Hmm... L or R

No wonder the left and the right are so merciless with one another in the political arena: it is but a reflection of a much more profound conflict that is going on... An inner conflict. One that lays waste to billions of our brain cells each decade that goes by, as that is exactly its battleground of choice and by predilection: inside our craniums' gray matter... Gray or colourful (which doesn't mean to say ''gray or gay'' - at all. Don't let the picture below influence you into seeing that certain rainbow's colours where they aren't all there at all...!) those are the two camps, the two trains of thought, the two tangents. And only one can totally prevail, although we oscillate between the two camps, sometimes leaning towards one, at other times espousing the aspects of the other. So, which one are you - like, most of the time?

Catalyzing Change

Liked · eons ago, on FB, of course...

We are ALL left brain and right brain. We switch on and off... back and forth. 

“I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.”

“I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feat. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.”


Hmm... We switch, back and forth, do we now? Really? 

Maybe one can indeed find a scientist that is also a passionate free spirit out there...? Not according to Burton Cummings though - Burton being one among many, many others who have the diametrically opposite opinion abut this possibility and he expressed it when he composed one of his best songs ever (and, paradoxically enough, one of his least-known gems) and titled it ''Boring Dreams.'' The song's chorus clearly repeats that he ''knew a man who a slave to science, and his dreams were boring!'' Case pretty much closed there...

One can imagine that there might be a living paradox that combines ''boundless imagination'' with cold analytical, strategic, practical logic. Such a being would be a demi-god though: and there are no such things as demi-gods.

Oh - right, right. And take a left turn then! We are all Jekylls and Hydes (note that I use those names and not copycats Banner and Bulk there! Interesting if not all-that-important sidetrack... Carry on now...) and we are, one day or for a while anyhow, calculating and ''always in control'' until the next moment when we perform some kind of switcharoo internally and we then become either touchy-feely, sensual-creative or a sensitive yearning poor bastard in living colour...?!? Right. Er... or left. I don't know anymore! Ever heard of TNT For The Brain, people?!?  (Enigma fans have, that is for sure!) Well, this here would then be something akin to PMS For The Brain! What a drain! 

So then, we're all schizo, at a very basic level... Cool. Or Hot?  Lukewarm - at best.
Choose your side for the next few minutes then - now!!! 

And then... SWITCH!
Or flip a coin...!

Hmm... THIS Is Award-Winning Material?

Now, before we get to it - DON'T BE LIKE THE CROCS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC!
DON'T GO FOR MY THROAT!
My intent is to critique, to indulge here in an objective review of the entertaining and educational (not to mention morally acceptable) value of said material, as also in the advent of objective and 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. 
Aye, everything I will momentarily do here is completely in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 - read it and weep!
(For more information, why don't you just go there already, hmm?)
Thus, as this practice is entirely covered by the FAIR USE law cited above, there is nor reprisal possible, pals! I fear no one anyways...

So now that THAT is clear - let us proceed and show the damn thing already!

National Geographic

Liked · eons ago 

A wildebeest tussles with a crocodile 

in an epic submission to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.  
National Geographic itself omitted to credit the "epic submission" 
to its rightful submitter and owner, though...  
All rights of this picture go to him or her - 
whoever you are, out there, in the wild wild web...

Don't forget to submit your best before the contest ends 

Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. EST: http://on.natgeo.com/NceRiy

Well, the deadline came and went - and I didn't submit anything.
I simply wouldn't. Because to be part of a contest that values untamed savagery, albeit all part of natural behaviour and the all-important survival instinct, is simply not for me.

Whatever happened to gorgeous (if not "epic") shots of animals and their offspring, be it the lions' pride or a mother deer and its child, in their natural habitat but without any of the anguish and intensity that that ol' surviving thing brings, every single day of the poor creatures' existence?

All those videos on sites such as YouTube that thrive on showing the most crunching, crushing and all-around revolting details of the wildlife going at it on a daily basis - all that is, largely, inspired by National Geographic. Of course, NG will flaunt that they do it with a professional flair and veneer that is neither crude nor tasteless - but not seeing the lion's blood-stained mug after a kill is really all that they will leave out of their material.  Avoiding to linger on too long as the jackals, hyenas or wild dogs feast on their prey is in good taste; however, ever since childhood, I wondered if it was ethical for a camera crew to watch on and simply record the events for a bunch of voyeuristic cowards, be them zoology students or simple curious laymen, without interfering one iota...

Sure, it is the LAW OF NATURE, and man should NEVER interfere...
Never? Really?
Not even when it is a God-damn baboon killing and eating a baby before its own mother's eyes? If it was a human baby, we'd interfere without hesitation - and blow that baboon to smithereens! But if it is a baby impala, baby wildebeest or whatever else on four legs - we invoke the LAW OF NATURE...

And we take pictures.
And make videos - to upload them to YT.

I still find it utterly repugnant, sick and devoid of nay sense. They say a picture is worth a thousand words: but, quite frankly, some pictures we simply do not need.  We know what wild animals are like, we can imagine what predators do to their prey - we need not graphic evidence of the carnage that goes on, on a regular basis, in this cruel world of ours. Those who enjoy it, indulge in it and create the demand for these materials are deranged blood-thirsty psychos-to-be, in my book.  And anyone enjoying seeing an animal die, being eaten alive, suffer for any length of time - well, any individual of this sort has got to be suspected capable of the worst, himself. Or herself.

What is so wrong about interfering, when we can - allowing the prey to escape, just once, live another day... And leave some bananas for the damn baboons, for example. Or hot dogs for the lions, hyenas, jackals, wild dogs, tigers... Me, I'd just shoot the baboons full of holes anyway (it is not as they are en endangered species like the tigers, for example) - but that is another story...

Following here is but a short, very short, collection of the sickest examples of this that can be found nowadays on YouTube indeed: let it be made clear, also, that we do not condone any of it - it is here only to prove a point... The fact is, we condemn all the reprehensible things done or allowed to happen in this video, as pets are subjected to cruelty, other animals are fed to what some would have as "pets", yet others allow their pets to get back in touch with their natural instincts and attack innocent wildlife... And then there is the NG syndrome: the amateurs videotaping something totally abominable and not doing anything, just for the sake of capturing that special brand of "raw footage"...

We condemn all of it - and solely input the blame upon the shoulders of National Geographic, for they can never deny, it is their style that they created, after all...

No folks -
this is not "art"
and it isn't science either -

it is only REPREHENSIBLE!

And anyone accomplice to that
should burn in hell one day -
when there is a hell to burn in, that is!

Sempre Por O Melhor
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