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Ted Rall

Newly rescued orange Manx kitty Octavia
Posted by Mikhaela Reid


Rescued Orange Manx Kitty: Octavia
Originally uploaded by M1khaela.

I figured since TheDon has rescued dogs covered in this blog, I’d throw a rescued cat into the mix.

My cartoonist fiancé Masheka and I are off to Washington, DC for the 50th Anniversary Convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. We’ll be hanging out with the Cartoonists With Attitude crew (AAEC Vice President Ted Rall, plus Keith Knight, Jen Sorensen, Matt Bors, Brian McFadden, Stephanie McMillan, Ruben Bolling, August Pollak, Ben Smith) and a huge convention of famous-type editorial cartoonists (Tom Toles, Joel Pett, Clay Bennett, Signe Wilkinson, Rob Rogers and many many more!) plus special guests like Tom Tomorrow, Duncan Black and the Comics Curmudgeon. I may even bring a laptop and blog about some of the panels.

In our absence, I leave you with this photo of our newly rescued cat, Octavia, kneading me with her claws as I try to finish up the Cartoonists With Attitude Slideshow for our event this Saturday.

We’ve felt for a while that our other cat Riley was lonely and just too friendly and social and playful to stay home by himself while we’re at work. A rescue group in our neighborhood saved this little orange fuzzball from the euthanasia queue at Animal Care and Control. We barely had her home for a few hours before she decided she had to sit in one of our laps 24/7.

We named her Octavia to (a) pay tribute to the late great science fiction writer Octavia Butler and because (b) she seems like one of the weird alien creatures from Ms. Butler’s books, with her giant orange eyes, her taillessness (she’s a Manx cat, and apparently this is how many of them are born) and her weird bunny-style gait.

Her political affiliations are yet to become clear, but hopefully she’ll be more progressive than our other cat.

I must add that lazy and unapologetic as other other cat is, he’d never have pardoned Scooter Libby.

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Ted Rall

Mo’ Dogs
posted by TheDon
This week, nine more of our little friends found their forever homes, including this little girl. This is the kind of thing that helps keep me sane and gives me hope. A nice impeachment would help. Two would cure me for life.

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Ted Rall

Why I blog about the dogs
posted by TheDon

On Saturday we put 6 more dogs in their forever homes, including Eddy, who was in the program for over 2 years. Sometimes it takes a while to find just the right home, even for the best of dogs.
People sometimes question the time and money I put into dog rescue, and tell me there are more important things I could do with both. That is probably true, but irrelevant. Most activities can be criticized as being less important than something else. Why worry about homeless dogs when there are homeless people? Why worry about gay rights when there are innocent people on death row? Why worry about abortion rights when our soldiers are dying in Iraq? Why worry about contractor corrpution when there are terrorist trying to kill us? Why watch TV when you could be writing to Congress? Why clean the house when you could be marching with a sign?
There are a lot of things wrong in our great country, and I think they all need advocates. Some causes are well represented, well funded, well advertised. Some are not. Some causes have strong advocacy and legal standing, some do not.
Dog adoption is much more mainstream than it used to be in most of the country. Even in Georgia, everyone at least knows what it is. But we still have a never-ending supply of unwanted dogs. In metro Atlanta, we kill over 90,000 dogs and cats every year. I can’t stop homelessness. I can’t stop the war in Iraq, or the coming one in Iran. I can’t stop bigotry. But I can do something about the slaughter of dogs in my little corner of the world – Atlanta.
We have an agriculture department far more concerned with dog breeders than dog ownership. We fight attempts which nakedly try to shut down dog rescue and to characterize dog rescuers as nuts. We are fighting a long, hard battle, against long odds, but one day we will win.
So why the dogs? Why not the children? Why not the war? Why not the civil rights? I actually help with all of them where I can, but I do spend most of my money and time on the dogs. There are laws protecting children, the homeless, the hungry, even though they are sometimes inadequate. There are countless government agencies, non-profit organizations and church groups advocating and helping. But not for the dogs. They can’t speak for themselves, and they are not well represented where it counts – in the legislature or in the courts.
I have a special place in my heart for the truly helpless – I am a liberal, after all – and these dogs count as some of the most helpless and voiceless. My heart is with them, and I unapologetically advocate for them. If you think there are more important ways for me to spend my time, I encourage you to go ahead and do those things. Make a difference – that’s all I’m trying to do.
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