Cats Save South Naples; Vermin Not So Much

al Jazzera (or maybe it was CBS) is reporting that cats are fighting global warming by killing virtually anything that emits under twelve milligrams per year of vile carbon dioxide.

Hey it adds up. Like, fast.

This is a great service, for which cats get as little credit as they do for saving the newspaper.

Billions of bird and tens of billions of mice and other critters that make you jump on a chair are gone. Those little bastards would other wise exhale greenhouse gasses in the combined mega-tons, melt all of Greenland and flood South Naples are dispatched with barely a damp whisker.

Where's their movie?

And, yeah, eat your vole-like heart out, al Gore.

Dogs and Cats on China Government Menu

Maybe in not the way you'd expect, though.  Sure, you can eat Siamese chops or Cocker Spaniel  with tofu (double yum) in many Chinese cities, but the government is considering pulling the tasty treats off the menu.

For the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government ordered all dog meat off the menus and local puppy chow stalls in the markets.  If nothing else, this act proved the Chinese understand the sensitivity of the issue.  Americans, for example, don't like to eat pet food unless they are on Social Security.

Chinese pet meat vendors claim that they are, in fact, not pet meat vendors.  They certainly wouldn't eat their own pets, as that would be uncivilized.  They only butcher those raised on canine and feline farms or ranches, although, they allow, you shouldn't let your dog out without a leash.

Farms?  Ranches?  Yep.

I don't know how you farm a cat or force march a herd of dogs (just try that with cats) overland to the Chinese equivalent of Abilene or Dodge City, but apparently the Chinese do.  Is there a John Wayne-like movie playing in Guangzhou with a long dusty mutt drive and the strained emotions and bean side-effects that go with it?  Instead of "Red River" they get "Yellow River"?

Should we all jump on a plane and travel 20 hours to see--and eat the fruits of---this charming bit of Chinese history before it is outlawed everywhere but Korea?  Well, maybe just hearing about it is enough of a thrill.

But don't forget when your job moves you to Shanghai:  When we American's hear "It's raining cats and dogs", we reach for an umbrella.  In China, for now, anyway, you reach for a fork.

Save the Dying Whales

No, not those whales.  At least, not today.  But like that.

I mean the big newspapers.  The Internet is killing them, along with music, TV and  books, while monetizing teenage chatter.  More and more people, especially those who chatter, get their news from the Web.  I know I do.  Until recently, it was a lot of AP, but Google doesn't need them anymore, either.

We all used to get papers.  We even had to recycle them.  Some of us read them.

Now, I'll bet people line their bird cages with disposable plastic liners instead of that day's Wall Street Journal Editorial Page.  Surely this accounts for the sad, smart-assed birds who still quote Alan Greenspan as an authority on--what was it?--economics.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy--the guy with the supermodel wife--wants Google to pay to a tax to save French newspapers.  And maybe French music, if there has been any since Edith Piaf.

Of course, it sounds silly.

Every once in a long while, a chance comes up to save something big on the verge, as the in the Marine Biologist episode of "Seinfeld".  This one is my latest chance.

Have Google buy everyone a cat.  There are lots of them.

That simple.  Test in France if you want.

People who have or had cats know exactly what I mean.  Open a paper and a cat will walk on it, maybe sleep on it, right over whatever you were reading.  What good is a cat that won't sit in your lap?  Like they actually kill mice very often.

Here's the key.  One of my cats, Lucy Liu, will not sit on my lap.  Six years.  I still have a lap, I know because her sister, Lila, uses it frequently.  Not Lucy Liu. She'll jump up on my desk, my chair, my bed, any table.  My lap?  Nope.

Unless there is newsprint on it.  Even a day old USA Today I oft... once borrowed from a coffee shop.  No matter, Lucy Liu is right there. And Lila watches and waits her turn, however impatiently.

We cat people all know this.  If you have a cat--here comes Google's part--you have to have a newspaper. End of "Dying Whales" crisis.

Oh, yes.  Deprive a cat of his/her newspaper and PETA will send some naked women to spray paint your door.