Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 6.19

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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16 Comments

  1. A co-worker and I just had an article accepted to the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media about Penny Arcade and sexism in the gaming community.

    It’s tough because places like Penny Arcade as really central to “the gaming community” but are so very, very problematic. I teach game design and was at a local developer recently (with one female coworker and about 10 – 15 men) and the developers were raving about PAX East and how it’s a must attend for us and our students if they want to be a part of the industry. At the same time my female coworker and I looked at each other and shared one of those unspoken conversations about how we’ll never attend. But the pressure is there, particularly as untenured faculty looking to improve the placement rate for our students.

    Depending upon who views that article once its been published we’re both expecting and bracing for a lot of harassment since we both know that simply speaking up about this opens that possibility up.

    1. Not sure if this is “canon” but on another site that posted the article a commentor claimed to be family of this man. They said the mouse was a family pet that had died and I’m assuming the cat got a hold of it somehow. So the guy was trying to retrieve the body of a pet. Doesn’t make it smarter but does reframe the motivation. But there’s a strong chance that the commentor was just making it up as well.

      1. If that’s true, that helps a LITTLE.

        Do most pet mice have the plague, though? That doesn’t seem right at all.

      2. As a former pet mouse caretaker I would understand, a little; not much though.

        No, this doesn’t jibe. I went back to see if the mouse or cat had the plague and officials said it wasn’t known. Pet mice don’t get the plague, I smell a rat, so to speak.

        1. As a former pet RAT owner — I thought so. Isn’t the PLague carried by fleas, anyway? Not rats/mice? The fleas may get on and infect the mice, but fleas are the ultimate carrier.

          I may be far off base on this…

          Also, as a former pet rat owner… If my cat had tried to eat one of my rats, I would have tried to do something — WEARING GLOVES.

          Also, my rats bit me before, and drew blood. And my friend used to raise them. A lot of them. He had been bit. No one got the plague.

          This seems really shady.

    2. And why would you even save a mouse from a cat?! Come on. I’m sorry but that was so dumb. What the fuck was he thinking. CATS EAT MICE.

    3. In a comment on the linked article, someone claiming to be the child of the person says that the mouse was long dead and mummified and the cat was the pet, and was choking on it. He was attempting to save the cat from choking. If this is true, it certainly makes the most sense out of all the stories.

      1. How could a mummified mouse carry the plague?

        And so far we have two “children” making two completely different claims.

        Shit is shady as hell.

        1. It’s the mummy version of the plague, duh. Dryer and dustier than the original but very persistent. I don’t know about the story, but I was pretty surprised to find that there are an average of 7 cases of the plague per year in the U.S. I hate the whole idea of buboes so I had BETTER NOT catch that shit. Luckily my odds are good.

  2. In another account I just saw, the mouse wore white gloves, red pants with suspenders, and talked in a high squeaky voice while the cat had a pronounced lisp. The cat also appeared to have an accomplice, a wiry dog looking thing (perhaps el chupacabra) that was also after a grey and periwinkle blur (believed to be some sort of spirit). The man in question was not, I repeat, not infected with the plague; he was inflicted with an as yet unknown disease that was passed to him via a human bite. This disease did not kill him outright; he instead flew to Florida where he proceeded to eat the face off of a homeless man, before shambling back home.

    That’s the report I heard, either that or my remote is broken.

  3. I knew I disliked that picture on “Female Role Models”, the first time I saw it on Facebook for some reason.

    Fortunately, Leah has articulated it very well.

  4. Amanda,

    That story about the man in Prineville Organ getting the black death is rather upsetting. Why would he try to take a dead mouse from a stray cat anyway?

  5. Many years ago my sisters “rescued” a wild mouse from one of our cats because they were going to keep it as a pet. The mouse only lived a few days–luckily no one got bit. Not that this was a smart idea, but I can see how it would happen.

  6. Is it really a save if the mouse is dead? We take mice away from our cats because a. mice do carry parasites that can harm cats and b. our neighbors use rodenticide. We’re in the east anyway, but I’m a bit surprised the guy died; although there’s different versions of plague at least some of them are curable if they catch it in time.

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