Circus of the Spineless #16 is now available.  Head on over for plenty of invertebrate news and photos.

A most excellent editorial: “WE SPENT FIVE years acting hysterically, like a nation that was in a fight with Ricky Ricardo. We were insane people, screaming about politics, shoving tiny American flags on the corners of our news shows, convincing ourselves that flipping houses was a real job. There was a moment there when we even considered shunning French fries. But in 2006 it all changed. This was the year of adulthood, of sobriety, of pragmatism: the year of acting reasonably. The kind of year when you calmed down, thought it through, weighed your options and realized that there is no upside in telling the media that, yes, it does kind of suck when the vice president of the United States shoots you in the face. All of a sudden, we decided to approach events unemotionally. In fact, we were downright boring. At this point in Vietnam, college kids were destroying campuses and growing incredibly unflattering facial hair. In 2006, we asked a bunch of retirees to meet for a study group about Iraq. If they had done a better job, we’d probably be moving on to solving the Palestinian issue with a book club. And the Iraq Study Group didn’t come up with the radical solution that everyone expected. Instead, it reasonably advised that — slowly, when no one is looking — we get the hell out of there.”  I’d quote the whole thing if I could.  Just go read it.  And it’s about time: Americans grew up a tad in 2006, although I won’t say they stopped acting like spoiled, hysterical children.

Don’t miss the Best of 2006 | Readers’ Choice gallery at (sometimes)photoblog.  There’s plenty of good eye candy to satiate the hungriest amongst us.

Carnival of the Cats #145 | New Year’s Edition is the last one for 2006.  The celebration of all things feline goes out in style with lotsa links to adorable photos and stories.  Don’t miss this celebration.

My mind is still mush and offering up simple, probably common words to post, so I do apologize in advance if I’ve bored you over the last few days with these entries.  I don’t have it in me to delve deep enough for more advanced vocabulary… at least not yet.

gestalt (ge·stalt): / guh SHTAHLT / (always italicized)
noun

(1) a pattern, configuration, organized field, or structure of phenomena integrated such that it possesses properties as a functional unit which are impossible to derive from the basic summation of its various components; a unified whole; a group regarded as a single item
(2) an instance or example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts

[From German gestalt meaning “figure, shape, form, structure.”]

Usage: Animal personalities are gestalts that could never be unraveled simply by cataloguing individual experiences, thoughts, and emotions.

Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.

— Mickey Friedman