My Bleu

I think I was fortunate to be out most of today, because now that I am back in my apartment, I can't stop crying.  It happens every time I pass some spot in this little oasis where there is some memory of Bleu, who died today, very early this morning. Here he is in 2013, still healthy, in his favorite spot on my kitchen counter waiting for me to turn on the faucet so he can get the freshest water. I know. Those of you who aren't big pet people probably are cringing at the thought, a cat on a kitchen counter. I suppose one positive about living alone, when you are an inveterate animal/cat lover, is that you feel no concern in allowing them these liberties.

As I write, I have on the other fountain he loved, my little solar one on the terrace. He liked to jump on the table nearby and stretch himself to get that water. In the last year or so, another favorite was to wait for me to turn on the shower and have me open the door a crack so he could lick water from the little ledge on the shower door. When I was about to take a shower, he'd follow me into the bathroom for the ritual he invented.

He always drank a lot of water, probably an early sign of the trouble to come, but who knows? There is no place that I sat, the couch, my television chair, the rocker on the terrace that he didn't come and jump up and sit on my lap. He was more like a dog in this personality feature. He really liked being near me, far more than my other two, now remaining cats. I go into the bedroom just a few minutes ago to change the sheets and I see him on the right side, where he would place himself very close to my face, and carefully, using one paw, brush my face for attention, this time, of course, it was to remind me of breakfast. If that didn't get me going, he'd drop to the floor and look for a wire to chew. That was sure to get me up, even if I was screaming, "NOOOOO!, Bleu, NO!"  He looked at me triumphantly and waddled (he always had a little waddle though he was never heavy, though he was a big cat) ahead of me into the kitchen accompanied by several look backs and serious "feed me" meows. I bought many a replacement wire and marveled that he never got a shock. He could be very frustrating in that he ALWAYS wanted to eat.  My father, who had him nearly two years before his death in 2008, used to get really angry because Bleu always wanted extra treats even when his dish was full. I always thought he enjoyed the process of our getting the bag or the cannister, hearing the crunchies fall into the dish and taking a fresh bite.

Even until last Thursday, even Friday, he was always on the lookout for food, and our latest treats were these very expensive full mackerel and tuna pieces as well as baby food, the meat kind that is now put on the bottom shelves in favor of healthier choices for the human little ones.

But I suppose he had been on borrowed time for the last three and a half years, though for all of that he was happy and active and as he'd always been with me, close and loving. In April 2014, I thought something was off and brought him to the vet. After tests, the diagnosis was either inflammatory bowel disease or small cell cancer. I have had variable experiences with vets, as I have had with human doctors, and too often they prescribe "from the book" without really considering the consequences to the pet. I was recommended to give him a liquid cancer drug and some other meds as well. I went to the pharmacy and got the meds, read the instructions, looked at Bleu and considered what to do. Either way had risks and either way, if the cat died quickly, I had made the choice that led to the death. The vet specialist said that with the meds, he'd live maybe two years. I decided against them, and worried that I was a horrible pet owner.  But I knew what invariably happens when these chemicals go into their bodies. I couldn't do that unless he seemed far worse than he was. At the time he was 12. The biggest symptom was diarrhea, which with three cats using the same box, was a challenge, but the symptom was not all the time (I gave him a pro-biotic which seemed to help) and though it was often annoying to do it, I changed the box frequently, when he was afflicted. The only other symptom was a bit more throwing up of his food, but all my cats have had hair balls over the years and that didn't add too much to the clean up routine. Besides that for about two years, he was fine, his usual self, though in 2014 he began to lose his heft. But he was eating, jumping high, playful and happy. I had already had about the two years I was "promised" if I gave him the meds. About six months ago, I noticed he was losing more weight around his ribs though he was acting as if without a problem or a care in the world. Nothing I gave him, no matter how much, and I let him eat all the time, day and night, was putting on weight. And so, reluctantly, nearly two weeks ago, I took him to see the one specialist I had liked and who was not arrogant nor did she pontificate. She was amazed he was alive three and a half years after the diagnosis, a year and a half more than he was speculated to have had if he had been given treatment. He jumped on the vet table and sat next to her, asking her to turn on their faucet so he could drink, or inspect. She gave me options. Tests, to the tune of 1300 were done (I will have a separate blog on the cost of veterinary medicine, I anticipate, in the next few days). Because he WAS eating, she wasn't sure it was the original condition that was causing it, though I would be scheduling more tests. His thyroid seemed to have a problem, he had long standing kidney issues though he was not in extremis there, and though I was not willing still to give him cancer drugs per se, I was willing to put him on a steroid for the original condition at this stage, and see what happened, perhaps to stem the weight loss. The meds were not ready till the next week, this past Wednesday. I picked them up on Thursday, and gave Bleu his first doses. He seemed to tolerate things. Still eating. Still getting onto the counter mostly in one leap, though over the last couple of weeks there had been some misses. And then Friday and Saturday, each day he seemed weak and lethargic and he did not want to eat quite so much. On Sunday, he was lying around and not eating at all. I decided to stop the meds. I contacted the vet early on Monday. She wouldn't be in until Wednesday, and suggested her colleague. He was one of those with whom I found myself terribly dissatisfied in a prior encounter. I told her I had stopped the meds, that we'd see where he was on Wednesday. But it was a cascade. I went out for a bit on Monday, and when I came back he couldn't stand, so unsteady on his feet, and it almost seemed as if in just a couple of days, if it were possible, he had lost MORE weight. I suppose it was possible. He hadn't eaten during the weekend and he had no spare fat. He stopped meowing, and even seemed disoriented. I could see from the way he was breathing. He was simply dying. Decision. Do I take him to the vet where they would do only more tests and stick a needle or two in him? I will go over it all in my head for three and a half years ago and now. Did I make the wrong decision? If I hadn't given him the meds he'd continue to lose weight. Having given him the meds he got horribly sick. No win. The vet wrote to me that either he had a bad reaction to the drugs or it was a combination of his condition and the drugs. We have to figure that out, if we could. If there was time. I told her I thought we were at the end of the road.  Either way, I tried to get Bleu to lay on my lap, but he was uncomfortable and would lay in a spot, try to get up and lay down again, sort of sleeping. Groggy for sure. I distracted myself with television checking on him, quite truthfully praying to God, while feeling foolish I was praying for a cat in a world where humans are suffering so much without relief, that He would let Bleu go, that night. I brought him out from my bedroom to see if I could again get him to rest on my lap, but my lifting him seemed to hurt, so I put him on a towel on the floor and lay next to him for a couple of hours. I petted him. I talked to him. I told him it was all right to go, that he'd be at the Rainbow Bridge and I'd see him one day. Occasionally, he would let out a little squeak of a meow. I had my hand on his chest, and could feel both our breathing and heart beats. Every so often he'd exhale firmly and I thought that was it. It wasn't. His breathing was more shallow each time. And then he was limp. I couldn't leave him here with two other cats and I didn't want to put him out on the terrace, so I wrapped his body in two towels and brought him to the vet. I noticed some what I thought to be involuntary movement, but it turned out that he had the tiniest spark of life when I got there. I hope he wasn't afraid, as he seemed to extend his legs a little--that is another little torment of speculation for me-- but the tech took him to the back to look at him, but came out shortly after, to say "He's gone." His blue eyes were open and though he was dead, they were still beautiful blue.

My other two cats assiduously avoided both of us last night and today, they are still rather aloof. Maybe they always have been that way. Maybe Bleu's intense connection to me made it seem that they were less aloof than they really are.  I admit, I need the animals to comfort me, but I have no right to expect that. They are living the existence that God created them to have as they are. But we will see what not having Bleu around, the dominant Bleu, even when he was thin and less powerful, brings in terms of their interactions with me.

I have cried over my other cats, and one dog, way way back, when I was little, but this pet death has hit me harder than the others, I think. I know.  All that lives must die. But I am a little resentful just now. I have also thanked God, with admitted mental reservation and a smidge of anguish, that He did permit it all to be quick.

This apartment is very empty without Bleu. My Bleu. It's only been less than a day, and I miss you more than I imagined. No, I knew you were special.

"Brad's Status", And Mine

I haven't been much to the movies. I acknowledge that I sound like my parents when I say, "There's nothing to see".  Unless you like murderous clowns or Satan like mothers while wolfing down your popcorn--and according to the audience attendance, the clowns have it. So, while I had read nothing about it, I pinned a hope or two on the Ben Stiller pic, "Brad's Status". Not only did I like it, but, shivers, it made me think, and there was nary an explosion.


"Brad" is a man circling age 50 with a sunny wife, and a kid interviewing for colleges with music programs in the Boston area. He has been the head of a non-profit for most of his adult life. He has a good upper middle class existence, but Brad is dissatisfied and restless. Mostly, he's quietly jealous of three of his former Tufts classmates, all of whom have apparently succeeded financially--they are decidedly more than middle class--and publicly. Brad is a nice guy. He'd generally not voice his dissatisfaction and he tries to tell himself that he has done sufficiently well. After all, he has a son who is good enough to go to Harvard. He's happy about that. Or not. For even there, there is a little jealousy. Tufts was a great school, but it wasn't Harvard, and just maybe, he wasn't good enough to get into Harvard like his son. His friends passed him by; his kid is passing him by. "Doing good" in so far as raising a decent kid and having a non-profit begins to feel like plain old failure.

He takes more of a self-esteem hit when his son gets the day of his Harvard interview wrong, and now Brad must swallow his pride and call one of the three friends (played by Michael Sheen) who has the juice that Brad doesn't have to get the interview rescheduled. The proper person to person "thank you" requires a dinner with the intercessor. Brad is early to the restaurant, the reservation under his name, and the hostess places him at that nadir of tables, the one by the kitchen. There is another table nearby, but Brad, being a nobody as the world reckons, is rebuffed with "That table is reserved." But the arrival of Brad's famous friend, Craig, generates the relocation that Brad alone couldn't accomplish. Craig dishes on the other two friends, and their personal woes, the existence of which Brad has never accounted in his ego-laced reveries about their lives compared to his own. If the lives were objectively compared--if that were truly possible--it is Brad who has the best, most consistently comfortable, and meaningful one. Brad is a Generation X self-inflicted psychological victim. Only we, the relatively comfortable, have the time to worry about how successful we are in relation to other friends and professionals. The rest of the world is busy just getting food and finding a place to live.

Only once does Brad let his "I'm a nice guy" guard down and that is when he meets one of his son's friends, a musician herself, whom he sees as idealistic and energetic as once he had been. But he tells her too much about his bitterness and rather than sympathize with him, she reflects back his unappealing "poor me" inner world.

But in the end, Brad had done a good thing by swallowing his ego. His son, Troy, got the replacement interview with the critical people and is accepted into Harvard. Brad watches his son sleep, the boy, once like he was, who has his life ahead of him, and he embraces, perhaps still a little reluctantly, his life, as it is.

I have probably had more than one moment that could be titled, "Djinn's Status".  Beneath a public smile over the thirty five years between these photos, the first in 1982 when my dad first came to California and I had my first job here, and the second after a twenty five year stint in a government agency, there were many Brad like internal conversational laments.

I have compared myself, more than I'd like to admit, to endless others, over the years, the smarter others, the one's who have houses in the hills, or on the water, who were successful television writers (which I once wanted to be), the few, and they have been only a few, who have wonderful spouses, who made more money than I ever did as attorneys (like Brad, I have worked in public interest mostly), the ones who merely appear someplace and are ushered in, accompanied by endless flattery. And actually, perhaps I should be more ashamed than Brad that I have felt, on those occasions, shorted. In "Brad's Status" there is no mention of a transcendent faith. I am not saying there should have been. There is no critique here of the movie.  The critique is of myself. I know that all things are passing, and I purportedly believe that my journey isn't about what benefits and lauds I get in this life for my efforts, but one which leads to the Eternal, to that which was lost by the very act of making a comparison and envying God.

Too often, instead of being grateful--let me be brutally honest about myself--more often than not as I have tended toward a pessimism that is probably the result of that nuanced combination of nature and nuture--I have most often NOT been grateful. I can tick off the real and perceived slights from grammar school  to date, the lack of "connections" that meant, to me, I had to work harder than others to achieve a middling success. And then a moment of sanity. None of this is about me. My life was a gift (Brad and I have a commonality in that realization, too often an impermanent one); it remains a gift. I have been given much. And I have no right to compare myself to others--who, by the way, whatever I see, may have crosses far heavier than anything I have ever experienced to date--my internal whining (or more vocal ones, which like Brad, I try to keep to myself, with general, but not perfect success) notwithstanding. Of course, I will again compare and whine. And I guess I am in good company. It is part of the human condition. Brad conquered it in the movie, at least for the time being. I pray for the Grace to conquer it in real life, and for good.

Postscript:  I am happy to report that "Brad's Status" appears to have sufficient word of mouth that it is doing well. It's nice to have a movie that leaves something substantial with you. Kudos to Ben Stiller for making a fictional Brad come to life. And providing a thoughtful script.

This Dystopian Life

I want to preface, or disclaim, before I go on with this entry. As a Catholic I believe that God has made and does make good out of evil. By His Word, who is Jesus Christ, His co-equal Son, Second Person of the Trinity, death became life through the Cross once for all.  Despite what I see around me, if I persevere in the faith and seek His holiness all will be well, "on earth as it is in heaven".  There's the rub--perseverance in the face of the profoundly ugly and the profoundly distorted, the deep disorder of sin (dare I say the word!). I'd like to say that the "disorder" doesn't include me, but of course, it does as for all human beings. I am not asking for agreement. I am just noting from whence I start this. . . .lament on sometimes feeling as if I stepped into one of the dystopian tales told in books and movie.

I had that feeling as I was driving along some major Boulevard in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, or Sunset, I can't remember which it was. What came to my mind at that moment as I passed a bevy of outdoor billboards, some of them flashing repetitively, was "Blade Runner".  I know. It is a cherished film. A masterpiece. I saw it when it first came out, in 1982? And it so depressed me that I walked out. I have seen it since, as it re-runs endlessly on our handy dandy digital screens.  Yeah. It's a great bit of film-making. But it's still depressing and more so, because I felt like I was IN the movie as I drove along that Los Angeles Street. Oh, there isn't (as far as I know) a clone of me out there. But there is Artificial Intelligence closing in on me, and all of us, via our phones, our tablets, and a few actual robots, like Han and Sophia, Erica (Japan) or Bina 48 (Bina is the robot version of Martine Rothblatt's, wife; Ms. Rothblatt was formerly a man and was the creator, I understand, of Sirius Radio). Take a look at the "awakening" of Sophia at the address below on You Tube.  Fascinating. But as usual, human beings are grasping at being the Creator. This one reminds me of the scene where "Robocop" gets "awakened" by Miguel Ferrer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyxgDM8O8OM

One could, I suppose, call all this AI stuff, an extreme. I don't. But one could. I just don't think we are going to end up with nice, human loving "Data's" like in Star Trek.  I think it is more likely they, too, will eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and will become "as gods". 

Daily life is hard enough. Just looking at those billboards makes me feel like I am living on the outskirts of a bacchanal to which I will be forced invited shortly down the road. I keep hearing that the society of the past, the one I grew up in, was somehow horrible. I can think of only one clear failing, that of not readily living up to the ideals under which the very American society was created, by the bondage of other human beings. We did live up to it, but it took a Civil War and a Civil Rights movement. That's human beings, imperfect, often not living up to the goals in which we believe. But we came to it. I know. Lots of people out there, in the media, and on Facebook and the like, will disagree with me. Vehemently. I have the right to disagree with them. Do I not? I fear that this is part of my point. I think each of us is losing that right. 

For example. I believe abortion is an abomination. I am told I have no right to "enforce" that opinion on anyone. But here's the thing, I am not enforcing an opinion. It is, to me, no different than my saying, "I believe that I should not go through a red light when a pedestrian is in front of me." Why? I will kill the pedestrian.  I believe that is wrong. Why? Because it is a moral imperative. His is a life that deserves protection. It is the objective reality that is being enforced, not my opinion. You say, "Abortion is different".  How is it different? There is a life, that much has been scientifically established--although years ago the argument was that the thing inside the uterus was merely a blob of tissue. That used to be the prevailing pro-choice opinion. Oops. Now, the opinion is that whatever that life is inside the womb, it doesn't have the status of "person-hood" by which it might well, be allowed to live. And, after all, better it should be terminated (we still avoid the word kill) because it might not have a good life. After all, how does any of us know in advance what kind of life someone will have and how useless it will be.  Steve Jobs was adopted. Nick Cannon was nearly aborted. You can find their names on the net. Abraham Lincoln didn't have much of a future when he was born, at least as far as anyone with the ability to prognosticate would have said. But being pro-life, that is now lumped with other "hate-filled" ideas. In fact, I am not even allowed to articulate that this evil, like slavery before it where person-hood became the issue, might be appropriately stemmed.  It cannot be reversed. Millions have died whose unique being was deemed problematic. I guess the "Dogma lives loudly within me". I suspect a dogma lived loudly within those (and far more than me) who created the Underground Railroad, who decried slavery, who said that Dred Scott or Brown v. Board of Education, or Plessy v. Ferguson, should be reversed. These were settled law. Was it hate they spewed when they decried it? 

Whatever happened to that once golden idea, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? We have come to a new idea. "I disapprove of what you say; it is, therefore, hate speech." 

Now, one philosophical "stick" after another is being "picked up" and discarded until there will be nothing left of these United States. This is posited as a good in the dystopian monologue. Tell me. What will replace it? Have human beings developed such a consistent standard of behavior on their own such that the nation will be stable and coherent? I am thinking of another movie (and book), "Farenheit 451", where the job of the hero is to burn the books that are not approved of, thus restricting the thoughts which are forbidden and sending to prison those who think wrongly. The purveyors of Progressivism note these books and movies as well, but they do not see that they are the ones who are sending us all to secular and spiritual (should one identify as "spiritual" and not religious, whatever that means) perdition on earth. How now will we define the good? As always, whoever has the power. Man creates god in his own various images. Caligula was a god. Nero was a god.  It worked so well for Rome. But better for Edward Gibbon. 

I wonder if we'll destroy ourselves before the AIs do it? I'd say, "Be afraid, be very afraid." But then, I hear Saint John Paul II say, "Be not afraid."  Let us pray. If you believe in that sort of silly God thing.

"Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."  

"News from Nowhere": Some Thoughts from Forty Years into the Communications Vortex

  I read this book when I was a sophomore in college, when there were still only three major networks, no internet, and even the VCR was in its infancy. In summary of his review of this 1973 book, by Edward Jay Epstein, David Ernest Haight concluded:

In summary, News from Nowhere portrays television journalism as virtually compelled to present a distorted picture of America, to manufacture out of the raw material of daily events a view of society which is biased toward certain geographic areas, certain types of people and behavior, and certain types of (usually superficial) commentary—all in all, no setting for the Intrepid Reporter.

If the American news media was troubling back then, actually I realize, with a gulp, 44 years ago, it generates a positively apocalyptic feeling within me, now when "news" comes at us from every possible source and is distorted beyond recognition. Add to that the opinion of the informed, uninformed and psychotic on Facebook and we have utter intellectual, psychological and moral destruction. Yes, I really think it's that bad.

Forty something years ago, I was disappointed as a desk assistant at a local New York station, when I went out on a couple of "stories". One was about a potential strike of hospital workers and another was a student "protest" at Bronx Community College. In the first case, when we arrived, there was a manageable group, not even a crowd, of people, purportedly potential patients, outside. There was one mother with a child. The camera focused on them. When the tale of woe was edited together, you'd swear that children were on the edge of complete health deprivation. As to the student protest, when we arrived, pretty much nothing was going on; in fact, pizza had been ordered and there seemedlittle of interest to observe let alone film. But upon the arrival of "a camera" signs were picked up and voices were raised. The editing process, once again, provided the substance of a tale which had none. News was what whoever cut it together wanted it to be. 

Added to the creation of news, and its distortion, there is also the suppression of what doesn't fit the cultural narrative.  It is no longer merely "News from Nowhere"--it is truly what has been called "fake news". It is barreling toward "Imposed News from Nowhere".  Opinions are no longer confined to editorial sections of the news. They are the news. Commentary about disfavored politicians is worked into the story as if the commentary has itself been delivered from "on high".  It is "Who, What, When, Why and How", the how morphed from a nuanced dispassionate explanation to how the reporter and his/her company feels about it and how he or she expects the rest of us "right thinking"  properly to respond to it.  It is going beyond "propaganda" which, for all its hard sell, is geared to influence by making us feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Propaganda properly presented doesn't feel like coercion. It may even make us feel good and dedicated to a cause. That cause may even be a good one. No, the "news" is becoming true "brainwashing" because whether it seems right or not, and without an underpinning in anything philosophically, practically or theologically objective, you find yourself in forced agreement because there are real consequences to dissent and some of them include losing your job, or your reputation, or, when it gets really bad, your sanity and your life.  Right now, there are some outlets to counter it. There is a concerted effort by the "right-thinkers" who always project their totalitarianism on its victims to dismiss, mock and demonize the "unmutual and disharmonious" (Tip of the hat to "The Prisoner" a favorite television series from the 1960s) questioners of what has been denominated the progressive good--although when it comes to the visceral measures of the powers that be--good is a moving target. 

There are some voices I do trust, but they are diminishing rapidly. I find myself more than a little scared because for all of the prophetic fiction and non-fiction, about the dangers of tinkering with the delicate brilliance of the structure of the United States, as one of my favorite commentator's, Dennis Prager, denominates "Liberty, E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust", that very essence is being deliberately eviscerated by the frenzied fictions of American media. 

The thing that is really frightening is how many people I truly love and respect, and who are much smarter than I am, don't see it. But then, that's what always happens in the demise of civilizations. Most people don't see it until the civilization has died, and they along with it. History warns again and again. And people, who craft themselves as all knowing gods, continue to build their Towers of Babel.