In a shout out to Jeff Childers and his excellent Substack, Coffee & Covid, I have to restack the following and use a long awaited Far Side to answer the questions of today. What about The Aliens? What about our Pets? Can they somehow be interconnected? Gary Larson gives us the answer. But, first, here are 2 issues at the forefront. If you read C&C this morning, then scroll to the bottom of this page for the explanation. Twofer. Thank you Gary!
🔥 Usually I stay discretely out of these “hot take” stories, especially ones that are ultimately unresolvable, but this popularly-demanded story is almost seasonal for Halloween. And it has a surprise ending. NPR ran the spooky story Wednesday, which would have been more appropriate for late next month, headlined “Ufologist claims to show 2 alien corpses to Mexico's Congress.”
I know. Just stick with me.
Not to be outdone in its UFO arena by the diligence of the United States Congress, on Tuesday Mexico's Congress took testimony from several “extraterrestrial experts.” But the Telemundo hearing instantly sprang into international news when the first called expert dramatically unveiled what he claims are two mummified corpses of alien beings, a male and a female, with dry, chalky skin tightly stretched over brittle, bumpy bones.
The presenter claimed the unlikely pair were discovered in Peru in 2017, and estimated to be at least 1,000 years old.
The presenter and mummies’ owner is a colorful character and we’ll look at him in a minute. But he has allowed (or sold access to) other alien researchers to take MRI’s and x-rays and DNA samples. Apparently someone even filed several of the samples with the NIH’s DNA registration database, albeit described as “Homo sapiens.”
The various scans of the doll-sized “aliens” show exciting and provocative internal features, including eggs in one of the pair, presumable the female, although sadly, it is now too late to ask for her preferred pronouns:
👽 In related news, this week NASA created a “Director of UAP,” who has not yet been assigned, or if he has, has not been named. Headline from Reuters, dateline yesterday:
Whatever “it” is, it has also spread to NASA, which in hindsight was probably inevitable.”
Then…in the SAME Substack today, Mr. Childers brings to our attention the fact that our pets are making headlines in the UK (where else?). Here is the blurb, which he can write about so much better than I can.
🔥 Following last week’s similar article encouraging people to stop selfishly having kids, the UK Guardian ran a mind-numbing piece Wednesday headlined, “The case against pets: is it time to give up our cats and dogs?”
Answer: no. Case closed.
But that’s not much fun, so let’s go ahead and see what the goofy wokesters are up to this time. I expected it to be related to climate change somehow, like because of all the carbon released making pet food or driving them to the dog park or something. But no.
Once again, their big objection is our human selfishness. Unvirtuous! Apparently, feeding them, walking them, snuggling with and petting them, de-lousing them, de-worming them, grooming them, and paying thousands of dollars for our pets’ medical care — is all TOTALLY self-centered, dummies.
Humans, explained an anti-pet “expert” cited for the article, unjustly “are extracting as much emotional support as we want from” our pets. In the expert’s view, it is definitely “a very selfish relationship.”
Another expert, presumably also a marxist, complained about the language we use to describe our relationship with our animals. She demands that people stop rudely saying they “own” animals, like by saying “I have a dog,” which violates animal human rights, or something, undermining their furry self-confidence. Instead, said the expert, we should only say that we “care for” our pets. Not “have” them.
Maybe she had a point. Admittedly, the animals can’t understand English and have no idea how we’re referring to the relationship, but maybe. You never know. Animals can be very intuitive.
Next, the article argued that pets “aren’t living their best lives.” Which is a crime against humanity to festival-loving, woke, hippie marxist anti-pet experts. According to another anti-pet expert, who used pet parrots as an example, “The boredom of animals is intense.” I am not making this up, but the Guardian then argued “fish are increasingly thought to be bored or stressed by tank life.”
Fish. Whose fishy brains are so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye.
The unstated alternative, to leave the animals to live their best lives in the wild, would certainly cure their boredom. Being chased by a hungry hawk or a predatory bigger fish is, admittedly, much more exciting than swimming laps around the fishbowl or repeatedly croaking “I love you” in exchange for birdie treats.
But … I’m just spitballing here … maybe we should check with the animals first, and see which lifestyle they prefer. Gilded cage? Or full-on Darwin, survival of the fastest?
For purposes of this story, I interviewed the Childers’ family housecat, ‘Kitty,’ about her preference. But she didn’t answer, and just languidly looked the other way, flicking her tail contemptuously, as if it were the stupidest question she ever heard.
I’m sorely tempted to treat this nonsense seriously, and point out things like how the law treats pets as property and does not recognize individual animal rights. If my dog bites someone, then I have to pay damages, not my dog. If I negligently run over someone’s cat, then I have to reimburse the crumpled cat’s owner for the veterinary expenses, not reimburse the cat.
But this nonsense is not serious, and these are not serious people. They are pitiable victims of mental illness. We just need to get them some treatment and stop pretending that anything they say is rational.
