After three deployments to Iraq and three to Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Dennis Swols is agitated, prone to bouts of anger and unable to really talk about his time on the battlefield.
But as Swols sits in a small office in the Robinson Health Clinic at Fort Bragg, his hand drops to the furry head beside him and his mood brightens. Settled at his feet, Lexy, a 5-year-old German shepherd, gives Swols a few moments of distraction.
It’s her job. And, according to Swols, she’s good at it.
Check it out (Hat tip:TF).
April was one of the most successful months in the South Carolina Aquarium’s 14-year history, thanks to a rare visit from a band of dancing mermaids.
The aquarium, which is a nonprofit organization, saw record attendance during the month it played host to the World Famous Mermaids of Florida’s Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, a team of female entertainers who wear elaborate fish-tailed costumes and perform synchronized underwater dances.
Read it all from the local paper and you have to love the picture.
You know those lonely nights and weekends when you’re left to your own devices and forced to entertain yourself? Maybe you ponder the meaning of life, maybe you tackle a creative project or maybe you — wait, let’s face it: You probably turn on Netflix. Well your dog faces the same lonely existential crisis and his solution is, naturally, solo fetch.
Hey, it’s better than destroying your shoes.
We put together a compilation above of pooches tossing the old ball/stick around by themselves, and uh, to themselves.
This is just wonderful–Enjoy it all–KSH.
In a conflict that pits animal welfare against religious rights, Denmark has ordered that all food animals must be stunned before being killed. The move effectively bans the ritual slaughter methods prescribed in both Muslim and Jewish tradition.
The escalating slaughter of elephants and rhinos is drawing the anger of conservationist clerics, who have begun enlisting church members in the battle to save Africa’s wildlife.
The clerics are driven by a view that these animals are God’s gifts to nature and a critical part of Africa’s heritage.
In Kenya, their concerns heightened in mid-March after the conservation group Wildlife Direct said 16 rhinos had been gunned down in the first three months of the year. More than 30 elephants have also been slaughtered since January.
Nebraska is truly a flyover state for millions of snow geese, sandhill cranes and other migratory birds traveling north from south of the border during early spring. The area has become world famous for bird watchers who themselves migrate to the Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary along Nebraska’s Platte River to see and hear the birds up close.
Watch the whole thrilling video (under three minutes) and please enjoy this one also.
Bats are making life unbearable for congregations by defecating on worshippers from roofs as well as bell towers, according to a report to the Church Buildings Council of the Church of England.
“Bats in churches are no joke for those who have to clean up the mess behind,” said Anne Sloman, chair of the council. “Their presence in large numbers is making it impossible for us to open churches for a whole variety of social and community uses as well as making life miserable for worshippers, and we are seriously worried about the irreparable damage bats are causing to priceless church artifacts.”
Captain Dave Anderson of Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Safari in Dana Point, California, at great personal risk, has recently filmed and edited a 5-minute video that contains some of the most beautiful, jaw-dropping, footage ever taken with a drone from the air of a huge mega-pod of thousands of common dolphins stampeding off Dana Point, California, three gray whales migrating together down the coast off San Clemente, California, and heartwarming close-ups hovering over a newborn Humpback whale calf snuggling and playing with its mom as an escort whale stands guard nearby, filmed recently in Maui.
It is only about 5 1/3 minutes long– it all.
The religious slaughter of animals should be banned if Muslims and Jews refuse to adopt more humane methods of killing, the new leader of Britain’s vets has said.
John Blackwell, president-elect of the British Veterinary Association, said that the traditional practice of slitting animals’ throats and allowing them to bleed to death for halal and kosher meat caused unnecessary suffering.
He urged Jews and Muslims to allow poultry, sheep and cattle to be stunned unconscious before they are killed. If the two faiths refuse, Mr Blackwell wants ministers to consider following the example of Denmark by banning the slaughter of animals that are not stunned first.
Read it all (subscription required).
Justified, one of television’s best shows, engages with the rather alien subculture of snake-handling in a way that contrasts favorably to the gloating I saw over the death of Pastor Coots. We can mock such people for their willful ignorance of the science of human origins or the textual criticism of the original form of Mark, but we can also appreciate that this same stubborn faith is one that says all people are created in the image of God.
Rare references in Babylonian texts and representations from other parts of the Near East show that camels were known in the Age of the Patriarchs, about 2000-1500 BC. Such discoveries are rare because the camel was not at home in urban societies, but useful for long journeys across the steppe and desert.
….evangelical scholars say the claims are overblown.
The use of camels for copper mining is an important discovery. “But to extrapolate from that and say they never had domesticated camels anywhere else in Israel in the 1,000 years before that is an overreach,” said Todd Bolen, professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, California. “The conclusions are overstated.”
While it has been difficult for archaeologists and historians to pin down the exact time and location when camels were domesticated, there is evidence to suggest that the Genesis accounts are not a biblical anachronism.
Two recent academic papers written by evangelical scholars””Konrad Martin Heide, a lecturer at Philipps University of Marburg, Germany; and Titus Kennedy, an adjunct professor at Biola University””both refer to earlier depictions of men riding or leading camels, some that date to the early second millenium BC.
This is just wow–watch it all.
The amount of coverage of Rocco’s untimely death — including that in the Post-Gazette — was mentioned almost everywhere I went last week. No one called the coverage unseemly exactly, but it was often called excessive. Even PG political cartoonist Rob Rogers, who can reliably be counted on to offer a contrarian view on almost everything, penned a genuinely sentimental cartoon in honor of Rocco.
One of my colleagues, a fellow dog lover, said that the Rocco story struck a chord because whatever one’s view of police and their tactics in any given neighborhood, it is difficult to find people who don’t like dogs. YouTube probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for our tendency to anthropomorphize our pets’ behavior. A cat playing a piano is one of the most viewed videos in history.
Heartwarming videos of dogs going bonkers greeting their masters returning from stints in Iraq and Afghanistan garner millions of hits, “likes” and tweets on social media. It is impossible to witness such deep cross-species friendship in these videos without shedding a tear if you’re a dog lover.
Scientists and biotechnology companies are developing what could become the next powerful weapon in the war on pests ”” one that harnesses a Nobel Prize-winning discovery to kill insects and pathogens by disabling their genes.
By zeroing in on a genetic sequence unique to one species, the technique has the potential to kill a pest without harming beneficial insects. That would be a big advance over chemical pesticides.
“If you use a neuro-poison, it kills everything,” said Subba Reddy Palli, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky who is researching the technology, which is called RNA interference. “But this one is very target-specific.”
Scientists returned to the Amazon rainforest in December to collect data on one of their biggest finds of 2012: a spider that uses insect corpses and jungle trash to build big, spider-shaped decoys in its web.
But these Peruvian spiders, presumed to be a new species of Cyclosa, are not the sole sculptors of false arachnids. A second decoy spider lives in the Philippines, on the island of Negros. Finding two spiders that make such similar designs, 11,000 miles apart, has left scientists wondering how the behavior evolved and if the decoys serve as lures for prey or as an anti-predator defense system. The discoveries also suggest there may be even more sculpting arachnids.
You just have to know what to look for.
Lisa Washam, who drove 500 miles from Lima, Ohio, to see the panda’s debut, had tears in her eyes as looked at the photos she took in her two minutes at the window watching Bao Bao.
“She’s so beautiful,” she said. “I feel she’s looking at me….”
[Lisa] is pursuing a doctorate in education, and she said watching the panda cam has helped relieve some of the stress. In the past year, she said, she has visited all four U.S. zoos with giant pandas as well as one in Canada.
“It’s a better way to relax than drinking,” Washam said. “It’s very peaceful.”
Cannonball jellyfish are bland at best. In China, where slivered, dry jellyfish are commonly served before banquets and strewn across salads, cooks don’t use the cellophane-like strips without first dousing them in soy sauce or sesame oil.
Tabasco works too, said University of Georgia food safety professor Yao-Wen Huang, who in the 1980s earned the nickname “Cannonball King” for his work developing a jellyfish processing system.
According to Huang, the allure of jellyfish is its distinctive texture, suggestive of a cross between a potato chip and a stretched-out rubber band. “We call it crunchy-crispy,” said Huang. “It’s like when you eat chitterlings, you’re not really hungry that you want food. You want that mouthfeel.”
Enjoy it all (hat tip: BC).
An East Tennessee serpent-handling pastor’s legal woes are over for now.
After a hearing on Wednesday (January 8), a grand jury decided not to indict the Rev. Andrew Hamblin on charges of violating a state ban on possessing venomous snakes.
In November, state officials seized 53 serpents ”” including rattlesnakes, copperheads, and exotic breeds ”” from the Tabernacle Church of God in LaFollette, Tenn., where Hamblin is pastor.
[Cecil] Williams fainted at the 125th Street platform in Manhattan on Tuesday, and as he tumbled forward, Orlando landed in the tracks alongside him. Orlando tried to rouse Williams, who was unconscious. They lay there as the train passed above them.
Both survived. But because Orlando is slated to retire in January, and Williams’ insurance won’t pay for a non-working dog, they would have had to part ways.
Now, thanks to several anonymous donations to Guiding Eyes for the Blind, all of Orlando’s expenses will be covered.
Read it all (the video is just wonderful as well).
The demonstration necropsy at the Charleston Animal Society was one element of a comprehensive program that is attracting attention nationally. The society’s education team developed the Veterinary Science Initiative, which is offered throughout Lowcountry classrooms in an effort to expose students to veterinary science and the shelter’s work.
“There aren’t a lot of resources in shelters, so if you’re going to invest time and money, you better make sure it’s effective and it hits multiple goals,” Tisa said. “The primary focus is getting kids interested in science.”
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s local paper.
About sunset, it happened every Friday evening on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast. You could see an old man walking, white-haired, bushy eye-browed, slightly bent.
One gnarled hand would be gripping the handle of a pail, a large bucket filled with shrimp. There on a broken pier, reddened by the setting sun, the weekly ritual would be re-enacted.
At once, the silent twilight sky would become a mass of dancing dots…growing larger. In the distance, screeching calls would become louder.
They were seagulls, come from nowhere on the same pilgrimage”¦ to meet an old man.
For half an hour or so, the gentleman would stand on the pier, surrounded by fluttering white, till his pail of shrimp was empty. But the gulls would linger for a while. Perhaps one would perch comfortably on the old man’s hat”¦and a certain day gone by would gently come to his mind.Eventually, all the old man’s days were past. If the gulls still returned to that spot”¦ perhaps on a Friday evening at sunset, it is not for food”¦ but to pay homage to the secret they shared with a gentle stranger.
And that secret is THE REST OF THE STORY.
Anyone who remembers October of 1942 remembers the day it was reported that Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was lost at sea.
Captain Eddie’s mission had been to deliver a message of the utmost importance to General Douglas MacArthur.
But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life. . Somewhere over the South Pacific, the flying fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, and the men ditched their plane in the ocean.
The B-17 stayed afloat just long enough for all aboard to get out. . Then, slowly, the tail of the flying fortress swung up and poised for a split second”¦ and the ship went down leaving eight men and three rafts”¦ and the horizon.
For nearly a month, Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun.
They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. Their largest raft was nine by five”¦ the biggest shark ten feet long.
But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie’s own words, “Cherry,” that was B-17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, “read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off.”
Now this is still Captain Rickenbacker talking”¦ Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a seagull. I don’t know how I knew; I just knew.
“Everyone else knew, too. No one said a word. But peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at the gull. The gull meant food”¦ if I could catch it.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten; its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice.You know that Captain Eddie made it.
And now you also know…that he never forgot.
Because every Friday evening, about sunset…on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast…you could see an old man walking…white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent.His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls…to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle…like manna in the wilderness.
—Paul Harvey’s the Rest of the Story (Bantam Books, 1997 Mass paperback ed. of the 1977 Doubleday original), pp. 170-172
When Xena was rescued, she only had a 1 percent chance of survival. Not only has the dog beaten those odds, but she also has helped an 8-year-old autistic boy find his voice. NBC’s Jill Rappaport reports.
Watch it all from NBC (just under 2 1/4 minutes).
ORANGEBURG, SC ”” A nonprofit Christian ministry is working to improve the lives of young people and adults through a mission that involves a mix of horses and skills training.
Cope couple Dan and Jan White started God It Made Ranch a year ago as the 41st mission station of Columbia-based Christ Central Ministries Inc., which was founded in 1992 by Pastor Jimmy Jones and had a food ministry as its first mission. Women and children’s shelters, men’s shelters, veterans’ transitional housing and clothing distribution are among CCM’s other missions.
“But we’re the first horse ranch. They had been praying for one of these for a very long time. I moved to Lexington where my dad lives a year ago, and that’s how I found Christ Central,” Jan White said. “I started volunteering for the children’s shelter, the women’s shelter and the homeless shelter. They also have a GED program and a rehab center.”
