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"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful."
Volume 17, Number 6, February 5, 2012
Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, yes, this is what we have come to. “…we are professional liars," said Everett Davis, founder of the Internet-based Reference Store, which offers pumped-up, but false, resumes for job-seekers having trouble landing work. Davis and associates are, he told Houston's KRIV-TV, ex-investigators schooled in deception and therefore good at fooling human resources personnel who follow up on the bogus work claims. Davis admitted he would even disguise a customer's past criminal record – but, to his credit, not if the job is in public safety, health care or schools. What a guy! (I have to wonder if he’s working for the field of US Presidential candidates….)
Next, daddy didn’t sing bass any more…. The Talented Mr. Zhou: Zhou Xin, 68, failed in his hopes to get a callback from the judges for the "China's Got Talent" TV reality show, according to a CNN report (as a matter of fact, judge Annie Yi screamed in horror at his act). Zhou is a practitioner of one of the "72 Shaolin skills," namely "iron crotch gong," and for his "talent," he stoically yet forcefully struck himself in the testicles with a weight and then with a hammer. [CNN] I am not sure the word ‘talent’ applies here….
Finally, standing up for what’s right. North Carolina deputies say they used a stun gun on a woman who blocked a McDonald's drive-through for 20 minutes after employees refused to serve her because she cut in line. Authorities say 37-year-old Evangeline Lucca bypassed the order screen and the line at the restaurant in Hope Mills and pulled directly up to the pick-up window. Cumberland County deputies say employees refused to take her order and told her to go to the back of the line. She refused to move, and police were called. Authorities say Lucca was zapped with a Taser after she blocked the line for 20 minutes. Her 3-year-old daughter was taken into protective custody. Lucca was charged with second-degree trespass. [www.azcentral.com]
Family values: Police say a dispute over a chocolate brownie led a Pennsylvania man to stab his brother, who responded by throwing a television at him. Police say 30-year-old Erik Cain stabbed his brother after getting upset that a brownie had been cut in half. Gene Cain told police his brother grabbed three steak knives from the kitchen and slashed him, resulting in wounds to his forearm, shoulder and wrist. Police say Gene Cain told officers he retaliated by throwing a television at his brother. Erik Cain was arrested later. He had been out on bail on charges he'd slashed his girlfriend last month. Erik Cain faces charges including aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the incident. [www.ydr.com]
As I am feeling lazy today, I present the following quotes (sent along by PJ, my Canadian Bureau Chief) in their entirety as they were sent to me. Interesting is the dedication, which I declined to remove as I can deeply feel for the person’s loss. “This week's quotes are in honor and memory of our Big Kitty, who passed away July 18, 2011 after being with us for fifteen of the sixteen years that Tom and I have been married.” The quotes: (1) "As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” Cleveland Amory. (2) "I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through." Jules Verne. (3) "I had been told the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days." Bill Dana. (4) "I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." Hippolyte Taine. (5) "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." Albert Schweitzer. (Bonus: following this week’s column is a thematically-connected blog entry of mine that describes how even I am not too old to learn something.
Redbox is being sued by a group of people with disabilities. The federal civil rights lawsuit says the giant movie rental service discriminates against blind people. Many movies are dialogue driven and can be enjoyed by the visually impaired. "You can enjoy large aspects of the narrative without needing to see the visual aspect of the movie at all," Disability Rights Advocates lawyer Michael Nunez said. Friends and family can also help. "If there's kind of a non-verbal part of the movie happening, you know, they'll describe what's happening to me," lawsuit plaintiff Lisamaria Martinez said. But the kiosks of the video rental giant Redbox are difficult, if not impossible, to use for those who are blind and visually impaired. The lawsuit says Redbox needs to change the technology in their kiosks so the visually impaired can rent movies too. "They have neither tactile buttons nor any other screen feature that would allow blind people to navigate their way through the kiosks," Martinez said. Martinez and Nunez are almost totally blind. For Martinez and others with the same disability, Redbox's touch screen is just another flat surface. [www.freerepublic.com]
Elias Diaz, who recently spent eight months behind bars at New York City’s Riker’s Island and the Vernon C. Bain Center (on gun charges), weighs about 400 pounds, and wears clothing size 7X. Since the prisons wouldn’t issue him clothing in his size, he says, he had to spend his entire sentence wearing the clothing he was arrested in, washing it out every day in the shower. Now he’s suing the City for a million dollars, half of which he says is for the psychiatric care he needs for the emotional damage done to him (“I wake up thinking I’m in jail and washing and washing and never feeling I can wash enough”) [It’s surprising how often convicted felons who feel wronged suffer severe emotional trauma]. The local media, however, is doing nothing but mock him (the New York Post, classy as always, refers to him as a “fatshunista”), on the face of it, he seems to have a valid claim: if you’re going to imprison somebody, you do have a responsibility to provide at least a minimum of food and clothing. [http://crimejusticeandamerica.com]
Animal rescuers in Massachusetts said a woman who bought two rats to save them from being snake food soon found herself with 71 rodents. The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the woman bought the rats from a pet shop in Sandwich to save them from being food for a snake and she contacted the society about three months later when the number of rapidly breeding rats ballooned to 71, the Boston Herald reported. "She realized she was in over her head, and she drove to Boston," MSPCA spokesman Rob Halpin said. Halpin said the incident took place only days after a Lawrence man brought in 94 hamsters that resulted from his adopting only two. The spokesman said the hamsters will likely have better luck finding new homes. "There are many more homes for hamsters than there are homes for rats. It is a smaller audience of enthusiasts for rats," Halpin said. [www.upi.com]
Once the Super Bowl has passed, most people’s lives will return to the ordinary. So…, here are a few more reasons to step up to the plate and celebrate: first, the entire month is National Pull Your Sofa Off the Wall Month! Next, February 5 is Disaster Day (and it will be for one team or the other in the XLVI Super Bowl [yes, I know how many people don’t have a clue what ‘XLVI’ means]. February 7th is Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day. February 7th is also Charles Dickens Day. February 9 is Toothache Day, and if things get to be too much for you, it is also Read in the Bathtub Day. February 10 is Umbrella Day (and the way this ‘winter’ has been going in New England, we may just need one). Finally, February 11th is Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day.
Finally, I will offer up a French politician to represent many of those in the US. A French presidential hopeful said he witnessed allied troops landing in Normandy but the event happened 17 years before he was born. The problem with the account Herve Morin delivered to supporters in Nice was that the invasion took place in 1944 and he wasn't born until 1961, France 24 reported. "You, some among you with gray hair, witnessed the storming of the Provence beach," Morin told supporters. "I saw the landing of the allied troops in Normandy." Morin's blooper made him the talk of the micro-blogging site Twitter. Morin registers only 1 percent in opinion polls and some members of his own New Centre party want him to quit the presidential race and back President Nicholas Sarkozy, the report said. [Bizarre News]
Later!
Mission Accomplished
I was never a cat person growing up; we always had dogs, even if the first was a Pomeranian-Spitz cross named Pudgy. Along the way, there were German Shepherds, Chinese Shar-Pei, Golden Retrievers, and a Doberman or two.
I had always been blissfully neutral toward cats until one fateful Halloween when I went across the street to our neighbors' house to show off my spiffy new sateen costume, the kind thatyou step into and ties in the back. The short of it is that when I sat on this lady's couch, at the same time, I also sat in a fresh pile of kitten, uh, leavings. There might have been an issue with a claw or two as well, but that afternoon pretty well cemented my opinion of cats!
Fast forward to somewhere about seventeen years ago (my wife knows time things like that) two kittens showed up in our barn. One got placed and the other stayed with us. Her name was Ayla, named, of course, after the character from The Clan of the Cave Bear. My wife had previously arrived with two cats, and I pretty much endured them, but this one was new - a kitten.
Although she said she doesn't remember, my wife told me that according to her reading in the cat Warrior series there are cats whose mission in life is to convince non-believers that cats are really okay. I suspect that was Ayla's job. For years, as soon as I sat down, she was on my lap, and as soon as she was on my lap, she ended up on the floor. That was our relationship. She never came into the bedroom because she couldn't just lie down - no, she'd have to walk and stick her face onto ours, which made it difficult to sleep.
A couple of years ago, more cats started showing up in and around our horse barn. Apparently our barn is an attractive birthing suite for felines. We somehow ended up with two new kittens about a year apart. Ayla must have decided I needed to be her friend, because she never gave up and redoubled her attempts to climb on me. Since she had no patience for the other new cats (but for some reason did have patience with me), I started letting her stay. It wasn't so bad. As a matter of fact, I have reached the point where I have fallen asleep in the recliner with three (count 'em) cats plopped down on me.
Without going into details, today was the day I had to say "Goodbye" to Ayla. A couple of weeks ago, she suddenly began losing weight and becoming lethargic. Perhaps I should have acted earlier, but it all seemed to happen so fast. We spent the morning today with her in my lap watching some TV and then we went for a ride. After a stop at the vet's, I came home alone. Already, there are the empty spaces around my desk and the house where I expect to see her. There's no jingle of the bell she wore.
With people I know recently having lost fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, I know she was "just a cat," but she was nonetheless an important part of my life. I think I cried more for her than I did for Scarlett the Doberman who served as a major anchor in my life for fourteen years.
Anyhow, goodbye Ayla, and enjoy your rest - you earned it.
And, by the way, Mission Accomplished!
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