[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]
My local rock sculptor has been busy of late, and magical. His sculptures don’t last long, thanks to someone’s need to knock them down. The rocks lie helter-skelter till the artist reassembles them. I’ve not watched him at work, but I spent an afternoon watching the artisans at Sausalito, California. The artistry is in choosing the surface of each stone so that they balance and counterbalance as the structure takes form. My sense is that the form is dictated more by the surfaces of the particular rocks than by the vision of the artist.
These creations, and the ones in Sausalito, are like cairns, which served ancient forms of worship. The word is Gaelic; the cairns in Ireland have a very mysterious, sacramental quality. Cairns in Scotland date back millennia. In fact, building cairns dates back to prehistory in many lands. They can be massive, like the burial dolmens that dot the north of England. But the practice was and is widespread, often with religious significance. They dot Japan as part of Zen traditions.
These local constructions seem almost animate, alive, more like totems than cairns. They anger some environmentalists because moving stones can encourage erosion.
On the topic whether various atrocities are proof that there is no god or proof that God has a wicked sense of humor, here is an atrocity article you might get a laugh out of: “Indian rooster kills owner with cockfight blade”:
In Virginia and North Carolina bear hunting became a “thing” in the 1980s/90s and hunters started breeding all kinds of specialty dogs: traditional hounds with their amazing noses for striking a scent and cold trailing, hounds crossed with other breeds with “more leg” for faster pursuit, and hounds crossed with pits and Rottweilers to create “kill dogs” that can actually take down a bear (if they can catch it on the ground) or take on a wild boar. The laws stressed that “kill dogs” were not to be allowed loose until the bear was cornered, but bear hunters being bear hunters they started letting the kill dogs loose to run with the other hounds. It was a damn carnage for about a decade: the kill dogs would attack any dog they came across, attack people on occasion, and if they got to the bear and it went up a tree, they would start killing dogs in their own pack.
I was grouse-hunting with my Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and a German shepherd/tosa cross I had rescued from an illegal dog fighting operation, and we got jumped by two kill dogs. If not for the tosa cross, they would have killed the Chessies before I could get close enough to help. That was the last straw that made me quit hunting...if you can actually call walking and running 500 to 1,000 miles each winter chasing dogs through the woods to shoot three or four grouse, “hunting.” It’s more like woods-running made more challenging by carrying a shotgun.
Back in the early ’80s, I was photographing and writing about some Pennsylvania bear hunters who used legitimate bear hounds – Plotts, black-and-tans, and such – that would chase and harry a bear but not actually attack it. A pack of 8-10 dogs cornered a bear that weighed maybe 250 pounds against a 30-foot bank in a dead-end corner at the back of a steep-sided hollow, and the hunters asked me to move in close to get good photos. The bear couldn’t turn its back and go up the bank because the dogs would nip at it, and things seemed fairly calm, so the guys assured me the dogs could stop the bear before it got to me: “Don't worry, that bear isn’t going anywhere.”
As I moved within 15 feet, all stayed calm, so I took one more step – and then all hell broke loose. The bear ran through the pack of dogs like an NFL running back shredding a Pee Wee League defense, and flattened me before I could even think about dodging. The dogs, in close pursuit, also ran over me, except for one of the youngest, which started attacking me as I was flat on the ground, as if I were the bear. Thanks to thick cold-weather gear, I was mostly unhurt, but I was sore from the collision for at least a week. Now THAT would be a video worth seeing, except, unfortunately – or maybe fortunately, it was long before the modern era of constant GoPro and cell-phone chronicling.
I heard on the news last night that a big cockfighting ring was broken up in Tennessee. They’re looking for homes for about fifty birds. So far the only offer has come from some colonel in Kentucky.
I had a banty rooster on the farm years ago. He was the meanest damn thing I have ever run across. He would hide and then as you crossed the yard he would attack you. I think a chicken hawk got him in the end because I found what was left of him at the top of a small tree by the barn. That hawk must have decided to drop him.
Let’s visit this site the next time we go to Williamsburg. Excerpts from “University Finds 18th-Century Schoolhouse Where Black Children Learned to Read,” by Maria Cramer, Feb. 26, 2021 NY Times.
Hangings. From “How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America,” by The Conversation, February 27, 2021.
I rarely... rarely... rarely... RARELY... devote almost 10 minutes to listening to an email enclosure, but I’m so glad I did on this occasion, for which I carefully donned gloves to avoid direct contact with feces spread on the photographs and statues inside the Capitol Building – the feces of hooligans on low-fiber diets, and the feces of hooligans on high-fiber diets. I did not go on recess from listening; to go on recess would have been SO UNFAIR to Al Franken.
“Al Franken Recreates McConnell’s Post-Acquittal Impeachment Speech”
What are dingleberries? Oh? You don't know but you think you’ve heard the word. If you look it up, I hope you go to Dictionary.com:
These local constructions seem almost animate, alive, more like totems than cairns. They anger some environmentalists because moving stones can encourage erosion.
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| Biju BORO Cockfights are banned but still common in rural areas of India |
A rooster fitted with a knife for an illegal cockfight in southern India has killed its owner, sparking a manhunt for the organisers of the event, police said Saturday.This ranks right there with an illegal dogfight ring I was involved in taking down. As we were removing dogs to safety a 100-pound pit bull-Rottweiler cross broke loose and tore into its former handler. The expression “chewed the hell out of” is barely adequate to describe what happened in just a matter of seconds. The difference between a huge pit bull-Rottweiler cross and an average size black bear is...apparently not much.
The bird had a knife attached to its leg ready to take on an opponent when it inflicted serious injuries to the man’s groin as it tried to escape, officers said.
The victim died from loss of blood before he could reach a hospital in the Karimnagar district of Telangana state earlier this week, local police officer B. Jeevan told AFP.
The man was among 16 people organising the cockfight in the village of Lothunur when the freak accident took place, Jeevan said. The rooster was briefly held at the local police station before it was sent to a poultry farm.
“We are searching for the other 15 people involved in organising the illegal fight,” Jeevan said.
They could face charges of manslaughter, illegal betting and hosting a cockfight.
Cockfights are banned but still common in rural areas of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha states – particularly around the Hindu festival of Sankranti.
Specially-bred roosters have 7.5-centimetre (three-inch) knives or blades tethered to their legs, and punters bet on who will win the gruesome fight.
Thousands of roosters die each year in battles that, despite the efforts of animal rights groups, attract large crowds.
In Virginia and North Carolina bear hunting became a “thing” in the 1980s/90s and hunters started breeding all kinds of specialty dogs: traditional hounds with their amazing noses for striking a scent and cold trailing, hounds crossed with other breeds with “more leg” for faster pursuit, and hounds crossed with pits and Rottweilers to create “kill dogs” that can actually take down a bear (if they can catch it on the ground) or take on a wild boar. The laws stressed that “kill dogs” were not to be allowed loose until the bear was cornered, but bear hunters being bear hunters they started letting the kill dogs loose to run with the other hounds. It was a damn carnage for about a decade: the kill dogs would attack any dog they came across, attack people on occasion, and if they got to the bear and it went up a tree, they would start killing dogs in their own pack.
I was grouse-hunting with my Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and a German shepherd/tosa cross I had rescued from an illegal dog fighting operation, and we got jumped by two kill dogs. If not for the tosa cross, they would have killed the Chessies before I could get close enough to help. That was the last straw that made me quit hunting...if you can actually call walking and running 500 to 1,000 miles each winter chasing dogs through the woods to shoot three or four grouse, “hunting.” It’s more like woods-running made more challenging by carrying a shotgun.
Back in the early ’80s, I was photographing and writing about some Pennsylvania bear hunters who used legitimate bear hounds – Plotts, black-and-tans, and such – that would chase and harry a bear but not actually attack it. A pack of 8-10 dogs cornered a bear that weighed maybe 250 pounds against a 30-foot bank in a dead-end corner at the back of a steep-sided hollow, and the hunters asked me to move in close to get good photos. The bear couldn’t turn its back and go up the bank because the dogs would nip at it, and things seemed fairly calm, so the guys assured me the dogs could stop the bear before it got to me: “Don't worry, that bear isn’t going anywhere.”
As I moved within 15 feet, all stayed calm, so I took one more step – and then all hell broke loose. The bear ran through the pack of dogs like an NFL running back shredding a Pee Wee League defense, and flattened me before I could even think about dodging. The dogs, in close pursuit, also ran over me, except for one of the youngest, which started attacking me as I was flat on the ground, as if I were the bear. Thanks to thick cold-weather gear, I was mostly unhurt, but I was sore from the collision for at least a week. Now THAT would be a video worth seeing, except, unfortunately – or maybe fortunately, it was long before the modern era of constant GoPro and cell-phone chronicling.
I heard on the news last night that a big cockfighting ring was broken up in Tennessee. They’re looking for homes for about fifty birds. So far the only offer has come from some colonel in Kentucky.
I had a banty rooster on the farm years ago. He was the meanest damn thing I have ever run across. He would hide and then as you crossed the yard he would attack you. I think a chicken hawk got him in the end because I found what was left of him at the top of a small tree by the barn. That hawk must have decided to drop him.
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| An early-1900s photo of the building that once housed the Bray School. (A William & Mary photo) |
For years, academics and researchers at William & Mary, a university in Virginia, had known about the Bray School, where Black children, free and enslaved, were taught to read from 1760 to 1774. But no one had ever found the school.
Until last year, that is. In June, workers tore open the walls of what had been believed to be an early-20th-century building on campus and found timber that had been harvested in 1759.
The small, four-room school had been hiding in plain sight, inside William & Mary’s military science department.
“As a historian, I always believe that there is a box unopened, that there is a closet that hasn’t been looked into,” said Jody Lynn Allen, a history professor at William & Mary and director of the Lemon Project, which was created in 2009 to research the college’s legacy of slavery. “We always are hoping for clues to find something like this.”
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| In 2019, a historical marker was unveiled at the original site of the Bray School. (A William & Mary photo) |
Hangings. From “How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America,” by The Conversation, February 27, 2021.
How can maps fight racism and inequality? The work of the Black Panther Party, a 1960s- and 1970s-era Black political group featured in a new movie and a documentary, helps illustrate how cartography – the practice of making and using maps – can illuminate injustice.All of the big hanging states except the miracle that is the new State of Georgia (at least the big-city pieces of it) are Trump states. Just a coincidence, right?
As these films show, the Black Panthers focused on African American empowerment and community survival, running a diverse array of programming that ranged from free school breakfasts to armed self-defense.
Cartography is a less documented aspect of the Panthers' activism, but the group used maps to reimagine the cities where African Americans lived and struggled.
In 1971 the Panthers collected 15,000 signatures on a petition to create new police districts in Berkeley, California – districts that would be governed by local citizen commissions and require officers to live in the neighborhoods they served. The proposal made it onto the ballot but was defeated.
“Al Franken Recreates McConnell’s Post-Acquittal Impeachment Speech”
What are dingleberries? Oh? You don't know but you think you’ve heard the word. If you look it up, I hope you go to Dictionary.com:
dingleberry [ding-guhl-ber-ee]
noun, plural din·gle·ber·ries.
Slang. a small clot of dung, as clinging to the hindquarters of an animal.
Here in America, Republicans are so worried about ANY federal infringement on people being able to buy guns, they are rushing to buy guns before the Democratic-controlled federal leadership can enact new gun laws, and they are rushing to pass state laws to attempt to block local enforcement of any new federal gun laws. See “GOP state lawmakers seek to nullify federal gun limits (Lindsey Whitehurst, Associated Press, ABC News, March 4).” The United States had a population of approximately 333 million people at the end of 2019, but about 18,000 of them were killed by gunfire in 2020.
By comparison, Japan’s gun laws have been so effective that the country is now working on banning crossbows, except for people who can obtain a special permit. See “Japan’s Gun Laws Worked So Well They Need to Ban Crossbows (Jake Adelstein, msn.com, March 4).” Japan has a population of approximately 126 million people, but only three people – yes, 3 people – were killed by gunfire in 2017.
Illinois has 4% of the U.S. population but had 24% of national gun sales last month; North Carolina had gun sales of 72,430 last month. See “Over 20% of Guns in America Were Sold in This State” (Douglas A. McIntyre, msn.com, March 5).
We have to wonder where all those guns are going, and whether anyone is even bothering to look into it.
| Grateful for correspondence, Moristotle |
Like the rocks. I would never have the patience to do something like that.
ReplyDelete“N.J. Boy, 3, Is Mauled to Death in Backyard by 2 Dogs, Mom Hospitalized” (msn.com)
ReplyDeleteDecades ago, when we were infiltrating the regional dog fighting scene, and helping push some of the Southeastern states to make dog fighting a felony, we rescued and "re-homed" more than 140 dogs. At the time, I thought it was great that those formerly dangerous animals could be calmed down and become wonderful family pets. I still think there is more of a people problem rather than a dog problem when it comes to what creates a dangerous dog, but I have to wonder if it is time to ban certain dogs because they just have too much firepower (jaw strength) to be safe around people. Approximately 70% of the people who die from dog attacks each year are killed by pit bulls; sadly, maybe it is time to ban them.