—Most people don’t really want to see what goes on in slaughterhouses; it’s not pretty, muchless apetizing. Hamburger is not harvested in the sterile, bloodless styrofoam containers you buy in supermarkets. Beyond the usual butchery, however, is the treatment of “downer” cows as videotaped by humane society agents in a California slaughterhouse. These animals, too ill and weak to move, are shown in the videos as being kicked, jabbed in the eyes, and even rammed with forklifts by some workers in an effort to get them to move to their own slaughter! The inclusion of clearly sick cattle in the meat supply has caused the biggest recall of beef in the nation’s history, and much of it has already been eaten…some in school lunch programs!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category
Ordeal of the Animals
February 20, 2008Watch the Skies, Too…
February 15, 2008
–Fear not!–Your government, which put up a non-functioning spy satellite (your tax dollars at work), has now developed a plan to have the navy shoot down the sucker before it can fall on our sorry heads later this month, or in early March. This is good, because even if the spy in the sky doesn’t hit us directly, a component of it could poison an area the size of two football fields…we’ll just hope that the rocket being sent to knock out the spy satellite works better than the satellite itself…
…as Pogo the Possum once said long ago, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Oldest Living Animal
November 13, 2007
Know what the oldest living creature is?–Nope, not your Great Aunt Agatha. — It’s a Quahog clam found off Iceland that’s estimated to be 405 years old! This breaks the record of a 374-year-old clam!
By comparison, the oldest human ever to live reached age 122. This was a Frenchwoman who died in 1997. –A mere kid by comparison! Clams, however, can’t hold a witty conversation.
The Darker Side of Folk Medicine
October 22, 2007
At the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand near Bangkok, they race pigs to supplement tiger breeding programs and cocodile exhibits. Visitors can bet on a pig to win, and get a prize if their pig is victorious in the race. The pig racing is cute and popular, as are the tiger cubs…but some of the tigers find their way to China where their body parts are in demand for folk medicine, which is not cool…
Similar demand for bear gall bladders and other body parts in China fuels the illegal slaughter of bears and other species in North America at the hands of poachers…a very dark and despicable business indeed!
Why Dinosaurs?
October 19, 2007
– -So why the fascination with dinosaurs, and why do so many people…little boys and guys, especially…love them?–Well, dinosaurs didn’t take orders, did what they wanted to, and were best known for their larger specimens. They appeal instinctually to the male Id, that primitive part in all of us. Dinosaurs didn’t go out quietly, and didn’t die in nursing homes. They were forever untamed, and were really an outgrowth of the natural world.–Primitive and good at it!
There’s also something cool to a kid about knowing of something adults don’t, and don’t even care about. Dinosaurs are forever part of the internal kid landscape, and we hope for them to come back!
It’s fun to speculate about what life forms will survive beyond humans…roaches can!
Milk Dud
October 16, 2007
A cow in Cambodia was arrested and held at a police station on charges of causing six traffic deaths this year. Most recently, a motorcycle rider hit the cow and died; many Cambodian roads are dark at night. Earlier, a truck had veered off the road while trying to avoid the cow, resulting in the deaths of five people.
The cow’s owner had been warned four times to keep the cow penned up or leashed; I guess you could say that this was an udder failure! The owner could face a six month prison sentence…
Not Useless
October 8, 2007
The appendix, long regarded as a useless, vestigial organ, may not be worthless after all! Scientists are now thinking that the appendix may be an incubator or breeding ground for healthy, pro-biotic bacteria that support your gut and its functions!
Yes, you can live without it…but the appendix still serves a purpose!
Body Parts
October 7, 2007
Human body parts are turning up in the strangest places, and just in time for Halloween! There was a bizarre tale of a guy who bought a grill at auction to find that it contained a severed human leg…the auction winner was charging people to see it! When the owner of the amputated limb, an accident victim, heard about the leg, he wanted it back so as to someday have it cremated with him. The auction winner initially resisted this course of action, and litigation ensued. Well, the biological owner of the limb will be re-united with it!
Then in Philadelphia, some morticians were selling human body tissue such as bone from corpses for surgical implantation without getting permission from the families of the deceased! Several hundred cases may be involved.
Pleasant screams, everyone!
Brain-Eating Amoebas!
September 30, 2007
Yes…brain-eating amoebas are real, and live in lakes! It sounds like B-grade science fiction, but they enter the body through the nose and attack the brain, where they feed until you die!
The amoeba, called Naegleria fowleri, killed 23 people in the United States from 1995 to 2004. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention know of only several hundred cases worldwide since the discovery of the amoeba in Australia in the 1960’s. Infections tend to be found in southern states, and people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve, destroying tissue as it makes its way up into the brain where it continues the damage, basically feeding on the brain cells.–Isn’t that a happy thought?
The infection is usually fatal within two weeks. Early syptoms are a stiff neck, headache, and fever; later symptoms are hallucinations and behavioral changes. The amoebas can live in lakes, hot springs, and even dirty swimming pools, living off algae and bacteria in the sediment.
And to think, I had been worried about zombies eating my brain (although it would be a starvation diet)!
That Bites!
September 20, 2007
A 14-year-old Oakland Park teenager who went to the beach last Thursday emerged with a nurse shark attached to his abdomen!
How do you get rid of a 3-to 4-foot shark attached to you?–Punch it off, which is what the rescue worker did! The boy was treated at a hospital and released.
FOXSYLVANIA 
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