Lurie column: Ashes to ashes

Burying a friend is never easy. Even when the friend is a slinky, black furry cat who has insisted on leaving his black hair clumps all over the house for the past 14 years.

The Vet examined him 4 weeks ago, and pronounced her diagnosis. “Fatal Feline Cancer”; operations are difficult, expensive and less than 1% successful; for a cat of his breed, the equivalent of 75 years old, the decision was one of hospice, not hospital. We couldn’t face the euthanasia needle; at least not yet. So we brought him home for the end. Watching him ravenously drink and eat well these past weeks had given us a slim hope. No pain, maybe gain.

Digging a hole in the sweltering heat of a July afternoon helps clear the mind of the reality to come.

We watched him fight the wasting effects of cancer, as an inoperable tumor swelled inside the abdomen causing it to look obese, while the rest of the body withered away to naught but skin and bones. His hair started to fall out in clumps, not from any treatment modern science has to offer the pet world, but as every stray nutrient is channeled by the body, tricked by a nefarious disease into feeding the insatiable tumor. But his purring continued, and he kept seeking out company.

The cat had been through a lot. An indoor/outdoor cat who knew well the workings of a dog door; he was able to come and go with ease. Hunting and stalking is a feline specialty, and a black slinky cat has it down to a science. Merlin proudly brought in an assortment of mice, birds, chipmunks, rabbits, owls and squirrels over the years. He taunted the prissy cat in such a haughty way, that she was forced to hunt too. Only she would bring home her prey and let them loose in the house; unharmed, and stand back to watch the excitement. Merlin, named by our son after Disney’s Fantasia character, expressed sincere disinterest in Lizzie’s Audubon Society antics.

On Monday, we found him supinely stretched out, catatonic, but this time, in eternal slumber.

Yet he was as aggressively friendly with family and visitors as he was deadly with rodents and their ilk. No lap in our house was safe from a cat insisting on being scratched and stroked. He so loved to be draped around the neck like a mink stole; and would lie still as a statue with just the barest twitch of his tail giving away the fact that the taxidermist had not had a hand in this fashion accessory. My daughter wanted to bring him to the Prom that way. For reasons lost in the fuzzy history of our memories, we could not this evening remember why we refused her request.

The hole grew deeper as I stood on the shovel to break up the clay below.

Merlin had returned home a number of times with deep bloody scratches and torn ears. Maybe the momma raccoon objected to his hunting instincts; or maybe a neighborhood dog took umbrage at his freedom. We applied antibiotics and nursed him back. He was soon up and about, ready for more.

Rigor mortis had set-in, his eyes were open, but they lacked the yellow shine in the iris. Death is not as fleeting as a cat’s purr.

Cats are all different, this one would stand his ground against the dog when a bone was tossed; the dog knew better than to object. Claws beat paws any day. He preferred water drizzling from a bath faucet to a pedestrian serving in a bowl; and would vocalize this fact walking across the top of the tub until I yielded.

I covered his face with a handkerchief, and covered his body with dirt. A worm wiggled on top, soon to start his work below.

Pets enter our lives to enrich them, and those of our family. When they leave us, they leave a hole that hurts. We circled the mound and hugged each other; words didn’t come then, but I write them now, “Goodbye old friend”.

Leib Lurie is a Troy Resident and  Optimist Club member You can reach him at editorial@tdnpublishing.net

Miracle mileage product blocked by government

Miracle mileage product blocked by government

With gas climbing past $3.00 per gallon, budgets get frayed and choices need to be made by millions: gas or food? Rent or Gas? The choices are stark. The country’s dependence on foreign oil is a visible weakness every time the needle points to “E”.

Our President has declared that it is time to get serious about our energy independence and vowed last January to cut imported oil by 50% over the next decade. A terrific goal. All it would take, he said, was opening up the Atlantic continental shelf and the far reaches of Alaska Wildlife preserve to oil production, and additional tax breaks to encourage production by big oil companies.

The budget submitted for next year calls for token increases in federal funding for solar, wind and water power projects. Annual grants that add up to about a week of the war in Iraq. He gave a token glance at conservation, encouraging more intelligent use of gasoline and energy. Nothing near as drastic as Jimmy Carter’s adoption of sweaters in the White House but the high price and long lines then were trigger points for America to get smart about energy usage. Mileage went up by 50% in the next 10 years, and energy efficiencies by homes, appliances and industry jumped a similar amount. All as people, and businesses, working in conjunction with Congress recognized the threat of Arab energy embargoes and pared energy use. In fact, as the American population climbed almost 50% from 1973, our energy use rose just 10%; an amazing jump in conservation and efficiency. But the increase has slowed, even reversed in the current decade.

Millions of dollars are spent on gray market quack products designed to boost the mileage of your car. Secret oils, magnetic bands for the engine, wonder additives for fuel, and thingies for under the hood like the turbonator or the vortec cyclone. Patented wonders hawked at innocent Americans, yet all debunked by scientists and engineers. Except for one.

There is another, proven, effective, readily available under-the-hood change that can generate 42 to 48 miles per gallon. It is a widely available automotive technology around the world. But hurry, because the Government is forcing it off the US market.

The diesel car, long a staple of truckers and the majority of vehicles sold internationally by European auto makers (including dozens of models by GM, Mercedes/Chrysler and Ford) is destined for the history books in America.

The EPA has mandated increased standards for clean air emissions on vehicles to fight smog and pollution. For years, the primary automobile solution to emission control has been Catalytic converters. A passive device made with expensive metals that react with tailpipe hydrocarbon emissions to convert the gas to harmless water. It is a truly amazing invention that works for 75,000 miles or more without needing any attention. Diesel engines have been more of a challenge. The dirtier, generally cheaper diesel oil has more ‘soot’ that must be cleaned from the exhaust to prevent particulate smog. New technology in use throughout Europe injects a tiny spray of urea (a natural chemical compound) into the exhaust gas from an under-the-hood dispenser and voila’ virtually immaculate emissions, 99% of soot is eliminated. But the technology requires the Urea tank to be refilled every 12,000 miles during oil changes. So now the EPA is balking at the technology, feeling people should not be allowed to buy cars that get 35% better gas mileage if the trade-off is an emissions systems that requires any sort of operator maintenance.

This is bureaucratic hogwash at its finest. The trade-off is a rational one. But based on the pace of the EPA, my advice is to buy a diesel now, because they will probably be gone from the US market when the 2007 models arrive.

Leib Lurie is an Optimist Club member and software entrepreneur. You can reach him at Leib@Lurie.net

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com

Occupying forces threaten to destroy country

Occupying forces threaten to destroy the country

The occupying forces swarmed in to the city, taking over homes, government buildings, and throwing up barricades to keep the population at bay, and their troops safe.

The city and surrounding countryside has become a dangerous place. Roving bands of soldiers conducting safety sweeps have been known to fire at the slightest cause, often maiming villagers and leaving bullet holes just inches over the beds of the citizenry.

The area had been sectioned off, in some cases with long lines of trenches, or fencing designed to keep the disagreeing factions apart.

Patriotic citizens were constantly being accused of patronizing one side or the other. Often families are split apart as some believe in the government imposed by the foreign soldiers; while others vehemently seek a different kind of home rule.

Until recently, the iron rule of a single virtual monarch, backed up by a puppet parliament, had held sway; and the people had been subjugated, but generally happy with limited self-determination to operate their own lives. Spies watched Shopkeepers who sold illicit goods, and businesses were limited to importing only those goods sanctioned by the government; but food was generally plentiful, and the streets were safe. Travel, was of course, restricted, but the cost and difficulty of traversing the generally horrifically poor roads made this all but irrelevant.

A while back, invaders from the North attacked some of our communities, threatening the stability of the government, and it triggered a war that started to split the people apart. Some siding with the Northerners, some with the status quo. Native tribesman took up sides with the invaders and forced homeowners to change the way they think and act around them; relegating all to the status of undesirable and/or untrustworthy. Many were killed or run off their land.

The cohesive, peaceful civilization was starting to unravel. Imported goods grew scarce. Fuel, once readily obtainable, became expensive and even dangerous to procure. Health care suffered as doctors turned away people for belonging to ‘the other side’. Medicines, always in short supply, often contaminated, and usually offered as a mixture of homeopathic blends with pseudo scientific research behind them, were leaving people suffering from disease, especially unique strains introduced by both the invaders and the paid members of the coalition who hailed from foreign lands.

The occupying soldiers, often accompanied by mercenaries and civilians brought over to handle the mundane tasks of occupation, cooking, laundry, transportation, had brought their own cultures with them, and they were not creating the desired melting-pot into the populace, but rather causing a melt down of order, processes and the rule of law.

Prisoners were whisked away without charges, without lawyers, and without hope. They were routinely treated inhumanely, and, held incommunicado near an old naval base on an off-shore island, were hoped to be forgotten as the soldiers tried to subdue the tensions growing among the people.

A local government, given a charter to bring their people in line, was pressured by the soldiers to do more, and to build up trained guards and police to protect the citizens, and restore the peace. It was not working. The folks who were pressured into joining the government, were berated by neighbors for selling out. Their families were put under suspicion or worse.

The world was watching, although few countries dared take sides against those of the soldiers; fearing reprisals and loss of trade, many sent representatives to try brokering a peace. Most failed. Some sent surreptitious aid, including arms to the invaders and the locals; urging and fomenting an internal revolt; a revolution against the soldiers and the out-of-touch leader who wanted to be feted as royalty.

The situation was turning ugly. It would, however get far worse before peace and freedom would reign again.

King George III’s army was defeated at Yorktown and the colonists subsequently formed a new government.

Today’s government and this generations’ King George should re-visit those times and the lessons learned. It is time to change course to honor and respect the ideals we fought for then, and quell the deadly toll that keeps rising every day in Iraq.

 

Leib Lurie is a Troy resident who grew up on what was a Revolutionary war battlefield, Fort Washington, in New York City.

 

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com