A colleague of mine grew up Mexican Catholic, had a son at 16. Father disappears, and when the son is 10 or so she meets a nice Jewish man, and converts in order to marry him. Even puts together a good standup routine about being a Mexican Jew.
The son decides -- he's given the choice -- that he wants to be a Jew too. And a fortnight before his Bar Mitzvah, he goes under the knife.
Tough kid.
I successfully lobbied for my nephew's remaining intact.
When he gets older he may ask why his uncle, otherwise so remote, was yet deeply concerned for the integrity of his nephew's manhood. I don't quite remember, myself.
This reminds me that I need to defriend an annoyingly earnest person who invited me to join an anti-circumcision group on facebook, claiming that it should be a "personal choice". Dude! By the time anyone is capable of making that choice, it's more or less foregone.
I told a Jewish convert that I thought male circumcision ought to be an adult choice: he half-snorted, half-choked, and half-laughed, and told me that it was far better to go through it at 8 days old and have no memory of it than it was to go through it at 28 and remember it vividly.
Of course, that's just the view of one guy with the memory of a sore dick...
I was done at 8 days or thereabouts (it was medically fashionable at the time - no idea why), but they used anaesthetics. Y'know - these clever drugs which stop you feeling pain. I don't have any particular problem with minor elective surgery, but I can't get my head around not using available medical technology.
OFE: Prior to the mid-1980s, infants weren't given a local anaesthetic for circumcision, whether they were done as part of American medical ritual or Jewish religious ritual, because the belief then was that infants don't feel pain.
Apparently even by 1995, it wasn't standard procedure to use local anaesthetic for circumcision on infants. And, er, even when a local anaesthetic is used, as my convert friend reported, it still fucking hurts for days afterward when the local wears off.
Just a tiny little snip, guys, it's all over in a minute... Guys?
All right, all right, I'll see what I can do.
it was medically fashionable at the time - no idea why
Same reason as cornflakes were fashionable - to discourage you from resetting your TiVo, as I believe they used to say round here. The late 19th/early 20th century was a very odd time.
9. I'm not that fucking old, break me a give here.
I think my dad still vaguely believes the cornflakes/graham-cracker rationale for circumcision.
10: sorry, should have made it clear that's when the fashion started - lasted longer than that!
8 was hilarious. Y'all drop by anytime now, seyanen, ya' hear?
14: No, not until you prompted me. But now I see that the author is no stranger to our company.
7: The infants-don't-feel-pain thing applied to more than just circumcision. Neonatal surgery was performed with paralytic agents, rather than anesthesia. Animal surgery was handled the same way, because somehow the veterinary establishment clung to a Cartesian view of animal sensation.
Valarie Hardcastle's The Myth of Pain is full of interesting information like this, although it is a quirky book philosophically.
http://rarebible.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/rape-circumcision-and-mass-murder/
That is the harshest circumcision story in the Bible.
I used to tease my sister's fiance by telling him that story while he was converting to Judaism. Actually he was already circumcised, but he did have to go through a "ritual circumcision" which I believe involved taking a drop of blood from his penis
After the heap of foreskins had dried in the sun, the Israelites stole into the local Fiesta and sprinkled them on the baked goods.
Well, the story of David collecting Philistine foreskins, as rendered by Joseph Heller in God Knows, is pretty harsh.
18: Who knew Jacob had a daughter? Well, millions of people, I suppose, but not me.
22: Perhaps somebody should take a couple of weeks this summer for Vacation Bible School.
I've signed up for the Brick Testament's distance learning class.
25: But how would he distribute all the egg cartons and glue and contstruction paper and glitter needed by the participants?
26: Everything is possible with the Lord, pp.
I can't tell whether the cock joke wordplay in 4 is intentional but it is appreciated.
No discussion of circumcision is complete without this. Tug ahoy!
29: Oh noes:
The mouthpieces of a number of the larger brass musical instruments are remarkably well suited for modification to be worn comfortably within the developing foreskin. Tuba, trombone, and Sousaphone are among the mouthpieces suggested. The men who have sent in suggestions for using such a mouthpiece all modified them by grinding away part of the stem, some of the flare of the mouth orifice, or some other unwanted feature. In each case, the design of the original mouthpiece allows for urination while wearing the device. Typically, either a weight or elastic tension is attached to the protruding stem of the device once it is taped in place within the foreskin.
I sometimes fantasize about producing a comic book series of Bible stories that offers realistic depictions of some of the crazier stuff that happens. In part, this is would be a standard exercise in showing the dark underside of Biblical religion. But mostly, I just think they would make compelling, weird stories.
A similar treatment of Homer would be fun to. Has anyone read Age of Bronze?
I have been working my way through an illustrated children's bible with the petits pains. Even allowing for the fact that it's a condensed version that focuses on the exciting stories, I keep thinking, "Damn, this book is a lot more violent than I remember."
We just got through reading the story of Ester, for which I previously had a vaguely recalled fondness. But re-reading it in children's language, it's pretty horrifying. Start with the fact that Ester becomes queen because her predecessor, Queen Vashti, was shunned for disobeying the King, after which Ester entered and won a year-long beauty pageant to replace her. Worse than Disney, I tell you!
And I had never before grasped the crucial fact that Haman was an Amalekite* ("the sworn enemy of the Israelites" is how the children's bible puts it), which explains why Ester goes out of her way to ensure that King Ahasuerus shows him no mercy.
The illustration of that scene was a particular delight to the children. It shows Haman vomiting at the banquet as he hears Ester condemning him before the King. At least it didn't show him hanging from the gallows 50 cubits high.
Also, I have an Ask the Mineshaft. "My children are having frequent nightmares..."
*Not actually strictly supported by the scripture, but that appears to be a common interpretation.
32 was not written in response to 31, but it could have been. Our illustrated children's bible is fairly gory in places.
this book is a lot more violent than I remember
It certainly is. Religion of peace yadda yadda yadda.
Religion of peace yadda yadda yadda
A "Religion of peace" in the early iron age would have had a short history, if an interes ting one.
Rob should do a pilot comic of Susanna and the Elders, described by Noel Coward as "this sweet girl, absolutely up to her arse in dirty old men".
A "Religion of peace" in the early iron age would have had a short history, if an interes ting one.
It's a debatable point, chronologically, but Jainism is arguably a counterexample.
Jainism and Buddhism were really in a different position than early Judaism, though. They weren't tribal religions, they were breakaway groups dissatisfied with the working of the religion that ran the society. You look at Hinduism at the time, and you see all the elements a religion needs to survive in an age of large-scale agricultural empires: hierarchy, control of women, etc. The breakaway movements can reject all that because the mainstream religion still keeps the engines of production running
all the elements a religion needs to survive in an age of large-scale agricultural empires: hierarchy, control of women, etc.
Rob, could you expand on that? It seems plausible enough, but I can't intuit just how those things are necessary to the survival of the religion.
I was thinking of the religion as something that is not really separable from the society that practices it.
Societies like classical Indian society need some kind of hierarchy and system of control to survive. Farmers need to send tribute to the cities to support the bureaucratic class and the construction of roads and monuments, etc.
Vedic Hinduism provides all this, as one of the chief functions of the religion is to justify the caste system and the division of labor and regulation of marriage implied by that.
Buddhism at least (I don't know enough about Jainism to say) not only rejected the caste system, but opted out of the business of making a living from the land. As a monastic religion, early Buddhism was fundementally parasitic.
Now that I think about it, though, I'm not sure how this carries over to the early Buddhist kingdoms, like Asoka's.
The Essenes probably bare out Rob's point. That was sure a religious order not designed to scale up.
BEAR out. Also, I believe R. Crumb is doing a comic book bible.
41: He is. I wasn't all that impressed with the snippet in the New Yorker though.
41: Book of Genesis, anyway.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/13/r-crumbs-book-of-gen.html
40: Let us consider the example of the Shakers.
That was sure a religious order not designed to scale up.
Gospel Christianity wasn't terribly well suited for global dominance, either. But a few tweaks here and there, and we got a version suitable for an imperial state religion.
Gospel Christianity wasn't terribly well suited for global dominance
I'll re-recommend Robert Wright's interesting article on this.
The story quoted in the OP reads like some poor scribe retconning two different stories about how the Israelites came to mutilate their male children.
A Korean friend of mine was circumcised at 20 - the best part was that after the surgery he drove himself back from the hospital on his dirtbike.
Also, a bunch of my friends in HS got circumcised at ~13 as part of Tswana tribal tradition. That's hardcore, no anesthesia, old guy with shaky hands sawing at your dick with a razor blade (in one case, a bit of glass from a broken bottle). None of this candy-assed anesthetized infant crap.
I have to recommend The River Between by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - it's about circumcision in the African tradition, along with a bunch of other stuff. Good read, but depressing.
43. So how does Crumb illustrate all the "begat"s? I mean I can think of one way, but it might limit the market.
In other skin news. I confess I laughed at the headline. I am a bad person. Also very good is the comment that was on top when I read the article:
I think this tells alot about "Lesbian women" more thanit does about abything else...They are just plain mean..and PROUD of it! And they want to have "state backed marriage"
50: It's not clear to me why animal cruelty is an appropriate charge, given that it's perfectly legal to do the exact same thing to a cow. I could see zoning issues, though. If they weren't in a shooting animals and skinning them zone they really ought to get a fine, or at least a strongly worded letter.
50: I liked "Roberson said Mullins shot the terrier 10 times with a .22-caliber pistol." Seem to indicate either poor aim or the world's toughest dog.
Update to 52: Or maybe she thought you were supposed to put the holes in the belt before you skinned the dog.
52: Seriously. I kept thinking "but a Jack Russell puppy is probably not big enough to make a belt out of, especially with ten holes in it."
51: Animal cruelty laws are generally written to exclude food and experimental animals. For a while there, mice and monkeys were not considered animals by the federal government.
54: Which is why you should fatten the pup up at Hell Hall before skinning.
50: It's a little-known fact about Lesbian women: we skin puppies AND we want to have state-backed marriage!
(Actually, I've never skinned a puppy.
Or been married, come to that.)
rob, I know you're a vegetarian, but i have to say that I'd be pissed if someone passed a law preventing me from killing mice in my house.
54: There'd be plenty unless you wanted a wide belt or were unwilling to tolerate seams.
52: .22 caliber guns are notorious for not getting the job done.
I don't think any animal cruelty laws prevent you from killing animals painlessly. The exclusion of mice from the category "animal" is only there so that you can put cosmetics in the eyes of the mice in your house.
Also, world's toughest dog: Contestant One and Contestant Two.
||
I have a philosophy bleg.
I'm looking for i) good introductory volumes on Kant's metaphysics and value theory for a non-Kant scholar [i.e. me], and also, ii) recommendations for best translations of the various Critiques.
I have the Kemp-Smith 'Critique of Pure Reason' kicking about, I was hoping for a more recent translation.
[Taking advantage of some down time to make a stab at some educational gaps]
>
63: Jonathan Bennett posts very accessible translations at Early Modern Texts. Also, they are free!
re: 64
Good point. I've used those before for teaching. A carry-around dead-tree version would be nice too, though.
58: I'm a vegetarian, but I'd be pissed if someone passed a law preventing my cats from killing mice in my house.
I don't want to eat them. I just want them dead.
(My cats don't seem to want to eat them either.)
61: "I don't think any animal cruelty laws prevent you from killing animals painlessly."
I've killed several mice. I'm fairly certain it wasn't painless.
I don't want to eat them. I just want them dead.
Chuck Norris, Lone Wolf McQuade?
After living a few weeks in a house that could not be effectively sealed against mice, I turned to using glue traps so they would spend all day stuck and terrified before I got to snap their little necks with a horseshoe. Filthy little fuckers. I hates them. HATES.
69: I caught one in the old-school snap traps once. I actually watched him walk in. (I used generic Sugar Pops as bait.)
Now I only use the ones where you can't see the little guy.
You people are twisted and degenerate. Poor little mousies!
71: I gave them fair warning. I always post little eviction notices 72 hours before I set the traps.
71: IME, it takes no more than a single mouse turd in your breakfast cereal to affect a 180-degree change of opinion on that issue.
I have also tried to kill many rats, fortunately never where I lived. I'm just don't have any confirmed kills as I used poison or (unsuccessfully) a shovel.
Definition of an apostropher: a liberal who's eaten mouse shit.
CAN'T WE BE HAPPY LIKE THE TINY MICE?
71: My cats grace my house and delight my heart with their purring.
That they also kill stupid mice and scare away the ones smart enough to be scared is just a bonus.
But a nice bonus, given that I hate finding mouse turds in the flour.
LOVE TO EAT THEM MOUSIES!
I'm Rat Year and find all of this extremely offensive and hurtful.
63: The Cambridge edition translation of the third critique has come in for a lot of criticism for stiffness, but the Pluhar translation has some weird mistakes in it too, so.
Or maybe she thought you were supposed to put the holes in the belt before you skinned the dog.
Like some anthropocentric version of the (probably fictional) acquaintance of Lichtenberg's who "marvelled at the fact that the cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were".
I used to use humane traps that caught the mice without killing them. But the mice could breed way faster than I could trap them. Eventually, I was fed up with the mice mocking me, and with their overall attitude problems, and with waking up in the middle of the night because a mouse is chewing on the inside of the wall right next to your head. I had to go on a mouse jihad. More effective than traps, I found, was just putting out some poison and collecting the dead mice in you basement a couple days later.
80: I'm Year of the Annoying Little Yappy Dog That Needs Shot, so I'm lovin' it.
Growing-up on a farm, my dad said that dogs were better than cats for getting rid of rats. Apparently, most cats (though not all) will follow the Ted Nugent strategy of only killing what they can eat, but the right breeds of dog will take more of a Victorian sportsman approach and bag as much as they can. He said they had a terrier that would spend most of the night in front of a hole in the barn, breaking the neck of every rat that came out.
82: I was sternly warned against poison when we confronted a squirrel issue years ago. Not so much on humane grounds as on the possibility of the critters getting up inside the wall before dutifully deceasing such that their rotting little corpses might grace you with their fragrance for months on end.
shiv had some success with spray foam. After killing some mice, he'd put the spray foam into the various crevices so they'd have nowhere to live.
The mice did retaliate by moving into sides of the oven but I think that was coincidence.
Bought a large live trap to catch the mouse spotted in the basement just after I moved in. A couple of days after putting it out, a rattling ruckus from downstairs started---the two cats (absolutely useless for catching the mouse on their own, mind) were batting the 6 X 10 plastic trap across the basement floor. The sliding top is clear so we could all see the terrified mouse inside. By some miracle, it survived to be released in the park a few doors down.
86 last: Time to start baking regularly.
I will always love the porter in our building for demousing it. We had bad, bad mice -- like, we always had snap-traps out, and would regularly clean up three or four mice every morning -- and then Virgilio started working in the building, and there are no more mice. He is my hero.
63: I'm not sure there's such a thing as an introductory-level work on Kant's M&E, but I recommend Henry Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism. I like Bennett's Kant's Analytic and Strawson's The Bounds of Sense, as well, but they may play a bit loose with Kant interpretation, much like Kripke did with Wittgenstein.
85 was a concern, but hasn't really been a problem. The mice just kind of shrivel up and dry out. This might be a bigger issue if you live in a more swampy climate.
Also, they have a tendency to come out in the open to die. I think its because they go looking for water, and try to find the lowest spot in the house. Hence, they wind up in the basement. And it already smells down there anyway.
88: Seriously. However, do not turn on the oven to bake something after having not done so for nine months. Result is not pleasant smelling.
91: Yes. Which is why I usually only bake animals after the fur has been removed.
63: Oh, and there's C. D. Broad's Kant: An Introduction. It was pretty good, as I recall.
When I lived in Chicago we used a humane trap to catch mice. I sometimes let them go at a nearby church with instructions that they were to be very quiet now, because they were churchmice.
92: Yeah, exactly. Not a great way to die, but probably the most effective way of getting rid of a lot of mice at once.
My theory on traps is that they only catch the dumb mice. So, if you trap for too long, all the dumb ones will be weeded out due to natural selection, and your house will become populated by a race of super smart mice, who will be even more difficult to eradicate.
95: If you had steady hands, you could have circumcised them and released them near a synagog.
83: I'm year of the Horse, so I'm manely equine about it all.
I'm year of the Dragon, which is clearly the coolest of all the potential options. But I haven't figured out how to breath fire yet.
Synagogue. It's Greek. It means, "place where people convene to stand with mouths agape".
I believe R. Crumb is doing a comic book bible.
I too was not impressed. I know it's a fool who reviews the book he wants to read, but I was especially disappointed by the choice to put God in flowing robes and flowing beard. If God makes Adam in his image, why not make him a young adult male? It would give an interesting spin to all the batshit violence of the OT -- YHWH not as the angry general who sends young soldiers to die, but as the young warrior himself, battle-drunk and bloodthirsty.
101: So it would work for monster truck rallies and place of worship.
re: 89
Those look like interesting recommendations, ta.
It doesn't really have to be introductory level, it just shouldn't presuppose a lot of reading of Kant or of secondary Kant sources. I've plenty of general philosophical education under my belt so the book can be as advanced as you like in presupposing a background in metaphysics/epistemology or a working knowledge of pre-Kantian stuff, but Kant himself is an area that I've only dipped into in tiny chunks. I've read the Prologomena and a few other things, but only in a very unsystematic way.
Fast and loose with interpretation is fine too, if I'm reading along with some other more orthodox works of exegesis.
ttaM: The AFAIK two most recent translations are those of Paul Guyer (CUP) and Werner Pluhar (Hackett). Guyer also wrote an in my opinion excellent introduction which is published by Routledge and edited one of those Cambridge Companion books.
Also, ttaM, don't neglect this fine rendition of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding
Nobody else has a rodent killing story?
108: When I was a kid, every time we'd put the garbage out in the evening, the next morning there would be big ugly possums stuck in the bottom of the garbage can. So we'd tip over the can, and they would head for the woods. That's the only time I've ever seen possums in a non-roadkill context.
108: My cats have several, but I don't let them use the Internet.
I thought they were supposed to play dead, but I don't think I've seen a possum without tire treads.
111: Because if you did, they'd just download kitty porn.
108: A mouse invaded the Schloss Flippanter last year, displaced by construction next door. Chemical weapons were used. The State regrets the action that the enemy made inevitable, but believes that the precedent had to be established: run over the State's bare feet while the State is playing Call of Duty 4; pay the ultimate price.
Our house had rat issues when we moved in, which had led the previous tenants to spread glue traps around the attic. Nothing like waking up at 2 am to a scuffling noise above your head, finding a ladder, sticking your head into the attic, and shining a light around to find a rat with back legs stuck in the glue and front legs trying to run away. But a hammer solved the immediate problem, and some hole-patching and improved hygeine pretty much took care of long-term issues (although they're still around outside, especially during avocado season).
113: When a friend was stationed in Iraq, we sent her pictures of our new kittens with a note that we'd heard that lonely sailors stuck in the desert appreciate pussy pictures.
In my first apartment, my roommate and his friends cornered a mouse in the bathroom. They shot it with one of those suction cup dart guns, and the impact was enough to kill it.
Later I found a dead mouse in the sofa. It had apparently been sat upon while rooting about for crumbs.
Then I got a cat.
A vacuum cleaner might have also been something to get.
We had a mouse problem in our first Hollywood apartment, so we put a few glue traps in the cupboards. They worked, and on a couple mornings we awoke to find panicky mice shitting themselves in the trap, and then I had to dispose of them by whacking the trap against the dumpster before chucking it in.
We decided that kittens would be better. Marlowe (after Philip) and Sullivan (after 's Travels) came to join us. And we figured, let's just keep the cupboards shut and we'll have double protections.
This lasted all of two days before MEOW whump whump whump and there's poor Marlowe with his back legs in the trap dragging himself as fast as he can away from his back legs.
I had to hold him by the scruff and wait for the trap to fall off, then rub him down in turpentine. Poor kitty.
The glue traps went away. Shortly thereafter, so did the mice.
I've never had mice in my house as an adult, but dear god did we ever have them in the farmhouse we lived in when I was a young child. Which, being three years old, I fucking loved. And we had the good ole' fashioned traps, which meant there were lots of gruesomely mangled rodent bodies for me to inspect, and real cheese for me to steal. Fond memories. Which is why mice are one of the few "pests" that I don't think I'd mind running around my house. (Of course, the reality of an infestation might quickly change that.)
The most effective bait I found for rat traps was peanut butter. Make the little bastards really bear down on that trap pan to get all the good stuff.
The one time I tried spring-traps, I put out one with peanut butter, one with cheese (or cheeze, I was in college) and one with generic Sugar Pops (because I'd seen the mouse eating one). He took the cereal, but he used his paw so he was held only by a leg. I would have much preferred for the trap to have broken his neck and saved me the whole drama.
121: Either that or we've all spent more time in substandard housing than you.
I have no issue with rats and mice. I have an issue with rats and mice in my house.
To be certain, 121 and 123 aren't necessarily exclusive categories.
I have no issue with Mice and Rats in the Loft.
If I had mice and rats in my house, I would speak softly but firmly to my brethren and sistren, Rat to rat, suggesting the outdoors as a more fulfilling alternative for their rat nature. Out of collegial courtesy, I'm sure they would adjust their ways.
110: I've seen possums running through the courtyard here, just a block south of Sunset Blvd in the perpetually active part of the strip. How they get across alive from the hills is a mystery.
We used to have huge rats living outside in the shrubbery. I used to see them using the railings as their highway but there was no sign of them inside and they've been gone for a while. Now our apartment is patrolled by two cats and I've not even the smallest bug moving since the furry killers moved in with their night vision scopes and insanely fast reflexes.
brethren and sistren
I'm guessing that "sistren" was formed (just now) by analogy to "brethren", but it turns out that the spelling is attested in Middle English. One wonders why "brethren" carried on in an extended sense after the plural became the more regular "brothers" while "sistren" did not.
Sexism, no doubt, played a role!
I wasn't going to tell the story of The Night of The Hell-Rat, because I'm not sure I haven't told it before, but 108 pushed me over the edge. Ladies and persons of a delicate disposition are strongly cautioned.
I was woken by a commotion downstairs, which turned out to be three useless cats trying to figure out what to do with a possum. This was my first encounter with a non-squashed possum, and I was half asleep, so naturally I shit myself. While I cast about for a possum-catching implement, which were surprisingly thin on the ground, the Hell-Rat scurried under the dishwasher. Peering under the machine, flashlight in hand, I came face to face with the beast, eyes aglow with reflected light. Luckily my bowels were already empty. Over behind the (stinky, stinky, stinky) varmint I spied a hole in the wall through which the beast had no doubt entered. My course of action was now obvious: I would trap the Hell-Rat under the dishwasher, and it would eventually leave the same way it entered. I wedged various things around the front of the machine, leaving no escape but the hole, and returned to bed.
I was awoken by a commotion downstairs. In the kitchen a stream of water issued from underneath the dishwasher. Closer inspection revealed that the Hell-Rat, instead of leaving through the hole, had chewed through the hose supplying water to the dishwasher. The spray of water had shorted the motor through the body of the possum to ground, electrocuting the critter. Dealing with the water still spraying everywhere meant moving the dishwasher so I could get to the shutoff valve, which also gave a much better view of the hole. A hole leading nowhere, certainly not outside...
I was awoken by a commotion downstairs. Useless cats, three of them. Hell-Rat. Much, much bigger Hell-Rat. Whereas the previous possum had been the size of a smallish cat, this one was the size of a largish cat. Knowing how these things work, it was obvious that I was dealing with the mother of the late unlamented, and she was looking for payback. Fortunately, I had given some though to how I might have handled the previous incident better, so I immediately inverted a wastebasket on top of the animal, trapping it. I slid a sheet of cardboard under the basket and beastie, and turned the whole mess over, leaving only a sheet of cardboard between angry and probably diseased Hell-Rat and my hand. Dumbass. I managed to get her into a cat carrier and returned to bed. The next day I released her about a mile away in a wooded area.
And the very best part? I have no idea how those two animals got into the house, and I don't care, because this all happened a few weeks before my marriage finally cratered, and she gets the house. Enjoy your Hell-Rats, sweetie.
What? I didn't just now puzzle out sistren. I saw it in use somewhere, because even though I am an engineer, I do read things. THEN, when I went to write the comment, I actually checked to see if I remembered the word right. I have some VOCABULARY, Wolfson.
I meant "just now" meaning, you know, in the last several dozen years.
I really do suspect that most uses of "sistren" are fairly nonce in origin, even if they do get picked up on by others, and do not reflect a continued history of use as do uses of "brethren". It is rather (I really do suspect) the case that "sistren" is continually reinvented on the model of "brethren".
132 Vocabulary and astrology, but no mice.
I really do suspect that most uses of "sistren" are fairly nonce in origin
Something tells me that the US and UK uses of 'nonce' must be different.
"(UK) Slang for paedophile."
Yeah, guess so.
135: I think you are thinking of 'nance', which has a specific meaning in British English.
'Nonce', meaning something made up for the occasion, is from Middle English.
You surely never heard anyone calling a gay man a noncy boy.
Maybe if he likes to dress up in short trousers for certain occasions…
136: wow, I've led a sheltered life.
A Welshman goes to the livestock auctions, and says, "I'd like to bid for a female sheep, please."
The auctioneer says, "Certainly. Are you looking for a ewe, or a lamb?"
The Welshman says, "A ewe, of course! What do you think I am, some kind of a nonce?"
There is a swankish store in Hayes Valley that sells products for men's toilets called Nancy Boy. I find this kind of weird every time I pass it, even though I understand the ironic reclamation thing in principle.
re: 137
I think I know what 'nonce' means in contemporary British English, thanks very much. [Part of me suspects you are kidding, though ... ]
"Hey, McCloud, get offa my ewe!"
Her having informed you is quite understandable, ttaM; after all, you are a Scot.
131: Divorcing or not, I hope you moved the dead possum.
re: 143
Yes, there is that. It's a miracle any of you lot can understand me, encumbered as I am.
141: No. I'd never heard the word 'nonce' used in that context.
145: Only a miracle can save us now!
re: 146
That's the standard near-universal usage for 'nonce' these days. Down south anyway.
Scots sometimes refer to them as "stoat-the-baw"s. Which is a wonderfully evocative image, if you understand the dialect words.
131: I must say, it would have brought me tremendous comfort in the days of the divorce (who'm I kidding? It still would!) to picture UNG under siege from a herd of Hell-Rats. You are a lucky man, togolosh!
148: I can't remember if I've mentioned this before. One of my fondest memories of Alabama is of the neighbor so distracted by squirrels having their parties and orgies in his attic that he used a 12 gauge shotgun on them from the inside of the place. 'Twas the higher tech version of punching solid walls with one's fist.
149: An irascible uncle of mine did something similar. Mouse in living room, uncle gets gun, mouse runs behind elaborate new stereo system, uncle shoots. Mouse 1, stereo 0, uncle's pride -1000.
Mouse disposal story: my sister had been having problems with mice in her apartment in Paris when I visited her last summer. While I was there she bought glue traps - boards roughly 12 inches by 10 inches or so, and the idea was that the buyer would put bait in them. We did so with two boards and placed them strategically. Each of them got six or more bits of cheese or bread, spaced out pretty evenly. Why? I don't know. Well, the idea of buying no-kill traps seems stupid in hindsight; what were we going to do with any we caught, rent a car to drive them to the countryside? Maybe gently pry them off the traps by hand, paw by paw and bit of fur by bit of fur, and turn them loose right outside the apartment? But that didn't occur to me until right now.
The following morning, there was a mouse in each trap. Both were still alive and twitching, of course, but one was gruesomely injured, with guts hanging out. Maybe he had tried to free himself by chewing his own something off. My sister made me take care of them. Ew! She's a girl! She's younger! Won't I please? But I admit, I wasn't eager to handle living-but-doomed mice either. In the end, I put one trap in the middle of the floor and put the other trap on top of it, upside down, with the mice and bits of bait still attached to both. Then I stomped on them a couple times. After they stopped moving I just threw the whole mouse sandwich in the trash in the hall.
I knew a guy who fired a shotgun into the refrigerator, but that was unintentional. He was going hunting, so he had to endure weeks of jokes about how you're only supposed to shot the live birds.
151: I have never heard of glue traps being described as 'no kill traps'. I'm pretty sure you did what you are supposed to do. The last ones I got had some seeds or something in a sticky paste, so you didn't need to bait them.
Squirrels in the attic -- with their orgies and all -- are a bit distracting, it's true; and the cats aren't really any help in the attic.
While there have been mice in the house here from time to time, they're chased off fairly readily by the mere presence of cats. That's been my impression. The household here is more bothered by the rabbits the cats have brought into the house from time to time ... in order to toy with them. Oh, please don't do that, dear cat! Take it, or leave it, outside, if you must.
145: Only a miracleGod can save us now!
154: But it's a gift! To show you they love you! (I will confess, whatever my sympathies for sweet little miceys, when my cat would deliver such little gifts, I couldn't help but feel a little proud of him.)
When I was little, our dog 'gifted' us with a whole litter of baby rabbits. She was a great hunter who would sit perfectly still until a bird got close and then pounce. At least, she spent a great deal of time standing perfectly still and that's how I assume we got all those dead birds in the yard.
My last dog very much enjoyed killing baby racoons. On principle, I guess.
Then I stomped on them a couple times.
Gah! don't you people have buckets? Although I confess I once killed a bat with a hammer. My cat had caught it on the roof and brought it into the bedroom, I guess so that we could both have fun playing bat-tag. I spent the night rolled up in what I hoped was a bat-proof cocoon of blankets, and got up the next morning to find a half dead bat about a foot from my head. Poor little bat.
158: "Those trash cans are mine. Find your own food."
156: But it's a gift! To show you they love you!
I know what you mean, but in this case I get the impression that it's really that the cats sometimes like to bring the prey home, into their home turf, because as far as they're concerned, food can be eaten inside as well as out. They don't distinguish between the two. (I can't blame them; I eat at home too.) They're delighted by the toying-with. I, of course, don't enjoy the rabbit-screaming, and the blood. I take it back outside if I catch on to the situation in time.
158: My last dog very much enjoyed killing baby racoons. On principle, I guess.
I'm not a fan of raccoons. Cats stay away from them, thank god. Danger there, cats! Don't fuck with the raccoons!
Yeah, my cat used to get his ass kicked by the raccoons regularly.
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Can I say who's the man? Jesus McQueen, that's who. I've received a handful of Radiohead CDs, and it's making me so happy.
I know this is off-blog disclosure and so on, but really, Jesus is the man.
Also, I think that tow-truck guys are great. They always seem really great to me.
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I have killed at least three dying, disoriented but still very much moving and unwanted mice with cast-iron skillets. I have also farmed out that duty to menfolk a number of times, when available.
It just occurred to me, but my sister used to give vasectomies to mice. Professionally.
It is not an infrequent occurrence that my wife and I awaken to a bat flying manically around the house. Somehow its my job to get rid of them. Step One when getting rid of a bat flying around the house is turn off the ceiling fans.
Mousekilling has been discussed at length before here on Unfogged.
Comments 2 and 47 contain the best advice if you don't have time to read the whole thread.
164: Okay, jars I can open on my own. But killing rodents with cookware... I'll gladly accept my need for menfolk in such situations.
Peanut butter did not work for us in the snap traps.
Dog kibble. They liked kibble so much that even after we bought a heavy-duty container they would spend hours trying to chew thru, leaving much easier targets alone.
Cat kibble would probably work.
PS:Our house is impossible to seal, having gaps in the outside walls for expansion during summer.
And then there's my grandad's moustrap! That thread is also notable for ogged's concept of B-bingo, which I had totally forgotten.
You want a ratstory?
We have been free of Norwegian roof rats for over a year or more, but have had periodic infestations. I have seen them 18 inches long and several pounds in weight. The poison does let then die in the walls, and the smell is unbearable.But well-placed snap traps with kibble gets them.
I found one under the sink, with its head crushed, and its ass eaten. Now I have been killing rats for twenty years, and I have not only never seen such a thing, but the particular way the ass had been , well more dissolved than actually eaten, freaked me fucking out.
And the next day I found an empty shell of a rat in a trap. The skin was still there, but had been hollowed out. It was like a small dishrag.
There is no more. Soon after that the rats were gone.
Our stupid cats used to chase, kill, and hide mice, which made for the least fun game of Find The Smell ever.
We used peanut butter when we tried to trap the squirrel. Sucker licked that trap clean.
171: Your rats were infected with a small version of the creature from Alien.
171: After that image, I'll never be able to eat another rat.
IME, rats are not cannabalistic, and fire ants do not leave much behind. Also very slow.
I have also seen fire ants get a rat with a leg trapped.
The missing ratass was really spooky. A perfect circle, to an even depth, as if a cookie cutter had been used. Still pink.
I thought about snakes, and I thought about scorpions, but I really haven't a clue.
Then I'll just be happy that I'm too far north for fire ants or scorpions. As for snakes, they swallow prey whole, so I'm guessing no.
171: Bob, I am now imagining your house infested by a far more harrowing rat-eviscerating creature. Like something chupacabraesque.
Becks-style. This thread is hilarious with everyone using an Irish accent. Also, this iPhone thing is amazing.
Becks-style. This thread is hilarious with everyone using an Irish accent. Also, this iPhone thing is amazing.
Yeah,I don't know how to work this thing.
178: If rats are anything like gerbils, it was some opportunistic cannibalism. Generally, Momma Nature's children aren't at all nice.
The iPhone gives everyone on the Internet an Irish accent? That's fucked up, man.
My roommates' cat killed another bird yesterday and wanted to bring it inside. After a bit of protest from the cat with me demurring, the cat began to work on the bird. I heard the beak cracking as it chomped down. Ten minutes later: headless bird carcass on the back porch. A bit unsettling for sure.
184: The iPhone gives everyone the gift of the blarney.
Mice do love the dog kibble. Back when we had the terrible mouse infestation, I had a heavy pair of hiking shoes that I used to wear to work in the rain or snow (they were sufficiently officey looking on top, but had hiking soles.) We'd had nice weather for a long time, so I hadn't worn them for about six weeks.
Then, on a rainy day, I tried to put them on and found out that they were full of dog kibble. The mice must have been using them as food storage -- stealing from the dog's bowl, and putting them in my shoes.
I'm really happy we don't have mice anymore.
Ten minutes later: headless bird carcass on the back porch
circumcised penis joke overload
I almost certainly told this story in the linked thread, but my dad is an excellent shot and used to sit up smoking pot with the .22 on his lap, executing unwary mice in the living room.
(possibly double-posting) I likely told this story in the linked thread, but anyhow. my dad is an excellent shot and used to sit up late at night smoking joint after joint, with the .22 in his lap, periodically executing unwary mice. motherfucking startling to those sleeping upstairs, I will say.
194: yes, it was a double post, but the second one was better, so that's OK!
