Sunday Reads: Is it Sunday?
Posted: April 11, 2021 Filed under: just because 17 Comments
The days seem to fly by…can you believe we are a quarter way through 2021 already? Here it is, April 11th.
From Cagle Cartoons:
That’s a lot of cartoons… but some are spot on…
So.. I’ve been doing a binge lately…of all these crime shows on Netflix and Amazon and HBO. Watching episodes about serial killers like Ted Bundy and documentaries on the Mafia and Staircases and Nazi war criminals and stolen art. And I don’t have any problems with crime scene photos…they are disturbing, but not to the point of keeping me from watching the program.
But then I start to watch this one show and there is this thing about a guy abusing cats/kittens. They don’t show this video, they have someone talking about it..and I can’t even watch a few minutes of that series. I have to turn that kitten killer off!
Now, what the hell is wrong with me? I’m desensitized to violence against humanity…bloody pictures of people at the bottom of stairs or shot in a pizza joint…no problem…but talk about horrors against kittens, and I can’t take it.
This has to be a psychological issue…don’t you think?
Now for some tweets:
Ok, this does get me. That is so sad.
Now this…this just pisses me off.
I’m writing this post before reading what BB wrote yesterday…so this may be a repeat:
I love her.
This is an open thread…
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Stay safe today…
A few things:
H/t Dak:
I was in a Walmart today for the first time since I cannot remember! I’ve not been in a big grocery store even for a year. It was a surreal experience. It’s in Chalmette which is an amazingly diverse community. Every one was great and wore a mask until in walked these three white guys. Two with this poor old dog on a threadbare lesh demaning their ‘service’ animal be let in. They look like Darryl and Darrly from the old Bob Newman show. The other had this razor do that was oddly NAZI looking with no mask. I’m like oh, here we go now! and I wasn’t disspointed.
JJ – excellent post.
I’m exactly where you are on animal abuse. I can’t watch the TV commercials appealing for donations to the ASPCA, etc. That didn’t stop me from donating, of course, but now that I’m on SS and still caring for half a dozen cats I’ve had to curtail for the moment.
I’d be curious to know why that disparity in my horror reflex exists as well. I don’t think it’s abnormal. I hope.
To add – I’m going to guess I’m a bit of a misanthrope?
I can’t watch any of it (yes, my media consumption is down in the low 0.001%), but I have a similar reaction.
I explain it to myself as kittens being sufficiently different from us that you can allow yourself to feel some of the horror of the situation. If you had the same level of fellow-feeling when pics of humans are involved, you’d get PTSD. I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s a self-protection reflex.
(Plus, if that’s right, what does it say that an awful lot of the victims in these shows are women? Not quite human, so “we” (whoever “we” is) can stand to and/or enjoy watching them?)
I’ll bet there’s research on this. BB?
Oh, I don’t know q…maybe with me it is because I really enjoy mafia/gangster movies. So watching actual footage of mafia hits become cinematic to me?
I can’t watch any either, nor do I want to read about it. Maybe it’s because there’s plenty of outrage if human adults and children are abused, where there’s less so for animals. In a way they seem so much more helpless or innocent (not that the human babies aren’t) in a way I haven’t yet figured out how to describe.
Yes, I can’t watch the SPCA commercials either…when I had child abuse cases and guardian ad litem cases, while working as a paralegal, it was difficult. Many divorce cases dealt with horrible situations and we managed to get through them using humor…
A dark sense of humor. Watching these shows disturbs me, but I watch with interest. But just knowing kittens are being sucked in a vacuum package bag…I couldn’t stand to continue that program about that particular serial killer.
The Amazon – union – Bessemer situation is awful. One comment really hit home: a woman coming out of the vote saying to the interviewer that she’d voted against because she doesn’t really know anything about unions and has never had to deal with them.
I mean just /*endless screaming*/ /*endless boggling*/
The level of sense in the land keeps getting further and further away from where we need to be.
Unions — the folks who brought you the weekend.
I suspect Amazon did a lot of barely legal tactics of employee inconveniencing and intimidation leading up to that vote, and during the vote. Reminds me of one organization I worked where we had to fill out the employee survey with a “proctor” in the room while we, in small groups sitting at the same table, filled out the surveys.
Then there are those workers who are happy to get the benefits of a union but won’t join because they’d have to pay union dues.
I hope Takei isn’t talking about bills to keep girls’ and women’s sports for girls and women, or to keep kids protected from experimental medical treatment and surgery. Equality shouldn’t mean that boys or men can displace girls and women from their teams. Testosterone suppression doesn’t change a boy or man’s pre-existing strength. Not to mention the longer legs, longer reach, heavier bulk. Men taking estrogen dosed at women’s levels still commit crimes at the same rate as do men not taking supplemental estrogen. Equality shouldn’t be used as an excuse to put males in girls’ and women’s rape/domestic abuse shelters. 90% of transwomen have fully intact male genitalia. A raped woman doesn’t want a be-penised person in the next bed.
Vancouver Rape Relief had their funding from the City of Vancouver stopped because they kept their shelter for women, and didn’t allow trans-identified males in. All the rest of the “women’s” shelters did, but the only place you could go and not encounter a male when you were shaky and scared from being raped or beaten was VRR. Now they may not be able to continue. Trans activists/gender ideologues celebrated Vancouver Rape Relief losing their funding. That’s not equality.
It’s not discrimination or transphobia for women to defend their rights. Equal human rights — sounds so simple — we need to think about those situations where sex matters. In many situations of employment, housing, etc., it doesn’t matter. But there are situations where there’s need for same-sex spaces and services, and this must be respected and protected.
That’s the thing about civil rights. They’re for everyone equally. Trans people, certainly. Also women. It’s a depressing shame there is so little regard for women as actual human beings that their rights evaporate as soon as somebody wants validation. I sometimes wonder how they square it, if validation is so important, it’s not equally important to validate women.
National Pet Day! Let’s celebrate!
Figures.
Same story. Every. Damn. Time.