GiantChickDicks

Thank you so much for mentioning Tailchaser's Song! It is one of my favorite fantasy books.

It's a slippery slope. I heard if you listen to too many sea shanties you will start aggressively lactating.

I'm curious why you assume almost all were willing participants. I'm also concerned with the use of the word "coerced".

The promise of good money doesn't ensure willingness, and just because workers are "street level" doesn't mean they aren't being exploited.

Depending on the company, you often have the option of either a group or a private cremation. Group cremation is what you described, but private cremation ensures you only get your pet's ashes returned. The company my vet uses even offers the option for you to be present and view the cremation.

Mental health is health, and treatment for these conditions are healthcare.

I used to work in veterinary medicine, and there are plenty of vaccine conspiracies in the pet owning community. They cause everything from seizures, to allergies, to autoimmune diseases, and more, according to some of these people. Breeders are a huge contributor to this, which leads to plenty of arguments with vets and pets running around unvaccinated.

It's expensive to get litters of puppies vaccinated, and whackadoodle (I used "doodle" for a reason) theories are a great cover for why you are sending home a puppy with zero medical history outside of hand written worming dates. Unfortunately, it's harder to educate people when it's way cheaper to believe bullshit.

You're preaching to the choir, friend. I work in animal welfare, and TNR and fostering feral kittens are my favorite ways to volunteer. I put my money and time where my mouth is.

Keep in mind the context of the post.

I sincerely hope you go out and try to leash community cats.

There are many feral cats who live in almost all our communities that don't have a home. They don't have people who care enough to house or feed them, not to mention leashing them when outside. They aren't disposable.

Animal abuse deserves punishment. Hard stop. I don't know what kind of point you are fumbling for here, but I have a hard time seeing its relevance.

God's perfect killing machine is the pinnacle of cat "breeds". It's heartbreaking seeing people do to cats what we've done to dogs with selective breeding for purely cosmetic traits.

Absolutely. I moved from urban Southeastern Wisconsin to the upper peninsula of Michigan in a rural area. I love visiting that spot, and I got a job offer five years ago while on vacation. I snatched the opportunity to move to my favorite place and uprooted my life in under two months. I didn't last two years before coming back.

The amount of times I got into verbal altercations with strangers and acquaintances over their use of racial slurs, most often the N-word, made me become a homebody. I was a bartender, though, so you can't exactly hide.

That's not to say I haven't heard it in public all throughout Wisconsin. The difference was how comfortable people felt using these words and sharing openly racist views and stories like they were bragging about it. It felt like an area where people breathed a sigh of relief and took their hoods off. I couldn't stomach staying in a place where certain friends of mine couldn't comfortably visit.

Still, all that is nothing compared to what I saw and heard living in Tennessee. It's sad and frightening how many communities are like this.

Won't somebody think of the rapist's feelings?

And all lives matter, right? How else can we commandeer this conversation?