Friday, December 28, 2007

going green

"if just one car idled 10 minutes less every day, CO2 emissions would be reduced by 550 pounds per year"
-world wildlife federation

Thursday, December 27, 2007

bhutto

they have assassinated bhutto and i find it appalling that the head line of her death on yahoo shared space with the fact that paris hilton won't get all her money. my god! why is paris hilton news worthy? it is a sad day that american girls look to the likes of paris for their role models but have no idea who bhutto is. you want a real role model, try the first female leader of an islamic nation, who despite the danger returned to pakistan because she believed in something larger than her self. she spent five years in a prison and you can be assured that it had nothing to do with drunk driving. she dedicated her life to a cause that she believed in and that in part was giving a voice to the disenfranchised and especially to women facing terrible day to day challenges in a muslim world. she was an inspiration. a light has gone out and tonight the world is a little darker.

Friday, December 14, 2007

housing project

they are actually having trouble knocking the buildings down in b.w. cooper and all i have to say is that there is no way they are going to erect anything as sturdy as those structures.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

housing projects

i talked with a friend the other day who said that she couldn't see the beauty of the buildings, only rape, poverty, child abuse, drugs, and other crime. well i can't exactly argue that fact when housing projects have been a failed experiment. yet, i don't think the buildings are to blame. i believe in mixed income housing and roads cutting through so that we alleviate the stigma of walling off parts of our society as though being poor is something unsavory but you can do that with the existing buildings. we are in the worst housing crisis since the civil war and everyday our homeless population swells and yet we have structurally sound buildings to quickly rehabilitate and move people inside. it will cost 762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4600 units and replace them with them with 744 units. do the math. there is a disparity there. it is an 82 percent reduction and yet they say they want all our citizens to return. bullshit. in addition they plan to build a 1,000 market rate and tax credit units, which is still a loss of 2700 apartments. these additional buildings will cost over 400,000 each. architects have inspected the existing structures and said that the damage to them is over rated. so start moving people back in while you rehabilitate others. i am all for renovating the structures and implementing mixed income housing but it can be done with the existing structures. cut roads through and bring back police presence via patrol cars and beat cops. it is almost christmas for christ's sake...give the poor some place to live. get them out of the tents and from under the over pass. give them hope. you know i think what we fail to recognize is that these are not just slums, they are the homes of many and just like our homes, they are full of memories. a child's first birthday. the smell of ya mama's stuffed peppers.candle lit dinners. must we continue to punish the poor for being poor, disenfranchising them, deciding things for them and telling them they will be happier in the long run as though they are children? will they see fit to rip down all the trees too, just like they did in st. thomas? make some noise! get out there on the protest lines. do not let them take our city and make it in the image of houston or atlanta. we have soul, so feel it. dust off your compassion. move to action and while you are at it, elect me supreme ruler of the universe. i will make mondays silly walk days, and anyone caught not walking silly will be forced to watch marathon bouts of monty python in clown shoes. because it is my belief that it is hard to take yourself so damn seriously when you are being silly and god help us, but we all take ourselves too seriously. spoke, supreme ruler of the universe...yeh i like the sound of that!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

why?

ive written about this before but damn, why must we be so hell bent on tearing things down in this city post-katrina? can you imagine if we had this attitude all along? we would look like atlanta or houston and i would be in amsterdam or paris where they value the beauty of old architecture. when they tore st. thomas housing projects down, i was sad. those buildings were beautiful. in addition, they also up rooted many of the elegant oak trees on the site and this kind of reckless abandon is what pisses me off. why is it so impossible to rehabilitate these buildings? look at lafitte, they are beautiful and surrounded by stately oaks. if we let them have their way, there won't be anything left on the damn site. no trees, nothing and for what? so they can erect ticky tacky houses that all look the same and by same i mean cheap. there have been independent architects that have said the damage to these buildings is greatly exaggerated. look, i'm no proponent of housing projects. i think it is a failed attempt to care for the poor and failed because it segregates them from the rest of society. it stigmatizes them but the middle of a post-disaster housing crisis is not the time to try and fix all of our societal ills. people need housing now! and i do not believe that the answer is demolition over rehabilitation. you can make them into nice apartments and turn the area into mixed income housing. you want more police presence? bring back the beat cop. theres an idea. kids in these inner city slums have no role models but the drug dealers. the only time the cops show up is to clean up. oh, they might drive by in the isolation of their patrol cars but there is no significant connection being made. so let's bring the beat cops back and not just into the projects but everywhere. new isn't always good. i challenge everyone to ride by these areas scheduled to be demolished and see the potential of the existing structures. and remember that many people call them home and that many of them wait, homeless. keep in mind that hano says the new buildings will not be ready until 2010. if you live in a tent at city hall, that is a mighty long time to wait. if anybody reads this, go out and make some noise. call into the city council. march. protests. this is our city. take it back. we have allowed things to happen to us for far too long. enough!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

quote of the year

"it is my belief that you don't choose new orleans-new orleans chooses you. those who have fallen for her; live with her; are sprung, lost and turned out in love with her know exactly what i mean. ain't no amount of wind, water, gunfire, potholes, 'ignant' politicians, or doomsday predictions can pry your death grip from her. come hell and high water you stay-or return...i think she's a cult."
-Deborah Cotton.
that is a great quote! i want to meet this woman, hell i think i'm in love.

Monday, November 26, 2007

going home

i made the annual pilgrimage to my parent's house for thanksgiving and you would think by now that i would no longer be shocked by my family's racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-arab and anti-muslim sentiments but you would be wrong. i think what makes the turkey stick in my throat so that i need a quart of wine to wash it down, is the hypocrisy with which they spout these things. we say grace before the meal and everyone there touts their belief in god, some more than others, but the underlying theme is that their belief somehow sets them apart. and out of the same mouths that gave thanks to the lord, the most vile rhetoric is spewed. if you believe in a god as the creator of all things then surely it must dawn upon you that god made arabs and black people. if you belief in heaven and that you are bound for glory, does it not stand to reason that one day as you quietly strum the harp, that black people will move onto your paved in gold road and then what what must you think...damn! there goes the neighborhood? i have heard my whole life that blacks are the cursed children of ham and thus deserve their fate of subjugation. if it is god's will that they be enslaved then so be it. how easy it becomes to justify the abuse. people have also historically used the gospels as an excuse to hate the jews, since they were clamoring for the crucifixion of christ, and so it went from pogroms to the final solution with 6 million dead. and does the bible give a reason to despise the arabs? ah but of course, they are the sons of ishmael, the out cast. god said their would be enmity between ishmael's seed and all the nations of the earth. and wouldn't it stand to reason that the sons of an accursed out cast would attack america, the long supposed zion on the hill? and who cares if they are held in prisons without charges for years on end, suffering from torture that we as a nation have the audacity to debate whether or not it even qualifies as torture. and the bible says thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman and so it must be god's will that we hate homosexuals. if it is god's will then there are those who truely believe they are called by god to hold signs that read god hates faggots at the funerals of fallen soldiers. these are the same people that go to sleep at night, smiling over the stark scene of matthew shepard hanging on a barbed wire fence, left to die in the cold. and does the bible say that women are the weaker vessals and that wives are subject to the authority of their husbands? it does and so what if he hits her, god has given him that right. and here in new orleans, they say we were punished by god for our sins. i say, let him who is without sin, cast the first stone. what about do not judge lest ye be judged? what about love? for god's sake, what about love?

Saturday, November 17, 2007

new orleans

i walked the quarter the other night, just as the fog was coming in on little cat feet, as sandburg might say and i was struck by the wonder of it all. the quarter is never more beautiful than in the season of winter, with its cracked and creaking buildings whispering of brittle mornings in the time of stirabout and tea. i stood at the royal street entrance to pirates alley and in the mist, i could have been debating a brisk walk down any uneven lane in england or france. behind me, a man took up the violin and played something sad and haunting and terribly appropriate for the city these days. i was prone to sadness but before i could fully give into it, i heard the far off cry of the pie lady, singing out her wares and thought of how lucky i am to live in new orleans. storm or no storm or even because of the storm. this city is a heart that never tires. i guess this entry is foolishly sentimental. in the fog, it is easier to overlook our many flaws but maybe that is the point, we all need a holiday from the litany of problems to be calm and rediscover what it is about this place that keeps us here. is it a walk through the shrouded quarter or a second line romp through a sunlit neighborhood? is it the music of sweet little dive bars tucked away in unexpected places or the insistence of celebrating life and mardi gras the first year after the apocalypse? for me it is the simple and the complex. it is the nuances and smells. the architecture and the people. the something you can't quite put your finger on and so a meat pie from the pie lady during a quiet quarter stroll is one way to name it. Besides, she has the best damn pies and a right fine singing voice and i could have wept to hear her when she first came back after katrina. as i recall, i did weep.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

growth hormones and milk

i love milk. i love everything about it from its creaminess to its color and so i wish that we would stop fucking around with nature's perfect elixir. i don't want to drink a cup of growth hormones or antibiotics. i just want milk in its pure form. hell, i don't even want it pasteurized so i find it disturbing that pennsylvania is now preventing dairies from labeling their milk as hormone-free. WHAT?? i want to know what i'm drinking. i deserve to know what i'm drinking. i don't want hormones. i don't want chemicals. i don't want the government hiding hormones and other chemicals. i want to know. it pisses me off that the government, whether it be local or national is constantly poking its nose into my business; telling me what i can or cannot ingest, who i can or cannot sleep with, what i can or cannot wear(baggy pants that show my underwear, and where i can or cannot travel(i hear cuba is nice this time of year). i'm fed up. this law in penn. sets a dangerous precedent which threatens to catch on in this country. you better start making some noise if you want any say as to what is in your food.

goergie porgie pudding and pie...

got elected president and made the country cry. shrub is at it again, this time vetoing an education/health bill while simultaneously signing a defense bill. so much for no child left behind. w signed a "$471 billion defense department spending bill that pays for regular pentagon operations other than the current wars in iraq and afghanistan. this is coming on the hills of bush vetoing the water spending bill basically amounted to his giving new orleans the middle finger. so much for his jackson square speech. i don't even have anything else to say. the man leaves spoke speechless. i mean shit!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

religious right

zealotry...that ought to be a dirty word. it never ceases to amaze me what people will do in the name of god and if there is a god, he must grow so bored with us. in the name of god, people strap a bomb to their chest and a blow up an israeli bus. in the name of god, so called christians protests the funerals of american soldiers by holding up signs that read, "god hates fags". they do this because they believe that god is punishing this country for allowing homosexuality to continue. they do this in the name of god and here is where i take issue. let us assume there is a god. we shall take it on fact. are we really to beleive that god searched the world over and the best that he could find was some dumb son of a bitch spitting out teeth and tobacco juice in the back forty to be his mouth piece? really? i am galled by the level of arrogance that you have to posses in order to believe that you and no one else has the direct line to god! out of the entire world, he would choose the half washed illiterate bubbas of the world to go forth and barrel chest his message to the world. and what is that message? "god hates fags" in this time of global warming, drought, wild fires, and wars all god has to say is that he hates fags? funny, i thought god was love. you know what? spoke the cat says shut the fuck up! you just are not that important.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

good bye eddie

pop the top off the bubbly and let that sweet elixir flow! eddie jordan has resigned! it is about damn time. wow, what a mess he made of the d.a's office.i know we can't blame everything on him but damn, we are the nation's most dangerous city. we lead the country in murder. oh whatever. i shall not dwell on the negative on this a most happy occasion. so a toast new orleans, let us drink to better days!

Friday, October 26, 2007

what is wrong with eddie jordan?

k-ville is plummeting in the ratings and all i can say is if they just paid attention to the local news, they would have plenty of good plot lines to work with. i mean what can be better than an armed robbery suspect, who is also connected with a home invasion where a police officer was shot, fleeing to the damn D.A's house. i mean damn! that would be some good watching. good ole eddie claims that he did not know of the boy's crimes and when he learned of them, he called the police. ok, but here is the problem i have and that is that after he called the police, he just went missing for three days. he wouldn't answer his phone and he wouldn't come to the door. hmm and the striking thing is that this suspect is still on the loose. when asked about his missing three days, he said(and really this is my favorite part) "i don't know if you've been reading the papers, but i got some things going on. i got one or two things going on. i'm getting it from all sides." i wonder if he is referring to a 3.7 million judgement against his office for racial discrimination. i bet firing all those white workers doesn't seem like such a good idea now. oh, and one last thing to mention, eddie's girlfriend is apparently friends with the suspect and spent the day with him in baton rouge. this whole think stinks worse than the quarter on a summer's day. is anyone actually buying this? i think we need another march, only this time, let's march to his damn house and call for his resignation. enough is enough!!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

happy note!

on a happy note in an otherwise gloomy day of political disappointment, j.k. rowling has made dumbledore's homosexuality official. in a climate that seems increasingly constricting when it comes to sexual freedoms, j. k. rowling has given the gay community a boost in the form of the hero dumbledore. i can hear the religious right wingers gnashing their teeth as i write, foaming at the mouth over the gay agenda. that makes me happy and it makes harry potter a sweeter bed time story. enjoy!

jindal

damn! there is not really much else to say except, damn! we have elected yet another neocon who fancies himself the moral policeman of all around him. he will probably outlaw catnip and then i shall be screwed. way to go louisiana, you must be so proud!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

john georges

first of all, i'm not sure if anyone really reads this blog much and even if they do i doubt they give a damn about my opinions. having said that, spoke the cat would like to endorse john georges for governor. more than anything else, i want to emphasize that you need to do your own research into each and every candidate running. bobby jindal's voting record is on the web for you to peruse and there is plenty of information about the other candidates. after much research, i think georges is the best candidate for the state of louisiana. he is not perfect but i think he has the tools necessary to lead us in the right direction. even if you disagree with me, i still hope you go out and vote.

Monday, October 15, 2007

david l. bowser

david l. bowser wrote a letter to the editor in which he complained about the growing homeless population camped out in duncan plaza on the grounds of city hall, calling it an eye sore. it always amazes when i run across people who seem to have no compassion but for the grace of god go we. the local news did a report on the homeless around city hall and many of them had lost everything in the storm, were working, but were unable to afford the rising rental prices. a thousand or more to rent is impossible especially when you factor in the fact that wages have not gone up in new orleans to help off set these sky rocketing rents. how are people suppose to live here? now the city is proposing demolishing all the area housing projects, citing storm damage and the failed social experiment of concentrating the poor in isolated areas. they plan to build mixed income housing. look, i do not have all the answers and i do think that creating ghettos is psychologically damaging to those that are forced into them but my gripe is that you cannot take away low income housing without providing a viable alternative while on the path to a better plan. the homeless need shelter now and not because they are an eye sore but because they are human beings and it is the right thing to do. what are they expected to do while they wait for the environmental impact study, demolition, and finally construction to take place? the problem is now. it is the same with the health care crisis and they put us off with some future date for a state of the art hospital complex. these issues are linked. many of the homeless are suffering mental health problems but there are no resources for them. i consider myself incredibly lucky that i didn't lose everything in the storm and i find it hard to imagine what that must be like. i cannot fathom losing my family in the flood as well as the little reminders of our past that we collect through the years. what must it be like not to have one photo from your childhood? that is enough to send anyone over the edge.
as i said earlier, i do not have all the answers but i know if we sit around waiting for the government to take action then nothing will be accomplished. my room mate pointed out that the only way to get involved is directly. so, david l. bowser; if you think the homeless are a blight on this fine city, then put your money where your mouth is and help someone. give of your time and of your money. stop to ask them what went wrong that they wound up homeless. are they waiting for road home money that they may never see? can you help them repair their house? can you give them a hot meal or help them clean up in order to get a job if they do not already have one? and if you are a land lord, slash your rental prices. i know you can get new york city money but when you do, you hurt new orleans. we have to band together and take care of each other because just like in the aftermath of katrina, no help is coming. if you want new orleans to succeed, then help a new orleanian and for god's sake, VOTE!

Friday, September 28, 2007

LSU

i was sitting in the coffee shop this morning listening to the guy next to me have an imaginary conversation because he is off his meds. we are living in a giant mental ward and everyday the inmate population grows while charity hospital sits empty. i talked to people after the storm, doctors who went into charity and with the help of the germans pumped the water out of the basement and had three floors clean and operational, only to have the head of lsu kick them out upon threat of trespassing. he says charity is not safe and yet other buildings in that area have managed to open back up, such as the hutchinson clinic right across the street. besides, safe in new olreans these days is a relative term. is charity safer than a fema trailer that out gases its occupants? is charity safer than a mold encrusted house? is charity safer than wandering the streets at night, scared and confused because you cannot get the medicine necessary to help you? we have a health care crisis right now but lsu wants you to wait for their new proposed 16 block plus v.a/teaching hospital complex. why? charity is waiting. it is already constructed. oh sure, it needs a good scrubbing and some cosmetic work but at least it is a place for the ill to go. and the area that they propose to build in sits within designated historic districts. the second oldest mcdonough high school is there, built around 1879.
i just read in the paper today that they are saying that there is not much historic significance to the area and that is just bullshit. the environmental report isn't even in yet, which covers potential national register sites. why do we want to tear down more buildings in this city? didn't katrina do enough? part of what makes this city so magical is its historic buildings.
i think this city needs to start making a fuss about this. we need health care now! we need hospital beds now! we need a treatment plan for our mentally ill now! tell them that some future date does not cut it and demand they open charity back up! katrina changed everything. we can no longer afford to sit back and let things happen to us. they will change this city for the worse if we let them. every new orleanian must be an activist now!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Wetlands



check out this video about louisiana's vanishing coastline!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

the roof

my roof is sprouting. SPROUTING! it is not going from the ground up. there are no vines insidiously working their way up to wreak havoc. it is sprouting. how does this happen? how does a roof just sprout? i now have my own ecosystem on the roof. i don't have a ladder. i need a ladder so that i can climb onto my roof and weed! who has to climb onto their roof to weed for god's sake. is it not enough that my back yard is over run with weeds? the katrina flood waters catapulted it to ruin and despite my best efforts at waging war, nature is winning. she always will. so, i'm scared to climb onto my roof to weed...i mean i can't even park my car. this could be dangerous. i could fall off. oh, i know what you are thinking...spoke is a cat, right? spoke has nine lives. spoke likes all of his paws in working order and besides, i'm afraid of running through those nine lives.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

yep

one traffic light gets fixed and another one goes down. i almost got sucked up by a sink hole. the ambulance and fire truck are out front of my house but i don't know why. i hope it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that i just ran my truck into the light pole. oops! i'm not sure how that happened really. i was attempting to park and the next thing i know the pole jumped out and hit me. this happened in front of god and everybody, so now the whole block is wondering what the hell is wrong with me. i'm wondering that myself.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

new orleans

if you have to ask why new orleans should be saved, then you just don't get it! and if you don't get it, stop reading this, go turn on american idol(the show that got more people to vote for their contestants than turned out to vote for the president), and keep sleepwalking through the rest of your life. you think it is fool hardy to build a city in a flood plain? perhaps, go tell that to new york city because most of it is either at or below sea level. you think new york doesn't have to worry about hurricanes? think again. they have been hit in the past and they will be hit again by a storm in the future. it is a waiting game just like the one new orleans plays every storm season when we hunker down in white knuckled fear during the dangerous days of summer. clue in! this was no natural disaster. this wasn't an act of god. it was stupidity, plain and simple. the government installed faulty levees. they broke it and they should fix it. if i wreck your car, you would expect me to pay for it, right? right! either we are an american city or we are not and sometimes it is hard to tell around here. five fucking days! it took five fucking days for the so called richest nation on earth to save its own citizens from the watery hell that it created in the first damn place. hell, maybe shrub couldn't find new orleans on a map. we all know he had no idea where afghanistan was prior to our invading it. hey, miss teen carolina, get that boy a map.
i hear people talking about katrina fatigue, like the rest of the country would like to move on...yeh, so would we. you know that we are not even suffering fom post traumatic stress disorder here because in order for that to happen, the stress has to actually end. here it just goes on and on and on. people still don't have any money to get back into their homes because the road home is a joke, only we aren't laughing. so these poor people sit in tiny white boxes that out gas chemicals and poison them in their sleep, provided the damn thing doesn't just catch on fire and burn them to death, which has happened. we have a health care crisis that is third world in its scope, even as we lead the nation in depression and our murder/suicide rates climb. you think you are sick of katrina, well i got news for you, so are we.
say america, i have a proposition for you. next august 29th, pull the cord to the power grid and plunge the nation into darkness for five days in memory of what happened to this, my city. shut off the water to every structure from the east to the west coast. no televisions. no radios. no x-boxes. nothing but the blackness that stalks its way in like a monster from a horror movie. don't drink any water and don't eat any food for five days. periodically, open up your fridge and sniff the rotting contents of the interior, even more foul than the smell of your own body five days without a shower. then sit down calm with yourself and imagine if it were for real. your on your roof. the water is lapping at the shingles and it is a black water, full of oil and god knows what. imagine not knowing if friends and family are alive. imagine the heat and the sun drilling its way into your brain as each day ticks by with no water. imagine the dead all around you. the stench. the helplessness and hopelessness. imagine what the man; who jumped from the i-10 to his death below, was thinking as his feet left the pavement. imagine what it is like to be forgotten. then maybe just maybe, you will know what it means to be from new orleans.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Spoke the cat would like to apologize to all my furry friends for not mentioning that you should not leave your pets in cars anymore than your children.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Spoke the cat says, rock or something! Just past the two year commemoration of Katrina and I was feeling a bit nostalgic for MREs.

misplacing children

I was watching the news last night and it was all about forgetting your child in the hot car during summer. Now I don't have kids and truthfully, this is for the best but if I did have them, I would like to think that I would keep up with them a bit better than I do my car keys! The thing that I found most disturbing about the news report was the tips for helping parents not forget their child in the car. They said, put things that you might need in the back seat, such as your coat or brief case and that way you will see the child when you go to retrieve these things.OMG! Really? Put things in the back seat that you might need...like, I don't know, your child. If you can't remember to take your child out of the car seat, then you probably can't remember your coat either. And what does that say about our priorities? Your child is not as important as your brief case? We understand you forgetting the kid but not you important work papers. If you can't remember your child, then you shouldn't have one! By the way, temperatures in vehicles during the summer can easily exceed 200 degrees, that is hot enough to bake cookies. You wouldn't stick your child in an oven would you?

Thursday, September 6, 2007

exporting crime

I am from New Orleans and I'm proud of that fact so if one more person(and people from Houston are the worst) comes up to tell me how their crime rate has increased since Katrina, my head will explode. I have taken to explaining that during the chaotic aftermath of the storm, when 80% of the city flooded, we methodically sorted out our population to deliberately export the dregs of our society. Clearly, we had nothing better to do. It was club med. We had no jobs to worry about, just plenty of time to sun and and take a swim off our roofs. Five days later, we grew bored and that is when we concocted the plan of exporting our criminals. We sent most of them to Houston. Why? Because we hate Texas! By the way Houston, your crime rate was on the rise before Katrina as was the national average and if the truth were told, you have always had a crime problem. So spoke the cat says, shut the fuck up!

Monday, September 3, 2007

Southern Decadence

Southern Decadence is a parade of assless chaps, stuffed loin cloths, prissy gay men, big hairy bears and surprisingly more and more lesbians. It is one of the country's largest gay celebrations and what better city to host it every year than New Orleans. Living here as I do, i ventured out. I went to one of the most dreaded of all lesbian events, the drag king show. Dear God! It was the saddest thing ever and so of course, I stayed for hours. ok, here is the thing girls, there needs to be some sort of mentor program between gay men and lesbians. A big brother, little sister kind of thing whereby gay men teach lesbians how to dress and dance. Throw away the polyester plaid pants that have not fit you since 1975! Put down the collar on your stupid polo shirt. It did not look good in the 80's and it does not look good now. And for pete's sake, learn how to move your hips. The highlight of the show was the guest appearance of a drag queen and do you know why, because she could dance. Why should I put a dollar in your cargo pants if all you are going to do is stand there and lip sync poorly?

how spoke the cat came to be.

I'm a crossword puzzle junkie and i do them in pen. The clue on this particular day was "spoke the cat" and I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was thinking who the hell is spoke the cat. I thought perhaps he was some sort of cartoon character but I couldn't think of which one when it slowly dawned on me that the answer was "meow", as in what the cat spoke. Not to be daunted by my idiocy, I decided to turn spoke the cat into a character by which I could spout my opinions. Spoke the cat has become his own entity. From here on out, you can blame him.