Fun Time In Knoxville

I haven’t posted in a long time but I have some nice pictures from a recent trip to the Knoxville Zoo.

Of course, we saw all kinds of cool animals. Here are a few rhinosceros.

I really wanted to see the bear exhibit but it was temporarily closed.

We spent some time in the barnyard area. That was fun. My friend enjoyed the raccoons and skunks. The otters were asleep but the beavers were out playing.

I took a lot of pictures of the giraffes. Here's one with someone doing some feeding. I think it was a person from the zoo.

There were two kinds of giraffes there but I don't really know the difference. All I could tell was that they had different kinds of spots. They were very pretty. Eventually they all came over to try to get some snacks.

Here's a picture of some of the lions taking a siesta. They had several lionesses in one pen and a lion in the pen next door. They were all sleeping on raised platforms. I took a lot of pictures but I couldn't get any closer to get any better than this one.

These are some very cute pigs/hogs we saw. Sorry I don't remember their official names but they are palomino in color and they make an interesting squeal. They're really very pretty, if you like pigs.

Maybe they're Red River Pigs, or something like that? Just can't remember.

Here are some zebras.

And to round out our trip to the zoo, here are some elephants — but don't ask me what kind of elephants they are.

I had a great time. I love zoos, eco-parks, any place with animals. It was fun.

A Tivo Day

It’s a gorgeous spring day.  I really should be outside enjoying it but I have nothing to do outside.  I figure that I can watch the dogs sleep as well indoors as I can outdoors.  I decided to spend the day watching some of the dozens of things I’ve Tivo’d over the last year.  I have things from C-SPAN, Nature programs, lots of things from the Discovery channel.  Quite a potpourri.  They’re taking up a huge chunk of space on my old Tivo -- my wonderful, trusty Tivo -- and I need to watch them so I can get rid of them.

I’ve already watched a show on Barbarians -- about how the Romans maligned the Celts.  Interesting but not really earth shattering.  I watched a C-SPAN show with an author discussing dog food and melamine.  Nothing I didn’t already know there either, but it was still kind of interesting.  I was glad to hear the author say that from her research pet food manufacturers are no longer putting the carcasses of dead pets in food anymore.  You hear this all the time.  It is something that used to go on but it really caused so much bad publicity that it just wasn’t worth continuing.  To be honest, I doubt that your dog or cat cared if they were eating their brethren.  I know we hate to think about it but dogs and cats really aren’t that picky when it comes to their food sources.  They may have you fooled and be picky about what you put in their food bowl, but most cats and dogs will eat thoroughly disgusting things when left to their own devices.

I also watched an interesting show about a couple of trainers who took in dogs who’d had a bad life and re-trained them to be working dogs.  Now before you start thinking that you can do this with just any dog from a shelter, the dogs were a Bloodhound and a Bearded Collie, so they already had the instincts do particular kinds of work.  The Bloodhound turned out to be very good at tracking work and went on to work for a K-9 unit in Massachusetts.  The Bearded Collie needed more work and training at the end of the show.  But it was interesting to see the trainers work with them.

Right now I’m watching The Wolf Within, which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen before.  It’s a good overview of how we’ve ended up with dogs from wolves.

I deleted Stonehenge Decoded.  I watched it when it was on last year and I thought it was absolutely awful.  It offers the theory that Stonehenge was built as a place for the dead and a nearby wood henge was built as a place to celebrate the living.  The evidence is severely lacking and the theory is based on what the lead archaeologist came up with from studying a tribe in Africa that was obsessed with death.  There is, frankly, nothing in the culture of the peoples who inhabited the Stonehenge area or those who came later that would substantiate that they had a death fetish or worshipped death.  Stonehenge was built long before the Celts came to Britain but there is nothing leftover in the oral tradition that shows any special obsession with death.  The show (and the archaeologist) also overlooks the fact that stone henges (and wooden henges) are found all over the British Isles.  They offer no explanation for this fact or how it would fit in with their theory.  There are even similar stone megalithic structures all over western Europe.  They don’t seem to be particularly connected with death in any way.

I think a much more likely explanation for Stonehenge is supplied by another recent theory that suggests it was a site for healing.  People still could have come from far away to visit, bringing ailing people with them.  It would account for the nearby neo/megalithic village set up to cater to visitors.  And, it would explain the burials near the site.  It’s also a much more life-affirming explanation that trying to claim that Stonehenge was a place to celebrate death.  If the stones were part of a healing place it could also explain why there were similar sites in other parts of the country -- people would need healing places everywhere.

I visited Stonehenge once, years ago, but I don’t remember much about it.  I can’t remember if it was before or after they let you go up to the monuments.  I thought we could still go up to the monuments but the things I’ve read say they had put the fence up then.  I wish I could say that I had some transformational experience but I didn’t.  I just remember the big stones sitting in what seemed like a huge field and parking lot.  It was impressive but it seemed like the British were doing their best to belittle the place instead of preserving its grandeur.

One place I’d really like to visit is Newgrange in Ireland.  It probably doesn’t look very impressive from the exterior photos but it’s as old or older than Stonehenge.  It’s a passage tomb, a neolithic grave, in this case on an acre of ground surrounded by white quartz.  During the winter solstice light travels through a small opening above the door and illuminates the innermost chamber of the tomb.  I think it’s quite mystical.  They allow a few people at a time into the tomb during the winter solstice so they can see the light illuminating the tomb.  It’s quite amazing to think that this has been going on for 5000 years.  When you think about it, the people who built the tomb had to be quite savvy to build a tomb that would be exactly aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice for so many centuries.

There are sites like this all over Ireland and the British Isles.  There’s another good one at Maeshowe in Scotland where you can watch the winter solstice light come into the tomb.  I like that one because they have a web cam so you can watch it online during December and January each year.  You can see the light getting closer and closer (and farther and farther away) from the room until it fills it up.  It can be quite aggravating some times.  You’re at the mercy of technical problems, bad weather, or mice chewing on the cords in the room.  But when you have a clear day and the light fills the room it’s quite spectacular.  You see the room as it must have looked at a very special time to ancient people thousands of years ago.

Watching the light come to these tombs has made me wonder about the religious beliefs of ancient peoples in the British Isles.  Why would they go to the trouble of building these tombs and aligning them with the rising sun on the shortest day of the year?  We’re told that, in general, ancient peoples believed in sun gods and moon goddesses.  They believed in rituals and magic to produce better hunts.  They believed in rituals and magic for fertile crops.  What did they believe about an afterlife?  I don’t know.  I know a little something about Celtic gods and goddesses but they don’t show up in the British Isles until about 500 BC.  These tombs and megaliths were built 1000-2000 years before the Celts came to Britain.  I don’t know what those people believed.  They had reverence for the dead or else they wouldn’t have built these tombs.  But what did it mean that they aligned these special tombs with the light of the winter solstice?  Was that a light toward an afterlife?  A way to live again?  A pathway?  Reincarnation is commonplace in Gaelic and Celtic stories -- stories of transmigration of souls and transfiguration.  But, again, we’re not talking about the Gaels or Celts here.

Maybe the light lets the dead return to the world of the living each year for a while?  The path could work both ways.  The veil between the living and the dead could lift for a while.

Just some ponderings.

More dog shows on Tivo now.

The End of the Romantics?

Once again I am playing hooky from work.  I’m supposed to be writing about cancer and dogs today -- kind of a heavy topic.  Instead I got distracted by a TV commercial.  I’m not even sure what the commercial was for.  I was getting dressed and it was playing on the TV in the same room.  I heard the speaker talking about the gentleness of nature and the pureness of a baby, blah blah blah.  So my mind started working with that and wondering if it were really true.  Are babies really pure?

Of course, I know that Wordsworth and the Romantics tell us that we’re born pure and we only lose our innocence as we get older.  But as I considered the idea this time I looked at it from a more natural perspective.  Is that what happens with animals?  Not really.  Animals are born with all of the proclivities already in place that they are likely to exhibit when they get older.  They can be influenced by circumstances -- by people, by other animals, by lack of food or lots of food, and so on -- but their basic nature is already there before they’re born.  Their temperaments can be influenced by genetics.  What were their parents like?  It’s not a matter of being pure and innocent or not.  Why isn’t that also true for humans?  You can have a happy cow or a mean cow but it’s still a cow no matter what kind of life she leads.  Is she a “pure” cow or an innocent cow?  Does a cow stay as innocent as a calf?  Well of course not.  But no one of any species stays as innocent as they are at birth.

That’s about the time it occurred to me that I was repudiating Wordsworth.  Somehow that made me very happy.  Not because I don’t like Wordsworth -- I do.  I love the Romantics.  But somehow it always made me sad to think that we have such a loss of innocence as we grow older.  I think it makes much more sense to realize that there isn’t a loss of innocence or “purity.”  There’s simply a development.  A seed that germinates in the ground doesn’t lose its innocence when it sprouts.  It develops and grows.  It’s part of a cycle.  It’s not a loss.

Hmmm.  Interesting.  I’ve always thought the Romantics were the key to everything.  I’m not sure what it means to personally disavow them and see the world differently.

Self Image

I don’t know who reads these posts.  It’s not really important that I know.  I mainly write them for me.  But I wonder if any of you reading were shy kids?  Did you have friends to play with on the playground at recess?  Maybe you didn’t fit in?  You wondered how all of the other kids seemed to find it so easy to laugh and joke and make friends?  And you, on the other hand, worried about being laughed at and doing the wrong thing.  Maybe you spent years building up your confidence and working on your self-esteem.

That description has to apply to someone else besides me.  I used to be so painfully shy when I was in elementary school that I would cry every morning and beg my mother not to make me go to school that day.  I’d get sick at school at the mere sight of food because I was so nervous.  One time I threw up on another little girl at lunch.  Believe me -- that does not make you a popular kid!  After that my teacher made me eat by myself.  How’s that for lowering your self-esteem and making you feel like an outcast?  I understand why she did it but it was still a bit harsh.

I think my social skills have never quite been up to par since those days.  Yes, I have learned to fake it but I still don’t enjoy crowds or even being with small groups of people very much.  But I have managed to make good friends here and there.

I’ve spent all these years concentrating on the things I’m good at.  I’ve built my self-confidence.  I know I am good at certain things.  I am self-sufficient now.  I take care of myself.  I’m not that nervous person anymore.

Still, I sometimes meet people who can send me right back to those days.  Once in a while I meet someone who gives me the feeling that they talk about me behind my back.  They may belong to my social circle.  They may not have the guts to say something to me personally.  But I get the feeling that they don’t really like me.  That they look down on me for some reason.  Maybe they’re like that with everyone.  I don’t know.  But if I don’t stop myself from worrying about it I can become paranoid about it.  I start feeling like that little outcast girl again.

I’m having dealings with someone like that now and it’s driving me nuts.  I spend way too much time thinking about it.  Am I good enough?  Do I do things right?  What is she going to say or do next?  It’s got me off balance.  I can’t get rid of her yet but I can’t wait to do so.  Or maybe I should confront her about it?  Or maybe it’s my imagination?  I don’t know.

It’s too bad that sometimes we have this old self image of ourselves and it comes back to haunt us from time to time.  Insecurity, I guess.

Random guilt

The weather has been beautiful so I took advantage of it today to do a little digging in the dirt.  I pulled up some weeds in the flower beds in front of my porch and planted some flower seeds.  I have no idea if they’ll grow or not.  I haven’t had a lot of luck with planting flowers from seeds in the past but I planted the seeds in such density that maybe some will manage to come up.

I’ve had that very unpleasant pins and needles feeling for a couple of days.  My dog BooBoo has gone with a handler to some shows in Maryland for the weekend.  I really miss him.  The house is too quiet without him.  The other dogs hardly pay any attention to me at all.  When BooBoo’s here he is either with me all the time or coming to check on me every ten minutes.  I’m having terrible separation anxiety with him gone.

Amy, his handler, posts messages on her Facebook page once in a while about the trip (they haven’t shown yet).  She said she spent three hours trimming him last night.  Oh, boy.  That’s expensive!  But I’m sure he needed it.  The dog grows hair like you wouldn’t believe.  I can groom him for hours and never get to the end of it.

I hope he does well but I’m more worried about other things -- is he eating; is he keeping people awake barking at night; is he getting along with the other dogs?  Mom stuff.  Can’t wait to see him again.

In other matters I’ve been having an ethics debate with myself.  I’ve stayed on friendly terms with my ex-fiance since he came back from Iraq.  There’s no intention of getting back together.  We went to Mexico together in December because the trip was already planned and I thought it might give us another chance but there was just nothing there anymore.  Since we got back we have had lunch or dinner a few times.  We go see a movie once in a while.  We talk on the phone once a week.  That’s about it.

My ex called a few days ago and we talked about his work (not going well) and some other things.  Then, out of nowhere, he asked me if I would like to get together for a little rendezvous.  Hmmm.  I said, “Aren’t you kind of dating someone?”  And he said, “Yes.”  I asked him a couple of times why he did stuff like this -- cheated on people -- but he just said he didn’t know.  Well, he said that he’d been missing me, but he cheats on everybody.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.  We decided he should pick me up and we’d get something to eat or drink and go from there.

We ended up fooling around some without actually sleeping together...but I haven’t ruled it out for the future if this comes up again.

Now, shouldn’t I be feeling guilty about something?  Although I’m not sure why.  The person he’s dating is the person who broke up our relationship.  He was cheating with her while he was engaged to me.  Maybe this is payback?  Nah.  I just don’t care that much.  I really have put it all behind me.  I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t fun.

Maybe that’s why I should feel guilty.  I am fooling around with my ex just because it’s fun?  I don’t really want to get back together.  I’m just not seeing anybody else and he’s handy.  That’s awful, isn’t it?

Of course, he really should feel guilty.  He’s the one who is dating somebody and cheating on them.

I guess I could obsess about this and get myself all worried and upset.  Or I can just forget about it and see what happens.  I don’t really think it’s very important.  There’s just some random guilt floating around inside of me or I probably wouldn’t be thinking much about it at all.

Long story short, I really need to meet some new people but that’s easier said than done.

First puppy drawing criticism

Well, the cat’s out of the bag or, I guess that should be the pup’s out. I think all the world knows by now that the new puppy in the White House is going to be Bo -- a six-month-old Portuguese Water Dog. The little fellow (or not so little) is a gift to the Obama family from Senator Ted Kennedy who has been a Portuguese Water Dog-lover for a long time.

You’d think that people would be happy that Malia and Sasha are going to finally have the puppy that they’ve been wanting for so long but you’d be wrong. The Internet is lit up today with messages attacking the Obamas for getting a dog of their choice. Even people who have been ardent Obama supporters are now vilifying him for not getting a shelter dog.

Here are the facts:

1. Malia Obama is allergic to dogs. That severely limits the choice of dog for the family. They had to get a dog that her allergies would allow her to be around. Although some mixes and hybrids are described as hypoallergenic that is often a misnomer. In the case of the Labradoodle, they can have at least three types of hair -- curly, straight like human hair, and a wavy mix in between. Some of them may be hypoallergenic but some are not. It varies in each litter. They are not a breed and do not “breed true” with the same characteristics showing up in each puppy. To find a hypoallergenic Labradoodle the Obamas would have had to do a search that involved meeting individual dogs and ruling them out -- not very practical for such a busy family.

2. Visiting shelters to meet dogs was impractical for Malia or anyone with dog allergies. Think about it: if you are allergic to dogs the last place you should go is an animal shelter.

3. The Obamas and every other family and individual have a right in this country to choose the pet that they want, whatever its source. No one should be forced to get a dog from a shelter or rescue out of guilt. And whatever happened to the belief that you should actually try to get the happiest, healthiest puppy you could find? That still seems to be a good idea to me.

4. Once the family decided upon the Portuguese Water Dog, which is an excellent choice for someone who has allergies, it was highly unlikely that they would find such a dog in a shelter or even in rescue. The Portie is not a very numerous breed and its breeders are responsible, ethical people who have contracts with their buyers. They take back any puppy or dog who does not work out in their home. That means if you want a Portuguese Water Dog, you most likely have to go through a breeder to get one.

5. Contrary to what some AR nut jobs have been posting, this breeder is not a “puppy mill.” She’s a long-time breeder (70 years old) and highly respected. This puppy comes from champion breeding. He’s an AKC-registered purebred.

So, all I can say to the ARs who are whining and throwing mud at this puppy is suck on it. It’s really none of your business. The family did their homework and they made a responsible decision for their child and family. That led them to conclude that a particular breed from a good breeder was the best choice.

You can find out more about Bo from the friendly and polite AKC spokespersons who will be holding news briefings on Monday, April 13.

Elephant finesse

Time to catch up a bit. I’ve been so busy that I’ve been reduced to only writing here about once a week. I got to see The Haunting in Connecticut. Good movie! I thought it had a good plot quite apart from the scary movie -- I enjoyed the son fighting cancer and his family supporting him. I thought it was very compelling. But it was also essential to the frightening part of the movie because it put him close to death and created a connection between him and the “otherworldly” things in the house. Very nice. It did bog down a little at times with a couple of weepy scenes, but they didn’t last too long. There were some really good frightening parts of the movie. All in all, I thought it was very good.

It does raise a question: if you take a house with a "creepy past" don't you have an obligation to at least discuss it with your spouse, if not the kids? If my spouse rented/bought a house where bad things had happened, I would really need to know that before moving in. Otherwise we would be adding another bad thing to the house's résumé in the form of a spousal homicide.

As far as our dog legislation, the state Senate committee was much friendlier to us than the House committee had been. They listened to our testimony and asked good questions. They’ll vote next week. We’re hoping to kill the bill in the Senate. We still have to deal with the bill in the House where it goes to the full Judiciary committee next. Maybe the full committee will be a little kinder to us than the subcommittee was. They were downright hostile.

In case you’re wondering, these are the so-called “Commercial Breeder” bills -- the same as have been put forward in nearly 30 states this year. Of course no one likes substandard kennels or bad care for cats and dogs. It’s ludicrous to think so. But we already have laws against cruelty and neglect. We already have a law that requires anyone selling 25 puppies or more to be licensed. You’re already supposed to be collecting sales tax when you sell puppies/kittens, dogs/cats in the state. Commercial breeders who sell to retail sources are already inspected by the USDA. So these bills are not necessary. They would only be used to create a new and expensive bureaucratic infrastructure in the state and set number limits on how many dogs breeders could keep. As anyone knows, number limits mean nothing when it comes to the care of dogs. There are people who can’t manage to properly care for one dog. Other people have good help and can care for many more dogs. Besides, once you start setting a number limit, it’s easy to lower that number every year until it affects ALL breeders. Virtually all breeders of cats and dogs, as well as agricultural people and other animal owners in the state are opposed to these bills. It’s only a radical fringe that supports them but they have been visiting with lawmakers and trying to convince them that the state needs these new laws.

I’ve been working on these particular bills since at least December. Actually, I’ve been watching since last year or before and trying to get people to become aware of them. In the last few days we’ve had another group become involved and it’s a been a little jarring. They’re doing a great job but they have come on the scene with all of the finesse of an elephant. We do see eye to eye about the legislation and the need to fight it. However, I had a few problems with some demands from the other group. For one, they wanted a list of all of the e-mail addresses of members of our Yahoo group. I had to tell them a couple of times that I didn’t have the right to give out that kind of information. When people join an e-mail list I think they have a right to expect their personal information to be kept private. If they want to join an organization they are free to do so but I can’t hand over their e-mail addresses so they can be automatically added.

Then, too, I freely shared the information I had about the bills and what was going on. On the other hand, when I talked to the other group they didn’t share information with me. They would tell me something, I would ask a question and the response would be, “Well, I can’t tell you that.” It’s hard to work with people who keep you in the dark.

I sent them the latest information about the bills but they appeared not to read what I sent them. They continued to refer to the original version of the bill and provisions in it, even in the subcommittee hearing. That doesn’t help us. Take the time to stay up-to-date on the bills.

Even if I had something in writing they would argue and disagree with me. They would call people to get an answer, duplicating our efforts. For instance, I had it in writing that the AKC OPPOSED the commercial breeder bills. They insisted that the AKC couldn’t come out and say that they were opposed to the bills. We had it in WRITING. I sent it all over the Internet and they still wanted to argue about it.

Really, the final straw was getting a call and being “asked” to write up material for the other organization. No idea what it was for, who would be reading it. But I was told to send it to them and they would give me notes about it so I could make changes. I wrote up the bill information and got back a message telling me it wasn’t what they were looking for. I replied that they would have to tailor their own message and that I couldn’t write what they wanted. They wanted an explanation. I basically told them that I wasn’t one of their volunteers and I don’t like to take orders from people.

I’m not a flunky and I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been writing about what’s wrong with animal rights and about dog legislation for over ten years. They can write their own damn press and web site material.

I believe this group has had problems working with other organizations in the past. They complain that other groups are “territorial.” Perhaps other groups simply don’t like being bulldozed or attempts to make them subordinates?

I’ll be happy to work with them to fight this legislation. They are a great group as far as fighting legislation goes. I just don’t want to be under their command.

(Of course it didn’t help any that they thought I was 12 years older than I actually am. Nobody likes that. If you want to work with people, don’t go around offending them.)