Grasshopper hunt (and various extrapolations)

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. . .”
–W.B. Yeats: The Second Coming

I will be able conscionably to vote for exactly one candidate for office this year, out of all the presumptive hopefuls whose names will fill the federal, state, and local ballots I will receive. I had hoped there would be two, but my state’s admirable Lieutenant Governor decided not to run for a sixth term.

Things could be worse, and they are. For instance, some rough beast driving a huge white truck slouched into Nice, France during a festive celebration of Bastille Day yesterday. As if pretending the crowd were ramparts of the Bastille, he drove along the sidewalk, maniacally slaughtering 84 humans and injuring another 200-plus. This was exactly no one’s finest hour.

My cat Effie  can take down a 2-inch grasshopper, play with it, and consume it in less than half a minute. She possesses raw talent as a huntress, and reveals little evidence of malice or forethought. She descends from animals who killed other creatures for pragmatic reasons, like food, fear, survival. But I will not set up a comparison  between human and animal behavior–it makes me too nuts to think about it. I’ll just say that practically nothing is ever her fault.

Effie purposefully stalks a trophy-size grasshopper. . .

and she always gets her bug.