Happy Mother’s Day: Fun Day Reads
Posted: May 12, 2013 Filed under: abortion rights, American Gun Fetish, Cats, corporatism, court rulings, Discrimination against women, energy, Environment, Environmental Protection, Gun Control, History, Injustice system, just because, misogyny, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Politics as Usual, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, science, Second Amendment, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Mother's Day, Roe v. Wade 7 Comments »
Good Afternoon
and
Happy Mother’s Day!
For this second half of our Sunday Reads, let’s take a look a variety of topics sandwiched between a couple of items about “Mutha’s Day.”
Anna Jarvis, The Founder of Mother’s Day Later Fought to Have It Abolished
Years after she founded Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis was dining at the Tea Room at Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia. She saw they were offering a “Mother’s Day Salad.” She ordered the salad and when it was served, she stood up, dumped it on the floor, left the money to pay for it, and walked out in a huff. Jarvis had lost control of the holiday she helped create, and she was crushed by her belief that commercialism was destroying Mother’s Day.
Here is a little history of Anna Jarvis and Mother’s Day, in cartoon format, by Steve Brodner. Click on the cartoon to view larger image.
Anna Jarvis, the Radical Behind Mother’s Day | Mother Jones
Makes that “Mother’s Day Salad” protest in the Tea Room at Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia all the more symbolic doesn’t it?
In a story that you may have missed last week: University of Montana agrees to reform handling of rape cases | Reuters
The University of Montana has agreed to reform how it responds to rape accusations following a year-long investigation by two U.S. government agencies into complaints such cases were mishandled, federal authorities and the school said on Thursday.
The U.S. departments of justice and education had probed allegations the university failed to aggressively pursue sexual assault and harassment reports, several of which involved football players.
The inquiries stemmed from reports that women on campus had been subjected to unfair treatment that infringed on their civil rights and violated constitutional bans on gender-based discrimination.
“What is noteworthy about this announcement today is not the problems our investigation found at the university, but a shared commitment to the equality of women students and their safety,” Roy Austin, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement.
Jocelyn Samuels, the division’s principal deputy assistant attorney general, told a news conference that the set of agreements would provide a blueprint for reform for other campuses across the country as they address the “all too common problem of sexual assault and harassment of students.”
Blueprint? I should hope so. But after all this is 2013 and we are talking blueprints when it comes to the “all too common problem of sexual assault and harassment of students.” Seriously? It seems like bullshit to me when the day before this story was published on Reuters, the State Department was dealing with the actual “Blueprints” to make 3-D printed guns.
State Department takes down blueprints for 3D-printable handgun | The Raw Story
The State Department on Thursday ordered the nonprofit Defense Distributed to remove blueprints for the world’s first 3D-printed gun from its website.
“All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard. But we’ll do our part to remove it from our servers,” Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson told Forbes.
The department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance warned Wilson that posting the materials online could be a violation of export controls. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) prohibits weapons manufactures from exporting technical data to foreign persons without authorization from the State Department.
“This means that all such data should be removed from public access immediately,” the Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance said.
[...]
The warning from the State Department came just days after Defense Distributed unveiled the blueprints for its plastic single-shot handgun, called the “Liberator.” The firearm can be created by anyone with the blueprints and access to a 3D printer. Defense Distributed also released nine other 3D-printable firearms components.
Well….I think I made my point.
Moving on now to this, Can You Generate Electricity From Plants? Science Says Yes | Geekosystem
Plants use energy from the Sun through photosynthesis, and humans use energy from the Sun through things like solar panels. A new technique created by researchers at the University of Georgia allows humans to get electricity from plants by hijacking the photosynthesis process. This research could someday lead to some very literal power plants.
Cool innit? Go to the link to check it out.
A few weeks ago, we lost a comic genius…Jonathan Winters. I have two articles written by Dick Cavett in the New York Times. Take a few minutes to read them when you can.
With Winters Gone, Can We Be Far Behind? – NYTimes.com
No more Jonathan Winters.
What did we do to deserve this?
I’m just antique enough to remember when Jonathan first hit. Or at least for me. It was the Jack Paar “Tonight Show” and no one had ever seen anything remotely like it.
A slightly chubby, amiable, Midwesternly looking man who could have been an accountant or a bus driver, nicely dressed in dark suit and tie, stepped out, a bit timorously, from behind the curtain and, on the spot and before our eyes, created a whole mad little world.
Missing: Jonathan Winters. Badly. – NYTimes.com
I remember once mentioning the name Jonathan Winters to Groucho Marx.
The reply: “There’s a giant talent.”
Now for some history links, this first one is more about something that is history in the making actually. First black woman named to Ga. Civil War Commission
The first black woman has been appointed to serve on Georgia’s Civil War Commission.
House Speaker David Ralston on Friday selected Inger Eberhart for the post.
The Acworth resident currently serves on the staff of Cobb County Commissioner JoAnn Birrell. She is on the board of advisers of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates for stricter enforcement of state and federal laws related to immigration.
Oh…that explains it.
Anyway, more history goodies, in link dump fashion:
Family album of Tsar Nicholas II resurfaces in museum exhibition
Held a virtual prisoner by the Bolsheviks months before his execution, Russia’s last Tsar Nicholas II pasted informal snapshots of his family into an album which has now come to light in a Russian provincial museum.
The photographs, most of which have never been seen before, show the last of the Romanov rulers of Russia without pomp and in unguarded moments. Many were taken by Nicholas II himself.
There are many informal photos…with penciled names and dates written on the backs.
History lessons the West refuses to learn
World View: After the Great War, Britain and France carved up the Middle East between them. Now, plans for Syria have the same potential for disaster.
A Political History of the Cicadas
The “Great East Coast Cicada Sex Invasion of 2013” is upon us.
After 17 years of feeding and living under the earth’s surface, billions of “Brood II” cicadas will emerge this summer between Connecticut and Georgia, swarming in thick, forbidding billows of shed exoskeletons and raucous insect lovemaking. (To get an idea of what the cicada mating call sounds like, click here for audio.)
For all their physical creepiness and loud public sex orgies, the (actually completely harmless) bugs have a rich cultural history in the United States. Bob Dylan wrote a song about the cicadas, for instance. But cicadas also have a rich political history in this country. Here are their greatest hits…
The Volokh Conspiracy » Irish Law at Kalamazoo
The 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies begins this Thursday on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. I’m moderating a legal history panel on Thursday at 1:30, in Bernhard 106, called Law as Culture: Secular Punishment and Divine Retribution in Medieval Ireland (Panel 90). Here are the paper titles:
- Beheading, Hanging, and Being Drawn Asunder: Execution in Medieval Ireland
- Property Incursions and Punitive Irish Saints
- Divine Diversion: Divine Retribution as Dispute Resolution and the Norman Invasion of Ireland
H/T to Delphyne for this one: The Medieval and Early Modern Meme Menagerie, or, Grumpy Cat is a Time Lord
I think we’ve finally found a proper Late Medieval or Early Modern Grumpy Cat.
…And, yes, Grumpy Cat is a Time Lord.
I actually love the expression on this little guy….
2. Maxwell, Disapproving Rabbit:
Even before someone discovered the “disapproval face,” Disapproving Rabbit was already fed up with your shit.
Oh, that is sooooooo true!
On to Movie news…
This next link is here because of two things… first, the movie that is mentioned is about Shanghai Kate, the woman who did two of my tattoos back in 1999 and 2000 in NYC. And second, it makes me think of when movies started to use video tape, we had VCRs and Blockbusters. Then it went to DVDs and we had NetFlix and RedBox. Now it is Digital, we still have NetFlix but more and more companies are getting into the groove. Eventually we won’t have anything real to touch or feel…it will all be digital. And that kind of sucks. Los Angeles startup Yekra nets $3M for its digital movie distribution platform
Disney is doing it again: Merida From ‘Brave’ Gets An Unnecessary Makeover, Sparks Change.org Petition (PHOTO)
Merida, “Brave’s” red-headed heroine will be crowned Disney’s 11th princess on May 11. And just in time for her royal induction, the animated character has received a head-to-toe makeover — she’s thinner, her eyes are wider and … Is that miracle anti-frizz solution she’s using? What is going on!?
New Merida, left. Original Merida, right.
Last night, my kids went to see The Great Gatsby with a bunch of their friends. When they came back home after the show, I asked my daughter what she thought of the movie…this was her response.
It was okay, but there was like…no story to it?
Well, that about says it all, doesn’t it.
She laughed and said that when they first walked into the theater there was nothing but “old people” there, and she and her friends were worried that they may have made a mistake by going to see the movie in the first place.
‘Unfilmable’ novels? No such thing, says Hollywood
“As I watched the trailer, I thought, ‘This is for 16-year-olds,’ ” she says. “All of this is about gearing this toward high school and college students who may not have any notion of who Fitzgerald was or what the book actually was.
“They’re not going to care too much about whether this is a well-done adaptation,” she adds. “They’re going to care about whether it’s a Hollywood blockbuster.”
Read the article I linked to, that quote is the last two sentences of the piece, but it fit so well with what my daughter said that I had to put it in here. She also said the music sucked, and my son said the entire thing was crap…well, except for the film quality. He said it was a very “crisp” film.
I really do think there are some books that should not be made into film. My favorite, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, is a perfect example. There is just some things that are too detailed and involved to be parsed down into a 2 hour flick.
Well, I have one more Gatsby link for you, a solemn one. The Great Gatsby: F Scott Fitzgerald’s novels are read by millions, but he was buried in near anonymity
The bard of the Jazz Age shouldn’t be buried here. On a hillside in Hollywood perhaps, where he spent his last, unhappy years, or in glamorous downtown Manhattan – or even in Père Lachaise in Paris, the last resting place of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, among other foreigners who sought inspiration or refuge in the City of Light. But not in the commercial suburbs of Washington DC, among office blocks and strip malls, in a cemetery wedged between a six-lane highway and a railway line.
That, though, is where you find the grave of F Scott Fitzgerald, at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Rockville, Maryland, an Exxon station visible from the spot where he lies. In the pre-car age Rockville must have been a small village in the countryside; the church itself dates from 1817, when America was barely 40 years old. Today, however, it is Anywhere, USA.
Boston Boomer linked to Ginsburg’s comments on Roe v Wade yesterday, oh-oh is right….I thought it should be put on the front page: Justice Ginsburg: Roe v. Wade not ‘woman-centered’ – chicagotribune.com
And finally….5 Ways Motherhood Has Changed Over Time : Discovery News
It’s easy to take the job description of motherhood for granted: Take care of your kids, in whatever way you can. The specifics, though, are a little trickier.
In fact, the meaning and duties of being a mom have undergone great upheaval just in the last century. Should moms work outside the home or stay with the kids full time? Does letting a baby cry scar it or strengthen it? Should moms be praised just for being moms?
The answers to these questions depend on the era in which they’re asked. Throughout U.S. history, moms have been exalted, demonized and exalted again. Their instincts have been questioned and ruled sacrosanct. And they’ve taken the most guilt upon themselves during periods where they spend the most time with their children.
Read on for five ways motherhood has changed in the United States.
So Happy Mother’s Day to you, and for everyone else…enjoy the rest of your Sunday!
Friday Nite Lite: The Second Act
Posted: April 26, 2013 Filed under: Cats, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, the GOP 6 Comments »Real Quick Like….
Hardball – Political Cartoon by Tim Campbell, Current Publishing – 04/26/2013
Picking pockets.
That one just tickles me…
Mike Luckovich: Scouting Error – Mike Luckovich – Truthdig
The next two cartoons should get a laugh outta Connie:
Alarm by Political Cartoonist Luojie
AAEC – Political Cartoon by Peter Evans, Islander News – 04/25/2013
4/28 Luckovich cartoon: Incriminating evidence | Mike Luckovich
4/26 Luckovich cartoon: End to end | Mike Luckovich
I don’t know, so much shit comes out of both ends of the GOP elephant, I can’t tell which end is which.
This is an open thread, have at it.
Monday Late Afternoon Open Thread: Popes and Monsters
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Cats, Climate Change, Environment, Fox News, GLBT Rights, History, open thread, religion, SDB Evening News Reads | Tags: big ass crocodiles, gulf stream, medieval bombs, Pope Benedict, same-sex marriage, weather 22 Comments »
Artwork by Edward Gorey
Good Afternoon
I have to take my daughter to her dentist appointment in Atlanta this afternoon, so I am writing this post early…way early! If any of these links I have to share with you are repeats, sorry about that.
By now everyone has heard the shocking news out of Vatican City: Pope Benedict surprises world, steps down citing frailty
Pope Benedict surprised the world on Monday by saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to cope with the demands of his ministry, becoming the first pontiff to step down since the Middle Ages and leaving his aides “incredulous”.
The 85-year-old German-born Pope, hailed as a hero by conservative Catholics and viewed with suspicion by liberals, said he had noticed that his strength had deteriorated over recent months.
A Vatican spokesman said the Pope had not resigned because of “difficulties in the papacy” and the decision had been a surprise, indicating that even his closest aides were unaware that he was about to quit. The Pope does not fear schism in the Church after his resignation, the spokesman said.
Pope Benedict XVI Says He Will Resign
After examining his conscience “before God,” he said in a statement that reverberated around the world on the Internet and social media sites, “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of his position as head of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.
A profoundly conservative figure whose papacy was overshadowed by clerical abuse scandals, Benedict, 85, was elected by fellow cardinals in 2005 after the death of John Paul II.
Fox News had this picture up with its article reporting Benedict’s resignation: Pope Benedict to become first pontiff in 600 years to resign
Innit cute? Almost like he is taking his hat off in a goodbye salute…its a much better image for this story than the picture that Fox News had up earlier this week on a story about traditional gender roles.
This afternoon, author Jessica Valenti hilariously pointed out that a Fox News column about traditional gender roles in marriage is accidentally accompanied by a photograph of two lesbian newly-weds exchanging a kiss.
The FoxNews.com column in question was written by Suzanne Venker, the niece of social conservative hero Phyllis Schlafly, and previous author of the roundly-panned column on how it’s all women’s fault that there is a “battle of the sexes.”
Venker’s latest column, titled “To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’” laments that in modern marriage, “men and women have no idea who’s supposed to do what,” all because of “feminists” who preach a “new way” of thinking about gender. Men and women now believe they can do the same things “without ramifications,” she wrote:
“Being equal in worth, or value, is not the same as being identical, interchangeable beings. Men and women may be capable of doing many of the same things, but that doesn’t mean they want to. That we don’t have more female CEOs or stay-at-home dads proves this in spades.”
Knowing the author and subject of the column, it’s pretty much a given that the featured image is an unintentional (but, indeed, hilarious) inclusion:
Turns out, that’s a stock image of Alaskan same-sex couple Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur, who were wed atop the Empire State Building early last year…
Bwaaahahaaaaaaa!
Awesome!
Fox eventually took the picture down and replaced it with the generic stick figure image you usually see on restroom doors:
Oh well, it was funny while it lasted.
Now a couple of weather stories…
Snowbound Cattle – Political Cartoon by Richard Bartholomew, Artizans.com – 02/11/2013
Look…Cows!
You need to click the links to these next articles because they are a bit too involved to quote from.
Cliff Mass Weather Blog: The U.S. Weather Prediction Computer Gap
It happened again.
A major storm hit the northeast U.S. and the U.S. global model lagged badly behind the predictions of the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) . Just as with Sandy.
Scientific American: New Simulations Question the Gulf Stream’s Role in Tempering Europe’s Winters
For a century, schoolchildren have been taught that the massive ocean current known as the Gulf Stream carries warm water from the tropical Atlantic Ocean to northwestern Europe. As it arrives, the water heats the air above it. That air moves inland, making winter days in Europe milder than they are in the northeastern U.S.
It might be time to retire that tidy story.
This next article makes me think of the scene from Monty Python’s Holy Grail…the one where the old lady is beating the cat against the wall…Do Not Try to Recreate This 16th-Century German Cat Bomb at Home
It’s not a good idea, no matter what the Feuer Buech says.
Illustration, cat and bird with rocket packs (University of Pennsylvania).Think you’re the first person to consider the offensive capabilities of cats and birds in a hypothetical war against zombies space invaders enemies of the Holy Roman Empire? Think again!
The Germans beat you to it by about 425 years, as proven by this painting, which BibliOdyssey found and The Appendix Journal posted to its Tumblr. The manuscript from which it was drawn was called “Feuer Buech,” which I’m guessing translates from the old German to English as “Fire Book.” It’s a “treatise on munitions and explosive devices, with many illustrations of the various devices and their uses.”
Well, I am not sure how they could get the cat to walk into the fortification on its own…it probably would need to get a little help from its friends:
Since we had a cat story, how about a dog story? According to the BBC: Dogs understand human perspective, say researchers
Dogs are more capable of understanding situations from a human’s point of view than has previously been recognised, according to researchers.
They found dogs were four times more likely to steal food they had been forbidden, when lights were turned off so humans in the room could not see.
This suggested the dogs were able to alter their behaviour when they knew their owners’ perspective had changed.
I wonder if a dog would alter their behavior because a human put a rocket backpack on it?*
The experiments had been trying to find whether dogs could adapt their behaviour in response to the changed circumstances of their human owners.
It wanted to see if dogs had a “flexible understanding” that could show they understood the viewpoint of a human.
*Note, my comment was snarky and not in the best of taste, but I needed to put some perspective on these stories. Animals have been used during wartime throughout history.
Check this out: 6 Insane Uses of Animals in Wartime (That Actually Worked) **
(**Uh, just a post script to my note….that link goes to a 2011 Cracked Magazine post, but they cite real articles and state true facts, go figure!)
Last story for you this afternoon, and it deals with a monster from the reptile world…no it is not another story about the Church, World’s largest crocodile dies in Philippines
February 11, 2013 Lolong, world’s largest saltwater crocodile in captivity, pictured in Bunawan, the Philippines, on September 21, 2011 Enlarge Lolong, a one-tonne, 6.17 metres crocodile believed to be the biggest to have ever been caught, is seen in a caged pen in the southern Philippine town of Bunawan, on September 21, 2011. Lolong has died, 17 months after the suspected man-eater was hunted down and put on display for tourists, according to his caretakers.
You may remember this beast from a story I shared with you a couple of years ago: Monster crocodile gets own park in Philippines
Philippine villagers examine the giant crocodile after its capture on September 4. A monster crocodile which is reputedly the world’s largest is the star attraction at its own nature park which opened in the Philippines this weekend, weeks after the beast’s capture.
That is one picture I haven’t forgotten, I am pretty sure you probably haven’t forgotten it either. Oooof!
This is an open thread…
Goof off thread…of course it is an open one.
Posted: November 25, 2012 Filed under: Cats, children, corporatism, Environment, Environmental Protection, Environmentalists, Feminists, Foreign Affairs, Gaza, Israel, just because, open thread, social media, the internet, Violence against women | Tags: Facebook stuff 6 Comments »
Picture of Miriam’s house…
I haven’t been on the internet that much lately, but today I did check in on Facebook, and I thought I’d share a few things with you. First from my buddy Miriam, just an update on how she is doing.
I have the best friends in the world..and by that I mean, in the world, scattered across the globe, for so many different worlds…this past few weeks have shown me just how much these relationships have grown and how important you all are to me.. ♥
Thank you for being out there, in real life, on skype, in emails and messages and in thoughtful packages of love…you are awesome!!
Social media is a wonderful things at times. I love being able to keep up with friends in a quick non-committed way.
Here are a few other things I found…
From Mona, she always post such great things:
Today is International Day Against Violence Against Women. Show your support for ending gender-based violence by sharing and learning more about the issue:
http://www.halftheskymovement.org/issues/gender-based-violence
From Kathy/Delphyne:
- The President -
This particular Giant Sequoia is the second largest living tree on earth, and has been formally named “President”. Located in Sequoia National Park, Sierra Nevada.
“Its trunk is rusty red, thickened with deep layers of furrowed bark, and 27 feet in diameter at the base. Its footprint would cover your dining room. Trying to glimpse its tippy top, or craning to see the shape of i
ts crown, could give you a sore neck. It’s a giant sequoia, a member of Sequoiadendron giganteum, one of several surviving species of redwoods…Its four great limbs, each as big as a sizable tree, elbow outward from the trunk around halfway up, billowing into a thick crown like a mushroom cloud flattening against the sky. Although its trunk isn’t quite so bulky as that of the largest giant, the General Sherman, its crown is fuller than the Sherman’s. The President holds nearly two billion leaves…Giant sequoias are gigantic because they are very, very old.They are so old because they have survived all the threats that could have killed them. They’re too strong to be knocked over by wind. Their heartwood and bark are infused with tannic acids and other chemicals that protect against fungal rot. Wood-boring beetles hardly faze them. Their thick bark is flame resistant. Ground fires, in fact, are good for sequoia populations, burning away competitors, opening sequoia cones, allowing sequoia seedlings to get started amid the sunlight and nurturing ash. Lightning hurts the big adults but usually doesn’t kill them. So they grow older and bigger across the millennia…”The President contains at least 54,000 cubic feet of wood and bark, has been detected to be roughly 3,200 years old, and as of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1278 cubic meters.Source:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/sequoias/quammen-text“Forest Giant” Gallery:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/sequoias/nichols-photography#/03-snow-tree-from-base-670.jpgPhotograph by Michael Nichols:
http://www.michaelnicknichols.com/Additional Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_(tree)
Just fixed my broken belt loops. Something about little basic/easy sewing fixes is so rewarding! Even more so that I get to use a 100 year old machine.
Reflective thought of the day: Father Time, I’m trying really hard to embrace you, but you pass too quickly. Yep, that means heading back to work tomorrow.
17 years ago I was truely blessed with my baby girl! Although we have our ups and downs, she is truely an amazing person & my best friend. Words cannot describe blessed I am to have her in my life!! Love you with all my heart.. ♥ mom!!
Honeymoon ain’t over…. 2 trees up, lights outside, gifts under tree and off for a spa day!!!! Yeeehaw love my hubby!
MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER..SHE WILL BE 81 TOMORROW AND IS SO FUNNY AND FULL OF LIFE…SHE IS MY WORLD!!
Another One Bites the Dust
Posted: July 1, 2012 Filed under: Cats | Tags: euthanasia, life & death, living with cats, loss 18 Comments »NOTE: The post below was posted yesterday morning on my personal blog, ecocatwoman. After sharing it with the other Front Pagers, bb, jj & Mona suggested I repost it here. It isn’t the usual sort of post you see on Sky Dancing, so I’ll understand if it isn’t your cup of tea. And, HT, I really did pick this title before your comment on Kat’s post last night – really!
*************
I only managed to catch one kitten on my first attempt. She was absolutely beautiful, but completely wild. Being a novice I felt she was too old to try to tame/socialize her. So, once she was spayed and recovered, I returned her. She died within 2 days, which devastated me. I decided once I trapped the rest (actually 4 remaining littermates and 2 from the litter of another female), I would make every effort to socialize them and find homes for them, although CARE did not do adoptions. I felt I had enough contacts in the rescue community that I could easily find a group who would handle the adoptions. I was ridiculously lucky, trapping all 6 kittens at once, something I never managed to do again in the following 8 years of trapping expeditions.
After dropping the little ones off at the clinic in the morning, I saw a kitten blithely walking across a normally very busy road as I was driving home. Of course, I stopped and picked him up and took him home. He was about the same age as the kittens, but he was the friendliest kitten I had ever seen. He cuddled on my chest and purred all the way home.
Within two days of bringing the 6 kittens home, I noticed one of them (Chaz) had a beard of bubbles on his chin. I called my veterinarian and she told me to come in the next morning with all of the kittens because, at least, Chaz had calicivirus, which was/is highly contagious. No doubt they had contracted it at the animal services clinic and that is probably what caused their sister’s death. Charlise, Chaz’ sister was the only one in the 2 litters who got sick, seriously sick. However, Clark, the sweet boy I picked up off the street, got deathly ill as well, along with one of my adult cats, Catherine. All were bundled off to the veterinary clinic, where both Charlise and Catherine spent 2 weeks for treatment and force-feeding. Clark was the sickest and spent a month at the vet’s office before he began eating on his own. Whew – we had dodged a bullet. It is always dreadful to lose one of my animals, but losing kittens is the worst by far for me. As of tonight, Charlise is the last of this little family of kittens/cats.
cisco
I lost Cisco suddenly on February 16, 2008. I had taken him to my vet because the nictitating membranes (third eyelid) in both of his eyes were partially up. He had no other signs of illness. He hadn’t lost weight, he was eating, so I didn’t suspect there was anything seriously wrong. Within 2 or 3 days, he had died. The vet suspected either liver or pancreatic cancer.
Darling Clark, the kitten rescued from the 6 lane highway died, after a long wasting, undiagnosed illness, on February 25, 2010. He had grown into a Velcro cat. He would leap through the air, almost like a bird, to be in my arms. He would leap from the floor, from a countertop, the bed or the arm of a chair, flying into my arms without scratching me or digging in with his claws. Turning my back did not do any good in dissuading him from his goal, so there were many times he would end up on my back, much like a living backpack.
CHAZ
Chaz first developed plasma cell stomatitis, a common result of having had calicivirus in early 2008. I had most of his teeth removed in April, 2008. He was fine for awhile. By the end of 2010 it was obvious he had a problem with one of his ears. Cordelia, one of my dogs, would continuously clean Chaz’ ear, while Chaz would lie there seeming to enjoy the cleaning, grooming process. I took Chaz to my vet and she found that he had a cancerous, inoperable tumor in his ear. His health deteriorated and I had to have him euthanized on February 12, 2011.
CHARLIE & ME AT THE OFFICE
As Chaz was going through his illness, his brother Charlie, another sweet, extremely affectionate boy began losing weight much like Clark He would lose weight, and then seem to recover and start putting some of the weight back on he had lost for a period, and then start losing weight again. I took him to the vet on numerous occasions, had tests run again and again to no avail. X-rays, blood tests, nothing revealed what was causing the weight loss. I had to force feed him from time to time, as well as give him sub-cutaneous fluids to keep him hydrated. Finally, it became obvious that he wasn’t going to recover and his weight loss was decimating him. I had often brought him to work with me, and everyone on staff fell in love with him. He was happiest in someone’s arms. I let him go and had him put down on June 14th, 2011.
At that point, I had only 3 cats of the original 6 remaining. Of those one had never become tame, Chandler. Over the years, I had only managed to get a quick “pet” of him while he was eating. Generally, if I got within about 3 feet of him, he would hiss and take off. Courtney, one of Chaz’ and Charlie’s sisters who was among the three, had remained feral for the first year after joining my herd of cats. Then, surprisingly, she lay on the edge of the bed, rolled onto her back and looked up at me, as if she was asking for a belly rub. At the top of my “can’t resist list” is a kitty tummy. Regardless of the potential danger, the soft fur of a kitty tummy is totally irresistible to me. From that moment on, I could pet her and love on her and she never failed to offer me her tummy for a rub.
COURTNEY
Courtney developed a snuffing noise during the time I was dealing with other seriously ill cats. I assumed it was an upper respiratory problem, so I used a vaporizer to try to clear it up. I tried a nebulizer, but neither did any good. I took her to the vet, who insisted it was, in fact, an upper respiratory illness despite my insistence that wasn’t the problem. In late 2011 she spent a week at the vet’s office, but she was still snuffling when I took her home. I did some research on the internet, the vet did x-rays because I was certain she had a nasal tumor. I ended up taking her to the area veterinary specialists, where they did a CAT scan. Unfortunately, I was right. She had nasopharyngeal carcinoma. It was an inoperable, fatal condition. She was fine for a while, but one morning she started having seizures. I rushed her to the vet and had her euthanized. That was on January 12, 2012.
About a month or two after losing Courtney, Chandler began losing weight, much like Clark and Charlie had done. After visiting two different vets, both of whom failed to diagnose either Clark’s or Charlie’s conditions, I saw no need to go through the frustration and enormous costs just to be told either “don’t know” or “can’t treat”. Chandler continued to eat, quite a bit, being the first cat with his head in a bowl of food every night. As he continued to lose weight, I called my vet’s office to alert them that I would be dropping him off, explaining he was feral and would have to be sedated to be examined. The problem? I couldn’t catch him. After making several attempts, I gave up. Then one day, to my great surprise, he allowed me to pet him. Within a week or two, he allowed me to pick him up, and even carry him around. I took him into the vet and she postulated, due to feeling a mass in his abdominal region that he either had a kidney tumor or one in his spleen. By this time he had lost a considerable amount of weight he certainly could not withstand a major surgery.
CHANDLER
I refuse to sanction surgeries to remove tumors, especially internal ones. Every time I’ve had that done to other dogs or cats, the cancer spread like wild fire throughout their bodies. I had put Cricket through 5 surgeries for mammary cancer, many years before. After the 5th surgery, the tumors returned within 2 days.
The vet suggested subcutaneous fluids daily for Chandler after giving him an antibiotic injection. He lasted 2 weeks. Although he ate a small amount yesterday (Thursday) morning before I left for work, and the fact that I knew his remaining time was very limited, I chose not to take him to the vet on Thursday to have him euthanized. I wasn’t ready to give up and he didn’t seem to be ready either. However, when I got home from work, it was obvious that it was time. He had chosen to spend the day in a carrier. When I first looked at him, lying with his head in a awkward, unnatural position, I feared he had died while I was at work. He was alive but terribly weak, so I arranged to bring him to the vet in the morning. It became obvious within the hour that he probably wouldn’t last the night. He was uncomfortable and probably in pain. I took him to the nearest emergency clinic and had him euthanized. At least, after 13 years of longing to touch him, pet him and hold him, I had the opportunity to do that for the final weeks of his life. It was a special gift he gave me in the end that I will always treasure. To hear him purr for me when I petted him and hold him was a reward that I shall always cherish.
Little, petite Charlise, stunted by her early illness, remains the last of the group of kittens saved from a shorter, more difficult life on their own. May she live many, many more years.
CHARLISE
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