SIMULACRUM

Finally I have a photo of Speedy's new friend, Pooter. This pup lives a couple of blocks from us, cater-corner from the park. For the past few months, if I took the camera, Pooter was inside. If I didn't take the camera, there he was. I was beginning to think either the dog or his owners had some mystical power to know when whether we had the camera or not.

Pooter is either pure-bred Jack Russell terrier, or is closer to the breed standard than Speedy anyway, as Speedy's left ear stands up, while both of Pooter's bend over. They look like they could be from the same litter.

Speedy does not like the coat that he is wearing. I think it has something to do with machismo. Yet the wind has been so fierce, I thought he might like to keep his hair tacked on. I was wrong. While he was playing with Pooter, Speedy managed to baptise my foot. He certainly didn't get a treat for that trick!

The word of the day for December 4, 2008 is "simulacrum" — Pronunciation: \,sim-yə-'la-krəm, -'lā-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural sim·u·la·cra \-krə\ also sim·u·la·crums
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin, from simulare
Date: 15th century
1 : image , representation [a reasonable simulacrum of reality — Martin Mayer]. 2 : an insubstantial form or semblance of something : trace.

Our quote for the day is from Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929), British American philosopher. After Virtue, p. 2:

The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.

:^)