Aching to Pupate

Femme, feisty, feminist, finding it harder to alliterate than I expected. Twenty-something, vegan, queer, sex- and body-positive, book-loving, Jewish, kinky almost-college graduate. My feminism is intersectional or it isn't worth shit. Directing my life marginally better than a butterfly in a hurricane.

I'm kinda in love with my best friend.

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dogjournal:

MAN TAKES CARE OF DOGS IN NUCLEAR EXCLUSION ZONE

A man named Naoto Matsumura refused to leave the nuclear exclusion zone, which is contaminated with radiation, after the 2011 earthquake in Japan.  He is the only one living in the area, and he spends his days taking care of dogs and a variety of other animals including cows, an ostrich, cats, and other farm animals.  Here’s the story from the New York Daily News:

A modern day Robinson Crusoe, Matsumura has become something of a folk hero to animal lovers around the world.

He spends his days feeding 400 cows, 60 pigs, more than hundred cats and dogs, and one vivacious female ostrich named “Boss.”

His hometown, Tomioka, was a tidy village of 16,000 people eight miles from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant when the earthquake and tsunami hit.

The town, once famous for one of Japan’s longest cherry blossom tunnels, now stands empty, the power out except for a single traffic light blinking over the deserted main road.

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Matsumura only managed to save a small percentage of the cattle left to starve slowly in their pens and that tragedy continues to enfuriate him.

“I’m full of rage,” he told CNN last month. “That’s why I’m still here. I refuse to leave and let go of this anger and grief.”

He is confronted daily by the harrowing results of the sudden evacuation — a cageful of withered canaries, or a calf that died horribly as it grew too big for the rope tied around its head.

It’s difficult to think about the dogs and other animals left behind in the contaminated zone.  After I read about animals who were left behind, I hugged my dog for a long time.  But this man deserves a lot of credit for sacrificing his life to take care of animals.  Click here for the full story.

ALL OF THE FEELS

What kind of people leave an entire townful of animals to die?