Now Cousin George is doing time in the pen, Animal abuse is why he fell. Peddling stray cats to Ching Ling’s diner, Where the chop suey tastes so swell.
“My Mama, She Lives on Cat Food” By DKO
Column By Dexter K. Oliver
An obsession with domestic cats seems to be an unexpected tar baby that the MAGA campaign will go down in history as having inflicted upon themselves. For thin-skinned people who don’t like others pointing and laughing at them, it has now become a rotting albatross hung around their collective neck like that on the Ancient Mariner from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem. This is called shooting yourself in the foot, a situation that could have easily been avoided if hyperbole and insults weren’t a requisite part of their politics.
Poor JD Vance (aka James Donald Bowman, James David Hamel, J.D. Vance, you choose), Republican vice-president wannabe who started the whole show. His rant about “childless cat ladies” was a blunder of seismic proportions that backfired spectacularly. So much so that it offended not only such well-known women as Stevie Nicks, Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Ashley Judd, Marisa Tomei, Liza Minnelli, Helen Mirren, etc. but also Taylor Swift and her legions of fans. Another cringe-worthy career move for initialist JD; but he, like his running mate, must be used to them by now.
When Donald J. Trump (DJT) decided to go down the easily debunked conspiracy rabbit hole concerning illegal migrants consuming neighborhood pet cats and dogs, during his debate with Kamala Harris, he compounded the animal miscalculation. And he didn’t just double down on it, he went for the full three strikes and you’re out when he stated, “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets.” All of this supposedly just in Springfield, OH where the authorities quickly refuted such claims.
I have eaten the meat from wild cats (mountain lion and bobcat) and wild canines (coyote and grey fox) that I have harvested in the wild, but never had any inclination to supplement my diet with domestic versions of those two families of animal. This is not to say that people from different cultures around the world entertain such an aversion. When DJT pulled his new best friend, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jung Un, up close for a hand-shaking/gripping photo op, he may well have gotten a whiff of roasted dog meat from the dictator’s breath. An acquaintance of mine who spent some time living and working in South Korea mentioned being taken aback by the butcher shops strung with eviscerated dogs waiting for the stew pot. It was a common practice on the Korean peninsula, although it will be legally phased out within three years in South Korea. But eating domestic cats or dogs is still legal in China, Vietnam, Australia, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and the West African nation of Cameroon.
Eating the flesh of carnivores, be they rattlesnakes, alligators, felines or canines doesn’t top my list of fine cuisine but in my long career of working and living with wildlife I have certainly partaken in such meals. I prefer the meat from herbivores and omnivores, from tree squirrels, rabbits, deer, and elk to raccoons and black bears. Having eaten one white-throated wood rat (pack rat), I can add that to my preference over the dog and cat fare. Starving illegal immigrants are probably more apt to be eating rats or bats (remember Injun Joe in Mark Twain’s classic, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”?) than they are free-roaming domestic pets.
But promoting such a baseless worry, as DJT did so adamantly on national television, makes for good political fodder. The “Cat and Dog Debate” of 2024 now has its place cemented in the history books. Especially since JD Vance is also getting on the bandwagon to support his boss with the same nonsense.
Dexter K. Oliver is a freelance writer, wildlife field biologist, and observer of the human condition from Duncan, AZ. His latest book is, “#13 A Baker’s Dozen: An Eclectic Anthology”
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
