Félicette, Le Chat de l'Espace

 

On October 18, 1963, France sent the first and only cat into space. Her name was Félicette. She was a stray cat from Paris. They planted electrodes in her brain to monitor neurological activity during the flight. She survived the mission and was recovered after her capsule parachuted back to Earth. About a month later they euthanized her and dissected her brain.

Talk about a shitty thing to do. People talk a lot about how great science is, but I think it lacks compassion. I remember in my senior year of college writing a column about discovering they kept monkeys in the basement of the science building. I wrote a humor column in the college newspaper and the story about the monkeys was kind of a spoof expose of them doing experiments on animals. One of the groundskeepers told me they had found turtles in the dumpster outside that same building with portions of their breastplates cut open. And they were still alive. Write after the column ran, the editor of my school paper got a call from the dean of sciences asking that I not write any more stories about the science lab there. They were afraid of people getting upset. 

I tell you who was upset, it was the monkeys and turtles they were experimenting with. I know they say that the work they do experimenting with animals saves lives. My response is always, "Well not the animal's lives and why is a human life more important than an animal's life?

It opens up a whole can of worms when you voice stuff like that because let's face it, most people think they are superior to animals and killing animals is fine. And I realize I am a hypocrite because I eat meat. I just don't eat meat because I think I am more important than the animal I'm eating. Even the indigenous hunters used to thank the spirits of the animals they hunted and killed. Though I still think the gesture was wasted on the dead animal.

Aren't you glad I took a break form National Day Days?

I did see a headline keep popping up in my news feed about thousands of crabs disappearing in the Bering Sea near Alaska. By disappearing they mean dying out because of global warming but disappearing sounds more romantic. It gave me this design idea, though:

I think it tells a better story than the crabs dying off because the water temperature is changing. I'd like to think aliens are abducting cows so they can make butter to go with all of the crabs they are abducting and eating.

It's an alien concept, I know.