Hey there. Another open thread for non-personal stuff. No Trolls, MRAs, etc.
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Open Thread for Non-Personal Stuff: Feb 2016 You Can Do It Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The MammothHey there. Another open thread for non-personal stuff. No Trolls, MRAs, etc.
She’s enjoying second dinner right now, which she gets whenever she’s feeling well enough to want it.
Kitty hiccups are adorable. So are kitty sneezes, especially when they sneeze like 6 times in a row. So cute. 🙂
Unless they sneeze directly onto your face. Something both cats have done to me. That’s gross. I don’t mind when Dracy drools on me though. As long as she does it on my pajama top and not my skin. It’s kind of sweet when she drools because it means she’s very happy and relaxed. She’s neurotic and it took months after adopting her before she trusted me enough to snuggle on me and get drooly.
WWTH & kupo, the kitteh comments are hugely enjoyable & I also love it when they sneeze & drool (within reason…..)
Your comments are a lovely counterpoint to a debate which is currently raging on a local (Aust.) site which is doing my head in, so thank you.
Schools here were set to implement an anti-bullying program called Safe Schools, directed at helping LGBTI kids (plus their families). It’s evidence-based and approved up, down, and backwards by all the organisations that count. A couple of days ago some of our far-far-far-right government MPs launched a scare campaign around it, and now a vocal minority are claiming that it’s going to indoctrinate kids into being gay and trans – and possibly promiscuous, ’cause why not? The govt has launched an ‘inquiry’.
Suicide rates for LGBTI youth are very high here. It’s bloody heartbreaking that a program aimed to help kids feel safe and accepted – and that’s all it is – might be dumped because of this ridiculous outrage.
Rant over 🙂
@Mish that’s terrible. 🙁
The girl cat (pepper) drools a lot when happy. She has this habit of shaking her head and flinging her drool everywhere, which we call pepper showers.
Well, it doesn’t take much prompting to get people to talk about their cats or any other pet around here!
A lot of school districts and/or states in the US have had the same kind of fuckery unfortunately. Most notably the terrible “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Tennessee. Fortunately it didn’t pass but it would have banned mention of homosexuality in K-8 schools. Not just in sex ed. It would have meant you couldn’t talk about how some kids have two mommies or two daddies rather than a mommy and daddy. It would have stopped any anti-bullying programs helping LGBT students. It also would have given school officials authorities to out LGBT students to their parents. Horrible stuff.
There’ve also been districts that have banned all school clubs rather than allow LGBT clubs, gay-straight student alliances etc. because schools aren’t allowed to discriminate under federal law.
Oh and then there’s the new bill in SD that would prohibit trans students from using the correct bathroom for their gender. Ugh.
Is Pepper calico or tortie? Dracy is a calico. Dracarys means “dragonfire.” I thought that was a good name for a calico because orange is the color of fire, black the color of smoke, and white the color of ash. I love calico kitties. In addition to being gorgeous, they’re misandry. Besides the rare XXY chromosomed male calicos, only females get to have fur from both the red and black color groups. Poor oppressed kitty menz just get one or the other.
I also read somewhere that after black cats, calicos have the most trouble getting adopted because people think they’re meaner than other kinds of cats. If that’s true, adopting a calico is a good thing to do.
Oh, I love calicos!! We lost our gorgeous calico girl Wilkie last year (actually we lost our 3 babies in a single 6 week period; we had them for 17 years so it was shattering). She was the sweetest and smartest girl – nothing mean about her. Dracarys is one of the coolest cat names I’ve ever heard.
We now have another 3 moggies (always has to be 3 for some reason) and one is a tortie. Yay.
Jebus, those US examples re LGBTI really put things in perspective. Gah! Not allowing any clubs at all in order to get around the anti-discrimination laws – way to put kids first, people!!
@kupo ‘pepper showers’ is utterly adorable 🙂
I don’t know if these Twitter pictures will embed or not but I’ll try
Dracy
And Darrow
@WWTH those are 2 seriously gorgeous cats. And Darrow has WHITE PAWS I LOVE WHITE PAWS.
I am trying LindsayIrene’s tip for posting photos. This is my tortie, Piper.
http://mish-chan.tumblr.com/image/140013856559
ETA looks like you still have to click on it. Oh well …
Piper is a cutie. I like the little orange eye patch.
I’ve never met a calico I didn’t like. I used to have a tortie when I was little. She was a bit anxious but sweet. She had kittens and one was a grey tabby with orange mixed in and the other was a grey tuxedo. Cat genetics are interesting. 🙂
Pepper is all black. She has kitty social issues–she meows at other cats like she does at people, gets in other kitties’ personal space, and doesn’t seem to recognize their body language. But she’s improving–she used to not tolerate being on the same floor of the condo with other cats and now she’ll eat next to our other cat.
http://i.imgur.com/4tT2dmC.jpg
Mr. Bigglesworth is a grey tuxedo cat. My ex found him as a kitten going through the garbage a neighbor had the habit of leaving in front of his apartment door instead of walking it 100 feet to the trash can. A different neighbor had kittens we could hear on their balcony, so we tried to return him, but they denied up and down that they had any kittens (that complex only allowed 2 cats and was actively trying to get rid of that family for racist reasons, so I think they thought we would report them). We ended up keeping him. That was 18 years ago (and now I feel old).
http://i.imgur.com/NCD6BDW.jpg
KITTIES!
The GOP debate last night was probably the worst one so far. I’ve said this after almost every debate, but what. a. trainwreck.
@kupo, your babies are gorgeous! (not babies in terms of age, I know, but I still referred to my previous bunch as babies, and they were all 17). My current 3 are *actual* babies, but no doubt will remain so until they are elderly. I love hearing the details of how people got their pets – what serendipity that your ex found Mr Bigglesworth like that. He’s a fortunate kitteh.
Can I ask what technique you use to post your photos, if you don’t mind? I’m still not having any luck.
(thread has gone on for almost a week, awesome)
Those are the most adorable kitties ever.
This story combines my obsession with anti poaching/hunting with some proper badass women!
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/26/the-all-female-patrol-stopping-south-africas-rhino-poachers
@Alan
Would you mind talking a little bit about your anti-hunting “obsession”?
While the conservation of the white rhino is an important task, and the empowerment of rural women is more important yet, I am deeply uncomfortable with the social and racial politics of the Baluli Satellite Park and feel that an article taking an adultatory tone towards it is problematic, especially given that it could be seen to be sweeping real human concerns under the rug in order to give a heartwarming story to first-world white people.
@ IP
Well, you know how I’m usually so reserved, but go on then 😉
It’s a weird thing. You know I’m usually detached about social issues and I’m all “well, looked at objectively…” etc. but there are a couple of areas where I just can’t be dispassionate. That’s cruelty to animals and children. The short reason for that is that there’s something particularly insidious against cruelty to people who lack the capacity to understand why things are happening. Nasty things happen to grown up humans, but at least they can put things in context and know who to blame. But there’s something especially heart breaking when you see a child or an animal still seeking affection from an abuser and wondering what they did wrong. You just want to hug them and say “This isn’t your fault!”
Basically, any morality I have on social issues comes from my general distaste for bullies, and this seems to be the ultimate example of that sort of behaviour. It’s the only time I feel any animosity towards people. I have no problem with the use of violence as a a solution to problems, but it’s normally in a detached way. I don’t believe in revenge, I’m not even that bothered about punishment (it’s too late by then), it’s purely a practical thing (stopping a problem). That does change with canned hunters though, whom I absolute hate with a passion. I’d be in breach of the comments policy if I discussed that any further. Apart from the cruelty I think I’m particularly offended by their appropriation of certain tropes(?). I’m quite a fan of danger and overcoming difficult challenges and I also find such behaviour admirable, but I get really annoyed when canned hunters pose over dead animals like they’ve done some amazing feat. There’s not even the slightest skill or risk involved in canned hunting. It’s like Mike Tyson standing over a five year old he’s beaten up, and the five year old had his hands tied behind his back.
Funnily enough, my SO feels exactly the same way. Normally she’s a total hippy. She does pro bono anti death penalty work and all that sort of thing, but when it comes to hunters (and child abusers) she’s totally vicious and would happily see them all killed. Weird eh?
@ EJ
I take your point but it’s not a zero sum game. Concern for animals doesn’t take away for concern for humans (and generally people who don’t care for humans don’t care for animals either)
I’m also not sure it’s a first world thing. We have a lot of connections with anti poaching/hunting activists and they’re by no means all white. You’ll know better than anybody that, whilst you may get the people harkening back to Masai ‘traditions’ etc, they’re no more representative of black Africans than pro fox hunting traditionalists are of the white English.
@Mish
I’m usually on here from my phone, so I downloaded the imgur app, posted them on there, copied the url to the clipboard, opened it in another tab, opened the image (on a pc it’s right-click, on Android it’s press your finger for a couple of seconds until the options come up), then copied the image url.
I just woke up from a dream where I found a tortie cat hiding in the basement of my grandfather’s house. She had 3 kittens that she brought me, and I was trying to get her to hold still long enough to get the phone number on her tag.
Oh, and Pepper’s origin story is pretty great. I had a black cat who disappeared, so I was going to the nearby shelters to look for him. Obviously I paid more attention to the black cats, but when I read their info if they were girls I would usually ignore them. Most cats are freaked out and hiding in the back of their cage in those places, but pepper would come up and meow and beg for attention. So I made a habit of saying hi to her whenever I came in. Months went by and I never found my lost cat. One day I looked for Pepper and she wasn’t there, so I said, “Oh, Pepper’s gone.” She heard her name and started meowing loudly and making a fuss. I came over to say hi, and when I told her goodbye and turned to leave, she stuck her paw in her water dish and flung some water at me to get my attention. That settled it. The poor dear was only a year old and had been there six months. Others had been interested in adopting her but didn’t want her anymore after spending time with her. The problem is they put you in a room with the cat for a few minutes so you can socialize with them, and Pepper immediately ignored me to explore the room when this happened. She didn’t want to be petted or held, so I just let her explore. For most people this is a big turn off, but I understand cats well enough to know they’re going to feel uncomfortable being petted in an unfamiliar place, so I didn’t take it personally. I knew she had already picked me. 🙂
I’ll have to read the hunting article when I have some down time today.
Re: modeling
I think this is actually a two-part issue, and by sheer coincidence I actually posted a useful analogy to start off this thread.
I think it’s entirely appropriate for the voice provider to not get the copyright for a Vocaloid song, because they did not have creative input, though their (indirect) participation is important to the song and it is appropriate that they got to charge for that at whatever rate they felt adequate (indirectly, the company makes a deal with them and then sells the software). But on the other hand, if they sing a song, even one written by someone else, they will in general make creative decisions about exact pitch and timing that influence the meaning of the song, and furthermore may have participated in the writing process with suggestions, and it is appropriate for them to be considered a creator of their version.
So for modelling, I don’t think merely sitting for a picture counts as being a co-creator. I have sat for school pictures where the photographer gave me very precise instructions, including how much to smile and the precise angle to hold my head at. A blanket “models should be listed as co-creators” rule would list me as a co-creator, and I do not think that would be right. But a given model might be acting like a singer rather than like a voice provider, and in that case they do deserve co-creator credit. In either case, they can negotiate payment and terms.
Also, I’m pretty sure that listing them as co-creators will not have any impact on disposability in either case. The pop music industry places a lot of emphasis on its singers and barely mentions composers, yet it’s the singers who get replaced while pretty much all pop songs for at least a decade have been written by the same handful of people. Because models and singers are expected to fit in a narrow age range, and simply listing them as creators does not change that. It will take more to do that.
I agree entirely that compassion for animals, especially endangered animals, is something that humanity needs to display more of. However, as with so many issues, this one has its roots in society and economics, and so needs to be handled as such; and much of the commentary upon it, like that article, come with a very ugly and racist set of assumptions.
I wrote quite a long thing on this, which (so as not to Had To Be Said this thread) I’ll put on my blog.
@ EJ
Ooh, I’ll be interested in that. There’s a lot of ‘ignorant’ racism in animal rights. Like people are surprised to find there’s donkey sanctuaries in the Middle East as if the people there wouldn’t care about animals as much as anyone else.
@kupo, thank you lots for the pic-posting details! But thanks even more for the story of how you found Pepper (or how she found you). That’s just brilliant (except the bit about losing your black boy kitteh) – and you’re so right about not forcing cats to interact or esp snuggle. My newest one, Mei-Mei, was turned down by a lot of prospective adopters because she showed little interest in them. We just sat around chatting and watching her, and then my son said “yep”. She’s incredibly affectionate but hates being picked up and held so we don’t push it.
How I got my ‘weegie’, Shiro, is funny: I saw his posting on one of the shelter websites and fell in love with him straight away but he had a line of people already interested. One person was approved and the adoption was all set, but then they took him in for his de-sexing and discovered that the kitten they thought was female was actually a male. The approved peep badly wanted a girl kitten but I didn’t care either way so I got him 🙂