But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.

There was this awesome thing on Gawker just a little while ago about the whole tainted pet food crisis and how Ron Rosenbaum had quoted that bit from Boswell's Life of Johnson (and also Nabokov's "Pale Fire" epigraoh) about one of Samuel Johnson's cats, named Hodge: (in response to Johnson discussing someone who was gallivanting around London and killing cats) “But Hodge shan’t be shot. No, no, Hodge shall not be shot.”

Seriously, I think Ron Rosenbaum was double-plus right-on. That's the best way to handle the catfood crisis of 07:

But Hodge shan't be shot. No, No, Hodge shall not be shot.

Just repeating it, like a talismanic mantra (he took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots) (alternatively: he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts) fills me with all sorts of inner peace.

But Hodge shan't be shot. No, no, Hodge shall not be shot.

It's totally the new "stop the widening."