I am writing in response to the September 1 article, “Christian music festival offers ‘positive alternative’.” I have always had an innate aptitude for grammar, punctuation, and basic English skills, which made Crawford County a particularly frustrating place for me to spend my adolescence. From peer-reviewing papers in my college prep English class at Linesville High School to driving by local businesses’ often-misspelled signs, I have always noticed that a high level of grammatical incompetence seems to characterize our community. As professional journalists, I trust that you, too, have noticed this.

I also trust that, as journalists, you recognize the importance of your having a firm grasp on the art of prose. However, I have continually been disturbed by the poor quality of the writing that fills the pages of the Meadville Tribune. While I understand that the occasional error slips into print, the amount and consistency of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors that I have long noticed in this paper are upsetting. Your primary goals as a media outlet are, I am sure, to inform and entertain, whether your subject matter be a grand champion hog or an epic natural disaster. These goals are harder to attain when the very ideas behind your stories are shrouded by poor composition. How can we be expected to expand our knowledge as a community if our local paper – the only thing that many of our neighbors read on a regular basis – fails to distinguish for us the difference between, for instance, a contraction and a possessive pronoun? A newspaper should represent the community for and about whom it is written; frankly, I am embarrassed to admit that I am from the Meadville area lest any new acquaintances ever encounter your publication. The ability to communicate ideas effectively is an instrumental part of every successful industry, relationship, and organization, and if the most widely distributed and read print publication in Crawford County cannot demonstrate effective communication, the community it represents is once again disenfranchised and left without the resources it deserves.

The article I have referenced is one of many erroneous pieces I have seen published in the Meadville Tribune, though this particular example commanded my attention because of the unfortunate placement of a major grammatical mistake in its lead statement. If the distinction between it’s and its is unclear to you, I would be happy to explain why these words are not interchangeable. Likewise, please do not hesitate to ask if you are unfamiliar with proper semicolon usage.

I hope that you will take this letter into consideration before you send your next pieces to print.

Sincerely,

Kelsey Agnew

So I looked it up. AND IT’S ALL TRUE!

There really is a parasite called Taxoplasma gondii that is super smart and evil. The Lord Voldemort of parasites, if you will. Its life cycle has two parts: the sexual part and the asexual part. The asexual part can occur in any cozy little warm-blooded mammal, but the sexual part can only occur in members of the Felidae family – cats. So yes, as Celeste said, it makes sense that the ultimate goal of the parasite is to always be in a cat. But how does it manage that?

When this vile little protozoa finds itself in the belly of a mouse, rat, or bird – which is usually where it’s born or implanted as a baby – it’s pissed. So it crawls up into the brain of that poor, unsuspecting creature and takes the wheel, convincing its vehicle that it loves the smell of cat pee. It does not want to sleep in its own bed anymore. It wants to sleep in a puddle of cat pee. It wants to roll in it, bask in it, be refreshed by it. The smell of cat pee suddenly gives the carrier an orgasmic sensation, so it heads for the nearest puddle of fresh piss… and gets eaten by the cat who made it.

The cat gobbles up that rodent like my cousins gobble up the Thanksgiving turkey, and the parasites find themselves in the belly of a cat. SCORE! They can now enter the sexual phase of their life and make babies to their little nuclei’s content. Then these new parasites get pooped out (as is nature’s way) and gobbled up by more rodents and the great circle of life begins again.

But sometimes the parasites get ambitious and decide they want a mansion instead of an igloo so they make their way into human bellies. Of course it’s gross in there, with all that swallowed bubble gum floating around, so they head for the highlands in between our ears. When Celeste told me this, I immediately thought of Animorphs, but apparently they still haven’t proven that those are real; instead, something worse turns into the people who play host to Taxoplasma gondii –

they turn into crazy cat ladies.

Women infected with the disease become more warmhearted and caring, according to a study – and they also develop schizophrenic tendencies. Men, on the other hand, just turn into assholes (Researcher Jaroslav Flegr said his male subjects became more suspicious, jealous, dogmatic, and expedient).

And scientists estimate that about half of the world’s population has been infected with Taxoplasma gondii, actually impacting human cultures. Why do you think the men at Brewdog thought it was a good idea to sell a 55% ABV beer inside of a dead squirrel? Because cats eat squirrels, which means that it’s never a bad thing to set up camp inside of them for a little while.

This is important stuff to know, people. As one blogger wrote, “If you know someone who suddenly starts acting crazy, you should ask him or her if they have a cat.”

So please, if I start acting up, stay away from my brain. For your own sake.

PENNSYLVANIANS ARE BETTER SPELLERS

I’m sure that someone has made the argument that there is no wrong side of the tracks, just different sides.  In rural PA there’s nothing but fields and trees on either side so that statement holds true; however, one might perhaps be unwise to take up residence right smack dab in the middle of the tracks.  Just a thought.

You know, I usually don’t like sunset photography.  I mean, I’ve seen some pretty impressive images, but they all sort of look the same.  Anyone who holds a camera at sunset automatically starts to think much more of their photography skills than they really should, and that’s sort of annoying to anyone who actually knows anything about the practice.  Big deal, your digital point-and-shoot can automatically detect light and shadows and has the rule of thirds superimposed onto the screen so you’d have to try to fuck the picture up.  But anyway, I think this is one of the better sunset pictures I’ve taken.  I closed the aperture way down and you can actually make out the different layers of the sun, which is sort of neat.  The image was captured at Pymatuning Lake in Linesville, just across from the Spillway that is so near and dear to my heart.