Every ghost has a right to haunt

This is legitimately a huge (and still somewhat controversial) topic and I don’t really have the time to go into it in a lot of detail right now but here is a quick summary: 

- Cats are damaging to local ecosystems. Well-fed pet cats still enjoy hunting and end up killing not for food but for fun and to practice their hunting skills. It’s a natural instinct, not malice, but it can absolutely devastate local songbird and wildlife populations.  

- Outdoor cats are at MUCH higher risk of injury from vehicles, other animals, or even ill-intentioned humans (we once rescued a black cat with a broken tail I’m 99% sure had been broken by a group of kids swinging her around by her tail)

- Outdoor cats are at greater risk for contracting communicable diseases like Feline HIV

- Outdoor cats can get lost or even stolen (I’ve had both happen to me before)

- Outdoor cats are at higher risk of suffering from the elements (getting caught in snowstorms, freezing to death, etc.) 

- Outdoor cats are much more likely to contract parasites like fleas, ticks, and worms

- It is much more difficult to spot irregularities in your cat’s health if they are regularly outdoors (you can’t monitor how frequently they urinate or defecate, and whether or not there are any changes to their bathroom habits)

- Outdoor cats are more likely to end up consuming something dangerous (rat poison, spoiled food, etc.)

- Outdoor cats who are not fixed are likely to increase the feral cat population by getting pregnant/impregnating other cats. 

In general, outdoor cats are damaging to local ecosystems and at great risk of premature death. 

Now, that’s not to say you can’t find ways to let your cats enjoy the outdoors, though! Here are some fun solutions: 

Catios: 

Cat harnesses (yes, cats can be taught to walk on leashes!)

Cat-safe plants for nibbles and noms:

Cat “TV” (ie shelves or seats near windows where cats an easily observe the outdoors from the safety of inside)

On July 3, an anti-transgender protest outside a Los Angeles spa resulted in two stabbings—all over a social media post that police are now treating as a hoax. Back on June 24, a user called cubanangel posted a video on Instagram showing her and at least two other women confronting a staff member at Wi Spa on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown about having seen “a man with a penis” in the women’s changing area. “I’m recording this because I’m gonna make a big deal. I’m gonna take this very worldwide,” she explains, kicking off four minutes berating the staff member over the queer-friendly spa’s nondiscrimination policy.

Soon after the video began to go viral in transphobic corners of the internet, members of the trans community began to raise questions about it—chief among them why the video cuts out as the woman marches downstairs to confront this person she’s allegedly seen, conveniently ending before the trans woman she’s so angry about is shown. The woman also repeatedly mentions children being exposed to a penis, while no children appear on the video and the group don’t appear to have any children with them. These early doubts have been bolstered by reporting from the Los Angeles Blade that police suspect a hoax after failing to find witnesses who saw a trans woman at the spa, and that Wi Spa claims none of their trans clients had scheduled appointments that day.

To understand why this incident is so disturbing, it’s worth being clear about what the hoax is even claiming: that a trans woman used a changing room that she was fully allowed to use … on a day when no trans women actually happened to be using it. There was no specific claim of wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct on the part of this alleged person, although the colorful language used in the video certainly sparks the imagination, likely leading those with a transphobic cast of mind to fill the vacuum of facts with horrific acts of lewdness or indecency. Perhaps this is why outrage over the possibility that a trans woman may have changed her clothes in the appropriate facilities grew and grew, culminating in the protest outside Wi Spa, which included a contingent of violent extremists from the far right. The two stabbing victims were attacked by an anti-trans protester: One was a counterprotester; the other apparently a “friendly stab” incident where a fellow protester was hit by mistake.

is design, bitches

Just the right mix of religious awe, modernist mediocrity and glurge