Keeping My Nose to the Grindstone
The difference between the black and white rhino is not their actual color but the shape of their lips. The black rhino has a pointed lip to pluck fruits off branches and to sort leaves from twigs. The white rhino grazes, and so has a flat, wide lip suitable for grasses. Both the black and white rhino have poor eyesight. He is more frightened than he is aggressive. Although, when he is spooked, he appears to possess a bad temper and be easily provoked. This is why the rhino comes to mind just as my family memoir, Myopia, a memoir, reaches the press. Nathan Mitnick, the star of this memoir, is somewhat of a rhino himself. Prone to charge when faced head on, Nathan (as well as the rest of us) all suffered from extreme myopia. And we were taught, from the earliest...
My Sister’s Living Room: A Reading and Signing for What Survives in Denver, Colorado
For animal lovers, I repent. There are none in this blog but the human kind! Stay tuned for more four-legged creatures in future blogs. I do not like to disappoint! Even though there were five inches of snow on the ground on April 29, we were an even dozen gathered for a reading and signing at home of my sister, Gay. I thought I had the best book club anywhere, but my sister’s is, at the very least, clearly on a par with mine. Everyone had read the book (not the case in all book clubs), and they had excellent questions and comments. One lovely couple had lived in Egypt for a number of years and raised interesting issues with regard to the Muslim faith and the observance of Ramadan. Paula stated that if one had a medical exemption from fasting (as Adalet did),...
Myths and Bad Reputations in South Africa and Around the World
Does this hyena pup know its reputation? Does it have any idea how it is depicted in Disney films? This innocent little fellow my husband and I saw on a 12-day bush trip in Africa has not a notion of how he’s been presented to the world and how that might affect his future. He does not even own the spots, yet that will identify him his whole life as the spotted hyena or the laughing hyena. Would he wish to rid himself of them if he knew? Human babies have this dilemma as well. A dark-skinned human baby has no idea that his skin color will affect his whole journey in life. Perhaps on this basis alone, he will be viewed as a predator, seeking to injure or kill other humans for his assumed savagery, his own selfish gain or to merely challenge the color “white.”...
Elephants Both In And Out Of The Room
If I had it to do all over again, I would devote myself to the study of the elephant. Sadly, there is only so much one can cram into the too few years of a lifetime, and so I consider myself lucky to have been able to spend some time with them. Elephants are impressive creatures with a fascinating culture. Last year when my husband I spent 12 days in the bush on a trip to Africa, I noticed that no matter how many animals we were seeing, the elephants never lost their allure. Always led by a matriarch, the herd does not tolerate incest. If a bull gets out of hand and tries to mate within the family, he is ousted and becomes a rogue, but the females never leave their herd. They are devoted to one another and have been known to return to the site of the death of a...
Mad Dogs and Englishmen… or Wild Dogs and Americans
Reflections on Them vs. Us As some of my readers might have noticed, I am extremely fond of animals, animal images and animal metaphors. Some say that animals differ from humans in that they don’t possess souls. I challenge anyone to live with critters for a bit and to uphold that theory. All the animals who’ve chosen to live with me (and it has been their choice) most definitely have souls, deeper souls than many of the Homo sapiens I’ve known. Last fall, my husband and I took a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe. One of the highlights was an up-close sighting of a pack of wild dogs. You can see just how close we were to them by the outline of the vehicle in the photo. These are a seriously endangered species. Our tracker had only seen them twice in ten years....
Watch the Dung Beetle
Why I keep rolling forward to a sweet new career I am haunted by dreams of going back to college, at my current age, no less, and with a full head of gray hair. I am living with an assortment of strange young people in dorms or apartments with filthy kitchens, sinks piled with dirty dishes, and no drawers or closet space. The only restaurant in any of the many hallucinatory towns I come upon in sleep has thin soup, mashed something or other and saltine crackers. There is only one book for four classes or four books for one class, but in none of these towns does the college bookstore have any of the texts I need. I am never registered for the semester until I’ve missed too many classes to obtain credit for attending. I show up anyway, once I search forever to find...
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