High Masculine Tones

Animals getting it on...

"You can have the best sperm in the world, but if you are not interested in inseminating females, it is not going to get delivered," said Anne Perkins, who worked at the sheep station in the early 1990s. She found that 8 to 10 per cent of the rams would shun willing females and try to mount other males.

The gay rams aren't alone. "There is homosexual behaviour throughout the animal kingdom, documented all over the place," ranging from lesbian macaque monkeys in the forests of Japan to gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York, noted Prof. Perkins, who is now chairwoman of the psychology department at Carroll College in Montana.

...and getting high:

The bottom line: animals like to get high – hundreds of animal species, from the ant to the elephant, actively seek out hallucinogenic plants. Samorini is careful to distinguish between accidental intoxication – nature’s equivalent of being spiked – and the deliberate, methodical, at times even aggressive search for psychedelic satisfaction. This somewhat startling fact raises vital questions, not least that of animal consciousness.

If even an ant can tell the difference between being straight and high, in this instance by sucking secretions from the abdomen of a lomechusa beetle, what does this tell us about the consciousness of something like a mandrill, which munches the intensely potent iboga root, then waits up to two hours for the effects to kick in before engaging in territorial battle with another mandrill? Equally fascinating is the fact that many animals appear to use psychedelics recreationally – and that not all individuals of a particular species will indulge, just as some humans are more partial to tripping out than others. One in the eye for the stark behaviourists, it would seem.

Much gratitude to my morning paper alerting me to a significant holiday:

It may seem like just another Tuesday, but today -- called 4:20 by those in the know -- is a high holy day for North America's dedicated pot smokers.

"It's Pothead New Year's. That's what I like to call it, anyway," said Abi Roach of Roach-O-Rama, a store in Toronto's Kensington Market area that caters to marijuana users.

It's also a time for political activism. The spirit of the annual commemoration is "everybody unite and show your true colours, come out of your grow closets and let everybody know that you smoke and not to be embarrassed of it," said Ms. Roach, a pseudonym she has adopted to protect herself and her family from harassment.

Like other Canadian journalists, the reporter clearly likes reefers of the big fatty variety:

The federal government is considering a bill that would decriminalize the possession of 15 grams or less -- about 15 to 20 joints - making the offence punishable by a fine of $150 for an adult or $100 for a youth.

The background on the significance of 4:20, though, is ditchweed at best:

Some say it is the number of a police call used in California during the 1960s.

But "the most believable [explanation] that I've heard is that three guys that went to university in California would meet up at 4:20 for a joint between classes and that started a trend," Ms. Roach said.

Far more potent is a riff by V. Sirin on the many uncanny aspects of the three-digit sequence: Quoting Salman Rushdie in Midnight's Children , "420 has been, since time immemorial, the number associated with fraud, deception, and trickery." 4:20a time of departure for Mark Twain and Vladimir Nabokov...

Note: In the course of revising this posting, I was honoured to learn that this site ranks #1 on a Google search on "masculine reefers".

He stalks the land, wielding power with natural ease, authority unquestioned. Infallibility assured. Evidence in reported word and deed. Proof of potency performed by proxy in exotic locales.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, incomprehensible acts proclaim their own irresistible force. Ineptitude is simultaneously real and s(t)imulated. Breakdowns serve a purpose. They confuse the ignorant, occupy the indignant, and amuse the indifferent. They validate the spectacle and tempt disloyal subjects to reveal themselves. They rouse the faithful to displays of fealty.

A show of strength is an affirmation and pre-empts incursion. Gather the spoils, leave the messes to the masses. And everyone will want to be your friend.

There is no happy time to be weak, but none worse than when the strong know they cannot be stopped.

Who do They think They are? They don't care what We think. They're not even bothering to hide it anymore.

Signed, The Renaissance Kid

"Bush is well on his way to causing the great cataclysm that will mean the end for humanity and the return of the Old Ones," said Cthulhu at a hastily arranged press conference. "What can I say? I have run my last two elections on the 'destruction of mankind' theme, but now the GOP owns the issue."

:: Cthulhu Decides Against Presidential Bid via Infocult

Photo reportage at high speed through the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster area. Alternately provocative, trenchant, amusing and depressing.

A simple use of html and digital images that hits more powerfully than scores of more complex and tangled web presentations.

Via notes from somewhere bizarre.