I love Bernard Waber’s old picture book
about a street cat named Scat who spends
her days looking for food and her nights

seeking shelter. Other more fortunate cats
have nothing more on their minds
than going to sleep on downy pillows.

Since 1979, income inequality in Kentucky
has grown significantly: Income for the wealthiest
1 percent rose by 60 percent and dropped

3 percent for everyone else, 
thanks to low education attainment rates.
In the book, a little girl and her mother

take Scat to their house, give her dinner and a bed
with a pillow, and they name her Gwendolyn.
Not all street cats are so lucky.