Columbus Mouse

Frank:

Hundreds of shabby Martians walking the street?  Gee, I think that would be pretty startling, no matter what you say.

If there was just one mouse, he must have been a very special mouse, an explorer mouse, like a mouse version of Christopher Columbus.  A mouse of vision and purpose.  You should have kept it and worked with it, and started a mouse circus.  Maybe it would have granted you three wishes, if you had only asked.

I haven't heard about a rise in the incidence of  people eating each other.  That just shows we get our information about the world from different places.  The New York Times has not mentioned a plague of cannibalism. 

Yes, it is kind of strange to be more upset about the killing of a kitten than the killing of a person, but I totally get it.  Kittens are cute and innocent.  People are not.  It is much more disturbing to me when a dog or horse gets mistreated in a movie, than a person.  Animals have those big, trusting eyes, while people have evil little eyes, full of selfishness and greed.  Yes, I am very touched when I see a dog injured in some way on TV, or even a dog that is feeling lonely or abandoned.  Meanwhile,  I am happily eating a plate of spaghetti slathered with a delicious sauce made from ground up cow bodies, cows that once had big inquisitive pink noses, and large brown eyes, with long eyelashes.

By the way, I was thinking about what I said about prices in France and Italy being about the same as in the States.  Maybe it was because the Euro was down in comparison with the dollar.  Must have something to do with the fact the Europe is about to go down the drain.  Though we didn't see any particular signs of distress where we were.  No crowds of famished people roving the streets, or starving dogs feeding on decaying corpses.  Actually, I was kind of prepared to see lots of litter and dirt in Italy, sort of a European version of Mexico, since I had the impression that's what Italy is like.  But everything was clean and organized and tidy.  Maybe it's worse in southern Italy.  It's kind of amazing, actually, seeing all the remnants of Roman civilization -- roads and aqueducts and remains of theaters and gates and so on, all over Italy, and up through France, and everywhere they went, which was a lot of places.  They had roads going all the way from Rome to Paris, and things like that.  A lot of their stuff has lasted for 2000 years, while here a road or building starts falling apart after about fifty years.  From what I understand, slave labor had a lot to do with their fine building accomplishments.  When they came to new tribes and cities and such, the basic message was, submit to total domination and slavery, or be annihilated.  They used to keep little slave children in cages, to be brought out as playthings for the Roman children, until they grew up enough to be put to real work.

--edward