Happy Bastille Day!

Prise de la Bastille, Jean Pierre Houel

Bastille Day is a national holiday in La Belle France! A tribute to the right of the people to protect their interests against those powers that choose to rule them in the most arbitrary fashion for the benefit, not of the people, but of said powers.

Here is more information on Bastille Day.

A little over one month after Bastille Day, the Declaration of The Rights of Man and of The Citizen was adopted by the National Constituent Assembly of the French Revolution. This declaration forms the basis of international human rights laws which govern us all (hopefully) till today. Sadly, as our previous post shows, they have not come into that universal acceptance that humanity really must achieve before Vogons show up and blow us up for being such a dreadful species — no, wait, the Vogons are much worse. OK, let's assume that the Universe contains SOME form of intelligent life. Now, imagine them casting a jaundiced, at best, eyeball upon our planet. Whad'ya think? Will they let us live?

My money's on "No." Let's keep working on changing their minds, though!

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Iraq: Out of Sorrow

comes something blessed, sweet, touching, and good. Thanks to Best Friends Animal Society, one of the most wonderful things to happen to animals anywhere. If you don't know Best Friends, we urge you to click this link. Thanks to Best Friends, people who love animals have found a whole new source of inspiration &mdash and practical instructions &mdash on how to help humanity's best friends, our beloved animals.

Sgt. Peter Neesley with Boris, who looks like he's saying "Halp!"

A soldier who died in Iraq on Christmas Day received - together with his family and his Best Friends - a very special present this week from Best Friends. Sergeant Peter Neesley, who had adopted a stray dog and her pup in Baghdad was able to give these sweet animals a gift of life &mdash a life that will undoubtedly be full of love, now, because the dogs are going to live with his family.

For weeks, the family has fought to have [the dogs, who were such a major] part of Peter's life given back to them.

On Friday afternoon, their wish came true.

As Mama, a black Labrador mix, and Boris, her white-and-brown spotted puppy, hopped out of a minivan, the family ran and knelt in the wet streets to greet them.

Peter Neesley's sister, Carey, cried.

"It's been such a long, complicated struggle and to see them finally come home is just amazing," she said.

Neesley said things hadn't been normal since the family learned that her 28-year-old brother had died in his sleep.

Thanks to Best Friends, and some other kind souls, including a veterinarian with the Iraqi Society for Animals who provided the vaccinations and papers the dogs needed to travel, and the airline (Gryphon LLC) that provided transport, the dogs are now home to help the family overcome the trauma of losing their loved one.

Sgt. Peter Neesley loved those dogs. Best Friends tells you their story, and his.

Mama and Boris, Sgt. Neeley's friends

We at La Casa de Los Gatos extend our very best wishes to los perros and to Peter Neesley's family. May the little fourfoots bring you consolation for your loss and help to heal your pain.

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Animal Stories: Voytek's Book

There's a book about Voytek the hero bear who served with the Polish forces in World War II. We at Casa de Los Gatos wish we had it, but we already got our birfday presents.

On the other hand, if someone decides we deserve a good book about an interesting creature (and we do love interesting stories, especially animal stories), the book, as we might already have shamelessly hinted, is available here.

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Entertainment: Short People

Henry van de Velde Chair from Wikimedia

You know what, Randy Newman? Fuck you, dude. Yup. We short people just have to - er, stand up for ourselves. 'Cause nobody can see us when we're sitting down, anyway.

Auntie Beeb tells us that short people in Africa, in the town of Bamenda, north-western Cameroon, have established an association against discrimination. The Association of Short People in Cameroon (ASPC). It's officially registered and everything. The article says, in part:

To belong to the association, prospective members have to be no taller than 1.60m (5'2").

Hey! Waitaminnit! That would exclude a whole bunch of short people! Guess we'll just have to start our own association. Besides, those of us who aren't Cameroonian probably wouldn't be allowed to join their organization anyway.

Jonathan Fru, 61, a Bamenda-based jurist, founded ASPC, and is the current president.

Members include Stephen Ngang, who stands 3'9". Mr Ngang is protesting against the height limit to join the armed forces. Well, we don't know, Mr. Ngang. Maybe during peacetime, joining the armed forces is one way of making a decent living, which is nice. But during war, trust us on this - no matter who's shooting, they tend to aim for the middle or lower, so you're bound to get hit.

However, Mr. Ngang went on to articulate a complaint that many of us share:

"Carpenters make chairs that are too high for us and so we are not comfortable sitting with others."

"We have difficulties reaching high counters in shops and in banks, then to add insult to injury, all billboards are high up in the air and we have to strain to read them."

Luckily, in this country, most counters aren't THAT high, and most billboards have glaring six-foot high electronic neon glitter letters so that even blind infants can be assaulted by them on a 24/7 basis. OK, maybe that part ain't so lucky. But you get our drift.

However, the chair thing - and cupboard, and closet, and whatever - we totally support. Why, it wasn't so long ago that we went shopping for chairs with Madame X, who is similarly diminutive, and we couldn't find a single fucking chair that we could sit on comfortably resting our feet on the floor. These are dining chairs we're talking about, here. Why do we short people have to sit at dinner with our feet swinging above the floor, looking for all the world like frequenters of the kiddie table, or extras from The Wizard of Oz? It ain't right.

And why the fuck do all these homebuilders build stupid kitchen cabinets that require all manner of athletic ass-shimmying just to reach the fucking wineglasses, or what-have-you? That ain't right either. We are heartily sick and tired of having to keep stepstools all over the house just so we can get sloshed in peace. Or put cinnamon in our honey-roasted chicken.

The associations' president adds that they have begun a vigorous campaign to right these wrongs and have so far met the provincial governor to table their grievances. As if to prove that good things can come in small packages, the association has the shortest constitution I have ever come across - just two pages long.

They also have an anthem which is just two sentences long -"If you want to join the Short Peoples' Association, you just come, for we are peaceful, you just come".

Yo, we are SO liking these people already!

Some tall people I met were, however, dismissive of the grouping of short people.

"Being short is not a problem - I wish I was shorter," said John, standing tall at 2m (6'6").

"Do short people know we also have problems?" he asked.

"Being too tall sometimes affects my balance and I need to bend down sometimes to listen to my short wife" he said jokingly.

Oh, put a cork in it, fella. This is OUR rant. You go start an association for tall people.

"We are normal human beings, our height notwithstanding," says [one of the people interviewed for this article].

The short people deny discriminating against their taller brethren through their height restriction and insist that they do not see tall people as enemies.

They say they just want to be treated with the same respect as the rest of the population.

Yeah. We've had it with the Randy Newmans of this world writing nasty songs about us, and people making - er - cutting comments.

Actually, we just want chairs we can sit on comfortably. But we got our revenge. Here at Casa de Los Gatos, we hang lamps low enough for us, and put all our kitchen pots and pans on a nice, reachable steel bar. Tall people - well, pretty much anyone over 5'9", really - never fail to tangle with lighting and kitchenware when visiting. And we always smile sweetly at them and say, "Sorry 'bout that. We designed our house for short people."

What are we doing about discrimination against short people outside the home? Starting the Short People's Basketball League, of course. No one over 5' 5" accepted.


Yeah, today's Funday. We're having a good time, and hope you are too.

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Entertainment: Heartwarming Story Of The Day

Awwww! Isn't that just too sweet?

Thpthtt! Wassamatter, you think my kids look funny?

This sweet doggie is nursing two abandoned tiger cubs at the Hefei zoo in Anhuan province. The cubs' mother was not producing enough milk for them, so the dog (very cute dog, by the bye) stepped up to the task.

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Interspecies Comity For Sandy

This is just one of those Awww! moments, for me. I'm always touched by the love of animals - for themselves, for each other, for the world around them.


Here, for example, a Golden Retriever adopts an orphaned kitten and begins lactating to feed the kitten.

The family initially tried to keep Precious and Honey apart, fearing the dog would play too rough with the little gray-striped kitten. But Honey was elated at Precious' presence, wagging her tail and prancing all over the house trying to sneak a peak at her. Eventually, the family let Honey approach Precious, and the dog immediately took to her.

They're nice people, to take the kitten in, and she's a lucky little kitty to find such nice people and such a nice dog-mother. She had refused to drink from a bottle, and the people didn't think she was going to survive.

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Interspecies Comity

It was hard writing the blog post about Israel. Truthful and necessary, but hard.

So now for some interspecies comity. May all beings learn to live in peace with each other (yes, I do understand that lions will still eat lambs, and that's OK).

Ananova tells us a story of a chihuahua in China who has adopted a chicken. I love this type of story, because it speaks to me of the oneness of life. We can move beyond our limitations, we can work to overcome our instincts, we can love other beings, even those that our biology tells us are our prey, or our enemies.

Huahua took charge of the chick as soon as owner Liu Bangyang's daughter brought it home.

She regards the chick as her baby and stands guard to make sure it comes to no harm, reports the Chongqing Morning News.

And, whenever the chick strays too far, Huahua picks it up gently in her mouth and puts it back in its cot.

Liu, from Guiyang city, Guizhou province, said: "We'll try our best to raise the little chicken, if that's what Huahua wants."

I'll admit, the chicken looks a bit miffed, but it is so sweet that Huahua's people are accommodating her, and so sweet that the little doggy has adopted the chicken.

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Entertainment - More Cute

Sometimes the world is too much to bear. My garden calls. The buddleia is finally drying up in the heat, and the Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna) bloomed a month early, with their odd, sweet scent perfuming the entire garden all the way down the hill. I can smell them as I get out of my car. The bougainvillea has suffered, too, not as floriferous as it was last year. But in the garden there is peace, and no thoughts of what the Dark Wart and his glove puppet are spinning us with next. Time to eat, drink, listen to favorite tunes on the iPod, weed, water, play with the cats, watch the hummingbirds stake out territory.

Kitties:


Interspecies comity:


Between many species:



I'll be back.

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Entertainment - Interspecies Comity

Good grief! Here's a charming picture, indeed:



Apparently, the lion was raised by the two men featured in the video, then returned to the wild.

Why am I posting such insubstantial material today? Because a film has been made about the gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, the little Iraqi girl who was murdered, along with her whole family, and apparently, either the film previewed today, or was reviewed today, resulting in much chatter about the poor child. I've blogged about it several times. It's terribly depressing.

So interspecies comity it is.

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Image from Blogforpeace.org

I can't possibly sign out on such a miserable note. I'm sick and it's affecting my brain, and that image of a dead Iraqi is too awful. I'm going to dream of it all night, I'm sure. You too, probably. So let us all work together for peace in the world, so that people may raise their children with love and kindness, instead of trying to live through them or bringing them up to be cannon-fodder. May we all be blessed in the days that are left to us with peace and justice and love. I'm going to bed now, but first:

Image from I Can Has Cheezburger

Interspecies comity. It's a beautiful thing. Of which there are still many, left on this earth. Here's another:

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Animal Tales - More Awww!

I'm sure all the other cats make fun of him, but he doesn't care - he's got his mousy pal to come home to!

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Animal Stories - Schlock and Awww!

It's so cute I could DIE! Seriously, man, ain't there some kinda law against this much cute in a single plastic bucket? Bucket o' cute and an extra-large fries, pleez.

On the other hand, it's nice to see interspecies comity in action, innit? You'd think a dog would attack newborn lambs, seeing them only as prey, or a food source, but this one's actually protecting them from other animals and spending her own precious energy ensuring that they live. If only I could bottle that and put it in the human water supply!

Alternative caption: They're Always After Me Lucky Charms!

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Cute!

Molly and Tod


Awww - what a sweet doggie!

Orphaned fox cub adopted by dog

A fox cub taken in by a rescue centre after being found beneath the body of his dead mother has got a new surrogate parent - a three-year-old mongrel dog.

Twelve-week-old Tod - named after the cub who befriends a puppy in the Disney film The Fox and the Hound - was adopted by the British Wildlife Centre.

Samantha Johnson, a worker at the centre, in Newchapel, Surrey, then took him to her home in nearby Lingfield.

She said her dog Molly "just took to Tod and is now his surrogate mother".

"He follows her everywhere," Ms Johnson added.

More here.

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Interspecies comity

So how come cows and cats can rock wit it, but Americans and Iraqis can't find common ground?

I know, I know, people are really fucked in the intercultural comity department. Here's some charming beastly love for your amusement.

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The Centaur

and His Kitten. La Petite Madeleine looks like a tasty little teacake. Dr. Barmpot Shouty-Crackers, proud parent of the one and only Arthur J., noted her precious white lace fichu tucked into her tiny bosom. She looks a lot like her Uncle Maxx, who is greatly missed by all, still, but is apparently having a really good time on his comet with Barbaro and Molly Ivins. Sweet thought, eh?

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