Protest songs | riviersonderend
WAARSKUWING: hierdie post bevat eksplisiete beskrywings van insekseks.
Hoe verloor ‘n land sy eerste minister? ‘n Mens kan maklik verklaar hoe ‘n land se leier vermoor word. Dit het al in Amerika gebeur. So ook in Suid-Afrika, Swede en sekerlik ook in ‘n paar onbelangrike Afrikalande. Maar hoe verloor ‘n land sy eerste minister? Vra vir Australië. In 1967 het Australië se eerste minister, Harold Holt, langs die see in Victoria gaan stap. Die volgende oomblik is hy die see in, net om nooit weer gesien te word nie. Net so, en ‘n land is sy eerste minister kwyt.
There is an insect order that consists entirely of parasitic insects called, singly and collectively, stylops, which is interesting because of the grotesquerie of its form and its effects. Stylops parasitize divers other insects such as leaf hoppers, ants, bees, and wasps. The female spends her entire life inside the body of her host, with only the tip of her bean-shaped protruding. She is a formless lump, having no wings, legs, eyes, or antennae; her vestigial mouth and anus are tiny, degenerate, and nonfunctional. She absorbs food – her host – through the skin of her abdomen, which is “inflated, white, and soft.”
The sex life of a stylops is equally degenerate. The female has a wide, primitive orifice called a “brood canal” near her vestigial mouth-parts, out in the open air. The male inerts his sperm into the brood canal, from whence it flows into her disorganized body and fertilizes the eggs that are floating freely there. The hatched larvae find their way to the brood canal and emerge into the “outside world.”
The unfortunate insects on which the stylops feed, although they live normal life spans, frequently undergo inexplicable changes. Their colors brighten. The gonads of males and females are “destroyed,” and they not only lose their secondary sexual characteristics, they actually acquire those of the opposite sex. This happens especially to bees, in which the differences between the sexes are pronounced. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Ceek)
10% van die wêreld se spesies is parasitiese insekte. “What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harassing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent? These things are not well enough known.” (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
In die somermaande roei Eskimo’s in hulle kanoe’s op soek na kos. Hulle eet vis, gans- en eendeiers, takbokke en “vars slaai” – blare wat nog nie in die takbok se maag verteer het nie. Die vrouens en kinders vang ook klein voëltjies en ryg dan ‘n draad deur hulle en laat hulle vlieg soos vlieërs met ‘n tou wat aan hulle vasgemaak is. Die verskrikte voëls skree vreeslik en spartel om weg te kom. Dit lok nog voëltjies wat die Eskimo’s dan maklik vang.
At first (Huston) Smith gave me a complicated answer about how the infinite must entail all possibilities, including evil. But then, as if acknowledging the fatuity of all theodicies, Smith told me the story about the minister who comforted a woman in despair simply by clasping her hand and weeping with her. Does God care? Who knows? But we care. Our solace – and salvation, if we can be saved – will come not from God’s compassion but from ours. (John Horgan, Rational Mysticism)
Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love. (Simone Weil)
It’s a strange, strange world we’re living in, Master Jack.
19 Julie 2007 at 23:32
Posted in aanhalings, musiek, spiritualiteit, vreemd
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Georgieboy, waar kom jy aan die goed? Ek dink die insekte kom lig daarvan af as daar net 10% parasitiese gediertes onder hulle is. Hulle moet na die statistiek van Homo Sapiens kom kyk!!
Comment 2: ek is so bly Bertus se susterskind is nie ‘n eskimo nie – Bertussie sal dit nie maak nie;
Comment 3: my volgende Openbare Gesels kom uit jou quote van Huston Smith. Excellent!
20 Julie 2007 at 9:37
Very interesting indeed. As ons ooit moes saam kuier en jy kan sulke random stats en quote het ek aan jou lippe gehang sonder om oe of aa te sE.
20 Julie 2007 at 14:07
Ek moes die waarskuwing wel 2 keer lees om te snap wat staan daar.
20 Julie 2007 at 14:37
Kan van ons politici nie ook maar so die see inloop nie?
Ek dink in 1967 kon mens nog so wegraak en iewers anders ‘n nuwe lewe gaan begin.
21 Julie 2007 at 6:43