News

RIP James Brown (1933-2006)

I cannot let the passing this morning of the Godfather of Soul go unremarked. The music that James Brown launched remains among my favorite popular music – funk and soul from the 1960s and 1970s have a special place in my heart and my CD collection. In particular, I return the 1970s era with the original JB's, funker, grittier and with just the right amount of slop. Indeed, the track “Turn It Up or Let It A-Loose” from the 1970 collection Funk Power was included in the research for my dissertation. I probably have the only PhD dissertation in Computer Science that includes a reference to James Brown in the bibliography. I suppose that's my tribute.







Coups in the news

Augusto Pinochet, disgraced former dictator of Chile, mass murderer, and cat hater died this weekend at the age of 91. His death has been met with celebration by many in Chile, and at least quiet celebration by many around the world. At least here at CatSynth, Fidel Castro will get a much better reception when the time comes.

Pinochet might have been proud of a couple of coups this week in Fiji and Lebanon







Election detritus

Readers may recall that I was in New Orleans on election night, in the middle of the district of William “frozen assets” Jefferson. Well, his runoff election is today.

Keeping cash in the freezer and taking bribes is one thing, but in my mind the reason he deserves to lose is that he has turned to bashing his opponent Karen Carpenter for her support of gay rights and abortion rights. Whether these represent his true views or a cynical attempt to appeal to socially conservative voters, either qualifies as a reason to vote against him. We'll have to see if at the end of the day his little “Republican” play works…

UPDATE: Looks like Jefferson pretty much trounced Carpenter in the runoff. I would like to think it's because of loyalty in the district, and not because of so-called “values issues.”





Feline Alzheimer's disease

News of a studly on Alzheimer's disease for readers with ageing feline and human friends:

Ageing cats can develop a feline form of Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals. Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California have identified a key protein which can build up in the nerve cells of a cat's brain and cause mental deterioration.

In humans with Alzheimer's disease, this protein creates 'tangles' inside the nerve cells which inhibit messages being processed by the brain. The team says that the presence of this protein in cats is proof that they too can develop this type of disease…

…”As with humans, the life expectancy of cats is increasing and with this longer life runs the greater chance of developing dementia. Recent studies suggest that 28% of pet cats aged 11-14 years develop at least one old-age related behaviour problem and this increases to more than 50% for cats over the age of 15.”

Perhaps one of the things that makes cats and other companion animals so endearing is that they go through many of the same life stages as humans, from kittenhood/childhood to old age. Having recently observed a 96-year-old relative and a neighbor's 20-year old cat who recently passed away, one can see similarities in both the strong and the sad qualities. The old cat liked to simply rest in her favorite spots in the neighbors garden, staring out into the world. Her physical state deteriorated very quickly towards the end, but I believe she crossed the rainbow bridge quietly and peacefully. My relative is still with us (saw her on my recent New York trip), though her health and mental state has deteriorated quite a bit as well. Again, I find myself thinking of the similarities between humans and cats in this stage of life – though just as with human infants in comparison to kittens, older cats seem to on the whole do a better job of staying independent than their elderly human counterparts.

I wonder if any of the stem cell research on Alzheimer's in applicable to cats…



Spotted Cat in the news

While I was back in New York thanksgiving weekend, the Sunday Times ran an article on New Orleans in the travel section. Not only that, they featured the Spotted Cat, both in the article and as the cover photo for the section:

Readers may remember that I also featured the Spotted Cat in my article on NOLA night life. It has unfortunately been getting bad press lately, but not because of the music or the club itself, which remains one of the best venus in New Oreleans. Rather, the Marigny neighborhood has seen a spike in crime over the past few months, including some nasty murders – the most disturbing one involved a former Spotted Cat employee. It appears to be part of an overall increase in crime in New Orleans since people returned after Katrina.

With such negative perceptions, it's important to highlight the positive in New Orleans and it's institutions. In addition to my articles, others are doing their best to provide some good press for the Spotted Cat.







Thoughts on animal-abuse tragedy in Tampa…and police shooting in New York

At about the same time I found that last article on cats from Lebanon in Ohio, I came across this horrific story of animal cruelty from Tampa. One of the victims is in the photo to the right. The details of this case are pretty bad, and many of this forum's cat-loving readers would do best not to read the original articles. As for me, once I find out about something like this I feel compelled to “bear witness” painful as it may be, read follow-up reports and hope that some sort of justice or good comes out of it.
Indeed, one of my main motivations for posting is to expose the sick excuse for a human who allegedly committed these acts of cruelty. Apparently, he just doesn't like cats and was mad that they would sometimes climb onto his car. As a cat lover, it is hard to comprehend the level of anger/hatred he must have felt towards them, but even so there is no excuse for his cruel executions of these helpless creatures :(. He has confessed to the killings, and has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty, carrying a maximum five-year sentence. I will respect the justice system and not pass sentence on him myself, though many participants in a local online forum have their own creative punishments in mind. It is somewhat satisfying to see a unified front of anger and revulsion, with not one person coming to his defense.

Apparently, this guy took shots at a police helicopter not so long before this incident. That's pretty serious, one wonders why he wasn't already in jail. Indeed, why didn't he end up riddled with bullets? Certainly, that would have saved the cats whose lives seem more worthwhile. But it also raises some interesting questions in light of the recent police shooting in New York – I was actually still in New York for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when it happened. The cases are of course quite different, but nonetheless I think they are worth comparing. In one situation we have 50 shots fired at three unarmed men who apparently struck an undercover police van – one of the men was killed, on the day of his wedding. In the other case, we have a man very openly taking shots at a police helicopter, and not only escaping the incident unhurt but free to kill three cats days later. Is it just the different locations and circumstances? Is it that black men are invariably more likely to be treated as threats and shot than sick white trash with a known record of cruelty and violience?

I intend to follow both of these cases to see what happens…






Summary of New Orleans / ICMC articles

Here is a list of all the New Orleans and ICMC articles in chronological order. New readers are encouraged to use this list as a starting point. Enjoy!


Weekend in New Orleans Part 1: Zip visits the French Quarter
Weekend in New Orleans Part 2: City views and Scultpure Garden
ICMC late concert on election night
Preparing for tomorrow's radio performance and more ICMC
After radio performance
NOLA Night Life
Weekend Cat Blogging #75: Cats of New Orleans
The Other New Orleans


The Other New Orleans

I conclude my series from New Orleans with a visit to the areas beyond the central city and tourist district, areas hardest hit by Katrina. Consider the following overall map of New Orleans:

The Garden District and Tulane University (where the ICMC conference was held) are in the lowel left section. The rectangular area encompasses much of downtown as well as the French Quarter and the Fauborg-Marigny district (home of the Spotted Cat featured in my article on night life). These are highlighted in red and yellow, respectively, below:

To the east of Marigny are the Bywater neighbhood and the Lower Ninth Ward. The latter is probably known to many readers as the site of some of the worst flooding and destruction from the storm.

Heading out of Marigny north on Elysian Fields Ave., the trendy crowded neighborhood gives way to a more spread-out “Los Angeles” style area of separated buildings, convenience stores. Much of this area appears to be functioning again. We then turn east onto Claiborne Ave. (LA 39), one of the main east-west streets in New Orleans. Heading east, one sees more and more of the severly damaged houses, but the scope of the disaster is most apparent after crossing the canal on a large bridge and descending into the Lower Ninth Ward:

It is more than destroyed homes. Entire blocks are either in ruins or empty, all the businesses are boarded up or destroyed. While there is car traffic and some work on houses, the district seems largely empty and devoid of people and activity:



The photos really don't capture the experience in the Lower Ninth Ward. Imagine the images above extending in every direction around you, with no end in sight. These really are ruins of a city. And it should be noted that this is over a year after Katrina and the promised rebuilding and recovery. Part of me thinks that this area should be left this way as a “monument” of sorts – though I suspect the former residents might feel differently.

Heading back west over the canal on Claiborne, we rejoin Elysian Fields heading north towards Lake Ponchartrain. Many of the neighborhoods along the lake were also hard hit by the storm and flooding:

Unlike the Lower Ninth Ward, the areas along the lake do show signs of recovery and of life.

Arriving at the lake is another experience again. It felt a lot like traveling across San Francisco on Geary from downtown west to the ocean, a quieter area with rough waters and windswept shoreline:

The wind, water and trees provide a quiet, almost peaceful, contrast to the devastation, some of which still can be seen only a few blocks south. But one can see in the waves of the lake, only feet below the flood line on a normal somewhat story day, echoes of the storm surge. It was after all the lake and not the Mississippi River that provided much of the initial flooding.

It is here along the lake that I close this article and my reports from New Orleans. The surreal mixture of natural tranquility and destruction seems a fitting contrast and completion to the music and food, the busy conference and stately manors, streetcars and cats. Somehow it all works together.








Weekend Cat Blogging #75: Cats of New Orleans

WCB 75 is being hosted this weekend by Skeezix the Cat. My contribution this week is a special article on cats in New Orleans. Of course, this is a city steeped in its jazz heritage, and cats and jazz have always gone together at least when it comes to imagery and language. Certainly there were no shortages of artwork, posters, murals, etc., celebrating the “cool cat” of jazz:

The relationship of New Orleans to its real cats is a bit more ambiguous. This is definitely a “dog town” from the perspective of animal companions. People can be seen walking dogs everywhere, and there appear to be lots of guard dogs around as well. Cats were a little more elusive, though I did see a few during my many walks in the uptown area to and from Tulane for the conference. Please click on the images below to see large images of the furry New Orleans residents:

The middle picture is of a pet cat named Kramer who was very friendly and talkative. Most of the other cats I encountered were a bit skittish, many of them darting across streets and hiding under the raised fundations of the houses. Hiding under a house is most times a perfectly good strategy, but I do think with a bit of sadness how many kitties were caught hiding there when the floods came. Many cats were located and rescued in the aftermath of Katrina. Spray-painted notices such as these are still a common site around the city:

Of the groups most involved in locating and rescuing cats and other animals after Katrina was the Louisiana SPCA. Their shelter facility was destroyed in the storm, and they had to evacuate themselves and the animals in their care, no easy task. Upon returning, not only did they not have a facility, but were faced with the reality that so many people had left their pets behind – largely due to a government policy that disallowed pet evacuations, but has since been reversed. You can read more about the SPCA's efforts to rescue animals and rebuild – its both heart-breaking and uplifting.

I did have an opportunity to visit the SPCA's temporary facility. I would like to thank Lori Haeuser and Kate Pullen for taking the time and effort to provide me a tour and more information about their efforts with cats.

The temporary shelter is in a converted coffee warehouse on the Westbank, across the river from the main part of New Orleans and largely spared by the flooding. The warehouse is basically a huge non-insulated space with a concrete floor, not really set up to house large numbers of animals. The SPCA constructed a number of temporary housing units inside the warehouse for offices and animal facilities, including several units for the cats. There are separate units for kitties ready for adoption, healthy cats not quite ready for adoption, those with medical needs, and a separate area for feral cats. Each of the little buildings has its own climate and lighting control – the latter was particularly useful for the feral cats who prefer the shadows. Below is a picture from the adoption unit:

As you can see, they have quite a few black kitties at this time. As noted a few weeks ago around Halloween, black cats do have a harder time getting adopted. And more generally, it seems that culturally many people in the area, particularly those with a more rural background, as less likely to view cats as “pets” that one adopts from the shelter, but rather as functional animals that one might start feeding a befriending, and then perhaps take in. In someways, it is more a situation of the “cat adopting the human”, though those of us with cats know that is how it usually works anyway. They did say that cat adoptions are starting to pick up a bit now, so hopefully some of these kitties will find homes. In the meantime, it seems that they are being cared for as best they can under the circumstances. And they do get to come out and play, as was the case with this friendly little torbie (in photo to the right).

Please visit the Lousiana SPCA website for more info and to support their work.