The endlessly aggrieved killjoys over at Fox News have reached new levels of bizarre rants with a recent segment targeting … cats. And people who like to pet cats. Apparently, that’s a real threat to society. Who knew?
For nearly four minutes, the panel on Outnumbered railed against the idea of using cats in university-based animal-assisted interventions (AAIs)—essentially using them as support animals for college students. According to the brain trusts at Fox News, the very idea that college students could be experiencing stress and benefit from AAIs is mockable. The hosts offer a range of their own solutions for students to deal with that stress, ranging from dropping out to getting a “slap in the face.” According to them, these things are preferable to—checks notes because I actually cannot believe it—petting a cat.
The panel whinged at length about everything they see wrong with kids today: They protest too much, they can’t handle conservative speakers on campus, they’re “betas,” and they’re taking all of our money, making taxpayers pay for their “free” college tuition (which is not actually a thing that’s happening). And now they also want to be able to enjoy petting a cat? It’s apparently all too much!
To be clear, this study simply looked at whether cats can be as effective in these programs as dogs have already proven to be. There is no question about the efficacy of AAIs, this was just looking at whether cats should be more prevalent within them.
We’re a week out from the midterm elections and the husband of the House Speaker is still in the ICU after being attacked in their home. There were multiple mass shootings in the last 24 hours. Recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure left Kyiv without water and power. Iran is still seeing massive protests and the government is pushing back, putting more than 1,000 protesters through public trials.
I wouldn’t think the Outnumbered team would be so hard pressed for news that they had to spend four minutes ranting about cats but here we are.
