when a super-liberal could have been inserted by the Obamaguys. Buyers remorse bigtime.

Fred4Pres said...

Two of those beetles, properly preserved and prepared, would make a great pair of earrings Ann.

Just saying. I know how you love dead things hanging from your ears.

Alex said...

FLS just accused all Republicans of being sociopaths! How witty and pithy! just what we need more of in the body politic! Keep it up FLS, you're doing good.

tim maguire said...

Am I the only one disappointed to find out the actual definition of Dorcus?

The Dude said...

Nice - call a beetle hideous. I work in the woods and encounter insects all the time. The most hideous bloodsucking useless sacks of protoplasm I encounter, week in and week out, are liberals. They are truly unworthy of life.

rhhardin said...

"Here are the sons of Shem
for their clans, for their tongues,
in their lands, for their peoples.
Here are the clans of the sons of Noah for their exploits,
in their peoples:
from the latter divide the peoples on earth, after the flood.

And it is all the earth: a single lip, one speech.
And it is at their departure from the Orient: they find a canyon,
in the land of Shine'ar.
They settle there.
They say, each to his like:
``Come, let us brick some bricks.
Let us fire them in the fire.''
The brick becomes for them stone, the tar, mortar.
They say:
``Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower.
Its head: in the heavens.
Let us make ourselves a name,
that we not be scattered over the face of all the earth.''

YHWH descends to see the city and the tower
that the sons of man have built.
YHWH says:
``Yes! A single people, a single lip for all:
that is what they begin to do! ...
Come! Let us descend! Let us confound their lips,
man will no longer understand the lip of his neighbor.''

YHWH disperses them from here over the face of all the earth.
They cease to build the city.
Over which he proclaims his name: Bavel, Confusion,
for there, YHWH confounds the lip of all the earth,
and from there YHWH disperses them over the face of all the earth."

Chouraqui translation, word for word as Cicero says should not be done.

Bricks are bricked.

Dr Weevil said...

Better a dorcas than a dorcus. I mean, Dorci are cool, but dorcades are even cooler.

former law student said...

FLS just accused all Republicans of being sociopaths!

Hey, I'm just calling them the way they cross the plate. Empathy bad: sociopathy good -- for judges, not the populace as a whole.

kentuckyliz said...

Berea is brilliant at marketing that historically true image...but I live in Appalachian Kentucky and our young folk can't afford to go to Berea! It's mostly rich kids from across the country and international students. Nothing like the image they market. Not true to its roots.

Bob said...

J.B.S. Haldane, asked about what we could know about God by studying his creations, replied that the Creator had "an inordinate fondness for beetles." This because of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, insects make up the majority, and beetles make up the majority of insects.

MadisonMan said...

My favorite Haldane quote:

Theories have four stages of acceptance:

(1) This is worthless nonsense
(2) This is interesting, but perverse
(3) This is true, but quite unimportant
(4) I always said so.

john said...

Regarding the senate voting "yea" 58 to 40 to scuttle the F22 fighter. This is how the vote went:

Dems - 43 yea, 14 nay, 2 nv
Repubs - 15 yea, 25 nay
Indep - 1 yea, 1 nay

An interesting distribution of votes, in that the "nays" pretty much aligned with the states most affected, eg, Boxer, Feinstein, Dodd and Leiberman all voted nay, while both my state senators (McCain, Kyle) voted yea, to scuttle.

This vote was taken "after intense lobbying by the Administration", which obviously accounted for allowing more than a quarter of the democrats to defect, thus providing needed cover in their home states. The loyal repubs provided that cover.

Obama's arm twisting and promises could not deliver a democrat majority, but he didn't need one. To seal the Obama victory required only 7 repubs to vote yea. He got 15.

So why would the repubs give the dems a double victory here (to say nothing of giving Chris Todd a huge campaign boost)?

If the repubs could have voted nay as a block, then some or all of the vulnerable dem senators would have had to switch their vote to yea to get the Obama victory.

Did the Obama administration run some deals by the repub opposition so that the dems could play it safe? Did they buy the Obama "promise" to keep the money in defense spending? If so, what bullshit the repubs believe. Since this is all future money, any promise as to its ultimate use is tenuous at best.

Obama showed again he can play repubs like a fiddle.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

When the cops were going thru MJ bedroom looking for whatever it was they looked for. They noticed Michael’s bible opened on the dresser and one of them thought this could be important for later on.

Mark 10:14

john said...

That would be Chris Dodd.

ricpic said...

The mighty Mars of beetles, a terror with his mandibles,
Mand-tickles lady beetles at night until they're handlable .

john said...

Lem - Mark 10:14 - "do not hinder them".

To which definition of that word does Mark speak?

ricpic said...

The F-22 is a notoriously touchy fighter that, under the best of conditions, requires Jaguar level maintenance to keep in the air. It's simply not a good investment of defense dollars.

Nolanimrod said...

Hey! Who you callin' hideous? I'm all black and shiny and my jaws are perfectly symmetrical. And I just ate a slug that was molesting your bell pepper plant.

john said...

There you go ricpic, slamming our British allies again.

traditionalguy said...

The Locheed guys need money and the F-22 is a Shovel ready airplane, but the word is out that it is not stealthy enough compared to models coming on line, and Obama will kill any $ spent on any weapons systems for any reason.

john said...

A long time ago I owned a Triumph Herald, a spiffy little runabout that once caught fire in the dash right above my girlfriend's lap. I just pushed her out of the car, knowing my effort would easily spring the door latch (we were in a parking lot).

Despite my devoting Jaguar-level maintenance time to this triumph of British electrical engineering, she concluded that I was rather cheap, and eventually moved on.

john said...

Besides, it always ran like shit with 2 people in it.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

do not hinder them.

The spanish translation says "no se lo impidáis" meaning literally do not prohibit them, dont block them?

Why you ask?

john said...

Hinder also means ass (like your "heinder"). Geez Lem, I hate explaining jokes, it reflects badly on me.

BJM said...

“Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon”

Frank McCourt has died.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

If you have one on your back it's feeding on your potential futures.

Been to a fortune teller lately?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Another creature that probably did not survive the Althouse+Meade surge.

kentuckyliz said...

I wouldn't go to a college with big ass bugs like that.

BCnow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Justin Kace said...

Someone should let “kentuckyliz” know that she has been misinformed about student enrollment at Berea College. They are not “mostly rich kids from across the country and international students.” In fact, about 75% of Berea’s students come from Kentucky and the southern Appalachian region. Only about 5% are international students. Berea students come from families whose average household income is less than $30,000 year. That is why I support Berea College financially.