Koroner Kitty

I’d always always pretty much assumed that the Angel of Death would be a woman but I had no idea that it was a cat…

Meet Oscar – a two year old stray who was adopted by the the Dementia Unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, RI.

He’s an aloof animal who tends to shun human companionship unless they’re about to die. It seems that Oscar possesses the amazing ability to predict a patient’s death within four hours of the occurrence. Or, so says an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (Article requires a subscription so go here instead)

When Oscar senses the presence of the Grim Reaper he sniffs out the intended patient and curls up next to him on the bed. With rare exception, the patient usually dies within four hours.

He’s so good at predicting the casting off of the mortal coil that nurses now routinely call patients’ families when Oscar makes his appearance.

Sometimes he even fools the experts:

She [Dr. Joan Teno] was convinced of Oscar’s talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn’t eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn’t stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor’s prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient’s final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

So how does he do it? Well, obviously, no one knows for sure but there is speculation:

No one’s certain if Oscar’s behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

Nicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa’s article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.

If Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it’s also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said.

So is he a creature of mercy who longs to provide comfort and companionship to his human keepers during their last minutes on earth – or is it more a matter of self-centered pleasure?

I have no clue but, judging by the normal behavior of cats, smart money chooses the latter option.

 

Monday Morning Misgivings

It’s Monday so I thought I’d hit on a few bad ideas, unfortunate situations, and lousy choices:

• Illegal immigrants to get ID cards in Connecticut: Actually, the title is somewhat misleading. Connecticut isn’t granting state IDs, the City of New Haven is going to issue a Municipal Identification Card for illegals. Nevertheless, its a bad idea.
• 200 trapped in St. Louis Arch for two hours: Getting trapped in St. Louis for two hours is bad enough, but getting trapped inside a packed tram with fat, sweaty tourists definitly qualifies as a very unfortunate situation.
• St. Patrick’s Day 2008: March 15th? It seems that the Irish Bishops are moving next years St. Patrick’s Day observance from March 17th to March 15th. They’re kicking it back to the prior Saturday because the 17th falls on the Monday of Holy Week and Holy Week has to take precedence. I understand the rationale but it just ain’t right..
• Woman leaves kids alone as she poses nude in the woods: She’s 20, the kids aren’t hers (she was babysitting), and she had the nude pics taken to get back at her ex-boyfriend. Lousy idea in spades.
• Barry special, Barry alone: A city set to crown its king: San Francisco is ready to crown Barry Bonds — a man whose appetite for illicit drugs was second only to Rush Limbaugh’s — as Major League Baseball’s all time Home Run king. Three words: Barry Bonds cheated. This hits (pardon the pun) all three: it’s a bad idea, an unfortunate situation, and a truly lousy choice.

 

Catshit coffee: $600 a pound

I don’t take sugar in my coffee, but with this brew I might have to reconsider:

Human hands don’t harvest the beans that make this rare brew. They’re plucked by the sharp claws and fangs of wild civets, catlike beasts with bug eyes and weaselly noses that love their coffee fresh.

They move at night, creeping along the limbs of robusta and hybrid arabusta trees, sniffing out sweet red coffee cherries and selecting only the tastiest. After chewing off the fruity exterior, they swallow the hard innards.

In the animals’ stomachs, enzymes in the gastric juices massage the beans, smoothing off the harsh edges that make coffee bitter and produce caffeine jitters. Humans then separate the greenish-brown beans from the rest of the dung,

and once a thin outer layer is removed, they are ready for roasting. The result is a delicacy with a markup so steep it would make a drug dealer weep.

It’s called kopi luwak; it’s from Indonesia, and it costs $600 a pound.

Ok, so my question is… who was the first guy to look at a steaming pile of civet droppings and say “Hey, I got an idea!”???

 

Red Hot English love!

You have to wonder how, according to a 2006 survey, English men revealed that 48 percent actually fall asleep during sex when their modern literature is chock full of such titillating psychoerotic references as:

“So at sunset I took formal possession of her as a lover.”

(Evelyn Waugh — Brideshead Revisited)

Good God…

 

Keeping with the fish theme…

It’s called a coelacanth and until African fisherman began netting them recently, they were thought to have been extinct for more that 80 million years.

I have a friend who is inexplicably fascinated by Giant Squid (Freud would have a field day with that one) so I thought this might pique his interest. But cool as the Giant Squid may be (and no one’s doubting it), only the coelacanth can claim to be:

[...] the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye.

See, you learn things here.

 

 

On the return: It ain’t easy

In my comments to James in a previous post I said that blogging was easier when I had a gimmick.  I was a conservative who hated Bush and opposed the Iraq war.  If not unique, I was certainly a rarity.

Nowadays, everyone hates Bush and the majority of Americans want us out of Iraq yesterday.

I’ve lost my niche…

Consider:

• When I started blogging in 2003, George Bush was at the height of his popularity and the nation was gripped by war fever. As noted above, I was a Reagan Republican who hated Bush and viscerally opposed the Iraq war. In 2007, a majority of Americans want Bush impeached and even greater numbers want American troops out of Iraq. (BTW, I’ve long since left the GOP)
• In 2003, I was a member of the ever cursed, star-crossed, misbegotten band of brothers known as Red Sox fans.  We were in our 85th year of misery.  In 2007, the Red Sox have a World Championship under their belts and they (currently) have the best record in Major League Baseball.  (With a double digit lead over the MFY in the AL East)
• In the 1990s I developed a fascination with the Traditional Latin Mass.  I would travel innumerable miles to assist at a High Mass in the old rite.  (At the time, they were as rare as the proverbial hens’ teeth) By the time I started blogging in 2003 my fascination was intermittent but I’d still make the long journey whenever the Spirit moved me.  Now, in 2007, Pope Benedict has thrown wide the gates and by virtue of his recent Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” [.pdf], the Traditional Latin Mass may, by right and not by exception, be offered freely.

I have no purpose. I have no niche…

What the hell am I going to complain about?

 

Latin coolness

Vatican City. ATMs. Latin.

How cool is that?

Credit: Father Coulter

 

More sensitivity…

…from the diversity crowd:

[click image to enlarge]

Standing firmly on the free speech ideals of its illustrious founder (Thomas Jefferson), the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily thinks portraying the Virgin Mary with a sexually transmitted disease is high comedy.

Alas, Mohammed with a bomb in his turban didn’t seem to pass the editors’ tickle test.

I guess, some sacred persons are just funnier than others…

__________________
Worth a read:

- Fascists Under the Bed Pat Buchanan in the American Conservative.

- Preaching, Pondering and Predicting Col. Karen Kwiatkowski on Rumsfeld’s American Legion speech.

- Another Connecticut Marine dies in Iraq… Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson († 9/2/06), 19 of Enfield, is the second native of this tiny state to die in Iraq during the past two weeks.

[The full list of Joe Lieberman's constituents who have been killed in Mr. Bush's war can be found here.]

 

Lawyers….

Apparently aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. To wit:

Boulder, Colorado District Attorney Mary Lacy on her decision to fly a lunatic from Thailand to Boulder (via California) when exculpatory evidence could have been gathered in Bangkok — thus saving Colorado taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars:

DA defends decision to arrest Karr

“We felt we could not ignore this. We had to follow it,” she said. “There was a real public safety concern here directed at a particular child” in Thailand, and a forensic psychologist said Karr “was dangerous, this person was escalating.”

That’s great but, typical power trips of American elected officials notwithstanding, her authority does not extend to Thailand. She’s the Boulder, Colorado DA for pity’s sake! His behavior in Thailand is the responsibility of Thai authorities. Period.

By all means, share whatever info Boulder has with the Bangkok police, but… awwww, forget it. She should be removed from office, but she’ll probably win the compassion vote and remain DA until she grows old and dies.
_____

And then there’s the email I found waiting for me this morning… It was a collection of ethnic jokes (everyone was bashed: Blacks, Mexicans, Irish, Italians, Blonde women, all men, and, of course, Southerners). It had been forwarded (and forwarded again) at least half a dozen times. The thing is, it orginated at a very prominent local law firm. No one had enough brain cells to strip the original headers before forwarding it…

Should I send eight lawyers to the unemplyment line?

 

Putting a face on it

“Stay the course” sounds appealing in the abstract because, let’s face it, nobody likes a quitter and most people desperately want their country to succeed. But when you get behind the political rhetoric and focus on the human toll of Bush’s Iraq policy, the slogans seem barren and not a little repulsive. I’m a big fan of critical analysis (at least in others) and I tend to eschew emotional arguments but I don’t think you can examine a war policy from a completely detached position.

This young man, who doesn’t even look old enough to shave, is Marine Cpl. Stephen Bixler. He is, sadly, Connecticut’s most recent casualty of the Iraq war. He was killed May 4, 2006 while on foot patrol in the province of Fallujah.

The Hartford Courant wrote: “Bixler leaves behind his parents, Richard and Linda; a twin sister, Sandra; and dozens of people who knew him as intelligent and athletic, and as a quiet but strong leader, whether it was in the Boy Scouts or on the high school cross-country team.”

The only reason I’m writing about this is because I saw a Chris Matthews interview with Van Taylor, an Iraq war veteran who is running for Congress in the district that includes Mr. Bush’s Crawford ranch. He’s a Republican and he favors “seeing Iraq through” to victory.

He supports the president, he supports the continuation of the war and, despite being a Congressional candidate, he cannot tell us why we invaded Iraq:

MATTHEWS: So why did we attack Iraq then? Why did we attack Iraq then?

TAYLOR: Regardless of why we may have started fighting, and I served as a marine …

MATTHEWS: I‘m asking the question, why did we attack Iraq? Why did we go into Iraq?

TAYLOR: That‘s not the question that we need answered.

MATTHEWS: It‘s mine.

TAYLOR: It‘s what do we do now?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: What‘s wrong with me asking the question? We are in a war.

Pearl Harbor started World War II.

TAYLOR: That‘s a question you can ask …

MATTHEWS: What start it? Why did we go into Iraq?

TAYLOR: That is a question you can ask historians, but today we need to send people to Washington who understand the war on terror. There is not a single member of the United States Congress that has served in the war on terror, and there are only two dozen combat veterans. I will be the very first. We need to send people like me in Washington. [Full transcript here]

In three months we will have been in Iraq as long as we were in WWII and the supporters of this war still can’t tell us why we’re there. (During Vietnam — before this blogger’s living memory — they couldn’t tell us how we’d get out, but at least they told us why we were there!)

As Election Day approaches, Americans — foremost among them people like the Bixler family — have an absolute right to have that question answered.