Priscilla's Zine & Bookstore: November 25 Link Log

Friday, November 25, 2016

November 25 Link Log

Hope everyone found something to give thanks for yesterday. Despite the nasty people at the local utility company having failed to re-connect the electricity to make the humans' Thanksgiving plans for the Cat Sanctuary work, and despite the adoption of Inky (hurrah!) and apparent loss of Irene (waaail!), the cats enjoyed their Thanksgiving feast of cold chicken...after which Heather promptly went out and brought in a small squirrel. Before even biting into it to kill it, herself, she spent considerable time and trouble communicating to me that it was meant as a treat for me, by way of thanks for the chicken. Our late lamented Ivy couldn't have made the point clearer.

Today...has been a great day for catching up on e-mail....not much is going on anywhere in cyberspace! Because so many e-mails came in with headlines relating to Black Friday sales, all links that might enable anyone to buy anything are in the category "Shopping" today, rather than "Amazon," "Zazzle," etc. Categories: Animals, Cybersecurity, Food, Nice, Politics, Shopping, Writing

Animals

What happened to Irene, anyway? I don't know for sure (yet). Remember how, in October, the cats just didn't act sorrowful enough for me to believe anything bad had happened to Violet when she disappeared? I think Heather, Irene, and Tickle may actually have been visiting Violet. They kept disappearing temporarily, one or two at a time, and returning, very cheerful and pleased with themselves. (Yes, social cats visit friends; mine have been known to insist that visitors eat first.) And then, on Monday, all three of them disappeared...and then Tickle came in looking discouraged, and Heather came in only on Wednesday afternoon, whining and wailing as she walked. Tickle, who is Heather's son, is even whinier than Bisquit, who was Heather's grandmother--but even when Heather's own mother was catnapped, Heather never whined, but just quietly took over rearing her younger siblings. So when she did whine, I took that as evidence that something very bad happened...Irene had never strayed more than fifty yards from home before. Irene had, like Ivy, never encountered motor vehicles whose drivers didn't stop and adore the classic calico cats' pretty faces. Irene has not come home. Heather learned the words "Where is...?" very early in life, and has consistently responded when "Where is..." is followed by a word she recognizes and she has an idea where the thing/person is; if Irene had been merely injured, I'm pretty confident that Heather would have shown me where Irene was, rather than crying whenever Irene's been mentioned. In the direction these cats have been coming and going, a paved road is further away than cats normally stray, but there is one...with an especially nasty blind turn, about a mile from the Cat Sanctuary.

Dogs:

http://thebookofbarkley.blogspot.com/2016/11/blogvile-paw-lice-in-action.html

(The first animal-related content in the e-mail was a post from Mona Charen that discussed dogs and cats. Technically the first animal she mentioned was a Keeshond, an unusual breed. Going by the picture, I looked for police-dog types on Petfinder, under "Shopping" below.)

http://reason.com/archives/2016/11/22/the-joys-of-an-unlicensed-dog

Turkeys:

http://nowiknow.com/the-weekender-november-23-2016/

What happens after the official pardon of the official White House turkey? Well...what else could happen to a domestic turkey? (This is not a funny post.)

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/23/the-fate-of-the-pardoned-turkeys

Cybersecurity

Why no web site should ever have an automatic blocking/flagging process...these things should always be investigated by a human before any user is inconvenienced.

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/11/23/twitter-suspends-its-own-ceo/

Food (Yum)

Via Twitter..."Brownies" and "Blondies" are a (chocolate or otherwise) cross between cookies and candy. They contain small amounts of flour and loads of fat and sugar. Since they don't have to rise and are held together mainly by saturated fat, they tend to work well with gluten-free "flours"...if your guests include diabetics, do not click here.

https://www.butterfinger.com/products/recipe/146663

It might be too late to start these carrots now, but next year...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/winter-carrots-spring-carrots-zmaz09onzraw

Nice

Serendipity...synchronicity...whatever. I had forgotten the name, although I remembered the reading experience, of Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods. Recommended.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1446/how-to-protect-kids-from-nature-deficit-disorder-jill-suttie/

Politics

Do the anti-Trump protests remind you of the "Occupy" protests? There's a reason.

https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-hysterical-left-is-making-nevertrumpers-reconsider/?singlepage=true

Other anti-Trumpers come out in support of...at least curbing the hysteria.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/442426/print

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/22/university-bullied-students-to-change-am

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/11/22/bet-founder-wants-black-americans-to-give-trump-a-chance/

Jonah Goldberg addresses the issues not the man:

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/442413/print

John Stossel reminds us what we can learn from Thanksgiving:

http://reason.com/archives/2016/11/23/thanksgiving-tragedy

Because I got the same NYT link in the e-mail and chortled too, here's Jim Geraghty's wisdom on enjoying the rest of the weekend with relatives who may disagree passionately about politics:

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/442398/print

Meanwhile...the trouble with what Thoreau wrote so long ago is that public libraries aren't true to his vision any more. They're trashing the wisdom of the ages and trying to reinvent themselves as day-care centers.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/23/thoreau-on-libraries/

And here's good news on right-to-work laws:

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/442372/print

Shopping

First a reminder not to be stupid about "Black Friday" sales.

http://www.returntoorder.org/2015/11/8060/

E-friends are sharing some links to sales. Meh. Why not? Here's Mudpie's affiliate merchandise:

http://www.mochasmysteriesmeows.com/2016/11/black-cat-friday-deals-from-triple-t.html

Amazon:

This seriously creepy book link (it's about the history of genocide) was shared by Margaret Atwood, for whom Thanksgiving is long past:

http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/391411/extraordinary-evil#.WDiXXCJdE5c.twitter

...U.S. readers may buy it here.

Petfinder: