Kimberly Emerson

I should have known.  It isn’t just my world that revolves around a cat. Turns out, all of our lives rest in their furry little paws.

Not long ago, my beloved NPR ran an article announcing, “Parasite Carried by Cats Could Increase Suicide Risk.”

I love headlines like this.  I just imagine someone writing a perfectly lovely article titled, “Little-Known Parasite Tested for Effects on Schizophrenia: Results Mixed.”  The editor (in my head, a clone of Superman’s boss Perry White, complete with cigar) reads the copy and shouts, “Nobody will read this.  Scrap it!  Instead, write, ‘Cats Cause Insanity Outbreak’!”  His assistant whispers something about public panic and lawsuits, and they settle on the parasite angle.  “It has the word ‘could’ in it!” the Perry lookalike proclaims.  “We’re safe!”

Innocently napping, or plotting how to fill your head with a morass of despair?  Muahahaha…

Oh, and they coupled that headline with a picture of a cat curled up lazily on a person’s lap, captioned, “What’s the link between cats and madness?”  It’s not bad, but it could be better.  How about “MARKED FOR DEATH – ANOTHER VICTIM OF FELINE FRENZY!”

It’s a sign of our nation’s inherent boredom with life that all headlines must now feature edge-of-peril circumstances.  An article I read today cried “Energy Efficient Lightbulbs May Have Dark Side When It Comes to Health.”  The piece announced that a minute amount of UV exposure comes from compact fluorescent light bulbs.  It’s the only article I’ve ever read where, in direct contrast to my last post, the comments underneath actually provided a refreshing balance of rationality.  One critic claimed to have done the calculations and figured out that the threat from energy-saving bulbs equaled 11.5 seconds spent in actual sunshine.  Light-emitting diode (LED) lights don’t carry this danger, but the writer of this clip warned against those as well, saying that they imitate sunshine, and humans need a certain amount of darkness.  A respondent noted that if you were worried, you could simulate darkness by turning the light off.

When the comments underneath an article make more sense than the piece itself, something is very, very wrong.

Where was I?

Oh, yes.  Cats and their world-wide dominion.  Later on this afternoon, I came across the other side of feline omnipotence: Internet’s Cat Obsession Justifies Itself in Cancer Ward.  We all know that there is a magnetic link between humans and cute cat photos.  Scratch that.  We all know that cute cat photos contain the secret to life, the universe and everything.  (Apologies to Douglas Adams.  Hey – maybe the secret forty-two that he kept talking about meant forty-two cute cat videos!!)  Researchers at Google created a simulated human brain by linking 16,000 computers together, and the artificial life form proved its humanity by searching for cat videos.  (I kid you not.  Check it here at the New York Times page.  I won’t lie, I could make something like that up, but I wouldn’t expect anyone over the age of four to believe me.  Make that three – today’s four-year-olds are pretty savvy.)

The article details the creation of a virtual cattery for a teenager named Maga, who suffers from leukemia.  Maga had to stay in the Seattle Children’s Hospital for several weeks of treatment and really missed her cat.  She told the hospital’s on-staff artist all about it, and he started brainstorming how he could help.

Okay, I’m back.  The artist, a man named John Blalock, asked people at the hospital to bring in their favorite cat pictures.  Maga suggested mentioning it on the hospital’s Facebook page.  In no time at all they had 3,000 of them.  Mr. Blalock put up a tent of sheets around Maga’s bed and used it as her own personal screening room for the 1,800 he liked the best.  I didn’t feel right putting a photo of it on my blog without Maga’s permission, but I beg you to go to the link here and check it out.  You can just feel her spirits lifting as she watches.

So there you have it, folks.  Cats can kill you, and they can heal you.  The choice is up to you.  Say, doesn’t Global Pet Outlet have a sale on catnip right now?  I don’t know about you, but I’d feel better if I stocked up.  You never know when you might need a healing paw in your corner.

What do you think, human? You feel lucky today?

Kimberly had to write about cute cat pictures today, because if she spent one more minute thinking about people wandering into movie theaters in Colorado or temples in Wisconsin and shooting their fellow citizens for no particular reason, her heart was going to break into a million pieces and never come back together.

Tags: cancer, cat videos, compact fluorescent lightbulbscats, healing, hospital artists, John Blalock, LED, leukemia, light-emitting diodes, parasites, Seattle Children's Hospital