The Philosopher's Cat

  International Tiger Day - also known as Global Tiger Day - is observed each year on 29 July to raise awareness about tigers, which are an endangered species. There are pictures here: https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-58012200

The Dickenses named their firstborn  Charles  Dickens, (January 6, 1837 to July 20, 1896) after his famous father. The son, lacked the genius and the drive of his father. He edited his father's magazine,  All the Year Round , a periodical succeeding to the Dickens weekly  Household Words . Here is a story that appeared in 1884, in a Dickens periodical. I am quoting the story in its entirety: An American Cat. Mr. Willis, who lives in Oldham county, Kentucky, had a cat which daily remained away from the house several hours at a time. One day Mr. Willis was walking through a small wood about a mile from his house when he saw his cat a few yards ahead of him, sitting in a kind of recess under a rock. It would sit still for a long time, then walk over to some object near it in the hole and rub its head against it, purring most contentedly. What was his astonishment when he came up to the edge of the rock, and saw that the object of the cat's attention was nothin...

  Craig R. Thompson was an Emeritus Professor of English Literature, at the University of Pennsylvania. This member of the  Editorial Board of the Collected Works of Erasmus also edited and translated a number of other Renaissance texts. Our interest though is in his notes about Erasmus, and we quote: Desiderius Erasmus was born, probably in 1469, in Rotterdam, Holland. He studied in Paris, traveled in England, Germany, and Italy, and wrote in Latin. Living at the time of the Renaissance when most intellectual concepts were being examined, Erasmus was a great admirer of the ancient writers and edited many of their works. Erasmus remained a Roman Catholic, but believed that many of the priests and theologians had distorted the simple teachings of Jesus. He published an edition of the New Testament-the first edition in the original Greek-in order to make clear the essential teachings of Christianity. Erasmus liked above all things clear and honest thinking; he despised intoleran...

We read of the ferocity of the Mongolian armies but it turns out the great wall of China was built not to keep out men. The wall was built to keep out horses. Another good defense against horseback soldiers was, a wooden wall. The story is told of Genghis Khan that, faced with a walled city prepared for a long siege, he parlayed with the inhabitants in these terms: give me 1000 cats and 10,000 swallows, and I will end the siege. He received the animals. His men tied pieces of cloth to the tails of the cats and birds, then lit the cloth on fire. The animals were freed to run home, thereby setting the wooden structures aflame. This is described in a 17th century chronicle written by Sagang Sechen. John R. Krueger, translated Sechen's  A History of the Eastern Mongols to 1662  (1964). David Morgan's book,  The Mongols , (1986), points out that "slight variants" of this story are told about other historical figures: Princess Olga of Kiev, Harald Hardrada of Norway, Guthru...

  On July 10, 1886 a periodical named  The Spectator,  published among its articles, one titled" THE BEASTS AND BIRDS OF THE LAW." The article was lengthy and the moseying among facts suggested nothing so much as a proto-web experience. With the added plus of coherence and a sophisticated prose. From this we extracted what later would be called an RFI, a request for information. In this manner: Let us draw attention also to the fact that a special study of the position of the cat in our law is a work that calls loudly for the student. The cat, as we know him now, is little better than a sort of common third party, sought to be joined by the housemaid or lodging-house-keeper in all domestic actions concerning the breaking of china, or the loss of "coals, umbrellas, brandy," tea, or legs of mutton. In our ancient law very different was his position. "Among our elder ancestors the Antient Britons," says Blackstone (Com. II., 4) "cats were looked upon as ...

  Oliver Sacks was born on July 9, 1933. This famous neurologist has gained an audience far beyond the medical community through his brave and creative approach to research. He wrote Awakenings which was made into a movie with Robin Williams, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and lots of others. He edited the 2003 edition of The Best American Science Writing also. In one article he selected we learn that researchers cottoned to coyote predation on urban pets by wondering why so many cat flea collars were turning up in the scat they studied.

 Raja Rao, the Indian writer credited for his authentic portrayal of Indian values in English publications died on July 8, 2006. From his obituary in The Guardian this description of two books Rao wrote. "Aiming at an ultimately positive encounter between east and west, Rao's metaphysical novel,  The Serpent and the Rope  (1960), displays an intellectuality that goes beyond the textual, through its metaphysical associations and a spiritual dimension that tells us much about the Indian and European worlds. His protagonist, Ramaswamy, entertains his friends with philosophical discussions ranging over an impressive set of themes - including Buddhism, theology, monasticism and world politics - while at the same time he charmingly invites the reader to envisage reality from his Hindu viewpoint, offering the key of distinguishing the projected reality of the serpent from the existing reality of the rope, an image derived from Shankara. ...[In a subsequent book,] Rao manages to ...

David McCullough is a leading American historian, and received an American Medal of Freedom, so highly regarded is his scholarship. McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, on July 7, 1933 and graduated from Yale, with an English degree, in 1955. His book  John Adams , (2001) won a second Pulitzer for McCullough. In this book we learn of a diary entry made by Adams: I n his diary Adams compared the situation between Britain and America to that of an eagle and a cat. The eagle, soaring over a farmer's yard, sweeped and pounced on the cat, thinking it a rabbit. The above excerpt is a vivid picture, penned by one good writer and preserved by another.