New York, along with other cities, supposedly have many more feral cats than before the pandemic. New pet owners apparently got tired of the scratching and mewling. This was also a problem in 1880s, when Central Park was overrun with cats. New York handled the animal crisis by exterminating the felines with rifles.

In the 1880s, New York was not yet the City That Doesn’t Sleep. Central Park closed at 9 PM with police posted at entries.

Do ten-year-olds wonder about mermaid genitals? (I do.) Do they wonder how what appears to be an entirely female group mates (where are the mermen?)? Might someone label mermaids as transgender? Don’t mermaids appear to be creatures in a kind of drag? And now don’t mermaids today bring up racial discussions that might make some young people feel uncomfortable? What does this all mean for schoolbooks and movies in Florida and elsewhere?

When I first spot caterpillars during the summer, they seem almost slender, but in a few days, they all seem fatter with increasing torpor. They then are content to crawl up on a finger and be carried. And if you put one near your ear, you can hear it say, “I may be fat and slow…. but I am a vegan.”

Hitler became a vegetarian in 1937. Different reasons are given for his conversion. Some say that he had adopted the philosophy of Richard Wagner, who believed that vegetarianism would lead to a stronger Germany. Others say that Hitler made the move for health reasons. Still others say that he was appalled by cruelty to animals.

Among the plays I see in New York City, some might be called experimental… e.g., the one with a cast of frogs. Distinctive. Odd. Ribbeting.

I have a refrigerator magnet and a decal from the New York Public Library with the well-worn phrase “Knowledge Is Power.” When I look at them, I think what Ethel Watts Mumford said: “Knowledge is power—if you know it about the right person.”

The Southern Baptist Convention, mimicking Roman Catholics, have said that churches with women pastors cannot be a part of their club. A Baptist spokesperson (ok, spokesman) gave as a reason I Timothy Chapter 2. I grabbed my nearest Bible (this one, a New King James Version) and found that Paul wrote that women should dress modestly. He continued: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.” The Baptist explainer did not explain that this was Paul speaking, neither God nor Jesus; He did not mention that Genesis said that women were made in God’s image; He did not note another statement of Paul that seems hard to reconcile with the Timothy passage: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28. But whenever someone cites the Bible, I remember the words of an uncanny phraseologist who said, “The devil can cite scripture for his purpose./An evil soul producing holy witness/Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,/A goodly apple rotten at the heart./O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!” William Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice.

The same Timothy chapter that Southern Baptists cite to “defellowship” a church with women pastors also says that we should give thanks “for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” Do the Southern Baptists defellowship all those who say nasty things about Joe Biden?