I’ll be at a wedding celebration today and tomorrow (not mine!), so posting will definitely be light. I hope Greg or Matthew will produce a nice post or two to tide you over the weekend. But I’ve never missed a Caturday felid since I started this website three years ago, and I’m not about to do it now. (If I do miss one, call the police or the coroner.) Here’s are some miscellaneous felids.
This first cat must be a mutant, for I’ve never had (nor seen) a cat that doesn’t head for the hills when it hears the vacuum cleaner.
Next up is a lovely manuscript (I have no idea what it’s about) showing three cats, one proffering a rat (and note the cat at the bottom). This was the 10,000th tweet of Julian Harrison, forwarded by Matthew Cobb. Perhaps a reader with linguistic skills can decipher it:
Finally, many people have seen the photo of the woman who found her lost d-g in post-tornado Moore, Oklahoma, with the canid poking its head up out of the wreckage of her home while she was being interviewed on television. But cats also figured in pets rescued in that ravaged town. Here’s a lady with her orange tabby:
To complement that, a stuck kitten was just rescued from underneath an SUV in Garland, Texas. A car stopped to let it cross the road, whereupon it jumped onto the tire of the SUV and crawled up to the gas tank, where it got stuck between the tank and the chassis. A driver and a cop loosened the tank on the spot and rescued the kitten, who was immediately adopted by an onlooking bank clerk.
In honor of the rescue, the cop asked that the kitten be named Kia, after the SUV. Here’s the rescue and the cat:
And heeere’s Kia:
h/t: Matt, Michael
Tales of rescued animals always bring a smile. I understand them well, for I rescued many myself, from kittens to iguanas and baby birds. I would like to ask something very delicate for today’s Caturday felix, so forgive me for the sad message, but I believe that we, who love animals, have the duty to speak up and educate. Please, help us protest against U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake who wants animal crush videos “legalized” under the Freedom of Speech Act. Ashley Nicole Richards and Brent Wayne Justice are still held in Harris Count Jail, Houston, under obscenity charges, but they could walk free. They produced animal torture videos which they sold worldwide, including here in Italy. Undercover people had been looking for them for a long time. I won’t add any of the links, but it is possible to find articles by googling their names.
I wanted to add a funny moggie picture, but can’t find a button for it?
Barbara
Thank you for posting and informing. It sounds too, too horrible to stomach. It must be stopped, and in such a way as to inhibit others from jumping on the cruelty bandwagon.
The felid getting ‘dusted’ is a joy to watch, but I got to wonder if its tolerance to noise would make it careless around cars and trucks.
The manuscript looks to be a copy of Book XII of St. Isidore of Seville’s ‘Etymologiae’ (written in the late sixth/early seventh century A.D.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymologiae
It discusses the origins of the Latin words for ‘cat’ and ‘mouse’. Apparently, Book XII was often used in mediaeval bestiaries.
Now I’m going to spend all day trying to figure out this manuscript. The font drives me crazy and makes me wonder if I have some brain deficiency that can’t discern things like this because no one else seems to have this problem. The only sentence I could actually make out was actually the one that describes what you said the manuscript is about that says something to the effect of “mice were called mice because….this…..capture”. Stupid brain/eyes combination.
This isn’t so much a font as a manuscript hand and full of abbreviations that make it look all the more unfamiliar. That may be what is giving you trouble.
Maybe….I remember trying to read stuff written in German in that weird script they use, Fraktur. It gave me no end of trouble.
Yes, indeed. Trying to read medieval manuscripts in black letter of any variety is impeded by the scribes’ use of abbreviations, ligatures, and such. Until you become familiar with those, it can look like unreadable gibberish. In fact, even the letters can be difficult to distinguish.
One scribal contraction is the letter C with a macron (overscore), still used today by chemists as an abbreviation for “with”, Latin “cum”. This appears not to be in Unicode, oddly enough.
I just assumed it was because I have some sort of brain defect. Well, maybe I still do…it’s hard to separate those variables. 😛
And, if the abbreviated Latin weren’t hard enough, there’s the weird transcription of the Ancient Greek (in this case the ἀπὸ τοῦ καίεσθαι at the end of 12.2.38)!
Greek I can handle but not capitalized Greek. I’m not saying I can understand it all right away still but it doesn’t look crazy like the text itself. 🙂
The illumination comes from a ms in the British Library:
Detail of miniatures of cats catching mice, mice stealing eucharistic wafers, and (below), an ancestor of Keyboard Cat: a later marginal doodle of a cat playing a stringed instrument; from a bestiary, England (Salisbury?), 2nd quarter of the 13th century, Harley MS 4751, f. 30v.
A whole book of similar cats in medieval manuscripts can be found in “Medieval Cats” by Kathleen Walker-Meikle: http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Cats-Kathleen-Walker-Meikle/dp/0712358188/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt
I had a cat that loooved the vacuum and hardly got hairballs since the machine got a lot of the hair.
I tried that with the next cat and, well, I had to go to the drug store since I only had a half a box of band-aids.
I suspect that the first company to make a silent vacuum cleaner will make a fortune selling it to cat slaves. I can easily imagine cats enjoying that kind of a “super brush,” but how many are going to suppress their natural panic-driven fear of the screaming tentacled monster long enough to let it get close to them?
b&
“the screaming tentacled monster”.
Sure, but surely a vacuum cleaner will be a cake walk after they met an angry PZ?
Hmm. Maybe we should make a desensitizing squiddly video.
When is PZ not angry?
And stop calling me, Shirley.
b&
My last cat wasn’t afraid of vacuums at all, either. I never tried to actually use it on her, though.
Ha ha! I could understand enough of it to find a translation from here: http://pot-pourri.fltr.ucl.ac.be/files/AClassftp/TEXTES/ISIDORUS/Etymologie/B1N8PWGetQy.pdf
Phew….now I can rest. 🙂
It’s a fragment so I’ve started from “Musio”. I added the rest as I recognized “Greco” so here it is….
The mouser (musio) is so called because it is troublesome to mice (mus). Common people call it the cat(cattus) from ‘catching’ (captura). Others say it is so named because cattat, that is, “it sees” – for it can see so
keenly (acute) that with the gleam of its eyes it overcomes the darkness of night. Hence ‘cat’ comes from Greek, that
is, ‘clever,’ from (“lit up,” i.e. the passive form of , “kindle”).39. The mole (furo) is named from ‘dark’ (furvus), whence also comes the word ‘thief’ (fur),for it digs dark and hidden tunnels and tosses out the
prey that it finds. 40. The badger (melo, i.e. meles) is so named either because it has a very rounded member (cf. malum, H, “round fruit”; cf. XVII.vii.3 and XIV.vi.28) or because it seeks honeycombs and carefully
removes the honey (mel).
iii. Small animals (De minutis animantibus) 1. The mouse (mus) isatiny animal. Its name is Greek, but any form declined from it becomes Latin.7 Some people say that they are called mice because they are born from
the moisture of the earth, for mus is “earth,” whence also the word ‘soil’ (humus).
Some paragraphs are really from the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville:
“Musio appellatus … καίεσθαι. ” (Liber XII 2.38 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Isidore/12*.html#3 ) and the translation is: “The mouser (musio) is so called because it is troublesome to mice (mus). Common people call it the cat (cattus) from `catching’ (captura). Others say it is so named because cattat, that is, “it sees” – for it can see so keenly (acute) that with the gleam of its eyes it overcomes the darkness of night.Hence ‘cat’ comes from Greek, that is, ‘clever,’ from καίεσθαι (“lit up,” i.e. the passive form of καίειν, “kindle”).”
It seems that part of the following paragraph comes from Isidore’s book:
“Mus pusillum … clodum claudum” (Liber XII 3.1 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Isidore/12*.html#3 ) and the translation is: “1. The mouse (mus) is a tiny animal. Its name is Greek, but any form declined from it becomes Latin.7 Some people say that they are called mice because they are born from the moisture of the earth, for mus is “earth,” whence also the word ‘soil’ (humus). In these creatures the liver grows during the full moon, just as some marine animals grow larger at this time and grow smaller again when the moon is new. 2. ‘Shrew’ (sorex) is a Latin word, and it is so called because it gnaws and cuts things off like a saw (serra).”
Both translations come from “The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville” (pg. 254 – http://www.amazon.com/Etymologies-Isidore-Seville-Stephen-Barney/dp/0521145910/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370099439&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Etymologies+of+Isidore+of+Seville)
BoBo the Polish vacuum cat above has a younger housemate cat named Nikita
THIS CUTE VIDEO is Nikita’s first experience of cherry fantasia dessert [which the uploader says is safe for cats]
Really adorable! Cherry-red nose and tongue too!
Yes ~ I melted. Those carefully applied claws for improved traction on human finger.
This is really rather good work for a Youtube beginner:- NIKITA ACTION KITTY
Krzysztof Smejlis the uploader is learning fast how to shoot & edit to music. Maru has competition…
That music was also in the Lara Croft movie which really suits the Nikita kitten. BoBo was so nonplussed or should I say non”pussed” 😀
Yes. It’s English “techno” from Fluke ~ also used in Wipeout, NFL Quarterback Club ’99, Enter the Matrix, Spaced & a Ribena commercial of all things.
The tune reminds me strongly of Woke Up This Morning by Alabama 3 [AKA “A3” in the USA]
They’re another English band from Brixton, London that fuses country, blues, gospel & acid house. They formed using the name First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK) 🙂
Ahh yes, another cool tune!
Yes. It’s English “techno” from Fluke ~ also used in Wipeout, NFL Quarterback Club ’99, Enter the Matrix, Spaced & a Ribena commercial of all things.
The tune reminds me strongly of Woke Up This Morning by Alabama 3 [AKA “A3” in the USA]
They’re another English band from Brixton, London that fuses country, blues, gospel & acid house. They formed using the name “First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK)” 🙂
oops. the comment didn’t show up the first time, but when I posted again… there it was
Really good videography. Nikita kitty when very small was downright edible. 🙂
Of my present two cats, mama cat, hight “Gypsy”, is fine being vacuumed. Daughter cat, “Cuddles”, won’t let me get near her with the thing. Note that I have a built-in vac, so all the noise is elsewhere in the house (actually, in an outside storage room): at hose end, all one hears is the hiss of air being sucked in.
Simply put, it’s a natural variation in temperament. Gypsy may be half rag doll, which would account for her laid back, imperturbable frame of mind.
I had a bunneh who did not fear the vacuum. He was not deaf. Whenever I vacuumed, teh bun would follow the vacuum around and sometimes sit on top of it while it was running. Teh kitteh I had with teh bun was terrified.
Both the bunneh & kitteh are now playing wif Ceiling Cat — or is dere a Ceiling Bun?
That manuscript tickled my languages differently than most here. And peculiar for the languages, so OT:
The cat playing a stringed instrument looks like a feline playing a “fela”. (Swedish, old term for violin.)
I like reading an article that can make people think. Also, many thanks for allowing me to comment!| linux hosting http://bleacherreport.com/users/1924408-hoyt-fulton
I always find it uplifting to hear a story of an animal rescue. It really brightens my day after having to hear all the terrible things on the news.The kitty and the vacuum made me smile as well.