The Forgotten Ferals is a very busy rescue at the moment with many litters on the go.
If you're interested in volunteering, fostering, adopting, or donating, we thank you!!
From the founder:
"BIG WEEKEND COMING UP!
We will be at Pet Valu, hwy 15, Riverview location in Kingston 12 to 4 Sat and Sun June 6 & 7th 2026!!
Come see our sweet bundles of joy waiting to put a smile on your face!"
Researched and written by ChatGPT
The lone star tick may be the headline, but the willingness to biologically modify human behavior without consent is the real story.
In October 2025, a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Bioethics sparked debate far beyond academic circles.
The paper, titled "Beneficial Bloodsucking" by Parker Crutchfield and Blake Hereth, explores a provocative ethical argument involving the lone star tick and a condition known as alpha-gal syndrome (AGS).
AGS is a potentially life-altering allergy triggered by bites from the lone star tick. Individuals who develop the condition can experience allergic reactions after consuming red meat and, in some cases, other mammalian products. Symptoms range from digestive distress and hives to severe allergic reactions.
The authors begin with a philosophical premise: if eating animals is morally wrong, then interventions that reduce meat consumption may be morally desirable.
From there, they construct what they call a "Convergence Argument."
The argument can be summarized as follows:
• Eating animals is morally wrong.
• Alpha-gal syndrome discourages or prevents the consumption of animal products.
• Therefore, alpha-gal syndrome may produce a moral benefit.
• If future biotechnology allows humans to influence the spread of AGS, promoting that spread could be ethically justified.
Importantly, the paper is not a government policy proposal. It is an academic ethics paper exploring the implications of a particular moral framework.
Yet the questions it raises extend far beyond philosophy.
The issue is not merely whether eating meat is ethical.
The deeper question is whether a person's biology should ever be deliberately altered to influence their behavior.
For centuries, ethical medicine has rested on several foundational principles:
• Informed consent
• Bodily autonomy
• Individual choice
• The right to accept or refuse interventions
These principles exist because history contains numerous examples of authorities, institutions, and experts believing they knew what was best for others.
Modern bioethics emerged largely to prevent those mistakes from being repeated.
When viewed through that lens, the most controversial aspect of the paper is not the discussion of meat consumption. It is the suggestion that a medical condition could be viewed as a tool for shaping behavior.
Regardless of one's views on veganism, animal welfare, or environmental concerns, many people would argue that inducing a medical condition without consent crosses an ethical line.
A person may choose to stop eating meat.
A person may choose to become vegetarian.
A person may choose to become vegan.
Those choices are expressions of personal autonomy.
Being biologically prevented from making that choice is something entirely different.
This distinction matters.
In democratic societies, informed consent is generally considered more important than the perceived virtue of an outcome.
The reason is simple.
Once society accepts the principle that a person's biology can be altered for a "good cause," the debate immediately shifts to another question:
Who decides what qualifies as a good cause?
Today the subject may be meat consumption.
Tomorrow it could be alcohol.
Sugar.
Political beliefs.
Risk-taking behavior.
Reproduction.
Any behavior that an authority, institution, or expert class decides should be reduced.
This is why discussions of autonomy and consent remain central to ethical decision-making.
The concern is not necessarily the lone star tick.
The concern is the underlying principle.
Most people would agree that education, persuasion, and voluntary behavior change are legitimate tools for influencing society.
Biological manipulation without consent belongs in a very different category.
The publication of "Beneficial Bloodsucking" does not mean anyone is planning to spread ticks or engineer allergies on a population scale.
What it does reveal is that some academic discussions are increasingly willing to explore interventions that challenge long-standing assumptions about bodily autonomy and personal choice.
Whether one agrees with the paper or not, it raises an important question:
Should ethical goals ever override an individual's right to decide what happens to their own body?
That question may prove far more significant than the tick itself.
My prompts and intro, research and writing by ChatGPT
The most successful mental health therapy I've experienced is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and I've been working with it alongside a therapist for over a decade.
What I didn't know was that there is an entire branch of CBT designed specifically for insomnia.
It's called CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia), and learning about it led me to an app called Sleepio.
Sleepio is made by Big Health and is one of the best-known digital CBT-I programs. It isn't a meditation app and it isn't a sleep-sounds app. Its goal is to retrain the thoughts and habits that perpetuate insomnia.
Created by sleep researcher Colin Espie, the six-week program guides users through sleep tracking, short lessons, and personalized recommendations designed to improve sleep over time.
One of its most surprising techniques is called sleep restriction (sometimes called sleep compression). If you're spending eight or nine hours in bed but only sleeping five or six, the program may actually recommend spending less time in bed temporarily.
The principle is simple:
Don't teach your brain that being in bed means being awake.
If someone lies in bed for hours worrying, scrolling, planning tomorrow, reading the news, or becoming frustrated about not sleeping, the brain can begin to associate the bed with wakefulness rather than sleep.
The ideal setup might look something like this:
Bed = sleep
Chair = wakeful activities
Dim light
Paper book, magazine, crossword, knitting, journaling, or coloring
No clock watching
No doom-scrolling
No stimulating television
When genuine sleepiness returns—heavy eyelids, head nodding, difficulty focusing—you go back to bed.
The goal is to recondition the brain:
Bed = sleep.
Chair = awake.
Why are people paying attention?
Studies have found that participants often report:
• Falling asleep faster
• Less time awake during the night
• Better sleep quality
• Improved daytime energy
What caught my attention wasn't the app itself.
It was the question that naturally followed:
What benefit does your nervous system believe it gets from staying awake?
Or asked another way:
What does it fear missing if you fall asleep?
Many people with insomnia don't seem unable to sleep.
They seem stuck in a state of alertness.
Watching, planning, monitoring, and worrying.
Running tomorrow's problems at 2 a.m.
At some point, the issue may become less about sleep and more about a nervous system that has forgotten how to stand down.
Sometimes the most powerful sleep aid isn't another product.
It's permission.
Permission to stop watching and to stop worrying.
Permission to rest.
My prompts, research and writing by ChatGPT
I'll admit it.
For years, I didn't like Jeff Bezos.
If you'd asked me why, I probably would have repeated the same things everyone else was saying. Billionaire. Corporate giant. Symbol of greed. The usual headlines.
Then I heard Bezos speak about something that surprised me.
He argued that lower-income earners should pay zero federal income tax.
Not less.
Zero.
Whether you agree with the idea or not, it made me realize something: I had spent years hearing about Jeff Bezos without ever really listening to Jeff Bezos.
That got me wondering.
What else does he believe that never seems to make the news?
Here are ten ideas, positions, and actions from Bezos that don't fit neatly into the villain narrative many of us were given.
Bezos recently argued that the bottom half of earners should pay no federal income tax, allowing working families to keep more of their paychecks and participate more fully in the economy.
Through the Day One Fund, Bezos committed billions of dollars to creating and supporting Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities.
The Day One Fund also provides grants to organizations helping homeless families and children find stability and housing.
Bezos often speaks about reducing barriers that prevent ordinary people from starting businesses, taking risks, and improving their financial situations.
One of his most consistent messages is that society should think decades ahead instead of focusing only on quarterly profits and election cycles.
Despite building one of the world's largest companies, Bezos frequently warns about excessive bureaucracy and how it kills innovation.
Through his various ventures and philanthropic efforts, Bezos has funded research in medicine, climate science, technology, and space exploration.
Bezos has publicly stated that he intends to give away the majority of his fortune during his lifetime.
His philosophy that businesses should obsess over serving customers has influenced thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide.
Whether discussing technology, education, taxation, or business, Bezos often frames his ideas around creating more opportunities for ordinary people rather than fewer.
This isn't a defense of Jeff Bezos.
I don't know him.
You don't know him.
What I do know is that the version of Jeff Bezos that existed in my mind was largely created by other people. Does anyone else notice this pattern?
Maybe some of the criticism is justified.
Maybe some isn't.
But once again I found myself wondering whether the public narrative had become inverted.
Not entirely false.
Just incomplete.
The older I get, the more I realize that truth often lives somewhere between hero and villain.
Perhaps the real lesson isn't about Jeff Bezos at all.
Perhaps it's about being willing to hear people directly before deciding who they are.
For years, I treated green onions as a garnish.
A few slices on a baked potato.
A sprinkle on soup.
A little color on scrambled eggs.
Then I started looking at their nutritional profile and realized something surprising:
Green onions may actually be one of the most underrated vegetables in the produce section.
Compared to sweet onions such as Vidalia onions, green onions pack more vitamins, more fiber, and fewer natural sugars into each serving.
That doesn't mean Vidalia onions are unhealthy. Far from it. They're delicious and contain beneficial compounds of their own. But if your goal is squeezing as much nutrition as possible from every bite, green onions deserve a closer look.
Green onions contain:
• Vitamin K – important for bone health and normal blood clotting
• Vitamin C – supports the immune system and collagen production
• Vitamin A precursors – important for vision and cellular health
• Folate – supports healthy cell function
• Fiber – helps support digestion and satiety
• Sulfur compounds – the same family of compounds that give onions and garlic many of their health-promoting properties
Because they are harvested young and eaten whole—including the green tops—you get nutrients from parts of the plant that are often discarded in mature onions.
Lower in Sugar
One reason Vidalia onions taste so sweet is because they naturally contain more sugars and fewer sulfur compounds than many other onions.
That sweetness makes them fantastic for cooking, roasting, and caramelizing.
Green onions, however, have a milder flavor with less sweetness, making them a useful option for people looking to reduce sugar intake while still enjoying onion flavor.
One of the biggest advantages of green onions is how easy they are to use.
You can add them to:
• Eggs
• Soups
• Stir-fries
• Sandwiches
• Salads
• Rice dishes
• Potatoes
• Pasta
• Homemade dips
Unlike larger onions, there's usually no peeling, chopping board, or tears involved.
Just snip and eat.
Most people bring green onions home and toss them into the crisper drawer.
A week later they're slimy and headed for the compost.
A better method is surprisingly simple:
Trim off any damaged ends.
Place the roots in a glass or mason jar.
Add an inch or two of water.
Stand them upright near a sunny window.
Change the water every few days.
Not only will they stay fresh much longer, but many will continue growing.
Stand the onions upright in a jar with a small amount of water.
Loosely cover the tops with a produce bag.
Store in the refrigerator.
This can keep them fresh for several weeks.
After using the green tops, leave about an inch above the roots.
Place the root section in water.
Within days you'll often see fresh green shoots emerging.
Many gardeners do this repeatedly before eventually planting the onions in soil.
Nutrition doesn't always come from exotic superfoods with fancy labels and premium price tags.
Sometimes it comes from a humble bunch of green onions sitting quietly beside the lettuce.
They're inexpensive, versatile, easy to grow, and surprisingly nutrient-dense.
Not bad for a vegetable most of us have been treating like a garnish.
I know what I'll be buying more often.
*During a 'conversation', the ChatGPT said this: "History leaves memory in cultures" and it resonated very deeply. So I asked it to write a blog post based on this statement. A few tweaks, adjustments and one rewrite later, we came out with this.
It resonates with me because it's something I've thought for a few years now. The internet shows us the plight of others and we feel their pain but is there a point to that? We all have mirror neurons that trigger emotion when we see emotion in others. Mine is on overdrive all the time and I often wonder why.
I'm really enjoying writing with ChatGPT and the last sentence in this blog post is why. Sometimes the wording just hits.
Let me know if this one hit you too.
~
Not all memory lives in the mind.
Some memory lives in the body.
Some in ritual.
Some in land.
Some in fear.
Some in instinct.
And some may live far deeper than we currently understand.
Science already accepts that crows can remember human faces for years and even teach future generations which humans represent danger. Elephants remember migration routes and historical threats. Whales pass songs culturally. Wolves pass hunting strategies to pups.
Nature remembers.
Yet modern humans often refuse to believe that human beings themselves may carry layered ancestral memory systems far older and more complex than simple intellectual recall.
Why?
Because if humans carry memory deeply — biologically, emotionally, culturally, even spiritually — then history is not truly past.
It is alive.
History leaves residue in nervous systems.
The descendants of famine survivors often relate to food differently.
The descendants of war survivors often relate to safety differently.
The descendants of persecution often relate to identity differently.
The descendants of conquerors often relate to power differently.
These are not merely political observations.
They are anthropological ones.
Humans adapt to pressure.
And adaptations echo.
But here is where things become dangerous:
Humans do not inherit pure history.
Humans inherit stories about history.
Stories shaped by victors.
Stories shaped by religion.
Stories shaped by nationalism.
Stories shaped by propaganda.
Stories shaped by trauma itself.
History becomes emotionally edited.
A culture told for centuries that it was oppressed may carry defensive vigilance even generations later.
A culture taught it was chosen or superior may unconsciously normalize dominance.
A population repeatedly told another group is dangerous may biologically internalize caution before ever meeting an individual from that group.
Over time, identity itself fuses with narrative.
And once identity fuses with narrative, people stop experiencing each other directly.
They experience each other through inherited emotional filters.
This may explain why historical debates become so explosive.
People are not merely defending facts.
They are defending nervous-system reality.
To challenge a culture’s historical memory can feel — biologically — like threatening survival itself.
But perhaps this system exists for more than survival alone.
What if memory is also designed to produce empathy?
What if humanity evolves not simply by reasoning…
but by eventually feeling?
Many spiritual traditions suggest humanity is moving toward a state of expanded consciousness — a greater recognition of interconnectedness. Some call this awakening. Some call it unity consciousness. Some describe it symbolically as movement toward a “fourth density” or higher state of awareness.
If so, then perhaps memory serves a deeper purpose.
Perhaps souls, cultures, and civilizations repeatedly experience suffering from different perspectives until empathy becomes unavoidable.
The oppressed become protectors.
The conquerors become conquered.
The abandoned become caregivers.
The wounded become healers.
And through enough cycles, consciousness slowly expands beyond tribal identity.
Not through forced morality.
Not through ideology.
But through direct emotional recognition:
“I know this pain.”
“I remember this fear.”
“I understand this loss.”
At that point, empathy ceases to be philosophy.
It becomes memory.
Maybe this is why humans are capable of tears over events they never personally experienced.
Maybe somewhere deep within us, memory recognizes itself.
And maybe the ultimate evolution of consciousness is not becoming more intelligent.
Maybe it is becoming incapable of dehumanizing others because, at some level, we finally realize:
their suffering has also been ours.
Researched and written by ChatGPT
The recent flood of mainstream discussion surrounding UFOs, UAPs, recovered craft, and “non-human biologics” has many people reacting as though humanity is confronting an impossible idea.
But for many intelligent, analytical, observant people, none of this feels shocking at all.
Honestly?
The greater shock is that society spent decades pretending the possibility was absurd.
Think about it rationally.
We live in a universe containing billions of galaxies, trillions of planets, incomprehensible spans of time, and conditions that repeatedly produce complexity, chemistry, adaptation, and intelligence.
Humanity itself is proof that consciousness can emerge from the fabric of reality.
So why would it happen only once?
That has always been the stranger claim.
Yet for decades, people were trained to laugh at the topic automatically. Mention UFOs and the media rolled silly music. Mention non-human intelligence and you were associated with tinfoil hats, instability, or fantasy.
That conditioning alone should raise questions.
Because ridicule has historically been one of the easiest ways to suppress serious inquiry without actually disproving anything.
You don’t need to win the argument.
You only need to make people afraid to ask the question.
And now, suddenly, the cultural atmosphere is changing.
Former military pilots are speaking openly.
Intelligence officials are testifying publicly.
Radar operators, aerospace personnel, and government-connected researchers are discussing encounters without immediately losing credibility.
Even mainstream media environments that once mocked the topic are now cautiously discussing it.
That shift matters.
Not because it automatically proves every claim being made.
It doesn’t.
Claims still require evidence.
Stories still require scrutiny.
Governments and institutions are still fully capable of manipulation, secrecy, narrative control, or psychological operations.
Discernment matters now more than ever.
But skepticism must work in both directions.
Blind belief is irrational.
Blind dismissal is irrational too.
And for many people, the existence of non-human intelligence was never the difficult part anyway.
The difficult part was believing that:
humanity is somehow the only intelligence in existence
governments always tell the public everything important
ancient civilizations knew less than we assume
and unexplained phenomena reported across cultures for thousands of years should all be instantly discarded because modern institutions say so
That position requires faith too.
What we may be witnessing now is not the sudden arrival of a new reality, but the slow collapse of an old one.
A worldview built on the assumption that humanity stands alone at the center of everything.
And perhaps that worldview was never sustainable long term.
Because once human beings begin thinking statistically instead of emotionally, the existence of other intelligence stops sounding extraordinary.
It starts sounding expected.
You could add something like this near the beginning or end of the article:
Before anyone dismisses this outright, it’s worth noting that these discussions are no longer confined to obscure internet forums. Former intelligence officials, military witnesses, researchers, and mainstream media outlets are openly discussing claims involving recovered craft and so-called ‘non-human biologics.’ Whether one believes the claims or not, the conversation itself has undeniably entered the mainstream.
C-SPAN Congressional UAP Hearing (David Grusch testimony) — the July 2023 congressional hearing where Grusch discussed alleged crash retrieval programs and “non-human biologics.” (C-SPAN)
CBS coverage of the congressional hearing — mainstream summary of the testimony and claims. (CBS News)
The Guardian coverage of the hearing — overview of the testimony and political response. (The Guardian)
Fox News segment on Hal Puthoff’s “four species” claim — recent mainstream coverage of the newer claims circulating online. (Fox News)
Diary of a CEO interview featuring Hal Puthoff and Dan Farah — the long-form discussion that helped push the recent claims viral. (The News International)
