RIP Kevin Drum — a scatblogging roundup tribute

I heard earlier this evening of the passing of Drum, whose most recent journalism home had been Mother Jones, which posted his obit.

As I said when sharing it on Shitter (hold on to that word) and Substack, he was too much of a BlueAnon squish for me. But, he was more personable by far, at least through the online prism, than other big names of early 2000s liberal blogging. Like Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Atrios? I don't have a read on Duncan Black from way back then. Josh Marshall? As lucky as Kos, and more so than Black or Drum. Plus, Kos banned me for from the site there for being too Green and Josh? Way too Zionist, even if Oct. 7, 2023 has forced him to smell a tiny bit of coffee — or largely ignore Middle East affairs. (Markos seemed early on like a political operative at bottom line and Black like he would be a slightly less fastidious, but not much less, lawyer version of Niles Crane. Beyond the big political disagreement with Marshall, he also came off as too didactic.)

I did note one other thing.

It was about part of Kevin's non-political blogging.

Riffing on the "Friday catblogging" that Drum had already been doing, at least occasionally, at Calpundit and then brought to Washington Monthly, starting in 2008, for a period of roughly three years, into 2011, I did semi-regular Friday SCATblogging. Yes, scatblogging; that's the tag for it if you click that link.

It was often about animal scat, though not always.

The most popular, by eyeballs, was tracing coyote scat in Cook County, aka metro Chicago.

Second most popular? Scat you don't want to see, as in fresh grizzly scat while out hiking. 

Third was ecological, but also about a big critter — tracking expanding moose populations by scat.

The fourth most popular was also about a cat, for better riffing on Drum — a cougar wandering the Twin Cities that was also tracked into Wisconsin by its scat.

Fifth was back to big animals, with a San Diego Zoo subsidiary creatively dealing with elephant scat.

Other scatblogging about cats included Macho, er jaguar Macho B scatblogging, with a follow-up on a criminal case over his death.

I blogged about other things that fit "scat" as well, like riffing on a giveaway by Sarasota County Area Transit (since renamed).

The most popular there? Metaphorical scat — a San Francisco activist trying to get a new city sewer plant named after Shrub Bush.

Another? Scat-singing.

As noted, I was riffing on Drum. And on people who followed in his wake.

About a month after starting it, I explained why — I said it was in reaction to things like a catblogger writing about giving a cat antidepressants.

My opening post? I actually used the word "crapblogging," not "scatblogging," but it was about archaeologists using human coprolites in the Americas as one avenue of support for "before Clovis." Not long after, I wrote about a dinosaur coprolite selling for nearly $1,000.

I eventually got the reaction to catblogging out of my system. I think the "I can has cheezeburger" meme "triggered" me as much or more than Kevin. (I do read Bruce Schneier's Friday squidblogging semi-regularly today, I'll add.) 

Unlike the person wanting to put their cat on Elavil, though, Kevin never shoved cats in your face. Nor did he shove obnoxious cat memes in your face. This, too, he kept personable.

NOTE: I have no doubt you'll hit a lot of broken links. The blog posts show a lot of broken picture links.

Anyway, condolences to Kevin's family, A kudo to Mother Jones for linking to Kevin's piece about death with dignity, which is what it is. Briefly a one-time adjunct professor, I taught a course on issues in death and dying — at the time of Jack Kevorkian's first trial, and in Michigan no less.

Cat, meet New Ager

I'm sure at least a few of you have heard by now about Daniel, the cat with 26 toes.

Here's the part of the story I "love":
"I've always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and this is definitely the case," said Amy Rowell, owner of Milwaukee Animal Rescue Center in Greendale.
Other than to say that, in this case, the "reason" was genetic mutation, in all likelihood, followed by possibly epigenetic mutation, no further comment is needed, or warranted.

This then gets to issues of Gnu Atheism vs. secular humanism. I'd not go out of my way to prick Ms. Rowell's bubble, but, had she said that to a group of which I was a party, I would have either made the serious comment above in a sarcastic voice, or else asked the sarcastic rhetorical question, "And the reason was?"

Assuming she answered "god" or "higher power" or whatever, I would then disabuse her of that. Or disabuse her of the idea that was a rational thought.

And, I can catblog instead of scatblog on a Friday!

Scatblogging is again catblogging

Want to keep cats away from plants they might claw up? Scatter spruce or pine boughs, or buy Scat Mat.

Scat, scat from the mat, cat, scat

This week's installment of Friday scatblogging is also Friday catblogging.

Because, if you cat lovers will buy the Scat Mat, you'll keep that darned cat off the kitchen counter, or wherever, and you'll not inflict quite so many tales of cat frustration on people who don't necessarily thrill at the cussed-mindedness of felines.

Scat cat stabbed in drunken mood

Even if this were a more “routine” story, a news story about a cat named Scat would get to be the Friday scatblogging post on name alone.

But the story has more than that.

First, it’s a therapy cat. Now, while I believe pets can help people calm their emotions, I also believe an unconditionally-loving dog would be better for that than a cat.

Second, a cat “initially leery of people” probably wouldn’t be the best therapy cat, anyway.

Third, the combination of the first two lines of thought shows just how much “projection” is involved with people’s relations to their pets.

Do dogs, or maybe even cats, have emotions? Sure. But, are they of anywhere near the complexity of human ones? Absolutely not.

Dogs don’t have guilt feelings, for example.

Finally, there’s this: Animal rescue group Pasado's Safe Haven has offered to pay all of the cat’s vet bills, now at $300 and counting.

This is a 10-year-old cat taken in as a stray. At a church that appears to serve homeless, addicts, etc., and which, religious institution or not, could use $300 for programs more than for an old cat.

Scatblogging is CATblogging, big cat style

If you live in or love the Southwest, and are a nature lover, you’re probably familiar with the story of Macho B. If not, I’ll give you the nickel tour.

Macho B was first captured on trip-wired wildlife camera in 1996. He was captured in late February, then released before being recaptured 12 days later, on March 2, because he showed signs of poor health. He was euthanized that afternoon.

The recently euthanized Macho B was allegedly baited with female jaguar scat for his first capture.

That’s per Janay Brun, who worked for the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project and says she baited the trap in the presence of a Detection Project biologist and a state Fish and Game employee.

Of course, everybody else is either saying nothing or in deep denial.

At the same time, jaguars may get Endangered Species Act protection; at the least, U.S. Fish and Wildlife has to come up with better reasons NOT to do so, a federal judge has ruled.

Friday SCATblogging — Chicago coyote scat and CATS!

Want to know what coyotes in Cook County, Ill., are eating? (And yes, they do live there; photo from Chicago WILDERNESS magazine.)

Why do they live there? Well, you’re about to learn the answer!

Read on for a sampling of the variegated modern coyote diet.

Table 1. Frequency of Food Items in the Diets of Coyotes in Cook County, Illinois.*
Diet Item Occurrence
Small rodents 42%
White-tailed deer 22%
Fruit 23%
Eastern cottontail 18%
Bird species 13%
Raccoon 8%
Grass 6%
Invertebrates 4%
Human-associated 2%
Muskrat 1%
Domestic cat 1%
Unknown 1%
* Based on the contents of 1,429 scats collected during 2000-
2002. Some scats contained multiple items; therefore, therefore, the
percentages exceed 100%. See Morey 2004.

Sorry, it’s not specific what “human-associated” means.

But, Kevin Drum and other Friday catbloggers? Wile E. Coyote is out there! Wahhhahahhhha!

Beyond that, as the linked story indicates, cats are a major killer of birds. So, if your cat is outside, it’s fair game, folks.

Of course, that’s just 1 percent. The thing that interests me is that deer make up 22 percent of the frequency. Are there really that many deer in Chicago? Inhabiting office parks at big companies? City parks? A bit of both?

Friday scatblogging vs catblogging round two

Yesterday, I pointed to the inanity of giving a cat Elavil for mental issues.

Well, the blogger who does that said, in this cat’s case, it’s to treat urinary incontinence. I double-checked her web link for veterinary Elavil, and sure enough, that’s a listed indication.

But, the first listed indication is for a “mental health condition,” separation anxiety.

To see just how nutty pet owners can be, and how greedy Big PhARMA can be, let’s take more of a look at veterinary Elavil.

First, other indications are for obsessive grooming behavior in cats and dogs. Who determines what is “obsessive grooming behavior”? Why, a pet psychologist, of course.

Don’t laugh. I’ll be getting to that in a minute.

Side effects? The biggest is that it can exacerbate a cardiac rhythm disturbance.

How do you know if your cat has one?

You give it an EKG, of course. Really.

The most potentially dangerous side effect that happens with a realistic frequency is the exacerbation of a cardiac rhythm disturbance. For this reason, an EKG screening has been recommended before starting this medication.

Oh, and there are medicine interactions. Don’t give your anxious or obsessive cat an MAO inhibitor along with Elavil. And, if your anxious cat has needed some stomach medicine health, sorry, that Tagamet doesn’t mix with Elavil.

You think I’m joking about all this? Look at the sidebar of clickable links on that web page. Benadryl, buprenorphine, fentanyl patches, glucosamine (which doesn’t work for people, anyway, so pet owners buying this are suckers twice over), phenobarbitol, prednisone, theophylline and valium.

Three thoughts on this, one with subthoughts.

Pets are as overmedicated, on average, as people now are, it would appear.

No. 2 is that this sounds like an invitation to become a junkie.

Doc, my cat is anxious. What can you prescribe her?
Oh, here try some Valium.

I’m also wondering if vets themselves who get into prescribing psychoactive drugs for dogs and cats, like hospital doctors and nurses, don’t have trouble at times with staying out of their own medicine cabinets.

Third is, how do you pay for all these pet meds, vet visits, vet psychologist visits, etc.?

With pet health insurance, of course, which has nearly 1 million Google hits.

Hey, Kevin Drum. Next time you do Friday catblogging, and you then bitch about lack of health care for people, you might comment about this issue.

If what I mentioned above wasn’t enough nuttery, you can now get a personality test for your cat.

(Answer: Every cat has narcissistic personality disorder, with histrionic subtraits.)

There. I just saved you a shitload of money on a veterinary psychologist. And don’t laugh. Somebody with a title is getting paid big money by dumb pet owners for this stuff. Unfortunately, the ASPCA, which is backing this pseudoscience, also has a similar one for dogs.

(Answer: Every sufficiently housebroken dog has attachment disorder.)

Friday scatblogging — why I scatblog

It’s a protest against the inanity of catbloggers like the one giving a cat antidepressants.

What effing idiocy.

First, it might be different if it were a dog, as far as my personal animal preference.

Second, while I appreciate and understand the psycho-emotional value of pets, treating them that much like people is ridiculous. Doctors Without Borders could use that money spent on cat Elavil for the Myanmar cyclone relief, etc. A local food bank could use that too. (Some degree of apologiies to the blogger to whom I linked; she said her cat is on Elavil for urinary incontinence. The veterinary Elavil website she linked, however, lists a psychological issue, separation anxiety, as its first feline use; more on this above your head in another blog post.)

Third, this sounds like a spinoff racket for Big Pharma, as well as a direct racket for veterinarians. What next, cat whisperers, or dog whisperers, for that matter, asking patients to do primal meow or primal bark therapy?

Hell, it could be a Big Pharma spinoff for real people, too. Kid won't stop bed-wetting? Fine, here is some Elavil.

Finally, looking for new scatblogging ideas every week stimulates my creativity for blogging here.

Almost every one of my scatblogging posts, with the exception of something like the horse Scat Daddy, has been about serious issues.

Dating American Indian caves by coprolites goes to the “Clovis” issue that’s at the heart of anthropological study of American Indian origins. A challenge to identify wild animal scat encourages people to get m ore involved with nature. My multiple scatblogs about mass transit with the proper acronyms of course touches on fuel prices, the future of mass transit, etc. The blog about burning scat to fire a power plant raises a number of issues.

Even the one about the scat-porn video producer is serious in that it covered First Amendment issues. Especially given the current occupant of the White House, that’s a serious issue.