1 April

I Was Offered An AI Software Experiment To Block Hatred, Chilling And Shockingly Effective. I Can Have It For Two Weeks. I Won’t Be Using It

by Jon Katz

Long Ago and Far Away, I used to write for Wired Magazine. One of the people I worked with has become a well-known software engineer in Silicon Valley. We were both relatively young and realistic when the Internet blossomed, and we were convinced it would be a blessing for freedom and democracy. Finally, information would be free.

To some extent, that dream is true; to another, it often appears social media is chewing up democracy and threatening it severely. Online hatred has become a political and personal weapon, increasingly used to punish disagreement and free thought. My friend and others are now claiming AI software can turn that tide.

Being young and idealistic, we didn’t imagine the greed and indifference of corporations, who allowed their websites to be cesspools of hatred, rage, and bigotry to draw an audience.  We didn’t foresee that this anger and rage would grow and threaten our democracy rather than nourish it. Writing in the open on the Internet is now too often asking about social bullfighting.

I’m skeptical of my friend’s idea.

Reading my blog, he’s followed the hatred and cruelty that seem to be blossoming everywhere and on my blog at times, making me a fascinating proposal. He wants me to use new and experimental AI software designed to stop and block hate messages. It works simply, he says. The AI software is fed thousands—even millions—of hate messages and the e-mail, fake or real names of the people who send them.

They do this by collecting and storing the names of people who send cruel, threatening, or vicious messages. They also collect what the messages look like, feel like, and sound like. When the software is fed and activated, it automatically and instantly identifies and trashes or destroys these messages instantly.

I would no longer see them, although they can be stored if I ever wish to read them. He wants me to try this software for up to two weeks and report my experience.

I thought about this for a few hours, but no longer than that.

I thanked him for thinking of me and declined his offer.

As you know, I believe in confronting and sometimes exposing hate mail. I wouldn’t say I like getting it (who does?) but thinking about it, I decided that what the AI software should do is precisely what I am beginning to do and should do myself.

Instead of using software, I would block or destroy these messages on my own and continue with my work rather than surrender them to the software, which is so intrusive and technical that no one, including me, would know how it works, how it gathers all this material, or what it would ultimately do with it.

My arguments with haters (yes, you, Jullie) are well known and often tiring and frustrating to me and the innocent bystanders who must listen in or hear wanton cruelty and hatred.

But I am getting there, and no software will strengthen and empower me more than me. I’m not turning this task over to AI software; I will never be sure I have the strength, skill, or confidence to handle this issue myself if I do that.

Hateful messaging has not prevented me from doing my work, writing what I want, or loving my blog, my life, and the many excellent and non-hating people who read it.

Yes, I know this is how the Nazis started it, but I am not prepared to equate what is happening in America to the Nazis and what happened in Germany. I think that’s going too far for me.

I installed much more moderate software that allows me to delete hateful messages instantly and, with one button, ensure that no one sending such a message will ever get posted again and move their messages straight to the trash.

It’s straightforward. The software identifies names, languages, e-mails, and sources from which they are sent. It does not block, delete, or eliminate people who disagree with me, dislike me, or wish to challenge me on my thoughts. I can delete the haters if I wish, but I don’t. Those are the messages I want: thoughtful, intelligent, and civilized. Those are the messages I am getting now.

This is my work—writing in freedom, exchanging ideas, hopefully getting people to think, and hoping they will return the favor.

My software has blocked hatred 100 percent since I installed it, and I glance at it once or twice a week to ensure innocent and good-meaning people are not being blocked by mistake.

I don’t seek Nirvana. I love having some tension on the blog; it suits my thinking. I hate having hatred on my blog; it obsesses and detracts from me and my ability to think. And I don’t want an invisible screen between me and those who read me, no matter how much some might hate my guts.

There is an Orwellian element to this.

The haters will only know their messages never appear in my blog comments or appear in my e-mail. They do not know; they are banned, blocked, or banished unless I tell them or unless they tire of yelling into the sunset without the satisfaction of knowing they hurt or dig some damage. In my experience, they feel the best solution is quitting and going away. Haters need an audience to hate; silence does for them what sunshine did for Dracula.

But it has worked for me. I don’t miss the hate; I don’t miss the hatred it pulls out of me; I am more accessible than ever to write what I want and share it with people who want to read. Slowly, day by day, my dream is coming true, and if anybody gets credit for it, I do, and my readers do too.

As tempting as it is, I don’t want AI software to do this for me. I want to prove to myself, and yes, the world, that this can be done by ourselves. Hatred flourishes only when it hurts and is listened to. I can’t guarantee this will be a kinder and more compassionate world.

But it’s a good start, better than letting this hatred and cruelty flourish without challenge or the power of decency and honesty. Good luck, Jullie; I can’t honestly say I wish you well, but if you are reading this, know that you are gone and will never be admitted back.

My message to me is good for you, Jon; you are dealing with this in a mature, realistic, and hopefully compelling way. I told my friend I honestly believed I could do it as well as his software could.

Maybe I’m just arrogant; perhaps I’m a visionary. I won’t be a coward.

We’ll see.

25 March

Attention Credit Card Blog Donors

by Jon Katz

As of today, we’ve canceled credit card donations. The processing service was becoming prohibitively expensive, and most donors used Paypal, Venmo, or mail. That is unchanged. Their transmission fees are much smaller.

Credit card donors will receive an e-mail notifying them of the cancellation. I hope those whose credit card donations are canceled will consider re-subscribing or donating through Paypal, Venmo, or the mail: Jon Katz, Blog Support, P.O. Box  205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

We need your support. Thanks.

For details, you can go to the Support The Blog site on the blog. I appreciate your support, and this money can be much better used than going to credit card transmission companies. The cost was becoming more significant than the donations.  – jon

23 March

Farm Journal, Saturday, March 23, 2024 Winter Pasture, 24 Hours Of Snow, More To Come, Ravenous Birds, Tired People

by Jon Katz

It’s fitting that the worst storm of the season comes in mid-March. We are so buried that we could never get the generator out of the barn now. If the power goes out, which is likely, we’ll go dark and silent, which is always a kind of spiritual experience. It’s rare to have peace like that in our time.

Maria and I went out and shoved a half dozen times and gave you. There is too much heavy, wet snow. We spent a wonderful hour in the living room watching the hungry birds swarm the feeder outside the window. I am eager to read tonight if the power stays or play chess by candlelight.

I am making progress with my bird photography, and I love taking black-and-white photos in the winter pasture. I’d never see this in a place like Florida, and I would miss it. I’m too old to do much shoveling of wet snow, I stopped soon. But the photo-taking was great fun. I won’t have snow to kick around soon for many months. For that matter, the birds will only be at their feeders for a short time.

It was a beautiful day in so many ways. I overdid the shoveling and the car scraping and began to dehydrate. I sat by the fire and read a bit, then fell asleep. When I woke up, we pulled chairs out. It’s one of the last gasps of winter; it is going out with a big bang.

My Leica class last Sunday was a great success; I’m finally figuring out how to make this complex and excellent camera work. I’m skipping the food pantry food of the day today; I’ll get to it tomorrow.

This storm was serious, but that is also why we are here. There is a lot of life happening on a farm in upstate New York or anywhere else. Somehow, this makes us happy and gives meaning to our lives. What we do matters.

If the power holds up, I’ll upload more of these photos in a few minutes and also tomorrow. But don’t be surprised if the blog is dark tomorrow.

Lulu is in the barn licking the salt block. The donkeys eat hay in the pole barn; the sheep go outside.

 

Snowdog and Maria

The hills across the road. I can’t remember any snowstorm lasting this long in my time here.

We had a beautiful time sitting in that corner, watching the birds.

Maria is in the barn, getting some hay.

 

The apple tree in the pasture

The snowcat was on and off his throne all afternoon. She had a lot of fun.

Fate and I got warm together; we came in to dry out.

The winter pasture was made for landscape, and so was my monochrome camera.

19 March

Chronicles Of Hate. How It Challenged Me, Angered Me, Frightened Me And Made Me a Better Human Being.

by Jon Katz

When I think of the people who sent me and others what I call hate mail, I think of an older, unmarried person who lives alone, usually in a small apartment in a city. Two schools have researched trolls and hate mailers online and have invariably found that they have experienced physical, verbal, or sexual abuse in their lives, usually at home.

I wish I could offer links to these findings, but I won’t for obvious reasons. I don’t want to make a target of anyone else.

These messages changed and challenged me in many ways; perhaps the biggest realization was that none of these messages are really about me, the things I do or believe, or my animals.

Since the hate messengers don’t know me or have ever spoken to me, how could they know who they are attacking, for better or worse?

This realization helped me detach myself from them and pity the senders. They believe any kind of compassion or sincerity is false and contrived because they have never seen or experienced those things in their own lives. Someone like me, a genuine talker, cannot communicate successfully with them.

Almost all of the people researched and interviewed and who sent hate mail have experienced severe trauma of different kinds. Like soldiers in battle, events they hear or read about can trigger a painful and violent response, in this case, striking back at the world through e-mails and social media outlets.

One of those triggers is argument and challenge, which they perceive as more cruelty and abuse. Another is decisions about animals.

Their attacks on other people are rarely based on facts or reality, and although they feel passionate, their hate and rage are never based on facts or truth; those things don’t matter to them, and they don’t believe in facts or truth.

Instead, they reflect on their own complicated lives.

They are invariably poor and isolated socially  (except for kindred spirits mostly online), and they suffer from different kinds of mental illness, abuse being the common denominator. People always ask me why others and I get these messages, and as a former journalist, I decided to answer the question rather than complain about it or be hurt by it.

Psychologists say cruel attacks on strangers online are a very reliable sign of mental illness in modern America and should be seen in that way. I hadn’t thought about it, but these are fearful cowards; they hide between pseudonyms, are never honest about who they are, and mostly run and hide when challenged.

We have almost no facilities in America to pay for or provide treatment for people like this, so they go without any real kind of care.

Since they can’t listen or absorb other people’s realities, arguing with or challenging them is unhealthy, even cruel. Any contact arouses them and inflames them.

They often focus their rage on sincerity, success, or prominence.

They identify closely with the treatment of animals since they have suffered themselves.

Many are drawn to the animal rights movement because they project their pain onto animals and see other people as cruel and abusive. This is an essential outlet for them; it allows them to ventilate and re-enact suffering in a way that brings them a sense of justice and revenge.

Test after tests show their illness involves an inability to listen, change their minds, or engage in rational discourse. One way or another, they are most often lashing out at a world that has been painful and hurtful. And there are no consequences for their cruelty or hatred, which makes them feel powerful and heard.

Learning this has completely altered my experience dealing with hate mail and thinking I am morally obliged to challenge and respond to it. I was wrong.

I’ve learned that genuine compassion regarding hate mail means ignoring it and not giving it nourishment or fuel. There is no way arguing with these broken people results in any good or resolution. They can’t hear it and can’t stop. They need advanced and continuous health care that they can’t afford and that governments don’t want to pay for.

I see that the messages have nothing to do with my life or the animals themselves, and I have learned to ignore them and rarely, if ever, respond. It was a hard lesson, but I’ve done my homework and figured it out. Understanding them has strengthened me; I am no longer stung or hurt by them.

I wanted to share my experience since hate mail is spreading all over social media, and many people  – like me – are looking for ways to deal with it without becoming hateful themselves.

___

Part Two

America has changed radically since I began my blog in 2007. In the 40 years I wrote books (five best sellers, mind you), I never received a single hate letter, message, or e-mail from anyone. Disturbed and angry people have few outlets for their pain; social media has given them an enormous way to feel important.

Over time, many people have disliked or been annoyed by me; I can’t recall anyone who hated me. In modern digital America, many people profess to hate me, and I’ve never met, seen, or spoken to a single one of them.

It took some getting used to.

This is the story of how I figured out how to handle it in a healthy way. It will help the growing number of people with this experience.

(While this is about hate messaging, the overwhelming volume of messages I get are positive and supportive. They are often thoughtful, courteous, and respectful, and I value them. I thank my readers for keeping me sane and confident while I have worked to sort this out.)

Hatred is new to me and strange to me.  I learned early to fight back or perish. Now, I am learning how not to fight back and prosper. It’s a significant change.

What makes me better is thinking about it, going inside, and never joining the fray.

Sometimes, when people are attacked, they fall apart. Other times, it forces them to go deep inside themselves and get stronger. And sometimes they return the hate. That is the one thing that never works.

Writing books about animals was never considered controversial when I did it, and when I toured bookstores nationwide, I always received good reviews, welcoming bookstores, packed crowds, and warm receptions. I had no clue as two what was coming.

I first encountered the savage ethos of the animal rights world when I put down my border collie Orson after he bit three people, including a child, in the neck. The sight of that child bleeding from his throat haunts me still.

I promised myself I would never have a dog who might do that again or put any living thing in that position. Nor would I contain an active border collie in a crate or kennel for the rest of his life.

I thought it was nobody’s business but mine, but I still needed to grasp the new America, where social media has made everybody’s business everybody else’s business. And where the manners I was taught do not apply.

That was an isolated incident for me. The shock wore off, and I went about my life and began plotting my blog. I didn’t understand that the assaults had nothing to do with me or with Orson. I was a stand-in for people who had harmed them.

I  heard only kind words from readers, especially after a movie was made about one of my books, A Dog Year, starring Jeff Bridges (who was hired because he looked like me). My books were not runaway hits but did well and made me mildly famous.

I did interviews nationwide, receiving a lot of praise for them. On those many road trips, I never once encountered hatred face-to-face.

I was slow to grasp the implications of the coming hatred movement.  I was born and raised to tell the truth, and I somewhat naively expected that other people would tell the truth or at least try. I didn’t see that it was becoming too easy to lie about people and attack them.

The messages foretold the future, although I didn’t know it. I don’t mean for this to be another political stewing, but my experience of hate mail began with Trumpism’s national movement of hatred and grievance. He knew much better than I did how fearful,  angry, and vengeful so many people were and are. Suddenly, hating others and lying was okay, even a path to success and power.

Today, the hatred movement has gone way past dogs and animal rights and to the top of the country’s leadership and beyond. Hating others is the new national mission in politics. Hate messages were ok.

___

Part 3

When I began my blog in 2007, I made three promises to myself and my readers: first, I would be as honest and authentic as I could be; secondly, I would be open about my life and not use my blog as a screen for selling books, as was the common practice then.

This was a radical idea at the time. Very few people were doing it, especially with pictures, and my publishers assured me it would be catastrophic for my work and career.

And third, I would focus on writing every day rather than using my time to obsess over grammar and spelling. To my surprise, I wanted the blog to have something new and exciting daily, a formula that worked.

I have never cared about grammar or spelling, nor did my editors.  Random House didn’t care about typos, and strangers I had never met complained loudly and bitterly. Typos were never a big meal for me, a confused Dyslexic.

I write too much to proofread my work thoroughly, and my expensive proofreading software is dumber than I am.

I am Dyslexic, as many of you know, but I have never spelled well, learned much about grammar, or thought it necessary. That is why God made editors; it just doesn’t matter to me. I have no trouble making myself clear.

In 2016, I launched the Army Of Good, a way for me to focus on doing good rather than arguing and buying into the hatred online that was already beginning to emerge.

Donald Trump had by then opened Pandora’s Box and let all the demons out. Haters finally have a place to go, and they are unchecked and untreated.

I have always been outside the mainstream. I like to think for myself, not for academics or extremists on the left or the right. I enjoy arguing and considering disagreements. Many people don’t like that, and some hate me.

However, disagreements differ from hatred, and the boundary between the two has declined yearly since 2016. Many people no longer know the difference.

People have always disagreed with me (every day, someone sends the strange message, “Even though I often disagree with you, I love your blog.”)

I’ve always struggled to understand this, as I only read writers, bloggers, and pundits with whom I beg to differ. No writer with whom I have never disagreed is worth reading for me. Ask anyone who knew me – to know me is to disagree with me, usually about many things.

What can you learn from people you only agree with? Nothing.  What could I learn from hatred? Even less.

My blog is about as controversial as a pancake these days, yet I sometimes feel like one of those lunatics in Congress. There is a hatred for sincerity, authenticity, and do-gooding. It is always considered false or corrupt by the hate messengers. They don’t seem to know what it is.

___

How did I deal with this onslaught of hatred? What has it taught me, and what have I learned from it?

I’ve learned a lot about how to live in a sea of hate.

I’ve learned that the real haters project their fears and anger onto people they see as powerful and successful.

They hate sincerity, in particular, or admissions of change.

I have mostly learned to delete these people on sight.

I knew that they live to hurt and gain attention, and the more I thought about it, the more they seemed to mimic awful things that had been done to them.

I see them needing compassion and pity more than anger since they do not live in reality or the once-civilized world of engagement. One of the awful things about the digital revolution is that people no longer need to speak to one another, so they never get to know one another.

Conflict – and often, lies and delusion – are the language of social media. Since we rarely see other people in social or political settings any longer, we have come to hate anyone who is an “other.” That includes liberals, political opponents, public officials, nurses, postal employees,  store clerks, and teachers.

We are becoming a nation of haters, complainers, and victims.  People on one side are never permitted to believe people on the other.

The extremist left is just as responsible for this as the extremist right, although few will admit it. Listening is so rare that it is considered newsworthy.

Compassion is essential, and it is the foundation element of happiness. The less angry I am, the happier I am. I do feel sorry for people who can’t feel that, and people who can feel it don’t send hate messages to strangers on computers.

Yesterday, I got this message from Peter Worthington When I supposedly left an “I” out of a Calla Lili.

Your spelling is nuts,” Peter wrote. “you take pictures of flowers and yet can’t spell a simple word like “lily.” 

I was amazed that I even picked that up. Second, I never realized that taking pictures of flowers would cure my Dyslexia and enhance my spelling skills. If only I had known.

The message is revealing and is thus worth sharing. At no point did I encounter or expect a stranger to write such a rude, ignorant, and ridiculous message. I’m still getting used to it.

How has this changed me?

Oddly enough, for the better. At first, I tried arguing with these people, a foolish and myopic mistake. Then I tried reasoning with them, even more pointless.

I also tried using them as teaching tools to rebuff and challenge their dishonesty and cruelty. The messages did hurt, after all. I realized that they live to hurt, not inform; it’s the point of their messages.

I started thinking I was lucky not to be like them, lucky to want to value civility and decency, and proud to try to be compassionate and empathetic. I wanted to be better than this.

As I delved deeper into my spiritual exploration, I also realized that the real problem was my anger, not theirs. They aroused the worst parts of me, and I had begun to hate them.

I don’t want to hate people. It’s how I wish to live my life now, especially since I see so much of it all around me. Instead of fighting with them, I prayed for them and their shattered spirits: I meditated, talked to a shrink, and took a hard look at myself.

Most of the anger is gone, and most of the hurt. If you think about it, it’s impossible to take it seriously. I realized that I had some sensitivities and anger inside of me that needed treatment and acknowledgment.

It’s important to remember that the real haters can’t help it; they are like dogs going after warm marrow bones.

Broken people, I’ve read, are drawn to the internet mainly because they have been mistreated, often cruelly, themselves.

They need help, as I did,  and should be pitied, not enabled or given microphones to shout their unhappiness and cruelty.

I realized I have never met, seen, or heard a hateful person laugh, find joy, or be happy.

I am happy, and I find joy every day. How sad that they could hurt me. How good that I figured out how to deal with it.

I wanted a different path. Thanks to my spiritual work, I was able to shed my anger. I got some software that blocked hateful messengers and deleted them.

There weren’t as many as I thought, and while the messages still come in, they are shrinking in number; there is nothing in it if I don’t show hurt or give them a voice. As my anger and hurt have receded, so has their anger and hurt. They look elswhere for feeding.

And they have made me a happy and contented man.

This hatred is universal, not personal. It can and will happen to anyone who puts themselves out there openly.

Everyone I know or read about online gets hate mail now, as corporations and most websites pretend it isn’t happening and ignore it. People often trade hater messages with one another as jokes.

The people who live in a world of anger and grievance – poor them –  finally have a leader. I am not a political person and don’t need to Trump bash. But I can’t help but link him to the rise of this kind of hatred.

So, the future is up to me. I can either trade in anger or trade-in compassion and good works. They didn’t chase me off my blog, and they won’t, which leaves me feeling very good.

13 March

Blog News, Changes, Decisions. No More Credit Card Donations. No More Ill People Posting Comments.

by Jon Katz

I want to share two changes in the blog. The first is about credit card donations.

The credit card security and transactional fees are staggering and increasing monthly. I can’t afford them without endangering the blog itself. The money from the blog and the Army Of Good should be used for its intended purposes, not for credit card companies.

Credit card donors will soon receive an email from the card transaction company serving us canceling credit card donations. I hope you find alternative ways to support the blog and our work. The blog will always be free, but I need donations to help the Mansion residents, refugee children, and the Cambridge Food Pantry.

So that you know, you don’t need to wait for the emails. You can cancel credit card donations anytime and switch to PayPal, Venmo, or mail donations.

Monthly donations can easily be shifted to Paypal, which offers monthly contributions. Venmo can also be used to send individual or one-time contributions. Most donations now come from PayPal, and Venmo is becoming more popular, especially among the young. We’ll provide a link that makes donating in simple (and inexpensive) ways easy.

This is a heads-up that it’s getting close. Thanks for your help. Please consider keeping your contributions coming. They are needed.

___

Secondly, many of you followed the week-long arguments on the blog about Zip and whether or not he should be allowed in the farmhouse.  It might surprise you (probably not), but I am a street fighter, and street fighters fight back; this is perhaps the only thing I have in common with Mr. Trump.

I had a lot of fun this week, and I was proud of my position and what I wrote about it. But something troubled me. I don’t need to argue at all, especially with people who are clearly troubled.

The messages I was getting were so unhinged and extreme that they gave me an easy path to ridicule and laugh at the people who sent them.

We did manage an honest discussion, but none of the nasty messengers participated.

The week allowed me to vent my spleen against elements of the animal rights movement I believe are harming, even killing, working animals and harassing good people.

And they were so loopy-  accusations of corruption, dishonesty, sadism, and abuse – that they also inspired me to take out my natural side and have some fun. I had fun the whole week, poking my harassers and being ironic.

If I’m an animal abuser, I hate to think about what the real ones are getting away with.

However, the fact that broken people took the animal rights position doesn’t make them animal rights advocates or spokespeople for the movement.

These assaults have been good for me; they made me stronger and helped me to stop publishing things for the sake of argument or as an outlet for the residual anger I have carried in my head for most of my life. I strengthened my identity by defending myself, and most of the anger melted away.

One thing that bothered me was the assaults I printed and wrote about.

They come from someplace other than official animal rights officials or the many animal rights people who are sometimes mature and conscientious but have different ideas and values than me. The movement has fostered and enabled a culture of anger and even hatred toward animal owners, and for the sake of animals, I would hope they would do better than that.

While many are obsessed with where barn cats sleep, thousands of animal species are vanishing. Their priorities seem warped.

I realized belatedly, and this week especially (you should have seen the messages I didn’t post!) that I was unconsciously ridiculing and enabling people who are not healthy or rational and exploiting them by using them as targets to make a point I believe in. I don’t want to do that anymore; while I feel proud of everything I wrote and about our decisions involving Zip, I don’t think it’s quite right to be quoting people I know who are suffering from various forms of mental illness.

So, I’m instituting some new rules about messaging.

I won’t publish any comments from people who are not respectful of me and my work or who can’t rationally and civilly argue their positions without calling anyone names, me or my readers.

These people represent nothing but illness.  I doubt they can help themselves, and I don’t wish to laugh at them or at their expense—there are plenty of sane targets to talk to, discuss, and argue with. There are at least two sides to everything, but these people do not need to be given an audience on my blog.

This is part of an evolution for me.

I’ve been writing online for a half-century and seen the spiraling of hostility there and on social media.

A psychiatrist I know and trust tells me that many people with mental issues go online these days to express themselves freely and target people they don’t know. It is, he said, a virulent form of mental illness and should be treated in that way.

People sometimes accuse me of not tolerating disagreement, but anyone who reads the blog regularly knows otherwise.

I love to argue, but I’m not comfortable with hate and cruelty.

People who disagree with me straightforwardly and respectfully have nothing to fear from me. I enjoy people like that, and I grow with challenges and questioning.

So, I will expand my new program of deleting messages from people who don’t seem healthy or rational or openly express hatred. And I will continue to permit commits that disagree with me purposefully, practically, and courteously.

If you don’t believe me, try.

I want my blog to be consistent with my spiritual direction and good for me.

I can’t imagine why people who hate what I stand for expect me to do their dirty work and publish their venom. I thank the many good people who read my blog and have thoughtful things to say. They will always be welcome here.

The last straw was a person who called me a dozen names in her first post and said my dogs smelled—a reason Zip might suffer, she said, even if he came in the house. This woke me up. She said Zip was crying piteously to be let in from the cold. (Zip was out every night looking for mice and found quite a few  under the snow.)

I spent time at the University of Kentucky program on human-animal attachment, and here it was: a sad, unfortunate person transferring her sickness onto a barn cat she had never seen or met and projecting her brokenness.

What was I doing arguing with that?

Since she was not even close to being civil or rational, I deleted this message, blocked her from posting again, and deleted my second message of response.

Any actual or sane animal rights advocate is welcome on my blog anytime, as long as they learn to utter a civil sentence without calling me or anyone else names.

I should never have posted her first message; it was all venom and hysteria, with no rational reasoning. . I thought it might spark a genuine conversation, and it did. But it bothered me.

I want this blog to be a safe and meaningful place, and I will continue working until it is. It is close.

I thank my flowers for helping to set me on a good path. I thank my good readers for supporting my work and sticking with me.

This place is my work and passion, and I’ll keep at it until I get it right.

Bedlam Farm