OT: Cranberry was right ...

[Jack]

When I was about 10 years an old a lady who was mentally ill used to live across from me in a little green trailer with a bunch of cats and her husband. When her husband died, she just got more and more cats until she couldn't feed them anymore. She would walk up and down the roadside and find cats and bring them home and eventually her place was condemned because of all the cats. After she had left and everything was cleaned up, but before they tore it down, I went in and looked around (the door fell off, sadly enough) and the entire place smelled of cat, and there was a coating of cat hair on everything. I felt like she had a special club that only she and her cats knew about or something, and I wanted to be a part of it.

I still see her wondering up and down the road sometimes, but I think she lives with her younger sister now. As to what happened to all the cats, I don't know. They probably went to the shelter. :/

[Nanohedron]

If it weren't for the mental illness, I'd consider her culpable for animal cruelty.

[Jack]

I could tell so many stories of things she has done that defy normalness, but don't think that would be right on a message board. All the kids used to see her walking up side the road on the way home from school and scream at her and make fun of her but I always took up for her.

[Nanohedron]

If it weren't for the mental illness

Hers, not mine.

My mental illnesses don't affect my capacity for making sweeping judgments.

[TelegramSam]

You know, I can cede some of your points on cats. They're your cats, afterall, but the second you hit your child is the second you become a criminal and you should go to jail, I won't apologize for that. And any cat is more important and less knowledgable than a grown adult person as far as knowing how to stay alive. You're not putting the same value on the cat's life that you're putting on your mothers', and I find that shameful, although I should expect that, I'm just way too naieve and green towards the world.

You ought to really sit and think about what you're saying before you say it, perhaps you'd realize how silly you occasionally sound. Do you really know why you believe what you do? Or is it one of those cases where you just wanted to make yourself feel special so you decided to play the role of the self-righteous indignant? You remind me of the boy I knew in high school who read (and poorly understood) the writings of Nietzche and decided that there was no such thing as right and wrong, but seemed to get upset when I suggested that perhaps I should follow his moral example and steal his guitar. I know you're not stupid, cranberry, but you've got some growing up to do. As for now, my advice is: Question the validity of everything you believe. If it stands up to logic and you still believe it afterwards, great, good for you: you'll believe it even more adamantly. But you may change your mind about many things as well.

You're right about one thing: I do value my own mother more than I value my cat. Is that wrong? Then so be it. I believe it is my right to care about a closely related member of my own species more than an unrelated member of another species. I do believe the animals would agree.

As for the cat: cats are more capable of surviving outdoors than humans are. They, like most animals, can thrive in environments where humans would die without our technology to change it to fit us.

And as to the 900 cats in a trailer: I was watching one of those animal rescue shows on Animal Planet the other night and they went after one of the "cat collectors" as they called them. A man had over 100 cats in one house and it was beyond animal cruelty. The animals were living covered in their own filth and they were all in terrible health. They all had to be put down becuase they were in such bad shape. You can't keep that many cats in a small space and expect to care for them properly. Maybe you should stick with 2 or 3...

[Jack]

You ought to really sit and think about what you're saying before you say it, perhaps you'd realize how silly you occasionally sound. Do you really know why you believe what you do?

You think I don't think about things before I say them? I do. You're making assumtions that you shouldn't. I only sound silly when I want to, and I'm not sounding silly when I say your mother knows more than your cat. I don't think anybody knows why they believe the things they do, you just believe them. Belief isn't something you can just change, it just changes on its own.

Or is it one of those cases where you just wanted to make yourself feel special so you decided to play the role of the self-righteous indignant? You remind me of the boy I knew in high school who read (and poorly understood) the writings of Nietzche and decided that there was no such thing as right and wrong, but seemed to get upset when I suggested that perhaps I should follow his moral example and steal his guitar. I know you're not stupid, cranberry, but you've got some growing up to do.

I find it odd that you think I don't know that I have growing up to do. Everybody has growing up to do, if you didn't, I think that means you're dead. I think that what living really means is constantly growing and changing and learning new things about yourself and other people and constantly changing your mind about things as you learn or discover more, that's all I do. My opinions and beliefs tend to flip flop over and over again, and I think that's a good thing. I don't ever say 'This is how I will feel in five years.', because I don't knwo that. I only say 'This is how I feel now.' I don't regret that.

As for now, my advice is: Question the validity of everything you believe. If it stands up to logic and you still believe it afterwards, great, good for you: you'll believe it even more adamantly. But you may change your mind about many things as well.

I do. Again, don't assume I don't. I know I am vastly outnumbered here as far as my beliefs go, and no matter how hard I try to make my points clear (something I can't seem to do very well obviously) they will be drowned out by everybody else's.

You're right about one thing: I do value my own mother more than I value my cat. Is that wrong? Then so be it. I believe it is my right to care about a closely related member of my own species more than an unrelated member of another species. I do believe the animals would agree.

That's where you're wrong. The relationship you have with your mother is different from the one with your cat. The animals are under your care, and it's up to YOU to take care of them and insure that they don't die from being outside. They haven't died yet, but they could very well be killed tomorrow. If your mother was killed, at least she was in charge of herself, the cats need YOU to protect them, and if that takes speaking up to your mom and telling her that she can't treat your cats that way, then so be it. You need to do it, and the sooner the better, IMHO.

As for the cat: cats are more capable of surviving outdoors than humans are. They, like most animals, can thrive in environments where humans would die without our technology to change it to fit us.

Physically, mabey. But not mentally. Ask a cat if it knows what a car is, or if it knows now to play with a rattlesnake, and let me know what it says.

And as to the 900 cats in a trailer: I was watching one of those animal rescue shows on Animal Planet the other night and they went after one of the "cat collectors" as they called them. A man had over 100 cats in one house and it was beyond animal cruelty. The animals were living covered in their own filth and they were all in terrible health. They all had to be put down becuase they were in such bad shape. You can't keep that many cats in a small space and expect to care for them properly. Maybe you should stick with 2 or 3...

That was sort of a joke.... I would never have 900 cats. :roll:

[cowtime]

Actually, the term "domestic cat" can be used loosely. They are one of the least truly domesticated of the creatures we choose to keep as "pets".


As such, they are more capable of survival on their own than most other domestic pets. And, I do NOT suggest that they live on their own.

Strange thread here- first mice then cats? No thanks to either in my house. Strictly a dog person here. And MOM bashing? I won't even go there......

We do have a barn cat who is quiet happy with her dry food and self- supplied snacks of whatever she catches.

[Jack]

Strange thread here- first mice then cats? No thanks to either in my house. Strictly a dog person here. And MOM bashing? I won't even go there......

If Mom doesn't 'bash' the cat by making it stay outside, you don't have to speak up to Mom (the word bash is too strong, I think..bashing is like bashing in somebody's teeth. Hopefully you're not trying to kill anybody).

I don't like the fact that everybody seems to think I hate mothers now. lol. It doesn't matter if the person was your mom, your brother, your uncle Marcia or a stranger, the principle is the same.

[Jerry Freeman]

Ralph is decidedly upset about the direction this thread has taken.

[Jack]

/me hands Ralph a sunflower seed and says, 'There, there'

[Nanohedron]

(the word bash is too strong, I think..bashing is like bashing in somebody's teeth. Hopefully you're not trying to kill anybody).

Tut, tut, Cranboring! Given your hints about your lifestyle, I hardly think you are unaware of the generally accepted colloquial meaning of the term "bashing". Please don't try to pull the collective wool over our virtual eyes with protests of your worldly inexperience, whatever your neighborhood. I think I know you better than that.

[Jack]

vegan bashing?

[Jack]

Oooh. Gay bashing. Homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism are not lifestyles. A lifestyle is something you choose (like veganism, or smoking, or running five miles a day). Not something you're born with. That's like saying having blue eyes is a lifestyle.

[fatveg]

Given your hints about your lifestyle, I hardly think you are unaware of the generally accepted colloquial meaning of the term "bashing".

I wrote a long response to this, but I've deleted it because I really don't want to get this thread even more OT. Suffice to say the 'colloquial' meaning you refer to is not one that I or many of my friends take lightly, it has a very sinister and violent history, one that is still being lived and feared by many people today.

[Martin Milner]

Oooh. Gay bashing. Homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism are not lifestyles. A lifestyle is something you choose (like veganism, or smoking, or running five miles a day). Not something you're born with. That's like saying having blue eyes is a lifestyle.

Transgender folk have self-identified as:

Drag Queen:
Female-emulating male, usually campy, often (not always) gay.
Butch:
Masculine-appearing person.
Femme:
Feminine-appearing person.
Drag King:
Male-emulating woman.
Intersex:
Person born with mixed sexual physiology. Often [surgically re-]'assigned' at birth, such practice is coming under well-founded attack as a hurtful violation of a person's well-being.
Transvestite:
Person who enjoys wearing clothes identified with the opposite gender, often but not always straight.
Crossdresser:
Polite term for transvestite.
Transgenderist:
Person who lives as gender opposite to anatomical sex, i.e. man living as woman but retaining penis (& sexual functioning). Sexual orientation varies.
Androgyne:
Person appearing and identifying as neither man nor woman, presenting a gender either mixed or neutral.
Transsexual:
Person whose sexual identity is opposite to their assignment at birth. Not all TS folk undergo 'sex reassignment surgery' (SRS), for various reasons, including personal preference. Sexual orientation varies.
Transgender Community:
A loose association of people who transgress gender norms in a wide variety of ways. Celebrating a recently born self-awareness, this community is growing fast across all lines, including social, economic, political, and philosophical divisions. The central ethic of this community is unconditional acceptance of individual exercise of freedoms including gender and sexual, identity and orientation.

I would consider that a major lifestyle choice.