I hope you will excuse me for this personal note: As the venerable Simpsons Archive lags the current episodes by a few seasons, I will bring you eye-witness accounts of this startling travesty via alt.tv.simpsons:

The Simpsons writers have stolen our cat's likeness.

A white cat pointedly not named "Snowball" (in the midst of Lisa's other Snowballs I-V), but rather named after a jazz musician of note? Sounds suspicious, dig? To paraphrase Marge, "What kind of person names their cat Coltrane?" I'll tell you, Marge: A theiving hack of a writer, that's who! We can only thank God that Lisa doesn't play the trumpet.