Table of Contents
To the Editor:
Re “What’s Heading On Within My Cat’s Head?,” by Farhad Manjoo (column, Aug. 29):
Observe your rambunctious kittens intently, Mr. Manjoo. To enjoy feline consciousness — if it is in there — glance at the trivialities of their habits.
Surely you’ve noticed one particular cover from the other, lie in wait around, spring out. Could the perpetrator pull off an ambush with out a self-concept to the effect that “I am below now”? Without the awareness that the goal also perceives the globe, but from its have place of perspective? With no goals and subgoals, strategies and ways?
Observe the eyes. Do the kittens keep track of 1 another’s gaze? Will the perpetrator abandon the ambush if she discovers that she is seen to the target and he is now wanting at her?
Your eyes: Do the kittens ever appear at them? Do they redirect their gaze to what they see you’re looking at? Level to one thing. Do they appear at the a little something or the finger?
For comparison, observe puppies at participate in and grownup dogs producing eye get in touch with with individuals. View wolves. Check out kids and observe their improvement. Whatsoever the psychological states of organisms other than oneself, we can know them only via thorough inference from shut observation and demanding experimentation.
What fun the science is! Possibly as zestful as a playful ambush.
Gordon Bear
Ramsey, N.J.
The writer is a retired professor of social psychological science at Ramapo Higher education.
To the Editor:
Acquiring just acquired a cat, I was intrigued by Farhad Manjoo’s column. But enable me say that my intentions were being nearly anything but honorable.
My cat is sweet but far from responsive, at least in comparison to pet dogs I have known. Orders, commands and gestures signify practically nothing to her. Does that signify that she is not as intelligent as a canine? Alas, that may perhaps properly be correct.
I seemed it up: Canines have bigger brains and extra than two times as many cortical neurons. So my work is to decreased my anticipations and believe in that she will come to me when she wishes, not when I want. Stay and master.
Elmera Goldberg
New York
To the Editor:
Most of my existence I’ve owned canine. They are wonderful, if smelly, companions. Under no circumstances the moment did I really feel it important to ponder what was likely on in my dog’s head: It was normally obvious from the dog’s actions.
In the very last yr, even so, we acquired a “tuxedo” cat: Pika. She is commonly lovable, often issue to getting cranky, but often pretty exciting to enjoy. Not like my dogs, which I expended some time coaching to get the conduct I preferred, Pika has skilled me to get the conduct she wishes, these kinds of as “It’s 6:30 a.m. exactly where is my breakfast?”
I have uncovered that the aged adage is true: Canine have masters while cats have employees.
Phil Shaw
Mill Valley, Calif.
To the Editor:
On a Thanksgiving Day a variety of decades ago, we had a houseful of friends. Toward evening I gained a cellular phone connect with that my mom had died. Of program I was devastated and actually did not really feel like socializing with the gathered several. I exiled myself to bed to engage in my private mourning.
Who should enter my bed room but our Brittany spaniel and Siamese cat. The pet settled next to me on the ground. The cat climbed into my bed and cuddled close.
Who reported that animals do not “read” the particular feelings of individuals?
Pearl Waxman
Pompton Plains, N.J.
To the Editor:
I love my cat’s companionship even a lot more sensing that she reciprocally enjoys my existence. As Farhad Manjoo notes, this emotive capability raises the most essential moral difficulty.
This reality of consciousness in fellow mammals and birds imposes on us compelling ethical obligations. As the English thinker Jeremy Bentham mentioned, the essential problem in our relation to animals is not whether or not they can think but no matter whether they can come to feel.
That they do prospects to the conclusion that the raising of animals to fulfill human style, as accomplished in factory farming and as a result causing the agony of billions of fellow creatures, is a very disturbing ethical violation. It has also triggered me for the final 44 years to choose vegetarianism.
Joseph Chuman
Hackensack, N.J.
Tech Organizations Ought to Be Held Accountable for Child Sex Abuse
To the Editor:
Re “Apple to Flag Sex Abuse of Children” (Company, Aug. 6):
Apple’s proposed steps to shield children from boy or girl sexual abuse exploitation are desperately required and prolonged overdue. These images often require sadistic torture and rape of infants, toddlers and young little ones, and they are proliferating at an explosive level.
A the latest examine by the New York Society for the Avoidance of Cruelty to Little ones exposed that Us residents did not realize that extra than 70 million illustrations or photos had been claimed to legislation enforcement past year. The review found that Us citizens favor the use of id-revealing software program to overcome it.
Thwarting these heinous crimes also signifies that the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Kids will obtain tens of millions of new experiences to investigate just about every 12 months.
Congress should established aside the funding needed for this agency to observe down and prosecute the producers, distributors and potential buyers of these illustrations or photos. Pinpointing them is only one piece of the elaborate trouble of safeguarding innocent youngsters from a life span of horror and degradation.
Effectively addressing the problem necessitates that we develop extra awareness, create increased willingness to report it and legislate more accountability of know-how corporations whose platforms are utilized.
Mary L. Pulido
New York
The writer is government director of the New York Society for the Avoidance of Cruelty to Kids.
Ending the Secrecy and Disparity in Hospital Expenses
To the Editor:
Re “Hospital Data Reveals Strategies At the rear of Billing” (front site, Aug. 23):
This posting flawlessly rebuts the assert that “Medicare for all” or any other single-payer technique would be also expensive. What the posting phone calls “the peculiar economics of wellness insurance” reveals that the cash is by now there, but locked into a process of secrecy, hidden negotiations and massive gains for insurers. I was outraged at the tactics applied by the wellness insurers to disguise the true charges of care from their very own shoppers.
Why not reboot the technique and redirect the revenue that is previously there into a easy, good and open one-payer prepare that handles everybody? The dollar charge will likely be about the exact, but the price tag of stress on us will go way down.
Orrie Eihacker
Fort Simple, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Our irrational patchwork of medical center charges is centered on no matter whether the source of payment is government, insurance policies or out of pocket. It is legitimate, as hospitals and insurers say, that a sample of selling prices charged at one clinic does not tell the entire tale. Nonetheless there is a basic way to finish the story — a uniform pricing mechanism.
Were hospitals to charge a preset selling price for all providers, it would be straightforward to assess rates “apples to apples” across hospitals and would drastically decrease insurers’ administrative costs. Medicare is by much the biggest healthcare facility buyer, and its value checklist is conventional across the country. Though hospitals complain that Medicare pays also minor, there is practically nothing that would prevent them from negotiating a greater proportion around Medicare premiums for other payers.
William Rosenberg
Mount Vernon, Me.
The author is a retired group wellness insurance policy specialist.
Increase the Bare minimum Wage
To the Editor:
Re “A New Way to Think About the Minimal Wage,” by Peter Coy (Feeling, Aug. 19):
There is an added profit from a increased minimum amount wage: Its recipients devote almost all of it really rapidly. It does not steadily trickle down or conclude up as financial savings. It pours down into necessities, offering a sudden stimulus to the economic system.
John Casson
Brooklyn
The writer is a previous president of the New York Association for Business enterprise Economics.
