Edited by author 07-01-2004 10:51 AM
Zef: he wrote it because of a bet. The bet was, of course, "Bet you can't rip off Beowulf without people noticing." Friggin' hack. That story was old before Islam was invented, never mind having adherents wandering into the frozen north. I still like The Andromeda Strain, tho'.

Lavender: White ain't right Surely the mighty protein and fat content of white Mr. Tofu will please the great god Atkins and his prophets (Phil and Oprah). You might point out to the family that even obligatory carnivores like... CATS! will occasionally eat too much protein for their kidneys to deal with. I've lately been enjoying a cereal called "Hemp Plus Granola" (no idea how the accent falls), which has plenty of protein in it, and thanks to an inclusion of flax seeds, masses of fibre.

Bill: On the recent musings de re Felis Catus and other critters. I'm reading a book called The Tribe of Tiger (Elizabeth M. Thomas), which is essentially a sociology thesis on cats, and in it she writes of a lion she was once menaced by which made a point of not looking directly at her when a flashlight swung in it's direction. It would look near enough that it wasn't trying to avoid being dazzled-- it had apparently worked out that it's eyes shone in the dark, and it was easier to sneak up on the ground-apes if it didn't present eyeballs to a light source. This discovery could only come from observing OTHER lions and pondering it's own lion-ness....

Of course, animals can't build cruise missiles, so we're still special. It says so in The Bible, which we all know is NOT AT ALL a collection of possibly useful stories by a variety of guys with personal and political agendas specific to the Middle East in the Bronze Age. Yep. Special.