So I noticed a bunch of hits from Reddit.com this morning and followed the referrer back to a thread that has this heartbreaking picture. Most of the thread is the usual Reddit nonsense, but the discussion somehow eventually turned around to the subject of the Siege of Leningrad, and somebody Googled up my post about the cats of Leningrad who were hailed as heroes for keeping the rodent population in check during the siege.
I have no idea what the actual provenance of that photo is, and the Reddit thread had nothing of substance to offer, but it’s too easy to imagine something terrible, particularly given the numbers of cats and kittens who needlessly suffer from human neglect. We’ve been having such a wonderful time with our new kitten, Furry Murray, so this picture was a small reminder to me that for many cats, including shelter animals, the realities are pretty bleak.
The shelter where we got Murray still has lots of kittens and cats available. In fact, they’ve had to put intakes on hold because they can’t place out animals fast enough. Many of their cats and kittens are abandoned animals who would likely end up like the kitty in this picture without the shelter’s aid. If you yourself aren’t looking to adopt a cat, maybe you’d consider making a donation to a shelter in your area. Or do I have to make you look at another sad picture?
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
