Thursday Morning

Pop gets out of bed and on his way to start his coffee, he says, “It’s cool this morning.” He’s right. The past couple of days have been a little too summery; this morning, it is overcast and breezy. It even feels like rain, but we know it’s not going to. But it is cooler this morning, a pleasant reminder that it is still springtime.

Sure, Cops Lied

A charming note on our judicial system. After a case in which the cops were caught egregiously lying, we get some insight from the judge in an interview.

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After a cocktail or two, Harold talked about how his experience as a judge changed him. Case after case, defendant after defendant, victim after victim, made it all a blur. Sure, cops lied. Everybody knew cops lied. Everybody knew cops lied in every case. That was the game. It was their job to put the bad guy away, and the way to win the game was to speak the magic words that the system accepted as necessary…

What was he supposed to do, Harold asked? They may not all be guilty, but they all were guilty. No one could pluck out the one in a hundred who didn’t deserve to be there, and he wasn’t going to cut everyone free because he couldn’t tell who was who. […] He had a job to do, to keep the cattle moving toward the slaughter. Harold could be a rather charming guy, personally. As a judge, he was utterly despicable.

-- Crooks and Liars.com

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Cats and Dogs

You do not have to be a scientist to realize that cats are not quite as close to us as dogs, but I guess it is nice to get some professional confirmation.

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Dogs have lived with us for as many as 30,000 years—20,000 years longer than cats. More than any other animal on the planet, dogs are tuned in to the “human radio frequency”—the broadcast of our feelings and desires. Indeed, we may be the only station dogs listen to. Cats, on the other hand, can tune us in if they want to (that’s why they pass the pointing test as well as dogs), but they don’t hang on our every word like dogs do. They’re surfing other channels on the dial. And that’s ultimately what makes them so hard to study. Cats, as any owner knows, are highly intelligent beings. But to science, their minds may forever be a black box.

-- David Grimm at Slate.com

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It's a good thing that cats are cute, can bathe themselves, and can do that neat litter-box thing. But they will never be your best friend. I miss you, Bo, always!

Porn

I felt like streaming a video. I tried Louis C. K.’s show, “Louis”, but it felt so unconvincing and uninteresting, despite all the laurels it has won. I look for other shows and movies, but nothing appeals to me. I didn’t want to pay for a video that might have won my interest.

If I cannot have something truly gripping and entertaining, I wanted something sexy, outright pornography. So, I go to our old friend, xnxx, and I start streaming. It works for me. I would honestly prefer a good story, some good dialogue, some interesting characters, compelling situations. But sex will work, so long as the sex is a little nasty, cruel. I guess that’s just who I am. Maybe I can still outgrow it yet, perhaps when I am in my sixties, and then porn might be an interesting to me as children’s cartoons. But that is not the case today, even at the tail end of my forties. Such is my life.