RE: A Social Media Cat Story That is an Allegory Outlining a Greater Problem
I have to say there are things I love and hate about this article. My family cat was exclusively an outdoor cat unless the temperature dipped well below freezing and lived happily for 18 years. And I totally agree that keeping an animal locked indoors is pretty selfish. Imagine never being able to leave an apartment for your entire life (and having to poop in a sandbox no less)
However I don't believe that using natural remedies is a bad thing and generaly feel that avoiding the medical industry as much as possible is a smart move since they only make money when people/pets are sick. Thats not very good incentive to keep people/pets healthy. Not that I havent known some good doctors/vets and I'm sure veterinary science is less geared toward keeping a population sick and enslaved than is the pharmaceutical industry in general.
I also don't see why you would be against someone standing up against racism. Personally I don't really use most social media (except STEEMIT!) because many people, and bots I suppose, tend to act like children a lot of the time. And perhaps they are actually children. But if someone is throwing bigotry around then why not do something about it? Relying on an outside source like a government or corporation to tell people that their behavior is unacceptable is like acknowledging that you have given all of you power, all of your freedom, to an outside agency that seeks to rule you. Its like being that cat trapped in a two bedroom apartment shitting a box for it's entire life "for it's own good"
Somehow that got a little ranty. I guess I should go eat breakfast...
Sorry, that quip about the homeopathic enema was meant in the sense of 'someone in the discussion group told me to do it', and not as a criticism of natural remedies as a whole. I was shooting for those people who get medical advice from other people who are as equally clueless, instead of taking the pet to someone who can diagnose and prescribe correct treatment for the correct condition. I saw a comment about a cat who was urinating all over the place suddenly, and the owner simply assumed that it was because the animal was stressed out because of a new kitten that had been recently introduced to the household. However, the urinating occurred weeks after the kitten came. There must have been fifty 'advice' comments, and only three said 'take the cat to the vet for a urine test, in case it is a urinary infection'. It appeared quite obvious that the owner was more inclined to spray Feliway around and try to 'help' the cat adjust to the new kitten, rather than test him for a UTI. I kind of noticed that there was even a tad of hostility towards those people who suggested the sound option of having the cat checked for a physical problem before assuming a behavioral one - simply because they didn't go with the mob-opinion. Same thing about rehoming another cat who was obviously terrified of the family dogs.
I am not against standing up when racism occurs. I am against running to the person's employer instead of using other simple and effective measures. Instead of applauding people who act like children, I feel that it should be pointed out that that is how they are acting, and that it isn't appropriate behavior for an adult of 30 or more years! The problem is on both sides in the case I mentioned, but two wrongs don't make a right. What happened there is exactly how things end up spiraling out of control, and causing the hate to spread. One guy did point out to the person in question that his actions in going to the employer only served to validate and more deeply entrench the other person's opinions about race, etc... . I've lived with a bizarre sort of racism all my life (you have to be here to know it), and I would never go and complain to a person's boss about it, not even in my own workplace. I'd try to change the person's opinion of me, and in doing so, make them see that 'we' are not so bad (even though a fair number of us are!).
Yeah I suppose trying to open up lines of mature conversation is the best aproach in the beginning, it's easy to let things escalate pretty quickly when the interactions are as impersonal as a tweet and miscommunications definitely happen more easily. Also, I suppose I have relatively little experience dealing specifically with racism being directed against me personally, so I have not explored how I would deal with it much.
I see your point about the catosphere. I guess I haven't owned one recently enough to have engaged in any online community of feline enthusiasts, and we were lucky to have had a very healthy cat in my youth.
I admit I'm pretty divided on the whole concept of "pets". I just spent a while in India where there were many free dogs, though I didn't see as many cats around I'm sure they were there... It seemed that they (the ones that survived anyway) were much healthier, smarter and even more well behaved in many ways than most pet dogs in the US despite living off of handouts and trash. They seem to have a really interesting relationship with other life forms there. More of a live and let live (or die) approach.