{"id":19911,"date":"2015-02-09T01:06:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T09:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=19911"},"modified":"2015-02-09T01:06:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T09:06:18","slug":"a-monday-morning-ramble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/09\/a-monday-morning-ramble\/","title":{"rendered":"A Monday morning ramble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Too much for just links, too little for one of my blogosauri. Randomish thoughts …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Government is … well, so very, very governmentlike, isn’t it? Here we have old friend Bovard talking about welcoming Cuba to the 21st century by taxing and regulating cigars<\/a> more than they already do.<\/p>\n

Best line is: “The FDA suggests that it might exempt from regulation \u201cpremium cigars\u201d that cost at least $10 apiece. Does the FDA believe that only people with money to burn should have free choice?<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Oleg Volk is with us over at TZP. Here’s his first post<\/a>, complete with Oleg’s famous graphics.<\/p>\n

We’ve been anticipating Oleg’s arrival among us for a long time, so this is especially exciting.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Ah, how times have changed! Anybody from the ancient days remember “Phoebe B. Beebe and her new canoe canal”? I can’t find it online, but in searching (yes, I have too much time on my hands today — or I’m avoiding work; take your pick), I ran across this meditation on womanhood<\/a> by the same author.<\/p>\n

Probably loaded with trigger warnings and passages to offend anyone who’s been to a liberal arts college in the last 10 years. Funny, though.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Beer cans. This guy<\/a> had a real problem. I used to have a neighbor like that, but at least he used to confine his beer cans to bags around the outside of his house.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Do you remember the delightfully deadpan coffee-table book Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics<\/i><\/a> and the equally artsy and bizarre Dancing with Cats<\/i><\/a>?<\/p>\n

I just ran across another one, courtesy of Snopes.com. It’s been around a while but I didn’t know of it. It’s Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics<\/i><\/a>. We’ve all probably seen some of the photos, but I didn’t realize they were from one of those books.<\/p>\n

These books are as gorgeous as they are hilarious. And the authors, Burton Silver and Heather Busch, never, ever crack a smile as they discourse about cats exploring spatial aesthetics or people paying $60,000 a year to paint their felines. What’s so funny is that every time these books come out, a certain number of people take them seriously. So says Snopes.com<\/a>. With gorgeous illustrations of “painted” cats.<\/p>\n

And hey, this stuff was mostly before<\/i> cats took over the Internet.<\/p>\n

\"paintcat03_small\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"paintcat05_small\"<\/a><\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Now moving doggedly on to another topic (and no, this has nothing to do with dogs; I just felt we needed the d-word here as a counter to that overabundance of cats):<\/p>\n

Our astoundingly plastic brains<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My brain feels plastic sometimes. As opposed to say, high carbon steel.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Last but far from least: Kit Lange<\/a> wraps up the action — or perhaps foresees the future consequences — of Saturday’s silent snub in Olympia, Washington.<\/p>\n

I believe 100 percent that the stupid I-594 must (and will) be ignored and resisted. I believe it will be impossible to enforce. (There will be a few high profile cases in an attempt to scare the rubes, then not much. Once a year maybe.) I think its fair to give a warning rattle while bearing guns at rallies the Capitol grounds.<\/p>\n

I think the people who turned up Saturday were incredibly dedicated and brave. I don’t think Saturday helped matters, but I also don’t feel mad about what they’re doing (as if they would care what I felt) because this is an issue of the state vs the people, not a private business (where I’ve objected to OC demonstrations before). But personally I wouldn’t have risked arrest over a fiat ban on carrying firearms into the Capitol galleries. This was not a battle I’d have picked. <\/p>\n

But then, history many times turns on the battles most of us wouldn’t pick, doesn’t it? The Boston Massacre and Easter Uprising come immediately to mind. <\/p>\n

I’m glad it didn’t come to people going to jail, though the predictable silent snub speaks a language of its own, and not one that bodes well for peace between people and politicians.<\/p>\n

Good luck to us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too much for just links, too little for one of my blogosauri. Randomish thoughts …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,11,12,13,16,18,19,20,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-aesthetics","category-dogs-and-cats","category-government","category-guns-and-gun-rights","category-health-and-science","category-humor","category-mind-and-spirit","category-miscellaneous","category-money","category-resistance","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}