KIND OF BLUE

The assiduous reader of this or either of my other two blogs will have noted that I have spent more or less no time discussing the role of pets in my life. The simple explanation behind this lack of ____ blogging is that I have had no pets since I began blogging. However.

I once had a cat.

Scott and Dawn and I lived together, back inna day. In 1992 the three of us went to get a kitty from the Hattiesburg "pound". The kitty we got we named Miles Davis on the way home because she was a "crazy cat" (she seemed to enjoy crawling under the pedals of Scott's Honda Prelude, as I recall).

Miles was very small when we got her. She fell asleep in my hand, once (and I have a small hand for a man of my size). She also fell asleep in a baseball cap.

Living, as we did, on the second floor of a house, we were little concerned about Miles escaping. She had free access to the roof via our windows. One day a bird got trapped in the sun room. I put Miles in the room with the bird. Nature took over. I feel guilty to this day.

Miles once brought a bird in from the roof as a gift. I eschewed it.

One night I was sitting in my room and heard Scott shout and scream from his room. It seems that Miles had taken an interest in Scott's electrical outlet. Scott lost his computer work. He learned to Save.

One night I was laying in my bed and Miles took an interest in my feet. I found the sensation oddly erotic. I have since told Birgit about it, and she harasses me for being a cat fetishist. In reality I am a foot fetishist, if anything. More likely I just dug it.

One night Scott and Dawn were out of the house. It was just Miles and I. I was in my bed. I heard Miles yelp and run up the stairs. She ran into my room and sat next to my bed, panting. I went downstairs to check, but noticed nothing amiss. Our house was rumored to be haunted.

Dawn moved out of our first house and was replaced by Bob. Bob had a cat called Puddin'. Puddin' was the most loathsome cat you can imagine (big, mangy, stinky, greyish, mean, old, etc). Puddin' harassed Miles. I once put Puddin' out by kicking it out the door. I forgot that I was wearing steel-toed shoes. I shouldn't have kicked him anyway, but my actions were in defense of Miles.

In the spring of 1993 we had a snowstorm in the South. Matt Hull and I drove from Hattiesburg to Bessemer. At one point we were stuck in the snow on the Interstate. I mooted the possibility of killing and eating Miles (who was with me). This was struck down.

I left and came back. I moved back in with Scott and Dawn. Scott and I went away one time and left Dawn in charge. We returned to find that Miles had grown picky. We asked what she had been fed. Tuna was the answer.

I like to think that I taught Miles to fight. I used to harass her. It made her tough. It gave her the strength to face Shelley's bird.

In general, however, my approach to catting is summed up here:

Data: May I ask a personal favor?
Worf: Yes?
Data: Will you take care of Spot for me?
Worf: Your animal?
Data: I am concerned that if I have another waking dream, I may injure him.
Worf: Of course. Spot, come here.
Data: Unlike a canine, Spot will not respond to verbal commands.
[Data picks up Spot and hands him to Worf, who is not quite sure how to handle the cat.]
Data: Goodbye, Spot. He will need to be fed once a day. He prefers feline supplement one-twenty-five.
Worf: I understand.
Data: And he will require water. And you must also provide him with a sand box. And you must talk to him. Tell him he is a pretty cat, and a good cat, and—
Worf: I will FEED him.
Data: Perhaps that will be enough.

It was not enough. I left Miles. She was a pretty cat, and a good cat.

I'M A LOSER, NO CHANCE TO WIN

Some of the people I teach have recently asked what I think of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I won't, yet, get into what I think about them in terms of what sort of president either might make or whether I'd vote for one of them, but I will say here what I've said to the people who have asked.

They won't win.

Neither will the Kuch or Sam Brownback.

Other than being a man who became president in the 20th century, what does Dubyah have in common with Bill Clinton, Dubyah Daddy, Ronald Raygun, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover?

Ok. Lots of things. Here's what I'm going for: they were not sitting in the House or the Senate while they ran for president (FDR wasn't, was he?).

John Kennedy was a sitting senator. There may be others before Hoover (and to be honest, I'm almost uncertain enough to do some checking on him), but for some reason this is a true thing. Coincidence is possible.

Giuliani, Pataki, and Richardson will also not win (and Obama and H Clinton share something with them on this) because they are not WASPs (Hillary is, but she's not a boy wasp, FDR and TR were vaguely Dutch). Kennedy, again, is an exception.

Whatever happened to ol' Kennedy, anyway?

If the trends hold, Mike Huckabee and Jan Edwards have excellent chances. They are WASPs. Huckabee is a governor (as were Dubyah, BC, RR, and JC) and Jan is emerging from a sojourn out of government (as were Dubyahdaddy, RR, Nixon, and Eisenhower). They are also southerners. If you count the whole Sunbelt (out to Cali), only Kennedy (again) and FDR buck the trend. Ike was, as a career military man, quasi southern, and Reagan and the Bushes were transplants.

It is entirely possible (and much to be desired, I reckon) that 2008 will be The Year when a fresh breeze sweeps through the White House.

It is also possible that someone will give me all the Star Trek DVDs as a wedding present.

I WILL HIDE WHAT YOU WANT HIDDEN, AND I'LL ROAM IF YOU SAY ROAM

In addition to Pandagon, I enjoy Red State Son. Even if Pandagon's writers do not.

(They may have, but I can imagine them shifting in their seats while reading his post about them)

When, in my previous post, I suggested that I was bugged by other aspects of the story, I was thinking along the Son's lines.

IN MY MIND, I'M GOING TO CAROLINA

The blogosphere is all a-twitter over something that is simultaneously about blogging AND interesting. Mind you, the blogosphere is very small when viewed through my eyes. There are a few blogs, other than those belonging to friends, which I check out every few days and only two I check out most every day. A big reason for this is that I find most of the "big" blogs tedious and navelgazing (and don't get me started on open threads).

One of the everyday blogs is Pandagon (which I very much like) and it just so happens that events involving Pandagon have set Pandagon a-twitter.

In case you don't know, it boils down to the following. Amanda (of Pandagon) and Melissa (of Shakespeare's Sister, which seems to have no connection to the musical group or Shakespeare) were hired for internets work by the Jan-Edwards-for-Most-Popular-Girl campaign. Some of Mr Edwards's enemies (the fascist ones, not the leftist ones) noticed something that he seems not to have: Amanda and Melissa are bloggers (!), and have written things (!!), and have clear opinions (!!!), and these aren't everyone's cup of tea (!!!!), and they sometimes use durdie werds) (!!!!!).

Jan Edwards caved. Fired them.

EDITED TO ADD: Erm. Turns out those last two sentences aren't true. More edits in []s, below.

Now I would have been unlikely to vote for Jan in any event (at some point I'm going to sort through the candidates properly, but my gut tells me the Kuch is still my boyfriend), but this would [have been] be a good reason to change my mind if I had been considering it. Why? Well.

- His campaign hired two people to do public work without, apparently, having checked into them. This is stupid. [Or rather, would have been. Or is. Or something.]
- Or, the campaign did check into Amanda and Melissa and saw no problems, but immediately wimped out when challenged. This is the same sort of weak-kneed turditude that's served the party so well for the last 30 years. This is bad. [It would have been, I mean.]
- They backed down [not], by the way, when challenged BY ENEMIES. Not by friends. So, in order to keep the support of people who don't support them, they fired [not] two people who DO (did?) support them. And the [non-] fired people have a pulpit! This is stupid AND bad. [would have been]

There are loads of other things that bug me about this.

What doesn't bug me:

- Jan is free to hire or fire whomever he wishes. He's the boss.
- Anyone is free to complain about Jan's decision in this regard.

In any event, it is an interesting saga. Follow it on Pandagon. While there, check out this post and especially the comments (which are one of my least favorite things about blogs like Atrios, but most favorite about Pandagon). In this particular thread there is a fantastic rebuttal to a trollish comment.

EDIT: It remains interesting. I'm sorry Jan. I thought I saw confirmation of the firing. As my grandmother used to say, though, I thought like Lit, and smell like shit (no one knows what that means, but it rhymes). I officially reopen my heart to the outside possibility of voting for you.

EDIT: Although I am an admirer of civility, I don't think it is required in blogging. Furthermore, I don't think religious people get insulted nearly often enough. They're so cute when they're indignant. I will soon write about Richard Dawkins's recent extended attempt to bring out their cuteness.