BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: ANIMALS

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ANIMALS

"There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig -- an animal easily as intelligent as a dog -- that becomes the Christmas ham."

 Michael Pollan, professor and writer 
--
ON GIRAFFES

"When the bizarre creature first appeared in Florence, in 1487 at the court of the Medici, it caused a sensation. Bending down its long, long neck, it took food from children, and was fed with fruit by noblewomen from second-storey windows. In 1827, in Paris, a female giraffe presented to Charles X stirred an outbreak of giraffe-mania, with high-piled hairstyles, giraffe-spotted wallpaperv and years on, some say the design of the Eiffel Tower."

unsigned obituary for Anne Innus Dagg in The Economist (May 11th, 2024)
**

GENERAL CUSTER'S HORSE

"Comanche was attached to General Custer’s detachment of the 7th Cavalry when it engaged the Lakota in 1876 at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The troops in the detachment were all killed in the engagement, but soldiers found Comanche, badly wounded, two days later. They nursed him back to health, and he became the 7th Cavalry’s mascot. The commanding officer decreed that the horse would never again be ridden and that he would always be paraded, draped in black, in all military ceremonies involving the 7th Cavalry. When Comanche died of colic in 1891, he was given a full military funeral (the only other horse so honored was Black Jack, who served in more than a thousand military funerals in the 1950s and 1960s). Comanche’s taxidermied body is preserved in the Natural History Museum at the University Of Kansas."

Heather Cox Richardson
**


ANOTHER FASCINATING WAY TO SPEND TAX-PAYERS' MONEY

"The CIA also spent $20 million trying to train cats to eavesdrop while fitted with recording devices. Known as Operation Acoustic Kitty (seriously), the project was eventually 
abandoned after a feline operative was tasked with listening in on the conversation between two men sitting in a park. The cat, totally uninterested in any previous training, wandered off and was hit by a passing car. "

hello@historyfacts.com (DECEMBER 7, 2023)
**

THE GREATEST RACING HORSE OF ALL-TIME
 
Secretariat’s heart was estimated at 25 pounds, where ordinarily a horse would have a heart near 9 pounds.

Jack A. Roe
**

OCTOPUSES -MASTERS OF DECEIT
 
"With their complex nervous system and ability to solve puzzles, octopuses are some of the most intelligent species in the animal kingdom. Besides being masters of deceit, capable of camouflaging with their surroundings and making daring escapes, they can display complex behaviors like opening jars, navigating mazes, and mimicking other creatures. Some individuals even learn to fashion makeshift weapons out of highly venomous Portuguese man o' war tentacles."

Dictionary Scoop 
	**

ON BEING A BEE KEEPER

" Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Everest,
was a professional beekeeper. When filling in forms\
he always gave his occupation as 'apiarist.'"

John Lloyd, John Mitchijnson, and James Harkin.
1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012)
**

POEM FOR LORNA

The proud colt
   Burning at bay.
Turns & runs
   The other way;

Perhaps a stranger
    Grows too near,
& nearness is
    A thing to fear,

Or snap of twig
   Beneath a heel
Has caused the colt
   To turn & wheel,

Or does the smell
   Of fire in grass
Warn the colt
   To leave the pass?

It is a shame
   That one so young
Should find fear
   On every tongue,

That this proud colt
    Turns & flees,
 That being young
    Has its enemies.

Louis Phillips