vendetta against cotton balls

My brother once gave me the tip that his cat loved to ruthlessly assault any cotton balls placed in his vicinity.

For that reason, I bought a large bag of them as soon as I adopted Tamanya. But she had no idea what to do with them; just stood there staring at them.

It’s quite different now. I put one on the floor next to her tonight, and she went bezerk, annihilating it with a cruelly slow pace over a 20-minute period. It must remind her of the collective unconscious archetype of mice.

She’s incredibly awkward about it, though, and that makes it funny to watch.

diesel fuel shortage

A diesel fuel shortage has hit Egypt. There are long lines of trucks waiting for diesel everywhere.

I’ve heard nothing about this affecting university bus service, but the city of Cairo is highly truck-dependent for delivery of all goods, and there is talk that even the bakeries will be hobbled soon if the situation does not improve.

There seems to be no general agreement on the reasons for the shortage, despite much speculation.

anti-biting

This kitten bites way too much. It can be stopped with a particular neck massage, discovered by trial and error, that knocks her out as if it were opium. Highly effective in calming this sometimes wildcat.

Another method is what I call “The Tower of London.” If she starts going too crazy, I just lift her over my head in both hands and look at her for 10 or so seconds before bringing her back down. Whether it calms her or simply shames her, it usually improves behavior for a little while.

Strauss-Kahn denied bail

This seems to me like THE RIGHT DECISION by the judge. He had already boarded a flight, it would be extremely difficult to have him re-extradited from France given who he is, and we now hear that he may have done this sort of thing before. The article mentions Polanski, and that is probably the specter in the minds of the New York justice system at the moment and is going to mean that he doesn’t see the outside of jail until the trial is complete.

In other words, Strauss-Kahn will be in jail for at least a year even if he is found not guilty. The evidence must also be pretty compelling for them to take this step.

I’ve been reading several French newspaper reader blogs to gauge the French reaction to the case, and I’ve been surprised to see so many readers saying the same positive thing: “You can say what you like about the American judicial system, but at least it treats the big people and the small people the same way.” That’s not always true of course, but perhaps it’s more true in the U.S. than in France for some reason; I don’t know. Certainly it’s more true in the U.S. than in Egypt.

More generally, I’ve been enjoying the French explanations to their readers of how the U.S. judicial system works. Everything I’ve seen so far has been accurate and unsurprising, but it’s fun to read about one’s own standard system described as if in anthropological terms.

best sentence opening in the history of philosophy

“And now, vile populace…”

-Giordano Bruno

Better yet, it occurs in a poem.

Not a bad idea for a philosophy theme conference. Every paper must include the phrase “And now, vile populace…” in a way that makes sense in the overall context of the paper.

sad sight yesterday

A black kitten of exactly Tamanya’s original size, dead on the sidewalk. The margin of survival for these street kittens is extremely precarious.

Ahmed Ezz (finally) loses chairmanship of steel company

I’m surprised it took this long.

Every one of these pre-Revolutionary big shots seems to bring out a different mood in the Egyptian public. Habib Al Adly brings out the enraged side of the populace, with people generally screaming for his head. But Ahmed Ezz always seems to bring out a poetic side: I’ve noticed that most statements about him seem to have a certain metaphorical suppleness not found in remarks about Al Adly or the Mubaraks.

Consider the final sentence of this passage:

“The steel magnate Ezz faces charges of illegal profiteering and the misuse of public funds, along with dozens of businessmen and officials considered to be close to the ousted regime. He represents the marriage of wealth, party politics and undue power.”

For some reason, statements about Ezz always slip into that mode of metaphorical reflection and life lessons drawn. They almost always make for good reading.

another French translation

The exact details might not be publicized for a couple of months, but another of my books is headed for French translation, it was decided today. The translator is already chosen; there are just some legal issues to hammer out before the book and publisher will be announced. But it’s a very good publisher.

Circus Philosophicus in Austria

A new Circus Philosophicus myth has been commissioned for an art show catalog for Austria this summer. It’ll appear in German, but I suppose they won’t mind if I post the English version somewhere.

The requested theme: outer space, which will be one of the themes of this show by a prominent artist.

Lovecraft on the Republicans

His late-period view of the Republican Party is always good for a laugh. It would be fun to have political speeches of this sort, at any rate. (A big hat tip to Joseph Goodson, who found the image below.)

“As for the Republicans– how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license, or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”