People you were shockingly old when you learned they were siblings dept: Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson in the original Lost in Space series) / Veronica Cartwright (Lambert in Alien).
― remind me not to read the comments on that one (Matt #2), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 09:26 (two years ago) link
A bunch of 60s/70s counterculture-adjacent peeps had military dads. Morrison of course, John Denver, Stephen Stills, John Phillips, Frank Zappa. Zappa's manager and wife both had vague connections with Navy special ops.
A podcast called Lizard People did an episode on this; there is apparently a theory that the Laurel Canyon scene was invented by the CIA to distract the youth from Vietnam. Overlaps with MKULTRA.
As calzino notes, though, the war machine (and the drumbeat for war) was huge enough that it doesn't need esoteric and/or reductive explanations. It makes sense that 20somethings had dads in the military because millions of men were in the military.
George Washington is also sometimes said to have "caused" the French & Indian War by botching negotiations with French military outposts.
― Sarah Jessica Parkour (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 11:24 (two years ago) link
I knew his dad was an admiral or general or something, I didn't know until recently that he was at high school with Cass Elliot.
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 11:45 (two years ago) link
cass, iirc, was a sophomore - planned to go to swarthmore. but she changed her mind one day.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 13:37 (two years ago) link
skimming this thread, was Mama Cass a Navy Seal?
― Feta Van Cheese (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 15:14 (two years ago) link
Yes, Demi Moore played her in a movie
jk
no, but John Phillips's dad was a retired Marine Corps officer.
― balsamic panic (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 15:41 (two years ago) link
Further, Frank Zappa's father, Francis, had worked in chemical warfare at Aberdeen Proving Ground. His first wife had been a secretary for the Navy's special warfare office. And his first manager, Herb Cohen, had been (allegedly) involved in various overseas military shenanigans.
The obvious conclusion from this is that the CIA invented hippies.
― balsamic panic (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 15:47 (two years ago) link
Thus why Zappa hated hippies and preferred freaks!
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 19 May 2021 15:48 (two years ago) link
He also went to the same high school as Jim Morrison and Cass Elliot, though several years earlier.
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 16:55 (two years ago) link
Just found out a partial reason for why I've always been a bit hazy and confused on the regions of the Mediterranean and its surrounding lands: The ancient region of Ionia is nowhere near the Ionian sea! The former is ~ the west coast of today's Turkey, the latter between the footsole of Italy and western Greece.
― anatol_merklich, Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:57 (two years ago) link
I feel like a complete maroon, but the other day, I learned that the word "jagoff" has nothing to with masturbation. Because I'm not from Pittsburg.
― "We prefer these lightweights to those music assholes" (I M Losted), Thursday, 20 May 2021 13:32 (two years ago) link
so what is it from?
― Nhex, Thursday, 20 May 2021 13:39 (two years ago) link
Ursula Le Guin & Philip K. Dick went to Berkeley High School at the same time, but didn't know each other
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 20 May 2021 17:06 (two years ago) link
Probably for the best
― MLM disaster unfolding in East London Tech City (Matt #2), Thursday, 20 May 2021 17:24 (two years ago) link
Ursula Le Guin and John Steinbeck once got drunk under a bush together at a wedding. (I learned that one from her last essay collection.)
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 20 May 2021 18:39 (two years ago) link
That Sting’s “Englishman in New York” is not autobiographical.
― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, 23 May 2021 22:59 (two years ago) link
brace yourself for some followup news about Shinehead
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, 23 May 2021 23:25 (two years ago) link
that there are lots of people (guessing this is a US thing?) on the internet who do not let their cats go outside, ever, and are SHOCKED AND APPALLED that some other people do.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 09:51 (two years ago) link
lol whaT?
― calzino, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 10:09 (two years ago) link
the cat owning equivalents of people who keep their dogs in cages and always on the lead.
even if you were a cat owner in some crazy mega-city where you daren't let them out it should be comprehensible that other owners have a cat flap and it's all good.
― calzino, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 10:15 (two years ago) link
my dad lives in a bungalow in rural Herefordshire and has three cats and I'm just laughing at the idea of keeping them all locked inside, you couldn't even open the patio doors!
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 10:44 (two years ago) link
i would guess most new york city cats haven’t been outside in years. which kind of makes sense if you live on the 5th floor of a tenement. or i dunno maybe people walk their cats??
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 11:57 (two years ago) link
cats really love jumping several stories to their glorious deaths! so i suppose in the city I can see some people being overprotective...
― Nhex, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 12:09 (two years ago) link
If cats aren't allowed outside in NYC, my Brooklyn neighbourhood didn't get the memo. I might write them one saying "Please do not shit in our backyard".
― Alba, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 12:49 (two years ago) link
Ooh a back yard, lah di dah
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 12:57 (two years ago) link
The last place I lived where I had co-responsibility for a good number of indoor and outdoor pets, over half of the outdoor cats (plus a dog that got out of the yard) were hit and killed by traffic. One cat would only very hesitantly step outside before fearfully darting back in like a mole person. But then we also had a cat who would go 'camping' in the woods for days at a time and come bouncing back covered in mud and happy as a lark. In my experience, outdoors only works for some cats.
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 12:59 (two years ago) link
cats are pretty terrible news for local wildlife, i say lock 'em all up
― building a hole (NickB), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:00 (two years ago) link
Our cat, Tuffy, goes out in the yard on a short leash. He talks to the birds, but he poses a much greater threat to the grass, which he consumes voraciously.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:02 (two years ago) link
When I was living in Paris, I knew plenty of people with "chats d'appartement". The cats though would get obsessed with the outside and I heard of several that jumped to their deaths from balconies. I used to watch one from my vis-a-vis, leaping from one narrow ledge on the fifth floor to another on the fourth.
― Zelda Zonk, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:06 (two years ago) link
I’m guessing the “shocked and appalled” part comes from the meat-grinder-like effect of outdoor cats on local wildlife rather than concern for the cats themselves. Let them play in traffic for all I care, just put a bell on them.https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
― Dan I., Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:26 (two years ago) link
I don't let my cats outside because I don't want them to get hit by a car or pick up feline leukemia. I'm not going to be a dick to people who let their cats out, but I think it's safer for them to be inside.
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:28 (two years ago) link
Today I learnt that the word "dunce" and the "dunce's cap" were named after followers of the medieval Scottish theologian John Duns Scotus. Formerly held in high esteem by the Catholic church, he and his followers (the Dunses) subsequently fell from favoiur during the Reformation. Apparently Duns Scotus advocated the wearing of conical hats to improve thinking (literally "thinking caps"), and this might be where the idea of wizards wearing such hats comes from.
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:35 (two years ago) link
of course SCOTUS was involved
― Feta Van Cheese (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 13:49 (two years ago) link
Our cat makes for a terrible outdoor cat, but that doesn't mean she doesn't try her absolute hardest to get out. She will be upstairs, curled up asleep, and hear the front door open and suddenly shoot outside like a rocket. We try really hard to keep her from getting out, but it's almost impossible, esp if you are ever trying to negotiate the door carrying any object.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 14:03 (two years ago) link
Welcome to east Prospect Lefferts GARDENS (aka Pigtown) my friend.
― Alba, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:03 (two years ago) link
We have indoor cats in a demiurban setting. I am both aware of, and not particularly outraged by, the existence of outdoor cats.
As NickB and Dan I noted, however, cats are known to be pretty destructive when it comes to birds and other wildlife. But I don't pursue this argument with my friends who let their cats out. I am not going to change their minds and they're not going to change mine.
Also, we have an indoor cat who got out accidentally once, and didn't return on his own. He was eventually found a few blocks away, behind a 7-11; we don't especially want to repeat that experience. If I could trust him to go out and come back, I might feel differently. Cats differ.
― balsamic panic (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:22 (two years ago) link
guessing this is a US thing?
Not just a US/Canada thing, no. I've witnessed it in several European countries.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:27 (two years ago) link
What I see frequently in my Brooklyn neighborhood is cats chilling on the sidewalk while their humans are hanging around nearby. Clearly there's a mutual understanding that the cat is not gonna suddenly bolt down the street. Then there are the bodega cats, which often wander out onto the sidewalk, but they have little incentive to go far - why would they when they live in a literal house of food. I have seen cats being walked on a leash/lead but that is rare.
Seems that the "keep your cats inside 24/7" idea has grown in popularity in the last 20 years, with more stories coming out about their effect on bird populations. Growing up in the 1970s we never thought of that, our cats went outside whenever they wanted to.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link
it's my expectation of life in the UK that you will have a garden into which various neighbourhood cats will often wander (also the occasional fox and very occasional muntjac) but having lived in Prague/Beijing/Guangzhou/Zhuhai, where most people live in flats, I know that this is not the universal state of things. In China you sometimes see cats being walked on leads.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:52 (two years ago) link
I live in an area of the country that is Lyme Disease central and would prefer not to have cats going out and bringing ticks inside.
― Notes on Scampo (tokyo rosemary), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 15:53 (two years ago) link
this is the thread I saw this morning which started this, just no idea that this was a hot issue online.
No, cats are not supposed to be outdoor animals. It greatly shorten their lifespan as well as it having a negative impact on local bird populations. Keep your cats inside or walk them on a leash if you must.— Nova🍓He/e (@RealityBent) May 22, 2021
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:02 (two years ago) link
Yeah not really into having my cats get in fights with the dozen or so local strays, or getting mauled by coyotes, or getting a bunch of cactus thorns in them
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:03 (two years ago) link
xp
I feel like getting an "outdoor cat" now just out of pure spite towards these people!
― calzino, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:08 (two years ago) link
Get an outdoor cat and refuse to let it come indoors, so it's truly an outdoor cat.
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:12 (two years ago) link
"cats are not supposed to be outdoor animals"
however you feel about letting your cats be outside, this is obviously false
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:13 (two years ago) link
― calzino
The Larry David school of pet ownership.
― nickn, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:15 (two years ago) link
do agree about their negative impact on bird populations. In that Elizabeth Kolbert extinction book she wrote about how there is a correlation between bird extinctions in regions and humans reaching them with their cats, that stretches back thousands of years. The little furry murderers!
― calzino, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:16 (two years ago) link
there still seems to be a whole lot of birds, crows for instance
― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:32 (two years ago) link
Crows can handle themselves
― Alba, Wednesday, 26 May 2021 16:36 (two years ago) link