Monday, April 18, 2005
Dork Street Probably Named After Some Dork. That's not a parody article, I'm taking Steve H's advice. This is also the perfect excuse to mention something that I love mentioning: My dad coined the term "dork". It has no real etymological relation to "Richard", it's actually short for Dorkas, which is something actual people used to be named sometimes. I gather that in South Dakota, during my dad's Fonzie period, a guy going through his Ralph Malph period asked him what Dorcas Hall was for, and he said something like, "That must be where all the dorks hang out". Ralph thought that was really funny, and told a lot of people about it.
BTW, while not opposed, I'm less than thrilled about this feral-cat-shooting legislation that seems to have so many people giggling at the thought of killing their neighbor's pets. For one thing, I don't trust any legisltation that benefits songbirds. We'd have eradicated malaria by 1960 if it wasn't for YOU PEOPLE and your precious songbirds. For another thing, there is no way in hell cats are piling up THAT much crap in your yard, they'd have to do nothing but commute to your place every day and defecate for it to be as much of a problem as YOU PEOPLE make it out to be. Why isn't my yard knee-deep? There's like a dozen feral cats hanging around. I guess everything only craps in YOUR yard. Where do you think the songbirds do it?
My cat Fang is somewhat feral, I consider him property for which I would expect compensation where he to be willfully destroyed, and no, that does not imply any responsibility on my part to de-cat him or keep him out of your yard. My ownership of an automobile does not entail a responsibility to keep the exhaust fumes from whafting over your fence and offending you, bubble boy. Soil is made of poop! Any piece of land you ever own is going to have all kinds of birds and raccoons and earthworms pooping all over it. You're going to have to come to terms with this.
Anyway, the law in question is probably an OK way to control some clearly non-pet pests, but I wouldn't trust the legislature in my state to try making the neccessary distinctions to make something like this work, and I don't buy the notion that feral cats are a real problem here. It also really bugs me that they're talking on the radio about hunting as a solution to this alleged feral cat problem when kids are being eaten by dogs and cougars (which you can no longer hunt with bait, because that's not sporting), and local Animal Control has been known to round up Canada geese and gas them. That's like flushing caviar down the toilet!
BTW, while not opposed, I'm less than thrilled about this feral-cat-shooting legislation that seems to have so many people giggling at the thought of killing their neighbor's pets. For one thing, I don't trust any legisltation that benefits songbirds. We'd have eradicated malaria by 1960 if it wasn't for YOU PEOPLE and your precious songbirds. For another thing, there is no way in hell cats are piling up THAT much crap in your yard, they'd have to do nothing but commute to your place every day and defecate for it to be as much of a problem as YOU PEOPLE make it out to be. Why isn't my yard knee-deep? There's like a dozen feral cats hanging around. I guess everything only craps in YOUR yard. Where do you think the songbirds do it?
My cat Fang is somewhat feral, I consider him property for which I would expect compensation where he to be willfully destroyed, and no, that does not imply any responsibility on my part to de-cat him or keep him out of your yard. My ownership of an automobile does not entail a responsibility to keep the exhaust fumes from whafting over your fence and offending you, bubble boy. Soil is made of poop! Any piece of land you ever own is going to have all kinds of birds and raccoons and earthworms pooping all over it. You're going to have to come to terms with this.
Anyway, the law in question is probably an OK way to control some clearly non-pet pests, but I wouldn't trust the legislature in my state to try making the neccessary distinctions to make something like this work, and I don't buy the notion that feral cats are a real problem here. It also really bugs me that they're talking on the radio about hunting as a solution to this alleged feral cat problem when kids are being eaten by dogs and cougars (which you can no longer hunt with bait, because that's not sporting), and local Animal Control has been known to round up Canada geese and gas them. That's like flushing caviar down the toilet!
