The main editorial and corporate office of the Street Roots newspaper now has its own Store Cat.
Israel Bayer, the newspaper's executive director, yesterday put up a frantic Facebook post stating that he will be returning the Cat "back to the skids" after 24 hours. Later, this evening, he made a confession on Facebook again: "I kicked the cat out this morning and when I returned tonight it was shivering on my door. So, the Street Roots family gets a new cat."
So there it is. Street Roots gets a Kitty. It is a small independent non-profit newspaper with a tight budget, so your donation of Cat food, Catnip and various Cat supplies are certainly needed. The office is in a storefront space of a historic Old Town-Chinatown building that also houses the C.C. Slaughters gay bar and Darcelle's (more precisely, 211 N.W. Davis St., Portland).
Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to reprimand Israel Bayer, whose newspaper is an organ of propaganda for advocating the rights of homeless and low-income persons, for abandoning a Cat in a below-freezing temperature in the middle of a busy nightlife district. It is a crime in the State of Oregon to abandon a Cat, a Class B misdemeanor (ORS 167.340; 161.615, 635). I hope our readers can see the irony in this. A tireless homeless advocate who should know better, abandoning a Cat when the temperature was below 32 degrees Fahrenheit and a day before snow.
167.340 Animal abandonment. (1) A person commits the crime of animal abandonment if the person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence leaves a domestic animal at a location without providing for the animal’s continued care.
(2) It is no defense to the crime defined in subsection (1) of this section that the defendant abandoned the animal at or near an animal shelter, veterinary clinic or other place of shelter if the defendant did not make reasonable arrangements for the care of the animal.
(3) Animal abandonment is a Class B misdemeanor. [1985 c.662 §8; 2001 c.926 §11]
Once again, if you are able to drop off Cat food and such, the office should be open normally from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays.
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First, let me say, thank you for putting up a blog post asking the community to bring in cat supplies.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I'm not really sure how to respond to the personalizing of this post. Beyond just being bad reporting, or you taking a photo from my FaceBook, a photo that I took in my living room, without permission, is disturbing.
The idea that the very cat that was lost, and w/out a home came in my apartment for two nights, slept in my bed and then was given a home at SR would be described as animal abuse is absurd.
In the future, if you're going to accuse an individual of something, do your homework and have the guts to call your source and talk to them one on one...
Thank you,
Israel Bayer
Thanks, Israel Bayer
Hey, in America confession alone cannot convict anyone in absence of material evidence. The only exception to this in Oregon, in theory, is treason. An open admission in the court can automatically earn you a free taxpayer-subsidized retirement at the state pen for life.
ReplyDeleteCat abandonment is a serious issue, and the very population you purport to advocate often neglect or abandon cats when they have difficulties feeding themselves. This is why the Cat Adoption Team has a food bank program.
You are being looked up as a quasi-public figure in the homeless advocacy and counter-poverty movement, both by the officials/civic leaders and the poor people alike. You ought to demonstrate by examplary conducts what you preach. If you think it is acceptable for you to abandon cats in the middle of winter, it would not be that much of a stretch for a greedy landlords and developers to think it is acceptable to displace humans that they don't feel are important members of society.
Never mind... I think the irony is truly lost.
ReplyDeleteThere are people out there who truly believe that "bums" are not humans, either. They may not honestly say that to anyone's face, like the author of bumhate.com blog does, but they are everywhere, from churches to charities, to police departments to real estate development companies.
Maybe they are right - the "bums" either lost or relinquished their humanity for one reason or the other - certainly I've encountered a few who behave worse than wild beasts; yet nonetheless cruelty is not something to be tolerated or encouraged.
When one knowingly and intentionally afflict sufferings to another sentient being, especially when they had nothing to lose by not so doing (like getting a 24-hour emergency eviction notice, which is of course not warranted) it is not right. The cat could have died. Like an ancient Jewish sage said, "save a life and it is as though you had saved the whole world; destroy a life, and you had destroyed the whole world."