“While many conservative leaders have voiced their support for Herman Cain, his abrupt shift from blaming the news media and the liberal left to suggesting that one of his rivals was plotting against him could cause a new divide in the Republican Party.” Waiting for Cain’s apology to liberals, heh.
To commemorate the first full-featured blog post I have written in many an age, I have chosen tuxedo cat Baxter as my topic. Of the felines who allow M and I to serve them, Baxter is first among equals. Indeed, as the image below indicates, he is truly Top Cat:
Stylin’! And appropriate, because Baxter is indeed the gray and white eminence of our little cat kingdom. He is very much a status quo kitty and likes everything to be just so. He shares this trait with another benevolent dictator, the legendary Fat Controller of the railway lines on the mythical island of Sodor in the Thomas the Tank Engine stories, one Sir Topham Hatt. Both cat and Hatt hold order and usefulness to be the highest qualities, and both abjure confusion and delay. In chaotic household situations (which occur often, sadly), it is common for M or I to observe that “Sir Topham Catt was cross.”
So, yes, we think of Baxter as being our own Sir Topham Catt, feline controller. He doesn’t seem to mind.
In the ‘things that make you go hmmm…‘ department: How the sperm whale got its name, and other facts about the sea mammal that inspired Moby Dick.
“Taken as a whole the recent onslaught of zombie fiction is wearying. There’s a certain monotony built into the genre: in too many of these tales, the flesh-chompers advance, are repelled, advance again and are repelled again, more or less ad infinitum.”
Penny Red says: “The violence on the streets is being dismissed as ‘pure criminality,’ as the work of a ‘violent minority,’ as ‘opportunism.’ This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it.” (H/T @sdkstl)
M and I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox this weekend (we make a habit of trailing well behind the greater portion of the movie-going public). We enjoyed the film immensely. Not bad for a flick that is essentially a public service announcement on the devastating consequences – to self, family, and society – of the male midlife crisis. The titular fox doesn’t buy a red sports car or commit adultery. He does, however, steal chickens, which is somewhat less stereotypical and much more entertaining.