This is a story about a tornado which ripped through Tennessee over December 9 and 10th. It destroyed the home of a ginger tabby cat in Madison. The family was away at the time.
A video was made of the devastation and a screenshot from that video, I’m told, showed this ginger tabby cat snoozing on a pillow among the devastation. The home had been entirely destroyed and all that remained, it seems to me, was this tabby cat snoozing, indeed sleeping, on a dirty pillow among the rubble. The report comes from the people.com website.
It is a poignant picture of survival and devastation. Erica Williams, a good Samaritan, who likes to save animals and is a passionate animal advocate was scrolling through social media viewing areas affected by the tornado. She discovered a video posted by Ricky Sessum who was assisting in relief and search and rescue efforts in Madison after the tornado.
Williams saw the video that Sessum had made and noticed the cat on the pillow. She “frantically started messaging him on every social media outlet and texting him in hopes he was still there.”
Indeed, he was there and he did receive Williams’ messages. And he was able to return to the devastated home where he had filmed his earlier video and found the cat whose name by the way is Sandy.
At that point everything looked much better because he took Sandy to his truck to keep him warm. And you can see in the video that he was asking for help, specifically veterinary help for Sandy.
Williams then got down to the area and went to Sandy who was still in the truck. He had shallow breathing and wasn’t moving. She took the cat for medical treatment and posted about Sandy on social media which alerted the cat’s owner, Abi. They were reunited at Livewell Animal Urgent Care.
Donations helped to pay for Sandy’s medical treatment which involved x-rays and other medical expenses.
Great ending to a difficult story and great teamwork using social media as a communication tool.
Sessum – speciesism
But what I want to finish off with is the point that I mention in the title which is this: when you go to Sessum’s Facebook page you see him proudly showing off a couple of deer that he’s shot. The man is a deer hunter. He is a sport hunter and he likes to kill animals for the fun of it. But in the same breath almost he likes to rescue animals from tornadoes. What kind of person is that? It is a person engaged in subconscious speciesism. Without realising it he values cats over deer by a large margin.
But surely if you have the heart to rescue animals you can’t have the heart to kill them for fun. I don’t see how you can do the two. What kind of mentality is this? I need someone to explain this to me (if I am wrong) because there’s something missing in the logic of this man’s mind.
My apologies to this guy if this upsets him but I need to understand this. There is something wrong here. Is this rampant speciesism or a kind of schizophrenia?
