Category: Living

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Abducted by UFO Cats

In the days after Kuma disappeared on Jan. 15, 2012, I often said to neighbors: “He disappeared like abducted by aliens”. One minute the cat was there, then he was gone. We’re now reasonably sure that coyotes abducted Kuma, whose collar city workers miraculously found deep in a canyon not far from our apartment (fifteen days later).

Out of nowhere, my wife made similar yet very different connection this morning. She likes to think that a UFO took our cat, and that two earlier one-day disappearances were abductions preparing him for the final trip. She doesn’t really believe aliens took Kuma, but it comforts her to think he might be alive somewhere else having grand adventures.

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Free Pussy Riot!

Punk rock roared across the globe as I started college in the late 1970s. Punkers protested their disco-loving, Baby Boomer siblings as much as “The Man”. UK punkers tapped into deep frustration among a younger population struggling for identity and future in face of global economic uncertainty.

Punk music then is much different than now. Then it was a lifestyle choice rooted in rebellion. Today, for bands like Green Day, punk, and all its garnishments, is fashionable. Mascara, colored hair, and tattoos are about fitting in to a larger, accepted social group. The real energy behind bands like the Sex Pistols is gone.