Martin Schulz, the SPD (centre-left) candidate running against Angela Merkel for the German Chancellorship, isn’t the only senior German politician with harsh words for Trump.

SPIEGEL ONLINE reports that earlier today Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), the German Foreign Minister and former Vice Chancellor, took part in a roundtable on refugees and migration. Afterwards he criticized the U.S. unusually sharply. According to a statement by the Foreign Office, he said that the renunciation of the Western policy consensus by the new U.S. administration only increases the challenges posed by migration. There are, he said, three big factors driving migration: climate change, war, and political and religious persecution, and ‘these problems are only increased by the new American isolationism.’

He noted that the Trump administration wants to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, pour arms into the crisis regions, and deny entry to people of certain religions. These policies ‘endanger peace in Europe,’ and ‘the shortsighted policies of the American administration stand against the interests of the European Union.’ He added a warning to Europeans: ‘If Europeans do not resolutely oppose this today, the flow of immigrants to Europe will increase further. Anyone who does not oppose this U.S. policy becomes complicit.’

Europeans must instead fight for more climate protection, fewer weapons, and religious enlightenment or face further destabilization of the Near East and Africa, he said. ‘Not a single problem will be solved by outdated recipes like closing borders and building walls.’

More generally, Gabriel denied the United States under President Trump a leading rôle in the Western community of shared values, speaking of the ‘loss of the United States as an important nation.’ He said that the weekend wasn’t just a matter of an unsuccessful G7 summit: ‘Unfortunately, that is a sign of the shift in the world’s balance of power. The West is getting somewhat smaller.’

Katja Kipping, one of the two co-chairs of Die Linke (The Left), was, unsurprisingly, even blunter. In an interview with Bild she said that Germany must stop displaying ‘moral cowardice towards the USA.’ Of his loutish shoving of Montegro’s Prime Minister Duško Marković at the NATO meeting she said: ‘It shows that Trump has a problem and urgently needs professional help. The kindest thing that I can think concerning Trump is that he is an infantile narcissist.’ And Dietmar Bartsch, parliamentary co-leader of Die Linke (with Sahra Wagenknecht) said that relations with the USA had reached a nadir, and that the G7 summit had resulted in nothing but expenses.

I don’t know whether this will get lost amidst the insanity or provide a bit of dry, stodgy relief, but it’s finally ready to go, so I’ll take my chances.

Far too long ago I wrote a diary, The Prehistory of English: The Case of the Hidden Suffix, about the origin of the ‑th in such nouns as filth, length, and strength that clearly seem to be related to corresponding adjectives, in this case foul, long, and strong. It derives ultimately from a late Proto-Indo-European (PIE) suffix that was added to adjectives to produce abstract nouns in much the same way that we can add ‑ness and ‑ity to adjectives to produce such abstract nouns as boldness and rotundity. This suffix survived into Proto-Germanic (PGmc) as a suffix *‑iþō, (for more details see the previous diary), which was used in much the same way as its ancestor to form nouns from adjectives within PGmc. 

There are also many nouns ending in ‑t or ‑th that look — at least if we keep the previous suffix in mind — as if they might have been formed by adding ‑th or ‑t to a related verb, perhaps mangling the verb a bit in the process; some of the more readily apparent are gift (to give), weight (to weigh), cleft (to cleave), birth (to bear), and flight (to fly). And indeed this is the case. I should warn you, however, that this story is a bit more complicated, and I can’t avoid going into a little more technical detail. I’ve tried to find a reasonable compromise between gross oversimplification and incomprehensible honesty; I’m not at all sure, however, that I’ve succeeded.

Our starting point is a pair of PIE suffixes, *‑ti- and *‑tu-, that were used to form abstract nouns from verbs. There were originally both formal and semantic differences in the way they were used, but these distinctions are quite technical and were starting to blur already in PIE, so I’ll ignore them.

These suffixes survived into PGmc, and *‑ti- at least remained productive in PGmc: its PGmc reflex was used to form abstract nouns from PGmc verbs that have no known non-Germanic cognates. (In fact most of the known examples are of this type.) Of course they were subject to the various sound changes that are part of the history of PGmc; for the benefit of those who are interested in the details I will mention some of these sound changes by name and link to the corresponding Wikipedia articles, but the basic story should be reasonably clear without those details. Thanks to Grimm’s law and the Germanic spirant law, their main PGmc reflexes were *‑þi- and *‑ti-, and *‑þu- and *‑tu-, respectively, which for the most part have come down to us as ‑th and ‑t.

None of the examples that I can find has a completely straightforward history in English, but the pair to cleave and cleft comes closer than most. Underlying both is the PIE root *glewbh- ‘to split’, whose PGmc reflex is *kleub-. This is clearly visible in the PGmc verb *kleubaną ‘to split’, which by regular sound changes gave rise to Old English (OE) clēofan and then Present-Day English (PDE) cleave. (Note that PGmc *b was actually a voiced bilabial fricative, like the b in Spanish haber.)

The noun cleft has a more complicated history, one that is easier to present in reverse chronological order. Its immediate ancestor is Middle English (ME) clift ‘a crack, fissure, cleft’. The change to PDE cleft is irregular: ME clift would be expected to produce PDE clift. Apparently the noun was assimilated to the newly formed past participle cleft of the verb, which by the late 14th century is already sometimes found instead of the regular past participle cloven. 

The most straightforward explanation of ME clift is that it is the regular reflex of an unrecorded OE *clyft regularly derived from PGmc *kluftiz. The extant OE corpus contains only about 35,000 distinct lexical items, so gaps in it are very much to be expected, and reflexes in Old High German and Old Norse (ON) confirm the existence of *kluftiz. And *kluftiz, despite appearances, really is the result of appending the suffix in question to the root of the verb. (The *‑z is a second suffix, an inflectional marker for the nominative case of the noun.)

So why does it appear that we are adding *‑ti- to *kluf- instead of to *kleub-? This is quite technical, and I’ll not go into very great detail. That we have *‑ft- instead of *‑bt- or *‑bþ- is a consequence of the Germanic spirant law. The change of vowel is an instance of a much more fundamental phenomenon known as Indo-European ablaut. There was a standard set of changes that could be rung on the vocalic nucleus of a PIE root to produce different inflectional forms and even altogether different words with related meanings. For example, the verb sing goes back to the PIE root *sengwh- ‘to chant’, while the noun song goes back to *songwhos ‘a chant’, formed from *songwh-, the so-called o-grade of the same root, which is obtained by changing the vowel e to o.

The basic form of the ‘split’ root is *glewbh-, the so-called e-grade. This is the form whose PGmc reflex is *kleub-. One of its standard variants, called the zero grade, is *glubh-, obtained by dropping the basic e vowel altogether and vocalizing the semivowel *w to u. Appending the suffix *‑ti- yields *glubhti-, whose regular PGmc reflex is *klufti-.

To drive and drift form a similar pair. The underlying PIE root is *dhreybh- ‘to push, to drive’; its regular PGmc reflex is *drīb-, which we do indeed see in PGmc *drībaną ‘to drive’. Its zero grade is *dhribh-, obtained by dropping the *e and vocalizing the semivowel *y to *i, and the regular PGmc reflex of *dhribhti- is *drifti-, whence e.g. ON drift ‘snowdrift’, Middle High German trift ‘a floating of timber; something driven; pasturage (place where cattle are driven); a drove’, and Middle Dutch drift ‘pasturage; a drove’. PDE drift can be traced back to ME drift ‘act of driving; snowdrift; floating’, which is either from an unattested OE cognate *drift or a borrowing from Scandinavian or Middle Dutch but in any case goes back to PGmc *driftiz. 

For an example in which the PIE root does not change grades we may use to weigh and weight. The verb is from PGmc *weganą ‘to move’, and the noun is from PGmc *wihtiz ‘weight’. (Here the h is a conventional notation for a sound like the German ch in Bach and the Scottish ch in loch.) The underlying PIE root is *weǵh- ‘to go, move, transport in a vehicle’; its regular PGmc reflex is *weg-, as in *weganą. Owing to the Germanic spirant law, the PGmc reflex of PIE *‑ǵht- is *‑ht-. The change of vowel from *e to *i is the result of i-umlaut, which I discussed in the previous diary, triggered by the *i of the suffix, and the PGmc output of PIE *weǵhti- is therefore *wihti-. The OE intermediates are wegan ‘to carry, transport; to bear; to support; to weigh’ and wiht ‘weight, a weighing’, both regular reflexes of the PGmc words.

I’ll give three more examples in comparable detail; the first is to give and gift. The verb is from OE (specifically Old West Saxon) giefan ‘to give’, a regular reflex of PGmc *gebaną with the same meaning. Had this verb developed regularly, it would most likely have become yive: OE initial g was generally pronounced like the y in PDE yet when followed by i or e (cf. PDE yield from OE gieldan). Our give is the result of Scandinavian influence in the Danelaw (cf. Old Swedish giva).

The noun may be directly from OE gift with similar influence from ON gift ‘a gift’ (since the OE word would regularly have yielded modern yift). However, the OE word is recorded only in the sense ‘payment for a wife’, a sense that does not seem to have survived into Middle English (ME), so it is quite likely that our gift is actually a borrowing from Scandinavian. At any rate, both the OE and the ON words are from PGmc *giftiz ‘that which is given, a gift’, formed by appending the suffix *‑ti- to the root of the verb. (Here again the i in the root is the result of i‑umlaut.)

The second is one of the relatively few examples deriving from the PIE suffix *‑tu-: to flow and flood. The underlying PIE root is *plew- ‘to flow, fly, run’ in its lengthened o-grade form *plōw-. The PGmc verb was *flōwaną, whence by regular changes OE flōwan and PDE flow. Apparently the PIE noun had the accent on the suffix, so that Verner’s law applied to yield the PGmc reflex *flōðuz, with *ð (the voiced sound of th in this and other) instead of *þ (the unvoiced sound of th in thin and ether). PGmc *ð regularly hardened to d in OE, and the normal loss of final *‑uz left OE flōd, of which PDE flood is the expected outcome.

Finally, for an example in which the suffix survives as *‑th we may take to die and death. The verb goes back to a PIE root *dhew- ‘to pass away, die’ via PGm *dawjaną. This developed regularly into ON deyja ‘to die’. The Scandinavian word was borrowed into early ME as dēȝen, of which PDE die is the regular reflex. PIE *dhowtus, with the o-grade of the PIE root and the suffix *‑tu-, (and inflectional marker *‑s) developed into PGmc *dauþuz ‘death’, with regular OE reflex dēaþ, whence PDE death.

Now I need to correct a lie by omission that simplified the presentation a bit: it’s possible that some of the PGmc nouns that I’ve mentioned were not descended from PIE nouns but rather were new creations in PGmc. We know that speakers of PGmc did create new nouns on this pattern by analogy with inherited ones. In fact, this construction remained productive in at least one daughter language of PGmc. PGmc eventually split into Proto-East Germanic and Proto-Northwest Germanic (PNWGmc), the ancestor of English, and we have an example from PNWGmc.

After borrowing the Latin verb scrībere ‘to write’ as *skrīban, speakers of PNWGmc formed from it the noun *skrifti ‘writing’ on the pattern of PWGmc *drīban and *drifti (from the PGmc verb and noun*drībaną and *driftiz, discussed above). These developed regularly into OE scrīfan ‘to prescribe, ordain, allot, assign; to shrive (hear confession and exact penance)’ and OE scrift ‘confession’, the etymons of PDE shrive and shrift.

And it continued into the history of English proper. The noun heft ‘weight, heaviness, quality of weight’, for instance, only appears in the mid-15th century, created from the verb to heave by analogy with such pairs as weave ~ weft  and thieve ~ theft. A century later we find growth, formed from the verb to grow.

It is noteworthy that in this case the suffix was added as ‑th rather than as ‑t, because this is exactly what we would expect had the noun developed normally from a hypothetical PGmc **grōþiz. (The PGmc verb is *grōaną, with root *grō-, and since neither Verner’s law nor the Germanic spirant law would have applied, the PGmc suffix corresponding to PIE *‑ti- would have been *‑þi-.) Even at this very late date the analogy was being applied correctly.

I can’t resist concluding with the bizarre example of to choose and gusto, two words that have no obvious semantic connection at all.

The verb is from PGmc *keusaną ‘to test; to choose’ by way of OE cēosan ‘to choose’; the underlying PIE root is *ǵews- ‘to taste, try, test’, and all of these developments are regular. Then things went a bit astray. The regular ME reflex of OE cēosan is chēsen, which does occur; had it developed normally, the PDE verb would be to cheese. At some point, however, it was displaced by later ME chōse, the actual source of PDE choose. Now the OE diphthong ēo was a falling diphthong, meaning that its first element was more prominent acoustically than its second; if it had a rising variant in some dialect(s), this variant would have yielded ME chōse. The native lexicon of PDE is descended from a variety of ME and OE dialects, so some such history is entirely plausible. 

Such diphthong variants did exist. For example, the OE name of what is now Yafforth in North Yorkshire was Ēaford (‘river ford’), with the OE falling diphthong ēa. By 1283 the name appears in record as Yafford, a spelling that clearly shows that the initial diphthong had been replaced by the corresponding rising diphthong.

The noun is not native to English, but it does have a straightforward history back to a PIE form containing the noun-forming suffix *‑tu-. In English it’s a borrowing of Italian gusto ‘taste; enjoyment, pleasure, relish’ that appears in the early 17th century. The Italian word, unsurprisingly, is from Latin gustus ‘flavor, taste’, which in turn is from PIE *ǵustus with the zero grade variant of the root.

It’s not hard to see that the notions of trying, testing, and tasting overlap, and choosing typically entails testing the alternatives, at least mentally; it’s a bit harder to see how the sense ‘keen enjoyment, relish’ fits in, but the related Latin verb gustāre offers a clue. It’s primary sense is ‘to taste’, but it also came to mean ‘to take a light meal’, ‘to partake of’ and ‘to enjoy’, and those senses form a pretty natural progression towards the English meaning.

And that’s probably more about penguins these suffixes than you cared to know.

The UN Environment Programme’s eighth Emissions Gap Report came out yesterday. At 116 pages it’s impressively hefty; even the executive summary runs to ten pages. The first paragraph of that summary explains in general terms what the report is about:

The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 set the specific goal of holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (°C) compared to pre-industrial levels, and of pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. This report, which is the eighth Emissions Gap Report produced by UN Environment, focuses on the “gap” between the emissions reductions necessary to achieve these agreed targets at lowest cost and the likely emissions reductions from full implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) forming the foundation of the Paris Agreement. It also explores potential for enhanced mitigation efforts in a number of key sectors, presenting cost-effective options for enhanced action to close the emissions gap.

The report itself is divided into seven chapters whose titles give a good general picture of the report:

The executive summary itself is divided into 13 sections, each headed by a summary statement. The first is the most important:

The overarching conclusions of the report are that there is an urgent need for accelerated short-term action and enhanced longer-term national ambition, if the goals of the Paris Agreement are to remain achievable — and that practical and cost-effective options are available to make this possible.

Some of the key points from this section:

Some noteworthy specifics from other sections of the summary:

The news is not all bad. As I mentioned above, the emissions gap can be closed by 2030 at a cost of less than $100 per tonne of CO2 emissions in all cases assessed in the production of the report. Doing so would of course have other benefits, e.g., in public health. Reduction in emissions of short-lived climate pollutants like methane and black carbon has the potential to avoid as much as 0.6°C warming by mid-century with proven technologies, but only with the usual caveat: dedicated policy action to establish legal frameworks and institutional capacity is required to unlock it. Finally, negative emission technologies can have a significant effect, though the more technological approaches are too new to allow accurate assessment.

I highly recommend the executive summary. I have not myself had time to wade through the entire report itself, but it’s clear even from the most casual glance that it’s replete with data.

And now for something on the lighter side.

New Zealand is three-quarters the size of Germany and bigger than Great Britain, but it can be very hard to find on some maps — because it isn’t there!

From the Independent:

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Rhys Darby, famous for New Zealand comedy smash Flight Of The Conchords, have teamed up in a 2.5 minute spoof video which aims to put New Zealand back on the map.

The tongue-in-cheek tourism campaign raises a serious point: that New Zealand is frequently missed off world maps.

[...]

Darby’s investigations reveal that New Zealand is missing from maps in Getty’s stock photo library, Starbucks cafes, Ikea, in-flight magazines and at New York’s Central Park Zoo.

The video, which is available on YouTube, is hilarious.

The subreddit MapsWithoutNZ has numerous examples, including the one at the top of this diary.

Despite what it says at the top, this diary was written by twingrace, who is the me of the diary.

Tonight’s diary is a collaboration amongst BMScott, who edited photographs, twingrace, who wrote a bit, and my cats, Ruah and Shaman.  Who are their own inimitable selves.

Late yesterday a box came in the mail; it was addressed to me, but Ruah and Shaman decided that it must belong to them.

It was the beautiful quilt that Sara R and winglion had made for me!  It is really from the whole community, though, with messages of care and support from so many of you.  (Thank you!!)

But the box also contained Pootie Pads and Purrmuda Triangles!  Pretty soon I overheard this conversation: 

At this point I intervened and dropped the Purrmuda Triangle directly in front of Shaman and …

PWBPeeps is a group that posts a daily diary and nightly open thread for animal lovers. We share photos, seek & give advice about pet health and behavior issues, support each other in times of sadness and stress, celebrate together when times are good, and on most days have an inordinate amount of fun.

You are welcome to join us!

Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rules

This is an open thread.

Back in June Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement received Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2019. 

“The Ambassador of Conscience Award is Amnesty International’s highest honour, celebrating people who have shown unique leadership and courage in standing up for human rights. I can think of no better recipients this year than Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future climate strike movement,” said Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award was founded in 2002 to celebrate individuals and groups who have furthered the cause of human rights by acting on their conscience, confronting injustice, and using their talents to inspire others.  Previous recipients of the award include Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Harry Belafonte, Ai Weiwei, the Youth Groups of West and Central Africa, Angélique Kidjo, the Indigenous rights movement in Canada, Alicia Keys, and Colin Kaepernick.

The awards ceremony took place this past Monday, 16 September, in Washington, DC.  The Guardian live-streamed it:

That clip runs for about an hour and three-quarters.  If you just want to watch Greta’s acceptance speech, which runs less than eight minutes, it’s here:

I’ve made a transcript for those who, like me, prefer reading to listening:

Ehm, just, thank you everyone who is here, I am so honored to be in this room with so amazing people, and, uh, give yourself an applause.  [applause]

This award is for all of those millions of people, young people around the world, who together make up the movement called Fridays for Future.  All these fearless youth fighting for their future.  A future they should be able to take for granted.  But as it looks now, they cannot.

With our business as usual we are currently on track for a world that could displace billions of people from their homes, taking away even the most basic living conditions from countless of people, making areas of the world uninhabitable for parts of the year.  The fact that this will create huge conflicts and unspoken sufferings is far from secret, and yet the link between the climate and ecological emergency and mass migration, famine, violations of human rights, and war is still not clear to many people.  The changes and the politics required to take on this crisis simply doesn’t exist today.  That is why every single one of us must push from every possible angle to hold those responsible accountable and to make the people in power act and to take the measures required.  

We, who together are the movement Fridays for Future, we are fighting for our lives.  But not only that: we’re also fighting for our future children and grandchildren, for future generations, for every single living being on earth whose biosphere we share, whose biosphere we are stealing, whose biosphere we are ruining.  We are fighting for everyone.  For you.  For the people living in areas in the world that are already suffering the consequences from the first stages of the climate and ecological emergency.  People who breathe toxic air, who drink contaminated water, who have to flee their homes because of climate and environmental related disasters.  Indigenous communities whose lands and waters are being destroyed.  People whose food and water supply is being threatened by environmental related catastrophes: stronger and more frequent droughts, rainfalls, storms, or melting glaciers.

Whole nations are now literally being left in ruins or disappearing underneath rising sea levels.  People are dying.  And yet, so many of us keep looking away.  The world has never seen a threat to humanrights of this scope.  So said the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, during ...recently, during UN, UN civil rights council in Geneva, referring to the climate crisis.  She said: ‘The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social, and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people and future generations will be impacted.’  This is exactly the clarity we need now from governments and the people in power.

Right now the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases keep rising, rapidly. The destruction of natural habitats are continuing at horrendous speed despite all the beautiful words and promises from our leaders.  We are still moving in the wrong direction with unimaginable pace.  It may seem impossible to pull the emergency brake, and yet, that is what we have to do.

But right now I think there is an awakening going on.  Even though it is slow, the pace is picking up and the debate is shifting.  This is thanks to a lot of different reasons, but it is a lot because, because of countless of activists, and especially young activists.  Activism works.  [applause]

So what I’m telling you do do now is to act, because no one is too small to make a difference.  I’m urging all of you to take part in the global climate strikes on September 20thand 27th.  [applause]  

And just one last thing: see you on the streets!  [applause]

Addendum: Last night Greta gave a speech to Congress.  It is printed in full by the Independent and is very much worth reading.  Here are a few excerpts.

Nobody has the answer:

Stop pretending that you, your business idea, your political party or plan will solve everything. We must realise that we don’t have all the solutions yet. Far from it. Unless those solutions mean that we simply stop doing certain things.

Global social equity:

And please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, clearly stated throughout the Paris Agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale. That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to zero emissions much faster, so that people in poorer countries can heighten their standard of living, by building some of the infrastructure that we have already built. Such as roads, hospitals, schools, clean drinking water and electricity.

The importance of knowing and using the science:

Four-hundred and twenty Gt of CO2 left to emit on 1 January 2018 to have a 67 per cent chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise. Now that figure is already down to less than 360 Gt.

These numbers are very uncomfortable. But people have the right to know. And the vast majority of us have no idea these numbers even exist. In fact not even the journalists that I meet seem to know that they even exist. Not to mention the politicians. And yet they all seem so certain that their political plan will solve the entire crisis.

But how can we solve a problem that we don’t even fully understand? How can we leave out the full picture and the current best available science?

These diaries are especially important when so many folks are stuck at home, so I’ve thrown together a quick emergency diary where the Peeps can congregate.

Yes, I’ve been sitting here twiddling my talons.

Me too!  Well, me feetses, anyway.

This one was probably twiddling his wings.

And a Public Service Announcement!

You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:

• No trolling the diary.
• If you hate pootie diaries, leave now. No harm, no foul.
• Share any and all pootie/woozle photos or issues that you would like .
• When it comes to problems, we may just have someone with experience who can help.
• Whatever happens in the outer blog STAYS in the outer blog. This is a place to relax and play; please treat it accordingly.
• There is no such thing as stealing a photo around here, but if you would like a pic from the comment threads, please ask the poster.  He/she may have a copyright to those pics.  Many thanks!
• ​It should not need to be said, but ANY/ALL photos that imply or encourage human violence against an animal will be considered verboten! Whether it is “comedic” or not, it will be frowned upon and considered out of bounds.

It’s Catmas week! Not long to go now — just a sleigh ride from Moondai to Friedai and we’re there! What better time for a Catmas song and the Furkids team know exactly which one they want! They chose Johnny Mathis to sing it for them because they know he’s a favourite of BFitz’s and this is their Catmas prezzie for her!

An elf appeared — said his name was Smelf and that’s he’s one of Santa’s helpers. He gave the furkids bottles of warm eggnog and coins for the jukebox so we’re all set to go!

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Please Note: This diary was written by Mopshell.

As this time in our history of trials and tribulations comes to a close, the Moondai Furkids team farewell the old year with a prayer for the new year. They are holding all of you in their hearts as they look to a brighter future of loving, laughter and caring for one another.

Please sing with us.

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Please Note: This diary was written by Mopshell.

The Moondai Furkids team have some very — how shall I put this? — unorthodox ideas about New Year’s resolutions. Most of them focus on what they thought their hoomins should resolve to do such as second brekfests, moar toys, moar comforts like fevver pillows, bigger beds, ready to play day or night, and so forth. (Only one of those ideas made it into the final story lyrics.)

To steer them away from their dastardly plot to exploit the concept of New Year’s resolutions to “improve” their hoomins, I suggested we should begin the New Year as we mean to go on — with a song in our hearts!

They agreed enthusiastically and had just the song: Resolution by The Beatles. Don’t bother trying to tell them the S should be a V — they’re not having it! It’s Resolution and that’s that!

We have coins left over from Catmas money so the jukebox is primed and ready to go when you are. Get yourselves comfy, tune up the vocal chords and let’s go! Press play and scroll down for the lyrics wiv speshal furkid illystrayshones.

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twingrace and I are a bit concerned: Dixiecollie apparently hasn’t been around since Saturday afternoon, and we hope that nothing serious is wrong.  For tonight we’re republishing twingrace’s first PWB diary as a quick filler.

Ruah knows how important it is to have the right place to be.  When he’s finished his meals all by himself, locked in the bathroom, he knows where to go…

And he knows where to go when he needs a broader perspective on the world.

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But sometimes the rest of us need a place to be, too.

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PWBPeeps is a group that posts a daily diary and nightly open thread for animal lovers. We share photos, seek & give advice about pet health and behavior issues, support each other in times of sadness and stress, celebrate together when times are good, and on most days have an inordinate amount of fun.

You are welcome to join us!

Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rules

• Do not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your liking.
• Whatever happens in the outer blog STAYS in the outer blog. This is a place to relax and play; please treat it accordingly.
• If you would like a pic from the comment threads, please ask the poster. He/she may have a copyright to those pics. Many thanks!
• There are some pics we never post:  snakes, creepy crawlies, any and all photos that depict or encourage human cruelty toward animals.  These are considered “out of bounds” and will not be tolerated.
• If you’re not sure about an issue...please ask.  Someone is always glad to help.

This is an open thread.