Me and Kati (17): Kati's Epic Battle

I didn’t think we would have another conversation so soon, Kati, but your behavior has been so completely appropriate (for a cat, that is) I feel I must speak up. It must have been quite a night. I can’t believe I must have slept through it.

Kati, there were tiny feathers everywhere, along the downstairs corridor, in the furnace room, and many more in the bathroom. It must have been an epic battle, there were feathers everywhere, on the counter, in the sink, in the bathtub where, I gather, the major battle occurred, as the towels were all pulled off the racks, the rug was wadded up in the corner, and it did resemble a battlefield. I fully expected to find the remains of some little bird testifying to your feline prowess. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I slid back the shower door and found a tiny, somewhat bedraggled but still alive tiny sparrow, alert, (and I surmise very angry) and still able to fly perfectly. Kati, you lost. The sparrow outlasted and outfoxed you. I was a bit upset, especially as I was unable to catch the little creature and release it. Finally, I opened all the doors and hoped it would escape. I guess it must have as I have not seen it, or any trace of it, anywhere in the house. How do I know it was you, Kati, as I did not actually witness the event? First, you were the only cat around. Second, you have a tradition of bringing your victims into the house (Spencer leaves his outside or at the front door), and I have never seen Midnight kill a mouse or a bird (I think he may think it beneath his dignity as he engages in serious combat with nocturnal cats that usually tear him to pieces).

Of course I forgive you Kati, after all you just did what cats do, and as you have no concept of evil you were not motivated by that. There is no evil in nature. Animals and birds do not torture and kill each other out of evil desires, they just do as they are programmed by nature to do. Evil is an invention of humans, and while it may look like you are torturing your birds and mice that is not really what is involved. You might well say you are merely playing with them.

Human thought is often strange and one thought most often leads to another. The sight of that feisty tiny sparrow made me think, of all things, Benghazi. Why Benghazi, because Republicans have been attacking that tragedy and trying to turn it into a scandal, but like you, Kati, they have lost. Thinking of Benghazi then led me to think of our foreign policy. Whereas your basic nature prompts you to attack anything that moves, our foreign policy seems to be the opposite, if it doesn’t move (in the direction we want it to), attack. Following this completely insane idea, motivated by Hubris and the crackpot idea that we are exceptional and should therefore control the world (especially all the oil and other resources), we have managed in recent years to become a pariah nation believed to be the greatest threat to peace on the planet (along with the Israelis who seem to control our foreign policy in the Middle East while they continue to pillage Palestinian land and water).  

It does appear that as some have suggested, the “American Century” is over, and it will be downhill from here. We, like you Kati, have lost. We no longer lead the world in much of anything, having sacrificed our young people, infrastructure, manufacturing, morality, nation, and even our planet itself, to the one all-important, obsessive goal…PROFIT. Let’s all make money while the planet burns, continue to elect absolute know-nothings to office, ignore science and reality, and bask in the glow of the Tea Party nincompoops. It’s the American way!

And the way, Kati, I did not appreciate the half dead mouse under my chair this afternoon.

“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” Rubio said. “I think severe weather has been a fact of life on Earth since man started recording history.”

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio