I wrote a lot about Tig while he was dying (as well as tons while he was alive and healthy), but I couldn’t bring myself to write much about his last day. Not when it happened, not shortly afterward, not even after I got Tig3.0 and the pain pushed back to something that only comes out once in a long while, and causes a pang of grief and loss that only lasts until the new Tig makes me smile.

But I was looking for a recent picture to send to a friend that I hadn’t heard from in over twenty years, and I decided this one would do.

And then I read the post, and the comments, and remembered back to that day. When I woke up that Saturday morning, Tig was in my room, in a corner near some boxes. He hadn’t slept in my room in weeks, maybe months. Something had frightened him again—I assumed it was the bed monster, or the blanket monster, or whatever it was that stopped him from sleeping in the bed for months at a time. But the sicker he got, the less he came into my room. He’d taken to sleeping in a box in my office, which I made more comfortable for him by adding some towels. The box is the first place I checked every morning, always greatly relieved to see him awake and alive. So when I woke up that Saturday and saw Tig in my room, I knew immediately something was really wrong. He wasn’t crying or panting, but he was in my room, as if to say, “Something hurts. Make the pain go away.”

My friend Heidi speaks of a contract we have with our pets. That unwritten contract states that it is our duty to feed them, love them, take care of them, and make sure that they do not die in pain if we can help it. In return, we get the unconditional love that dogs and cats give their owners. The contract ultimately dictated my behavior that day.

I took him downstairs and tried to get him to eat. He couldn’t eat. The ulcers in his mouth probably hurt too much. But it was a beautiful day outside, and he could lie in the sun. So I let him out and thought about what to do. I called the vet and told them that it might be time, and asked how late I could bring him in. They told me 11:30. I had to decide whether to bring him in then, or hope against hope that he’d make it through the weekend. But I was worried that he was in pain, and he’d get worse, and I’d feel awful if I decided to wait until my vet was back in the office, instead of paying an emergency vet three or four times what it would cost to put him down. And above all, I did not want Tig to suffer. If I decided to wait another couple of days, and then saw that Tig was hurting, I would never forgive myself if I thought he was in pain because of my indecision or selfishness.

I called Sarah, and told her what was happening, and I can’t remember if I asked, or she offered, but she came over to go with me to the vet. She took the final picture of us, at my request. The picture was taken just minutes before we left. It’s the very last picture of Tig. And he was purring while Sarah took it. To the very last, Tig purred—not his loud, deep, throaty purr, but a purr nonetheless. We were outside in the back, sitting in the sun, until Sarah got there. And even in his weakened state, Tig had to be crated to go to the vet. He didn’t exactly go gently into that good night. But I kept my end of the contract. He went with a minimal amount of suffering, and he spent his final hours in the sun, with me by his side, petting him and listening for those faint purrs.

Losing this Tig was even more painful than losing my first Tig, for some reason. And it still hurts to think about the loss of my orange boy. But his successor is sitting calmly in the window with Gracie right now, having failed in his attempt to get her to play with him. And he makes me smile and laugh, every single day.

He shadows me constantly, just like his namesakes did. When I go upstairs, he goes upstairs. He supervised the cleaning of my closet this weekend (pictures to come). When I go to the bathroom, he follows me inside. When I take a shower, he sits on the side of the tub, or he does Tig things until the water goes off, then he comes inside the bathroom, knocks my razor off the side of the tub onto the floor, licks the water off the bottom of the tub or off my legs (ew), and generally gets in my way completely. And that’s pretty much what his namesake used to do. I never close the bathroom doors when I’m home alone. The cats will just stand outside and yowl until they’re opened, anyway.

And now, Tig3 is sitting next to me (he moves around a lot while I write), showing me that no, the medication hasn’t yet fully gotten rid of his flatulence problem, and when I reach down to pet him, he licks my hand. And then he bites me, because je suis un cat toy, as I’ve been saying since I got him.

I suppose that must be the circle of life that everyone talks about. One cat goes, another arrives. I miss the first Tig, and the second Tig. But I have Tig the Third, and Gracie, and we’re all doing quite well, thank you.

Yesterday I blogged about a Physicians for Human Rights report that accused Israel of pressuring Palestinians seeking medical treatment in Israel into becoming informers. Honest Reporting provided a link to Gerald Steinberg who questions the claims:

Similarly, in this publication, the “evidence” is entirely based on unverifiable claims, primarily from 11 interviewees from Gaza who allegedly asked Israel for permission to cross from the territory controlled by Hamas for medical care. Some of these Palestinians may have genuine medical needs, but others may be inventing stories that sell well in an environment that is inherently hostile to Israel. PHR-I has issued press releases declaring a Palestinian to be dead after Israel refused to allow him to cross the border, but he turned out to be alive. And in NGO reports on Palestinian suffering, Gazans who claimed to have been denied permission to study at universities in the United States were exposed as imposters. Unless the evidence can be checked be independently verified, it should be treated with the same skepticism used by professional journalists regarding other self-serving stories.

Steinberg describes this as the “halo effect,” where NGO’s are accorded a status of unimpeachable authorities even if their records are less that pristine. The media then takes the claims made by NGO’s at face value while doing precious little verification. After all, the NGO gave them the information they were looking for, indicting Israel for one crime or another.

The Augean Stables relates a relevant observation (h/t LGF):

A few friends of mine went to a party in Jerusalem that was primarily made up Anglophone reporters, people who work for NGOs and UN agencies. What amazed them was the pervasive sense of the people they met and spoke with that Israel was the greatest human rights violator in the world and that the dismantling of Israel would be a great step forward for global human rights.

Now the idiocy of this position, the suicidal nature of this strategy to advance human rights is nothing short of breathtaking. Take Israel out of the Middle East and the region becomes nothing but Hama rules… especially when the nastiest people — those who want to destroy Israel — would feel empowered by such a victory. But try and tell that to people who are smart enough to believe they can’t be wrong, and credulous enough to believe the demopaths who pull their chains on a daily basis. And as a result, they are prime targets for a hate campaign against Israel.

(emphasis mine)

One of LGF’s commenters wrote:

I wonder why they didn’t hold their little cocktail party in downtown Gaza? They could hold it in a place right next to their hotels or apartments, because they stay in Gaza, right? Surely they don’t stay in Israel? Surely they don’t feel safe in the “greatest human rights violator’s” territory?

It’s not just Pysicians for Human Rights, it’s the whole mess of NGO’s. (Remember Marc Garlasco?) The NGO’s despite their deeply held biases against Israel (after all they have to justify their existence) get uncritical reception from the media, while most other organizations would receive at least some perfunctory scrutiny.

It’s one of the engines that drives media bias against Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

How many Sudanese have been killed by Egyptian border guards? Fifty? One hundred? Two hundred?

I have no idea. It’s a body count that the AP isn’t interested in keeping. The wire services barely acknowledge that not a week goes by without another beating, shooting, or killing of a Sudanese refugee by Egyptian border guards. The IDF, as far as I know, has not shot a single Sudanese refugee. Which, of course, is the point: If Israelis were doing this, there would be UN resolutions condemning it. Egyptians are shooting a few Sudanese? So what? What are a few more added to the total murdered by the Janjaweed? Another Sudanese was killed today? Who cares?

And please take note of how the man was killed:

An Egyptian medical official says border guards have shot dead a Sudanese migrant who was trying to cross illegally into Israel.

Imad Kharboush, head of the Northern Sinai ambulance department, says that a 24-old Sudanese man from the war-torn Darfur region was shot with a bullet in the back of his head while trying to get across barbed wire on the Egypt-Israel border early Wednesday.

Disgusting. But it’s double standard that is in evidence throughout the media: If Israel or the U.S. were to do something like that, there would be thousands of stories and front-page headlines, an investigation into the man’s death, and calls for the arrest of the shooter. This? One story found on Google News. Two, counting the AP reprint in Ynet. And the AP boilerplate is missing something.

Many African migrants seeking jobs try to cross illegally into Israel from Egypt.

It’s missing the the rest of the story. The truth would be, “So far this year, Egyptian border guards have killed xxx unarmed Sudanese civilians trying to sneak across the border into Israel.”

Apparently, the AP only counts the results of American and IDF bullet strikes.

Two months ago the State Department embarrassed Israel into allowing a number of students from Gaza travel abroad as Fullbright scholars. At the time the NYT reported:

The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

Abdulrahman Abdullah received word on Thursday via an e-mail message in Gaza City that the American State Department had withdrawn his Fulbright grant to study in the United States.

Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.

A letter was sent by e-mail to the students on Thursday telling them of the cancellation. Abdulrahman Abdullah, 30, who had been hoping to study for an M.B.A. at one of several American universities on his Fulbright, was in shock when he read it.

Something about the reporting makes me think that it was the State Department that informed the NYT in order to ebarrass Israel. I can’t be sure of that, but that remains my suspicion.

The other day the Fullbnights were back in the news, 3 Fulbright Winners in Gaza Again Told They Can’t Travel

Four of the seven were cleared but three were told by Israel that they were security risks and could not enter the country. Skeptical American officials asked for details but said they only got broad accusations of links to Hamas; the officials still wanted to offer the grants. The consulate brought from Washington high-priced mobile fingerprinting equipment and sent several officials to the Israel-Gaza border to interview the three Palestinians on July 10.

Three weeks later, on July 30, all three were informed that they had cleared the security screening and were granted their visas.

Two days later, the visas were revoked although not before Israel allowed one of the grantees, Fidaa Abed, to leave Gaza to fly to Washington unaware of his changed status. He was informed at the airport that his visa was no longer valid, flown back to Amman, Jordan, and instructed to return to Gaza. He remains in Amman.

On Monday, the American Consulate in Jerusalem sent letters to Mr. Abed and the two other grantees still in Gaza saying “information has come to light that you may be inadmissible to the United States,” and therefore their visas were being revoked. In Washington, Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, declined to get into specifics, but said that the visas were revoked because “we got more information” about the grantees.

So Israel did additional checking and found information that made them judge the remaining three as possible security risks.

A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Ms. Rice was very unhappy about how these cases had been handled and that a thorough review had been ordered to prevent a recurrence. The official added that the latest information about the three Palestinians was enough to give pause but that “we really have to scrub it and are now going to take a good look to see if it holds.”

Well for one thing, the State Department ought not try to do end runs around an ally. According to the original story, the Fullbright candidates were allowed to appeal to Israel authorities and had not done so. The State Department instead opted to make the matter public and get Israel to review the cases by embarrassing Israeli authorities.

But despite the skepticism expressed by the official, my guess is that the State Department wouldn’t have revoked the visas this time without something rather convincing.

Israel Matzav:

Don’t hold your breaths waiting for Condi or anyone else at State to apologize.

Boker Tov Boulder emphasizes something that Israel Matzav does too. In the first paragraph the reporter, Ethan Bronner refers to the State Department’s reversal as “reneging” and comments:

And here’s the kicker - Ethan Bronner has the chutzpah to twist the story

Backspin notes an earlier Times editorial about the incident boasting of its role in getting the Fullbright candidates out of Gaza and asks:

What does this say about the way the MSM relates to Israel’s security concerns?

It also doesn’t speak well about the State Department’s concern.

The AP reported the latest like this:

After international pressure, US officials intervened to facilitate Abu Shaaban and several other Fullbright scholars to leave the coastal trip, only to later deny them entry into the US for apparent security reasons.

“apparent” Apparently that lack of concern runs through quite a bit of the MSM.

And Mere Rhetoric observes that the State Department is trying to engage with Islamists. Maybe the reason the State Department is so cavalier about Israeli concerns, is because they have no such concerns themselves.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad,