This circus came to my hometown when I was a small boy.

John Katz mourns the victory of the Animal Rights fanatics and stupidity.

Ringling Brothers announced yesterday that are, after decades of legal wrangling and assaults from animal rights organizations, they are ending a tradition that is hundreds of years old, succumbing to pressure and phasing out their elephants over the next three years. It may be that I will never see an elephant again, and it is certain that millions of kids will never get the chance.

The drama of the elephants echoes that of the carriage horses. Both show us the ignorance more and more people have about the real lives of animals as more and more disappear from our world. The circus and the carriage trade have faced long expensive and cruel campaigns from people who claim to be speaking for the rights of animals, but who have just killed more elephants than have ever died at the hands of circuses. They will do the same to the carriage horses, given a chance.

There are many people cheering the decision of Ringling Bros. to phase out it’s domesticated Asian elephants, (generally, the African elephants have not been domesticated) claiming the decision is long overdue. It is the ultimate Pyrrhic Victory. The elephants are saved. The elephants have been condemned to die. …

[This] decision means the circus elephants are doomed and will soon disappear from our world. Another animal species we emotionalized, another group of humans abused and mistreated, more animals we could not thoughtfully and loving protect from extinction at the hands of people who claim to be saving them.

Like so many other animals that have lived and worked with people – carriage horses, ponies in farmers markets, horses in Hollywood – the elephants will vanish from our world and will not return. Like horses, elephants have worked well with people all over the world. They are intelligent, social, trainable, valuable. People love them, and the magic they emote.

What exactly, is the agenda of the people who say they are for animal rights? What kind of liberation movement offers animals one right: to disappear and die.

If you think it is hard for 300 big draft horses to find good homes, consider the future of the circus elephants. Outside of a handful of preserves, there is no place for Asian elephants in our greedy and over-developed world, poachers and developers, the true abusers of elephants, are slaughtering them en masse. Most, if not all of these elephants will die as a result of this campaign. Who will have the money or will to protect them and keep them alive? They aren’t safe anywhere in Asia, their home habitat? What kind of future will the animal rights organizations provide for them?

Ringling Bros. said it is becoming too difficult to deal with all of the local communities whose politicians have been pressured by animal rights activists and showered with money to restrict the use of animals in circuses, a new specialty for local governments who can’t fund their own schools, or balance their budgets. Circuses – and elephants – have been cherished for thousands of years, what of the people who love them and have always loved them? …

The plight of the elephants echoes the peril of the New York Carriage Horses. Organizations that claim to be deciding the future of animals lie about them, are ignorant of their needs and nature, invent evidence, bribe people to swear falsely, then drive them out of our world and celebrate their end.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Lauren R. Gianni.

———————-

Like John Katz, I have memories of the circus coming to the small town I lived in as a boy in the 1950s. We were excused school and got to stand and watch the parade of brightly decorated circus wagons and exotic animals pass down West Centre Street.

They erected the big top just west of town on a flat field covering the old Koh-i-noor Colliery. As it happened, I lived in the middle of the westernmost block of Lloyd Street, a short walk from the show. Naturally, I went right out there to see them setting up, and as I stood admiring the animals being unloaded, a big, muscular animal trainer approached me, and asked if I’d like to help.

I was offered the privilege of taking buckets over to one of my neighbor’s backyards, filling them with water, and returning with them to water the elephants.

You can imagine my delight at getting to hobnob with live elephants, to see them drink, to touch their trunks, scratch their heads, exchange civilities and generally interact with those enormous and exotic animals at arms length. I was in seventh heaven.

To top it off, after a good long time, the trainer returned, smiled and thanked me, and presented me a handful of free passes to the circus as payment. I was utterly flabbergasted. I would have hastily sold everything I owned and borrowed more to pay him to let me near those elephants.

It is sad to think that no American small boys living in the new regime of universal moral enlightenment presided over by the likes of Peter Singer and Wayne Pacelle will ever get to pet an elephant.

American Hunter:

35 Whelen
You’re a loner. You really couldn’t give a rat’s rectum about other calibers, because the Almighty Himself chose Townsend Whelen to enlighten the shooting world, and that man could do no wrong. He may have used the (pathetic) ’06 case as a basis, but you know the .35 Whelen is the ultimate incarnation of the centerfire rifle cartridge. You keep a .35 Whelen cartridge on the night stand, so it is the last thing you see when you close your eyes, and the first thing you see when you wake up. And it should be that way, after all Col. Whelen also invented sunshine, smiles, bourbon and bacon.

These days, I fear that I am the late 1920s wildcat .25 Roberts cartridge (predecessor to the .257 Roberts). I bought a Niedner rifle with a Bill Sukalle barrel last Fall chambered in that, and I’m still assembling components and tools and trying to figure out how to load it.

Robert A. Heinlein

The film version of Atlas Shrugged was financed by outsiders and made, despite Hollywood, which did everything it could to suppress and bury it, as a small-scale, noticeably inexpensive production.

Now, another major libertarian classic, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, portraying a lunar revolt against earthly big government has been scheduled to be made by a major studio with a name director.

Bryan Singer is tackling an adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, based on the classic sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein. Twentieth Century Fox recently picked up the movie rights.

Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim will adapt the book for the project, which will be titled Uprising. Singer is producing with Lloyd Braun of Whalerock Industries and Thor Halvorssen. Executive producers are Andrew Mittman and Jason Taylor, and Alex Lloyd and Richard Martin are co-producing.

Heinlein’s 1966 sci-fi novel centers on about a lunar colony’s revolt against rule from Earth. The novel was nominated for the 1966 Nebula award (honoring the best sci-fi and fantasy work in the U.S.) and won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967.

An adaptation has been attempted twice before — by DreamWorks, which had a script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and by Phoenix Pictures, with Harry Potter producer David Heyman attached — but both languished and the rights reverted to Heinlein’s estate.

Several of Heinlein’s novels have been adapted for the big and small screen, including the 1953 film Project Moonbase, the 1994 TV miniseries Red Planet, the 1994 film The Puppet Masters, and — very loosely — the 1997 film Starship Troopers.

Ten Interesting Facts About the Flatiron Building. Untapped Cities

The Washington Post reports the latest case of European PC insanity.

Bird watching has long been a popular and seemingly harmless weekend activity in Sweden. Its innocence, however, came to an abrupt end when many of the country’s bird lovers were suddenly confronted with allegations of racism.

For centuries, it has now been revealed, the Swedish had given birds some names that now could be considered offensive to certain groups. One species, for instance, was called “gypsy bird,” whereas another was named “negro.” The insult “caffer,” which was used by white against blacks in South Africa, also resembled a Swedish bird species called “kaffer.” There were other offensive bird names in Sweden, such as “Hottentot” — apparently inspired by the name of the language of an indigenous southwest Africandem Changi tribe called Khoikhoi, yet also a derogatory term for that tribe.

Despite the prominence of bird watching among Swedes, the existence of these names and others like them had sparked little outrage and publicity until recently. When Sweden’s Ornithological Society completed its first-ever global list of all 10,709 Swedish bird names two weeks ago, the organization also announced some awkward name changes.

In the process of categorizing the names, staffers had raised concerns over some that had a potentially offensive nature. As a result, several of them have now been changed: “negro” bird, for instance, will now be called “black” bird. “When working on the list, it became obvious that some older names no longer were appropriate,” Anders Wirdheim, Communications Officer at the Swedish Ornithological Society told The Washington Post.

From Veterinaria [FB].

Dangerous Minds reports:

Bank of Canada is pleading with Star Trek fans to stop “Spocking” its five dollar bills. Since Leonard Nimoy’s death, Canadian folks have been “Spocking” the hell out of the five dollar bill that features a portrait of Canada’s seventh prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Sir Wilfrid now sports, on certain bills at least, pointy ears, the signature Vulcan haircut and eyebrows and Spock’s mantra “Live long and prosper.”

According to Bank of Canada it’s not illegal to do this but:

“…However, there are important reasons why it should not be done. Writing on a bank note may interfere with the security features and reduces its lifespan. Markings on a note may also prevent it from being accepted in a transaction. Furthermore, the Bank of Canada feels that writing and markings on bank notes are inappropriate as they are a symbol of our country and a source of national pride.”

The weasel-riding-woodpecker photo first went viral, then it inspired Photoshopped variations.

Sweet Briar students traditionally liked to sit outside by the Bell Tower.

Sweet Briar College is a 114-year-old liberal arts woman’s college located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge a little north of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Although Sweet Briar was always a small school, it was, back during my pre-coeducation freshman year, socially well-connected enough to participate in mixers with elite New England schools like Yale. My memory is that Sweet Briar’s echt-Southern girls dressed better, had livelier personalities, and were typically more friendly and conversable than the representatives of Vassar, Smith, and Holyoke whom we previously had entertained, and we were decidedly impressed that Sweet Briar girls managed to be so soigné on their arrival in New Haven after a God-only-knows-how-many-hours-long bus ride from deep in nethermost Virginia.

Sweet Briar girls seemed to us representatives of Yankeedom like exotic specimens imported from a distant, more tropical habitat. But, though they were obviously the offspring of wealthier and more socially prominent families than most of ours, they were also clearly the products of a rural culture, and were more interested in talking about their horses and sport than in calculatingly sizing you up, in the manner of Vassar, as a potential husband and breadwinner. I remember having more fun at the Sweet Briar mixer than at any of the others I attended that year.

Sweet Briar takes its name from a 3250-acre plantation, left along with an endowment to create a woman’s college by one Indiana Fletcher in 1901.

One reads today in the Washington Post the sad news that the Sweet Briar board has voted to close the school down next August, being apparently unable in a time of declining enrollment when fewer women desire single-sex education to make end’s meet. I think that is a shame. There ought to be a place like Sweet Briar where young ladies can major in horsemanship along with the liberal arts in preparation for an adult life spent hunting three days a week somewhere in Virginia.

Sweet Briar was renowned for its opportunities for equestrian instruction and activities.

The gorget found February 13, 2015, in Newtown, Ohio is engraved with an image that appears to be half bird and half cat.

WVXU reports the recent discovery of a rare Native American pendant dating to the 5th Century A.D. in Ohio. Only 8 examples of the same style and period have ever been found.

Contractors digging a trench for a fiber optic box north of Newtown’s administrative hall earlier this month found human remains. They called police who quickly realized it was a burial site and not a crime scene. They, in turn, called the Cincinnati Museum Center. …

“When the police department actually called us, when I talked to them, he said they found some human remains and he said there was a plate with it. And I kind of knew exactly what he meant because we had found these other two back in 1981,” says Rieveschl Curator for Archeology Bob Genheimer.

Genheimer says the plate is actually a gorget, a decorative seashell, with the image of an animal carved on it.

“A gorget is an ornamental item. These gorgets have three holes in them. They have two at the top for suspension and there’s one in the middle where they possibly could have been attached to clothing or something else,” he says. “And on the inside, they are engraved.”

Two other gorgets found in Newtown had images of an opossum and a panther carved on them. This one had a hybrid: part bird, part cat.

“Anywhere else in the world, you would refer to this as a griffin. But that’s not something that’s very viable in the Americas.

“We believe that the bird may be a Carolina Parakeet. Which, as many people know, is now an extinct bird, but used to be prevalent in the southern United States and as far north as here,” Genheimer says.

Jean-Baptiste-Édouard Detaille, Vive L’Empereur [Charge of the 4th Hussars at the battle of Friedland], detail, 14 June 1807], 1891, Art Gallery New South Wales.

Via Ratak Monodosico.