Violet
Rantings: Reports from R&D. Or, quite likely, about R&D.
Pets are not disposable. Farms are not places to drop off your pets.
Jun 08, 2005
I recently visited my family in Kansas. They own a farm, and have always had a dog and a few cats running around. People just drive out there and drop off the cats. These cats then live their lives hunting for rats, eating occasional leftovers, and generally living one step above feral. One cat looked like she was about six months old, was pregnant, and had a large section of her muzzle missing. My aunt thought that she might have fought with a rat. The cats were not taken indoors, and were fed table scraps. They were left to fend for themselves, in and around the barns and silo.
First rant: people who farm are often on the verge. They generally aren’t wealthy, unless they’re part of some larger corporate entity. They do not have enough money to feed every stray that comes across their path. They also do not automatically take every stray into their homes. They raise animals for food, or for their milk (in my aunt’s case). They do not have the automatic “ooooohh how cute” reaction to cats and dogs; rather, it’s “not another mouth to feed”. If you live near farming areas and think that you can drop pets off at one of the farms and “it’s not as if you’d dropped it by the highway”, or “at least it’s still living”...change that thinking. Cats on farms live about three years. It’s not a horrid life, but they’re definitely fending for themselves. If farmers took in every single stray that was dropped off on their property — fed them, got them medical care — they’d go under pretty quickly. Dealing with one cat, or three or four? Not a problem. Dealing with three or four additional cats a year? Problem.
Second rant: pets are not disposable. If you adopt a cat or a dog, make sure that it’s spayed or neutered unless you’re breeding the animal professionally. Do not think that you can easily find homes for several cute kittens or puppies because everyone loves baby animals. And do not — DO NOT — adopt a cat or a dog if you’re not going to take responsibility for its health and happiness for at least twenty years. Some indoor pets live shorter lives, but generally, domesticated dogs and cats live for twenty years. If you’re not absolutely willing to commit to taking care of this animal for that long, don’t bring it home. If you adopt a cat or dog and something happens where you cannot keep the animal, work as hard as you can to find it a good home. Don’t slough the responsibility off onto an animal shelter — many of them are overwhelmed, and your animal (the one that you took the responsibility for when you brought it home) may only have seven more days before it’s killed.
Okay now, let’s sum up:
- Pets are not disposable
- Farms are not an automatic safe place to leave your pet if you can’t care for them any longer.
Got it?
Good.
Don’t make me get my stick.
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When your children are sick, don't share the joy.
Apr 05, 2004
Working at an event this weekend, I was manning the table when a mom came up to see what was being offered, two drippy coughy snotting kids in tow. One child, in the stroller, looks a bit red. Neither child looks especially happy.
“Are your children not feeling well?” I inquire.
“Oh, they’re both sick,” says the mindless matron. “They’ve both been sick the last six weeks.”
And you brought them here to share the joy and bliss and germs with us, la. O how fucking wonderful.
Here’s a tip:
When your kids are sick, keep them at home. Let them sleep. Feed them well. Don’t bring them out until they are well again. Or at least noncontagious (ie, not dripping and snotting all over the place)
I don’t love kids; but I really dislike ignorant, thoughtless parents.
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Everyone has one, ya know.
Mar 29, 2004
There’s so much talk about how this is happening, that is happening, this country is doing this, that government is doing that other thing to those people, yadata yadata ya. It’s ubiquitous in blog circles. This past weekend I got an email asking me why I didn’t talk more about the rotten sociopolitical situation in the Mediterranean, or the marginalizing of homosexuals who want to get married in the United States, or the presidential race, or the latest salvos in the separation-of-church-and-state disputes that are going on all over the place.
People. I have a section of my site where I discuss my personal opinions and convictions. It’s here. I don’t dissect or discuss the daily news. And you want to know why? I’d become a complete utter fucking miserable wreck in about 15 minutes. I’d start turning bitter and pissy. I’d start attacking others who didn’t hold the same viewpoint as myself. And, largely, because I can’t do a damn thing about any of it. I can’t do anything to directly affect the various and sundry problems going on in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or even in San Francisco California (which is just a few hours’; north of me.)
All that I can do is live my life as the type of person that I admire. Vote with my dollars and buy from companies whose overall conduct aligns with mine. Don’t waste copiously, stay involved in my communities, be a good human being to those with whom I come into direct contact.
Do not ask me to keep bleeding for people and situations that I can’t effect. And definitely don’t ask me to keep butting my head against the anger, hatred, and fear that runs rampant through everyone else. I can effect my friends, my associates, random people with whom I interact. I can’t change the opinions of the radical government in a country half a world away. Never mind the distance scenario. They don’t know who I am, they don’t care who I am, they just want to maintain their status quo. They won’t listen to my opinion any more than I would listen to their opinion about what I choose to wear on any given day.
You heard me. All those of you who think I’m chickenshit wimptastic socially lazy do-nothing bitchcunt who should be taken out and shot for not trying to convince everyone of the rightness of my opinion, you may leave now and find a site whose content is more to your liking. Please don’t come back, as the content of this site hasn’t been overtly sociopolitical in the several years’ of its existence and it’s not all that likely to change.
Or — hey. Here’s a thought. Go start your own site.
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And bring the reading glasses, as well.
Mar 02, 2004
The past two days, news stories have been popping up about how antibacterial soaps don’t protect consumers against diseases. People who use antibacterial soaps are still getting the sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever sickies in the same numbers as those who use regular soaps. There’s a wee catch, however. See if you can spot it in this next paragraph:
The study, published in Tuesday’s edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that the [antibacterial soap] products did not reduce the risk for symptoms of the viral infections that are among the most common causes of colds, coughs and stomach aches.
Look again.
...antibacterial soap…viral infections…
People. The products are not designed to block viral infections. Viruses can’t be blocked, alleviated, or cured using the same kinds of tools as bacterium. They’re different animals (literally). Different approaches have to be used, even if the ways that the germs are transmitted is very similar (viral and bacterial colds and flu can both be spread by touch and by inhalation.)
I can’t figure out what’s worse: that these studies were run at all; that the results of these studies were published as if it’s some surprising piece of information; or that more of these studies will likely be run, rerun, and published to the general public. Then, the articles are published with titles like “Anti-bacterial soaps lack punch” instead of the more accurate “Anti-bacterial soaps don’t fight viruses”.
Next: Ice Is, Indeed, Cold Hard Water and Cannot Be Effectively Used to Produce Heat. Brought to you by the Institute of The Strangely Obvious, published by Professor Duh G. Rilly.
(Here’s a very good page on how antibacterial soaps work. Basically, hot water and soap will get rid of most bacterium; and if you’re not leaving the soap on your skin for 2 minutes or longer you’re not getting the antibacterial benefits…which can be a double-edged sword, as we do need a certain amount of bacteria on our skin and in our systems.)
I just like the screaming orange colour, myself.
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Because what's DIY remodeling without the termite poo?
Feb 17, 2004
I’ve been steadily working on the house. I’m not touching the kitchen cabinetry, because that requires major effort: things have to be stripped down to the bare wood (which was never sealed, BTW…how bloody lazy can some peoples’ children get?!??). The bathroom’s been repainted with semigloss, and the kitchen’s been given its first coat of white paint, so the back half of the place is now visually liveable. My landlord now gets to do termite treatments. Lucky them. Lucky me, for getting to live with it.
I found the evidence when painting the window trim. I lightly sanded the current coat of paint so that my chosen color would actually adhere, and not just pull away in strips (like much of the current paint has done. Piss poor prepwork on -=someone’s=- part. That’s all I’m saying.) So far, so good…until the wood dissolved under the sanding stroke, and a whole bunch of itty bitty brownish granules spilled out. Ah, joy.
Then again, what’s a little remodelling without the termite poo?
The entire right side of the window, and a good portion of the bottom, had been eaten away by termites. I made (yet another) trip to O*SH and got a tube of wood putty / repair stuff to fill up the gaping holes. (Not strictly the best practice, I know, but…NME.) It did not squeeze nicely out of the tube. I had to Schwartzenegger that sucker, and still I couldn’t evenly get the pink goop from tube to miniature-chasm-in-woodwork. I finally ended up slitting the tube open and scooping it out with the putty knife. I finally got those large gaps all filled in and evened out, then sealed them and painted over the whole thing. It looked decent, so I went to do the living-room window trim. I wasn’t finding active infestations, so I hadn’t notified the landlord. I was, however, going through quite a few tubes of this wood putty. Two more were needed for the living room windows. Still, all seemed to go well until I saw little bugs pushing little brown pellets out of a new hole in the top bar of the bedroom window woodwork.
...yes. And for this I’m paying more than $700 a month.
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Blogs are not cutting edge. They're just a new paint job.
Sep 13, 2002
Blogs, or web logs, became the most prevalent type of personal web site around 1999 with the advent of personal publishing tools that made things one-click simple. People didn’t have to know any HTML any more to create personal sites. They didn’t even need to have their own domain. They just needed a web browser, an Internet connection, and some way to hit the keys.
After the attacks on the Pentagon and New York City’s World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, blogs were increasingly scrutinised, both individually and as a phenomenon. The media had paid attention before this event — but this event, with myriad personalised reports and op-ed pieces, kicked up the interest and the focus. Blogs were suddenly not merely “hip”, but “a vital force in personal journalism that can no longer be ignored.”
Dateline: 13 September 2002. The Los Angeles Times (which has a nasty habit of losing its news pieces days after publication) does a piece called “Crashing the Blog Party” where it makes a case for the mundanisation of blogging. Berkeley’s School of Journalism offered classes in blogging as a journalistic form, beginning with the Fall 2002 semester. The Oxford English Dictionary is seriously pondering adding the word “blog” to its next edition. The article included quotes from bloggers decrying the end of so-called real blogs, and the co-opting of the form by the academia and the establishment.
Oh, puh-leeze.
The Internet started out as the playground of the United States Military. It was created to be an unbreakable means of communication should there be a nuclear disaster. Then academia began using the fledgling Internet. It grew and grew (or some might say “metastised”) to include online shopping, news, political sites, personal sites, the whole gamut. This latest whinging is nothing but the carpings of the elite who now see their Sekrit Klub being invaded.
Blogs have never been especially groundbreaking, except that they give more people the opportunity to speak, and more people the opportunity to listen (or ignore). Just as online shopping (or porn) did not completely take over the Internet, journalists will never completely overtake the Internet. There will be an initial flurry of attention, speculation, attempts, failures, and finally,
equilibrium. It?s a new way to reach people. Journalists are just as welcome to use the Internet as anyone else. It’s not as if we’re being forced to read them…and look at it this way: it will be that much more easy, and amusing, to ridicule the dumb ones who type before they think. The ones who write well, the ones who entertain, the ones who make us think…they’re welcome to join in. Always were.
So shut up and go back to blogging already.
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