Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Is Climate Change Creating Mutant Rodents?

Posted by Mickey Z on 10/14 at 10:19 AM
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  1. Hi all...About the question that Dylan brought up yesterday. Yes, Start teaching children about slavery from birth. Maybe while they are still in the womb.(Of course this should be done in a gentle appropriate way. Encouraging questions from the child.) Too many of us have to spend too much of our lives trying to unlearn what we have been taught and trying to fit in to that misinformation the real history of the USA.
    One of the controversies right now is about a new doll that is being marketed. It is a “homeless” doll - meant to represent the homeless children among us. Seems to me that the only controversy should be about the price of the doll. I hope they give the proceeds to homeless children.

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  10/14  at  10:44 AM

  2. Hi RMJ. Classic human behavior. We can manufacture and mass market a doll make from petroleum-based products (probably using forced labor) in the name of being “aware” about homelessness. We can do that. Creating a society in which children are not homeless? Uh-oh...I might sound like a socialist.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/14  at  10:48 AM

  3. tut-tut Mickey and RMJ

    You are suggesting we put aside short-term self-gratification and profit motive - to help children, who are our young.

    The next logical step is clearly a Stalinist totalitarian regime!!!

    I know I’m off topic here but it’s where my mind is wandering ... interesting to see the Daily Show lately, and other stuff, and notice that ‘liberal’ leaning shows are now OK with having a dig at Obama. The rhetorical drug is wearing off a little.

    But I’m still blown away at what happened. How so many so-called progressives and analysts failed in the basic starting principal of being a thinker ... come to everything anew and just look at the facts.

    Q. How could the decimation of grass roots groups and progressive sites at the hands of ‘hope’ have been avoided?

    A. By reading/listening to what Obama said.

    Posted by Andy from shanghai  on  10/14  at  11:13 AM

  4. “The next logical step is clearly a Stalinist totalitarian regime!!!”

    It’s a slippery slope, Andy.

    All kidding aside...I keep hearing about the “slippery slope” Obama is taking us on.  Yesterday’s msn.com front page had a picture of a guy holding a sign saying “revolution is brewing” and the article attached to it discussed the “grassroots” movement of the town hall meetings and tea baggers, etc.

    There used to be strong socialist movements in this country and now we have people worried about defending corporation’s rights to profit.  They don’t even know that Obama is on their side.

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  10/14  at  02:20 PM

  5. Yup, mainstream USA discourse is so hopelessly to the far right that a centre-right PR man who bails out corporations on tax money, bombs foreign nations and won’t even mention universal health care is considered a radical leftist who could bring down the country in a moment.

    It’s very weird.

    Then there’s the other half of America who have absolutely no voice in the ‘world’s greatest democracy’.

    Posted by Andy from shanghai  on  10/14  at  02:36 PM

  6. They don’t even know that Obama is on their side.

    You nailed it, JOS. The same shit occurred with FDR, JFk, and Clinton.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/14  at  02:36 PM

  7. Wait, only rats dream and laugh?  What about dolphins and primates?

    Posted by Charles from Jersey City  on  10/14  at  03:03 PM

  8. I feel certain plenty of other species dream and laugh (as we humans define those words) but the article I linked to used those all-important words “scientifically proven.” (insert laugh track here)

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/14  at  03:05 PM

  9. Here’s a poem for you MZ:

    In order to prove the kinship humans share with rats some humans brought some rats into a lab and made some inhumane experiments and lost the kinship they were there to prove.

    Posted by Keir from here and there  on  10/14  at  04:34 PM

  10. I love rat poems:
    http://www.geocities.com/starrliz13/RatPoetry.html

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/14  at  04:55 PM

  11. What can I say when faced with an excellent post (read several decades ago that rats are so well-adapted that they can even survive a nuclear war) and with similarly excellent comments from Rosemarie, Andy, JOS, Charles, keir and the Cool Observer of course?  Not much, except to tell all my fellow expendables that I especially like this quote from the main post:
    “Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.”

    Off to Melbourne shortly - back on Monday night/Tuesday morning. 

    Have a good weekend, all of you, and take care!

    Posted by Helga from Daylesford, Australia  on  10/14  at  10:43 PM

  12. OK, I wasn’t going to pick up on these two issues, but Helga did, (hi Helga!), and I want to present alternate views:

    On rats adapting and surviving, I remember reading in [url="http://www.worldwithoutus.com/"target="new"]The
    World Without Us[/url] that rat populations would diminish if not disappear from places like NYC without humans, for lack of warmth and food, and due to predation by an exploding feral housecat population. Not that they need us to survive, but they need us to survive in the manner to which they have adapted.

    And I take serious exception to the quote from the Matrix film that Helga reiterates. Every time we agree that humans are a plague, or a virus, or some kind of evilly programmed whatever, we have to apply that notion to all human populations, for all time, including those that have lived in concord with their environment for millennia. Otherwise we are suggesting that hunter-gatherers, nomads, fisher folk and so on are a different species. And that’s outrageous!

    Our species is greater than this short-lived era of ‘civilization’, which will end as surely as it started. As long as we think of ourselves as a plague we are destined to fail the challenges (and miss out on the joys) of living in harmony with the world around us.

    Posted by Keir from here and there  on  10/15  at  03:49 AM

  13. Hi Helga.

    Keir: I’m offering the Matrix quote not to say humans are a different species but humans - in our current culture - behave in ways unlike other mammals, ways that can only be deemed homicidal and suicidal.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/15  at  04:55 AM

  14. Absolutely agree MZ. That’s why I think it’s important to point to the problem (the culture) and not our species. I hate the culture, deep in it as I am, but I don’t hate my animal self. People have so much trouble disentangling themselves from the culture, like they’d rather die than live without Fords and microwave dinners and Dancing with the Stars, because they think that’s what it means to be human. There are still humans out there behaving like mammals and not like preservative-stuffed cyborgs.

    Posted by Keir from here and there  on  10/15  at  05:15 AM

  15. I take your point Keir that it’s maybe a bit harsh to level the virus thing biologically at all humans ...

    but yeah, the metaphor seems to be an exact match to the dominant culture.

    Posted by Andy from shanghai  on  10/15  at  06:49 AM

  16. Perceptive comments Keir, and another intriguing post Mickey. 

    What I find very disillusioning is how much our dominant culture has spread virally around the globe.  It seems that as soon as it starts to infect an area, it becomes almost impossible to reclaim that amazing equilibrium when human-folk actually did live “in concord with their environment for millennia.” The de-industrial process will undoubtedly prove to be a long and ugly one as humans put down their remotes and coca colas, and try to live in harmony with a wilderness that is no longer there.

    Posted by Mike from Cariboo, BC  on  10/15  at  09:54 AM

  17. Long and ugly indeed, Mike.

    FYI: A new post is up. See you there.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  10/15  at  10:29 AM

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    Posted by Certkey from United States  on  12/17  at  10:21 PM

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