I've enjoyed reading Susan Faludi over the years - Stiffed was excellent and, while I found Backlash a bit less convincing, it was still pretty stimulating and well argued. To me, she is one of the best "post-feminist" writers going (and a helluva lot more credible - and readable - than a shrill, if articulate, harpy like Camille Paglia). So it was with keen interest that I read her op-ed piece on Hillary Clinton in the New York Times yesterday.

Again, I don't agree with her thesis entirely, but her argument that Clinton has gained ground among working class white males because she has overcome a number of gender stereotypes (notably through her recent pugnacity) seems to have some merit. It could be that what the powdered faces of MSNBC's talking heads find so distasteful in Clinton is exactly what many American men find appealing about the candidate. The piece is well worth a read.

Tags: media, politburo
humour: thoughtful

So I was sitting at the computer last night - around 2am or so - and heard a loud, rattling thump. My computer sits facing the dining room over a small room divider. There's a door from the dining room onto a small, screened in back porch - and a screen door to the back yard. The noise seemed to have come from outside the porch.

Anyway, it was loud enough to arouse both cats: Toyota had been dozing on the back of my chair and Xerox was under a chair a few feet away. When there was a second thump a few seconds later, both cats started growling, ran to the dining room and began stalking the door to the porch. This was followed by more rattling and banging and what sounded like scratching. I assumed something was trying to get in through the screen door from the yard to the porch - and my first assumption was that it was some other village cat.

But the thumping (against the door?) sounded a bit heavy for a cat, so my next thought was that it might be a raccoon trying to get to the bag of rubbish that was sitting on the porch. Anyway, the noise subsided and, while Toyota remained on a windowsill overlooking the back yard, Xerox wandered back to his place under the chair.

About five minutes later, though, the rattling and scratching started up again - a bit louder. Both cats were back on the scene, growling and fluffing up their tails. Then there were a couple of loud bangs, followed by some clattering and a few more loud thumps. I repaired to the bedroom to let Sean know that I thought a bear might be trying to get to the garbage bag on the back porch. A few years ago, a bear had come into the yard fairly regularly when a large garbage can had been kept outside the house. It would periodically toss the lid aside and tear apart the garbage bag inside, scattering rubbish all over the yard.

I must admit I was a bit spooked - as I suppose we're meant to be by things that go bump in the night - and was a bit goose bumpy by the time I got back to the bedroom to wake Sean.

"What? Why do you think it's a bear? Did you see anything?"

"No, but it sounds too large for a small animal."

"What sounds large?"

"The thumping and rattling. Like bigger than a possum or a fox. It's not a person because Xerox didn't hide [he hides behind the television when people approach the house] - he's right there with Toyota making cat noises at the back door."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know."

"Come to bed, then."

"With a bear or something out there?"

"It can't get in the house, can it?"

"It could if it's a zombie."

"It's not a zombie."

"How do you know?"

"Come to bed."

"I left all the lights and stuff on out there."

"Then go turn them off."

"..."

"Oh, all right."

By the time we got back to the dining room, the noises had subsided, but the cats were still a bit agitated. We turned off the lights and went to bed. "I guess it wasn't a zombie."

"Why?"

"They tend to be more persistent."

This morning, I investigated. The back door to the yard had, indeed, been attacked. In fact, the screen in the top half of the door had been replaced with glass for the winter - and the glass and most of the frame had been knocked into the back porch. The door is up a step, so the top panel is about four feet from the ground. As it turns out, it was a plexiglass panel, but it had been broken into three pieces nevertheless. The frame on the door was also slightly bent.

The weird thing, though, was that there were no scratches on the door (or anything else): the lower panel and frame are aluminum, painted white, and would be easily marked. The scratching I'd heard sounded like something scratching at a screen, but the only screen on the porch at the moment is on the inside door, right outside the dining room. There was one hair on the door frame below the punched out panel - black with a gray tip, slightly wavy, and about three inches long - not very coarse.

For some reason I was reminded of the Pennsylvania Creature that had been spotted in Westmoreland County back in the seventies. It was supposed to be a Marked Hominid, a slightly smaller relative of the Sasquatch. Anyway, night has fallen. We'll see if there's a return visit. Meanwhile, any thoughts?

Poll #1185931
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Was this most likely...

Tags: cat kingdom, nature studies, social and personal
humour: uneasy

It's official: Barry Obama and Jerry Wright are no longer BFFs.

I was really afraid that Obama might throw Rev. Wright under the bus, but no. All he said was that he was "outraged" and "saddened" over the "spectacle" of Wright's "performance" over the past few days, that Wright is "divisive and destructive," that he gives "comfort to those that prey on hate," and that there are now "no excuses" for the all the things Wright said prior to The Greatest Speech Tongue Has Ever Uttered (Obama's facile speech on race a few weeks ago, in case you missed the address that left Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglas, Henry Clay, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Chief Joseph, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Mother Jones, Woodrow Wilson, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Clarence Darrow, Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Earl Warren, Adlai Stevenson, Barbara Jordan, Ronald Reagan, Thurgood Marshall, Bill Clinton, and Elie Weisel choking in St. Obama's dust).

So, no: Obama didn't throw Wright under the bus - he shoved him in front of a fucking subway train - and an express train at that.

But what we should all be asking ourselves is why? Why now? What has Rev. Wright said in the last three days that he hadn't said previously - and perhaps continuously - over the past twenty years? Easy. He's said one new thing - and one new thing only: Barack Obama is a politician. He "says what he has to say as a politician" and "does what politicians do" - or, as Obama paraphrased him, Wright suggested that the senator's "values and beliefs" - the lifetime that he has selflessly devoted to giving speeches - was nothing more than "political posturing". Now that is an unpardonable sin.

Tags: duly noted, politburo
humour: nauseated

The cave, I find, is always more interesting in the spring. Mostly, with more run-off from melting snow and ice on the mountains and heavier, more persistent rains, the cave is a lot wetter - the dripstone is dripping, the flowstone is flowing, the stream bed is streaming, the rimstone dams are damming, and the sound of dripping, trickling water is everywhere.

     

     

     
While I was in snapping some of teh wetness, I also did several portraits of the last of the bats (the hibernating bat population being another thing that makes the cave more interesting in the early spring - and late fall). There are only a few pipstrelles left - the little browns have finished hibernating and the last of them left the cave for the summer a few days ago. Here are a couple of them:
 

Tags: nature studies, photo/graphic, speleological
humour: impressed

So, yeah, there's been another hiatus in my journal updates. On the other hand, there was a minor spike in my posts to America's Debate. With work picking up - more like snowballing - it seems like my "recreational" internet time is at a premium.

Plus my typing has been slightly impaired for the last week or so - which brings me to the (rather obvious) life lesson: Never try to break up a cat fight with your bare hands. Even if they're your own cats.

A week or so ago, both cats were outside - they've taken to the great out of doors like a Republican takes to boysex - and there was a rare incursion into the territory by another cat from the village: much yowling, hissing, and screaming ensued outside our bedroom window. So, of course, we went out to the porch and called the beasties in.

They both came tearing into the house with enormous tails and arched backs and turned on each other - screaming around the house, bouncing off the walls, overturning furniture - so I attempted to come between them, finally grabbing Xerox(traditionally the more submissive cat) and tried to calm him down. Heh - stab-stab-stab-stab-stab-stab-crunch. All six claws (Xerox is polydactyl, which I should maybe have taken into consideration) on all four feet were raked across or sunk into various parts of my left hand, wrist, and forearm - followed by every possible tooth being sunk into my forefinger.

I washed the wound out pretty well, applied some hydrogen peroxide and so on and bandaged the worst of the punctures and scratches. The next morning (last Sunday), however, the finger was swollen up like a gnarled pink sausage and I couldn't bend it. So off I went to the emergency room for remarks from the receptionist - "You tried to break up a cat fight?" - the nurse - "You tried to break up a cat fight??" - and the doctor - "You tried to break up a cat fight?" - a tetanus booster, and a course of antibiotics.

Now, about a week later, my finger looks a bit more like a finger and I can finally make a fist again, so the infection seems to have cleared up. The wound is still sore and bits of the hand remain somewhat tender, but I can at least use all ten digits for typing. Hurrah.

Tags: cat kingdom, social and personal
humour: sore

We decided to take the scenic route to the nearest Chinese take-away after work on Sunday. It was kinda grey and drizzly, but we brought the camera along anyway. From the bitter countryside of Pennsylvania:


Spring House


Llamas


Furnace


Pump


Cow


Tree

Tags: nature studies, photo/graphic
humour: bitter

I did this a few months ago for another Worth1000 Photoshop competition ("Mate-a-Company") and just came across it again today. I thought it was somewhat appropriate for the time of year...

Tags: photo/graphic
humour: creative