R. Eric VanNewkirk

@sotsogm.bsky.social

2237 Followers 1310 Following

Nerd. Neurotic. Retired public defender. I'm sure these three things have nary a thing to do with one another.

Steps for avoiding exposure Some steps can be taken to help reduce one’s risk of exposure to the bacteria that causes leprosy. Here’s what the CDC recommends: Avoid touching or holding armadillos Do not hunt or eat armadillos Place repellents or traps in yards to limit risk of exposure Wear gloves and long sleeves when working in soil where they dig Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after working outdoors to remove bacteria from hands If soap and water are unavailable, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to neutralize the bacteria
In the early 1990s, Wallace dated writer Mary Karr. In 2012, Karr described his earlier behavior toward her as obsessive and volatile, alleging that he once threw a coffee table at her and once physically forced her out of a car, leaving her to walk home.[54][55] In 2018, Karr said that the account of Wallace's alleged abuse in D.T. Max's biography of him was "about 2% of what happened"; she claimed that Wallace had kicked her, climbed up the side of her house at night, followed her five-year-old son home from school, and attempted to buy a gun to kill her ex-husband.[56][57][58] In 2015, Karr said that Wallace was violent toward other women he dated,[59] and in 2018, she said that several women, including former students of Wallace, contacted her to share their alleged physical and emotional abuse by Wallace.[57]
Book cover for Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury shows a stylized small town setting in winter over which is superimposed a bottle of yellow liquid through which we see the village in summer.
Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley shake hands at the White House. Decades later, Donald J. Trump would combine the waning celebrity of '70s Elvis with the felonious impulses of Nixon to create a kind of disgusting Reese's Cup in which the chocolate and peanut butter were replaced by two different kinds of fecal matter.
Film poster for Tamala 2010: a punk cat in space
Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Richard Wright ca. 1971
Rover, a giant white sphere, stands guard over No. 6 (Patrick McGoohan) on a beach.
Promo poster for Ripley on Netflix.
Luke Skywalker looks at two suns setting over his family farm while John Williams' perfect score swells with yearning.
Mr. Bond in a hammock chair sleeping off four bottles of Red Stripe on the set of Dr. No (1962).
Alain Delon, Marianne Faithful, and some guy in a band.
Alain Delon murdering the viewer and Philippe (a.k.a. Dickie) Greenleaf in Purple Noon, a 1960 film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Screenshot from The Bulwark's feed, because I'd rather not give them traffic: "The vibes may be exciting, but if Democrats are going to win this year and in 2028, they must reject the DSA. "If you’re tempted by a democratic socialist this year, think of what use Republicans will make of these victories, and ask whether you want to do favors for fascists."
Lois Lane ponders love while sitting next to a photograph of noseless Superman. How does noseless Superman smell? Like Clark Kent!
A noseless Clark Kent wonders why Lois is upset. It may be your nose, Clark, she may be worried about your lack of a nose. How does Clark Kent smell without a nose? Super-terrible!
Cover of The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith; a black and white sketch of an Italian coastal town is tinted with orange to white ombré shading top up bottom.
A group of hairy college students attempting to order a pizza with Larry's brand new iPhone.
Big Mouth Southern Smokehouse Burger – $14.99 The charred black bones of the farmhouse coughed and hissed and exhaled into the early morning fog, ghosts of smoke swirling whitehot against the sun, contrast in defiance of God ordained. The sheriff rested his head on his hand and dug his foot into the soft patter of ash where all that had been lie transformed in heavenly splendor to witness the Holy wrath of all that this house had contained. Generations of violent echoes reverberated in these halls, tearing asunder those wretched institutions, consumed entire in final resolute compliance with the rich matrix which seeks to reckon all forces into balance.
Gil Gunderson from The Simpsons: a panicked man with purple pants, a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, and a loose necktie.
To add injury to insult, Furnari recently broke his foot working on the statue, after tripping over a roll of tape in his studio. “Is it cursed? Maybe. I don’t know,” he told the Guardian.
Theatrical release poster for Stop Making Sense.
Spalding Gray (a worried looking man in a red and green plaid short sleeve shirt) sits at a desk with a notebook, microphone, and glass of water and talks about the American bombing of Cambodia, having a small role in The Killing Fields, and the meaning of life.
Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie. He's in a tacky blue plaid suit with yellow collars and a polka dot cravat holding a chunk of Kryptonite on a chain. This movie tried to warn us about real estate developers with utterly gauche tastes trying to take over the world by blowing up parts of it, and did we heed the warning? No. No, we did not.
Calvin and Hobbes strip in which Calvin's Dad explains how they calculate weight limits on bridges.
Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in a tux, playing cards and smoking a cigarette.
Once, a courier in France named Maureen O’Sullivan, while she was moving the radio to a new location on her bicycle, was standing at an intersection when a Gestapo agent leaned out of the window of a nearby car, gestured at the weekend suitcase leashed to her bicycle, and demanded to know what was in it. She gave him a dazzling smile and replied, “I’ve got a radio transmitter and I’m going to contact London and tell them all about you.” He scolded her for joking—“You’re far too pretty to risk your neck with such stupidities”—and went on his way.
The agent’s method should not be to drill her informants with questions about sensitive topics—how gauche, how obvious—but rather to encourage “careless talk.” Trifling gossip over cups of café national, the famously terrible rationed coffee of Occupied France. If she wants to know something specific, but doesn’t want people to notice her asking questions, she should simply make incorrect statements while in the company of experts. Her companions will correct her, especially if they’re men.
Significant changes Star Wars Title and opening chase The franchise-originating film was released in 1977, under the title Star Wars. The subtitle Episode IV – A New Hope was retroactively added to the opening crawl for the theatrical re-release on April 10, 1981,[21][42] to align with the titling of the sequel, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980).[20] Additionally, the background starfield was changed to the one used in The Empire Strikes Back, "Rebel" was capitalized in the crawl, and the opening chase was recomposited, with a new visual effect for the engines.[14]
Stock image of an anthropomorphized roll of cash: the rolled up greenbacks has big Mickey Mouse eyes, arms and hands with four-fingered Mickey Mouse gloves, legs and feet wearing brightly colored sneakers (white, yellow orange), and smiles winsomely at the viewer. Yes, he'll go dancing on the backs of the bruised with you.
The New Colossus By Emma Lazarus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The combined treatments left the President unable to keep much liquid and food down, which is when the good doctor began looking around for other access points for sustenance. He was about to start shoving food into a sitting President's anus.
Ross Geller on the classic sitcom Friends, with the caption "We were on a break," a catchphrase frequently used by the character.
That’s the thing nobody tells you about these long fights. The arc doesn’t move in a straight line. The Boy Scouts changed, not because any court told them to, but because people came to understand how wrong it was to exclude a kid for who he was. That understanding built slowly, over the years, because people like you refused to disappear. Someday, I believe, America will understand with the same clarity why excluding transgender kids is wrong. When that day comes, it will be because of what you built. The record you made. The five years you actually competed and showed everyone watching that the sky did not fall. Today’s ruling will never erase that.
As we mark, this year, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to see that its meaning is dynamic. And that meaning, as we understand it, flows less from the men who signed it than from those who heard its words and took ownership of them as a standard for their freedom and independence — not from Britain, but from bondage.
Film poster for Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person depicts half of a girl vampire's face, blood dripping from the edge of her mouth.
Via Wikipedia: a plate from Cesare Lombroso's "Criminal Man" (1878), his text on criminology in which he argues birth is destiny and natural criminals can be identified by body measurements, especially measurements of facial features. Needless to say, this was all bullshit, though bullshit grounded in a lot of scientific concepts popular at the time ("pseudoscience" is a label that is accurate--this is all based on prejudice and shoddy methodology--and misleading--much of the scientific community did, unfortunately, buy into this in whole or part). It took more than half a century to discredit, and elements of it endure into the present in the nonsense of racists like Charles Murray and his "just asking questions" supporters. Ironically, Lombroso's work did have one positive effect, by encouraging law enforcement agents to keep better records--eventually including mugshots--of suspects.
Abraham Lincoln appears on the Enterprise viewscreen to request additional quantities of Space Lincoln.
Brothers Hildebrandt Star Wars poster.
A protoplasmic mess of goo and eyeballs. Lovecraft actually placed his shoggoths in Antarctica, a creation of the alien Elder Things and not of the Mi-go, who have a colony on Pluto, which they call Yuggoth, but whatever. He wasn't actually all that consistent about it. Art credit: A Shoggoth. Nottsuo's artwork inspired by H .P. Lovecraft's short novel At the Mountains of Madness. Nottsuo - nottsuo.deviantart - www.pixiv.net - twitter.com/nottsuo via Wikipedia
The Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) via Wikipedia
We are witnessing MAGA equivalent of destruction of Democratic Party through election of progressive Socialists. If you think this ends well for country, I believe you're sadly mistaken. Extremism on one side simply fuels opposite growth on other side. We need moderates.
When Elon Musk, who raised some three hundred million dollars for Trump’s campaign, blasts the President over his budget bill, Trump says, “They always leave me. They always do this. This is why I can’t have friends.” He instructs Harp to bring him his phone. He calls Musk twice. Both times, he gets voice mail.
LBGTQ+ IDIC symbol, original artist unknown.
Spider-Man with a thought bubble that says, "What a yo-yo!"
Film poster for Shaft (1971).
Promo poster for Netflix's The Abandons.
The Devil, in a 3-piece suit, looking suspiciously like Al Pacino. There's flames behind him. Because he's The Devil, duh. And he's yelling. Like Al Pacino would if you cast him as The Devil or anybody else in a movie made, I dunno, any time after 1990? Anybody else around here remember when Al Pacino used to be good? Man. He used to be great. These days? Enh, not so much. Not sure what happened there. A lot of those guys from his generation phone it in or eat scenery, but at least Nicholson and De Niro sometimes remember to dial it back. Not Al Pacino. These days, Al Pacino acts like he's afraid you'll forget he's acting. Not sure why I'm talking so much about Al Pacino, though--this is a photograph of The Devil. Old Scratch. Lucifer. Satan. The Prince of Hell. You know.
Rick Deckard confronts the central mystery of his life.
Theatrical poster for the 1967 classic In a the Heat of the Night, in which a homicide detective (played by Sidney Poitier) gets pulled into helping a small Southern town police chief (played by Rod Steiger) solve a murder after being taken for a suspect by one of the chief's racist subordinates.
The main cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The British tradition of eating fish battered and fried in oil was introduced to the country by the Chuts and Spanish and Portuguese Jews who lived in the Netherlands before settling in the UK. These immigrants arrived as early as the 16th century, the main immigration to London being during the 1 850s.[2] [5] [61 [7] They prepared fried fish in a manner similar to pescado frito, which is coated in flour then fried in oil.[71 Fish fried for Shabbat for dinner on Friday evenings could be eaten cold the following afternoon for shalosh seudot, palatable this way as olive oil was used rather than a hard fat such as butter.
The cover of Mercer Mayer's adaptation of East of the Sun and West of the Moon (my first exposure to the story and still my personal fave) depicts the heroine in the hand of the North Wind (anthropomorphized as an enormous grey-bearded man), being carried high over the mountains to a place where she will find no warm welcome there.
The Third Doctor, dressed sort of like Dracula, gives his companion Jo a ride in Bessie, the canary yellow vintage Edwardian roadster the Time Lords gave him for budgetary reasons when they exiled him to Earth also for budgetary reasons.
The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? The Dude: Dude. The Big Lebowski: Huh? The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir. The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man? The Dude: Hmmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.
Vermithrax Pejorative airborne against a dramatically cloudy backdrop, doing something fun with fire to an elderly earthbound wizard.
Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition softcover from Chaosium. Cover illustration shows two hapless and doomed investigators framed in a massive stone aperture having come face-to-giant-eye with something that is no longer dead and dreaming.
Hobbes, an orange cartoon tiger, pounces.
The divine Rita Moreno dressed as a dairy delivery person shouting her catchphrase on the show: "HEY YOU GUUUUUUUUYS!"
Kevin Kline as Otto in A Fish Called Wanda, pointing a gun at someone off-camera and insisting the Vietnam War was a tie.