other people’s tennis noise:
*grunts, groans, and random shrieks*
my tennis noise:
*We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations*

There is something about the suddenness of the French Revolution that makes people come to the realization that the way government is organised is actually just a convention. It’s not given by nature, it’s not given by tradition. It inaugurates an enormous debate about how far you can go to change things just because you think it’s reasonable and right to change them, and how much change has to take place in a more gradual way. The revolution raises the whole issue of how change takes place, and how much people should organize to insist that change takes place. It rips off the veil of tradition and says that the only justification for government is that it makes sense, that it’s fair, that it’s equal, that it’s just. … It gives a force to this that no other event had previously done in quite the same way, which is why everyone who writes about it, from Burke on, is completely obsessed with what happened.

Lynn Hunt, after introducing 5 books on the French Revolution

http://fivebooks.com/interviews/lynn-hunt-on-french-revolution

(via waterladder)

actuallywelfare:

enclave-oil-rig:

yumikuri:

slush puppy

this is actually what you should do for huskies when you live in hot places. Keep their coats trimmed short and give them a pool of ice to play in

An ice bath can be a fun activity for any dog in hot weather, some other pets may enjoy it, too!

Remember to never shave your husky, though. Their double coats help regulate their temperature in both cool and warm weather.

why-animals-do-the-thing:

gothberries-r-us:

This is my family cat, Miss Kitty, who thinks that the phone is a kitten…

All hail the power of the lost call!

That specific noise kittens (and puppies, and most other small mammals) make is called a lost call, and it has one specific purpose: to let a mother know the baby has wandered too far away from warmth and heath and food, so she can go bring it back. It’s hardwired into mothers to respond to for a certain period after giving birth. Whatever is making the noise will get picked up and brought back to the nest – and this included the one test where my adviser screwed up his protocols and the mother dog accidentally got all the way to the tape recorder they were using for playbacks. She picked it up, not caring at all that it wasn’t actually a puppy, and set it down in her nest with the pups. 

Interestingly enough, lots of animals are still very reactive to it even when they’re not actively mothering babies or after the critical responsiveness period has passed. That right there tells you how important it is to the survival of the babies to have the mom respond no matter what.

So congrats, your cat literally does think that that phone needs to be rescued and kept warm!