Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Food for thought: eating with the mind

My daughter is taking up a course of study in a relatively newly-named field: anthrozoology. It is about the relationships between human beings and other life, particularly animals, on this shared planet. It is about public policy and human habits of thinking about animals, things we do badly and meanly, things we do with a sense of stewardship. She attended an international anthrozoology symposium last week, and since then has been bringing some of the topics and questions raised to her Hollin... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Pigging out on pigs

My daughter who has taken the next step in her animal-welfare career with the starting-up of Hollin Hall Farm Sanctuary, has asked some questions over on Facebook, regarding the ethics of eating meat. She decided to stop eating beef when she was a teenager, and now is considering going full-on vegetarian. Here is how I answer her questions: I see the moral/ethical consideration as one of need: in modern First World society, we eat far more meat than we need to. In hunter/gatherer societies, meat... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Tips Debate

In Seattle, servers are now being paid at least $15/hour, and a fuss has come up over tipping. The old justification for tipping was that servers didn't get paid even the same minimum wage that other workers got, because tips were supposed to make up the difference. The IRS assumes that servers make, on average, 15% in tips, and so figures that into the servers' income tax liability. It seems more than likely that the restaurant owners will make up for having to pay higher wages by charging the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

What he said...

If you get A Word A Day in your inbox, then you've seen this already this morning, or will see it again, later today. It bears repetition. Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Nigeria has banned "female circumcision."

My first reaction to hearing this news was to celebrate, and I do think it's a move towards a world of greater humanity and respect for women. But there is never only once side to any story, and my response after my reaction was to do a little research. I found this: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/female-genital-mutilation-cutting-anthropologist/389640/ It is easy to condemn a practice that is so grotesque in terms of our culture, making many assumptions, imagining... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Fun and games

I watched a British game show a few times while visiting there, one called Pointless that starts with four very nice pairs of team-mates who have to give between them the most pointless answers to the questions asked. By pointless, I mean, answers that scored no points when these questions were asked of 100 random people in the real world. "Name tennis players who have been both Olympic champions, and played at Wimbledon." One hundred people named all they could think of, however many gave a... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

More Manul

A few years ago, I spent New Year's Day at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and took my own pictures of the Pallas cats that live there. There were two, but I am pretty sure these shots are all of the same one. The two at the top of the photostream were taken this past March, same zoo. https://www.flickr.com/gp/therovingeye/J0Z8R9 Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

One of my favorite cats... the Manul or Pallas Cat.

http://www.boredpanda.com/pallas-cat-manul-funny-face-expressive/ Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Answering a question on Earth Day

There was a question asked and a challenge offered today, Earth Day 2015, for a reply to a post from a hunter who says, basically, there's more of us than of you animal-rights anti-hunters, so, first, we must be right, and second, get over it. He defends the hunters with words like scientific and sustainability, but he himself is a trophy hunter. An animal rights advocate asked for someone to reply to that post, so I did. There is a place between trophy hunters and anti-hunters, a place of... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

wow

http://deepseanews.com/2015/04/video-rare-sperm-whale-encounter-with-deep-sea-rov-3/ This got me thinking about that high cognitive function, curiosity. By 'high' I mean it goes beyond basic curiosities of: Will it try to eat me? Can I eat it? Can I mate with it? Sign in to see full entry.

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