Forgive me if I don't want to talk about how "awful" this is for hours on end, and speculate on the madness inherent in dumping kittens off a bridge. It just doesn't interest me much. T-P:
Kittens were reportedly thrown Friday afternoon from a vehicle driving on the elevated West Bank Expressway and the Crescent City Connection, just two days after Lake Pontchartrain Causeway authorities said they were looking for someone who had tossed two kittens from a minivan on that bridge.I'm going to assume that the Causeway Tosser was making a weird protest over the planned destruction of the "iconic toll plaza landmark". The other two were just copy cats.
I really don't feel like talking about these other stories either, but they are similar and one of them hits real close to home.
[Note: some small edits made after initial publishing. First link goes to Library Chronicles, as I originally intended to do but mistakenly didn't. Jeffrey was the first I saw use "copy cat" in relation to the kitty toss story. Also, the reference asterisk at the end of this post was added later, as well.]
1) The publisher of the New Orleans Tribune ran a stop sign and hit [a car that hit] my letter carrier, taking off both his legs. He died in the hospital yesterday:
Roy Rondeno Sr., the veteran U.S. Postal Service deliveryman who was critically wounded last weekend when a vehicle struck him on his postal route, died Friday of complications from his injuries.Man... that's depressing. [Update: Gambit has information about tomorrow's benefit.]
Authorities, meanwhile, are reviewing the car collision, which New Orleans police said was caused by Beverly McKenna, a well-known newspaper publisher who failed to yield at a stop sign.
Rondeno, 57, a beloved postman in the Uptown area, was struck by a careening car and then pinned between two vehicles Saturday afternoon near St. Charles Avenue and Valence Street. He lost both legs and was in the hospital making progress toward recovery.
2) This didn't happen too far away, either:
An Orleans Parish judge has refused to increase bond for a man charged with vehicular homicide, despite prosecutors' pleas that his family's wealth and ties overseas make him a flight risk.
Abhishek Bhansali, 23, a New Orleans native and son of a prominent cardiologist, quickly bonded out of jail on his own recognizance after police arrested him March 21 for allegedly killing a pedestrian outside an Uptown club while drunkenly operating a 2008 BMW. He has pleaded innocent to the charge.
Michael Keith, 34, a father of three who lived in Metairie and had served in the Marines, was knocked 150 feet into the air while walking in the 3700 block of Tchoupitoulas Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene about 3 a.m.
Bhansali was speeding and had swerved into the wrong lane -- driving against traffic -- when he struck Keith, a police report says. The driver was well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption, registering .128 on a blood-alcohol test, according to police. The legal limit in Louisiana is .08.
Magistrate Gerard Hansen on March 21 gave Bhansali, a New York University business graduate who has worked on promotional campaigns for Absolut vodka, the most lenient of bonds, allowing a promise to return, without financial risk.
3) Father Jerry Kramer resigned. Though I didn't attend his church very often, I'm proud to have known him, before and after the storm, and sure appreciate his incredible efforts to rebuild Broadmoor and New Orleans.
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Alright, now I'm depressed. We gotta lighten the mood a bit. After all, it's a Saturday morning.
Frozen Bears sent us a classic cut from the Saints (who are in the pantheon of punk rawk originators). Hadn't ever seen the video before-- it's good. Enjoy:
Speaking of underappreciated punk rock-- we're talking, I dunno, 4th wave before it died again-- I can't believe Crimpshrine's "Butterflies" only has 321 hits-- what a travesty!! This is much too raw and sloppy for everyone... never was for everyone. But this cut and the "Sleep What's That" record (yes record) meant a lot to me when I was a certain age during the late 80's, early '90's. And to me, in terms of honesty it sounded unlike anything else, and in its own way has never been surpassed. Here, Ben Weasel explains Crimpshrine's appeal much better than I can. (Lyrics. Also, the song is 4 minutes long, not six.)
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* Title refers to Ted Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever. Speaking of the Nuge, he recently wrote (but did not explain) why Schindler's List was "probably racist". Sometimes Nugent's ignorance is powerful enough to blast the balls off a white rhino from fifty paces.
