The Nature of the Beast (according to Susan McCarthy)

The Not Precisely Lone Prairie

While visiting Santa Fe recently, I read an interesting story in The New Mexican, the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi. Some visiting Tibetan monks had been asked to bless the prairie dogs in Frenchy's Field, a large city park.

A colony of 50—100 prairie dogs lives in Frenchy's Field. An organization called People for Native Ecosystems looks out for their welfare, opposing negligent trenching activity at the park, and stopping incautious grading at a film shoot site.

(The film is Beer for My Horses, starring Willie Nelson, Toby Keith, and Ted Nugent. This spring, when told there were prairie dogs hibernating at the grading site, the film crew stopped grading and moved the equipment, expressing the hope that the “poor little fellows” would be okay. I feel sure Willie Nelson wouldn't knowingly hurt a prairie dog. And if Ted Nugent were to go after prairie dogs, his hostility would probably take a form more personal than reckless grading.)

Melinda Ewell of People for Native Ecosystems issued a press release saying that when the monks blessed them two years earlier, the prairie dogs reacted by “coming to the surface, moving closer to the monks and adding their voices to the chanting and prayers.”

Ah yes. Adding their voices.  

It happens that prairie dogs have a variety of specific calls that some people call language. They have distinct calls, or “words,” for “coyote,” “deer,” “red-tailed hawk,” “tall human in yellow shirt,” “short human in green shirt,” and, I suspect, “it's the biologist from Northern Arizona University again.” So I imagine that during the blessing two years ago the prairie dogs may have had quite specific things to add in their adorable little voices. Such as: “OMG! What is that noise? Who are those guys? What's going on? Look out! Monks! Monks to the north! Monks to the south! Monks peering down the burrow! Monks everywhere! Hide the kids!”

Two days later the paper covered the more recent blessing, running a photo of monks in snazzy golden yellow robes treading among golden yellow flowers. (The story had to compete with one about a plea for manure donations, but that had no photo.) Reporter Sarah Welliver did not question Ewell's description of the prairie dogs participating in the chanting, but observed, “This year, they were quiet during the ceremony.”

Yes, I think they stayed deep underground, so their subterranean chirping was inaudible.

“It's those Jehovah's Witnesses again – pretend we're not home.”

“I think they know we're here. And I don't think Jehovah's Witnesses wear orange.”

“Whatever. If I have to hear that verse about the little conies in the rocks again, I'll bite somebody. And then they'll say we're rabid.”

“That's from the Bible; that's Christians. I think these guys are Buddhists.”

“What, foot-washers?”

“No, no, no. Buddhists. Mom, you should listen to these guys. They're vegetarians like us. They might have a message of peace for all beings.”

“Like for owls and coyotes? I don't think so. You're not putting your nose above ground until they are gone. And I don't want to see you reading their literature, either.”

However, if this dialog took place, it was unreported, and the ceremony took place without disturbance.

 

On the way out of town I saw a prairie dog standing near the side of Highway 25, looking toward the passing traffic. Probably thinking about hitching a ride out of town, seeking freedom from religious persecution.

[photograph by Chin tin tin, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

An Inappropriate Octopus

Mike Wood is a scientist who studies salmon. He has a little remote-control submarine for observing salmon underwater, a self-propelled fish cam about the size of a slightly flattened washing machine. It was poking around the sea floor west of Vancouver Island in 2005 when it was suddenly attacked by a giant octopus.

In the video from the fish cam as it scans for salmon, the view swings slowly, swings past a Pacific giant octopus, and then swings quickly back to look at the octopus. Yikes! The octopus makes for the little sub at high speed, and reaches out to grab it by an antenna.

Wood says he was panicked by the idea of losing the uninsured little sub. What if the octopus bit it? Desperately, he throws the engine into reverse, kicking up a ferocious cloud of sea-floor debris. The screen fills with billowing clouds and flailing tentacles. Octopus and sub struggle until the octopus goes off, presumably wiping sand out of his face and planning to try again after taking a muscle-building course.

My favorite thing about this was a vocabulary sighting in a CBC News story. Jim Cosgrove, of the Royal British Columbia Museum, was asked what on earth the octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) thought it was doing. Was it angry, curious, hungry, looking for love in one of the wrong places? “It’s certainly a mature male from what I can see in the video,” Cosgrove said. “Old octopuses become what we call senescent, or senile, reaching the end of their life. 

"And sometimes their actions are very inappropriate.”

Inappropriate. Never mind the image of octopus as senile old man cruising the ocean looking for targets to whack with his cane or ram with his wheelchair. He acted inappropriately. That is serious condemnation.

“Inappropriate” is one of those weak words which people use to camouflage their ferocity. They're used by those who have power but don’t want to seem powerful, like bureaucrats; and by those who have savagery, but don't want to seem savage, like parents.

Once upon a time “inappropriate behavior” was going out without gloves. Now it is often a psychiatric symptom. Children are expelled for inappropriate behavior. Restraining orders are granted against people who display inappropriate behavior. People are locked up and fed industrial-strength medication for inappropriate behavior. (If you think this is exaggeration, you’ve never found yourself being observed by medical personnel who don’t understand your nervous jokes and write “laughs inappropriately” on their assessment form, followed by the dread “inappropriate affect.” Me neither.)

Another camouflaged attack word is “uncomfortable.”

When a bureaucrat says he’s uncomfortable with your idea, he doesn’t mean that he is restless, twitchy, unable to keep from shifting from buttock to insincere buttock in his chair, he means that he will oppose it tooth and nail. If necessary he will have government attorneys seize your car, condemn your house, and arrest your brother on outstanding traffic warrants. (Or he may have you beaten, stabbed, and cast on the garbage heap to be eaten by jackals. Depending on the jurisdiction.) Unless you stop making him uncomfortable.

When a parent says she’s not comfortable with your lesson plan, she does not mean that she is unfamiliar with the ideas you present, doesn’t know how to fit them into her vision of a seventh-grade curriculum, and can’t stop fiddling with her hair. She means that like a tiger defending cubs, she will see you dead before you implement your plan, if she has to pour the lighter fluid on you herself.

If you do not seem to grasp what these people are saying, they may escalate. Keying your coordinates into their shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, they declare, “I’m afraid that’s simply unacceptable.”

They have issues with that. They have some concerns. They are troubled by your remarks. They never say they’ve already made up their minds. They do not say that they equate compromise with ignominious death. They never actually say no.

(I shouldn't complain about these euphemisms. That's so negative. A more positive approach would be to get new ones. Long latinate words seem to be the popular choice for disguising rage, so we’ll need a bunch of those. Inadmissible. Disproportionate. Inapplicable. Exiguous. Rudimentary.

When they give you the death stare and say your views are unacceptable, stare back. Say, “Your response is disproportionate. I think you’re inapplicable. I'm sorry for you, exiguous fool.”)

So that giant octopus was lucky that he only got a face full of seafloor sludge for acting inappropriately. Had there been any way of apprehending him he would have been taken into custody, assessed, and sent to rehab. After all, is it acceptable to have a giant octopus freely seizing research equipment? Are you comfortable with that? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if he were, say... deep-fried?