I threw out all of mazzycat's and Paddington's store bought catfood a few days ago, and since then they've been getting tuna for every meal. But a cat cannot live on tuna alone, so today I made them this recipe for chicken dinner with rice and lentils. The reviews are in and it's purr-worthy.

It felt very odd cooking the ground chicken. I've been a vegetarian for over 14 years, and I've not cooked any meat in that time. However, my cats being obligate carnivores must have meat. Perhaps, if there is some sort of regulatory oversight worked out for the pet food industry that will insure that we don't have a massive contamination and recall like the one that is still being expanded, I might someday switch back to the store bought stuff. But for now, it's home cook'n for my kitties.

Labels are important things. They are words that tell us something about the person, place, thing, or idea they are applied to. They are a needed part of language. They make it possible to say things in a few words (such as saying "Fred is a Communist") that would otherwise require a lengthy explanation (explaining the details of Fred's political beliefs).

The anti-labelist movement has eroded the usefulness of many words, and it is moving on to taint even more. For example, when I've been in the hospital, I've told the staff I'm a vegetarian. It is very common for them to then bring me fish or chicken, because the last vegetarian ate chicken and fish. I have to explain to them that the person who ate the chicken was not a vegetarian. They were a meat eater. They were an omnivore. They still have control over their labels, if they wanted to be a vegetarian they could simply stop eating meat. Their choice is made by their actions.

Likewise, lesbians spent a long time getting it through the minds of straight men that "lesbian" meant "I'm not going to sleep with you". However, now that a great many bisexuals claim to be "lesbians", insist on being called "lesbians", the term has become meaningless. Again, no one is forcing a label on them by calling them bisexuals. They choose their labels through their actions, and if they are constantly sexually pursuing men, they are not lesbians. Again, the choice of the label lies in the actions.

Of course anything having to do with anti-labelism is going to come back to gender. Gender can be defined medically (a doctor may need to know the status of a person's body regardless of that persons self-identity) or it can be defined socially (as pertains to a person living in or working towards living in a specific gender role.) The former definition is based on physiology and the latter is based on action. Both labels have their uses, the medical label when dealing with medical professionals, the social label (defined by action) when dealing with everyone else.

The anti-labelists are arbitrary in what is acceptable to label someone. I can label Bush an idiot, even though I doubt he self-identifies as an idiot. I can call Trent Lott a racist even though he denies being one. Interestingly enough, some of the most hard-core anti-labelists will regularly violate their own position with statements such as "you cannot be pro-life and call yourself a feminist". The anti-labelist position only serves to muddy the waters for everyone, including anti-labelists themselves.

In short: People choose their labels through action not proclamation.

Email and messaging over the internet may be great ways to communicate, but Singapore scientists are seeking a way to transmit hugs in cyberspace. Researchers from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have devised a prototype that allows "touch" to be transmitted over the internet by way of a vibrating jacket, a report in The Straits Times said. A wireless jacket for chickens or other pets can be controlled with a computer and gives the animal the feeling of being touched by its owner, researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) told Monday's edition of The Straits Times. Researcher James The, 24, calls the prototype "poultry internet". It is only for chickens at the moment, but he envisions it being used for pets and children. He says it is to help people communicate with children and pets wherever they might be. full story

Someday soon, "*hug*" may be more than just text.

A week ago, I found a book in my closet that I had never seen before. Printed in 1884, it is entitled The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know. It's "a cyclopedia of practical information" and has subjects listed in alphabetical order. Following are some of my favorite entries:

Cancer — cure. — Take the blossoms of red clover and make tea of them, and drink freely. It will cure cancer in the stomach as well as on the surface.    Choking — ways to relieve. — Do not lose an instant. Force the mouth open with the handle of a knife or of a long spoon; push the thumb and fingers deep down into the throat beyond the root of the tongue, and feel for the foreign body. If the obstruction cannot be grasped, a hair pin bent into a hook and guided by the left hand will often bring it out. If this fails, get someone to press against the front of the chest or support it against the edge of a table, and strike several hard, quick blows with open hand on the back between the shoulder blades. Further treatment must be applied by a physician, who should have been immediately sent for    2. To prevent choking, break an egg into a cup and give it to the person choking, to swallow. The white of the egg seems to catch around the obstacle and remove it. If one egg does not answer the purpose, try another. The white is all that is necessary.    3. A smart blow with the flat of the hand on the back just below the neck will often relieve the windpipe. If it does not, send for the doctor at once.    4. Foreign bodies lodged in the throat can be removed by forcibly blowing into the ear. The plan is so easily tried and so harmless that we suggest its use.    Dentists' Nerve Paste. — 1. Arsenic, one part; rose pink, two parts. To destroy the nerve apply this preparation on a pledget of cotton, previously moistened with creosote, to the cavity of the tooth, let it remain four hours, then wash out thoroughly with water.    2. Arsenous acid, thirty grains; acetate of morphia, twenty grains; creosote, quantity sufficient for paste. Mix.    Embalming — new method of. — Mix together five pounds dry sulphate of alumine, one quart of warm water, and one hundred grains arsenious acid. Inject three or four quarts of this mixture into all the vessels of the human body. This applies as well to all animals, birds, fishes, etc. This process supercedes the old and revolting mode, and has been introduced into the great anatomical schools of Paris.    Guano — home-made. — Save all your fowl manure from sun and rain. To prepare it for use, spread a layer of dry swamp muck (the blacker it is the better) on your barn floor, and dump on it the whole of your fowl manure; beat it into a fine powder with the back of your spade; this done, add hard wood ashes and plaster of Paris, so that the compound shall be composed of the following proportions: Dried muck, four bushels; fowl manure, two bushels; ashes, one bushel; plaster, one and one-half bushels. Mix thoroughly, and spare no labor; for, in this matter, the effort expended will be well paid for. A little before planting, moisten the heap with water, or, better still, with urine; cover well over with old mats, and let it lie till wanted for use. Apply it to beans, corn, or potatoes, at the rate of a handful to a hill; and mix with the soil before dropping the seed. This will be found the best substitute for guano ever invented, and may be depended on for bringing great crops of turnips, corn, potatoes, etc.    Hysterics — cure for. — The fit may be prevented by the administration of thirty drops of laudanum, and as many of ether. When it has taken place open the windows, loosen the tight parts of the dress, sprinkle cold water on the face, etc. A glass of wine or cold water when the patient can swallow. Avoid excitement and tight lacing.    Mites in Cheese — to destroy. — 1. These are at all times better avoided than destroyed, for when they have become very numerous they do a great deal of damage in a short time. To avoid mites the best plan seems to be to leave the cheese exposed to the air, and to brush it occasionally; some prefer wrapping the cheese in a buttered paper, but the former plan, we think is the best. When mites have become very numerous, they may be killed by suspending the cheese by a piece of wire or string, and dipping it for a moment into a pail of boiling water. The boiling water will kill all the mites, and do no harm to the cheese unless it is left in too long.    2. Cheese kept in a cool larder or cellar, with a cloth rung out of clean, cold water constantly upon it, will never have mites in it, or if it has, this will soon destroy them, and also greatly improve the cheese, keeping it always moist.    Nitrous Oxide, or Laughing Gas. — Take two or three ounces of nitrate of ammonia in crystals and put it into a retort, taking care that the heat does not exceed five hundred degrees; when the crystals begin to melt, the gas will be produced in considerable quantities. The gas may be also produced, though not so pure, by pouring nitric acid, diluted with five or six times it [sic] weight of water, on copper fillings or small pieced of tin. The gas is given out till the acid begins to turn brown; the process must then be stopped.    Opium and its Uses. — Opium is a stimulant, narcotic, and anodyne. Used externally, it acts almost as well as when taken into the stomach, and without affecting the head of causing nausea. Applied to irritable ulcers in the form of tincture, it promotes their cure and allays pain. Clothes dipped in a strong solution, and applied over painful bruises, tumors, or inflamed joints, allays pain. A small piece of solid opium stuffed into a hollow tooth relieves toothache. Two drops of the wine of opium dropped into the eye acts as an excellent stimulant in bloodshot eye, or after long-continued inflammation, it is useful in strengthening the eye. Applied as a liniment, in combination with ammonia or oil, or with camphorated spirit, it relieves muscular pain. When combined with oil of turpentine, it is useful as a liniment in spasmodic colic. Used internally, it acts as a very powerful stimulant, then as a sedative, and finally as an anodyne and narcotic, allaying pain in the most extraordinary manner, by acting directly upon the nervous system.    In acute rheumatism it is a most excellent medicine, when combined with calomel and tartarate of antimony; but its exhibition requires the judicious care of a medical man.    Doses of the various preparations. — Confection of opium, from five grains to half a dram; extract of opium, from one to five grains (this is a valuable form, as it does not produce so much after-derangement of the nervous system as solid opium); pills of soap and opium, from five to ten grains; compound ipecacuanha powder (Dover's powders), from five to twenty grains, compound kino powder, from five to twenty grains; wine of opium, from ten minim to one dram.    Caution. — Opium is a powerful poison when taken in too large a quantity, and therefore should be used with extreme caution.    Sealing-wax (Red). — Shellac (very pale), four ounces; cautiously melt in a bright copper pan over a clear charcoal fire; when fused, add Venice turpentine, one and one-fourth ounces. Mix, and further add vermilion, three ounces; remove the pan from the fire, and pour into a mold. For a black color, use ivory black, or lampblack, instead of the vermilion; for a blue color, use Prussian blue, instead of vermilion, same quantity. Each color must be well mixed with the composition; of the lampblack, use only sufficient to color.    Small-pox — cure for. — A physician writes: I am willing to risk my reputation as a public man, if the worst case of small-pox cannot be cured in three days simply by cream of tartar. This is a never-failing remedy: One ounce of cream of tartar, dissolved in one pint of boiling water, to be taken when cold. Dose, two tablespoonfuls every two hours. It is also a preventive; dose, as before, three times a day. It has cured thousands, never leaves a mark, never causes blindness, and avoids tedious lingering.    Soup for Invalids. — Raw beef, on account of its ready digestibility, is often prescribed for invalids. Of late, European physicians have found the use of what we may call raw soup of great utility when given to patients much reduced by fevers. This soup, first proposed by Liebig, is made from finely chopped beef or fowl, recently killed. Half a pound of this meet [sic] is added to a pint and a half of distilled water (pure rain water, filtered, will answer), four drops of pure muriatic acid are added, and a teaspoonful of salt, or enough to suit the taste. After standing an hour, the whole is thrown upon a hair sieve (a flannel bag will do as well) to separate the liquid. If the first liquid which passes through is muddy, it is poured back into the strainer until what runs off is quite clear. When the liquid ceases to run, half a pint of water is added, in small quantities at a time, to the flesh in the strainer. The yield will be about a pint of a reddish colored liquid, tasting like soup, which is to be given cold, a cupful at a time, or in such quantities as the patient desires. It is claimed that this soup contains the nutritive principles of the meat not changed by heat, as they are in cooking, and that they are part ready digested by the muriatic acid, and that it is suited to the weakest digestive organs. If the red color and somewhat fleshy odor are objected to, the one may be disguised by caramel (burnt sugar) and the other by a little wine. The soup spoils readily, and in warm weather must be kept on ice.    Tape Worm. — To expel this parasite, take equal parts of tincture assafoetida and tincture absinthii, in teaspoonful doses, night and morning. No fasting is necessary.