I'm turning my blog over to Mark Memmott and his story on NPR today. Those of you who know how I feel about cats will understand why.
 Meet "Hairy Truman," one of the six-toed cats at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Fla.
Rob O'Neal/Florida Keys News Bureau/AP
Cats were everywhere. Fifty or so of them. In the house. On the lawn. Sunning themselves on the wall surrounding the property. Most were six-toed — making them polydactyls. That's different. The cats you usually see have five toes on each paw in the front. Four on each in the back. They
were descendants of Snowball, a present from a ship's captain. A gift
to writer Ernest Hemingway. He — Hemingway, that is — died in 1961. About 10 years ago, a visitor to the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum
in Key West thought something was wrong. Were the cats being treated
well? The museum said yes. The visitor, who had doubts, filed a
complaint with the feds. It's a complaint that's gone to the courts. Yes, Hemingway's cats are a federal case. Now, as Christian Science Monitor
correspondent Warren Richey tells NPR's Robert Siegel, a ruling has
come down: The U.S. Department of Agriculture can regulate how the cats
are treated, judges say. The museum gets visitors from out-of-state. It
charges those visitors to see Hemingway's home and the famous cats.
Interstate commerce gives Uncle Sam an interest, according to the
courts. So the feds can tell the museum to build a higher
fence. Or to give the cats some elevated "condos" to sleep in. The
government also could levy fines if the museum doesn't cooperate. Will
the museum appeal, possibly all the way to the Supreme Court? Nobody
knows just yet. Richey's written about all this for the Monitor. His story is here. Want to see the cats? There's video of them. All Things Considered will have more on this later. We'll add the interview to the top of this post when it's ready. Click here if you want to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show. As for the cats, they're not commenting. We have our doubts, though, that they'll do what the law says. They're cats. |
