Archive for May, 2008

24 items.

Bad Manners #1

by Seraphine Khorana on May 30th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Bad Manners #1

I hate when people don’t cover their face. They cough,
wheeze, sneeze without the slightest embarrassment.

Serotica: Sneezing as an Erotic Fetish (sneeze.dreamhosters.com)
Self-Care Chart for a Cough (familydoctor.org)

“In earlier times, it was believed that when you sneezed
you opened yourself, or your soul, to the outside world.
It was an unnatural and certainly a bizarre happening, and
clearly portended evil… It was thought that your soul might
escape, or demons and evil spirits might get in, or even
that they may have caused the sneeze in the first place.”
Quotation by Tom Wilson, MD, Mad Scientist Network

“People with the same sickness sympathize with one another.”
-Chinese proverb.

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The Body Humor

by Seraphine Khorana on May 29th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Body Humor

Taste your blood, if you dare, but beware:
Blood sugar is not a measure of how sweet you are.

The Contribution of Albucasis in Venesection (History of Islamic Medicine) (pdf)
The use of the medicinal leech in reconstructive plastic surgery (Journal of Plastic Surgery) (Warning: Graphic Images)

“In case you failed to notice,
in case you failed to see,
this is my heart, bleeding before you,
this is me down on my knees.”
Song Lyric by Jewel, Foolish Games

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Shipwrecked: O Captain! My Captain!

by Seraphine Khorana on May 28th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Shipwrecked: O Captain! My Captain!

China is on the verge of surpassing Germany as
the world’s third-largest economy. Meanwhile, the
United States is stuck on the sand because of
mismanagement by government and financial leaders.

China’s push praised and censured in Mauritius (International Herald Tribune)
Clinton could face uneasy return to Senate (International Herald Tribune)

“For what is happening is a huge shift of
economic gravity from West to East. Or,
if you take the extremely long view, a return
to global balance of 200 years ago, when
China and India between them accounted
for roughly half of the world’s economic activity.”
Quoted from Jonathan Gregson,
The Elephant and the Dragon (Global Finance)

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This is you one day. Get used to it.

by Seraphine Khorana on May 27th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
This is you one day. Get used to it.

Last year, somebody found a used toothbrush in
Paris Hilton’s trash and sold it on eBay for $305.00.
Remember, when you share someone’s toothbrush,
you’re brushing with everyone they’ve slept with too!

Bidding War for Paris Hilton’s Garbage (Washington Post)

“A bunch of germs were whooping it up in the Bronchial Saloon.
The bacillus handling the larynx was jazzing a gag-time tune,
While back of the tongue in a solo game sat Dangerous Ah Kerchoo.
And watching his luck was his light of love, the malady known as Flu.”
Quoted from Cal Beacock, The Pundit (Reader’s Digest)

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Selachophobia: Da-Dum

by Seraphine Khorana on May 25th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Selachophobia: Da-Dum

Selachophobia, or the fear of sharks, was rare
before the movie Jaws. Luckily, one has a
60% chance of survival in a shark attack.

“What we are dealing with here is the perfect engine, uh, an
eating machine. It’d really a miracle of evolution. All this machine
does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.”
Spoken by Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), Jaws

“Well he came down to earth and he lit in a tree
I said Mr. Purple People Eater, don’t eat me
I heard him say in a voice so gruff
I wouldn’t eat you cuz you’re so tough”
Song by Sheb Wooley, The Purple People Eater

‘Miracle’ Marine Refused to Surrender Will to Live (By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer)

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She’d be prettier if she wore contacts.

by Seraphine Khorana on May 23rd, 2008
Posted In: Comics
She’d be prettier if she wore contacts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1967 (Loving vrs. Virginia) that
anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. At that time,
38 states had laws prohibiting non-whites from marrying whites.

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and
red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
-Judge Leon Bazile, Caroline County (Virginia) sentencing Richard Loving
and Mildred Jeter Loving to one year in jail for being married (1959)

“There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely
because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal
protection clause” of the 14th Amendment. No state antimiscegenation
law will be able to stand in view of that unqualified, uncompromising finding.”
-Mr. Chief Justice Earl Warren, United States Supreme Court (1967)

Interracial Dating and Marriage (Asian-Nation.org)
California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban (Los Angeles Times)

“I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
Quotation from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

“Is it a sin, is it a crime
Loving you dear like I do
If it’s a crime, then, I’m guilty
Guilty of loving you.”
Lyric by Billie Holiday, Guilty

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The Happy Medium

by Seraphine Khorana on May 22nd, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Happy Medium

Everything is good. But we stopped going places.
We spend less time together.
There’s water on the lake, but barely a ripple.

A Passionate Spell (thelovespells.com)

“When will she be leaving her room,
Where the night still hangs like a half-folded bat,
And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness”
Verse from D.H. Lawrence, Two Fold

“What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person.
Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most
of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body
and the spirit seek expression outside of self… It reminds
us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead
and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.”
Quotation from John Boorman, Projections

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The Time Octopus

by Seraphine Khorana on May 21st, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Time Octopus

Time is all we have. It’s a precious gift, wrapping it’s
suctioned arms around us. We don’t have eternity,
only our time together. When the octopus lets go,
the ocean is empty, and inhabited by strangers.

Traveling Through Time by Clifford Pickover (pbs.org)

“Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day”
Verse by W.B. Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds

“Claiming nothing, not claiming anything, not a claim in everything,
collecting claiming, all this makes a harmony, it even makes a succession.
Sincerely gracious one morning, sincerely graciously trembling,
sincere in gracious eloping, all this makes a furnace and a blanket.
All this shows quantity. Like an eye,
not so much more, not any searching, no compliments.”
Quotation from Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons

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Overflow Error: Scaling the Application

by Seraphine Khorana on May 20th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Overflow Error: Scaling the Application

What do you trust more: Your mind or your heart?
Everyone says to “follow your heart” as if it’s more
reliable than the mind. But doesn’t the heart play
tricks on us, just like the mind does? What’s reliable?

What is an Overflow Error? (webopedia.com)

“A kind heart he hath.
A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart.”
Quotation from William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

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An Overfertilized Mind

by Seraphine Khorana on May 19th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
An Overfertilized Mind

I have an overactive mind. It has priorities,
though they aren’t necessarily my priorities.
For instance, my mind worries when I should sleep.
I should be grateful. My mind is who I am.
I’d rather lose a leg than lose my mind.

About Alzheimers Disease (www.alz.org)
About Bipolar Disorder (National Institutes of Health)
About Carousels (International Museum of Carousel Art)

“In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights,
the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the
buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight,
those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has
a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting
vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray
that your griefs may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.”
Quotation from Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Haunted Mind

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The Mental Diet

by Seraphine Khorana on May 18th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Mental Diet

I wonder if holding a thought is like holding your breath-
If you try too hard, you’ll eventually pass out.
Sometimes though, the mind needs a little vacation.

“Turn on, tune in, drop out”
From a speech by Timothy Leary promoting LSD use.

Definition of the word “Vegetate” (Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary)

“She scatters
the lotuses of her eyes
up the street,
waiting for you to come,
resting her breasts on the gate
like a pair of lucky pots.”
Poem by Hla Stavhana

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Thought Control vrs. The Runaway Mind

by Seraphine Khorana on May 16th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Thought Control vrs. The Runaway Mind

We say stupid things. Judgment runs away from us.
In a flash of adrenalin, all considered thought scurries,
leaving us to wonder: “Could I have handled that better?”

“It’s not like I cry all the time, but when the frustration peaks
& I’ve reached my limit, the tears just come. It is embarrassing
& I feel like such a failure for not being able to hold it in.”
Comment from Passionate_One

“My way is to seize an image that moment it has formed in my mind,
to trap it as a bird and to pin it at once to canvas. Afterward I start
to tame it, to master it. I bring it under control and I develop it.”
Quotation from Joan Mira

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Mind Expansion

by Seraphine Khorana on May 15th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Mind Expansion

Some people have quick minds. Others
exercise their minds to stay sharp.
A few run away with their imagination
and are never heard from again.

Mensa Workout (Mensa International)
Neuroeconomic Mind Games (The New Yorker)

“The Brain is wider than the sky
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain
With ease- and you- beside”
Poem by Emily Dickinson, The Brain is Wider than the Sky

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery,
always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud.”
Quotation from Virginia Woolf

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Little Miss Muffet Searched for a Tuffet

by Seraphine Khorana on May 14th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Little Miss Muffet Searched for a Tuffet

Little Miss Muffet learned to be a Warrior Princess
crossing wooden swords with neighbor boys,
but nothing fully prepared her for
meeting Tonto in the on-line chat room.

Safety on the Internet: A Guide for Teens (youngwomenshealth.org)

Buttons: Clowns are funny people, Holly. They only love once.
Holly: All men aren’t like that, even if they act like clowns.
Exchange between James Stewart and Betty Hutton
in the movie, The Greatest Show On Earth

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Destitution as a Career Choice

by Seraphine Khorana on May 12th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Destitution as a Career Choice

It’s no crime to be poor. But persistent poverty
and oppression causes despair and hopelessness.

The United Nations Childrens Fund (unicef.org)
The State of the World’s Children 2007 (unicef.org) (pdf)

“Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave… In
failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.
Quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not,
as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a
set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.
Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied, but written off as trash.
Quotation from John Berger, In Keeping a Rendezvous

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The Family Closet: Mother’s Day

by Seraphine Khorana on May 11th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Family Closet: Mother’s Day

Some people have the greatest relationship with their mother.
Other people don’t. I’m embarrassed by some of the things I
did to my parents as a teenager. Nobody’s perfect. We got
along better as adults. My mother died last year, and I miss her.

The Mother of Mother’s Day: Anna Jarvis (Mother’sDayCelebration.com)

“Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes
who appear once a year on a greeting card with their
virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt
a hand for life and play each card one at a time the
best way they know how. No mother is all good or all
bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry.
Ambivalence rushes through their veins.”
Quotation by Erma Bombeck,
Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.

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Press Leaks

by Seraphine Khorana on May 9th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Press Leaks

Internet advertising is growing over 20% a year. As a result,
newspaper sales are falling. What are people going to put on
the bottom of their bird cages? How are we going to potty train
puppies? Shall we smack them on the nose with an iPod nano?

“[Newspapers] give us the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They
chronicle, with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate, and
with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic
details of the doings of people of absolutely no interest whatsoever.”
Quotation from Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

“Gossip is news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress.”
Quotation by Liz Smith in her newspaper column, American Way

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How Did It Happen?

by Seraphine Khorana on May 8th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
How Did It Happen?

Lack of knowledge is only the second leading
cause of pregnancy. Sexual intercourse is the
leading cause. In case you didn’t know that.

“Some couples seem to get pregnant simply by talking about it.”
The Mayo Clinic

Planned Parenthood (PlannedParenthood.org)
National Organization for Women (NOW.org)
Can Lesbians Get Pregnant? (About.com)
How to Care for a Newborn (How Stuff Works)

“Babies are beautiful, wonderful, exciting, enchanting, extraordinary
little creatures—who grow up into ordinary folk like us.
Quotation from Doris Dyson

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The Motion of the Ocean

by Seraphine Khorana on May 7th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Motion of the Ocean

I had to ride in the front seat. Even then,
my parents had to stop the car so I could
get out. Closing my eyes made it even worse.

Chum: To lure with bait. Origin unknown.
Chum: Intimate friend or companion. Informal.

The Science of Motion Sickness (Science Daily)

“The daughter who is her father’s indulged little princess
may spend the rest of her life stamping her foot when
she doesn’t get her way, or pulling away when a love
affair hits rough waters, or becoming a fair-weather
friend who detaches when a chum asks too much of her.”
Quotation from Victoria Secunda, Women and Their Fathers

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Viscosity – Size Matters

by Seraphine Khorana on May 6th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Viscosity – Size Matters

Size matters. Radius rather than length has the greater
effect on flow. When in doubt, “Go with the flow.”

Poiseuille’s Law (Harvard.edu)

“Men’s desire for a larger penis continues to be experienced later
in life, in spite of achievements or other experiences that one
would expect to have put “manhood” into broader perspective.”
Quotation from UCLA Study, Does Size Matter? (pdf)

“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.”
Quotation by Charles Darwin

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Owner’s Expense

by Seraphine Khorana on May 5th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Owner’s Expense

Never destroy the imagination of another,
for in doing so, you destroy your own.

Women and Gendercide (Christian Science Monitor)
Case Study: “Honour” Killings and Blood Feuds (Gendercide Watch)
“The Whore Lived Like a German” (Der Spiegel)
A Detroit Family Kept a Painful Secret (The Detroit News)

“A wife is property that one acquires by contract,
she is transferable, because possession of her requires title;
in fact, woman is, so to speak, only man’s appendage;
consequently, slice, cut, clip her, you have all rights to her.”
Quotation from Honoré De Balzac, Meditation Number XII, Canel

“About the alleged condition of the property.
Does it have to be intact?”
Quotation from Margaret Forster, Georgy Girl

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Hell Week, Part 6: Kiss of Death

by Seraphine Khorana on May 3rd, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Hell Week, Part 6: Kiss of Death

This completes Hell Week. I hope you enjoyed this series.

Learn How to Kiss (Wikihow.com)
What is the Kiss of Death? (Wikipedia.org)

“The kiss of Judas, I feel the lips on my cheek
The kiss of Judas, hold me once again
unkept promises, the night awaits, the act of confidence.”
Song by Stratovarious, The Kiss Of Judas

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Hell Week, Part 5: Judgement

by Seraphine Khorana on May 2nd, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Hell Week, Part 5: Judgement

I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
It’s my own private hell,
but I’ve decorated it to my satisfaction.

What is a Minced Oath? (phrases.org.uk)

“Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.”
An old Nursery Rhyme (rhymes.org.uk)

Don’t forget tomorrow is A Fashion Show from Hell at 1:00pm SLT at Northland sim.

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Hell Week, Part 4: Unmasking Wrath

by Seraphine Khorana on May 1st, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Hell Week, Part 4: Unmasking Wrath

It’s hard for me to feel anger today, because
every year I send my mother flowers and a fruit
basket for May Day, and she’s not here anymore.

Anger Management: What Are You So Angry About? (Mayo Clinic)
If God Smites, Why Can’t We? (Beliefnet.com)

“Not with wrath do we kill, but with laughter.
Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!”
Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche,
Samtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe

“…Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
Poem by Robert Burns, Tam O’Shanter

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