Hey, everybody, I'd like to introduce Blizzard the Ferret.
Blizzard was left in a diaper box marked "Free Ferret" in the entry way at the local pet store last Tuesday night when it was -14 degrees (F) outside. I guess, among people that I know and work with, this created a bit of a stir on local social media because a girl I used to work with found him, and he was soon warm and relatively safe and fed and housed in the back of the store. Of course, the pet store workers messaged me on Facebook almost immediately. I was sleeping, but as soon as I got up I responded and by the time I'd got to work we'd worked out that I was going to come and get him in the morning. As soon as I got in the door at least a couple people seemed to know more about what was going on with the little guy than I did.
I just laughed and told them we had it worked out ten minutes before that, and yes, I was taking him.
I named him Blizzard because I had to drive out in the nasty howling cold snowstorm to get the little dude the next morning.
When I got to the pet store, and retrieved him from the cage they had set up, I noticed immediately that his fur did not feel like a ferret's fur (it felt more like my dog's fur when my dog needs a bath) his tail was ratty, with only a thin coat of undercoat-hair left on it, he was obviously malnourished and he had poop stuck to his butt and his back legs.
The nasty Marshall ferret food, which I've described previously, was too rich for his little belly.
He was probably fed cheap cat food, or table scraps, given how much interest he had in my popcorn chicken yesterday.
I took him home, gave him a bath, held him wrapped in a towel for a while to dry him off and he was pretty soon at least looking and feeling like a different ferret. He's since adjusted to a much better food. He still sleeps a lot. In fact he's sleeping in my lap as I type this. He's a rapidly fattening up little ball of fur prone to melodramatic ferret-stretches and looks of annoyance anytime I have to move in order to deal with the shenanigans of the other weasels.
Except for his ratty tail, he's the picture of Mustelid contentment and relative good health.
What does this have to do with anything?
Not much, really.
Except...
When I see stuff like this, that perfectly-capable grown-ass adults who live in a wealthy First World nation...and who if I had to guess are affluent white folks who have health insurance and access to medical care...aren't taking care of their kids...
It kind of amazes me that more ferrets (and other critters) don't get abandoned in boxes outside of pet stores, ya know?
It makes me angry when people care more about whatever dumb-shit personal issues they have or their own well-being than the health of their kids, or their country, or the civilization that sustains them.
I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to be angry at this crap. But I can't help but be angry because I was taught better than this.
I'm tired of living in a country where people reject science and would rather believe in dumb shit than accept often-simple basic truths like "Vaccinate your kids." I'm damned tired of this even being a subject of debate. I'm damned tired of the fact that childhood diseases and stuff that I'm immune to because I suffered through having them as a kid are making a resurgence because people would rather believe in woo woo bullshit that they found on the internet than accept downright basic obvious facts that [when five-year-old me was getting ready to start school] were presented as obvious fact and neither socially nor otherwise allowed to be argued with and you couldn't get out of doing it unless you had a provable medical issue or belonged to a specific religious sect...in which case there was a quantifiable 'herd immunity' that could still be counted on to protect you.
I've gotten multiple vaccinations in the course of this life, and while I'm not fond of needles or flu shots, there's some times when you just gotta do what you gotta do as any military veteran or person who's traveled overseas or dealt with certain other situations or worked in the medical field or even something as simple as food service can tell you.
Meanwhile, there are people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who vaccinate their kids despite the non-negligible risk of being shot by the Taliban for doing so. There's people, many of them women (who are also accepting the risks associated with working a professional job in areas where Fundamentalist dumbfuckery is backed by insurgent military force) who risk getting shot by the Taliban, day in and day out, in order to vaccinate those kids in the fucking first place.
I've had my Facebook and Twitter feeds bombarded with misinformation-driven anti-abortion dipshittery as well, with at least one of the repeat offenders being (so far as I know) at least nominally liberal, thanks to the passage of new abortion laws in New York (and the likely-pending passage of the same in Virginia.) Not because anybody has an actual factual or recognizable theological gripe with Abortion at this point, but because "Conservative" anti-abortion nuts have cranked out so much misinformation on the subject, particularly of late-term abortions and why they happen. All too many of the posts I've seen are also full of blatant enough emotional manipulation that people shouldn't fall for it.
Now, I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea myself, but I'm a guy and it will never be my problem. I know that people...decent, sane people at least...don't generally decide at the last minute that they don't want to have the kid. I'm damned well aware that sometimes fetal deformities, death in utero, or medical problems on the part of the mother might necessitate a late-term abortion, though.
But there's a lot of people out there who seriously would rather believe the bullshit than listen when somebody says anything different. In the case of the one repeat-poster on the subject, there were several people who were also jumping in to explain basic facts.
And I guess that's what wears on me the most about this stuff, is that these days you have to repeatedly, patiently, calmly explain basic rational shit to people who are in many cases dead set on holding onto their emotionally-driven fear or outrage as long as they can, simply for the sake of having it.
And you can end up doing that about any number of subjects, from Abortion to LGBT rights to the priorities of younger folks who...due to fiscal and governmental mismanagement by previous generations...may not even have the options that their parents had as regards how to live a life.
And in many cases, those people aren't conscious bad actors or the kinds of people who leave ferrets in boxes in the cold. There's a difference between simple ignorance and deliberate, willful ignorance.
In fact, my next-most-recent rescue ferret...a fat, healthy, happy guy...came from one of those people I had to explain stuff to recently. He came with food, a cage, and all the stuff he might need. I don't mind having to set people like that straight now and again, it happens. Anybody can be wrong.
I'm OK with that, just so people will listen when they are told the truth.
Apparently some idiot thinks it's gay for men to like women's butts.
I think Sir-Mix-A-Lot probably disagrees, but I digress.
I'm sorry but as One Of Those Rap Guys from back in the day, and as a lover of big butts myself I'm also going to have to disagree, and if I ever meet Roosh V. I'm going to laugh at him, and if he makes an issue of that he's going to wish he hadn't.
The whole idea of even "What it is to be a man" is a huge generator of silly woo woo bullshit these days. Somehow, being a decent person, being mentally and/or physically strong, doing your work, having some degree of leadership, paying your bills and taking care of those who are your responsibility rarely if ever enters into these discussions, let alone actually being able to show why you should be in charge.
Roosh can't even seem to figure out how to get a job and move out of his Mom's basement (and this boy-man who lives at home is supposed to be an authority on manhood?) but I digress.
Hell, for that matter, as I've heard before...there are some people who think wiping your own ass properly makes you gay. I'm fucking sorry but if you can't think of a better way to demonstrate your claimed masculinity that smelling like a pig farm and turning into a walking E. Coli outbreak, ya'll need to stay the fuck home.
You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of privileged shit-headed willful ignorance, most of it on the part of people who will never have to risk a damn thing in their lives.
We live in a world where every person who is capable of paying a relatively small amount of money for a cheap smart phone, using a public library or visiting an Internet cafe has all the information of the world and the accumulated knowledge of centuries at their fingertips, we, each and every last person now living, have experienced wonders undreamed of by the Creators of Star Wars, or of even the science fiction or actual scientists of a generation ago.
And we have people who can't be bothered to understand basic shit like that you should mind your own business, take care of your pets, vaccinate your kids, wipe your own ass or leave women's health decisions to...women?
We've got a problem, America, and it wasn't caused by abortion providers or gay people or liberals or any of the other people that Fox News likes to blame.
It's being cased by the kind of shit-headed ignorance that thinks we should have the right to bomb a country that the person thinking about it can't find on a fucking map.
We'd do damned well, at this point, to consider the kind of 'fruits' we're showing the rest of the world, when we attempt to answer the question "What are we?"
So, what are we?
If you don't like the answer, it's on you...it's on each and every one of us...to change it.
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ~Matthew 7:17-20
Part Two
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