[BRIEF NOTE] On 9/11, or, what a man with a vision can do

The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has just ended, and I, for one, remain impressed by the genius of Osama bin Laden. Using his skills in rhetoric and organization, enlisting less than a two dozen volunteers, providing them with a half-million dollars, and giving them a clear plan, bin Laden managed to change the course of world history. The attack he organized killed thousands, the wars this attack triggered killed hundreds of thousands at least, and the lives of millions of people--easily tens of millions--have been directly deformed by all of these various legacies, of terrors and wars and persecutions and man-made disasters.

Never let it be said that one man can't change the world.

[CAT] Shakespeare, claw stuck on my blanket

[CAT] "A Cat's-Eye View of Japan"

CityLab's Jessica Leigh Hester reported on a new cat's eye view map of a Japanese city.

Sure, aerial photography offers a useful perspective of a place: You can see the seams where tracts of land abut, get a sense of a region’s topography, or survey diverse architectural landmarks. But there’s one big problem: There aren’t enough cats.

Japan—the country that has appointed multiple feline stationmasters along its railways—is home to a new mapping tool that showcases sights around the city of Onomichi from a kitten’s vantage point. (It’s like Google Street View, but, you know, lower to the ground.)

Thank the Hiroshima prefecture's tourism board for the interactive map, which positions kitty tour guides along three routes, including a shopping arcade. The port city is home to many feline residents, and also the site of a museum dedicated to maneki-neko, the friendly cat figurine with a bobbing paw said to be a lucky talisman.

[CAT] "Island's Feral Cats Kill Surprisingly Few Birds, Video Shows"

National Geographic's Carrie Arnold notes a recent environmental-impact study of feral cats suggesting that they tend to hunt relatively small animals lower on the food chain.

Cats, already the overlords of the Internet, also reign over Jekyll Island, a small barrier island off the coast of Georgia.

The island is home to 150 free-ranging cats, which is about one cat for every five people. While the feral felines can help control the numbers of rats, mice, and other animals considered pests, they can also prey on other local wildlife—including, most controversially, birds.

A 2013 study, for instance, estimated that free-ranging cats are responsible for killing billions of birds and mammals in the continental U.S. every year, including possibly up to 3.7 billion birds. The study sparked major debate among both bird and cat groups. The American Bird Conservancy has said "the carnage that outdoor cats inflict is staggering."

Since Jekyll Island is a popular stopover for many migrating tropical birds, wildlife biologist Sonia Hernandez at the University of Georgia wanted to see whether the island’s feral cats were preying on birds.

Enter the KittyCam: A small, collar-mounted video camera that records life from a cat's point of view. By putting KittyCam on 31 feral cats for a year, Hernandez and her team gathered many hours of footage that let them see exactly what the island’s felines did—and didn’t—catch.

Interview at the site.

[CAT] "Cat café claws back mock election sign campaign in Chelsea, Que."

CBC News reports.

A new cat café in west Quebec drew laughs this weekend for putting up mock election signs with cats for candidates around the community… then it drew the attention of officials who pointed out they're against a bylaw.

The Siberian Cat Café in Chelsea, north of Ottawa-Gatineau, opened less than two months ago with seven cats for eat-in customers to spend time with.

Saturday, signs featuring them went up around the community, styled to look like the orange, blue and black signs for candidates in the current federal election: the Bloc Chat, Chat-chasseur, Libre and Nouveau Parti de Dimitri (Dimitri is one of their cats).

Chelsea Mayor Caryl Green said Saturday it was a very original — but illegal — idea since the signs were on public property.

[CAT] On cats and their love (or otherwise) of their humans

The Telegraph's Sarah Knapton reported on a study that might depress some.

Researchers at the University of Lincoln have concluded that cats, unlike dogs, do not need humans to feel protected.

Before cat lovers start despairing about their aloof pets, however, animal behaviourists said they should take the finding as a compliment. If cats stay, it means they really want to be there.

Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine at the University of Lincoln’s School of Life Sciences, said: “The domestic cat has recently passed the dog as the most popular companion animal in Europe.

“Previous research has suggested that some cats show signs of separation anxiety when left alone by their owners, in the same way that dogs do, but the results of our study show that they are, in fact, much more independent than canine companions.

“It seems that what we interpret as separation anxiety might actually be signs of frustration.” To find out if cats needed their owner to feel secure, the researchers observed how 20 cats reacted when they were placed in an unfamiliar environment together with their owner, with a stranger or on their own.

At The Guardian, Fay Schopen argued otherwise, concluding in the end of a 25-point list that "maybe your cat doesn’t love you. At least, not in the way you think. There’s no need to anthropomorphise them. Cat love, I suspect, is deeper, truer and more mysterious than the human variety."

I'm actually OK with that. Cats, whatever else they are, are not exactly human.

[CAT] The cats of Ward's Island, Toronto Islands

The cats of Ward's Island seemed accustomed to people.

[CAT] Shakespeare, looking at books

I decided to try out a new device this evening. I like.

[CAT] On a refugee family from Syria and their cat Zayouna

From Metro.co.uk:

This is Zaytouna.

As you can see he’s a kitten and he was just too precious to leave behind.

Along with thousands of other Syrians, Zaytouna’s owner fled the dangerous conditions of his homeland.

Tucking the adorable young cat in a sling, the guy made the potentially perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in the hopes of reaching Europe.

The cat "Zayouna", taking its name from an Arabic word meaning olive, managed with his family to arrive safely on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos. There, he was photographed by writer Tamara van der Patten, who shared the image on her Twitter account.

One useful thing that I think this essay communicates is the extent to which the Syrian refugees do not come from profound poverty. Syria before the civil war had its issues, but in many ways it was a middle-income society not wholly unfamiliar to we high-income folks. Why would they not have things like cell phones and pet cats? Why would they not try to keep them, even as they fled for their lives? If we know these things have value to us, these Syrians certainly know this, too.