Chapter Two: Cat Birthdays

Out of the blue, or perhaps it was green, Patchtricia said, “Do we have a birthday?”

“I suppose so,” said Pawline, licking her paw, “but why do you ask?”

“Yesterday our furless servants, Meugh and Mewreen went off to see Meugh’s brother and they celebrated Meugh’s, his brothers and Mewreen’s birthday, all except his brother’s wife Neighdine. Furthermore, I see birthday celebrations on TV. We’ve been around quite a while now but we’ve never celebrated our birthday. Why not?”

“Good point,” said Lamont, “perhaps this is some form of cat discrimination. We need to delve into this further.”

Paw wiggled around on her back and said, “Yes we should, but does anyone have a clue as to when our birthday is?”

Lamont assumed his teaching position atop the step thing and looked down upon his sisters and began his inevitable lecture. “Well sisters. Using the power of logic and dialectical reasoning I believe we might be able to deduce our birth day if we put our minds to it. First, we exist, ergo we were born and have a birthday.

“I remember we used to lived in the back wall of the building next to our Shackteau, the one they just tore down, with our mother before she was flattened on the highway. Then one day in May I believe, Patch stuck her wee head out of the grass and spotted Mewreen and made a small mew to get her attention. This I believe was before our mother was flattened.”

“I remember that,” said Patch. “I believe that was in May of last year.”

“Indeed,” remarked Lamont. “Not long after our mother was flattened…”

“I wish you would quit saying that,” grumbling Paw.

“It is merely part of the data of our life,” continued Lamont, “and pertinent to the subject at hand. At any rate, we could catch a few edible things, but we were getting hungry and began appearing more often to the furless ones. Mewreen at that point started leaving out some food in a dish for us. Pretty good stuff.

“This food leaving became a regular thing. Then as the weather began to get cooler Meugh made a small abode out of a plastic tub with a rug door for us to stay in to keep warm. They even put some soft stuff in it for us to lay on.”

“I remember that,” said Paw. “It was rather comfy as we snuggled up together in it.”

“Then,” continued Lamont. “It got a bit colder and they put a heated pad in it which really kept us toasty warm. Then he expanded our living area by put a plastic cover over the patio table in which he placed the tub house.”

“Oh yes,” said, Patch, “It was very nice. Perhaps too nice as a possum snuck into it, and ate our food. Then one day Meugh stuck his head into the shelter when the possum was in it and the Possum left in a hurry. A great hurry, in fact, he made a exit where there was no exit.”

“Yeah,” said Paw falling on her side, “he sure took off. But then the biggest cat I ever saw came into the den one day. He scared you so badly Patch, you stood quaking atop a chair on top of the table.”

“Of course,” replied Patch. “I’m no dumby, that huge cat could have killed the lot of us. Ooo.”

“Back to the subject at hand if you please sisters,” said Lamont, “Somewhere in January our human servants left for almost a month. That nice lady next door continued to bring us food and water. Oh yes they had gotten us a heated water bowl by then.

“But our furless ones returned at the end of January, it was very cold and they saw that treacherous cat and before long Meugh caught us, first me and Patch and the next day you, Paw. He put us in the nice warm and comfy Schackteau, where we have lived ever since. That is, except for the few escapes you made Paw. Why you did that is beyond me.

“All of this leads me to believe that they day of our birth was early May or perhaps April. As to our exact birthday dear sister, I’m afraid we will never know.”

After a length pause, Patch said, “Que sera, sera. Okay, so we will never know. But perhaps we can just celebrate birthdays whenever we want and however often we want.”

“Good thought,” replied Lamont. “As a matter of fact, perhaps that is why the furless servants give us that wonderful catnip from time to time. Birthday celebrations galore. Who needs cake, I much prefer gourmet dinners and catnip.”

Block Catnip party?

And with that all three cats lay down in the respective places, began to purr and soon fell asleep.

Chapter 3: Encephalization Quotient

“Are dogs smarter than us?” inquired Patrichia?

“Why do you ask?” asked Pawline.

“Because some guy on TV said so,” replied Patch.

“Ah ladies,” said Lamont rising to occasion, literally, arching his back, stretching out to his full length and assuming and intelligent post atop of climbing thing. “It just so happens I have been doing some research on this very thing. I was paging through Psychology Today and found this small treatise by Stanley Coren, PhD.

“Now one could easily conclude the larger the brain the smarter the animal, but with a small amount of thought that is obviously false.”

“Why” asked Patch.

“If it were true an elephant whose brain weighs 6,000 grams would be the brightest animal on earth. Our furless servants have brains about 1,400 grams and they are very bright, and trainable by we cats I might add. As to the dog it cranial capacity is about 72 grams and our brains range from 25 to 30 grams. But one may deduce since humans are smarter than elephants it does not mean that dogs are smarter than cats because of brain size.”

“Wow,” good thinking said Paw, “so, are we smarter than dogs?”

“Before I reply,” said Lamont, “I must note the work of Harry J. Jerison who in the 1970’s developed what he called Encephalization Quotient or an EQ which compared body mass to brain size. From this equation he concluded that the brightest critter on the planet are indeed human beings followed by great apes, porpoises, and elephants with the dog close behind. Down the list we find cats, followed by horses, sheep, mice, rats, and rabbits. Also animals that hunt for a living are generally smarter than those who don’t.

“Furthermore,” continued Lamont with an imaginary academic mortarboard on his head, “we also have to include the social factor. Social animals are smarter it appears than non-social animals. Dogs are very social living in packs is in general more social than we cats. Now I’m not sure I agree with Jerison at this point. Many intelligent beings spend time in individual thought.

“However work by Suzanne Shulz and Robin at Oxford University bring some additional information to the EQ concept.”

“Pray tell us what that is,” mewed Paw.

“One reason dogs are rated as smarter than cats is that they are often trained for various functions to develop their thinking ability. For instance we have seeing eye dogs and police dogs, and drug sniffing dogs but not seeing eye cats and police cats, or drug sniffing cats.” Said Lamont.

“Humph,” sniffed Patch, “Has anyone even ever tried to train us to do those things? I think we would be very good at that. We have better noses than dogs, we can see in the dark, we can outfight any dog that comes around, and as for drugs, we can sniff out a bit of catnip anywhere in the vicinity. That just stupid.”

“I concur,” added Paw. “It’s just that we prefer not to be at the beck and call of humans. Afterall, we know they are our servants a concept the silly dogs just cannot grasp.”

“I agree,” nodded Lamont, “plus we must remember our logic as in the logic dictum just because some S is P does not infer all S is P. In our case, just because some dogs may be smarter than some cats does not infer that all dogs are smarter than cats. Just look at us, we are obviously of superior intelligence than any dog I can think of.”

   Vernn Diagram

“Agreed!” added Patch and Paw.

Congressional Version of Dumb and Dumber

Recently the Sunlight Foundation conducted a study using the Flesch-Kincaid test that accesses the grade level reflected in the speeches. Although the entire congress show a grade level lower the congressional members of seven years ago, here is a list of the 10 dumbest members of congress.

 

1. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC: Known for his resistance for resistance to programs that fund economic growth and reduce programs to the poor. Willing to see us default.

2. Rob Woodall, R-GA Rejected Health Insurance Program because it was free. One of two that voted against the Stock Act that prohibited Congress from benefiting from insider trading.

3. Rand Paul, R-KY: Cranky Ron Paul’s son, a libertarian big into personal responsibility willing to BP off the hook.

4. Sean Duffy, R-WI:  Complained his $174,000 salary as a congressman wasn’t very much and he should be able to keep it while other government workers were laid off.

5. Tim Griffin, R-AR: Part of the Bush scandal that fired several U.S. attorneys for political reasons and replaced them with their cronies.

6. Todd Akin, R-MO: Said on radio, “The heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.”

7. Vicky Hartzler, R-MO: Doubts Obama’s citizenship, anti gay marriage…

8. Tom Graves, R-GA:  Want extreme gov. limitation, voted against screening folk for background checks and voted to extend oil subsidies twice.

9. David Schweikert, R-AZ: Said “You have the right as an American to be dumb.” As an argument against Affordable Health Care.

10. Ron Johnson, R-WI:  Ardently against stimulus programs except when the benefited is baby the Grand Opera House when he was president of its board.

These members speak at a 7^th to 8^th grade level (7.95 – 8.61).

They also note that 8 of the 10 are first term Tea Party members. Thus their arrogant selfish demeanor and resistance of compromise and teamwork are indeed reflective of a typical 7^th or 8^th grader. I also realize that may be a slur of our middle grade kids, many of whom display much more mature levels of behavior that these folk.

Renaming the Furless Servants

“Remember when the whiskered furless servant we call Oooo renamed us from our names given us by the whiskerless furless servant?” said Patchtricia.

“Yes,” replied Pawline, “the whiskerless furless servant, who we have never really come up with a good name for ourselves, called us Shadow, Patch, and Paw.”

“That’s right said Lamont, “She called me Shadow because I am black except for 8 white hairs on my chest, she called Pawline, Paw because she had a light colored paw, and Patchtricia, Patch because she had a light colored left eye patch. She’s rather pragmatic.”

“Good summation Lamont,” said Patch. “Then the whiskered furless servant, Ooo, remamed me Patchtricia because he thought it sounded more something, but they still call me Patch. Then he named Paw, Pawline for the same reason. Finally, he renamed Shadow Lamont Cranston because of some old radio show called ‘The Shadow’ who lead character was really named Lamont Cranston.”

“Not bad changes I would say,” remarked Lamont. “I particularly like it when he refers to me as the ‘remarkedly handsome one’ as in the Castle character.”

“Yes, they are okay changes thought I prefer the nicknames of Patch and Paw.”

“Well and good,” said Patch, “but the point I want to make is that I think it is now time for us to rename the furless servants ourselves with more appropriate names.”

“Tell us more,” answered, Lamont and Paw.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought and these are my suggestions for their new names. For the furless servant whiskerless lady who gives us gourmet dinner and brushes us industriously, I would suggest the name…Mewreen. I understand her furless friends call her Doreen, but in Catonese that would translate well as Mewreen. Now I realize some may confuse her with a type of eye drops, but I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Oh a good name,” said Paw, “Now, what do you suggest for the whiskered furless one we call Oooo?”

“Ooo, despite the number of o’s we put in it, just seem so, well, ooo. I think he deserves better than something that sounds like a spill of liquid such as glue or some other odious substance. So, for him I suggest we call him Meugh, which just sounds like mew with ugh part as in the word through. He could also be called Mewugh, or Mewooo, but I prefer Meugh, even if some less educated cats may call him Me Ugh.”

“Oh, I do like the Meugh,” commented Lamont. He’s my buddy, and as he gave me a wonderful name such as Lamont, I think Meugh is appropriate.”

“I agree,” said Paw. “You have made very good choices for our furless servants Patch. I think that should be the new names we call them. All in favor say ‘Mew.”

“Mew,” replied both Lamont and Patch.

“The mews have it,” said Paw. “Henceforth we shall call them Mewreen and Meugh.”

“Now as to their last names,” began Patch…but by then Paw and Lamont were grooming each other and preparing for a catnap.