"The humane thing to do is not use an exterminator and save these little animals that are happy and want to live."

Said Frankie Floridia, president of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, quoted in "Rescuers saved 450 pet rats. Now they’re trying to get people to adopt them" (WaPo).

They were "pet rats" in the sense that they were the type of rats — domestic rats, "fancy rats" — that are bred to serve as pets, but these rats were no one's pets. They were just running around "in a now-condemned house in the New York City suburbs."

“They’re in the walls; they’re in the cabinets; they’re in the drawers; they’re in the couch,” Floridia said. “They were basically everywhere.”

Once captured, the rats are separated by gender to prevent further breeding. Females can give birth to eight to 18 pups every three to four weeks.

Separated by gender?! Who cares about gender, here? The problem is the rats are breeding like mad. It's a matter of hard-core sex.

We're told that it's hard to get people to adopt rats. First of all, people hate rats, but the hatred isn't justified against the fancy rat. We're told this type of rat is "usually smaller, more tame, more social and easier to handle" than those rats people loathe. Second, "they must be adopted in pairs or more, as they are social animals." You might think that you can be a lone rat's dear friend, but "Humans cannot mimic the kind of social interaction they need from another rat."

Ha ha. You might have thought human-style friendship would satisfy the rat, but you would need to "mimic" a rat, and the rat experts already know you will fail at that. That seems fair. I, a non-expert, would say that you are huge, you are unpleasantly hairless, and you are not tame, social, and easy to handle. What does a rat want with you? You should adopt a rat, because the rat is "social," but then your sociability toward the rat is not even the right kind. The rat needs another rat. And these rats were used to 449 other rats.

But these rats will be adopted. They've got a whole long article in The Washington Post about their need. And WaPo tells us "The rat rescue community is by far the kindest." That's quoting Erica Kutzing, vice president and co-founder of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, who has kindly ideas about that kindness:

"I think it is attributed to the fact that rats are the underdogs, and they can almost be a representation of the forgotten people; the people who don’t always fit in. People resonate with rats because they are kind of seen as an outcast.... We are not going to stop until we find placement for everyone. We don’t have any other choice."

Rats are the underdogs, but they probably do make a pretty good pet, perhaps better than the underdog dogs kindly people adopt as rescue pets. And yet, I think you'll look better to other people if you express your overflowing kindness toward a dog. You, with a rat... it will be more...

With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone, and you my friend will see, you've got a friend in me....

11 Shades of Obtuseness about Donald Trump's Dirty Words.

Let me give an example of something I am seeing. With 55K shares on Facebook:



That's so obtuse, in so many ways. Let's count:

1. "50 Shades of Grey"? Hadn't seen that talked about in a while. (Wait. There is this.)

2. Boasting of committing what sounds like criminal sexual assault is not the mere saying of words. The size of the outrage isn't about the words as bad words, but the words as evidence of actions allegedly taken.

3. The outrage isn't limited to women. Men, too, are outraged.

4. Many people — women and men — are fine with using the words "fuck" and "pussy" in private conversation.

5. The words "fuck" and "pussy" can be used in sentences that express contempt and disregard for other human beings, and the outrage against Trump's words has to do with what the words express in the sentences actually spoken. Many excellent sentences can be made using those words — sentences that can be received with favor by women who hate what Trump said.

6. People read novels and see movies about all sorts of things, including horrible things. Stories about murder and torture and all kinds of physical and psychological abuse are very popular. The effect is titillating, but that doesn't mean people want these things actually to happen to them.

7. You may love a particular character in a story, because he's interesting and exciting and transgressive, but that doesn't mean you want him to be President. I love the movie "My Dinner with Andre," but Andre Gregory would be a terrible President. Last night, I watched the movie "Willard." Willard is a fascinating character. Watching him bond with rats, train them, gather them into suitcases and carry them into the office to unleash havoc was fascinating... oh, watch out, pussy!...



... but Willard would not make a good candidate for President. Neither would Hannibal Lecter.

8. It would be interesting to see those rats overrun the White House... in a movie. But not in real life!

9. Fantasy time is over. Put down the novel. Turn off the movie. Face the grim reality of picking a suitable President.

10. I said it 2 years ago: I'm for boring. I mean for President. I'm not talking about novels and movies and sexual fantasies.

11. "OK. Yes, we are bored. We're all bored now..."



"... but has it ever occurred to you... that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing, created by a world totalitarian government based on money, and that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks, and it's not just a question of individual survival... but that somebody who's bored is asleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say no?"

"What I'd like to know is if he was separated at birth from George McFly."

Says John, commenting (with pictures) on the news story "Ted Cruz to Announce on Monday He Plans to Run for President."

America, my density has brought me to you.

ADDED: Actually, it looked like this:

I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support! pic.twitter.com/0UTqaIoytP

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2015

Crispin Glover talks about how they stole his face for the "Back to the Future" sequel.

On his "Ask Me Anything" stint on Reddit today:

There are certain things that happened since being in Back to the Future that makes it difficult for me to reflect on the film as having funny things happening. Specifically there was a lawsuit because of something the producers did that was illegal in the sequel to the film. What the producers did that was illegal was as follows. The producers used the molds that were taken from my face from the original film and had prosthetics made to resemble my face to be placed on another actor to make them look like me and then inter-spliced a small amount of footage of me from the original film with the actor in prosthetics to resemble me in order to fool audiences in to believing I was in the film.

So what have you been watching on TV lately?

You may have noticed I haven't been saying much about television lately. American Idol ended, and Joe Schmo was too tedious to watch. (After they decided to tone things down to cool the suspicions of one of their dupes, what was the point? The dupes believe they are on a reality show, so what's funny if the actors are acting like regular contestants on a reality show--other than that, because it's on Spike TV, the games are more sexual?) I've even stopped watching The Daily Show, and I'd been a devotée ever since Jon Stewart took over, before the 2000 election. (I just got tired of him laughing at everything that seemed to be going badly in Iraq, acting like Bush is inherently a joke, and not bothering to disguise his hostility toward guests that attempt to take the other side--especially, recently, Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard). And Dennis Miller is irking me from the other direction. (Cheering over the video of L.A. police beating a man who had obviously surrendered was just disgusting.)

So what am I watching? I'm keeping up with the new season of "Six Feet Under." I think George is sending the boxes of excrement to himself. It's clearly not Arthur, who, as Television Without Pity notes, was off buying a suit when the new package of poo arrived. I think it's George because he has had the motive and opportunity. Also, he completely underreacts when a package of crap is opened a couple feet away from him. "Six Feet Under" has its longueurs. I don't find anything interesting in the relationship between David and Keith. Both characters are incredibly bland. I can't help liking Lauren Ambrose: did you see her when she was on the Isaac Mizrahi Show and sang "God Bless the Child"? It was unbelievably good. I like the Arthur character. And I like Rachel Griffiths. The Ruth character--I don't know, how many times can an older woman break out of her repression? After the second or third time, it ought to be ridiculous. But Frances Conroy is so good, the plot line can survive a few extra recyclings.

For some reason, I've been soaking up an excess of dead body material. In addition to "Six Feet Under," I've been watching the HBO "Autopsy" series (on HBO on demand). And the other day, we needed to agree on a movie, and we decided on the old 80s movie "River's Edge," which has a lot to do with a dead body lying on a river bank. "River's Edge" was a big deal in its time: it showed how American society was on the verge of collapse because all humanity had drained out of everyone (except perhaps one drop remaining in Keanu Reeves). But here it is 16 years later, so its predictive value is gone. (Yay! We didn't go straight to hell!) We were saying things like "This movie hates poor people" and "This movie hates young people" and "When are they going to stop just driving around?" and "Where the hell are they supposed to be going now?" and "Is this thing ever going to end?" But you should see the unique performance of Crispin Glover in his prime. And it's the perfect choice if you want to wallow in 80s-style sordidness. The sets are perfect expressions of woeful misery. And there are some memorable lines, like: "I quit being a mother. It's just not worth it!"

Last night I watched the movie I couldn't get agreement on the other night, "Russian Ark." Here the question becomes not "When are they going to stop just driving around?" but "When are they going to stop just floating around?" The film is largely a technical stunt, a single shot 90 minutes long, floating through the rooms and halls of The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. We see a lot of art and costumery and try to absorb various references to Russian history. Is it arty enough? Could it be more arty? The word arty was invented for this sort of thing. My favorite movie is "My Dinner With André," which is testament to the fact that I don't need a story or any action, but I found it impossible to stave off boredom. Yes, there are some beautiful images, and the technical achievement can be marvelled at (how all the thousands of actors hit their marks and two orchestras played their pieces flawlessley--or at least appeared to), but my advice is to save this for a time when you want a purely dreamy experience. The term "moving picture" is unusually apt.