Good Thursday morning.
Those of you who have been here a while know that I used to be a cat person. Like a hardcore cat person. I did not understand dogs or dog people.
Why would anyone prefer a slobbery, smelly, drooling canine that needs to be walked and can’t pick up its own poop to a sleek, self-contained, purring feline that can be left to its own devices for hours – even a day or two, with enough water and food – and poops in a box full of sand?
Then I got my first dog and everything changed. I have never before experienced the sort of unconditional love and devotion a dog provides. It’s like nothing else on earth. I am now diehard dog person.
I haven’t had a cat or even really thought seriously about cats in about a decade. And I don’t just own one dog, or two, but three. And it is wonderful – though it is a big responsibility and going on vacation isn’t nearly as easy as it used to be.
Anyway, I’m hardly alone. As of 2022, 44.5% of U.S. households owned dogs, compared to 29% with cats. Between 2016 and 2022, the dog household percentage grew from 38.4% to 44.5%, while cat households only increased by 4 percentage points – from 25% to 29%. (These are the American Veterinary Medical Association’s stats, BTW).
This is despite the fact that dogs are, on average, more expensive to adopt and/or buy and care for over their respective lifetimes, largely because cats require less in terms of maintenance (cats generally do not, for example, go to daycare or require boarding).
Globally, some 370 million cats are kept as pets, with the U.S., China, and Russia leading the way in terms of the highest cat ownership. Here in the U.S., Vermont is the state with the most cat owners. (This makes sense to me; it’s cold there and cats are good lap/bed warmers).
I don’t want to beat a dead…well, you know how the saying goes, but I’m still not sure what J.D. Vance was thinking when he took aim at childless cat ladies – or, for that matter, why his wife defended him. They are legion, and now they’re also mad.
There are more homeless cats in the world than dogs. One global study found that one in 3 pets are homeless, with 143 million dogs living on the streets and 12 million in shelters, compared to 203 million cats on the streets and 4 million in shelters.
In my humble opinion, one homeless cat or dog is one too many. And stories of people abandoning their pets – especially if they simply didn’t do their homework in advance to know exactly what they were getting into when they welcomed a furry family member into their home – just makes me ill.
Today is International Cat Day, which apparently was started in 2002 by IFAW, the International Fund for Animal Welfare to raise awareness of – and appreciation for – cats, which, by the way, are living a whole not-so-secret life as deadly predators when you let them out for a constitutional.
(You really should keep them in, FWIW, as it’s better for their health and could extend their lifespan considerably).
National Geographic has some very interesting reporting (sadly, behind the paywall) about what cats will be like in the future (bigger, as they’ve already grown by 25 percent since the time of the Vikings, and perhaps friendlier) and also what they’re thinking and experiencing, with an eye toward improving human-feline relations. If you have a subscription, perhaps check these out and report back.
One more reason to admire cars – or fear them, depending on how you look at it – is the whole poop bacteria/mind control thing. No, this is not a joke. Look it up here. If you don’t have time, the high-level synopsis is as follows:
A parasite that changes the brains of rats and mice so that they are attracted to cats and cat urine seems to work its magic almost right away, and continues to control the brain even after it’s gone, researchers reported. The mind-controlling parasite, called Toxoplasma gondii, might make permanent changes in brain function as soon as it gets in there, the researchers report. They aren’t sure how yet.
Yes, your cat is a Jedi mind control master. Science is so crazy. You can’t make this stuff up.
Anyhow, happy International Cat Day (not to be confused with National Cat Day, which is Oct. 29), or National Cat Lady Day (!), which falls on April 19. Actually, there are a whole slew of cat/animal appreciation holidays. Access that list here.
It will be cloudy again today, with the chance of showers developing in the afternoon. It will be a little warmer than it has been over the past several days, with highs reaching into the 80s.
In the headlines…
Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, continued their swing-state tour with rallies in rural Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan, yesterday, that the campaign said brought out more than 10,000 people each.
AP VoteCast showed Walz won young voters in Minnesota and did well in the state’s union households. Now, with Harris-Walz versus Donald Trump Trump and J.D. Vance, an expanded battle for the Sun Belt and Rust Belt lies ahead.
When Trump goaded on angry protesters who were targeting Walz and other governors, Walz, in his second year in office, found himself under siege. Trump’s broadside, Walz said, “brought armed people to my house.”
Harris told a group chanting about the “genocide” in Gaza at her election rally in Michigan to quiet down unless they “want Donald Trump to win.”
More than a year ago, Walz and his aides decided to be ready in case an irresistible opportunity arose. Their tightly held strategy helped them catch political lightning in a bottle.
Vance accused Walz of quitting the Army National Guard two decades ago to avoid being deployed to Iraq and of exaggerating his service record to claim falsely that he had served in combat. Walz and at least one of his military colleagues refuted these claims.
Walz being tapped as the Democratic vice presidential nominee has handed Majority Leader Chuck Schumer a trio of long-term Senate wins.
President Joe Biden said he is “not confident at all” that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025 if Trump is defeated.
“He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All the stuff about ‘If we lose, there’ll be a bloodbath, it’ll have been a stolen [election],'” Biden said.
Prosecutors signaled in a court filing that they intended to mount an aggressive strategy in Hunter Biden’s tax trial in California, saying they would show how foreign interests paid him to influence the U.S. government while his father was vice president.
The special counsel in the case, David C. Weiss, has wrangled for weeks with Hunter Biden’s lawyers over what evidence can be introduced when he is to be tried in September on charges of evading taxes on millions in income from foreign businesses.
Trump yesterday softened his ultimatum for a debate with Harris, suggesting a clash could be in the cards. After insisting a debate would have to be on Fox News, Trump suggested he really wants to debate Harris regardless of what network hosts it.
That stalemate could be changing “fairly soon,” Trump suggested. He declined to announce a new date or hosting news organization, but said “every network loves me very much right now.”
Repeatedly during the campaign, Trump and Republicans have embraced new, sometimes novel tax cuts in an attempt to shore up support with major constituencies.
Over the past year, though, a key source of campaign cash has dried up for Gov. Kathy Hochul — five-figure donations from big real estate that have historically served as the lifeblood of every high-dollar campaign in New York state.
Hochul signed a package of bills this week aimed at making it easier for voters to cast a ballot — some of them will take effect in time for the fall elections. But the governor has hundreds of other bills and pending decisions on her plate this summer.
Hochul met this week with State Commissioner of Education Betty A. Rosa and other educational leaders to discuss New York’s ongoing “Media Literacy” toolkit for educators.
An April cyberattack targeting the state Legislature led to hackers obtaining the sensitive financial information of as many as 710 New Yorkers. It’s unclear whether lawmakers are taking steps to address the security flaws that led to the hackers gaining access.
Battling a lawsuit challenging his right to be on the New York ballot, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday insisted that “I’m a New Yorker,” even though he has lived on the West Coast for the past decade.
Days after he admitted to taking a bear carcass from the side of the road and placing it in Central Park as a prank a decade ago, RFK Jr. said that has been picking up roadkill his “whole life” and once had a “freezer full of it” at home.
Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear later said by text that he wasn’t joking. She said that’s how Kennedy — a falconer who trains ravens — feeds his birds.
Kennedy Jr. didn’t violate New Jersey’s “sore loser” law and can appear on the ballot as an independent candidate for president, the state’s top elections official said yesterday.
A former New York City mayoral aide, whose home was raided by federal agents last fall, visited Azerbaijan with another Eric Adams official last year, according to public documents and information provided by City Hall.
Adams doubled down on his position that the City Law Department is the agency that should investigate allegations in more than 700 lawsuits that claim staffers at Rikers Island jails routinely sexually assaulted detainees over a period of about five decades.
Adams and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban this week joined Bronxites at the 47th Precinct’s National Night Out celebration.
The family of the troubled woman accused of shoving two tourists onto subway train tracks this week accused the city of failing to get her help — even as officials in Adams’ administration insisted they’re “proud” of their mental health outreach work.
After torrential rains led city officials to issue flash flood warnings for Manhattan and the Bronx and Hochul to urge those in low-lying areas to have “an evacuation plan ready,” meteorologists warned more downpours are expected through the weekend.
With congestion pricing on hold, experts warn that the 2017 “Summer of Hell” marked by a stretch of severe subway failures is inevitable.
Toxic subway air disproportionately harms low-income commuters, especially Black and Hispanic riders, due to longer commutes and more station transfers, as stated by researchers at New York University.
According to a new analysis by the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, the percentage of New Yorkers born in the U.S. who are employed and in the workforce is at a record high and for the first time ever close to the national number.
As she left FDNY Headquarters yesterday, outgoing Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh gifted something from her office to her successor: a poster honoring the 343 members who died on 9/11.
For the first time in eight years, student enrollment in the city’s public schools didn’t go down year over year. The composition of city students is changing as demographic patterns shift, including the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrant students.
A battle over a proposed high-rise near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is still blooming — despite the developer behind the project claiming it amended its plans to avoid casting shadows on the green space.
A floating pool is coming to the East River — but New Yorkers won’t be able to swim in it anytime soon.
Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy are moving on from their West Village townhouse, asking $9,750,000 for the home they have lived in for more than a decade.
Planned Parenthood cited “compounding financial and political challenges” as it announced it will shutter three clinics, including one of the Capital Region, as soon as this fall.
The New York State Catholic Conference is asking what has happened to the $35 million Hochul allocated in 2022 to subsidize abortion clinics throughout the state.
FBI agents and State Police yesterday descended on the home of Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector who in June had his passport seized by the U.S. Department of State as he attempted to fly to Russia for a conference.
The fight between the Town of Nassau and a junkyard owner has moved into federal court, where a judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order to prevent the municipality from taking any action against the properties.
Mark Kalil and his family, owners of the Another World adult bookstore, hope to transform a section of Lower Broadway in Schenectady into an expanded destination for vices, including a retail cannabis operation.
Though a Board of Election deadline has passed for a November special election, the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee will push for one anyway in hopes its nominee will replace resigning Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub on the City Council.
All three Taylor Swift concerts scheduled for Vienna were canceled after Austrian authorities uncovered a terror plot.
The shows were supposed to run today through Saturday at Ernst Happel Stadium. But in the morning, police arrested two men accused of planning a terrorist attack.
“We have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” a message from Barracuda Music said. “All tickets will be automatically refunded.”
Photo credit: George Fazio.
