What you say about Kira and your own cat are the sorts of things that underlie my exaggerated reaction. So many animals are mistreated and abused as a natural course of human ignorance and superiority, starting with the people who have animals and leave them unneutered because they can’t “afford” the vet bill. For a brief second I imagined any of our cats being the victim of those two girls in the news item. And you see my response.

A part of what bothers me about this is the reaction some people have to the outpouring of anger towards the girls and love for the injured cat. Their response? “There wasn’t this much reaction when a child was kidnapped last year.” Like people should care even less than they already do for animals. Like some anonymous human child is instantly supposed to be more important just because its human. As if there is something wrong with people who are outraged at the abuse of an innocent animal.

Those two girls will likely get at most a few months of probation for their acts. If it was *my* cat, I don’t know if I’d be able to let it slide like that.