The Fat Cat of the Apocalypse

There is no limit to what we won't do to revive the "Morning in America" illusion. We'll down any anodyne to slap ourselves back into productivity at the dawn of another bleak day. A great opportunity arrived this week, when the fat white cat came drifting through the pitiless landscape that is Bushville Year 8.

This harbinger of the end -- freakish, from New Jersey, weighing 44 pounds -- arrived in network television studios in midtown Manhattan yesterday. The apparently homeless obese feline, nicknamed "Chunky," became an immediate media darling, appearing on morning shows and posing on the covers of the tabs, hitting the wires, taking up column inches in newspapers as far away as Dallas.

As Chunky rolled up in a Lincoln Town Car, lolled on coffee tables, purring under the concerned coos of the likes of Regis and Kathy Lee, his erstwhile owner, a grandmotherly gal named Donna Oklatner, age 65, was sleeping at a friends' house, having had to shed her pet after being evicted from her own home in a foreclosure, hastened by credit card and medical debt. Her husband, according to the New York Daily News "ended up in a retirement home."

One hundred people phoned in yesterday to offer "Chunky," the fat cat, a home.

No one, as of now anyway, has offered to house his homo sapiens counterparts.

Of course, the Oklatners are just old humans, not fat cats. Their plight is too typical and depressing to be of any newsworthiness. But the fat cat, well -- the fat cat always wins in the end.

The grotesque pageant is still playing on your laptop, where footage of the cat on the CBS website this morning was only viewable AFTER a short ad extolling the deep concern of Exxon Mobil (whose record $90,000 a minute profits were, according to the New York Times, still disappointing to investors, who sold it short yesterday) about the environment and the energy shortage.

Angry Exxon investors: do the math. One minute of Exxon's profits could feed and house dozens of homeless Jersey cats for several years. Do visions of their beseeching paws not torment your dreams? Can you sleep?

O Animal lovers unite!

Humanity, whatev.

With apologies to Carl Sandburg:
The apocalypse creeps in on little cat feet. It sits on silent haunches, Looking over harbor and city, And then moves on.

Comments

[GreedyOldPsychopaths]

What witty satire and comic cat caricaturing!

What other expectation should we have of corporate owned media and a dumbed-down, apathetic audience? Perhaps when more have finally experienced the same trip on the "slow boat to China" we will begin to appreciate one another and experience empathy for humanity.

[Rule Of Law]

Just the sort of solipsistic slanderings I'd expect from someone who looks just like Dick Cheney! :)

[mamacat]

I think I will remember until the day I die the story that candidate Edwards told about the former CEO of Exxon. In 2005, the retiring CEO had the corporation pay him close to 1/2 billion dollars, in just one year, while he had Exxon underfund the retirement accounts of the employees.

If anyone thinks that Exxon is run for the benefit of anyone other than top management, they are deluded. I do not know what the answer is to their rampant greed, but nationalising Exxon couldn't be any worse than what we are witnessing now.

[ggm68]

Welcome to America, where the misfortune of our fellow humans being unable to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads is Somebody Else's Problem. Our nation's compassion deficit is appalling.

But on the subject of our feline friends, while people line up to adopt the celebrity cat of the moment, shelters all across the country are overflowing with animals needing homes. Fewer people are adopting now, because they're not sure they can afford to keep an animal. I would encourage anyone who has the means to adopt a shelter pet today.

Gale
www.galemead.com

[Sciguy]

Wow. Thanks.

[Edgy]

Thanks indeed! I laughed at the surreal hilarity of an obese cat becoming the news du jour in New York, such a perfect metaphor for 21st century America, and then I wanted to cry at the idea of any couple having to be separated only because they can't afford a place to live.

Thank you Nina for always pointing these sad results of the Bush Administration in your perfectly trenchant yet humorous style..you're a gem on HuffPo!

[Alterion]

Great article! One problem:

"Freakish, from New Jersey..."

This statement is redundant.

(nj resident)

[blaqntelligence]

Loved it. Thank you.

[RoloTomassi]

Indeed; when viewed through the lens of your article, the symbolism is quite poignant, and true to human form, sadly accurate.

[AreYouSerious]

Thank you! Loved this!