So, have you heard about Bonsai Kittens yet? If not, then let’s take a moment now to get you all up to date. Here is a copy of an email I recently received from a friend of mine:

A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We have to try to shut it down again! A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for the rest of their lives. The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their feces. The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move. They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. If you think you can handle it, view www.BonsaiKitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens in bottles. This petition needs 500 names, so please put your one name on it!!! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom, then send it to everyone you know. If you notice that there are 500 names on the list, please send it to: anacheca@hotmail.com. Note- Copy this e-mail, paste it into a new one DON'T forward it - add your name, and send it to everyone you know!

Yes, the Bonsai Kitten site actually exists.And yes, so does the drive to shut the site down.The drive to shut it down includes organizations such as the SPCA and Hugs for Homeless Animals.The site has outraged and offended many people, and it has already been shut down several times when ISPs that have hosted it buckled under the pressure of the campaign against it. Now, apparently it has found a more permanent home with an ISP that has no intention of shutting it down. It also has several mirror sites, as supporters of the site have done what they could to help it stay online. But the creator of the site, a student of MIT, is under investigation with the FBI right now because of the campaign against the site.

Folks, I’m gonna tell it to you straight here. It’s a JOKE. No one is actually doing this to kittens. There is no such thing as a Bonsai Cat or Kitten. They are NOT selling these poor creatures anywhere. The owner of the site is not harming animals, nor are they encouraging anyone else to hurt animals. It is a JOKE. A SATIRE. And the worst thing the person can be accused of is poor taste.

What saddens and disturbs me is that this campaign is yet another attempt by a group of people to violate someone else’s right to free speech. To me, that’s the REAL virus. We humans can be so good at this. We get all offended by someone else’s sense of humor or point of view (which we certainly have a right to do), but instead of flipping the channel, or turning off the radio, or web surfing our way to a different website, we instead decide to fight it. Because if WE don’t like it, then no one else should be allowed to see it. I guess some of us believe that someone’s else’s freedom of speech is dependent upon whether or not someone else approves of what they have to say.

But that’s not how it works – at least, it’s not how it SHOULD work. There is room on the planet for all of us – all of our individual senses of humor, all of our individual opinions and thoughts and viewpoints. There is enough room for satire – no matter how tasteless it might be to some.

And satire, believe it or not, is often used to make a point through extremity. Through dry wit and sarcasm, creators of satire are often hoping to enrage and offend people – to make them feel passionate emotion – in order to illustrate a TRULY offensive aspect of society and the way we live. A wonderful example of this is “A Modest Proposal”, written back in 1729 by Jonathon Swift, the author of ”Gulliver's Travels”. Mr. Swift wrote his essay in order to illustrate the callous attitude that upper class society had against those of the lower class at that time in history. He wanted to rile people up – to create outrage – so that they would see how harmful and cruel their attitudes were.

I personally believe that this is, perhaps, what the creator of Bonsai Kittens is trying to do, as well. While his idea of “rectilinear kittens” is very shocking, it is also, in all honesty, just a more extreme view of something we humans allow and participate in on a daily basis. Many of us think nothing of declawing a cat in order to protect our furniture, never considering how cruel that practice is to the cat. We dock the ears and tails of our Doberman Pinschers and other dogs, and tell ourselves they “look funny” when they are in their natural state. We breed such extreme characteristics into many of our animals that they suffer throughout their lives from what we have done. And we think nothing of it. But a site like Bonsai Kittens makes us think. It makes us feel. We take a stand. We want to shut it down so we don’t have to look at it or think about it too much. But maybe we should be thinking about it. Maybe we should allow it to inspire us – not so we can shut down freedom of speech – but instead, to put a stop to the cruel things we do to animals (and each other) every day.

Just a thought.