Honey, does this dress make my butt look fat?

"Jacqueline Bradley, a Canberra-based artist, created the classic 1950s-style cream and floral 'Boat Dress' that actually floats on water."

Via Neatorama.

Who comes up with ideas like these?

Armed nonuniformed men invade an Oregon school to test the staff's readiness for a hostage situation:

Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire.

Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle's preparation for an assault by "active shooters" who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared.

Principal Cammie DeCastro said it became clear very quickly just how many of the school's 15 teachers would have survived. The answer: "Not many," she said. 

The Reddit thread discusses what might have happened had one of the "victim" teachers responded with lethal force.

Meanwhile, in Virginia plainclothes police officers try to apprehend a female student.  She resists...

On April 11, Elizabeth Daly bought a carton of sparkling water, cookie dough and ice cream at a Charlottesville store. She drove off when she was confronted by plainclothes ABC agents after they suspected the 20-year-old of purchasing beer... The woman was charged with two felonies after she attempted to flee the agents.

They later dropped the charges, but had she run over them while driving away, I would have given her the benefit of doubt for fleeing a possible attempted rape/carjacking.

"Snail facial"

A Japanese beauty salon has developed a new skin treatment involving slime discharge from live snails... The treatment involves a therapist placing snails directly onto the faces of reclining clients and allowing the molluscs to move at random, leaving trails of mucus slime in their wake.

The secreted snail mucus is key to the facial, as it reportedly contains a beauty-boosting cocktail of proteins, antioxidants and hyaluronic acid, which help skin retain moisture, reduce inflammation and remove dead skin.

This is not from The Onion; it's from The Telegraph, via Nothing to do with Arbroath.

Feodora Morozova goes into exile with two fingers raised

This will be my final entry on material derived from the remarkable book and television program about the Lykov family.  For newbies, see these background posts: Isolated for 40 years in the Taiga,  "Agafia's Taiga Life" (outstanding video), and Lost in the Taiga.

Here's an excerpt from Lost in the Taiga (p. 38):

A friend of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's pious first wife, the young widow Feodosia Prokofievna Morozova was very rich (eight thousand serfs, a mountain of gold, a gilded carriage, horses, servants)...

In Surikov's painting we see Morozova being taken through Moscow on a peasant sledge on her way into exile.  In this remarkable canvas we see the face of the entire Schism: sniggering priests, the concerned faces of both common and distinguished people who obviously sympathize with the martyr, the stern faces of adherents of the old ways...

The State Tretyakov Gallery offers this description of the painting (click the top image for bigger, btw - it's quite a painting):

Surikov, Vasily Ivanovich. Boyarina Morozova. 1887 oil on canvas 304 x 587,5

Feodosia Prokopievna Morozova (?–1675), was a supporter of the spiritual leader of the old faith, archpriest Avvakum. Circa 1670 she was secretly tonsured as a nun; in 1671 she was arrested and in 1673 she was sent to the Pafnutief-Borovsky convent where she was starved to death in an earthen prison. The painting is devoted to the Church Schism of the 17th century. The Schism arose as a result of reforms by Patriarch Nikon to unify the rites and establish uniformity in the church service. The artist has depicted an episode when Boyarina Morozova is taken around Moscow to her place of confinement. In the centre is Morozova herself, her hand thrown up, blessing the crowd in the two-fingered manner of the Old Believers. The black spot of her clothing sounds the tragic dominant note of the painting. The crowd has divided. To the left, they are mocking the boyarina; to the right, they sympathize with her. Alongside Morozova is her sister Evdokia Urusova, who shared the fate of the Schismatics.

Wikipedia has an extended entry on the Old Believers.  First on a list of "Main differences between the Old Believers and post-Nikonian Russian Orthodoxy" is this entry:

Old Believers use two fingers while making the Sign of the Cross (the pointer finger straight, middle finger slightly bent, two fingers joined with thumb, held at point, three folded) while new-style Orthodoxy uses three fingers for the sign of cross (three fingers (including the thumb) held together at point, two fingers folded). Old Ritualists generally say the Jesus Prayer with the Sign of the Cross, while New Ritualists use the Sign of the Cross as a Trinitarian symbol. This makes for a significant difference between the two branches of Russian Orthodoxy, and one of the most noticeable...

Peskov made the same point in his book about Agafia:

Divergencies [sic] that seem ridiculous to us provoked special protest.  According to the new books, Nikon asserted, religious processions around the church should go counterclockwise, not clockwise; the word "hallelujah" should be sung two times, not three; people should bow at the waist, not to the ground; and they should cross themsleves with three fingers, not two, as the Greeks do.  It was a debate not about faith but about the rituals of the service, about isolated and relatively minor details of observance.

It was for these differences that Morozova was starved to death.  It was for differences like this that Agafia's father and her siblings abandoned civilization to flee into the wilderness of the taiga.  And it is this sort of insistence upon details of dogma and ritual that I believe constitute the greatest weakness of religions.  These almost arbitrary distinctions create schisms that exclude the "others" from the communion of believers and theoretically from eternal salvation.  It leads to wars between Sunnis and Shiites.

I remember in the 1960s how the Lutheran Church (itself subdivided into sects that seem ridiculously unimportant) tried to promote the "new ecumenism."  But true interfaith pluralism never emerged; I suspect every faith has much at stake in maintaining its identity distinct from all others. 

Addendum:  A hat tip to reader Robert "Chemsolver" who remembered that Zorba the Greek contained a reference to Madame Hortense not getting a proper burial because of the number of fingers she used to make the sign of the cross:

"Shall I go and call the priest? said Mimiko.
"What priest you fool?" said Kondomanolio furiously. "She was a Frank; didn't you ever notice how she crossed herself? With four fingers-like that-the infidel! Come on, let's get her underground, so that she doesn't stink us all out and infect the whole village!"

The NFL has banned purses at football games

The NFL announced a change to its bag policy Thursday and beginning with the 2013 season, only clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags will be permitted inside NFL stadiums.  Under the new policy, fans will be allowed to bring one bag into stadiums and that bag must be clear and not exceed 12 inches by six inches by 12 inches...

Here's a list of items from the NFL that you will not be allowed to bring into stadiums: purses larger than a clutch bag, coolers, briefcases, backpacks, fanny packs, cinch bags, seat cushions, luggage of any kind, computer bags and camera bags or any bag larger than the permissible size.

Discussed at Reddit, including "Kind of nice for those of us who travel to stadiums by public transportation. Let me just flash everyone on the bus everything I am carrying, including my wallet and phone."

Soccer game revelry

Today I learned... that at Russian soccer games fans in the stands light flares and shoot off fireworks.

Take a look at this related video, offered with this introduction: "Try watching a Red Star V. Partizan match... Until they banned flares and fireworks the matches usually got shut down because the field got too smokey to continue play.  "This is what it looks like after banning flares and fireworks." -

YouTube link.

Response: "do you mean before?"
Reply: "No. That video is from several years after the ban was instituted."

I'll defer commentary and just file it in the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot category.  Res ipsa loquitur.

Image slightly cropped and compressed from the original at Reddit.

Underpants in resealable bags

I am convinced there are no end-consumers who store their underwear at home in resealable bags.  These bags were developed by an industry that got fed up with shoppers opening plastic bags of underwear, trying the product on, and then returning the items to the rack.  Those damaged bags were hard to sell, so... voila! Bags that allow tried-on material to be stuffed back in.

Unless you're conducting a research study on the transmissibility of body lice, I would suggest avoiding products sold in this packaging.

Photo credit: anonymous.

This is the America we created for ourselves

In view of the new regulations re pocket knives on airplanes, I was reminded of this (in)famous image (via Boing Boing back in 2010).   I wonder how different procedures are now.

Bicycle riders are bad for the environment ?

Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt (R–Kalama), a ranking member of the State Transportation Committee, argues that bicycling is bad for the environment and says bike riders should have to pay a tax to help maintain the state's roads. Orcutt made his comments in an email, which was posted by the Cascade bicycle club blog on Saturday. In the message, Orcutt states bike riders pollute the environment because they produce more carbon dioxide than car drivers. The email from the lawmaker, which was written to bike shop owner Dale Carson, goes on to say that because bike riders have an "increased heart rate and respiration," the act of riding a bike "results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider." "Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride," Orcutt wrote in the message...

Rep. Orcutt has subsequently apologized for his comments, saying that "My point was that by not driving a car, a cyclist was not necessarily having a zero-carbon footprint."

Blowgun darts - a new public menace?

The image comes from a Reddit post, with this explanation:

Was walking on the local trail today, going through the forest part. When suddenly I feel a very sharp pain in my arm, like a shot. Look down and there is a long dart, from maybe a blow gun of sorts? I don't know but scared the shit out of me, I looked and could see no one.

A simple Google Image search yields a wide array of photos of this weaponry.  The Reddit thread focuses on potential health consequences (probably minimal other than at the site of entry) and the range (up to about 100 feet, if you want to locate and try to wreak retribution on the malefactor).

This tee shirt costs $495.00

 

Not an ordinary tee shirt. It's designed by Giorgio Armani and sold at Neiman Marcus:

• Trapunto-Trim Tee:
  • Knit with trapunto trim.
  • Crew neckline; short sleeves.
  • Pullover style.
  • Viscose/silk.
  • Made in Italy.

I had to look up "trapunto" (my tee shirts seem to lack it...)

Trapunto, from the Italian for "to embroider," is a method of quilting that is also called "stuffed technique." A puffy, decorative feature, trapunto utilizes at least two layers, the underside of which is slit and padded, producing a raised surface on the quilt.  The style originated in Italy before the 14th century.

"Nanny" laws and rules

Can someone please tell me these are urban legends:

(A) Local licensing authorities outlawed soap in pre-school bathrooms for fear that children might suddenly start drinking it. Now kids must come out and ask an adult to squirt some soap in their hands.

(B) Unaccompanied children under age 12 were banned from the Boulder, CO, library, lest they encounter “hazards such as stairs, elevators, doors, furniture…and other library patrons.”

(C)The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of certain fleece hoodies sold at Target because of lead paint on the zipper, which presumably could raise blood lead levels if the zippers are eaten.

(E) A New Canaan, CT, mom was charged with “risk of injury to a minor,” for letting her 13-year-old babysit the three younger children at home for an hour while the mom went to church.

(F) A Tennessee mother was thrown in jail for letting her kids, aged 8 and 5, go to the park without her, a block and half away from home.

Found at Cato Unbound without links to the sources of the stories, via The New Shelton wet/dry.

Meanwhile, in Fresno...

YouTube link.

This is NOT an Onion story.  I'll let the hitchhiker tell you why he struck "Jesus" with the hatchet...

Now you can launch your own drone !

Those of you interested in personal armaments will be delighted to know that it is now possible to buy attack drones from China.  Here are some of the specifications:

The SKY-02 small attack UAV uses a rear engine and wing integrated delta wing layout. The fuselage uses composite materials and the head is equipped with the image guided and payload. Once the ground finds and identifies the target, UAV immediately goes into the attack status: ball tripod head freely rotates to guide the UAV attacking targets. Engine uses mechanical and electronic three grades insurance with high security. The UAV is mainly used in the mountains, hills and complex terrain conditions; does effective short-range real-time attack to the fixed ground target or slowly move targets, such as artillery hole, command post, communication station, radar station, oil truck, oil depot and other small and temporary goals. Small attack UAV is characterized with small size, light weight, convenient carrying, rapid outfield expansion procedure, easy operation and maintenance; the system only needs 2-3 operators to operate, can be carried by surveillance personnel to complete the attack mission.

Via Boing Boing.  The quoted price is only $1,000-2,000, but it's not clear if that includes the ground-based guidance system.

These will be essential when our government tries to attack you to take away your freedoms, because our government has armored vehicles and RPGs, and you don't (probably...).  Get several of these now, before Obama tries to ban them.

If your baby stinks...

... it's probably not for lack of perfume.  But you can now purchase expensive perfumes designed with your baby in mind:

...Dolce & Gabbana have decided to launch a unisex perfume for the newborn in your life.

Speaking about the company’s latest offering, which will go on sale later this year at the relatively modest sum of £28 for a 50ml bottle, the designer Stefano Gabbana said: “That familiar smell associated with babies will only be accentuated by this fragrance.” It will contain notes of citrus, melon and honey, all famously evocative of newborns, and will “pamper every little boy and girl”. The scent, which is alcohol-free, has been inspired by the “softness of baby skin” and the “freshness of baby breath”.

Worse still, Dolce & Gabbana is not the only fashion house to dabble in this particular brand of ridiculousness. Bulgari’s Petits et Mamans perfume features Sicilian orange, bergamot and Brazilian rosewood. Hmm, the sweet smell of infants! At £35, Burberry’s Baby Touch will cost you significantly more than your weekly child benefit (if you’re still entitled to it), but it does promise “warm floral notes of cyclamen, orange blossom, lily of the valley and jasmine”.

How to break your wrist - on purpose!

The web is a seemingly unending source of weirdness.  A thread at Reddit today [two years ago] links to a website called "BlurtIt" where ?teens exchange information and ideas.  Here's the top entry under "How To Break Your Wrist" -

Keep hitting it every night and then like do it for two nights and then wake up 1 morn then hit it xtra hard then hit it with a spoon or sumin then tell your mum that ur wrist reli hurts then ask if you can go to the doc he will give you a cast! If you have an x ray there will be sum fracture there! And if you dont get cast tell ur doc that is reli sencitif and that it hurts when you touch it THEN you will get a cast

im doing it right now and this is the second night now so tomoz im going to complain and get a cast YAY!!!

Oh and here are sum things u cud say
u fell and hurt it
u banged it on the table
u jamed it in da door
im using i fell and hurt it

im getting a cast!

I certainly don't understand; it doesn't appear to be a self-harm trend in the usual sense - more of an attention-getting device.  Among the more salient comments in the Reddit thread is this one: "Oh god. I'm never letting my kids ever meet any other kids."  There is also a site called "How To Break Your Bones!"

Addendum:  Reposted from 2010 because this post keeps getting comments, all of which seem to be from preteens or teenagers.   They are obviously not regular readers of the blog; they find the post because it shows up on the first page of a Google search for how to break your wrist.

What should I do about this?  I don't have children of this age and can't get myself into the mindset of a juvenile having problems in school and wanting to break his/her wrist.  I have deleted some comments that I thought were too "instructional" or supportive.

I'd appreciate some adult comments added to the thread, especially from anyone familiar with this phenomenon or knowledgeable re the psychology and sociology of these young people.

Reposted again to bring TYWKIWDBI readers up to date on some of the comments, including a rather sad one last night.  And btw, this post comes up on the front page of a Google search for "how to break your wrist," so keep in mind that any comment you offer may be read by untold numbers of young people.

Worst basketball player ever?

YouTube link. 

The Belgian basketball player grabs the rebound from the missed free throw, and apparently momentarily confused about which end of the floor he is at, attempts to make a layup (which would count for the other team).

He misses four times at the undefended basket before his teammates intervene.

p.s. - I have never seen an auditorium floor marked for so many different sports.  Impressive.

Monodread

Found at Bits and Pieces and offered without comment.

Addendum:  A hat tip to reader drabkikker for identifying this hairstyle as a "monodread" (presumably a portmanteau word combining mono- and dreadlock).  Using that term I was able to find other examples on the 'net.)  You learn something every day.

Found this at Dreadygirl:

Dreadlocks, sometimes called simply locks or dreads, are matted ropes of hair which will form by themselves if the hair is allowed to grow naturally without combing. Or intentionally formed using various methods to encourage their formation such as backcombing sections of the hair, twisting or a process involving the weaving of the hair with a crochet hook to form knots.

Although the term 'dreadlock' was originally associated with the Rastafari community, people of various cultures have worn, and continue to wear locks, including the Hindu Shiva worshippers of India, European Celts, various African communities, and the Sufisof Pakistan.

She has an extensive history of dreadlocks.

Nature forges an infant - updated

"Detail of a miniature depicting Nature forging a baby."
Netherlands, S. (Bruges)

Obviously intended to be allegorical, but still somewhat bizarre.

From the British Library's Catalogue of Illustrated Manuscripts, via the ever-interesting Titam et le Sirop d'Érable.

Addendum:  A hat tip to Rob from Amersfoort, who identified the source of this image as the 13th century Roman de la Rose. His note in the Comments includes two links to similar images, including this one...

... which clearly acknowledges the role of a woman and man in the process.  The fire at the back apparently represents nature's forge, with implied connections to the legendary phoenix as well (see Anthropoeccentrism).

Creative dog grooming

Meet Duchess, one of many dogs included in the annual Pet Stylist Super Show in Knoxville, Tenn. The highlight of the event is the Creative Grooming competition, where owners use nontoxic dyes to "design" their pets. Duchess will be transformed into a member of the Queens Court from "Alice in Wonderland."

 

Sami Stanley works on her standard poodle, which has a dragon sculptured on one side and a jumping gold fish on the other. She calls it a Zen poodle.

When i create posts about dog grooming (Aug 2009, Oct 2011), I have to restrain myself from offering disparaging comments.  I am reminded by a variety of readers that these people love their dogs, and the dogs love the attention.

So I'll just post the pix and let the res loquitur for ipse.

There are additional examples of artistically enhanced dogs in a photoessay at ABC News.  Both of the above photos credit Meredith Frost/ABC News, via the always interesting Rue The Day.