Sappy Cat Blogging

It’s Friday, so it’s time for SAPPY CAT BLOGGING.  Here are your cats on drugs.

Musings on the Second Amendment and Civil Disobedience

Hat tip, Katzmeow.
Having had the Fourth of July recently, I’ve been thinking about government, and the response to a government that doesn’t listen to its citizens. There is an old African saying, “No village, no chief.” There are analogues in the modern world.

As civil libertarian, I am an enthusiastic supporter of individual rights, including the second amendment. It irritates me, as a fiscal conservative, that both the social conservatives and liberals/progressives want to meddle with other people’s lives. Of particular importance is sex, for both groups, but in different ways. I think the Pink Pistols and other folks who are interested in personal freedoms have a point. One made graphically by Oleg Volk.

When this comes up in conversation, amusingly enough, the people around me have an tendency to bring up Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Thoreau. “I’ve got two words for you, Civil Disobedience,” I’ve heard often. “Civil Disobedience will shame people into acting properly, you don’t have to resort to violence.”

And as Dr. Phil says “How’s that working for you? I’ve got more two-word comebacks, such as Pol-Pot. Warsaw ghetto. Ethnic Cleansing. Tiananmen Square.. Civil disobedience works when your adversary can feel shame. Gandhi’s adversary was Winston Churchill. Thoreau was protesting the Mexican-American War, the actions of President Polk. Martin King was opposed by powerful interests in the southern United States, but they needed the approval of public opinion of the US as a whole.

I agree with the eleventh commandment, as promulgated by Robert B. Parker*, and I believe people should keep it wholly. I wish to be left in peace, to go about my business. The world is a wicked enough place, and violence is rightly a last resort. Freud said the inventor of civilization was the first person who used words instead of a weapon, and I agree with him. As a last resort, though, I wish to have the ability to resist coercion, coercion by the local bully or one further away.

*”Leave everyone else the fuck alone.” Double Deuce 1988

The Banks of Red Roses

When I was a wee thing, I heard my mother say
That I was meant for rambling and would easy go astray
And before that I would work, I would rather sport and play
With my Johnny on the banks of red roses

On the banks of red roses, my love and I sat down
He took out his tuning box to play his love a tune
In the middle of the tune, his love got up and cried
Oh Johnny, lovely Johnny, would you leave me?

So they walked and they talked until they came upon a cave
Where the night before her darling had spent digging on her grave
Aye, the night before her darling had spent digging on her grave
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of red roses

Oh no, oh no, cried she, that grave’s not meant for me
Yes, oh yes, my darling, that your bridal bed shall be
Yes, oh yes, my darling, that your bridal bed shall be
And he’s made her to lie down on red roses

And all on his way homeward, his heart was filled with fear
Every maid he came upon, he thought it was his dear
Yes, every maid he came upon, he thought it was his dear
Who he made to lie down on red roses

She Got In!

I do admissions interviews for my uni.  Several times, I’ve had people in my classes who are applying to professional schools.  We’re not allowed to interview the people we already know.  I suppose that’s a good thing, so as the interview process is not contaminated by outside influences.  Sometimes I find it frustrating.

I’ve been pretty fortunate with my students.  There are rare whiners and folks who are in serious need of dope -slap therapy, but on the whole the students I have to interact with are intelligent, eager, and work hard.   I couldn’t ask for better.   The pity of it is, some of our graduate students do really well, and would make perfectly fine professonals get weeded out on the numbers.  My uni enjoys good rankings on the US News and World Report lists.  One way they maintain that ranking is by weeding out folks with lower MCAT scores.

It is a wag-the-dog situation.  Standardized testing is good for determining who will do well in the first year of college or professional school or whatever.  There is some way of looking at people from diverse backgrounds, as a common metric.  However, it is not reciprocal.  Someone can do well in medical school and have poor numbers on the MCAT.   I have had graduate student tutors working for me teaching the material to medical students but they could not get admission to the medical school where they were tutoring.  My undergraduate institution made the SAT optional two decades ago, and still is highly selective–I believe they had nearly 5000 applicants for 450 incoming slots in 2009.

Be that as it may, I just found out that one of my students from last year was accepted.  She was quiet, didn’t say much.  Other folks in class participated more and made more of an impression.  Until the final grades came out, and several folks whom I was sure would be in the A range earned Bs, and this one whom I’d kind of discounted wiped the floor with the final exam.   I spoke with the admissions folks, but the student wound up on the wait list, and they wouldn’t budge.  Obviously, a spot opened up and she’s in.  I’m really glad when that happens.

Molly Sugden

Died 1st July, 2009.  When she wasn’t acting she really reminded me of my grandmother.  Evidently she also kept her fellow actors well fed.  Her hair was dyed for the first season.  Evidently her son found it quite embarassing when his mum with the flourescent hair picked him up from school.

Sappy Cat Blogging–The Test

Male cat or female cat?  Take the test HERE.  Put your results in the comments.

Off The Rails

He went off the rails in White River Junction
In a roadhouse in the eastern edge of town.
Knowing finally that the dream had left him beaten
Sinking shots of booze as fast as they’d go down.

They had to help him from the stool where he’d been sitting
He was frozen from the stillness in his heart.
I said, “Mister, you can’t drive in that condition,
Here’s your jacket, where’s your keys, I’ll fetch your car.”

I drove him to his motel across the river,
He sat so quietly, I thought he as asleep
But the moon showed her pale face through forest branches,
I could see the tears of anger on his cheek.

He said, “There’s the love you need and there’s the love you receive,
And there’s a difference,
And when the love is wrong, you’re better off alone
It leaves you heart confused, and your spirit twisted,
And the loneliness can chill you to the bone.

I’ve had it up to here with loving from long distance,
She’s hhad too many nights of waiting home alone,.
Too many ultimatums, too much blind resistance,
Too much anger, too much silence on the phone.”

He said, “There’s the love you need and there’s the love you receive,
And there’s a difference,
And when the love is wrong, you’re better off alone
If leave you heart confused, and your spirit twisted,
And the loneliness can chill you to the bone.”

He straightened up, and said, “I think you for your trouble.”
As I parked his car beneath the motel light
He said, “How will get home? You’re miles from nowhere.”
“It’s not far,” I said, “I like to walk at night.”

I said “There’s the love you feel and there’s the love you give,
And there’s your difference.
And when the love you give falls short of what you feel
Words stick in your throat, and leave you choking,
And what’s in your heart, is what you best conceal.”

And so I left him in that motel in New Hampshire,
With the TV on, the sound turned down to low,
Seeking answers in the shadows on the ceiling,
Come tomorrow noon, he’ll pack it up and go.

“There’s the love you feel and there’s the love you give,
There’s your difference.
And when the love you give falls short of what you feel
Words stick in your throat, and leave you choking,
And what’s in your heart, is what you best conceal.”

Garnet Rogers 1990

What, I’m Getting Spam From Mr. Subliminal?

On a completely unrelated post, blue pill, I get a comment with the name of a popular drug, blue pill.  The comment then goes on to explain in very stilted language blue pill, what the pharmaceutical they’re selling actually does, blue pill.  (Erection process, WTF, over?) Every time they write blue pill, blue pill, it is hyperlinked to their site.

Now, I am in favour of free speech, fucktard spammer, but there is no free lunch.  I will take, lying scumbags, the opportunity to mock them and their cheap medication, placebo effect.  Unhappily, most of this spam is generated by bots, lazy bums, who don’t read this site, so I don’t get the pleasure of laying a CrankyLitProf smackdown, language master, where it’ll do the most good.  Pity, because this is when the phrase cum-burbling trout fucker needs to be used.

1st July

It is the first of July. The medical year runs from July to June. On the first, everyone advances one step. MS-IV become PGY-I. (interns) Interns become residents, senior residents become fellows or attendings in their own right. At the med school, we’re most worried about the new ducklings.*

Glad I’m Not The Only One

Who has done THIS.