Thing One: I seem to have plenty of readers. Perhaps that's because it runs on Sundays. And perhaps, as you point out, because the section it runs in is a popular one. I'd lprefer to see it in the weekly health supplement but I'm sure I wouldn't get as many readers. A fine point, Thing Obe.

Kind of funny, in a place like Miami, that the three remaining newspaper subscribers don't tell the editors that Tropical Life is neatly balanced by Tropical Death without all this sci/tech mumbojumbo. Not much science, even under "health" there. I suspect this means one subscriber is buying it for the comics, one is buying it out of perverse love for inky box scores, and the other one has quietly died without anyone noticing. So goes the newspaper business.

Are you on Saturday? What day is the human health ("cavalcade of obesity!") stuff running?

They've got plenty of health columnists, so maybe you stand out better running on lawn-and-garden day.

If you had your druthers, what context would you like to see it run in? (Where I live, you'd be somewhere between Matt Fox & Sherri Hiller and the Car Talk guys. A weird spot, but both columns have plenty of readers.)

Actually, pets made the cover story of the new BusinessWeek that just came yesterday! ("The Pet Economy", August 6, 2007.)

This is something I think about a lot, too. As a cat advice column author and hopeful syndicated columnist, I wonder where my column would "fit" in the newspapers. I've been writing Paws and Effect columns every week for more than 4 years now, and although I've gotten some very encouraging feedback from syndication outfits, the fact is that "there's no room at the inn" for pet writers because so little space is alloted to them in printed publications.

I wish there were one section of the newspaper (at least the major dailies or weekend editions of said dailies) that was devoted entirely to animals. Considering how many American homes contain animals, and how many people love animals even if they can't live with them due to housing restrictions and whatnot, it seems to me there should be a popular call for the material we write--beyond the "lite and fluffy" Home & Garden section. But, having worked in the newspaper business--I have to have a "day job" to support my writing addiction--I understand the relationship of ad space to copy space and the unfortunately pressing need newspaper publishers feel to make a profit, whatever the cost.

I guess we just keep writing our columns and let them end up where they may. It's all print credits on your resume, whether it's in Home & Garden or the special pet care advertising supplement in the local weekly (where two pieces I wrote ended up last fall), or on the world wide web.

I'm nursing a secret hope that the recent trendiness of LOLcats will bring the spotlight to other cat- (or animal-) related content generated on the Internet.