Stacy Horn

My friend, Steven Levy, found Einstein’s brain. I love this story. It was 1978, he was 27 years old. It just shows what you can do with a little (or a lot) of persistent digging around. You can solve a cold case murder (Jerry Mitchell, investigative journalist for the Jackson, Mississippi newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger) or, in Steven’s case, without the benefit of Google, or the internet at all, you can track down the brain of one of the smartest people who ever lived.

All good news from the vet, Finney’s blood work is perfect. The vet attributes the weight loss to mostly Bleeck, and a little to my meager efforts to feed him a tad less.

Thank God. Finney does seem happier lately. He’s more active, more affectionate. The weight loss and increased activity have been good for him and he’s probably feeling a lot less discomfort. So even though he barely tolerates the kitten, the little guy has been good for him overall. It’s that parable I love, in cat terms. Here is the Northern Exposure version:

My uncle once told me about a warrior who had a fine stallion. Everybody said how lucky he was to have such a horse.

The next week, the chief led a war party against another tribe. Many young men were killed. But, because of his broken leg, the warrior’s son was left behind, and so was spared.

I’m glad that the fact that Finney is doing so well might all be due to that pain-in-the-ass little guy, the one who chases him from room to room until Finney finally turns around, claws out, looking for all the world like he’s thinking, “For the love of God, take a nap or something.”

I was so hopeful when the FBI announced its initiative to work on cold cases from the civil rights era. Even though I watched from very protected eyes, the horror of that period has never left me. I was raised a strict catholic, and I thought everyone believed what I had been taught. From about ages 9 to 12 years old I saw hoses turned on black people, the pictures of the Little Rock Nine on the cover of Life, I learned about lynching, all the murders, Emmett Till, the murders of the civil right workers. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, to see just how many people didn’t think that it was all that horrible, and that the murderers of Emmett Till for instance, were never brought to justice, and that people like Carolyn Bryant (the woman he was “accused” of flirting with and who is still alive) have never expressed a single bit of remorse.

So this article in the New York Times about the results was heart breaking. It’s like I’m still that kid, looking around thinking, “what the hell,” and wondering how people could do things like this and how a jury of their peers could basically say it’s okay.

I spent yesterday morning researching Cal A. Hall, Jr., the murderer of farmer Hosie Miller, one of the cases the FBI picked up and which was covered in the article. I was looking for justice in some form, some shred, however small. I wasn’t able to learn a thing other than the fact that he died in 1976, his wife in 1994.

The worst part was learning that Hosie Miller’s daughter is Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign her position with the Department of Agriculture because blogger Andrew Breitbart had edited a video of her to make her look racist, when in fact she had transcended what happened to her father and grew up to help farmers both white and black. From an LA Times article, “You don’t fire a black woman from the South like that,” Wilburn said. “Don’t you know she had to go through something to get to where she is?” It makes the sins against her that much worse.

Breitbart is dead, he died very young, but this is never the justice I want. I want people like this to truly become aware of the wrongs they committed and to atone for them, to live a life making the world better. The justice I want is for bad people to become good.

St. Patrick Day balloons. I took this from my veterinarian’s office yesterday. A weird juxtaposition I know.

A few weeks ago I was feeling happy about Finney because I’ve been trying for at least two years to get him to lose weight, and he finally seemed to be getting a little thinner. I attributed that mostly to Bleeck who has been forcing him to be more active. He also just seemed happier, in spite of the constant workout due to the hurricane force-Bleeck.

But yesterday I picked him up and noticed he’s a lot lighter. He’s probably still bigger than most cats, but he’s definitely losing weight at too rapid a rate. Something is up. Also, his eyes look a little runny in this photo that I took just now.

Pulling back, you can see that not far away is poor Finney’s constant shadow, the baby Bleeck. Finney is such a good cat, he is mostly tolerant, but Bleeck so desperately wants Finney to love him more. I feel for them both. Finney is in Buddy’s old spot, by the way. Maybe Bleeck is thinking entirely different thoughts. Maybe he’s just biding his time until that spot can be his. Anyway, we have an appointment at the vet this afternoon.

I was remembering how sad Hudson Street had become, with all the empty storefronts. I’ve probably said this a million times before, but knowing what goes into starting a business I can tell you that for the people who started them, it’s terribly personal and painful when they fail. Imagine that scene from A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge and Marley are moving into the offices of their former employer Fezziwig. Fezziwig watches them from a carriage, looking like he’s going to die of a broken heart.

This is how Hudson Street looked before, in February, 2010:

And this is the same corner now. This was taken on a chilly day, by the way. I don’t know what is up with all these people eating outside! The place across the street which was also empty has a restaurant now. I believe there isn’t a single empty storefront on Hudson Street anywhere anymore (in the Village).