Tag: cat

Is Your Cat Dangerous to Your Health?

On By southwerkIn News

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy – Magazine – The Atlantic

It’s almost impossible to hear about Flegr’s research without wondering whether you’re infected—especially if, like me, you’re a cat owner, favor very rare meat, and identify even a little bit with your Toxo sex stereotype. So before coming to Prague, I’d gotten tested for the parasite, but I didn’t yet know the results. It seemed a good time to see what his intuition would tell me. “Can you guess from observing someone whether they have the parasite—myself, for example?,” I ask.

“No,” he says, “the parasite’s effects on personality are very subtle.” If, as a woman, you were introverted before being infected, he says, the parasite won’t turn you into a raving extrovert. It might just make you a little less introverted. “I’m very typical of Toxoplasma males,” he continues. “But I don’t know whether my personality traits have anything to do with the infection. It’s impossible to say for any one individual. You usually need about 50 people who are infected and 50 who are not, in order to see a statistically significant difference. The vast majority of people will have no idea they’re infected.”

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy – Magazine – The Atlantic#.TzRDnzPwopE.facebook#.TzRDnzPwopE.facebook#.TzRDnzPwopE.facebook

As a cat owner, I found the article listed above as disturbing. However, the title sounded a little like an “Obama was born in Kenya” article, so I wasn’t too worried. Unfortunately I read the article. The science was good, very good. I was hoping for small samples, unreplicatible studies and maybe a few unguarded statements about cat hatred. There weren’t any of those present.

So read the article. I do hope you note that it is highly likely that it is too late to get rid of you cat, you are already infected. So, please don’t hurt any animals.

James Pilant

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Charlie (via Imprints of Light)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

A sincere God Bless to Charlie and to Georgie, my wife’s cat who shared the same fate.

James Pilant

Charlie We were heading out as a family on Friday evening and had just driven a few hundred metres onto the main road when we saw the body of our cat ‘Charlie’ lying there.  He had only recently been knocked down as his body was still warm and limp, though quite lifeless.  I carried him home and we buried him in the garden the next morning. I remember reading a church magazine years ago where there was a section called ‘The Wise Owl”.  People wrote lette … Read More

via Imprints of Light

Despite loss of ear and tail, stray cat weathers frostbite (via Boston Globe)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Article by Katherine Landergan, Globe Correspondent –

A stray cat who was befriended by workers at Wentworth Institute of Technology is recovering from a severe case of frostbite that nearly claimed the animal’s life, according to the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

For the people at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, this is what doing the right thing means.

Just For Fun – Killer Cat Stops Mail Service

On By southwerkIn ethics

Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night,… not really, that’s the American Postal Service. This is the British version and they will no longer put mail in the house through the door slot because – (Well, read -)

The Royal Mail will not post letters through the door for one family in Portsmouth because their cat, who scratched a postman’s finger, is now considered a threat.
A tortoiseshell cat called Lana is accused of scratching the mail carrier when he pushed letters through the opening.
Carl and Carol White say the feline was just acting playful but the Royal Mail has stated that it is important to prevent animal attacks.
The family has been told to keep the cat away from the door or risk losing their postal delivery, so Carl now goes to the door to collect the post when the carrier knocks.

American Postal Carriers are apparently tougher than their British counterparts. That’s nice to know. If there’s a war, we’ll get mail delivery and they won’t. All we have to do is drop Commando Kitties across Britain. I’ve got some I’ll donate right now. We can pre-bombard them, in case of a future war.

(By the way, the cat pictured above is innocent of any postman attacks. It seemed unfair to picture the alleged attacker, who after all is a juvenile.)

James Pilant