Miscellaneous: Goobye Milo (April 14, 2019)

Luck seemed to be with us yesterday when a swarm of bees obligingly moved into one of our empty bee hives. Today, luck abandoned us. I was awakened by a phone call from animal control--our cat Milo, hit by a car. Apparently paralyzed from the waist down and with severe internal injuries, he didn't make it. Very hard to put an animal down. Doesn't seem right to have a life or death decision over another creature, but the vet said he wouldn't make it through the day.

He was half-feral, would never stay at home, often seemed ungrateful, and he was sometimes cantakerous, but I will miss him. He was a handsome dark tabby with a broken tail, a rescue cat from the pound who, when he did come home and hang out with us, had a funny way of rolling around on the sun-warmed concrete of the driveway, showing his belly as if he wanted it stroked. Attempt to pet him there, and he'd usually try to bite. But I'll miss him.

We dug him a grand, flower-filled grave in a quiet place in the garden. I'll miss him.

Milo, in happier days, sleeping on the warm hood of one of our cars

Miscellaneous: Colonel Gaddafi Never Gave Himself a Promotion

Gaddafi is dead. His 42-year rule of Libya has come to a definitive close. Following his death, we've heard a great deal about his quirky personality and his flamboyant sense of style (his clothing choices were nothing if not original) in addition to much about the atrocities of his dictatorship, but one thing has always struck me as most peculiar about the man: He never thought to promote himself, despite his megalomaniacal tendencies. He started his rule as Colonel Gadaffi, he ended it, dead, as Colonel Gadaffi. He may have thought about giving himself higher rank, but he never chose to. Napolean made himself Emperor. Gadaffi could have declared himself King after deposing King Idris of Libya in a coup, in 1969. He may have had a distaste for royalty, but he never even gave himself a higher military rank. He could have been General Gaddafi. He could have been 4-star general Gadaffi. He could have had as many stars on his epaulets as he saw fit to put there. His decision to remain Colonel Gadaffi seems an odd bit of restraint from a man that had little to restrain him.

Photo of Colonel Gadaffi by Jesse B. Awalt, from the Wikipedia page on Gaddafi, is in the public domain