A Queens woman is urging voters to support her cat as a write-in candidate for city council District 30 in an attempt to spoil a term-limited councilman’s “cronies” from sailing into office without opposition.
It’s an interesting time for politics in New York, and not just because of a mayoral race in which voters have apparently rejected Republicans and mainstream Democrats.
Over the last several weeks, stickers urging voters to cast their ballots for a house cat for a city council seat have been appearing in a Queens district.
In a story about the write-in campaign, the New York Post devotes most of the ink to political disagreements between Leo the cat’s human and the district’s councilman, Robert Holden. (He’s a moderate Democrat, she doesn’t think he’s progressive enough, but the things they’re arguing over are above the paygrade and influence of a city councilman.)
But the more interesting issue, for us at least, is what happens if Leo rides a wave of populist support and actually wins as a write-in candidate.
When asked what would happen if the nine-year-old feline earns an improbable victory at the polls, a humorless Board of Elections official asked a Post reporter if he was drunk, then told him “we can certainly say that only a human being — specifically a US citizen — can hold elected office in NYC.”
Oh well. It would be amusing if some clever attorney found a loophole to pave the way for a feline councilman, and there isn’t much chance Leo would be less productive than the rest of the council. He might even provide some fresh perspective on how to deal with the city’s eternal rat problem.
The feline laid waste to entire restaurants and food stalls during his rampage through the city, sending residents running for cover.
NEW YORK — The island of Manhattan was brought to a standstill this week after a massive and menacing wildcat was seen stalking the streets.
The first reports came in Wednesday afternoon after panicked callers told 911 dispatchers a “yuge gray tiger” had barreled into Gray’s Papaya on Broadway and 72nd, gorging itself on the eatery’s famous hot dogs.
Social media posts timestamped an hour later showed clips of the terrifying felid running full speed toward an Atomic Wings, where it tore through the entire inventory of chicken and hamburgers.
“Holy [bleep], that’s not a tiger, that’s a kaiju!” one TikTok user said in a video uploaded to the popular social media site.
The TikToker’s footage showed the gargantuan cat emerge from the Atomic Wings, hot sauce dribbling down the fur on its chin, and belch with such force that car alarms began shrieking in a three-block radius.
“We’re receiving reports that the colossal cat’s name is Buddy, and he escaped earlier Wednesday from an apartment where some lunatic was illegally keeping him as a pet,” Fox News’ Brett Baier told viewers. “A law enforcement source says the man has been taken into custody as a person of interest, and will likely face charges of harboring a dangerous wild animal.”
Detectives were seen escorting the cuffed man, who screamed incoherently that Buddy is allegedly “just a house cat.”
“He invented a laser that increased his size 70 fold!” the deranged man shouted as news cameras followed the detectives from the squad car. “He’s a wimp! Rustle a paper bag! Bring out a vacuum! You’ll see!”
New York Mayor Eric Adams dismissed the man’s claims as “the rantings of a clearly insane person,” and assured residents that the so-called Buddinese tiger would be “swiftly caught and dealt with by the brave men and women of the NYPD.”
“You’ll be able to make your dinner reservations, folks,” Adams said as an interpreter translated his words into American sign language behind him. “In the meantime, keep your doors and windows locked, and don’t cook anything pungent. This is a hungry beast who has eaten his way through dozens of restaurants.”
Police had set up a trap in midtown, with more than 900 pounds of roast turkey and baseball-size Temptations to lure the rampaging tiger.
The ill-fated turkey trap.
But the plan went horribly wrong on Thursday evening when the tiger approached.
“This beast is truly gargantuan!” ABC reporter Stephan Kim whispered during a live broadcast. “Each footfall seems to shake the earth. Look! The concrete is cracking and spidering beneath his paws as if it were brittle ice!”
The Buddinese Tiger stopped, sniffed, then launched himself at the pile of turkey, not even registering the tranquilizer darts fired by NYPD snipers stationed on top of nearby buildings until one hit him in the buttock.
The vicious cat roared and looked as if he would take down the building where the offending officer stood until he was distracted by the smell of Peruvian food wafting from a nearby Pio Pio.
“Arroz chaufa!” the tiger yelled, turning his enormous frame and stomping off into the distance.
City leaders admitted they’d underestimated the threat and had officially requested the National Guard, which was being mobilized late Thursday evening.
But an NYPD detective, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities were beginning to reconsider the claim that the rampaging animal could be a house cat.
“One of our officers called him a ‘good boy’ in a last, desperate attempt to save his own life when he was cornered by the beast,” the detective said. “To his surprise, the tiger pounced on him, licked his face, then went on his way, repeating ‘I’m a good boy!’ Maybe there’s some truth to this claim about the size-increasing laser.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia siezed on the story, posting a message on X claiming credit for “warnin’ ya’ll about these space lasers.”
“One of these lasers has turned a cuddly little house cat into a terrifying tiger,” Greene wrote. “So who’s a conspiracy theorist now?”
When even the mayor can’t keep rats from overwhelming his property, it’s clear New York is losing its battle against rodents.
For the second time in seven months, one of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ own health inspectors has ticketed him for rat infestations at the Brooklyn brownstone he calls home.
Because it wouldn’t be New York without things turning into a circus, the man who unsuccessfully ran against Adams for the mayorship, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, took advantage of the mayor’s embarrassment by bringing two of his 16 18 cats to Adams’ block and holding a press conference on the sidewalk where he touted felines as the solution. (Adams, who is well known for his hatred of the rodents, famously held a “rat summit” at Brooklyn Borough Hall in 2019, “gleefully” showing off a new rat-killing contraption to reporters.)
Introducing reporters to his tuxedo, Tiny, and tabby cat, Thor, Sliwa said Adams was missing the most obvious solution to the rat problem — cats — and offered to become the city’s “rat czar” free of charge.
“Like most New Yorkers, [Adams] is frightened of rats,” Sliwa told reporters outside the mayor’s brownstone. “He’s tried everything but it’s time that we revert back to the best measure that has ever worked — and that’s cats.”
As we’ve noted before on PITB, Sliwa and his wife are dedicated cat servants, perhaps overly so. They currently house 18 cats in their Manhattan studio apartment, Sliwa said on his radio show this Sunday. Some of them are the couple’s pets and some are fosters for their rescue.
Nancy and Curtis Sliwa with one of their cats. Credit: Matthew McDermott
The rat problem in New York is real and, sadly, as bad as people make it out to be. You can hear them at night in many neighborhoods, and it’s not unusual to see them briefly caught in the glow of streetlights before scurrying into the shadows again.
I’ll never forget watching an entire conga line of them at the 125th St. subway platform. They just marched out of a hole in the twilight, each one bigger than the last, going about their business without any concern for what people might do to them.
And the answer, they know, is nothing. Because New York’s rats aren’t regular rats. They’re well-fed freaks, ballooning to enormous sizes thanks to the abundance of garbage cans to eat out of and the way garbage is collected in the city. Back in 2015, video of a rat dragging an entire slice of pizza down the steps to a Manhattan subway platform went viral, racking up more than 12 million views and earning the rodent the title Pizza Rat:
People who aren’t from New York and have never visited are probably shocked to see garbage piled high on the sidewalks of every street. New Yorkers are supposed to put the garbage out the night before pickup, but no one really observes that rule, and the mounds of trash grow for days before sanitation removes them. It’s a feast for the rats, and any solution has to start with cleaning up the garbage situation.
In the winter the cold weather prevents the contents of the trash from rotting, so the stink isn’t as bad, and sometimes the trash mountains are covered by snow.
But in the summer, when the tree-lined avenues get their green canopies and flowers bloom in window boxes, the city reeks. On hot days, the perfume of New York is rotting trash and the overwhelming smell of urine wafting up from the subways. Sometimes I think of what the Japanese, with their spotless streets and shiny subways, must think when they come to New York for the first time.
In October, after the city fielded a 71 percent increase in rat complaints over the previous year, the city introduced a new law making it illegal to put trash on the sidewalk before 8 pm ahead of pickup the following morning. The change hasn’t made a dent in the rodent problem.
A 2015 study by Matt Combs of Fordham University documented the enormous size of New York City’s rats. Credit: Matt Combs
In any case, New York is not a good place for cats. Thankfully we have a huge and generally well-funded network of rescues that get kitties off the street and pulls cats and dogs from the city’s animal control system before they’re due to be euthanized, but strays who fall through the cracks don’t last long.
Indeed, when the New York Post talked to one of Mayor Adams’ neighbors shortly after Sliwa’s latest press event on Sunday afternoon, the woman said she’d like another cat to patrol the area around her building. The last one, she explained, had been run over by a car.
I don’t really expect anything to come of Sliwa’s plan to use cats in rat-infested locales. The red-bereted radio host is hawking the scheme because he likes to be a thorn in the mayor’s side, and because it generates free publicity, especially from the city’s tabloids and local news channels.
But if it ever comes to fruition, and people really expect strays to handle their rat problems, Sliwa and company better have a plan to keep the cats safe from traffic.
It’s been an exciting and eventful year for Buddy the Cat, and he’s just getting started!
Happy New Year everyone!
While other Asian nations celebrate the year of the goose or the bull or whatever, did you know 2023 is the Year of the Cat in Vietnam and among the Vietnamese diaspora? Yep. Pretty cool!
As we look forward to a 2023 filled with all sorts of awesome stuff, let’s take a moment to fondly recall the highlights of 2022:
January: With the humans of North America paralyzed with fear at the impending invasion of the Polar Bear King and his vast army of huge bears, Buddy the Cat heroically traveled on his own to the frozen wastelands — also known as Canada — to confront the belligerent bear. In an act of bravery that will be remembered in songs for centuries, Buddy defeated the Evil Polar Bear King in a dance-off, staving off invasion and saving humankind.
February: Buddinese Space Industries, the rocketry and spacecraft company founded by Buddy, announced a goal of putting kitties on Mars by 2030 and establishing a state-of-the-art base there — complete with luxury boxes, scratchers and ample window perches — within two more years. After Elon Meowsk expressed skepticism on Twitter, Buddy replied with a simple “Hold my beer,” garnering a record 11.2 million likes.
March: Buddy appeared on the cover of Modern Cat Magazine, looking suave and handsome.
April: Celebrating Big Buddy’s birthday and Little Buddy’s adoptaversary, the former enjoyed Impossible Burgers while the latter ate delicious turkey.
May: Pumped up by an inspiring pep talk from Buddy the Cat, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge caught fire, putting on a display of power that would ultimately result in an American League record 62 home runs. Judge credits Buddy for his success: “Bud showed me the way. He helped me unlock my potential. Without the confidence he instilled in me, I wouldn’t have hit half as many home runs or looked half as good doing it.”
June: More than 50 bands and music acts paid tribute to everyone’s favorite tabby at the 7th annual Festival of the Buddies, a three-day gathering of peace, love and turkey.
Buddy the Cat
July: Buddy raised more than $2.2 million for various animal charities by auctioning off a dinner date with himself. Thousands of women bid on the prize, but in the end one lucky woman — said to be a princess from an undisclosed European country — was able to secure the company of the charming kitty for an evening of good food and meowversation.
August: More than 85 million people tuned in to watch Buddy host Saturday Night Live, registering the show’s highest ratings in decades. Millions more watched the delightful feline’s monologue on YouTube.
September: With his city overrun by rats, New York City Mayor Eric Adams begged Buddy to tackle the threat. Buddy magnanimously agreed, and since Sept. 7 not a single rodent has been observed in the five boroughs. Adams and the city council passed a resolution later that month funding the construction of a statue of Buddy, which will be installed in front of City Hall.
October: Netflix premiered The Buddy the Cat Mysteries, its most popular show since Squid Game. The streaming giant immediately renewed the feline detective show for three more seasons.
November: Buddy the Cat enjoyed turkey on Thanksgiving and every other day of the month.
December: Millions of Americans were able to endure record cold temperatures despite losing power when they found they could raise their body temperature by 8.7 degrees just by looking at posters of Buddy.
That’s quite a year Buddy’s had! Not one to rest on his laurels, he’s already looking ahead to 2023 when he’s expected to make his debut as an opera singer and finally stage a long-awaited bout with Mike Tyson.
Little Buddy and Big Buddy wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year, and we thank each and every one of our 27 million monthly readers for making PITB their site of choice!
Pain In The Bud 