La Vie En Rose for 2007 April 12

9:30 I woke up this morning to a constant little mewing outside my window. I went out to investigate and there was a little tiny kitten nestled in one of the sprinkler beds. Momma cat soon made herself evident, too… (This explains a lot of prowling and growling that has been going on outside my window these few days.) At first she made to run away but then she changed her mind and engaged in a standoff with me, and tried to run me off! Very brave. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't take the kitten away from it's mommy, but then on the other hand, it might be given to the Cat People who would foster it out and then find it a nice cozy home, instead of having to live on the street and getting knocked as a teenager like its momma, thus perpetuating the cycle. All the same I hid & let the momma carry the kitten away. Maybe it will find someone else when it has been weaned to give it a good home. It has been known to happen.

In other news I now have a scanner. Oh happy day! Originally I had ordered a cheap, refurbished one from some online store… Bad move. Not only did it not come with software compatible with macs, not only could I not get it to work with image capture, it didn't work at all! I sent it back and they gave me a full refund, but I had to pay to ship it so I was still out $12, which is like half the price of the scanner! The lesson is not to order from shady online stores. This one is 3Btech.

So I decided not to take any more chances and I ordered a scanner directly from the apple store, guaranteed to a) work with my computer and b) work. It came really fast and I got it yesterday! I spend the evening fooling around with it, scanning things in my "scan & toss" pile. I paid a little more than basic to get one with an adjustable document cover so you can use it with books, and it scans film and has buttons you can use to make pdfs, though I haven't quite worked that out yet. I worked on a little setup with a book in my book holder so I can just glance over and read while I am waiting for things to scan or save. Fantastic! Hmm I think I hear a little mewing again… and a big mewing which means I must let tonks in.

1916:

To American readers the name Kossovo doubtless calls forth little recognition.

Mr Fortier Jones, you are hil-AR-ious, and you don't even know it.

However, I think his book makes a good point about sticking ones nose where ones nose does not really know all about what is going on. He continues:

But to every Serbian, Kossovo bring up an image of past glory when the present dream of every Serbian heart was a reality.

(Of course the difficulty for an historian in looking at nationalist histories is the discrepancy between historical "truth"—if there is such a thing—and what the general population believes to be their history. Which is one of the reasons professional history is so distrusted in places like, say, Ireland. But I digress…)

And later:

you can be assured the average Serb knows why [he is fighting]. Whether you believe in the Serb's ambitions or not, you instantly see that he believes in them, worships them, dies for them with a gladness that takes little account of self or family… If it meant sure defeat, they would still jump in and fight for their liberty until utterly exhausted. They can not help it; they are built that way. They may or may not be too extreme in this. It is well for Americans, who can sit calmly and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of fighting no matter what is involved, to realize that such peoples do exist.

The point I am trying to make here is less about Serbia specifically and more about a general world view. I think it just shows how easy it is to get accustomed to "our" way of thinking as if it were the only way of thinking, as if people all over the world don't think differently ten times over. Here we are taught, "it's rude to stare." In Turkey, staring is a national pastime. Who is right and who is wrong? No one. But when one goes to Turkey and feels uncomfortable because one is being stared at, one ought to remember that things are not always as they appear to one's self.