Indeed, it is.

(This image, and the images in the next three posts below were all found at www.ffffound.com)

All you'll ever need

Love Song

After the poker game

Kellog: Droppin' it like it's pot

So I just saw that Kellog, famous maker of cereals and snacks, has decided not to renew their contract with Olympic medalist Michael Phelps (the contract expires at the end of the month), citing as their sole reason the picture of him smoking pot that recently surfaced.

I have some problems with this. The other day I saw that another of his sponsors, one that makes watches, I think, stated for the record that they saw no connection between the picture of Phelps that surfaced and his contract with them, and that they were proud to have him on board with their company. I thought that was classy.

Kellog, on the other hand, is being cowardly. But the truth is, I can't blame them entirely. Because as far as I'm concerned, this whole country is cowardly. I don't know anyone at Kellog, so I can't really say where they stand on the issue as individuals. And as a company, they have shareholders to answer to, as well as a very vocal and conservative public to deal with, even if all of the noise is being made by a minority of the population. So yeah, I guess in that sense, I understand Kellog doing what they did. Yet I still disagree.

If they had kept Phelps on, would it have hurt their sales in a measurable amount? I can't imagine it would. But then, I've often been surprised at how the ultra-conservative can hold the rest of the country hostage with their strict ideals.

The thing about pot is, it's not bad. I know it's illegal, but really, it shouldn't be. Not if alcohol is legal. Alcohol is actually much worse than pot. Give me a room full of pot-heads over drunks any day. I mean, if we are to look at stereotypes, what are drunks known for? Starting fights, being rowdy, talking excessively loud (I'm especially bad with that one), falling, knocking things over, etc. Pot-heads, on the other hand, are known for watching TV, playing video games, and eating tons of snack food (that's right Kellog, you may have just offended one of your bigger customer bases). And clearly, it doesn't have to impede your progress towards setting or reaching your goals, as Phelps has proven.

Pot doesn't make you waste your life away anymore than listening to Marilyn Manson makes you turn to murder or suicide. The folks who are going to do that stuff, they're going to do it with or without pot, or Marilyn Manson. And pot doesn't lead to harder drugs. The ones who turn to harder drugs, they were going there anyway. In fact, so many normal, everyday, upstanding citizens smoke pot that it's almost impossible to not start there if you're intent on doing drugs. But if all you want is pot, you won't find yourself reaching for the needle.

The thing about the ultra-conservative base is, they're really a small group, but they've got everyone convinced that their numbers are massive, and through this false reality they keep companies like Kellog in line. Kellog, you had a chance to stand up to the ridiculous right, and you chickened out. Shame on you.

But there's one more angle to this whole thing, and it has to do with the boom in technology which has completely decimated a person's right to privacy. Phelps was in his off-season, with literally weeks and weeks and weeks of nothing to do, and he was blowing off a little steam, being a 23 year old guy. But some douche bag had to post pictures of Phelps enjoying himself at a private party, and now because of that, Phelps is losing out on what was probably a lot of money. All for what? So kellog can woo the religious right some more? It's all bullshit. These public stances that are made in the name of purity and goodness, they don't usually fall in line with the general public, they bow down to the extremists. And I'm tired of it. If more companies and organizations and groups said enough is enough to those ultra conservatives, and saw that there really was no backlash other than some temporary shouting in the headlines, we could eventually be free of these ridiculous restraints. But Kellog won't be in the front of that rally.

Well guess what kellog, the next time I smoke pot, it won't be massive amounts of your cereals that I eat. But I might buy a bunch of watches.

Stunning Photography

Last night, I came across the work of a photographer who has taken some amazing shots of wild animals in Africa, and especially in East Africa. The artist's name is Nick Brandt, and his stuff is so good, I want to share it with you. If you like the samples I've shown here, I would urge you to visit his site, where you can see more of his photos. Here he is in his own words, explaining his work:

Few photographers have ever considered the photography of wild animals, as distinctly opposed to the genre of Wildlife Photography, as an art form. The emphasis has generally been on capturing the drama of wild animals IN ACTION, on capturing that dramatic single moment, as opposed to simply animals in the state of being.

I’ve always thought this something of a wasted opportunity. The wild animals of Africa lend themselves to photographs that extend aesthetically beyond the norm of 35mm-color telephoto wildlife photography. And so it is, that in my own way, I would like to yank the subject matter of wildlife into the arena of fine art photography. To take photographs that transcend what has been a largely documentative genre.

Aside from using certain impractical photographic techniques, there’s one thing I do whilst shooting that I believe makes a big difference :
I get extremely close to these very wild animals, often within a few feet of them. I don’t use telephoto lenses. This is because I want to see as much of the sky and landscape as possible--to see the animals within the context of their environment. That way, the photos become as much about the atmosphere of the place as the animals. And being that close to the animals, I get a real sense of intimate connection to them, to the specific animal in front of me. Sometimes a deliberate feeling that they’re almost presenting themselves for a studio portrait.

Why the animals of Africa in particular? And more particularly still, East Africa? There is perhaps something more profoundly iconic, mythical, mythological even, about the animals of East Africa, as opposed to say, the Arctic or South America. There is also something deeply, emotionally stirring and affecting about the plains of Africa – the vast green rolling plains punctuated by the graphically perfect acacia trees.

My images are unashamedly idyllic and romantic, a kind of enchanted Africa.

They’re my elegy to a world that is steadily, tragically vanishing.


Nick Brandt
April 2004

It's gonna be a while...

Phew!

I've been pretty concerned about the economy for a while now, and I have to admit that it was looking bleak. That is, until I saw this headline this morning:

Exxon Mobile Sets Record with $45.2 Billion Profit


After reading that, I felt a lot better.

I mean, if the economy was so bad, they wouldn't be setting records for annual profits, would they? And the whole thing is sort of a win-win situation, because not only did they break the previous record set in 2007 of $40.6 billion in profits, but the record they broke was their own! Hooray for Exxon! And now that I think about it, it's actually a win-win-win, because we as the consumers get to share in the glory, because we helped them set these records! Hooray for us!

I remember when gas prices were so high just a few months ago, and none of us could really figure out why, and we were angry. But now I see that we were just being foolish and short-sighted. We had to pay higher prices so Exxon could accomplish this amazing feat! You have to hand it to Exxon, they know exactly what they're doing. How silly I feel for ever questioning them.

So now it's 2009, and I know what we have to do. We have to beat that record again! Together, we can do this. And I think the war in Iraq was started just for this reason, so you know it's got to be really important.

We have to reject low prices at the pump. Luckily, OPEC, the big oil cartel (which I think is different than a drug cartel, but I'm not sure how) is doing what they can to help us all accomplish this. They're cutting production so that the prices will go higher again, and Exxon can have a chance at breaking more records that they've set! Hooray for OPEC!

I know that everyone really likes those car magnets and stickers that are shaped like ribbons that say "Support the Troops", but I think we need to change that to say "Support the Oil Companies", because they're involved in this war too, maybe more than anyone else, and they're not getting nearly the credit they deserve.

For those of you who have lost your homes or your jobs, I hope you can take some comfort in knowing that it was not for nothing. If you still had an address, I'm sure Exxon would send you a thank you card.

Name That Cow

I was cruising the headlines last night, and I came across this story, about how cows seem to respond positively to individual attention, like calling them each by name, etc. It's pretty interesting stuff, though the only surprising thing is how long it's taken science to realize this. Here's the article, which I found on livescience.com:

Cows with Names Make More Milk

Researchers in the UK say cows with names make 3.4 percent more milk in a year than cows that just feel, well, like cows.

There seems to be more than just names involved, however.

The study, involving 516 dairy farmers and published online Tuesday by the journal Anthrozoos, found that "on farms where each cow was called by her name the overall milk yield was higher than on farms where the cattle were herded as a group," write researchers Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University.

Nobody likes to be herded. Even a cow, one might presume. Indeed, the findings in fact point to an overall personal touch that – just a guess here – might say as much about the farmers as it does about the cows.

"Just as people respond better to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one-to-one attention," Douglas said. "By placing more importance on the individual, such as calling a cow by her name or interacting with the animal more as it grows up, we can not only improve the animal's welfare and her perception of humans, but also increase milk production."

Happy cows. Okay. Well, if you are a farmer (especially one with a small farm that struggles to be profitable by milking only a handful of cows) you probably would not argue with success. Cows, after all (and in case you're thinking of judging them as dumb animals) are known to have a magnetic sixth sense and are not as prone to cow-tipping as you might have heard. Who knows what else they are capable of?

Dairy farmer Dennis Gibb, who co-owns Eachwick Red House Farm outside Newcastle with his brother Richard, says he believes treating every cow as an individual is vitally important. "They aren't just our livelihood – they're part of the family," Gibb said in a statement released by the university. "We love our cows here at Eachwick and every one of them has a name. Collectively we refer to them as 'our ladies' but we know every one of them and each one has her own personality."

See?

The findings:

46 percent said the cows on their farm were called by name.

66 percent said they "knew all the cows in the herd."

48 percent said positive human contact was more likely to produce cows with a good milking temperament.

Less than 10 percent said that a fear of humans resulted in a poor milking temperament.

"our data suggests that on the whole UK dairy farmers regard their cows as intelligent beings capable of experiencing a range of emotions," Douglas said. "Placing more importance on knowing the individual animals and calling them by name can – at no extra cost to the farmer – also significantly increase milk production."

So, of course I have something to say about this article, but first I need to point something out that most people rarely think about, and some of you maybe don't even realize: cows do not produce milk constantly, for no reason. Just like in humans, milk production begins during pregnancy, and is produced solely to nourish their young. If you're drinking cow's milk and you're not a young cow, you're basically an accessory to the theft of a Mother's milk, produced for it's baby.

I'm really happy to see that science and farmers agree that cows have feelings. What troubles me is to hear these guys talk about their cows as if they love them, as if they're "family", when what they do to the dairy cows is they forcibly impregnate them, then take their babies away as soon as they're born, because they can't have the baby cows taking milk that we've designated for human consumption.

So you get a Mother cow who, it is agreed, has feelings, who gets her newborn baby taken from her, which has to be at least a little traumatic to an animal with feelings. And then you have a newborn calf, brand new to the world, also with feelings, who gets taken from it's only source of comfort and love before it's even had a chance to get to know it's Mom.

The male calves, of course, will become veal in a short time (and thankfully it is a short time, as the baby cows are kept in tiny cages where they have no room to move or turn around at all, preventing them from forming correctly, but making for the most tender meat). How a farmer (who seems to agree that cows have feelings) can do this is beyond me. if we could understand the cows, in terms of what they're thinking or feeling, I have to believe that we would immediately stop eating them and using them for their milk. But, since the cows haven't said "stop" yet in terms we understand, we just keep enslaving them.

So while here in California we get inundated with advertising campaigns telling us that the California cows are happy, the only truly happy cows are the ones not being used for meat, milk, leather or service of some sort. Which means that happy cows might not even exist, save for those lucky few that have made it to some sort of sanctuary.


.

Real : Surreal

This past weekend I spent some time playing with Photoshop and a program called Photomatix, as well as an additional plug-in tool that works inside of Photoshop. My Photoshop skills are lacking, in spite of my profession. I'm much better with Illustrator, but I'm working on developing my talents with various programs, and right now I'm having a lot of fun experimenting.

The first image below is a picture I took at work with my sub-par Canon SD1000 "point & pray & click" camera. The image below that is what I came up with after running it through several different filters and tools. Also, I added a crow that I had found in a picture that someone else had taken, both because I love crows, and because I thought it gave the image that much more of a surreal feeling. Clearly I wasn't going for realism here. Oh, and I also flipped the image, as it just seemed to flow better with the "action" going left to right. And while I don't think that this little exercise demonstrates any greatness from an artistic or technical level (I imagine most "real" artists would rip this apart in seconds with a large list of mistakes and flaws), I like it personally. It's the look I was striving for, and it makes me happy. So I'm sharing it with you.

A ridiculous notion by any other name...

I had first seen this story a few days ago, but came across it again this morning:

Goat detained over armed robbery

LAGOS (Reuters) – Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.

Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

"The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

I thought this story was both funny and ridiculous, but then I remembered how many people in this country still believe that a supreme being (which I think is just like a regular being, but with all of the toppings) created the universe some 6,000 - 10,000 years ago, and then I realized that this story isn't as funny or ridiculous any more.

Then I also thought about how this goat will probably end up being killed, and I wondered if the people would be surprised or disappointed when the goat didn't turn back into a man after being killed, or while in the process of dying. They'll probably just say "Demons are so unpredictable", and they'll go on their merry way. People are resilient that way. Also, people are dumb.

The Dumbest Thing I've Read Today

In glancing over the morning headlines on Yahoo, I came across this little gem, displayed proudly in the top headlines for the morning:

Obama's success hinges on more than race

Reading further, this is the opening paragraph:

History surely will remember President Barack Obama as the first black to sit in the White House. But success in his term will depend on his accomplishments rather than on the color of his skin.

I can't decide if this writer is ignorant, racist, or just trying to cater to those sections of the population. It's a wonderful thing that this country finally found itself able and willing to put a black man in the highest office in the country, but did any of us think that Obama's success might rest just on the color of his skin?

And now, since I'm already criticizing the author, did we really need him to point out that history will "surely" (as if there's a chance it won't) remember Obama as the "first black" to sit in the white house? Isn't that a given? Is it even worth mentioning at this point?

And since I'm already getting really picky with the details now, and while it may be grammatically correct as is, couldn't the author have referred to Obama as a black man, rather than just as a black? I mean, the man is more than just a color. And if you need proof of that, you can refer back to the beginning of that last sentence, where I clearly pointed out that Obama is a man (thus proving that he is not just a color). The whole article seems to center around the fact that Obama is black, and while that certainly seems true, it also seems a little late in the game to be talking about it like this, like maybe none of us had considered for a moment who we were voting into office.

And lastly, I need to point out that the author is listed as "DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent", and I have to say that if the word "Special" in his title refers to his eligibility for the olympics of the same name, he has my deepest apologies, as I never would intentionally tease the 'literally retarded', just the literary retarded.

The Secret Lives of Kingpins

Here, we see a young Tony Montana, cocaine kingpin (cleverly disguised in a shirt that he borrowed), just seconds before he approached the three men in the background. Swiftly raising his gun, Tony yelled out three quick shots - "Bang bang bang!!".

The men, denying they had been shot, even after Tony told them he had shot them and they were now supposed to be dead, did not press charges. A miffed Tony Montana told them they were not only not his best friends, but they would not be allowed to come to his birthday party.

Weeks later, Tony would come across them again and cut them into pieces with a chainsaw.

The Secret Lives of Super Heroes

As a young boy, Peter Parker did not have any real friends to speak of. He also had not yet honed his skills as a super hero. Standing still for hours, young Peter would wait for a crime to happen in front of him which he could then stop. This picture was taken just shortly before he was mugged by a 5th grader and relieved of his lunch money.

The Plan

By Jack Handey

The plan isn’t foolproof. For it to work, certain things must happen:

• The door to the vault must have accidentally been left open by the cleaning woman.
  


• The guard must bend over to tie his shoes and somehow he gets all the shoelaces tied together. He can’t get them apart, so he takes out his gun and shoots all his bullets at the knot. But he misses. Then he just lies down on the floor and goes to sleep.
  


• Most of the customers in the bank must happen to be wearing Nixon masks, so when we come in wearing our Nixon masks it doesn’t alarm anyone.
  


• There must be an empty parking space right out in front. If it has a meter, there must be time left on it, because our outfits don’t have pockets for change.
  


• The monkeys must grab the bags of money and not just shriek and go running all over the place, like they did in the practice run.
  


• The security cameras must be the early, old-timey kind that don’t actually take pictures.
  


• When the big clock in the lobby strikes two, everyone must stop and stare at it for at least ten minutes.
  


• The bank alarm must have mistakenly been set to “Quiet.” Or “Ebb tide.”
  


• The gold bars must be made out of a lighter kind of gold that’s just as valuable but easier to carry.
  


• If somebody runs out of the bank and yells, “Help! The bank is being robbed!,” he must be a neighborhood crazy person who people just laugh at.
  


• If the police come, they don’t notice that the historical mural on the wall is actually us, holding still.
  


• The bank’s lost-and-found department must have a gun that fires a suction cup with a wire attached to it. Also a chainsaw and a hang glider.
  


• When we spray the lobby with knockout gas, for some reason the gas doesn’t work on us.
  


• After the suction cup is stuck to the ceiling, it must hold long enough for Leon to pull himself up the wire while carrying the bags of money, the gold bars, and the hang glider. When he reaches the ceiling, he must be able to cut through it with the chainsaw and climb out.
  


• Any fingerprints we leave must be erased by the monkeys.
  


• Once on the roof, Leon must be able to hold on to the hang glider with one hand and the money and the gold bars with the other and launch himself off the roof. Then glide the twenty miles to the rendezvous point.
  


• When we exit the bank, there must be a parade going by, so our getaway car, which is decorated to look like a float, can blend right in.
  


• During the parade, our car must not win a prize for best float, because then we’ll have to have our picture taken with the award.
  


• At the rendezvous point, there must be an empty parking space with a meter that takes hundred-dollar bills.
  


• The robbery is blamed on the monkeys.

Cubicle View

In this country, there are millions of people who spend their day at work in drab cubicles. I am one of those. Very few of us, however, have the pleasure of enjoying a view such as the one that I have from the windows next to me.

I work in a very new building which sits right on the edge of the bay. The group I work in is fortunate enough to be on the third (top) floor, right in front of a row of large floor-to-ceiling windows.

This is not something I take for granted. Every day that I come in to work, I marvel at the amazing sights that I have before me. There are tons of water birds everywhere, and even seals and otters, which I've spotted several times from my desk but have been unable to get a good picture of.

Even when the weather turns dark and cold, the view is magnificent. I took this shot yesterday, three feet from my desk. One day soon, I'll post a panoramic shot, as this one is just a small part of the total view that I have.

Lucky me.

One Wish

I’ve spent quite a lot of time pondering this, as I’m sure many of you have as well at one time or another. If I could have one wish, one impossible request fulfilled, what would it be? Massive wealth? World peace? Super-human strength? X-ray vision? The ability to become invisible at will? Or to fly? Or stop time?

Stopping time is a big one for me. What would it be like to be woken by my alarm on a Monday morning, only to stop time, lay my head back down on my pillow and sleep deeply until I awoke again of my own accord? The power to stop time, it seems to me, would offer endless benefits. Also a lot of scary possibilities, when you really start thinking about the details, but how many of us often wish there were more hours in each day? Stopping time, in order to complete a task, or catch a nap, would surely be a wonderful thing.

But stopping time would be my second choice. The decision I come to time and time again is that if I could have that one wish granted, it would be the ability to communicate with animals, in such a way that we could have a two-way dialogue. In reality, this could prove to be bothersome, as others have humorously pointed out. There’s a commercial where a man is in the kitchen with his talking dog, and the dog just keeps saying over and over “Sausages!! Sausages! Sausages!!!!” And I’m reminded of one of Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts:

“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

And I know that quote is about trees, not animals, but the point is the same. But since this is a fantasy, and not reality, I would be able to have a conversation with any animal. If I saw a deer about to run across a busy road, I could say “Hey, wait a minute, let me explain cars to you.” The deer would thank me and scamper back up the hillside. When taking one of my cats to the vet, I could explain to them what was going to happen, and they wouldn’t be so scared. When my cats were hungry, I could say “Okay, let me just finish this one thing real quick, and then I’ll feed you.” Or years ago, when I was mowing the lawn and suddenly saw a snake slithering away in front of me, the snake would have understood my scream of terror, and I would have understood his, and we both could have had a good laugh about it. Maybe even become friends.

I could go on and on with all of the benefits as I see them, but I think you all get the point, and there’s no need to drag this on.

So, this would be my one wish. To talk with animals.

What would you wish for?

The area I live in

I absolutely love where I live. I've lived here my entire life, and as much as I've traveled, I've yet to find a place I'd rather stay. I took this shot a few months ago or so. I did tweak it just a bit in photoshop, but mostly just upped the contrast a bit to darken the mountains and make the sun's rays pop a bit more. The original doesn't look very different from this one.

Reflection

The office where I work looks out over the bay, and we have a couple of small lagoons next to the building as well. I took this shot at one of the lagoons using a basic point & shoot 7mp Canon digital Elph. The camera itself has been a little disappointing, even for a point & shoot, but I didn't have to do any touching up of this photo.

Sometimes...

I took this picture of the crow, then added the text in Illustrator. I love that you can see the light reflecting on the crow's eye (click on the picture to see it in larger size).

A raisin in the sun

2 seconds to take the picture, 30 minutes to remove all of the dust and litter fragments in photoshop.

Science proves animals have feelings, continues to experiment on them anyway

LONDON (Reuters) – Dogs can sniff out unfair situations and show a simple emotion similar to envy or jealousy, Austrian researchers reported Monday.

Dogs sulked and refused to "shake" paws if other dogs got treats for tricks and they did not, said Friederike Range, an animal psychologist at the University of Vienna, who led the study into canine emotions.

"It is a more complex feeling or emotion than what we would normally attribute to animals," said Range.

The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also showed dogs licked and scratched themselves and acted stressed when they were denied rewards given to other dogs.

Other studies have shown monkeys often express resentful behavior when a partner receives a greater reward for performing an identical task, staging strikes or ignoring what they view as inferior compensation.

It turns out dogs are able to show a similar, if less sensitive, response, said Range in a telephone interview.

In a series of experiments using different breeds of dogs, the researchers looked at how two animals sitting next to each other reacted to unequal rewards after handing a paw to a researcher.

Dogs not given a treat licked their mouths, yawned, scratched and showed other signs of stress and stopped performing the task, Range said.

To show this was not just because the animals were not getting food, the researchers then tested the dogs alone and found that in this situation the envious canines cooperated longer before stopping.

"It is really about the unequal distribution of the reward," Range said. "If it was only about frustration they would stop at the same time."

Original article found here.

Also, please keep in mind that while these tests/experiments seem very painless and mild for the dogs, once the tests are done, the dogs go back in their small cages, where they are treated as test subjects, not animals with feelings. Scientists working with animals must check their humanity at the door.

What really irks me

You know what really irks me is when people say "There are two types of people in this world...", because hello, there are way more than just two types of people in this world. What about the Jews? We're sick of being left out of everything.* So from now on, let it be known that there are three types of people in this world - the first two types, and Jews. And also Asians.


*The lone exception to this is Mel Gibson. Mel, please stop including us, as you're just not being helpful.

Where the hell is Matt?

So, this guy Matt had this very simple idea that originally was just sort of for his own amusement, but it turned into something much more.

Matt turned a simple, goofy dance into a way to bring people together. He's traveled the world, and has danced with people from all walks of life.

This video reminds us of that which we too easily forget: that while there are millions of differences between the various peoples of the world, in our hearts and souls we are all the same. We want to have food, and water, and shelter. We want to love, and feel loved. We want to be happy, and we want to laugh. It's when we get caught up in the details that we lose our way. It's when we let our walls down that we truly connect with each other.

Matt, wherever you may be, thank you for reminding me to let my walls down.

(you can click on Matt's name to go to his website to see more videos, and I would recommend doing so in order to view the video in a sharper, larger size.)

The only argument that matters

There is a lot of debate on the value of experimenting on animals for human gains. If you look, you can find hundreds of papers explaining why we must continue to experiment on animals and the medical and scientific advances we make as a result. Alternatively, you can find just as many papers, many by doctors and scientists, stating the ineffectiveness of animal experimentation, to the point of actually being harmful to humans, not just ineffective. The doctors and scientists that speak out against the use of animals point to the numerous alternatives that have been created in order to bypass the use of unwilling participants.

For me, none of those arguments matter in this debate. As far as I’m concerned, it is not a matter of whether or not we gain from these experiments, but whether or not we have the right to perform these experiments.

I’m constantly surprised by the otherwise thoughtful, caring and intelligent people who seem to be okay with the animal experimentation that currently is conducted all over the world. When they learn of my opposition to vivisection, they offer a sort of apologetic smile and remind me that as humans, we have benefited greatly from these experiments. Of course, not one of them could probably cite even one animal experiment that we’ve benefited from, but again, that’s a separate issue, and is not a part of my opposition. I’ve listened to scientists who used to be in support of animal experiments, who have since abandoned those methods and now speak out against them as needless, cruel to animals, and harmful to humans.

The fact is, roughly 8% of medications that are tested on animals are brought to market, and of those, roughly half are later recalled due to human death or severe side effects. Which means that approximately 96% of those experiments are performed with no gain to humans at all.

But again, this is not part of my argument against animal testing, because even if it were a proven method that produced 100% useable results for humans, I would still be against it.

Why? Because we do not have the right to use any living beings in experiments against their will. Period. I state this, not as my opinion, but as fact. Just because something is legal (slavery, discrimination against women and minorities, etc) does not make it morally or ethically correct. We have worked hard as a people to do away with racism and sexism (with still much work to do in those areas), and yet largely ignored by the masses is the ongoing problem of speciesism.

We feel justified in using animals for experiments because we view them as “less than us”. They do not have the level of intelligence that we as humans have, nor the ability to reason like us. And for some reason these facts make us feel better about conducting these unusually cruel and inhumane tortures on those lesser beings.

But if it’s lack of intelligence and ability to reason as we do that makes a prime subject for experimentation, what about the use of mentally handicapped people? As humans, there could be no better test subjects for determining the safety or effectiveness of drugs and other products meant for human consumption that are currently tested on animals.

If we are to be honest, wouldn’t we all feel a lot better about that medicine we’re taking or that product we’re using if it was deemed safe for human use after having been tested on humans, rather than rats, or primates?

If it’s a matter of which beings deserve freedom, what about using inmates for experiments? Our government has done this in the past (and not just to inmates, but to military personnel, as well as minorities) so we can all agree that it’s at least possible.

Most of us would never stand for that kind of treatment of other humans, however, no matter their intelligence level or their right to personal freedoms. How could we, with clear conscious, sew the eyes shut on a mentally handicapped person in order to perform an experiment on sight depravation? We couldn’t. What about impregnating a female inmate, forcing her to ingest nicotine, and then cutting the baby out of her womb in order to test the effects of smoking on an unborn baby? Never. The mere suggestion seems ridiculous, and if it were brought to the table in a serious manner, it would be met with angry opposition to the point of full-scale riots and violence.

And yet still, most people see nothing wrong with doing these things to animals, against their will.

So really, the question becomes not one of benefits, but of humanity. We rail against discriminations and abuses of groups of people, all the while we are subjecting free-willed beings to the most horrific and painful experiments imaginable. Hitler’s own Dr. Mengele, the man who spent so much time experimenting on the Jews, would be proud.

Most of you, I’m assuming, would be unable to conduct these experiments on animals yourselves, being unable to stomach the visuals – the primate who screams in agony and struggles against his restraints as parts of his skull are removed, or his eyes are sewn shut; the cat who is so tightly clamped down with metal head restraints that it is unable to move at all while large devices are attached to it’s exposed brain; the dog who is forcefully overfed to the point of death, laying listless and bloody. Those that survive another day of experiments are brought back to their small wire cages, where they will cower in fear at the slightest sounds, whimpering, licking their wounds that will never heal, and in many cases, inflicting new wounds on themselves as they thrash about trying to free themselves from this life that they’ve been forced into, even if their only escape is death. Self-mutilation, especially in primates, has been documented by these labs over and over and over.

We are right to recoil in horror from these sights, but we must not ignore the fact that this goes on, every single day, all over the world.

All animals are born with free will. Even the animal who is born and raised in a laboratory will long to be free, to act according to it’s natural instincts. To build a home. To meet a mate. To start and raise a family. It is not within our rights to remove these animals from their habitats, from their families, from the life that they would lead, simply to use them and discard them as we see fit, so that old men can get erect, or so that we can continue to prove that smoking is dangerous to everyone’s health.

The argument of whether or not animal experiments benefit us is not important. The only argument that matters is, DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT?

Can any of you provide an argument for why we should continue to mutilate animals in these ways, in the face of real alternatives, and knowing the horrors that animals face in labs?

More importantly, will any of you speak up to help end it, or will you be silent partners with the vivisectors? The choice is yours. Which, incidentally, is one more thing that separates us from the animals in the labs – they have no choice.

"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is ‘Because the animals are like us.’ Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: ‘Because the animals are not like us.’ Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." -- Professor Charles R. Magel (1980)

Food for thought

With Thanksgiving upon us, I figured I would give a quick list of facts about turkeys. It is not my goal to get any of you to stop eating turkey. Not that I don't think that would be a wonderful thing, but I try as much as possible to be a realist. And with that in mind, it is my goal to get you to think about turkeys as more than just food, but as living creatures with minds of their own. And as you're about to read, they do indeed have minds of their own, and are not as dumb as we've characterized them to be.

• Wild turkeys can run up to 25 miles per hour and can fly short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. In comparison with the physical prowess of their wild relatives, turkeys genetically selected to be raised for meat weigh twice as much, making them unable to fly or even copulate naturally since their breasts are so enlarged.

• Benjamin Franklin regarded the turkey as a noble bird and preferred it to the eagle as the proposed symbol for the new United States, describing it as a "Bird of Courage.

• Animal welfare groups such as Farm Sanctuary claim that turkeys are bright and social animals that can make suitable companion animals. There is a long tradition of keeping turkeys as pets, and Abraham Lincoln's son Tad kept a turkey as a White House pet.

• The average lifespan for a domesticated turkey is ten years (and much less than that for those raised for food).

• Turkeys are popularly believed to be unintelligent birds with claims made that during a rain storm turkeys will look up into the sky until they drown. Despite this image, the turkey is no more or less intelligent than a comparable animal, and while the birds will look at the sky for up to a minute during a rain storm, this is due to a genetic nervous disorder known as tetanic torticollar spasms. Other criticisms include the bird being 'too dumb' to realize it can't fly, and perceptions about the bird being awkward, both traits being due to the breeding of modern turkeys to be much heavier than their wild relatives to provide more meat.

• Within just a few days of hatching, poults (young turkeys) instinctively tag along behind their mother for protection and food. During their first few weeks of life, poults will panic when separated from their mother. The poult emits a loud "peep peep" to which the mother responds by yelping and running towards her child. Mother turkeys defend their young against predators, including raccoons, foxes, snakes, owls, and hawks.

• Poults continue to live with their mother for four or five months, and during this time, the mother-child bonding through vocal and visual signals is important to the poult’s normal social development. The signals communicated early on facilitate learning of important social activities, as turkeys are social animals who prefer to live and feed together in flocks.

Whether you're eating turkey or not, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Canoe say sorry?

Last year, my girlfriend and I went camping with a bunch of friends. We all rented canoes, and Tiff and I accidentally capsized another couple that we're friends with. The lesson we learned: canoes do not behave the same way bumper cars do. or even bumper boats. I helped them collect their stuff that was floating in the water, though we never recovered a pair of sunglasses or a pair of shorts (it was an extra pair, no one had to canoe naked). The rest of the day we paddled furiously in order to stay ahead of the group, fearing revenge.



A couple of days later, I sent this note to them...

Doctors

This comic sums up nearly perfectly the amount of faith I have in doctors now. In fact, I'd say I have more faith in god, and I'm an agnostic (which is why I don't capitalize the word god. As opposed to the church, which capitalizes on the word of god.)



I found this comic here, at the Robot Nine blog. Check it out, it's great!

A first for me: the beach in November

While California is known for having wonderful weather, it's been an unusual November, at least in my neck of the woods. Last weekend was so nice, Tiff and I went with some friends to the beach. In November! And not all bundled up. And while not quite as warm, it's another nice sunny weekend again so far. I for one am quite pleased about this.

I don't enjoy rain or cold, and wish it would leave almost as soon as it appears. I long for the summer before it's even winter yet. My mood is very visibly affected by seasons, generally being much lower energy in the winter months. That's probably completely normal, I don't know. Or at least, quite common.

So right now, in this unusually warm November, I'm a happy, happy guy.

Vegetarian Shoes

I'm really liking these boots I recently got. I needed to replace my Doc Marten's, but I was also hoping to do so without using leather. Fortunately, as more and more people start to consider how they might lessen their impact on the animal world, more and more companies are starting to offer alternative products that really are cool and not just your stereo-typical tree-hugger birkenstocks and hemp clothing.

The company that makes these is called Vegetarian Shoes, and they're based in the U.K. I got my pair from a shop here in California that carries the Veg Shoes line.

Vegetarian Shoes makes a line that for all intents and purposes are the perfect Doc Marten replacements, even offering the various colors like blue, green or red. But, they also have many other styles and products - not just shoes and boots.

If you need to get a new pair of shoes or boots, I recommend that you give this company a look. If you find something you like, you're not only getting yourself something cool, but you're doing just one more thing to help out the animals, and wouldn't that make you feel just a little bit better?

http://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk/

Gotcha!

Dusty was a feral cat that Tiff and I trapped when she was 9 months old. Now she catches toy mice, and couldn't be any happier.

Popular Discrimination

The other day, Tiff and I were running errands. We spotted a place to park when Tiff said "Oh, wait, that's a handicapped spot".

What? Did she really just say that? My girlfriend?

That's when I realized, almost all of us are guilty of a widespread and continuing act of discrimination: against parking spaces that we've deemed "handicapped".

I asked Tiff why she would say such a thing. "What right do we have to claim superiority over these perfectly good parking places?"

I've been thinking about this for a while now. Whenever I go into parking lots, I now look for the handicapped spots. It's a sad sight. There they are, usually sticking close to each other, probably as a method of comforting each other. They even tend to congregate as close as they can to the entrance of whatever building they happen to be near, as if to say "Hey, look at us, we're so close to where you want to go, you can totally park here!". And yet, I watch car after car ignore these misunderstood spots.

For as long as I can remember, it's only been handicapped people that have dared to park in these spots that society has said they should park in. Because they're different than us. But you know what? Handicapped people are just people. And handicapped parking places are just parking places. I don't see disabilities any more than Stephen Colbert sees color. I've decided that I will lead by example, parking in these perfectly functional parking places. I for one will not be perpetutaing the myth that these spaces are somehow less able to accommodate my needs than any of the other spaces which we've deemed fit for the masses. And in so doing, I'm also saying to handicapped people "Hey, I'm just like you. Why don't you go on ahead and park in another spot, because today, I'm handicapped too. We all are."

I think one day I will be seen as a hero to the handicapped for my brave actions. We could all be heroes though. We just have to treat handicapped parking spots the same as we would any other parking spot. Together, we can eliminate this overlooked act of discrimination.

Trixie

When Tiffany and I were looking for a second cat a couple of years ago, we ended up at the Humane Society. There were a bunch of kittens there, so many that they had overflowed from the regular "housing" beyond the swinging doors out into the front room, where they sat in wire cages. We were looking at these front room kittens, and we each kept being drawn towards this one grey kitten who was clearly older and bigger than the others. Just barely kitten-size still, really. We finally asked to hold her in a small room where we could play with her. She was super active, wanting to explore everything in the room, but she also gave us a little time to pet her.

After a short while, we were ready to put her back so we could talk about it. We opened the cage door, and Tiff set her back inside. Before we could close the door, the cat spun around and jumped from the cage onto Tiff, scurrying up to her neck where she proceeded to bury her little furry head, all full of purrs. Tiff looked at me with big watery doe-eyes. "I think she loves me", she said.

And that's how Trixie chose us.


(Trixie's first day at home with us)