Open Thread: Revolution in Egypt

UPDATE: Mubarak has resigned! Watch all the cheering and celebration in Tahrir Square live here.

After Mubarak's stunning speech yesterday, in which he was expected to resign but did not, everyone's left wondering: What now? I sure as fuck don't know.

Mark Lynch—Responding to the Worst Speech Ever: "I don't think anyone really knows how things will break in the next 12-36 hours. It seems pretty clear that most people, from the Obama administration to Egyptian government and opposition leaders, expected Mubarak to announce his departure [last night]—and that they had good reasons to believe that. That turned out to be wrong. As I just mentioned on the BBC, I don't think anybody knows what's going on inside Mubarak's head right now, though he certainly seems out of touch with what is really going on. I suspect that his decision may have changed from earlier in the day, and that people inside the Egyptian military and regime are themselves scrambling to figure out their next move."

New York Times—Mubarak Reportedly Leaves Cairo: "Angry protesters, who had swarmed by the thousands into the streets here Friday morning, were hardly mollified by the news of Mr. Mubarak's exit and an accompanying statement by the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces over state television and radio indicating that the military, not Mr. Mubarak, was in effective control of the country. They said they would not believe he was gone until he had formally relinquished his title as president, and until his handpicked successor, Vice President Omar Suleiman, had been ousted as well."

Guardian—Egyptian army backs Hosni Mubarak and calls for protesters to go home:

The Egyptian military has thrown its weight behind Hosni Mubarak's decision not to resign as president and to transfer most of his powers to his vice-president.

In a statement read out on Friday morning, the military announced it would lift a 30-year-old state of emergency "as soon as current circumstances end", but gave no specific timeframe.

The statement – called "Communique No 2" – also said the military would guarantee changes to the constitution as well as a free and fair election, and it called for normal business activity to resume.

Lifting the state of emergency was a key demand of the demonstrators, but the decision to back Mubarak's process of slow transition is likely to enrage the protesters who have massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere every day for more than two weeks.

The army said it would protect the nation but repeated a call for protesters to go home so life could return to normal; protests and strikes have had a serious effect on the Egyptian economy.

Meanwhile, in the US...

The transcript of President Obama's response to Mubarak's speech is here.

New York Times—Obama Faces a Stark Choice on Mubarak: "President Hosni Mubarak's refusal to step down on Thursday, after a day of rumors galvanized the crowds in Cairo, confronts the Obama administration with a stark choice: break decisively with Mr. Mubarak or stick to its call for an 'orderly transition' that may no longer be tenable."

Reuters—Obama calls Mubarak's latest move insufficient: "President Barack Obama said on Thursday Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's statement that he would hand over power to his vice president was not enough to meet the demands of protesters clamoring for democratic change. Hours after Mubarak's refusal to resign provoked rage among protesters in Cairo, Obama said that Egyptians 'remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy'."

He does have a flair for the understatement, doesn't he?

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Open Thread

Hosted by Mrs. White.

"I hated her... SO... MUCH... it-it.. the.. fl... flames... flames... flames. On the side of my face. Breathing... heaving breath..."

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker Aphra_Behn: What is your favourite Comforting Thing?

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Shaker Thumbs

We haven't had a Shaker Thumbs in almost a year (!), so we're long overdue. Shaker Thumbs is your opportunity to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a product or service you have used and that you'd recommend to other Shakers or warn them away from.

I'm giving a big THUMBS UP to my Sorel Women's Tivoli winter boots in valentine/white. (I actually got mine at Amazon, because I had an unused birthday gift certificate, but I usually get shoes through Shoes.com.)

I needed new boots at the beginning of this winter, because my old ones were falling apart (after a mere 18 years), and I did a lot of research before settling on these—and OMG I LOVE THEM. They are the best boots I've ever had, totally comfortable, totally keep my feet dry and warm even in the deep snow we've had, and totally cute to boot! (Pun intended.)

They're also very easy and quick to get on and off, which is a big deal for me, because the chronic pain that lives in my left side makes bending over really painful. And I've got to put them on and take them off several times every day.

The longest I've walked in them is probably half a mile, but, if the weather wasn't crap, I could easily and comfortably have walked a lot further in them.

So that's my review. Have at it in comments with your reviews, Shakers!

[Previously in Shaker Thumbs: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven.]

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We're so close I can taste it.

[Trigger warning for homophobia]

In case you've been blissfully unaware of the latest US political news, today is the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. In a nutshell, it's sorta like a huge party for 11,000 people, only with political speeches instead of a bouncy house, and hatred instead of fruit punch. If only I lived in DC and was invited.

Also, you may have also heard of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives that's making waves by co-sponsoring CPAC. :yawn:

According to CNN's John Avalon this changes everything. :magician hands:

Avalon's wife is on the board of GOProud (shall I assume she's B, T, and/or Q?), and he wants you to know that:

"America has been going through a gay civil rights movement for more than a decade. One measure of its success is that it has finally reached the Republican Party."

Technically Avalon's correct-- America has been "going through" (ewww?) a "gay civil rights movement" for more than a decade. But this second point? No.

The fact that the Republican Party is willing to take some gay people's money in exchange for their supporting most of its platform is not a measure of "the" gay rights movement's success. See also: the history of social justice movements, and the 'good' <$subsetofoppressedgroup>.

Avalon also claims that social conservatives' use of Reagan in distancing their movement from gay Republicans is "ironic", because Reagan was totes cool with the gays. His evidence of this is that Reagan campaigned against Anita Bryant's Prop 6 (oh, look who's been watching Milk!).

Um, first, that's about the lowest bar you can set for being down with the gays, particularly given that Prop 6 would have been a massive headache for Reagan's state of California to enforce. And, um, second? No. Reagan was not a friend of the gays. Not at all. Never. Never. Never. I mean, I guess he was one of those Hollywood actor types and was therefore a secret lefty, but no. Not. At. All.

While I'm on the subject, Sady has a great post up that nicely ties into my point that the 'good gays' are probably not going to be the most 'effective' folks to lead us to equality and justice.

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Quote of the Day

(TW for some violent imagery in the linked story.)

"Stuff is just made up."- A "FOX News insider," when asked what viewers would find most surprising about the FOX News channel.

Viewers, I get. Me? No, not surprised. We've been saying this for years.

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I Talk To Ants

[cross-posted from my new blog Madwoman At Play]

Yes.

I do.

I talk to ants.

Most recently, the ants that have decided that the sink where I brush my teeth is fascinating — and possibly, the best source of (food? water? lingering minerals from a rinsed out beer can?) — something.

A few months ago, I had this completely empathetic moment with an ant. We had finally resorted to putting out “Terro” (an ant-destroyer). This isn’t usually our little family’s first choice in such matters, but we rent, and we want to maintain the land-lady’s home in the way that she wants it maintained — so we put it out, with a notice to the ants: You can eat this or not; your choice. It’s not good for you or your colony, but there it is.

About a week later, I saw one lone ant in the afore-mentioned sink. When I turned on a light, though, it did something more cock-roachy than ant-y (in my experience) — it scuttled under the cardboard piece holding the Terro.

I lifted the edge of the cardboard, and yep — there it was.

I felt bad.

Here was this little ant — perhaps the last of its tribe, wandering out into the great big world, and maybe feeling lonely (which I acknowledge may be complete projection on my part).

After my Beloved and I talked about this, and conversed about the misgivings we both had about the wholesale slaughter of beings just because we found them “inconvenient”, we stopped putting out the Terro. The ants returned, but in more reasonable numbers, and we were co-habitating with them once again — noting their synchronous appearance on the back burner of the stove at a time when both of us were putting some important matters on the “back burner” in our lives, and recognizing them as totems for diligence and patience.

For the past week, though, they’ve been exhibiting this sink-fascination. At first, I found it almost comical. I’d stand over the sink with my toothbrush late at night and chuckle, “What?! Why here? What are you eating?”

I wondered if it actually was the rinsing out of beer cans, so I stopped rinsing my beer cans in that sink, I poured Dr. Bronner’s down the trap, etc..

They kept coming.

So, last night, when I went in to brush my teeth before bed, there were TONS of them. They were everywhere. I chose to go ahead and brush my teeth as usual, ran the water that almost certainly whisked more than a few of them to their watery demise, and issued an edict to them and their colony as I did so. Here’s what I said (out loud and in my head):

“Go! Go back to your colony, and tell them that, though this sink may sometimes hold nutritive treasures, it is prone to massive flooding at unpredictable intervals — that there seems to be no rhyme, rhythm, or season to these deluges, and a great, fat goddess sometimes looms above it, spewing foamy substance into the frothing waves of these flash floods. Tell them, oh ants! -- That they venture here at their own risk, and the goddess of the great white basin considers the use of this place as a food-gathering location as undesirable at best.”

So, that was last night. This morning, the ants were less abundant, and I thought maybe they were getting the message.

Then, tonight, after we finished watching Inception in my office, I turned on the lights and found a metric fuck-ton of ants where they had never been before — on my desktop (not the computer desktop, the top of the actual desk). The only thing there for them to eat was a spillage of brewer’s/nutritional yeast — nothing sticky, nothing sweet — and I pronounced to them again that I WOULD NOT TOLERATE ANTS ON THE DESK!!!!!

I swept a number of them away with a damp rag, and sought out their path, to wipe it clean.

But I’m still going to break out Ted Andrew’s Animal Speak and re-read the chapter on Ants.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Alfie posing like Alfie posing in his portrait
For those who are unaware, the McEwans and Space Cowpokes are really good friends, though Liss is the only one who's a bowl of farts. We try to visit each other regularly, be it in Indiana or New Jersey. Between visits, we come up with alternate forms of hanging out (e.g., phone, Skype, Xbox live, naga raids, etc.). We even adopted greyhounds a few months apart, and as luck would have it Alfie and Dudley are actually fifth cousins!

Over the holidays, we were considering commissioning a portrait of Alfie to hang over the fireplace. While completely unaware of this, Liss & Iain decided to go ahead and commission an Alfie portrait as a holiday gift. Needless to say, we were pretty stunned at the coincidence, and got right to work on choosing a source picture that would work nicely. Below is the source picture, followed by the resulting portrait made by the commissioned artist.




It was only a matter of time before I would catch Alfie making the (almost) exact same pose under his own portrait!

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Mubarak May Step Down Tonight

The Guardian—Mubarak resignation rumours grow:

President Hosni Mubarak's rule appears to be on the brink of collapse after senior politicians said they expect him to relinquish power in the coming hours as strikes and demonstrations spread across the country.

The prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, told the BBC that he believed Mubarak would step down and that the situation in the country will be clarified soon.

Hossam Badrawi, the new secretary general of the ruling party, was quoted in the state press as saying that he has requested Mubarak to transfer his powers to his vice-president, Omar Suleiman, and that he expects him to resign this evening. But he later told state television that no decision had been made.

General Hassan al-Roueini, the military commander for the Cairo, told the crowds packed in to Cairo's Tahrir square, the epicentre of the protests to demand Mubarak's resignation, that: "All your demands will be met today". The tens of thousands of people let up a deafening cheer and chants of: "The people and army are one".

Thousands more people poured in to the square at the news.

More at the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, and MSNBC.

*bites nails*

UPDATE 2:45pm: Mubarak is speaking now and you can watch it live here.

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Pet Shop Boys: "Paninaro '95"

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A Challenge to the Farrelly Brothers

[Trigger warning for jokes about sexual violence.]

[Video Paraphrase: Trailer for the upcoming Farrelly Brothers film Hall Pass, starring Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, Stephen Merchant, J.B. Smoove, and Larry Joe Campbell. Fischer and Wilson play a married couple, and Applegate and Sudeikis play a married couple. The dudes are obsessed with sex; their wives catch them checking out other women. Joy Behar (?!) tells the women that "Married men believe, if not for you, they could actually be with these other women." So the wives give their husbands, a "hall pass," which is defined in onscreen text as, "A week off from marriage to do whatever you want without consequences." The guys and their three buddies (Merchant, Smoove, and Campbell) are inept at scoring babes. One of the examples of their ineptitude is Sudeikis walking up to a woman in a bar holding cocktail napkins; he sniffs them then holds them out in her face. "Excuse me," he says, "do you think these bar napkins smell like chloroform? I'm kidding! Fred Searing, can I buy you a drink?" Scenes of the dudes spinning out of control—police chase, mug shots. But they guys are determined to score because "If we can't show that something positive can come from having a hall pass, the whole concept is dead for all mankind."]

That the Farrelly Brothers think sexual harassment and assault is hilarious is not news. The entire premise of There's Something About Mary was a woman being stalked by multiple men who were deceiving her to try to sleep with her. (Ironically, Brett Favre played the one guy who wasn't stalking her. Whoooooops!) Kingpin featured a predatory landlady who coerced Woody Harrelson's character into exchanging sex for rent. Me, Myself & Irene had a scene in which Jim Carrey's character grabbed a baby off hir nursing mother's breast and started suckling, to the woman's horror. One of the many problematic aspects of the premise of Shallow Hal is that the main character, who believes his fat girlfriend to be thin, has sex with her while effectively unable to consent to the actual person with whom he's having sex. Et cetera.

There are things I've liked about the Farrelly Brothers' films. They cast real people with disabilities who are allowed to be funny, not just objects of ridicule. Their main female characters are often imbued with more dimension and agency than most female characters in comedy films. Though the premise of Dumb & Dumber was about a guy stalking a woman, and he and his friend eventually competing for that woman's affections, neither of them come even close to winning her over (a refreshing result which is unfortunately undermined by the guys nonetheless being afforded the consolation prize of an entire bus full of bikini models).

They sorta strike me, maybe wrongly, as the kind of guys who would be willing to reconsider the value of rape jokes, which is why I'm even bothering to write this post. I don't imagine them, guys who have repeatedly expressed an interest in being sensitive toward disability, to want to be the sort of people who don't give a fuck about survivors with PTSD, who don't give a fuck about triggering people, who don't give a fuck about being the guys who made a movie with a rape joke, and then put that rape joke right in the trailer, so a survivor of rape can be blind-sided by a joke trivializing what happened to hir while she's just trying to relax in front of the telly for the evening.

I think more of them than that. And, even if I'm wrong, I expect more.

And I challenge the Farrelly Brothers to make films that don't rely on humor which diminishes the gravity of sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual violence. I challenge them to become my ally.

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Feel the Trans*-momentum: Canadian Parliament Passes Transgender Rights Bill

Canadian MP Bill Siksay¹ recently made his third attempt to add protection for trans* people to the Canadian Charter of Rights Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code⁴, and yesterday it passed the House of Commons on third reading².

For most bills, this would then lead to a fairly pro forma stamp of approval from our dozey Upper House³.

In this case, though, it is entirely likely that our horridly Tory-stuffed basket of stuffed shirts will actually drag their privileged asses out of their smoky private clubs long enough to vote it down, because Maude forbid we allow trans* folk the same protections given to other marginalized groups in this country.

So yay to the Honourable Mr. Siksay, and to his colleagues who voted for the measure, but boo to the career-long hypocrite we currently suffer as PM, the Harpertron 5000 (Tory motto: Working The Uncanny Valley for Twenty Years!), and his use of a stuffed ballot box to deny basic human rights to trans* people.

For those with more optimism than I have, Shaker MarissaAO has posted a link to the Senators' list, which tells which Senators are nominally for which province, if you're inclined to write to them.

¹ Member of Parliament, and official critic on GLBTT issues for the New Democratic Party (or NDP), Canada's semi-mainstream progressivist party (there are other progressivist entities on the scene, but none which have formed a government anywhere in the country, as the NDP has often done).

² And may I say a rousing RESPECT! to the trans* warriors and allies who led the tough fight to get this through the House, to the Tory members who voted their conscience against their party and government, and a big bucket of slimy jeers to the "liberal" members of the "Liberal" party who voted against it, or abstained like puny moral cowards.

³ Unelected, appointed for life by a Prime Minister, this House was the target of Conservative ire back in the 80s and 90s (during a succession of Liberal governments, the Libs being our centre-left party). The neo-con movement got itself initially elected on a basis of "let's make government smaller", and promised they'd never do things like take up the extensive benefits package given to MPs, and that they'd change the Senate to an "Equal, Elected and Effective" part of the government.

Oddly enough, once they actually took power, they immediately began taking up all the perqs and privileges accorded to MPs, and the whole "elected Senate" thing didn't happen when they realized that if they simply selected young-enough right-wingers, they could control the Senate for decades.

⁴ As Shaker Marianne Pelton points out in comments, I had the scope of the bill slightly incorrect in my initial posting. Thanks for the correction! :)

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Top Chef Open Thread

[Image from season whatever: The Foo Fighters get a free meal.]
Hey, remember when the Foo Fighters were on a couple years back? Good(ish) times!

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Republican House Member Resigns Over Sexual Impropriety, Er, Making Republicans Look Bad

Representative Christopher Lee has resigned from Isengard Congress after a shirtless photo of him was posted on Gawker "along with e-mail exchanges that reportedly took place between him and a 34-year-old woman from Maryland who had placed a personal notice in the 'women seeking men' section of Craigslist."

Lee, who is married, is a Republican, so even if he and his wife are poly or have an open relationship or have an understanding or whatever, getting caught wasn't going to fly with the "Moral Values" party.

At least not when they're in the majority and don't want anything to distract from their agenda of ruining the country. If Lee wanted to fuck around, he should have done it last year.

[Transcript below.]

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This evening, the congressman, now former congressman did make it official releasing a statement saying that he has -- he deeply and sincerely apologizes to people. He made profound mistakes and he says he promised as hard as he can to work to seek forgiveness and he said the challenges though so hard in this country that he is going to resign effective immediately and shortly thereafter this was read on the floor of the House -- John.

JOHN KING, HOST: Oh, it was read. I'm sorry. I thought I was going to hear the sound of them reading that in the floor of the House. And so Dana, he's in his second term. He's from upstate Western New York near the Buffalo area, somebody who was just a rank and file back bencher or an important member of the Republican majority?

BASH: To be honest with you, a rank and file back bencher. You said it right. He is really relatively new. He had just started -- it was in the first month effectively of his second term. But he is certainly a House Republican and for the House Republican majority this is something even the possibility of a scandal like this they did not want. Now we do know, John, that the now former Congressman Lee did inform the speaker's office that he was going to resign his seat.

The speaker's office and other leaders are not saying what kind of conversations, if any, happened in private but I did bump into one senior Republican congressman in the hallway after we reported this who said, look, this is the kind of thing that if it is true and if as in his statement he says mistakes, plural, mistakes plural were made by him with regard to his personal life, that this was a no-brainer. That this is something that he felt that he had to do.

But, look, this is something that in terms of the allegations that are on the Gawker Web site still he has not been specific in confirming any of it and none of his staff as far as I know and people who are close to him really do know if any of the specifics are actually accurate, but it is clear that something -- he did something that he felt that he had to resign for.

KING: And he certainly did. Dana Bash for us on Capitol Hill, we should note for our viewers that is his picture on Gawker. Dana is right -- his staff has not confirmed any details of this nor the now former congressman. But that is his picture on Gawker and a bit more from Congressman Chris Lee's statement tonight announcing his resignation.

"I regret the harm my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness."

Again, there is the congressman on the left, the picture on Gawker on the right of the shirtless now former Congressman Chris Lee of upstate New York resigning abruptly tonight after this gossip Web site posted this link and some e-mails in which the married congressman posed to be single and was trying to line up a date.

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Giffords Update

Blub:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, recovering from a gunshot wound to the head suffered January 8, is regaining part of her ability to speak and recently asked for toast while having breakfast, staffers said Wednesday.

Spokesman C.J. Karamargin would not divulge what else Giffords has said, other than that she has spoken other words "within the last few days."

"It's very good news," he said.

Giffords Chief of Staff Pia Carusone told CNN affiliate KMSB in Tucson, Arizona, that the congresswoman made the toast request while eating yogurt and oatmeal Monday. "I said 'absolutely.'"

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Open Thread

Hosted by Mrs. Peacock.

"Well, someone's got to break the ice, and it might as well be me. I mean, I'm used to being a hostess, it's part of my husband's work, and it's always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time, to get acquainted, so I'm perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling, I mean, I have absolutely no idea what we're doing here, or what I'm doing here, or what this place is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself, and I'm very intrigued, and, oh my, this soup's delicious, isn't it?"

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Question of the Day

While I have fairly eclectic taste in music and a large music collection, I often end up listening to the same thing over and over if I really like it (such as this lately)--and the rest of my music collection goes ignored. The other day I decided to put my iphone on shuffle while I was out driving and I ended up rediscovering a group I adore:

The East Village Opera Company, La Donna è Mobile (from Rigoletto)

What music have you rediscovered lately?

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Photos of the Day

A family walks with fellow anti-government protesters during a candlelight vigil for those killed during the uprising in Tahrir Square on February 9, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. More than two weeks into Egypt's uprising, demonstrators continue to occupy the square, demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. [Getty Images]

An anti-government protester weeps during a candlelight vigil for those killed during the uprising. [Getty Images]

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Feminism 101: Helpful Hints for Dudes, Part I

Sometimes, and rather frequently in recent weeks, privileged men (here, generally meaning straight cis men) email me asking advice on how to interact with the women in their lives. I get questions on everything from how to be a feminist husband to how to navigate intimacy with a survivor of sexual assault, and so I'm starting a new series that offers Helpful Hints to privileged men who genuinely want advice about how to be a more feminist-friendly dude.

I'm starting with the most basic—and often the most problematic—interaction between men and women: The Conversation. Lots of guys want to learn more about deconstructing their privilege, but are pretty awful about obtaining that information without upsetting the women with whom they're conversing.

This, then, is a very rudimentary, but also very straightforward, primer for dudes who want to communicate more effectively with female partners, friends, relatives, and colleagues during good faith conversations about feminist issues:

1. Every woman is an expert on her own life and experiences.

2. No woman speaks for all women.

3. No woman speaks for all feminists.

4. Because of the way cultural dominance/privilege works, marginalized people are, by necessity and unavoidability, more knowledgeable about the lives of privileged people than the other way around. Immersion in a culture where male is treated as the Norm (and female a deviation of that Norm), and where masculinity is treated as aspirational (and femininity as undesirable), and where men's stories are considered the Stories Worth Telling, and where manhood and mankind are so easily used as synonymous with personhood and humankind, and where everything down to the human forms on street signs reinforce the idea of maleness as default humanness, inevitably makes women de facto more conversant in male privilege than men are in female marginalization. That's the practical reality of any kind of privilege—the dominant group can exist without knowing anything about marginalized group, but the marginalized group cannot safely or effectively exist without knowing something about the privileged group and its norms and values.

5. Which is not to say that men can't become fluent, with effort. But it is important to remember that it does take effort. Even though men's and women's lives can look so similar at first glance, it is shocking how very different they can actually be. (For example.)

6. A woman with intersectional marginalizations cannot wrench herself into parts. Asking a woman to set aside her race, or disability, or sexuality, or body size, or stature, or whatever, in order to discuss a "woman's issue," is to fail to understand that one's womanhood is inextricably linked to the other aspects of one's identity.

7. It is similarly unfair to ask a woman to leave aside her personal experience and discuss feminist issues in the abstract. You are discussing the stuff of her life. Asking her to "not make it personal" is to ask her to wrench her womanhood from her personhood.

8. You are not objective on women's issues because you're not a woman. Your perception is just as subjective as hers is, but for a different reason. Either we stand to be marginalized by privilege or stand to benefit from it. That's the reality of institutional bias; it compromises us all.

9. Don't play Devil's advocate. Seriously. Just don't.

10. Listen.

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Daily Dose of Cute

[Please note that Dudley's incisors are visible while he bites a toy in this video, so if that sort of thing bothers you, skip this video.]

Video Description: Dudley is still learning how to play with toys; here, he's playing with Pinkie, a squeaky toy which his Nana Shakes bought him. There's a high-pitched squeaker in the head he likes, and a lower-pitched squeaker in the body which still kind of freaks him out, lol. When he accidentally steps on the lower one, he runs away, then comes back for more playtime, before he takes Pinkie into his crate and leaves him, for safekeeping.

Just watching him figuring out how to play with this thing has been hilarious. He was totally afraid of it at first, but now he carries it around with him and leaves it in his Special Places—the office, where he must go to eat high-value treats, and the loft, where he hoards my hats and shoes.

He's still not much into balls, and he couldn't care less about frisbees, but he likes playing tug-of-war with the yellow blanket and he's starting to dig Pinkie.

He also regularly play-bows at the cats, trying to get them interested in playing. Matilda just looks at him blankly—"I don't speak that language"—and Olivia either ignores him or bats him on the nose, which evokes the most pitiful look of dejected rebuffment ever from Dudley.

Sophie, meanwhile, totally wants to play, and responds to his play-bows by rolling onto her back with her paws in the air, curling herself into a semi-circle. Neither one of them can figure out what the other one's trying to say, and eventually they give up. It's like watching a cat-dog version of "Who's on first?"

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