Let's say you like cats. When you visit a friend's house and he happens to have a cat, you make a big deal about stroking it, picking it up, talking to it. And you do the same thing with every cat you encounter. It demonstrates to the people around you that you're a sensitive, sympathetic, tactile person. All these things are true of you, including your innate adoration of cats. But that doesn't mean to say you haven't cultivated your cat-fancying into a self-conscious, gushing performance that somehow represents you. This doesn't make you a phony; it makes you something else: mediated. "Me" culture : Reality is so passé
Salon interviews Thomas De Zengotita, author of The Numbing Of The The American Mind and Closure for You, Jedermensch ein Übermensch.
posted by y2karl on Mar 9, 2005 - 50 comments

Cat family being photographed depicts cats--dressed and bipedal--enacting a mundane human situation in a Swiss, or, at least, European setting. It is, in other words, your stereotypical Alfred Mainzer Dressed Cats Series postcard. I have collected them in a desultory way over the years but never thought to Google Alfred Mainzer until tonight.*
*Note that all of these are personal sites and two are Tripod and GeoCities hosted, so treat kindly and tread gently. No direct links, please. coughmaybemirrothemcough
posted by y2karl on Feb 9, 2004 - 4 comments

But what about the kitties? Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. FIV has been recognized as a syndrome since 1986, and as with AIDS, has been found in stored blood samples dating back to the 60s. Unlike HIV, however, for FIV there's a vaccine. Not that everyone is excited about it.

Originally, this was to be a post intended to provide something lighter until this appeared:

In addition, over 25 large cat species including, cheetahs, lions, and panthers have their own strain of the virus. Despite similarity among these viruses, transmission among species has never been documented. Scientists think that FIV is an old virus and may be the grandfather of all immunodeficiency viruses. Comparison of its' genetic code point to a virus that is millions of years old.

Googling led to several topics.
posted by y2karl on Dec 1, 2002 - 3 comments