The Strange Saga of Oscar the Cat...
...or, this WAS a sort-of "feel-good"-type story...

You've probably heard by now of Oscar the Cat, of Providence, Rhode Island. He patrols the halls and rooms of a nursing home in that city. He looks in on the patients. And perhaps for a second or two, he'll visit the rooms of patients who are in good, or relatively good, condition. But he has an uncanny knack; he seems to instinctively know when death is near. He basically snuggles next to a person who is in the final hours of life, and stays there until the person passes away. A sort of psychic animal "final companion" to those residents who are in the process of completing their voyage here on Planet Earth.

Who knows exactly what animals know? Who knows what they think? And perhaps we can learn from them. After all, animals give unconditional love, which in my opinion, is something that people can never really give. Unquestioning love and total devotion. I know I've given up expecting that from anyone. And my heart was warmed by this story as I read it in the local paper today. Ah, but the news media has to include the final doubt-incurring twist; in the news article, it was reported that so-called "experts" said the cat could be doing this out of some SELF-SERVING desire, such as wanting to curl up in a dying person's warm blankets. Can you say "disillusionment"? I knew ya could...

Why couldn't the news article have ended before it got to that last part? Because, here's a story that is GOOD. A story that, perhaps, makes us believe in SOMETHING. All fricking SHOT TO HELL by some journalist who was doing his utmost to fill up column inches in the newspaper. You know, sometimes I absolutely HATE the press. And this was one of those times. Self-serving desire...well, if that's true, well, hey, it's only a CAT, and no one was done any favors by hearing how self-absorbed and greedy a feline care provider might be. Me, I'd rather hang on to the good stuff.

I just watched an NBC News clip of that story...and even a moneygrubbing TV Network had the decency to stop before the "self-serving" bit, leaving viewers with a good impression. This newspaper article wrecked it for me. I guess we must be living in the age of negativity. Make that TOTAL negativity. I'm not so sure 'both' sides of every issue always need to be presented. Sometimes, these aggressive, confrontational news items...and the people who slap the words together in news articles...are just too much for me to take.


meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meowmeowmeowmeow........

Ladies and gentlemen, here we have Oscar the Cat. Feline mortality clairvoyant or selfish, greedy warm-blanket-hogger? Me, I'd rather believe that this cool little cat provided a comfort to both the dying, as well as their survivors. That he's one of God's little animals, who gives unconditional love. Maybe I just won't read newspapers anymore. In a climate such as this, no wonder everyone is disillusioned and no one cares about much of anything anymore.
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But...maybe my faith is restored just a little bit? Northwest Cable News, which is on as I write this, has reported that there's another cat (in a Western Washington Rest Home) who is doing the same thing. He was given to the care center by a patient who couldn't care for him anymore. Hey, newspaper writers and so-called "experts"...let's just leave this one alone, okay?