Nine lives a necessity in some places

There’s a new cat at our house that has been dropping by for breakfast and a nap.

He hasn’t decided to make our house his permanent abode, but he likes the vittles and he likes the picnic table chair with the cushions on it when he decides he has had enough stress for the day and needs some shuteye.

He has been coming around for about three months, and has yet to get close enough to me to be able to pet him.

That makes me think he may decide to stay, but you never know.

Two other cats have put in appearances, but apparently have decided the eats aren’t up to their expectations. Haven’t seen them in weeks.

• • •

The Wall Street Journal printed a scary piece over the weekend about all the murders and lynchings that go on south of our border with Mexico. Mexico itself is almost the murder capital of planet Earth, a close second behind Brazil, where the most popular participation sport would appear to be lynching.

These lynchings occur to exact revenge from thieves and thugs whom the police don’t bother to catch. If someone steals your smart phone in Rio de Janeiro, for example others who might be standing around at the time will cheer you on if you catch the perp and start cutting him up with your pocket knife.

Such murders are especially dominant in Peru, which apparently has a poor law-enforcement establishment.

Venezuela, that commie hell hole, is another murder den with very few actual police officers.

Dominica has a higher murder rate than even Mexico or Brazil, and another Caribbean country that’s just as bad is Saint Lucia, but don’t forget the Dominican Republic, which is the worst country in that region. Back in Brazil, the murder rate keeps going up, thanks mainly to the drugs and alcoholism that plague that place.

There’s also the country of Rwanda, where one can barely dare to step off an airplane if one does not want to get hacked or shot to death.