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The Ecstatic Animal
Photo from theveganvoice.org, credit AmandaCan a pig smile? Is the dog really happy you walked through the door? Is the cat smug that she swallowed the canary? (The canary is, at this point, not...
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Prostitution, TV, the Saving Animal, and, Surprise Surprise, Good News From D.C.
Alex, the Gray Parrot trained by Irene Pepperberg, choosing an activity other than TV watching."Prostitutes to Parrots" is the title of a new program that features Heidi Fleiss. Back in the old days of...
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Beyond Bad News?
A Thing with FeathersThe Random Animal has spent the last week in a news-induced coma. It seems that politicians and speculators have decided that in order to save the economy, they must destroy it....
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What a Dog Means
Yes, even The New Yorker has dogs, particularly in the days when James Thurber contributed his distinctive vision of canine attributes. A recent essayby commentator-at-large Adam Gopnik is part...
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Moose Vs. Deer
How's my brain, Rocky?You would think moose would win. They're bigger, they can take cold weather, they can team up with flying squirrels. But in Minnesota, Moose seem to be losing to deer.In the...
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Death, Taxes, and Wolves
Where are the piggies?Here's one and . . .Here's more, thanks to cartoonist Kahlil BendibTaxes and wolves have much in common. Both are demonized as scourges of humankind. Both can play beneficial...
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Of Monarchs and Men
Bound for Mexico?Two to three, then three to four, then twenty or so flitted above the trees and across the path to the prairie. Over the acres of prairie, there were more, settling onto rough blazing...
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Wanted: Beavers, not Horses
Photo by Mary Beth Atwood from krqe.comTexas is on fire. About 120,000 acres are burned or burning, about 700 homes have been lost thus far. According to the Texas Forest Service website, fire fighters...
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Last Heron of Summer
The nights are cool, the afternoons hot. The monarchs are moving south, but some migratory species still find time to bask in ultra-marine skies. This great blue heron found his pedestal,Then he...
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Melville's Moby Dick and Jon Stewart's Daily Show
credit to LukeSurl.comNo, this is not a set-up for a bad joke. I've been slowly re-reading Moby-Dick (don't remember the first reading) and should be finished in time for the 2016 elections. It takes a...
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Holy Carp, Wolfman!
"I'm shocked!"Asian Carp keep showing up in the news because they keep showing up in more rivers and lakes. They are not wanted. They eat, grow into giants, and displace other species. They could...
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The Random Animal has been preoccupied lately, but will return in a few days with new posts.
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Tiger Woes and Dolphin Joys
Pondering ExtinctionThe Random Animal is back on grid and through the media has been exposed recently to two real-life animals stories that follow a familiar plot line.The first is the now infamous...
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The Mysteries of the Seal
Chief Inspector SealThe Random Animal’s long absence has a simple explanation: alien abduction. Usually such abductions occur in compressed inter-galactic time, so that the abductee returns in seconds...
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The Animals of Christmas
"You're such beasts!"The Random Animal was fortunate enough to be in New York City for a few days of the Holiday Season. Festive displays abounded in Midtown and Uptown, remote in distance and...
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Bad Bunnies and Good
"Do I have to? "Photo by Renee Jones ScheiderThe Random Animal, as the Year of the Rabbit approaches its end, has been a very bad bunny. Books and Reviews have been neglected for (tempting to say...
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Cat-on-a-walk
"Pretty please, can I go outside?"In folklore and fairytales, cats between the realms of the domestic and the wild, the pet or the predator, the fashionable (Hello Kitty!) and the feral (yowling...
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The Return of the Animal Star
I have nothing to do with what followsThe Random Animal recently saw the film The Artist, despite the admonition in the ticket window: THE ARTIST IS A SILENT FILM IN BLACK & WHITE. The ticket...
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The Animal Surrogate in Karin Fossum's Bad Intentions
I know who did it.I picked up Bad Intentions (2010) out of curiosity about the widely read Norwegian mystery writer, Karin Fossum. (Her personal website is in her native language for those who want the...
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Theory: Gone to the Dogs
More Theory, Please The Random Animal apologies for inflicting what follows (including bibliography and a note) ongentle and busy readers. The 27 page essay below is a prequel (like the movie made...
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Species Matters
SpeciesMatters: Humane Advocacy and Cultural Theory, edited by Marianne DeKoven and Michael Lundblad (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) You could argue that as a culture we have a crush on...
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The Relative Value of Murder
Are you sure this will make me a star?A murder of crows. It’s one of those terms of amplitude that harken back to medieval bestiaries: a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a leash of greyhounds, a...
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The Luck and Death of Horses
Secretariat, alive and wellA few days ago, HBO cancelled its series Luck about conniving humans and racing horses. I never watched the series, but saw the notice that the series was cancelled after the...
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The Canine Defense
Happy Boy On DutyA few years ago I walked--or was pulled by--a highly energetic lab-mix dog at a local humane society. He'd come in as an injured stray, but in recovery displayed an intense drive and...
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The Erotic Sproing
"Come Fly with Me!" It's spring, and animals sproing. That's according to writer/farmer Catherine Friend in Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep & Enough Wool to Save the Planet (more on the book in a...
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