Beyond Rivalry - animals

Baking, Squirrel-Watching

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:37:00 -0500

I remembered to photo the cappuccino star cookies (I also made them in Christmas tree shapes) and the four loaves of orange-poppyseed bread I made yesterday.

Below is the grey squirrel who's been hanging out in this tree for months, taken a few moments ago in our light falling snow.

Out and About This Weekend

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:01:00 -0500

We spent most of Saturday driving around a part of the state a couple of hours away from us, where we used to spend a lot of time. Our main destination was an herb farm's pre-holiday sale, and we stumbled into a Christmas craft fair in a small-town B&B. The rain, which began on Thursday, was alternately a light mist, scattered and steady showers, and occasionally a torrential downpour, and it gave a blurry, atmospheric feeling to our journey of revisitation.

Below, a magpie duck, sheep happily eating, JB the llama, and an herb shed and garden sale area ...

A Dog Can Change Your Life

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:36:00 -0500

"Then, last week, I went to see an acupuncturist as a last resort for back pain I’ve had for over a year. The woman asked me how old I was. When I told her I was 42, she said, “You look so old! I thought you were much older.” I would have been offended, but I felt like she was saying what I felt and that the back pain was making this true. My face evidently was showing tough times too. She promised to fix me—that remains to be seen—and, as I was leaving, she said, You need to change your life today. Go outside. Not so much sitting anymore. You need to be happy, find a way. I walked out thinking I’d gone to a therapist or a fortune-teller. I felt sick for a few hours after that, possibly more from what she’d said than from the needles, and when I woke from a nap, I went directly to the animal shelter." -- Hard Times Dog by Colette LaBouff Atkinson

Factory Farming Reforms and Greyhound Racing Ban

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:01:00 -0500

Yesterday, both animal-protection ballot questions brought to U.S. voters passed, in California and Massachusetts:

California's Prop 2 won big yesterday, with an estimated 63% of the vote. When it goes into effect in 2015 -- giving factory farms time to change their practices -- it will "halt the inhumane confinement of animals on factory farms," ending "the practice of confining certain animals raised for food in crates and cages so small the animals can barely move. Prop 2 requires that factory farms provide enough space for animals to stand up, turn around and extend their limbs. It applies to breeding pigs, egg laying hens and veal calves." (You can read it all here) Similar though narrower measures passed in 2002 in Florida, when voters acted to phase out two-foot by seven-foot metal gestation crates that confine breeding pigs; and in 2006 in Arizona, when voters banned both gestation crates and crates used to confine veal calves. More at HSUS.

About 56% of Massachussetts voters approved Question 3 yesterday, which will "phase out the inhumane practice of greyhound racing by 2010." The Humane Society of the U.S. reports that "since 2002, there have been 841 reported injuries at the two Massachusetts tracks,…

Beware Bored Octopi

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:16:59 -0400

Otto the octopus wreaks havoc:

"A octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by shortcircuiting a lamp....

"'We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.' ...

"'Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.'"

Poignant

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:35:45 -0400

This is the sort of little news story that is most poignant for me, most "pricking" or "stinging," that makes me gasp, tear up, simultaneously hate this cruel, careless world and send my heart out to those involved, animal and human alike:

WOODFIN, North Carolina (AP) -- Police in North Carolina had to halt traffic on a highway to help a mother bear get to her cub after it was struck and killed by a vehicle.

Police said the cub was struck Tuesday afternoon and the driver didn't stop.

Officers in the western North Carolina town of Woodfin halted cars for about 20 minutes after the mother bear had failed twice at trying to get her 80-pound cub off the busy highway.

Sgt. Dawn Roberts says officers stood with rifles while others pulled the cub to the side of the road near the mother. She says the mother bear grabbed the cub by the scruff of the neck and ran off into the woods to tend to it.

Evolution and Conversion, cont'd (3)

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:15:00 -0400

(Previous posts on this topic: here and here.)

I'm into chapter 5 now (page 173) and have read chapter 3 twice. A lot of it still eludes me (the last time I read The Origin of Species was in high school), but here's what I've noticed:

Chapter 3, The Symbolic Species

This chapter, more than the others, is directly related to Darwin's theory of evolution, and concerns how the mimetic theory of culture parallels Darwin's theory of genetics as it also explores the evolution of mimetic theory and culture itself, the order in which things have occurred.

** "The theory of evolution seems to me quite powerfully sacrificial. ... Darwin ... stresses the importance of death just as much as the importance of survival. In some sense it is representing nature as a super-sacrificial machine...."

Girard agrees with sociobiologist E.O. Wilson that religion is adaptable: "I claim that religion protects men and societies from mimetic escalation. Religion has an adaptive value. But this is not enough: it is also the source of hominization, of the differentiation between animals and human beings, because ... through sacrifice it creates culture and institutions."

"One can argue that many groups and societies perished and were…

Eulogy for a Labrador

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:39:33 -0400

Robert Birnbaum lost his yellow lab, Rosie, this week. He writes about it in The Dalai Labrador. (More on Birnbaum here. Another photo of Rosie here.)

This One Goes on My Faklempt YouTube Playlist

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:34:03 -0400

Reunion with Christian, the Lion

(No, it's not fake) (More story.)

What I'm Reading Lately: Death, Dog Poisoning, Novelty, Flawed Heroes, Psych Experiments, Limiting Generalisations

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:15:00 -0400

A mish-mash of my recent online reading, pondering, etc.

>> Alpine murder mystery: Are sheepdogs being poisoned to save the grey wolf? (Independent, 18 July 2008):

So far this year, 17 sheepdogs (including Great Pyrenees) have been poisoned -- with slug poison placed inside pork meatballs -- in the high Maurienne mountains, just inside the French border with Italy. The killings seem to stem from an ongoing dispute between sheep-lovers (and shepherds) and wolf-lovers. "'The pork meat balls were left, some time during the night, most likely just before dawn, in a place where the dogs would be sure to find them. This is the work of a maniac – a madman. What if the meat had been found by a small child? There are tourists everywhere at this time of year, including many British tourists.'"

"The dogs have often died in great agony.... [The poison] causes instant and catastrophic diarrhoea and lung failure in small mammals like dogs. 'They finish up dying completely dehydrated but, before that, they drown in their own bronchial fluids.'"

There are about 100 wolves in France. There is a sheep-protection plan in place in the area, and there have been no wolf attacks on sheep…