I have, at turns, felt guilty about worrying so much about the dogs and cats affected by Katrina. But I can’t help it– it affects me really deeply to hear of people who had to leave their pets, to see footage of animals trapped by rising water. I think, for me, it is as if there is one well in my heart for the pain of people–and though it is full in these terrible times, there is another well of tears for animals. That sounds silly, I know, but it’s the only way I can describe it.

This post, from a very eloquent gay guy in New Orleans, totally made me cry–tears of joy this time. I have been known to observe that “the only good cat is a dead cat” but that’s mostly my allergies talking. I am really happy for this guy and the unsinkable Miss Kitty Lola of Nola:

[ sturtle.com ]
I look around and see that there’s not much damage. Some more small trees and shrubs are down in my neighbor’s yard. A handful of my potted plants have died. I walk back to the kitchen to get my duffel bag and start packing.

Then I see her: a long, low lump stretched across a side table. I take a step toward her and call out “Lola?”, but she doesn’t respond.

The pieces quickly fall into place: during the storm, the door to the study slammed shut, trapping her in the back of the house for nearly three weeks, a few crucial feet away from bowls of food and a tap that’s still dripping. Lola’s eyes are slits, green and lifeless. I call her name again, stroke her back, but nothing.

Without thinking, I say, “I’m sorry.” I keep repeating it: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Stand in those shoes for a second, then read the whole post… it turns out, amazingly, OK.

If you want to sleep. GROW CUBE is like crack.

I love it when I find something online that I know I have to see in person. Today it’sThe Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez.

No, they aren’t a family of trapese artists, but relatives of manta rays that “breach” frequently and fly through the air. The photographers Paul and Michael Albert have done a great job researching and documenting these amazing creatures. Baja California, anyone?

Kate/A/blog has the picture worth a thousand words:

Does Rove have to dress him, too?

The UK Independent has this cheerful story:

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.

The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a “tipping point” beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.

Read the whole thing if you can.

Here in the offices of the new Xbox, we were pretty interested to hear about a camp at this year’s Burning Man that I totally missed: Dance Dance Immolation. (Actually, I’m not sure if that was the name of the camp; the artists are Interpretive Arson.)

Click picture for more.

The idea— if I have this right— is that there are two contestants simultaneously dancing (as I guess you can have in Dance Dance Revolution, if you have two dance pads) in flame-resistant clothing who compete against each other in the game. Behind them, judges control flame jets aimed at the contestants, who get blasted when they miss too many steps. Based on the few minutes that I’ve played DDR at home on my Xbox, I suspect that I would’ve been nicely roasted by the end of a session at Dance Dance Immolation.

Here’s the descriptive film that helped earn Interpretive Arson a $1000 grant from BORG2 to make the project reality.

Bringing a new definition to power suit, an Australian man built up a charge of 40,000 volts of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic…

Well, just in case we need another disaster to show FEMA’s incompetence: Slow Seismic Slip Event Underway in Pacific Northwest

An important seismic event imperceptible to humans has begun in the Pacific Northwest as predicted, according to the government agency Geological Survey of Canada.

The chance of a major earthquake is 30 times higher now for a roughly two-week period, but the odds are still remote, scientists say.

The event is called episodic tremor and slip (ETS). It involves a slow movement of the Juan de Fuca and North America tectonic plates along the Cascadia margin of southern British Columbia. Faults associated with the plates have been the sites of major earthquakes — akin to the colossal tsumani-causing quake last December in Indonesia — every 500 years or so, the geologic record shows. The last such temblor in the area struck on Jan. 26 in the year 1700.

From Think Progress, an update on the latest actions of the bitch who bitchslapped PBS because a bunny met a lesbian:

“SEPARATE BUT EQUAL” EDUCATION: The Wall Street Journal reports that Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will ask Congress to waive a federal law that bans educational segregation for homeless children. The Bush administration is arguing, along with states like Utah and Texas, that providing schooling for evacuees – who, in this case, are likened to homeless children — will be disruptive to public school systems, so they want to have sound legal backing for creating separate educational facilities for the 372,000 schoolchildren displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The State of Mississippi is opposed to waiving the Act because they argue the law helps evacuees enroll in schools without red tape. [WSJ, “Schooling Evacuees Provokes Debate,” 9/14/05]

Of course the administration will get its way, and of course they will be sued, and of course by the time it wends its inevitable way to the Supreme Court the damage will be done. These children will, of course, be the “Children Left Behind” by the President responsible for the No Child Left Behind Act.

That’s the headline from Dateline: Hollywood. Can we “take him out?” Oh, I’m not suggesting we assisinate him. Really. But on the other hand, WTF?!?!?!

Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards. “By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” on Sunday. “Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?”

Robertson also noted that the last time Degeneres hosted the Emmys, in 2001, the September 11 terrorism attacks took place shortly before the ceremony.

“This is the second time in a row that God has invoked a disaster shortly before lesbian Ellen Degeneres hosted the Emmy Awards,” Robertson explained to his approximately one million viewers. “America is waiting for her to apologize for the death and destruction that her sexual deviance has brought onto this great nation.”

Maybe if we built a big altar and sacrificed Ellen on it, her blood would turn into butterflies of solid gold and we could pay off the national debt! Maybe if we burned the Fab Five at the stake their ashes would turn into magical sponges that would soak up all the water in New Orleans and scrub it clean! Maybe if reasonable Christians don’t stand up and offer Roberts a nice warm glass of shut the fuck up, I will never again be able to walk through the door of a church!

In Robertson’s world, curses and miracles and magical spells have replaced the Christ of the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes. He is a sick and sad embarrasment not just to Christians, but to all America. To the human race. And as one of America’s top evangelists, he’s clearly a failure– look at all the sin that has happened on his watch. Maybe God will strike him down! Oh what a happy day that will be.