[PHOTO: "Jessie," a CC-licensed image by LeTiger.]
A few weeks ago, I blogged a funny video created by a Canadian high-school student titled "Hiding Your Sexual Orientation From Your Parents 101." One of the many people who commented on that post was an anonymous commenter who wrote:
Ok, my pa... More.
No, this isn't about holy water as a miracle swine flu vaccine. Rather, some Catholic churches in Italy are replacing holy water basins with more sanitary electronic dispensers that spurt out a single serving of the magical fluid. From The Telegraph:
It functions like an automatic soap dispenser ... More.
Prompted by a new GQ article about Ayn Rand (The Bitch is Back with this great illo by John Ritter), our friend Richard Metzger wrote about his relationship with her writing and ideas.
Via mail order I collected single issues of The Objectivist and The Ayn Rand Letter until I had them all and I k... More.
Take a look at this crazy home water purification system created by a 68-year-old retired engineer.
Above: "magnetic bottle. Plastic bottle with a magnet (I used magnets for the refrigerator). Here are removed from the water surplus of some metals."
Below: "Fig.6 Capacitance cereal saturation... More.
The story of Tim Langdell's relentless and darkly fascinating trademark fight against any and all users of the name 'Edge' has been quietly storming under the surface for the better part of this year.
In a nutshell: Langdell's Edge Games, a UK-based publisher in the earliest days of home computer ... More.
Her presence, and loss, was palpable, and resonated throughout the group. The management at Sanaga-Yong opted to let Dorothy's chimpanzee family witness her burial, so that perhaps they would understand, in their own capacity, that Dorothy would not return. Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration. But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that [they] are not [usually] silent creatures."
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So either you don't have a heart or it's broken. Doesn't leave many beating hearts does it?
I saw this photo in the magazine (it is a full two page spread) and I have to say it was the most moved I have been by a photo in a really long time. It is truly heartbreaking.
That photo alone was worth my annual subscription price. Pictures like that are the reason Nat Geo is one of those magazines that people never throw away.
Until a few weeks ago, i had 2 dogs. They were both 9 and a half, and lived at my parents house, (which is deep in the woods) together, for their entire lives. Buddy and Matilda.
Matilda had some liver problem, and was likely riddled with cancer. The family made the decision to have her put to sleep. For anyone who has never witnessed euthanasia, but has heard that it is a very peaceful way to go - it is, unquestionably.
We brought her home and i dug a grave up on the hill near the gate, where nobody would ever walk. We held a short funeral and buried her.
Later that night, and throughout the day, Buddy seemed somewhat confused. He would go looking around the house every so often. After a while he went to her grave and pawed at it a little, maybe two little pawings.
After that he came back in the house, and laid on the floor. He looked very distressed. Then he started shaking uncontrollably and refused to stand up. He did this from time to time over the next few days, usually after going all through the house and sometimes out to her grave. He knew. He understood, at least, that she was gone. He grieved.
After that his health suddenly deteriorated for no real reason whatsoever. He died on a Saturday morning trying to get out the front door. I buried him next to Matilda, on the hill, near the gate.
Buddy
Matilda
nutbastard, I'm sorry to hear about your dogs.
My condolences for your loss, that is very sad. THank you for sharing.
Wow, nutbastard, very sorry to hear about your dogs. The pictures are great. Thanks for posting.
Thanks everyone. With Buddy, it's like he literally lost the will to live. I had a very lucid dream about them a week or so after Buddy passed. In the dream i knew that they had died, and was under the impression that I was having a ghost encounter. (The majority of our dogs actually have manifested spiritually after their deaths, usually by running onto the front porch, which makes a very distinctive noise. Open the door and there's nothing there.) I remember marveling at how, for ghosts, they persisted for so long and were solid to the touch. They were both young, happy, and healthy, and they assured me wordlessly that they were OK. As a sort of quantum confirmation, the random song on my mp3 player the morning after was one i used to sing to Matilda, one that she enjoyed more than any others. (for the curious, it's Modest Mouse, Bankrupt on Selling)
The typical vivisector who makes a living infecting or mutilating chimpanzees and then killing them in the name of research will claim that the scene was staged or that the chimps were somehow trained to create the image for the purpose of eliciting sympathy.
@libraryboi too true. i saw District 9 this week, and that's all i could think of during the "prawn lab" scenes. :-/
With reference to the comments on the previous post, I find it a little ridiculous that people have asserted that doubting the existence of non-human emotion is the domain of arrogant, anthropocentric exceptionalists. Isn't it arrogantly anthropocentric to extend our definitions and conceptions of emotion to govern all animals? It would seem to set our species on a throne as the central determinant of all things, entertained by supplicants that are like to us, and yet inferior.
Previous posts have noted our species' remarkable capacity for pattern recognition, to the extent of pattern projection. We amuse ourselves by finding shapes and faces in the clouds, and our destinies were once governed by patterns in the stars. It is not perception, which receives, but projection, which dominates.
I doubt those that have argued against the certainty of non-human emotion are necessarily convinced that Our Animal Superfriends are calculating automatons. I have cats which I love very much. Do they have feelings, as I do? I'll be buggered if I know. Is it likely that there is some similarity, due to our common heritage as mammals? Quite possible.
Well, we know they share nearly identical biological systems, up to an including the Limbic System which is where emotions originate. And damage to the Limbic system will cause the loss of actions that, in humans, are rooted in emotion (like mothering). It's actually pretty well documented and researched.
I think that the only question is the depth and length of emotions, not whether they're present at all. But is quality of memory alone enough to discount an emotion?
If a 2-year-old human is severely scared, like say through a traumatic amputation, they likely won't remember the event details later in life. But you can bet they were genuinely afraid at the time. Demolish an adult's hippocampus and they won't be able to store memories, including those of even the most powerful emotions, but the intensity of those emotions is not diminished one bit.
Straying into philosophy a bit, I just don't think it's reasonable to discount an animal's emotions any more than you would those of a child or slow human. It's just not all that different.
How many animal researchers do you know? I know several who have performed animal research for their psychology theses - rats and mice, not chimps. They have all struggled with what they do. It takes them a long time to get used to it, and one in particular has recounted his amazement at discovering that his rats had individual personalities and that he grew so fond of them. Another has told me the anguish and guilt she feels when she marks of a cage of rates as finished with, thus knowing they will be killed in the next round. They know very well animals have emotions (however brief or strong they may be), and they love their own personal pets they keep at home.
I think you will find there is no "typical" person who does research with animals, just like there is no "typical" comment poster to a blog. Please don't take away these people's humanity based on a small subset of their behaviour.
Near places that crows die, large numbers of crows will perch on nearby trees and remain startlingly quiet. They will remain there for quite a while and then, all at once and very quietly, all leave. Like a funeral.
Crows are awfully intelligent.
More so than some people I know
The assumption that humans are animals seems to rarely be taken to heart. As research continues to show that humans are less different than other species than we once hoped to believe. I think the only thing that seperates Us from Them is that we dedicate a massive amount of our structured system of communication in congratulating ourselves on our ability to communicate.
-Shlep'
Dog looks up at you, "you feed me, you take care of me, you house me, you must be God."
Cat looks up at you "you feed me, you take care of me, you house me, I must be your God."
My foster brother's biological mom raises Persians for show. She had one such cat named Stormy. He was a beautiful cat, and he *knew* it.
His best friend was another Persian, Starfyre. He loved Stormy.
Unfortunately as is often the case with purebred animals, Stormy died of a heart defect.
His mom buried Stormy in the back yard.
Starfyre was devastated! He stood at the window overlooking the back yard. He spent the next days and weeks depressed and wouldn't eat.
When I saw Starfyre myself a month later, and interacted with him, normally a very clowny cat who loved being the center of attention, he was OK--but I was told it was the first time in a month that he engaged with a human.
I have seen dogs and cats distraught alike when their owners went away temporarily; I can easily accept those chimps have an emotional life and were grieving.
At a party, I looked at an African grey parrot perched atop his cage. He seemed sad. Yes, I am aware that sadness is a human emotion. Each time I looked at the bird, I got the sense that he was very sad, even depressed. I mentioned it to the host, who told me that the bird's mate had died that morning.