Archive for January 10th, 2006

Flaming mice and annoying people

Published at January 10, 2006 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Random rant for the morning:

Today while looking at Technorati, I saw that the most popular link of the day was to this story. It’s about an elderly man in New Mexico who found a mouse in his house, took it outside, and threw it into a pile of burning leaves. The mouse, now on fire, ran back into his house and managed to set it on fire, destroying it and everything inside of it. Holy shit, right?!? Luckily, no one was injured.

Now, I understand linking to such a crazy story. But so many of the blogs I saw basically said, well, serves him right, he got what he deserved. What the fuck?!? Yeah, what he did was cruel, but what 81 year old man deserves to have his entire house and all of his possessions burnt down for killing a mouse? As if none of those people would kill a mouse if they found one in their house. Maybe they’d choose more “humane” methods of killing it, but come on – would they then deserve to stumble upon a gigantic sticky board and either starve to death or be yanked off, much of their hair, skin, and perhaps a few limbs coming off in the process?

Next time those people kill a roach or bug in their homes, I hope a huge shoe comes out of the sky and smashes their homes and everything in them.

Blogging resolutions, and two quickies

Published at January 10, 2006 in Uncategorized. Closed

So, we’re a little bit into the new year now. The title of this post is a bit of a misnomer, as I’ve decided that this year I’m not going to make new year’s resolutions. Instead, I’m going to have new year’s notions – non-binding thoughts about what I’d like to do differently this year.

A few of those notions have to do with blogging. Since starting this blog I’ve been modestly but steadily growing my readership and getting more links, which is great – thanks, y’all, for reading! But I know I need to keep putting in in order to keep getting out. So, my blogging new year’s notions: keep blogging, frequently and regularly, about a good range of topics; keep up with responding to comments and adding to my blogroll; and engage with folks on their blogs, instead of just reading, thinking “hey, that’s really good stuff,” and not giving any feedback. Hell, I might even get my personal blog back up and running at surblimity.net. We shall see.

So, in the spirit of my new year’s blogging notions, two quick things that I’ve been meaning to blog for days:

La Mala pointed me in the direction of this article on Indymedia about the plans for a federally-mandated plebecite on Puerto Rico’s political status. I really appreciated the entire article, but one thing that piqued my own personal interest: it tied the struggle for Puerto Rican self-determination to the similar struggle that has been going on for centuries in Ireland. It also told me something that I never knew – that Pedro Albizu Campos, arguably the most important figure in Puerto Rican nationalism, supported and was actually involved in Irish republicanism. As a bit of a gaelophile who is especially interested in and inspired by Irish successes and continued struggle against British imperialism, this was a pretty neat thing to learn.

And one last quickie: Pat Robertson recently aimed his rather loose cannon on Ariel Sharon, declaring that his recent ailments are the direct result of his contribution to the “division of God’s land” or some shite like that. Interestingly enough, the Bush administration was quick to condemn Robertson’s comments as “wholly inappropriate and offensive.” Oddly enough, I can’t seem to recall a peep coming from the administration when Robertson decided to endorse the assassination of another foreign leader, President Hugo Chavez. Funny, that.