A Tail of Two Ariannas
I just wrote a post (which I think will be my last) on The Huffington Post called “Good bye to You, Yaz” about the birth control pill which doctors don’t tell women can make them depressed if it doesn’t kill their libido or make them have heart failure. I haven’t posted there since last November for a number of reasons. Many people don’t know it but just a few weeks after I started this blog (before it was a fully functional bloggy blog) last year I got contacted by the lovely Willow Bay who asked me to write about drug news for the huffpost:
The lovely Willow Bay, reporter-model for The Huffington Post
I mean, who could say no?
She was certainly better looking than Geoff Ruttledge MD of Wellsphere
Geoff Ruttledge, MD, of Wellsphere
He sent out thousands of cheesy emails to medical bloggers to get them to put their content on his Wellsphere medical website for free, and then they turned around and sold it. I didn’t fall for it that time around, and many other medical bloggers did not as well, but at least Willow had a more believable personal message.
I have written many posts for them, But nevertheless
I am not happy with writing for them, cuz although I usually put a version of what I wrote for them on my site, they always have a higher impact rating, and they were often late or didn’t fully feature the posts, and I think it is still just giving stuff away for free, and even though writing on my own site is free, at least it comes from me. A lot of abused people may have liked the attention, but later it makes them feel kind of creepy and used. Also, as pointed out by other blogs like Respectful Insolence by David Gorski, it is kind of demeaning to by pretending to write about “science” when you are competing for attention with the likes of whores like Jenny Block.
And in the end I like my own Arianna better than the other one. My own Arianna is of course my cat, who lines up on the kitchen counter every night waiting for her cup of milk. Here she is relaxing on the couch in corporate headquarters of the Drug Safety and Health News Blog.
Arianna Vaccarino Bremner, in her youth, relaxing with her brother Orestes
And looking up this sentimental picture reminds me of her brother, Orestes. Both of them came from the Humane Society of Dekalb County, GA, but Orestes died young. Alas. Here he is.
Orestes Bremner, you are not forgotten
I really loved that cat. He was up there with Sappho, also an all black cat, who was my main squeeze when I met Mrs. Bremner. I never had her fixed, and I think that was her undoing, as the neighborhood males were all over her and probably gave her some disease. But I never had the heart to take that pleasure away from her.
Looks like they spelled Orestes name wrong. And my address and phone number are now published on the internet. LOL!
And I just revealed our family habit of naming boys after me and girls with two last names. LOL!
When my grandfather was alive my cousins and I always got our cats from the “barn cats” in Lynden WA. Grandpa would pull a board off the side of the barn to find the nest where the kittens had been born in the hay. Since living on the East Coast all of our cats have been named with the names of Greek gods and other figures with Italian spellings. Most of them were descended from an original Siamese tabby cat mixed cat. When Mrs. Bremner first moved to the US the current cat was so upset she jumped out of a third floor window!
I guess it is not good bye to Arianna, but good bye to Orestes. So long, old pal.
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By Gianna, February 23, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
very sweet (the kitty part of the post)…and I think it’s awful that Huffington Post doesn’t pay it’s bloggers…good for you for saying ciao.
By Alex (WWU), February 23, 2009 @ 11:56 pm
I’ve had a few Lynden barn cats as well… I’ll admit our first ones lacked names with as much charm as Arianna and Orestes (Blackey and Whitey, named for their individual black and white monotones, respectively). Good ‘ole barn cats.
By Doug Bremner, February 24, 2009 @ 12:09 am
The Lynden barn cats NEVER had Italian names, those were the ones from the later years. I can’t even remember their names, but we were saving them from the fate of getting thrown into the Nooksack River in a burlap bag (farmer’s birth control, shudder)
By Doug Bremner, February 24, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
Nice interview! Gianna has an interview about coming off of psych meds on the radio that was just posted here,
http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-beyond-meds-gianna-kali
By Gina Pera, February 24, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
Love your catty stream of consciousness.
Huffpost has been very clever in developing its niche as packager. But without newspapers, they would have no product and no profits.
Newspapers need to start charging for their stories instead of letting Google, Yahoo, and all the rest ride on their work and investment.
By Doug Bremner, February 24, 2009 @ 2:54 pm
Yes, well maybe we need to do a study about the relationship between cats and writers.
By Therapy Patient, February 24, 2009 @ 8:53 pm
Cute kitties. My black-and-white kitty named Joey just died February 12th. Lymphoma. Chemo was unsuccessful. Arianna looks like my college kitty and favorite cat of all time who lived to 21, Sasha.
By Doug Bremner, February 24, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
Yes, Orestes had some kind of feline leukemia or something like that. He had the most spirit and Arianna was more shy and reserved. Sorry to see him go. But we remember and honor him.
By Steve Bremner, February 25, 2009 @ 1:32 am
I don’t have domesticated pets at the moment. Just a bunny freeloader that I leave scraps out for.
By Steven, February 25, 2009 @ 8:40 am
I love Arianna, and HuffPost is a great source for some progressive news, but I’ve observed it does have its own peculiar brand of sensationalism (tabloid-ishness).
With your move to a fully functional blog, I think you’re right that HP is a bit superfluous; you attract much more cogent discussion here as opposed to the often merely argumentative commentary over there.
By susan, March 9, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
I love my cat. She is my best friend and my sole companion at my darkest times.
I owe you a catnip mousie Dr, Bremmer. A whole one.