Rioting humans made animals look even better

Besides inflammatory chants, signs, flags and clothes, some brought weapons or improvised them.  Or threatened legislators and beat up police officers.  Or invaded and desecrated a building sacred to democracy.  Or caused extensive property damage.  Or tried to overturn crucial Congressional action underway on January 6.  Ultimately, these law-breaking rioters caused the deaths of five people.

Possibly never since the Civil War has Walt Whitman (1819-1892) been so on target:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. 

--Walt Whitman

As far as I’m concerned, when one person calls another person an animal, that’s a compliment.  And the current definition of “animalistic” – wholly negative – deserves a positive rewrite, one much closer to its current antonym!

Mink murders                                                                           

Washington Post pic

Since last year, I’ve avoided mentioning the fate of minks in Denmark.  It’s very ugly.  Remember that first it was bats, then various other animals “daubed with the brush” of connection with Covid-19 – either as carriers or as creatures who could catch it. 

Minks have long been raised in Denmark’s barbaric fur farms to be brutally (but oh so carefully) murdered for their fur.  In fact, Denmark is the world’s largest producer of pelts.  But when a mutated strain of the coronavirus was found in the animals, that pelt goal was superseded by fear that minks might transmit the disease.

 At that point, the prime minister called for a mink cull, so mass murder ensued: wholesale slaughter of minks (15 million estimated), followed by their “burial” in shallow mass graves.  Then reason – and fear – resurfaced: officials wondered whether they had acted too fast.  And people grew apprehensive about whether the millions of dead minks, then resurfacing, might infect the ground and drinking water. 

Guardian pic

A murderous mess, right?  Nor is it the first time humans have wiped out animals, including pets, from fear.  Yes, these minks were slated to die by other means, but. . .  the fur industry is another story, coming soon.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/denmark-mink-coronavirus-zombie-/2020/12/17/1f8cb00e-3bea-11eb-aad9-8959227280c4_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2d

Lasso the loose llama!

Gizmo, who recently moved from Indiana to New York State, ran away from his new home and caught people’s attention near and far.  Or, from the article about the errant llama, “In this moment of unfathomable worry, of airborne plagues and economic ruin, the opportunity to fret over a lost llama became its own kind of balm.” 

BBC pic

And “fret” they did, too.  The myriad ways that myriad people tried to find the llama included infrared drones, search parties, a lasso and hundreds of “lost llama” posters.  The  lasso worked first, thanks to a Guatemalan cowboy-turned groundskeeper.  He roped Gizmo’s BF llama, Sandman, before he got very far. 

But despite all efforts and a mix of weather that included a nor’easter, Gizmo remained elusive for more than two weeks, starting Dec. 13.  Finally, a person who saw the poster and had seen the llama broke the case, and Gizmo was retrieved about a mile from home. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/nyregion/missing-llama-westchester.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20210102&instance_id=25588&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=20760274&segment_id=48210&user_id=a360dad7b26df61ea65737080d3deedd

                                  Gizmo & Sandman                                                            Jones-NYT pic

Yum!?

OK, kids, get into your jammies if you want to have your Doggy Desserts!  What’ll it be: pumpkin with cookies or peanut butter with pretzels?   https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/video/ben-jerry-s-releases-ice-cream-for-dogs/vi-BB1cHa3R?ocid=mailsignout

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