you guys

[urbpan]

My favorite thing about my blog is the comments. I'm proud that I've cultivated a readership that is intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, reasonable, tolerant, irreverent, knowledgeable, and funny. I'm very happy to belong to a community of adults who have similar interests and different opinions, and the ability to express them with insight, humor, and respect. People who leave because they're offended, well, that's too bad. People who leave because they're bored, well, that's my bad.

So then, which is more controversial: people eating cats, or cats eating people?

Comments

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

People eating cats.

*college football chants* FOOT-AGE! FOOT-AGE! FOOT-AGE!

(I must part of your flist who are in really bad taste.)

[drocera.livejournal.com]

Well, it's always, if not controversial, at least interesting when one hears about the occasional old lady who dies alone in her apartment and is then found 3 weeks later partially consumed by her 20 cats.

I hope I never become that old lady. Perhaps I've just jinxed myself...

[mas69ter.livejournal.com]

I already know that I'm doomed to that fate. I jinxed myself with that a long time ago.

[gigglingwizard.livejournal.com]

When have you ever written anything offensive?

I think more controversy arises from cats eating people. When people eat cats, it's generally in a setting of most people approving or most people disapproving. But look at a situation like in California, where protected cougars attack people, and those people aren't allowed to carry weapons to protect themselves. That's controversial. You can hear all kinds of arguments around that one.

[dragonwrites.livejournal.com]

Personally, I see no problem with either scenario. It's the nature of life, to devour life. Unless you can photosynthesize.

I mean, as long as you're not eating my kitty. And as long as she's not eating me.

[droserary.livejournal.com]

How sweet would life be if I could photosynthesize!

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

For me, cats eating people is more controversial. Having grown up with lots of cats, (like, sometimes 20+), and a creative mom with vaguely survivalist tendencies, the idea, in some extreme circumstance, of eating cats, even my own pets, seems more a matter of practicality than anything else. But being a human, I guess I feel as though I just as soon not become prey any sooner than necessary. People who let themselves get eaten by cats are bad role models for everyone else, and they just encourage the bad behavior of cats.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bazilisk_/]

Well, see, cats, cats... they just can't help it. The same way humans can help it.

They may be sentient, and smart, but their moral systems are probably simpler than ours. They can't debate whether or not eating people is wrong and then go do it anyway. Humans can always debate that about eating any kind of meat. So since humans can see both sides of the issue, and then go with one side, that is more worthy of controversy: there is a chance (we will never truly know) that cats can't even ponder that it is an option NOT to eat the corpse on the floor/person in the zoo, and that that choice might be better or worse than eating it.

Can cats 'know' better? No, probably. Can humans? Yes, probably. So their conscious decision to do so is more debate-able...therefore more controversial.

[calypso72]

Very well stated.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

People eating cats.

(domestic) Cats are the only non-endangered species I won't eat. But I don't think areas where cat is part of the cuisine should take it off the menu.

[meryddian.livejournal.com]

I just knew the investigation would end up showing those guys taunted that tiger somehow.

Yeah, what a great idea. Let's get drunk and go taunt big animals at the zoo.

Anybody who owns a house cat can tell you its amazing the distances that cats can jump or climb, when they really want to. My cat has climbed up the fridge sans use of the counter, for example.

Proof of Darwinism at its finest... and further evidence that even a tiger born and raised in captivity never loses its wild instincts.

Of course, if you want a Darwin Award waiting to happen, head over to Thailand, where they have a place you can get close up with tigers, called Tiger Temple, or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua. (I didn't make it there myself when I was in Bangkok, although the idea certainly interested me. What does that say about me? LOL).

[whatisbiscuits.livejournal.com]

Interesting article! Wonder what the tigers make of all the tourists poking them while they're having sleepy time.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

I think I remember seeing that place on an early season of The Amazing Race. I thought CBS *really* doesn't want to lose a contestant or two, do they?

[harrietbrown.livejournal.com]

Thanks for those nice comments of yours. I like you, too.

Cats eating people, because I'm more likely to have nightmares about that tonight than me eating cat. I'm pretty sure that's not something I would do, even if I were really, really hungry.

By the way, the local stray cat greeted me this morning by running away from me. They're so cuuuuuuuuuuuute!

[smallerdemon.livejournal.com]

People eating small cats while riding BIG cats like horses. *blows urbpan's entire opening statement to hell with that smart ass comment*

People eating cats, probably. Cats eating people is, well, you know, that happens. Cats don't think about it like we do. They think about it like cats think about it. Us, however, well, if we do it then we're shifting some big social norm we've created over the years.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but I'm suddenly hungry again.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

People making cats eat them.

[droserary.livejournal.com]

Group hug!

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

My cats are still debating about who gets to eat my eyes when I die. I'm leaning towards fishstyx or remorra getting them.


But really, asking which is worse is like asking which one is funnier, a mexican making jokes about white people, or a white person making jokes about mexicans; the perceived status difference is too high.

[roaming.livejournal.com]

Well, if I'm dead, and my kitty is starving -- again, because I'm dead, thus not feeding her -- she's welcome to me.

I don't like the notion of people eating "companion animals." For that reason. I expect if they are feral, then they are wild. . . and my only caveat for eating something with a face that can feel fear and pain is that we DON'T cause them fear and pain in our pursuit of their meat.

I think vegetarians have the karmic moral high ground. I also don't think it's "wrong" to kill an animal for it's meat. For our vanity/fashion? No, bad.

I'm not sure that answers your question.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

Definitely people eating cats. You eat a cat, people are like, wtf?!
A cat eats you, people are like, eh, shouldn't have been drunk in the tiger cage.

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

God, what a bunch of responsible intelligent bloggers. Are you people really going to force me to be the one to make the obvious double entendre?

Nope. Won't do it. you can't make me.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

You dirty thing!

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

I guess the eat or be eaten discussion puts a new level of fear into the term red snapper.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with cats (I assume you mean Big Cats) eating people, as it's part of their ordinary hunting behaviour in the wild. Humans eating cats I cannot condone as either a Vegetarian or a Naturalist- we have a choice the cats do not have. Australia has a massive feral cat problem- currently they are shot or baited- as long as it's quick, I suppose, although I'm not happy about that either ideally there should be a massive, continent wide Mandatory Feline Sterilization Program- remember, it's not the feral animal's fault that it is feral, but ours for introducing them...

[(Anonymous)]

Well, just as the winners get to write history, the dominant get to decide what's controversial. So when we hear about cats (whether the large or small variety) eating people, we get downright indignant. How DARE they mess with the established order? Can't these dumb beasts understand that WE decide who eats whom, and when? And while I'm on the subject, why doesn't somebody teach deer and rats about private property rights?

~Flaneuse in DC
Charismatic megafauness

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Cats eating people is nature - people eating cats...? Well, we've domesticated them for a different purpose (companionship), and so I feel, personally, that eating them is not appropriate. If someone is passing off cat as, say, pork, and selling it to consumers to make a buck, that's very wrong. If someone is starving and eats a cat, that's different.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

I think the question is "what is more controversial?" so I would have to say, given that "Man bites dog" is more newsworthy (apparently) than "Dog bites man" ...

my answer is:

People eating dogs, especially in North America where people not only do crazy unnecessary things, but they also like to discuss people doing crazy unnecessary things and come up with moral decrees about such things.

I like you too, and your partner and dogs are nice too.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

That would depend on what kind of cat and the culture in which one is raised. In the US it is more controversial to eat domestic cats (and dogs), whereas in other countries it is not. I am sure there are some tribes in Africa that consume wild cats of some persuasion, but here in the US it's not the norm.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

We need to STOP THE CYCLE of CAT ON CAT VIOLENCE that is DESTROYING OUR INNER CITIES.

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Maybe people that poke other people with sticks too often should get eaten by cats? ;)

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Situational, always situational. A man eating a cat because he has no other options? a man eating a cat in a place where 'cat' is a constant on the menu? Sad, to me, but required. A cat eating a human, opportunistically due to lack of other food? (the little old cat lady who passed away, a homeless man in an alley..) Also sad, especially because other humans will never treat the cats the same way if they know of that in their history. But acceptable.

Now, rich man dining on 'cat' because he heard it was good, or he's always wanted to eat fluffy? or a cat attacking a person with the intention of killing and eating? ... scary.

On these notes.. my cat seems to have decided my hair is in the same family species as a mouse. She was chomping enthusuastically on my hair this morning when I woke up, and lashed a paw out, clawfully when I tried to pull it out of her grasp. Hmm..

[mandy-moon.livejournal.com]

I just don't think cats would taste very good- that's my only objection to eating them. There are way too many cats out there and it would be less wasteful to eat them rather than simply exterminate them.

I do have a pet peeve about whenever a news story has something to do with both animals and people dying- say there's a story about a pet store burning to the ground and all the pets and all the pet store workers are trapped inside. There's *always* someone out there who thinks he or she is being clever by saying something along the lines of "Oh, I don't care about the people trapped inside but I feel sorry for all those parakeets! Omg!"

I don't understand why there are so many people out there who profess to love all animals but seem to hate all people. Doesn't seem like a warm-hearted enough person to be able to love any animals, either.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

People eating cats, definitely...cats eating people, that's more of an instinct kind of thing. People have more options of what to eat, why eat a cat?! :P

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

I am all for cats eating people, especially if they are drunken asshats. I personally wouldn't eat a cat, but don't have an issue with other people doing so either (especially if it's part of their culture), as long as they aren't my cats or cats I know personally. Although this is what I'd most like to see...