The ride to the PACCA was traumatic: I noticed the mother shaking and panting heavily in her cage; her tongue lolled out of her mouth. I kept telling her that I was sorry. The kittens were trying to climb out of their box, and I had to reach back several times to push them gently back inside.
When I arrived at the shelter, I asked everyone I could whether or not they thought that the kittens would be put down. One attendant looked at me, pointed to a sign on the wall, and read it out to me. The sign went something like this:
Due to overcrowding, we cannot accept any kittens under two pounds. Kittens weighing less than two pounds are likely to be euthanized.
Please consider providing foster care for your kittens until they reach two pounds.
I kept looking down at those cute kittens in the box. I had come in worried about the mother’s welfare, but now it looked like the entire group of cats might be endangered. A woman emerged from the back room and demanded to know who had brought these kittens in to the shelter. She told me that they were likely to be put down unless I could provide foster care for them, and she pleaded with me to take them in. I asked whether or not I could take only one or two, but she said that I shouldn’t separate the litter.
I couldn’t leave them to an uncertain fate. There wasn’t much I could do for the mother at this point, but it was within my power to save the kittens.
So I agreed to join PACCA’s foster parent program, and to provide foster care for these kittens. I didn’t even have time to clear this with my wife — I just made the decision to take them in.
We’ve now had the kittens in our downstairs bathroom for four and a half days. It has been an immensely rewarding experience so far. The kittens are all cute, friendly, and affectionate.
(click on pictures to enlarge)
When we brought the kittens into our home, they had never tasted food — having only had their mother’s milk, they didn’t even know what food was. They were hungry, but they’d walk up to the food, sniff it, and walk away. We eventually got them to eat wet food by getting them to lick little bits of it off of our fingers. They are now feeding regularly on both wet and dry food, and they all use the litter box.
Unfortunately, they also tend to frolic in the litter box, quite often after using it for other purposes. We’ve done more loads of laundry than I can count in recent days, and I’m constantly cleaning the floor of the room in which they’re living.
But I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I see all four of these kittens going at their little plates of food! And how amazing it is when they meow at the sight of me, when they close their eyes and purr as I stroke their chins and bellies.
All four of the kittens are absolutely beautiful, and remarkably healthy for having lived outside for so long. We’ve named the two above Nigel (gray and white) and Celene (orange and white).
Nigel has a very special place in my heart, as he is the runt of the litter. He was the last one to eat, and he most needs affection. For a long time, he kept trying to suckle our fingers in search of food. Celene, who has a girl’s name but is actually a boy, is the strongest of the bunch and is amazingly sweet.
We refer to the other two kittens as “the twins.” They both have tiger-like black and yellow-gray stripes. One of them is a little smaller than the other, and a little more shy.
Part of what we’re doing is socializing the cats — getting them used to human contact. This process has made me wonder whether my own cat, Luna, had such a socialization process, because she can be a little resistant to contact. Judging by what I’ve seen so far, I think that all four of these kittens are going to grow up into kittens who love to be held.
We ran into a big issue two nights ago, when we discovered a flea on Nigel. Knowing the problem could spread if we didn’t act quickly, we flea-combed all of them (finding a total of three fleas), and then removed the kittens from the room, which we doused in a diluted bleach solution.
The next day, my wife and I spent a long time flea-combing and shampooing the kittens, and using flea spray and carpet powder on their entire living quarters. We did our last clean-up of the area last night. As of today, none of the kittens have flea dirt on them, so I hope I’ve tackled the problem by going ballistic on it.
Besides that issue, which I hope has been resolved, all of the cats appear to be in perfect health.
We can’t keep the kittens too much longer, so we’re going to give them to another foster family soon (perhaps tomorrow). The work we’re doing for them is amazingly rewarding, and indeed life-saving, but it is also time-consuming.
If you are interested in adopting (or fostering) one of more of the kittens, please get in touch. Before you adopt (and once the kittens have reached two pounds), the PACCA will spay the kittens and give them shots, etc., for the adoption fee of $25. And it’s “buy one get one free” season at the PACCA.
I have to say that these kittens are some of the most adorable felines I’ve ever been around. It’s obvious that they’ve quickly become socialized, as they enjoy attention and have no fear of humans. I would love to find happy homes for them.
I’m still trying to find out what has happened to the mother. If I had to do it all over again, I would have left the family in the backyard for another few weeks, until the kittens were fully grown. I don’t know whether I’ve done the right thing, but I do know that I’ve had the best intentions all along, and I hope that my fostering parenting of these kittens will make it more likely that they will be adopted and loved.
For those of you who haven’t read the previous post, here’s the backstory: a few weeks ago, my wife and I found a stray cat and her litter of newborn kittens in our backyard. I felt that I couldn’t let them stay there, but I feared that they would be euthanized if I brought them in to a shelter. Many commenters chimed in with wonderful suggestions and advice.
When I got back from my trip on Friday, the situation was unchanged: the mother and her kittens were still in the backyard, and I was still conflicted about what to do about them. Upon mac’s advice, I had contacted a few “no-kill” shelters. But it was difficult to find one that had room. Kitty Cottage, for instance, which I had deemed my best hope, told me that they couldn’t accept the cats.
I went back to the PACCA to rent a trap. I ran into a distraught man in who arrived cradling a small box in his hands. At one time, it had contained contractor garbage bags; now, it held a tiny kitten who could barely breathe. The man had found it on his construction site among a litter of deceased siblings. But PACCA couldn’t help — the man was told that the shelter could not accept the kitten because it was under two pounds (this is a shelter policy that I’ll discuss in further detail in a later post).
Two women, who had arrived carrying cages full of white rats, gave him the phone number of a woman in the area who bottle-feeds and rehabilitates sick and stray kittens. Then, they got into a heated argument with a man who told them that he feeds rats to his pet snake. The women, it turned out, run a rat rescue, and had come to the shelter to have their rats spayed. They seemed to know their way around the shelter scene, so I asked them what they thought I should do. They agreed that I should trap and turn in the cats — and that the PACCA was the right place to bring them. “It’s full of good people,” they told me.
So I rented the trap, came home. I put a small plate of food at one end of the trap, and went inside my house. I saw the mother enter the trap, but she managed to avoid pressing the step-lever which would close the front of the trap — she simply stood before it, and craned her head over the step to get at the food.
I opened the door, and the cat got nervous. As she turned around to get out of the trap, she mistakenly stepped on the lever, and the front door snapped shut.
It was a horrible moment. The cat, realizing that she had been trapped, backed frenetically towards the front of the long cage and lashed out at the steel barriers. She let out several loud, fearful moans. She would stay very still, and then spring at one of the walls of the cage, as if she could startle it into opening.
I spoke soothing words to her, but I didn’t know whether to believe them. Was everything going to be okay? Would she be taken care of? Or was she right to feel that a door had just shut her away from the life, freedom, and love that she had known?
I couldn’t answer those questions, but I had to get the kittens. They proved difficult to capture, but I eventually got all four of them in a box, and headed off to the PACCA with a heavy heart.
It has been a while since I have written regularly on The Tattered Coat. A full explanation of my absence, and an announcement of some exciting news, will be coming soon.
In the meantime, I’m requesting your help with a moral drama that has been playing out in my backyard.
Some time ago, I noticed that a couple of stray cats from the neighborhood seemed abnormally interested in my yard. Figuring that these cats had simply been lured by the sultry scent of my beloved Luna, I didn’t give their plaintive cries and wanton yelps too much of a thought.
Mom
That all changed last week, when I discovered that one of these stray cats was a female, that she had recently given birth to a litter of kittens, and that they were all camped out behind an azealia bush, underneath a fence.
Jesus — could they be more cute?
Watching this mother feed her brood, my wife and I took pity on her, and started giving her a can of the good stuff every night. Though the mother has not quite warmed up to us, she’s hissing at us a little less often now.
I’ve tried to leave well enough alone, but, as the Dude said, this will not stand. For one thing, this mother seems to have two male cats staking out her turf, and they have been spraying all over our grill, our back steps, and our yard.
But my urge to do something about this mother and her kittens has less to do with the scent of these gentlemen callers than it does with the bigger problem of feral cats. If this website’s claims are correct, one pair of breeding cats “can exponentially produce 420,000 offspring over a seven-year period.”
That’s a lot of stray cats.
The most humane solution, it seems, is to follow the Trap-Neuter-Release method. The problem? The Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association doesn’t support such a program. I can trap the cats and bring them in to be neutered, but each operation will cost $25, and the association doesn’t have any openings until September.
So, it seems that my options are these:
1. Leave the cats alone.
2. Trap the cats, bring them to the shelter, and hope that at least the little kittens will get adopted. It’s likely that the mother, at least, will be euthanized.
I feel that Option #2 is the right path to follow, but every time I think of bringing these cats in to the shelter, I shudder a little bit. Do I really want to be responsible for killing these animals?
And what is the morally and ethically responsible thing to do here?
In today’s mayoral race, I will be voting for Michael Nutter, and I encourage you to do the same.
Like many others, I’m troubled by Nutter’s “Stop and Frisk” proposal. But I’m voting for him for a few important reasons:
1. As my councilman in the 4th District, he was responsive to constituent concerns.
Nutter showed up on a regular basis to the meetings of my dinky little neighborhood association. He’d listen to concerns voiced by members of the community . . . and then he’d go out and get things done.
2. He has taken tough, and sometimes unpopular, stands.
Pushing on through countless setbacks, Nutter got the votes he needed to pass the smoking ban. And he did so by outmaneuvering his longtime adversary, Mayor Street, into a corner.
3. He’ll fight against the pay-to-play political culture of Philadelphia
As the Inquirer noted, “Nutter was the stubborn Don Quixote who brought his windmill down, forcing City Hall to confront the shame its chronic corruptions had spawned.”
4. Nutter is the only candidate who has children in the public schools.
This alone, I think, is reason enough to vote for Nutter: he is invested in the city itself, and is committed to solving its problems. Plus, how can you resist this commercial?
5. He is, as Joey notes, the smartest guy in the room.
And isn’t it about time that we had a man of real intellect running this city?
I hope you’ll join me today in voting for Michael Nutter, a candidate who has the vision, experience, character, integrity, and intelligence to lead this city towards a brighter future.
“This in some ways signals a huge new day for us in the city of Philadelphia,” said Mayor Street, saying the casinos will be “a huge boost to the waterfront.”
Of course, everything depends on what the meaning of “us” is.
They include some of the most powerful people in Pennsylvania, one of entertainment’s most accomplished artists, and a former state Supreme Court justice.
And now they are the owners of Philadelphia’s two newly licensed slots casinos: SugarHouse Casino and Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia, both on the Delaware River.
Some say their political connections helped them best three other competitors for two available licenses in Philadelphia; others say their individual accomplishments are enough to stand on their own.
Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board chairman Tad Decker said it didn’t matter who the investors were, as long as everyone cleared a background check.
“It was the projects that won, not the individuals,” Decker said yesterday, a day after Wednesday’s decision. “Once they passed character suitability, it didn’t matter at that point who they were.”
Now, each ownership group stands to make about $75 million in profits a year, based on their own revenue projections and assuming a 20 percent profit margin - a fair estimate for the gambling industry, said John O’Neill, assistant professor of hospitality management at the Pennsylvania State University.
Both ownership groups had strong local connections; Joey Sweeney, writing at Philebrity, cuts around the festering wound in City Hall with this short commentary:
For Philly politics wonks, yesterday was like a double-decker taco: Thick and gooey — some might even say, uh, slimy — on the outside, crunchy and heartburn-producing on the inside. The crunch, of course, is that Sugar House and Foxwoods are now realities and no longer merely psychic boner bills for those that wish to destroy us, and our way of life. And holy God, that burns like hell. However, the oft-underappreciated goo in yesterday’s crazy-crazy was the sound of two men shitting their pants yesterday for decidedly different (though casino-related) reasons: Frank DiCicco, City Councilman for the First District, and Vern Anastasio, the dude who wants to take his job, and in point of fact, well could. These are the differences: DiCicco is old-style Philly City Council all the way. Is he dirty? Meh, who cares, everybody’s dirty, it’s what makes this the last great city in Russia, because that’s not even the point.
This thing is pulp noir all the way — even the guys fighting the casinos are knee-deep in the shit. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the poor die tryin’. Good thing we’ve got a David Goodis conference coming up.
So I Guess the Casino Hearings Were a Complete Sham After All
I’ve been an activist and a reporter in various capacities for about 15 years now. In other words, I have spent the last 15 years of my life trying to stop rich people from screwing over poor people.
One of the things I have learned is that there are an incredible number of ways that rich, powerful people screw over poor people. They cheat us. They steal from us. They sue us. They take our homes. They pollute our air and water. They lie to us. They lay us off. They fire us from our jobs if we try to unionize. They scare us into thinking we have no power. They control us any way they can.
There are, in fact, an infinite number of ways by which rich people screw over poor people. But never, ever, once, in the last 15 years, have I seen anything as egregious as what happened this week.
The awarding of two slots licenses to Foxwoods and Sugarhouse over the most extreme community objection, the worst and most haphazard planning and design, criminal penalties levied against Foxwoods for illegal campaign contributions, and on and on, meant one thing and one thing only: that the rich and the powerful do not give a damn about the people who live on the Delaware River, and they never have, and they were lying to us along when they pretended to be listening.
Like many of the other people who worked on this, I spent hours in Gaming Board hearings, organizing protests, getting signatures, etc. Although all the casinos had powerful political interests connected to them, there were degrees. By far, the two most directly tied to State Sen. Fumo – who wrote the gaming law – were Foxwoods and Sugarhouse.
It was great that we had all those nice hearings.
It was great to see all the fantastic work done by NABR and the ILA and Anne Dicker and Vern and Mike and Matt and PennPraxis and Inga Saffron and the homeowners of Pennsport and the homeowners of Fishtown and the Trump architects who redesigned their entire casino to accomodate community input and that one amazing Pinnacle architect from some unknown European country who very obviously had no idea how dirty our politics are and thought this was actually a … merit selection process.
It was great. Really fun.
We had yet another great big happy civic debate that was completely irrelevant, because our politicians just don’t care.
They were going to do it no matter what we said.
What the Gaming Board said on Wednesday is that they are going to built slots parlors on the river whether we like it or not. They are going to take our homes from us under eminent domain whether we like it or not. They are going to build a new onramp to 95 right at the corner of Reed and Delaware whether we like it or not.
It was rumored that Frankie Dicicco told one of the South Philly civic associations a long time ago that it was going to be Foxwoods and Sugarhouse, a done deal. I don’t know if Frankie actually said this, but I think for many many months a lot of us were afraid that the rumor was true (since he would know) - that it really was a done deal all along.
The people who live in these neighborhoods don’t have a lot. Most of us, if we own anything, we own our homes, and the connections to our neighborhood and our families.
[. . .]
If any of us have learned anything from the casino battle, there has been one horrible, miserable, aching truth that overrides it all.
It is that the people who are supposed to be protecting our city have betrayed us, and do not care about the wishes, hopes, future, or needs of the people who live here.
The people of Philadelphia were completely alone in our fight against the casinos. Our elected officials did not care about us.
Our city council.
Our state delegation.
Our mayor! Our mayor!!!!
None of these politicians stood up against the casinos.
These people, corrupt and wizened and greedy as they are at the top of whatever towers they live in, feel not the burden of responsibility – they feel not the desire to serve – they lack even the most basic human emotion that holds us here with our families and our friends – they have turned their back on their own home, and sold out their family, and betrayed their own people.
They are unfit to serve. They are unworthy of this city. They have betrayed us all.
And as far as I am concerned, they are no longer Philadelphians.
They should just pack up and go.
But people like that don’t leave easily.
We’re going to have to run them out of town.
Another day, another desperate, misleading attack ad from a Republican candidate.
Jim Gerlach, the incumbent republican in Pennsylvania’s Sixth District, has accused Democratic candidate Lois Murphy of being Anti-Semitic because — get this — she is supported by MoveOn.org. In what way is MoveOn an anti-semitic organization, you ask? They have an open forum on their website; a few anonymous posters used it to write anti-semitic messages.
Thus, the organization, itself, is anti-semitic.
Ooooo-kaaaaay. Obviously, Gerlach is not a golfer. </gratuitous Lebowski reference>
Here is Murphy’s statement on the issue:
ALERT: Gerlach Playing the Anti-Semitic Card
True to form, a recent Gerlach radio ad attacks me by charging that I am supported by a group he labels anti-Semitic, and suggests that I endorse anti-Semitism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is this charge highly offensive, but it is grossly inaccurate and unbecoming for any member of Congress to throw around this heinous charge in a desperate attempt to remain in office. Such improper language is counterproductive and undermines the seriousness of the issue.
Let’s set the record straight. MoveOn.org has a website that includes an open forum where anyone can post messages. A few of those messages—written by people who were not in fact members of the organization—contained offensive remarks. MoveOn.org acted swiftly to remove the messages, apologized, and immediately condemned them.
The Anti-Defamation League, which strives to end “defamation of Jewish people,” issued a statement by national director Abraham Foxman on its website titled “ADL Welcomes MoveOn.org’s Responsiveness in Removing Anti-Semitic Messages.” The message also said that “ADL is pleased with Mr. Pariser’s (executive director of MoveOn.org) responsiveness to our concerns and believes the matter has been resolved satisfactorily.”
To see the ADL’s statement in its entirety, click here.
I love the smell of desperation on Election Day morning.
Senate Bill 862, which passed the State Senate unanimously a few weeks ago, may be the single worst piece of legislation I have ever seen in Harrisburg.
First, the bill takes away the right of Philadelphia to control zoning around the casinos and gives that power to the Gaming Control Board. It is bad enough that we in Philadelphia have no right to control where the casinos go. We must have the right to zoning not only so that we can minimize the impact of the casinos on the surrounding communities but so that we can ensure that all Philadelphia have access to a critical part of our natural heritage—the Delaware riverfront.
Second, the bill takes away most other regulatory authority of the city over the casino sites. City building and fire codes will not apply at the casinos. Water and sewer regulations will not apply there. Our smoking ban will not apply there. Nor will our billboard law. Some lawyers even think that the rules and regulations of the state Department of Environmental Protection will not apply there. Rule and regulations in these areas will be made, if they choose, by the Gaming Control Board.
Third, the law gives the Gaming Control Board authority not only over the casino sites but over adjacent sites, those that are “adjoining, including connection by a pedestrian walkway, bridge or easement, to the land-based location of the licensed facility.” Because of this language, if casinos purchase property—or just easements on property—up and down the riverfront, control over our waterfront will be turned over to the Gaming Control Board. If they buy property across Columbus Boulevard, the authority could encroach on the adjoining neighborhoods and then reach into Center City.
SB 826 makes Gaming Control Board Chair Tad Decker what Matt Ruben has called an Imperial Viceroy over a major section of the city—an unelected, uncontrollable, and irresponsible ruler over whom we the people have no political control.
You can also CALL your elected representative in Harrisburg. Their phone numbers are listed in the “find by” section — http://www.legis.state.pa.us/index.cfm
Update: Bad news — it passed, though it sounds as if a few provisions that Philadelphia residents objected to were removed from the bill. Unfortunately, the one that removes zoning authority from Philadelphia and gives it to the Gaming Board remained. Mark Stier has some ideas on where we can go from here.
“Residents of neighborhoods that are near the potential casino sites have raised some very legitimate concerns about the impact on their communities,” Fumo said. “I also had legitimate concerns about how local zoning ordinances might be used unfairly to place unnecessary obstructions in the way of casinos.
“But because of the strong community opposition, I am willing to try local control.
…
Next week, the Senate expects to remove the House-passed language and reinsert the provisions that it had passed on September 27, with several changes. In addition to restoring zoning control to local authorities in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia…
I spent this past weekend buried in an avalanche of student papers (I’m still picking a few dangling modifiers out of my hair). When I did take a break to watch some Eagles football, my enjoyment was marred not only by the inability of the Eagles coaching staff to count to twelve, but also by a number of Republican attack ads.
More than one of them came from the campaign of Mike Fitzpatrick, a loathsome Bucks-county congressman trying to hold on to his seat against the wildy popular campaign of Patrick Murphy. Faced with increasingly disturbing poll numbers, Fitzpatrick has taken the ultimate low road: he has attempted to “swiftboat” Patrick Murphy’s military service.
Have they no shame?
Don’t answer that.
Patrick is not one to take such insults lying down. On his blog, he responds:
There is nothing that I hold more pride in than my service to our country. From the halls of West Point to the streets of Baghdad, I served honorably, and my record reflects my service. There is camaraderie among veterans - we understand that everyone who wears the uniform of the United States military has sacrificed, some much more so than others. That is why I was so shocked that Congressman Fitzpatrick, who never wore a military uniform, would hold a press conference to question my service.
Murphy’s campaign has just released a new commercial that manages to convey Patrick’s positive, winning attitude, while also condemning Fitzpatrick’s slimy tactics:
As John Kerry, who knows a thing or two about swiftboating, said when he defended Murphy against these charges:
I won’t stand for the “swift boating” of Patrick Murphy. It disgusts me that a congressman who has never worn the uniform of our country stands there in silence as a veteran home from Iraq has his service disparaged. . . . What is it these Republicans who never served have against Democrats who did? . . . .
You know why Mike Fitzpatrick is engaged in the lowest form of smear and fear politics? Because he’s afraid of actually debating Patrick Murphy about the disastrous war in Iraq. He’s afraid to debate a veteran who lives and breathes the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor. He’s terrified of actually leveling with the American people about the way the administration misled America into war, and admitting their stay the course slogans just guarantee more Americans die for a stand still and lose strategy.
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Mom
Jesus — could they be more cute?
a kitten awaits an uncertain fate
“Fallen Into Darkness,” by 
