Headline at the London Times. Subheadline: "Aalborg Zoo in Denmark caused outrage by asking for animals to be donated for meat. One mother says she has no regrets."From the text:
"I gave Angelina the various options and she chose the one with the zoo, because it made the most sense.... She had previously watched one of my horses being taken away by the vet to be euthanised, and it was a bad experience for her. She said that this time she wanted to follow the food chain. She wanted Chicago 57 to benefit other animals.”
Sohl was present when the pony was humanely killed with a bolt gun. “There was a zookeeper standing there cuddling and kissing him — as if it was me standing with him,” she said. “I got to say a final goodbye.” She was told afterwards that his carcass had been fed to the zoo’s lions.
And here's our discussion from last week about the Aalborg Zoo eating-the-pets program.
ADDED: "I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up."
And there is this, from Mahdi's lawyer: "Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi had chosen the lesser of the three evils.... Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering the lingering death on the lethal injection gurney."
Having given you 2 sides of the death penalty issue, I will take the liberty to turn the topic to grammar — the lawyer's grammar. You shouldn't say "the lesser of three evils." It's correct to say "the lesser of 2 evils," but "lesser" is used when there are only 2 things. If there are more than 2, you've got to use "least" — "the least of 3 evils."
That "the lesser of 2 evils" is a very common phrase and "the least/lesser of 3 evils" feels new is evidence of our tendency to see our choices as binary.
As noted in the previous post, President Trump signed an executive order that "directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo."
Now, maybe the zoo is thrown in there because it's run by the Smithsonian. But I had to wonder what the zoo might be doing and what it could do if it wanted to lean into the kind of ideology that the Trumpian vision sees as improper, divisive, and anti-American.
So I asked Grok to assume the job of infusing the zoo with Critical Race Theory, radical feminism, and LGBTQ+ instruction and insight. I told it to write some placards to be posted in front of particular animals and displays. If you're one of those people who won't read things written by A.I., you'd better bail out now, because what follows is 100% Grok:
I'd love to hear a lecture demonstrating — with lots of quotes — Mark Twain's hatred of bullies. I have a Kindle copy of "The Complete Works of Mark Twain" (only 99¢ at Amazon!), so I can easily do my own search, though it's hard to do a search for the word "bully," since many of the occurrences are in things like "Bully for the lion!" — shouted by "young ruffians" during a tour of the Coliseum in "Innocents Abroad" — an archaic usage.
But how can you delve into Twain and his times when you've got Trump... and your "shame" for showing up in what was once an arts paradise and is now the humbled plaything of that garish clod who is remaking everything in his own horribly orange image?
I have to just try to imagine the people who get all jazzed up by music and montage like that. Here's something — also pro-Trump and heavy on the A.I. — that I saw yesterday and found more appealing:
Don't compare human beings to animals. Don't say "pride land was overrun with the hyenas"! Your father was called a racist for his statements and policies on immigration, and "pride" resonates with white pride and Proud Boys. Why would you do that? Sheer stupidity?
By the way, "The Lion King" is racist on its own. I've said that all along (having taken children to the original Disney cartoon and then to the Broadway show), but here's a 2019 article in Fast Company, "The original ‘Lion King’ had a racist hyena problem":
The museum’s interim director says the scene... has disturbed some because it depicts violence against a man described as an Arab courier.
Wait! Is the human figure a taxidermied human being?!
The director, Stephen Tonsor, also says recent X-rays showed that the 1860s-era taxidermy was performed with real human bones from an unknown person. Tonsor says the museum’s ethics policy requires that any human remains respect the person’s cultural traditions and be done with permission “of the people whose remains are displayed.”
I replaced the dramatically lit photo from the newspaper with the Creative Commons image at Wikipedia (by Mike Steele), which shows the human figure much more clearly. Let's read more detail at Wikipedia:
That's a closeup of the central figure in the Ghent Altarpiece, before and after restoration. The great masterpiece by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck (1432) had been painted over in the 16th century, and people had gotten used to the eyes way off to the side. But the image on the right puts the eyes back where Hu and Jan had them.
The new image is the original painting, with layers of "overpaint" removed. The Belgium's Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (RICH) defends its work:
The Van Eyck brothers chose to "represent the Lamb of God with human-like staring eyes", which was a common style in the Middle Ages, it said. "The choice for removing the overpaint was carefully weighed out, and it was fully supported by all involved," the institute said. "The results of the restoration have been praised by experts, the public and St Bavo's Cathedral."
Lamb of God ... is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."...
The Lamb imagery in Revelation is counterintuitive. In Rev. 5:5, John hears from an elder about the lion of Judah who conquers, but in 5:6, what he sees is a lamb....
[I]n 375 Saint Augustine wrote: "Why a lamb in his passion? Because he underwent death without being guilty of any iniquity. Why a lion in his passion? Because in being slain, he slew death. Why a lamb in his resurrection? Because his innocence is everlasting. Why a lion in his resurrection? Because everlasting also is his might."
If you want to talk about what's "alarmingly anthropomorphic," begin with Jesus.
ADDED: The oldest usage of the word "anthropomorphic" is about God. It "ascribes human form, character, or attributes to God or a god" (OED). The first appearance of the word is this:
1802 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 893 Even the worship of one God becomes Idolatry..when instead of the Eternal & Omnipresent..we set up a distinct Jehovah tricked out in the anthropomorphic Attributes of Time & Successive Thoughts—& think of him as a Person.
Four other poachers... described how an angry elephant surprised them as they stalked endangered rhino and stamped their friend to death giving them a chance to run for safety.
Kruger Park Rangers... found what was left of the poacher on Thursday but it appeared he had been eaten by a lion pride....
KNP managing executive Glenn Phillips said: “It was very sad to see the daughters of the deceased man mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
"How did he do it? It’s pretty rare. That is definitely a twist on this, I’m sure.... With a mountain lion, your best chance is to fight. If you make yourself small they will think you are prey."
The victim was running on West Ridge Trail [west of Fort Collins] when he heard something behind him... As he turned, he saw the mountain lion pounce for his head and neck...The mountain lion bit him on the face and wrist. The victim managed to partially block the attack with his forearms, Ferrell said. He managed to fight and break free from the mountain lion. Once he fended the mountain lion off, he counter-attacked the cat by getting on top of it, she said. There are still a few mysteries, though, including exactly how he suffocated the animal....
“They called me because they were puzzled, and I agree it’s puzzling,” [said Craig Packer, principal investigator with the University of Minnesota’s Lion Center] said. He added of the attack: “It was completely unprovoked and it was certainly not typical."
Zuri killing Nyack is bizarre for two reasons, Packer said: He was the father of her cubs, and she engaged him one-on-one.... The incident, Packer said, may stem from the “unusual combination” of a “meek male” and an “all-powerful female.”
“I don’t usually associate this kind of personality with a female lion,” he said. “The fact that it developed at all is fascinating.”
Nyack was described by the zoo as “laid back.” Zuri, however, was “large and very dominating,” Packer said. According to the zoo, Zuri weighed only 25 pounds less than Nyack. Male lions are usually much larger than females and more aggressive, and “being next to a large male is like living next to a keg of dynamite,” Packer said. “The females will be annoyed with the males sometimes and will kind of swat at them, but they’re pretty careful not to provoke them too much,” he said....
“Apparently, the male was always very subordinate to her, which is totally strange,” Packer said.... “The female just seemed to be having a bad day,” he said.
Okay. I'll play. I only read the headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and have not glanced at the answers, though I did see the photo of bees. So I will include bees. The other 4? I'll say: spiders, bats, deer (car crashes), and ticks.
Okay, now I'm looking. Deer was correct. I left out mosquitoes (even though I was thinking about mosquitoes! I feel like cheating and adding mosquitoes to my list). Ticks was correct. Bees was correct. Bats and spiders were wrong. The final category is bears, wolves and cougars, and I must say I considered bears and wolves but decided against it, in part because of the "Maybe not what you think," but also because I can't remember ever reading about a bear or wolf attack in Wisconsin. You think of the big predators when you're out in the wilder places, but when do they ever get anywhere near you? It's those pesky ticks, waiting on the tip of every leaf, that will get you.
The threats to humans from Wisconsin's largest wild predators are, statistically speaking, extremely low.
Yeah, so why are they on the list?
The last recorded injury to a human from a bear was in June 2017 when a man sustained a bite to the thigh in Florence County.
"Most of these bear/human interactions are a result of dog/bear interaction and the human rushes in to save their dog," said USDA's Hirchert. "An actual predatory action towards a human from a bear is extremely rare in Wisconsin."
There has been no wolf or cougar attack on a human in Wisconsin in modern history, according to USDA records.
That said, the big animals rightfully elicit an abundance of caution.
That said! I'll that-said you. You said, "Maybe not what you think." That said, you shouldn't have put bears, wolves, and cougars on the list. Did you check bats and spiders? Hmm?! I'm checking.
"Residents in surrounding areas were told to stay indoors until all animals were accounted for," the NYT reports.
It was not immediately clear how or when exactly the animals escaped, but heavy thunderstorms overnight had resulted in bad flooding across the zoo, which is on a riverbank. Some animals might have been swept from their enclosures.
All the animals were eventually found, and only the bear was shot dead. The cats all got tranquilized and returned to their rightful imprisonment. But some Germans were scared enough to self-imprison within their enclosures for a brief while.
Just by coincidence, yesterday, I watched this clip of Talking Heads doing "Animals," a song with lyrics that make me laugh, because stray, unserious paranoia is funny:
Animals think
They understand
Trusting them
A big mistake!
Animals want
To change my life
I will ignore
Animals' advice!...
I know the animals
Are laughing at us
Don't even know
What a joke is
I won't follow
Animals' advice
I don't care
If they're laughing at us
If you're going to be laughed at, you're going to want it to be by entities who know what a joke is, right?
The survivor told police the cat attacked him first.
"The second victim turned and started to run away," King County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Ryan Abbott said. "The cougar saw that and went after the second victim."
So in this case, running triggered the animal to abandon the prey it already had in its clutches and to prefer the running man.
Richard Coss, a psychology professor and expert on the evolution of predator–prey relationships at the University of California, Davis,* studied the behavior of 185 people who were attacked by mountain lions (aka pumas or cougars) between 1890 and 2000 in the U.S. and Canada.... [H]alf of the 18 people who ran when they were attacked escaped injury. The study also found, however, that those who ran had a slightly higher chance of being killed in an attack—28 percent (five) of those who fled died as a result of injuries, compared with 23 percent (eight) of those who remained motionless during big cat attacks. About 39 percent, or 28 people, who moved away slowly when approached by a mountain lion escaped without injury.
On the other hand, people who froze were the least likely to escape injury when a mountain lion attacked. Only 26 percent of them escaped. They also had the greatest frequency of severe injuries: 43 percent of those who stood still in the face of a lion were badly injured compared with 17 percent of those who fled, according to the study.
"Immobility may be interpreted by the mountain lion as a sign that you are vulnerable prey," Coss tells ScientificAmerican.com, adding that not moving could lead the predator to think you're not aware of its presence or are incapable of escaping. Staring down a puma can let the animal know you’re aware it’s looking, though distance can reduce its effectiveness.
________________________
* The phrase "Richard Coss, a psychology professor and expert on the evolution of predator–prey relationships at the University of California, Davis" needs to be rewritten so that it doesn't seem that the "predator–prey relationships" are on the the University of California, Davis campus. Perhaps: "Richard Coss, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis who focuses on the evolution of predator–prey relationships."
"Beyond the *possibility* that it a mountain lion entered a house to eat a dog and the fact that most of CA is a habitat for mountain lions, there is little of use about the article at all. How did the animal get inside? How many attacks have there been on pets in recent years? On humans? This story is the fluff journalistic equivalent of the movie 'Jaws,' demonizing an animal for shock value. This kind of shoddy journalism is not why I bought a subscription to this paper."
Looking at the sidebar, the "most read" list, I think I'm glimpsing what's happening at WaPo:
Perhaps readers have become averse to clicking on the political articles that crowd the front page, even when the teaser headline try to make something sound like it's about a scary animal — "Trump’s no populist. He’s a swamp monster" — or dessert — "Trump’s cake and golf presidency." (Those are actual headlines on the WaPo front page right now.)
IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd offers an alternate headline: "Dog Dies In Darkness."
Bearak is a reporter who got thrown in prison in Zimbabwe as he was covering the elections there.
The "killer" in question was the man who killed Cecil the Lion.
I assume Podesta — writing for an audience of one — intended to be edgily hilarious. That's the trouble with eavesdropping. You don't get the relationship. You don't know the in-jokes. I mean, I was just giving some more thought to what I wrote about Chelsea Clinton's email to her parents that said "I hope this mini-behemoth is not rife with grammatical errors...." It could be that "mini-behemoth" is a joke among the 3 Clintons. Maybe one time they laughed over this obscure video. Or maybe they've fooled around with this toy.
Context is everything. Relationships are everything. In fact, the reason people cared about Cecil the Lion was because he wasn't just another lion — as the asshole/dentist killer thought — but a lion people had been relating to for many years.
You think with these leaks that you're getting into the private zone, hearing what really goes on, but that's exactly what you cannot do. You cannot be fair. I'm not saying don't read those leaked emails. Don't pretend you don't see what you do. But don't assume you know what they mean.
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