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was found in the animals, that pelt goal was superseded by fear that minks might transmit the disease.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®i_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
#
What do you think? You can comment at 1moreonce.blogspot.com.