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RE: Why I watch so many idiotic cat videos
You're so much wiser than I am - not only do I still check the daily news, I read HISTORY blogs and books, and the blogs give us true horror stories that just break my heart. So, off I go, in search of babies, cats, dogs, flowers, sunsets, rainbows, trees, frogs, bees, whatever the sun shines down on, plus all the cool things of the night, stars and galaxies swirling above us, mooonshine, chirping crickets, things stirring in the dark... oh, ewww, and the dogs, getting skunked in our own backyard, proudly wearing their new cologne. Somehow the aroma made it indoors even though the dogs did not. (Oddly, I'm one of those people who prefer the smell of skunk - and wet dog - to bottled perfumes, colognes, and scented soaps.)
LOLOL!!!
Happily, so far, our animals have managed not to get skunked, though we small them on a regular basis, and did even in heavily urban Largo, Florida. And the one time one sprayed quite close to the house, both my house and my neighbor's reeked for a couple of days. But I'm with you - eau de skunk really isn't all that bad, especially when in the distance, and you're the first person, aside from myself, that I've run across to say openly that it can actually be pleasant. So does that make us weirdly similar, or similarly weird? ;-)
Their spray is actually chemically related to the mints, as is cannabis, hence the similarity there as well in some strains. And I'm an avid mint lover from way back. Their spray is concentrated to a ridiculous degree, hence its effect on potential predators, and frankly, Lolo and the cats can't stand the smell of mint either; with the obvious exception of catnip for the cats, which Lolo thinks is just pure silliness on their part.
As for perfumes, colognes and the like, most are so incredibly toxic that I stopped using them years ago, abandoning them in favor of essential oils from companies I trust. And, really, I'm so picky there are only half a dozen or so that I really like in the first place, though Yves St. Laurent has a good track record with me, particularly with Paris and Opium. Which are also likely ridiculously toxic.
I've been a history geek my whole life, and have a large number of histories in my collection, which yes, have made me cry on a regular basis. Of course, I cried at the end of "Hot Blooded Dinosaurs," by Adrian Desmond, when he described the demise of so many species due to climate change, as their thinning eggs began failing to hatch.
So yeah, I'm an easy mark, especially for works on animals of all kinds. "The Empty Ocean," by the always excellent Richard Ellis, tops my list of most depressing books of all time. Just thinking about it is depressing.
My love for world and natural history has long informed my distaste for our current government, by which I'm including the past several decades, since the same self-serving sociopaths seem to always run things regardless of who holds office. And so few in office seem to have ANY grasp of even recent history, that I find myself wondering which rock they've been living under, and whether they will give back their victims' bodies once they depart for their home solar system. But I digress.
I like history, even depressing history, because I think we can learn something. But I struggled very hard in my first year or so of history education in higher ed. In particular, Jim Crow America is still very hard for me sometimes. But it helps contextualize the workd we live in, and is worth knowing for that reason.
I’m with @crescendoofpeace, tho—reading history can definitely create disdain and distaste for our current government in the US.