What is it about putting pen to paper that brings up the bile?
Much of blogdom is discussing this story today, about a scandal at, yes you are reading this correctly, the World Bridge Championship. While receiving their trophy, one member of the U.S. women’s team held up a homemade sign reading, “We did not vote for Bush.” For this, the bridge world is bombing them with e-mails slinging around such terms as “treason” and “sedition.”
Not so many are talking about this story, also from today’s NYT, about the trial of an admitted cat-assassin in Galveston, Texas. The area is a huge draw for bird-watchers, and the accused runs a bed-and-breakfast catering to those tourists. He used a .22 rifle to bump off a stray that he said was preying on endangered piping plovers. The cat was not a stray, claimed a toll taker on the bridge under which the cat lived. The toll taker said he was feeding the animal, and had even strung cat toys from the bottom of the bridge.
Can anyone guess some of the language deployed by the two sides in this case? “Murderous fascist,” “diabolical monster” and “terrible menace” are but a few examples. (Note: The first two were cat-lover terms for the accused; the latter was how the birding world thinks of cats that hunt.)
Granted, we are talking about some highly eccentric people here — bridge-players, bird-watchers and cat people. Still.
brian stouder said on November 14, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Granted, we are talking about some highly eccentric people here — bridge-players, bird-watchers and cat people. Still.
and don’t overlook the harmonic convergence and synchronicity at work here, between the catty bridge players, and the cat-pleasing care-taking toll-taker with toys on the bridge
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Cathy D. said on November 14, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I say, let’s sic the bridge players on the cat assassin.
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Sue said on November 14, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Poor cat. An area that’s a big bird-watching draw, which I assume translates into tourist dollars, would be a prime spot to set up a catch/SpayNeuter/release program to bring down the population of strays. But that takes time, planning, donations of manpower & money, and above all a compassionate outlook. Too many cat assassins, not enough toll-takers.
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nancy said on November 14, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I think we need a munitions expert in to speak to the plausibility of a cat shot with a hollow-point .22 dying “a slow and painful death gurgling on its own blood.” I thought hollow-points took care of things pretty quickly.
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ashley said on November 14, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Off topic, but the NN crowd will love it:
http://menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot.com/
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LA mary said on November 14, 2007 at 6:17 pm
More off topic: The governor of Georgia is now holding prayer meetings to ask for rain.
Ashley, I knew an old lesbian who looked like Jacques Cousteau. It was uncanny.
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brian stouder said on November 15, 2007 at 9:36 am
and then there’s this
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22755108-5005941,00.html
an excerpt:
A NEIGHBOURLY act of kindness ended in tragedy with a man falling 12m to his death while trying to rescue a pet cockatoo from a tree. Maurice Macklan, 58, fell from a tree near Bendigo after the cockatoo’s elderly owner had also fallen, suffering suspected spinal injuries, police said. Mr Macklan died at 10.30pm on Monday in a vacant block at a new housing estate on the outskirts of Bendigo.
So, one man might have paralyzed himself, and another lost his life – because a pet bird was in a tree?
Suffice it to say, I don’t get it. (or put another way, a man having his mind and judgement clouded by an attractive woman in a pantsuit and heels makes more sense)
(or a possibly murderous tart in hand is worth more than a cockatoo in a tree?)
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LA mary said on November 15, 2007 at 3:21 pm
My son suggested the bed and breakfast guy open a second bead and breakfast for cat watchers. That way he’s good no matter which species is ahead at any given time.
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Cosmo Panzini said on November 16, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I guess I’m not genteel enough to play bridge. My sign would have said: George W Bush is the stupidest, most incompetent, most venal, arrogant slime bucket ever to hold the office of president of this country. If it were up to me, he and Dick Cheney would be marched out of the White House in handcuffs and sent off to The World Court in The Hague and tried as war criminals. There’s more, but I can’t fit it all on one sign.
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