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Ferreting Around

Last Saturday, where I-95 veers off into business Route 1 in Fairless Hills, the Last Chance Ferret Rescue's second annual Philadelphia Pherret Phestival drew participants from up and down the Northeast coast.

We know, you're thinking, "ferret festival?" Between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. more than 200 of these chill representatives of the badger and wolverine family took part in best-of-show competitions across 21 different categories, including Siamese, Black Sable and Show Virgins.

A ferret show "is not like a dog show," says Steve Bodofsky, who runs the event with his wife. "There is no money in this. This is about fun." Every entrant gets a ribbon, so entrants who are bad at math might never know their ferret came in last.

Between contests, there were ferret games. For a small price (proceeds went to Last Chance) ferrets and their owners competed to win Beanie Babies and an assortment of grab bags.

Of particular interest was a competition called "Mitts," wherein challengers worked quickly to put two "sock booties" on their ferret. Of course, ferrets resist restraining footwear like hobbits; the spectacle was like a furry demonstration of chaos theory.

Another contest pitted ferret against ferret as the critters tried to push Matchbox cars down a track the quickest. Of course, a ferret's natural inclination is to eat tiny toy cars, so owners had to "assist," making for an outcome more coerced than a Ouija board session.

One might expect that at a ferret festival, the bulk of the oddity would come from being surrounded by an ass-load of ferrets. This, however, is not the case, as ferret owners are a different breed themselves. "The people," to approximate a line from Angels in America, "were not a people, but a whole kind of people." Anywhere you saw ferrets, you saw old ladies with tattoos peeking from beneath their sleeves. The master of ceremonies had long, Dave Mustaine hair and a bandana. Pat Rhodes, a ferret owner for some 20 years, sports an eyebrow ring in stark contrast to an age-weathered face.

A quick perusal of the crowd suggested that many of these people are aging hipsters. And as hipness fades, maybe they need something to fill the void. As their tattoos have dimmed and their piercings sagged, their ferret love has grown stronger.
— Cory Frolik

The Hardest Word

Funny how things change. A month ago, the rhetoric among lefties took two tacts: One, Kerry was almost sure to win (this was in the weeks after the debates, when it finally seemed like once and for all people were beginning to realize that W was incapable of handling his own spittle, much less the United States), and two, no matter what — no matter who won — it was of the utmost importance that all of us who had been driven to activism by the apparent flaws in the Bush adminstration simply keep going. To not lose sight. To not allow political activism circa 2004 become, as a time-and-place cultural signifier, a pet rock or a disco record.

And then we lost. And now we have Sorry- Everybody.com. The idea is rather simple: The site is essentially a public photo blog where people can register their disgust by simply sending in a self-portrait in which they're holding a sign that says "Sorry everybody, I voted Kerry and it still wasn't enough" or any number of more esoteric variations on the theme. What's kind of shocking is the sheer number of photos of this kind the site has collected. At press time, there were 425 pages of galleries (10 pictures per gallery). That's a lot of sorry so-and-so's, and some of them are even attractive.

But that's not what is going to eventually bug you about the site. SorryEverybody.com isn't depressing merely because it exists; surely we all had to be prepared on some level for what the rest of the country would tell us Nov. 2. So it's not that, not really. Mostly, it's depressing because it's cutesy. It's like political Friendster. And somehow, right now, with the wounds still open, with so much left unknown, that feels very pet rock, very disco.
— Joey Sweeney

Shrinking Osama

Politicians, Pentagon analysts and pundits across the cable dial have tried to make sense of what's going on in Osama bin Laden's brain. But isn't that a job for a professional head shrinker? Last week a crowd packed the College of Physicians of Philadelphia to watch psychiatrist Jerrold Post put bin Laden on a virtual couch.

Dr. Post is no dabbler. As founding director of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, he has developed psychological profiles of leaders from Milosevic to Clinton. His diagnosis of al-Qaida's front man was not designed to fall gently on a mother's ears.

"In many ways, bin Laden is almost the prototype of a narcissistic, messianic, destructive, charismatic leader. After all, his family was markedly enriched by its association with the Saudi leadership. He turned against the Saudi leadership and, by implication, his family. "

Devoting much of his lecture to the root causes of Islamic terrorism and the notion that a leader is not formed until he encounters his followers, Post concluded that bin Laden isn't a wacko so much as a deft business manager. "He should be seen more as a chairman of the board of Radical Islam Inc., who has grown his corporation through mergers and acquisitions."

That doesn't mean the doctor wants to treat Osama in the flesh, however.

"I'd probably run right out of the office," he says.
— Trey Pop