[Image via Hexadecimal Time's Flickr]

• "I think people may have seen that and got the wrong idea about us," said the chief executive officer, and a former employee claims there is nothing sexual about it. Oh really? •  Wanna know what's on Obama's walls? The Times has a full list of the art on display in the White House. The pieces range from a Winslow Homer to a Degas to a Rothko, thus proving once again that the first family has good taste. •  A supermarket in Britain has issued an apology after a pregnant woman was denied an unpasteurized cheese by a concerned employee. She described the experience as the "most patronising encounter I have had the misfortune of experiencing in a long time." •  Recent legislation in Gaza that bans women from riding on motorbikes has raised concerns over efforts by Hamas to Islamise Palestinian society. While few women ride motorbikes, this seems to be part of a larger trend toward moralized legislation. •  Michael Vick, the football player most famous for his dogfighting bust, is getting a reality TV show. Although we hate PETA, we agree with them here: "People who abuse animals don't deserve to be rewarded. They shouldn't be given multimillion-dollar contracts...or given the privilege of being a role model." • A British man who had sex with his daughter over a period of 33 years and fathered two children by her has been sentenced to twelve years in prison. He pled guilty to two of incest, two rapes, 12 indecent assaults and two indecency with a child. • Here's a good reason to move to Sweden: Toys "R" Us has been reprimanded by an agency that polices advertising in Sweden after a group of sixth-graders learning about gender roles determined that boys were portrayed as active, but girls were passive in the store's 2008 Christmas catalog. • Mazen Abdel-Jawad, a 32-year-old Saudi man, has been sentenced to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes after boasting about his sexual conquests on TV. For being shown on TV with sex toys, condoms, and lubricants and cruising the streets for women he was charged with, "publicizing vice and confessing to crimes on a satellite television channel." • According to a new study from the University of Michigan, an increase in the number of cases of nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare condition in which a tumor grows behind the nose and above the tonsils, is linked to HPV. • University of Toronto researchers have invented a new technology that can measure tiny droplets of estrogen from samples of breast tissue the size of a needle. Currently doctors need to do a biopsy to collect such data, which could be useful to see the progress of breast cancer therapy, to see if a woman is at risk, or for other problems like infertility. The technology will not be ready for several years. • Katie Couric will be honored with the 2009 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media by the University of South Dakota, but a columnist for the school's student newspaper says she's not ready for the award. "A 'life-time achievement award' to Couric is jumping the gun," writes David Whitesock. "Despite Ms. Couric's laudable efforts to introduce the evening news to the Internet generation, she has fallen short of 'Evening News' predecessors." • Bob Dole, who lived next to Monica Lewinsky at the Watergate complex in the '90s said at a heath reform summit today, "If I'd had little wiretap there, I could've been president... I never had..... a conversation with that lady." • Before making his final decision on whether he should run for president, Barack met with Chicago politicians Newton Minow and Abner Mikva who have six daughters between them. Obama said he admired both men's daughters, and hoped his own daughters would grow up to be like them, and that he wouldn't run if the two men felt that doing so while the girls were so young would damage them in any way. • An Australian hospital psychologist has had his license suspended for just two months after telling a sexual assault victim that he was sex-obsessed, had "very strong sexual feelings for her" and that he had "fucked up big time" with her therapy. He treated her in 2004 and 2005 and authorities only learned of his misconduct after the woman threatened to kill herself and hospital staff found a noose in her home. • Advocates say advances in DNA technology, reforms in how police investigate rapes, and better prosecution of rapists are reducing the number of reported U.S. rapes. FBI statistics say 89,000 women reported being raped in 2008, down brom the 109,062 reported rapes in 1992. • Julie Parker, 80, is the oldest and longest-tenured employee at Yosemite National Park. "Julia interprets Native American culture to our visitors," says a park spokesman. "She shows visitors how baskets were woven, toys or brushes were made and acorns collected from native black oak trees, ground up using a metate and made into mush... Julia is truly a national treasure." • It took Patrick Mills of Florida two days to get a nine week old kitten out of his car's engine compartment. Someone heard meowing coming from his engine, but Mills and firefighters were unable to coax the cat out even with donated milk from Starbucks and tuna from Panera Bread. The cat was finally frightened from her hiding spot when a Feline Friends of Destin volunteer rattled a metal coat hanger in the engine. The volunteer took the cat home and said she's healthy except for a minor cold. •

[Image via The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee]

(Click to enlarge.)

Addict-ional cute: Winston gets a bath '09.





Another Day, Another Cat Bath [Four Four]

Below: A cat who loves a baby so much he'll take any type of abuse.

Baby Hates Cat… Cat Doesn't Care [Buzzfeed]

The New York Times' "Generation B" column profiles a newly-divorced 57-year-old woman who, she says, is finding the dating landscape dismal.

She has tried social networking, going to dance clubs, reconnecting with friends at her class reunion (all married), waiting for something magic to happen and online dating. "When you're 18, you just jump in," she said. "Now, I worry. What do I need to know about him and what do I need to share about myself - with a whole lifetime to pick from?

Where her husband quickly found a new girlfriend, Christine Shiber is having a hard time meeting a man her age. And, says the piece, this is consistent with grim statistics.

According to 2001 census data, 41 percent of women 50 and over who've been divorced have remarried, while 58.4 percent of divorced men that age are remarried. "That's the biggest remarriage gap for all age groups," said Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder of the National Stepfamily Resource Center at Auburn University. "Among the divorced, the least marriageables in our society are older women, highly educated who make a good salary."..."Studies show men tend to marry down - someone slightly younger, less educated, making less money," Dr. Adler-Baeder said. "Women in their 50s literally don't have a visible pool of eligible men around them."

It's funny that this piece should appear just as we're starting a fall in which network TV seems determined to overturn the stereotype - or at least firmly embed a new one. Says media writer Julie Zied, this fall's TV lineup is all about "the epic battle of female seduction between the mature (cougars), and the young (kittens)." First, and most glaringly, there's Cougar Town, whose premise and title are cringe-inducing enough to send us running to the safe confines of Lifetime. Courteney Cox is a divorced single mom who, with a short supply of men to hand, sets her sight on the legions of young bucks eager for her experience and wisdom. It's not just Courtney: Zied identifies a whole pack of femmes fatales who seem to fall into the 2-D trap of "sexxxy predatory older woman," from Melrose Place's Laura Leighton to Jenna Elfman in Accidentally on Purpose to Elle MacPherson's steely agency head on The Beautiful Life. All of them are set against ingenues whom they presumably eat for breakfast. The "cougar" trope is as old as The Graduate, but the modern iteration - whose mother superior might be SATC's Samantha Jones - is, theoretically empowering. Whereas Mrs. Robinson was a male fantasy, the cougar is supposedly a woman's, what the Urban Dictionary defines as " A woman who is 35+, sexually cunning, that prefers to hunt rather than be hunted."

The cougar is all about using and losing hapless men and besting less wily younger women. This isn't the First Wives' Club, nor even someone getting her groove back - it's an every-woman-for-herself band of Real Housewives and powerful vigilantes whose creators confuse objectifying men with empowerment and maturity. With, as the Times reminds us, an ever-growing pool of divorced women over 35, do the TV execs this this is what the demographic wants? A woman who's essentially an asshole man, but who presumably has more sexual secrets under her garter belt? And is is an empowering fantasy - or more male-engineered cat-fighting? And does setting up equally ludicrous and superficial standards for women of all ages really do anyone a service? Cougar Town would probably suggest women throw back a few drinks, put on a tighter skirt, hire a sitter, and stop thinking already.

In Her 50s, Looking For Love [NY Times]
Fall TV Preview: Cougars Versus Kittens [FanCast]

[Image via The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee]

(click to enlarge)

Check out the fierce feline's pose! The model? Meh. The kitten, seriously, should get signed by Ford. Almost enough to make you gloss right over the fact that the jacket is a whopping $528.

Admit it: You want a pink closet complete with seating and kittens. Okay, maybe you don't need the $25 legwarmers. But the kittens! Non-negotiable!

This moddle is all, "Hee hee, look at the feather, kitty!" And that cat has purr-fected the "bitch, plz" face.

Honey! Your $88 plaid shirt, $198 ripped jeans and $198 studded boots are scaring the widdle kitty!

Is it the headband, the open-crotch pose or the creepers that have shamed this pooch into turning her head away from the camera? All would be understandable reasons.

Not every page in the catalog has an animal on it, unfortunately, which means you're forced to contemplate whether anyone ever needs a solid brass plated rhodium necktie ($298).

Additionally, you've got to wonder if the this catalog is pushing "future Miss Havisham chic."

New motto: Less lace, more doggie face!

Seriously, though, are creepers coming back? I like 'em better on Teddy Boys and greasers, for what it's worth.

Also, when I think "desirable dress," I think "Joan Holloway," not "Julie Brown in Earth Girls Are Easy."

Hopefully this cute bitch got to eat some of that cake.

Earlier: Anthropologie: Sartorialist-ic "Real" People Impossibly Pretty, Well-Dressed
Urban Outfitters: Does This Make My Ass Look Wack?
Fall At J. Crew: Romantic Ruffles, Destroyed Jeans, Hideous Shoes

[Image via Jezebel Tips Line]

I am reader-sometimes-commenter Soy-bean. A few nights ago, I took the attached pic of my foster kitten, Xena the Warrior Princess. Xena is the only surviving kitten of her litter – her siblings all succumbed to a horrible infection (either upper respiratory or distemper) when they were around 5-6 weeks old. I did everything I could to save them, but they were asymptomatic until just a few hours before passing (sometimes called fading kitten syndrome). Xena, though – she really earned her name! She was horribly, horribly sick – I have never seen such a sick animal.

After weeks of nursing care, syringe feedings, sub-cutaneous fluid treatments, and fearing that she was going to die, Xena is finally out of the woods and super-close to being ready for adoption. She has also become addicted to my laptop – I can't open it without her running right up to it and jumping on the keyboard!

Just thought you folks might like a cute kitten pic to brighten your day!

[Image via Cute Overload.]

Kittens, Inspired by Kittens: Best Internet Video Evar? [BoingBoing]
Alright, Jeez, Kittens Inspired By Kittens! (Scream) [Videogum]

As an Egyptology-obsessed kid, I loved the cat goddess Bast. She was a fierce protector, sometimes depicted as a lioness, sometimes as an elegant domestic feline. Since cats could kill mice, rats and cobras, the Ancient Egyptians valued the species, and gave them golden jewelry. That often included earrings: Statues associated with Bast were cats with pierced ears.

Crawford, a groomer, was selling the "gothic kittens" online, and says: "When I did it, it wasn’t with any cruel intentions. They were definitely loved, well-fed, no fleas, clipped nails. And they were happy." She claims that she checked the kittens several times a day to make sure they were healing properly. But now that she's been charged with three misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, three summary counts of cruelty and three counts of conspiracy? "My name’s ruined, my reputation’s ruined, my business is ruined," she says.

What's interesting is how an act can go from being a religious honor to an illegal taboo, and how animal and human rules are so unclear. Some people think it's wrong to pierce the ear of an infant; in certain cultures it's part of a child's religious ceremony. Tattoos are generally thought of as a painful body modification, but many dog breeds are tattooed inside the thigh. Humans who brand cattle are not charged with animal abuse, and only recently has the practice of cropping or docking dog ears begun to fall out of favor. (The AKC actually seems to encourage such amputation.) Is there any consistency? Are there any universal guidelines?

Crawford plans to plead not guilty; whether a jury will find that she's broken the law and sentence her to, say, "die in a fire" as some commenters suggested, remains to be seen.

'Gothic' Pierced Cats Sold Online [The Sun]
Woman Charged Over 'Gothic Kittens' [Sydney Morning Herald]
Earlier: Cat Lancer

[Lead photo by Don Carey via Sydney Morning Herald; Egyptian cat via Metropolitan Museum Of Art]

On the PETA paged entitled ‘Save the Sea Kittens!’ PETA claims that “People don’t seem to like fish” and that “we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good.” PETA urges members to sign a petition asking the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop the “hunting of sea kittens (otherwise known as fishing)”. PETA argues that “Sea kittens are just as intelligent (not to mention adorable) as dogs and cats, and they feel pain just as all animals do.” Sadly, after yesterdays news, it would seem that kittens have a few problems of their own to worry about, so maybe PETA should chose a new approach. [News.com.au]

The cats were all living in a single house in Moriches, New York, that is currently facing foreclosure. When the bikers heard about the soon-to-be homeless cats, they rushed to the scene. Today they begin the task of rescuing and rehabilitating the 180 felines, a job that will take about a week. In their mission statement, they profess their dedication to protecting animal rights: "We will stop at nothing within the bounds of the law to protect animals at risk. We will intercede without hesitation when we are informed of a situation that needs to be addressed, and we will address it. If we need to convince people to do the right thing ... we can be very convincing, we'll even buy animals if that's what it takes to get them away from abusers." [The Sun & Rescue Ink]