i'm Talkathon

In honor of the Humane Society of the United States I thought I'd give a shout-out to my cat Feldspar. He's awesome in his own superior way; he's a rescue cat. I "adopted" him from a shelter about five years ago.  When I got him he was quick to make it clear that I'd done him no favors-it was my good fortune to have him come home to live with me.

From his first steps through my humble abode he let me know through a long series of squints that he was totally underwhelmed. But, as it turns out, the sunny spot on the couch meets with his approval, and so I can no longer sit there. That's where he spends his days, ALL DAY, until the sun goes down-only then will he stoop so low as to find me and sit on my lap.  I'm resigned to the fact that I'm nothing but a big heating pad that runs at a constant 98.7 degrees. 

If Feldspar understood English I'd ask him, "Is my lap warming you? Or are you warming my lap?" I think that might just take him down a notch.

OK, so I just had an internet celebrity on the Talkathon. I'm starting to feel that celebrity is awfully cheap these days.

It’s the Humane Society of the United States day!

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest and most effective animal protection organization—backed by 10 million Americans, or one in every 30. Established in 1954, The HSUS seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals—a world that will also benefit people. We are America’s mainstream force against cruelty, exploitation and neglect, as well as the most trusted voice extolling the human-animal bond. I’m doing an IM interview with their president and CEO Wayne Pacelle. I’ll post the transcript for you.

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So, I'm here, I'm talking, making videos, IMing and e-mailing and doing everything I can to rally people and raise consciousness. And it occurs to me that it would be hard to do that, if all I could do was bark.

That's one reason I think the Humane Society of the United States is so cool. They're speaking up for creatures who can't.

We can be kind of arrogant, we people, with our fancy language and opposable thumbs. It can make us ignore our similarities with creatures that don't have cool things like electric guitars, or socket wrenches.

When we ignore the similarities, we can overlook all kinds of things. We can convince ourselves that animals can't think, or don't have emotions, or can't feel pain. It makes us feel we can experiment on them, or hunt them, or make them fight while we drink beer and yell "woooooeeeeeee"!

Anyway. The Humane Society of the United States is there for the animals. All the animals. Goldfish and cats and dogs and horses and sheep and moose. To make sure we humans treat them humanely. Which shouldn't be too much to ask of ourselves, right?