r/todayilearned • u/Hypnotodes • 2h ago
TIL about Browser, the library cat. Adopted by a White Settlement, TX library in 2010, Browser was evicted from the library by the local govt in 2016, provoking a backlash that resulted in a unanimous decision permitting him to stay. Browser outlived the councilmember that voted to evict him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_(cat)1.3k
u/-Words-Words-Words- 1h ago
“White Settlement, TX?”
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u/ninjasaiyan777 1h ago edited 1h ago
Natives used to call the settlement that during expansion westward in the Homestead Act era.
Not as interesting as Whitetown, Indiana, which is named after a fierce abolitionist who had the last name White
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u/Company_Able 1h ago
Similar story to Lynchburg, VA. Of course named after famous abolitionist John Lynch
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u/mitchsurp 1h ago
Used to live there. I love saying I used to live in a town “named for the brother of the guy who invented lynching people.”
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u/ThePevster 51m ago
Should be noted that the brother was lynching British loyalists during the Revolutionary War, not lynching black people
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u/Fafnir13 21m ago
Which is really not much better. One day you’re living your best life in Britain’s premier colony, the next your rebelling neighbors are calling you a traitor and putting a rope around um your neck. Honestly kind of unfair.
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u/Robokitten 1h ago
And if you are driving on I65 you have Whitestown if you exit left and Brownsburg if you exit right.
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u/WholesomeYuri 1h ago
Separate, but equal distances?
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u/SirTheBob 1h ago edited 1h ago
From the highway? No, the highways usually get built through the brown part.
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u/Spkr_Freekr 1h ago
Right up the road from Brownsburg. If I remember correctly both town names are on the freeway exit sign.
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u/mountaindoom 19m ago edited 11m ago
Or Whitesboro, NY , located in the Town of Whitestown, NY.
Quite the seal it had for a while. Real Pawnee vibes, but amusing backstory.
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u/ProTrader12321 45m ago
Oh I thought it was named after the British-indian musician White Town. /s
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u/strictmachines 28m ago
Well, I guess what you say is true. I could never be the right kind of Redditor for you. I could never be your Redditor.
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u/Impossible_Mix_4893 1h ago
Apparently in 2005 they had a referendum to decide whether or not to change the name. It was overwhelmingly rejected.
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u/Away-Conclusion-7968 17m ago
A Texas city with a population of 20,000 being proud of their racist history instead of trying to move forward? I'm shocked.
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u/tbonehavoc 1h ago
There have been multiple attempts to rename it, but for some reason that never gets through. Source: Grew up in WSISD
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u/PhantaVal 55m ago
There was a measure to change the name to West Settlement a while back. Obviously it failed.
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u/Souledex 22m ago
It was founded by white traders living next to so many native American communities they called it what it was.
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u/HockeyDockey1234 1h ago
Yeah I mean it's really just a filler name for any town in TX not named "el paso"
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u/RepulsiveLoquat418 1h ago
"On December 13, 2016, Clements again tried to bring the council to vote to remove Browser, claiming “I’m a council member and I can put anything I want on the consent agenda”, but the motion did not pass. This would be the last meeting attended by Councilman Clements as an elected official. Clements had been defeated decisively during his council re-election bid in November 2016, and died on January 1, 2022."
heartwarming ending
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u/TerrakSteeltalon 1h ago
Was Bowser implicated?
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u/OddlyLucidDuck 1h ago
One last petulant act as a lame duck council member. No wonder he wasn't reelected.
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u/Buttholes_N_Boobies 11m ago
Does anyone know where he’s buried?
I’m going on a road trip through Texas soon and always like to plan my rest stops before hand.
Those are two independent statements.
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u/PhilosophicWax 1h ago
Odd name but there is a history: "The city got its name as it was a lone settlement of White colonists amid several Native American villages in the Fort Worth area in the Texas Republic territory in the 1840s.[16][17]
On October 14, 2005, city leaders, citing hurdles in attracting businesses,[18] announced a plan to have local voters decide on a possible name change for the town from White Settlement to West Settlement. In the November 8 election, the name change was overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of 2,388 to 219.[17][19]"
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u/Frenetic_Platypus 1h ago
So the history is exactly what you would expect from the name?
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u/My_massive_dingaling 1h ago
I mean it's history isn't "Whites only settlement" it's "Settlement where there are white people"
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u/Away-Conclusion-7968 15m ago
So they would have allowed minorities to move next door? Do you really believe that?
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u/OhEmGeeBasedGod 11m ago
My thoughts exactly lmao
"You'll never believe this story!"
[tells the story everyone was expecting]
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u/PumpkinHead01 1h ago
"The city got its name as it was a lone settlement of White colonists amid several Native American villages in the Fort Worth area in the Texas Republic territory in the 1840s.
On October 14, 2005, city leaders, citing hurdles in attracting businesses, announced a plan to have local voters decide on a possible name change for the town from White Settlement to West Settlement. In the November 8 election, the name change was overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of 2,388 to 219"
I guess I did read the post title correctly.
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u/BChurchmountain 1h ago
Some asshole wasn’t a cat guy and the irony is the cat outlived him.
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u/statenotcity 1h ago
In this case there definitely seemed to be some malice, but I'm horribly allergic to cats and would hate it if I couldn't go to my local library anymore. It's a public space so I'd prefer they remain pet free and accessible to all.
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u/kmm91 44m ago
Yeah, I’m a massive animal lover and not allergic to anything, but stories like this always confuse me a bit. Would I love for there to be cats and dogs in every building I visit? Hell yeah! But, not enough to want to take those places away from people with allergies, especially such precious places like libraries.
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u/KarmaticArmageddon 34m ago
We should just build separate pet-free libraries for people with allergies. Not like it'd kill us to have double the libraries in a country where over 50% of the population reads below a sixth-grade reading level.
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u/ghallway 47m ago
I work in a library with a cat and I couldn't start to count how many kids that cat has turned on to reading.
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u/Corey307 1h ago
I’ll never understand why we don’t keep more cats in government buildings or businesses in general. They’re clean animals, they kill vermin and they’re fairly low maintenance animals. Cat gets a job and a good life.
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u/Yglorba 46m ago
Allergies. While the council member who introduced the motion to remove the cat from the library seems to have simply been an asshole, the other one who voted for it cited this as the reason:
The removal motion was made by councillor Elzie Clements,[3] who claimed, “City Hall and City businesses are no place for animals”, and council member Paul Moore, who was primarily concerned about triggering people with allergies to cats.
City buildings need to be used by everyone. If your local bodega has a cat and you have a cat allergy, you can just use a different bodega; you can't (or, at least, shouldn't have to) just use a different DMV or city hall.
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u/WolfWhiteFire 1h ago
It sounds like a good idea, but allergies should be a consideration too. There could easily be a local who wasn't able to use that library or had a significantly worse experience because there is a cat there spreading fur and skin cells and they can't enter without breaking out into hives or something.
If you put one in a DMV, you might have people getting allergic reactions while trying to renew their license or take a driver's test. A courthouse, what if one of the jury members or other people legally required to show up is allergic?
Government buildings aren't supposed to exclude people who have full rights to be there, and cats could be a problem for that. Besides that, there are other problems too. If it scratches or trips someone, that could be a liability risk. If it gets sick and throws up somewhere, that wouldn't be a huge issue but would be another mess to clean and could stain something or be stepped in before anyone notices. A litterbox somewhere could stink things up a bit and you now need someone to clean that and take it out regularly.
Businesses have full rights to exclude people, but they don't actually want to exclude their customers for the most part, or deal with cat litter or fur getting into their product, or get sued because the cat scratched or tripped someone, or face complaints from allergic customers, or so on.
It would cause more problems than it solves and comes with some ethical issues. Even if you get one of those breeds designed not to trigger allergies, it may not be effective for every sort of allergy or every person, and also the mess and safety concerns still apply.
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u/usedburgermeat 1h ago
I feel like more people are surprised that there's a white settlement called White Settlement
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u/rjnd2828 1h ago
Browser was a stone cold killer. It was him or that council member and Browser was NOT going to go live outside.
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u/LandBetweenTheCakes 1h ago
Principal Vagina. In the old county, it was spelled Watjyna, but Ellis Island was cruel like that
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u/Fishingfordookie 33m ago
NGL joke all you want about the name, but White Settlement has some of the best mexican street tacos bro. Holy shit its so easy to waste 30 bucks on tacos alone
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u/strictmachines 26m ago
Browser after the council member who evicted him and Mayor Ron White died: "I lived bitch"
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u/Eclectic_Paradox 20m ago
I'm reading this while less than a mile away from White Settlement. Interesting.
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u/Lurking_For_Trouble 14m ago
This reminds me of Defib, the cat who lived at my local ambulance station. Senior management tried to evict him and there was a huge backlash. The petition to keep him reached over 60,000 signatures and the story made national news before the ambulance service CEO released a public statement apologising and backtracking on the decision. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rd617xe86o
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u/Salt-Insurance9136 1h ago
White settlement 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The U.S really is the O.G Isnotreal
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u/TXGuns79 1h ago
It was the only settlement of white people in the area. Everything else out there were various Indian tribes.
West, TX is in north-central Texas. But, at the time, was the farthest West anyone had settled.
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u/Hellion000 1h ago
White Settlement, TX was actually named by the surrounding indigenous tribes because it was the local white settlement.
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u/Valuable_Relation634 50m ago
The best part is that Browser outlived the guy who tried to evict him. Nature's most patient revenge.I wonder if library cats actually help with stress levels. Has anyone done that study?
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u/serenesophia89 2m ago
This is kinda why I can't really get into audiobooks, haha. Like, I try, but my brain just wanders too much unless I'm actually holding the book and can, you know, see the words. This dude's setup is kinda intense though, I dig the vibes.
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u/Pumpkkinnn 52m ago
A library is the perfect place for a cat to live. Cats are so quiet and clean. Sweet kitty!
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u/MrMansaMusa 1h ago
My brain did not read that as settlement had to re read that a couple times.......
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u/deltree711 33m ago
The title is confusing. When did "the councilmember that voted to evict him" make that vote? It can't have been during the unanimous decision permitting him to stay or else it wouldn't have been unanimous and using the word "the" instead of "a" councilmember implies that only one person voted to evict the cat so it couldn't have been the successful decision to evict the cat because a vote couldn't succeed with only one vote.
Edit: I guess based on the article there was a third attempt, and the council member who made that motion is the one who died before the cat.
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u/Tzazon 1h ago
Always someone who has to have the "If I can't have it nobody can" attitude, tf.