But I Digress
101 uses for a live cat, well, three anyway
By Mike Suchan
Blog calendar: Dec. 23 | Dec. 17 | Dec. 12 | Dec. 11 | Dec. 10 | Dec. 8 | Dec. 4 | Dec. 3 | Nov. 28 | Nov. 24 | Nov. 21
posted Dec. 23, 2008
People finding uses for live cats
In 1981, Simon Bond gave us the cartoon book, "101 Uses for a Dead Cat." He sold more than 2 million, and at the book's 25th anniversary, he created some new artwork related to the book.
The only one I can recall from the original is the use of dead cats as oven mitts. But this site shows dead cats as a floor rug, a shoe shiner and an unsavory bread holder.
But what about live cats? Here are three varied uses in the news of late, but be warned cat lovers — this is not for the squeamish.
First we run into a woman from Wilkes-Barre, Penn., — pop. 43,123 sal-ute! — who is likely to be charged after officers with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals removed three kittens and a cat from her home.
For what, pray tell?
Oh, this is a new one. She was marketing "gothic kittens" on the Internet, complete with ear, neck and tail piercings. No word on if they were all black.
The complete story from The Associated Press is here.
It gets worse. Head to China — pop. 1.3 billion, sal-ute! — where protesters are fighting to stop the killing of cats for human consumption. (You might argue that this is not about live cats, but hey, they started alive).
It's a rather interesting AP story, which includes this awesome lead quote from a butcher in Guangdong province, where felines are the main ingredient in a famous soup.
"Cats have a strong flavor. Dogs taste much better, but if you really want cat meat, I can have it delivered by tomorrow," said a cleaver-wielding Huang, quite possibly not understanding the question.
Writer William Foreman deftly writes about the 40 elderly protesters who unfurled banners in front of a government office that it "was the latest clash between age-old traditions and the new sensibilities made possible by China's growing affluence. Pet ownership was once rare because the Communist Party condemned it as bourgeois and most people simply couldn't afford a cat or dog."
But they could afford Cat Rangoon, Meow Goo Gai Pan and General Tsao's kitty.
Ok, those are Americanized. The real favorite, the story reports, is a famous soup, "Dragon, Tiger and Phoenix," which involves cooking snake, cat and chicken together.
Zhu Huilian, a nutrition and food safety professor at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong's capital, Guangzhou, said people usually eat cat in restaurants, not at home. See, I told you guys. Nobody believed me.
But how restaurants are getting the cats is in dispute. Seems rustlers are stealing cats, so much that people are afraid to put cats out at night. There might even be a Catsa Nostra.
"It's never been this bad," said Lai, who would only give his surname because he feared the cat business might be run by gangsters. "Who knows, it might be because of the bad economy. I've heard that there are cat-nabbing syndicates from Hunan that are rounding up cats."
It is hard for many Americans to imagine eating an animal they keep as pets. In "Pulp Fiction," Samuel Jacksons's character says he won't eat dog. "... A dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.''
Apparently not with the Chinese. Maybe the Chinese should turn their live ones into watch cats. It happened in the Washington state town of Kennewick — pop. 65,860, sal-ute!
The Tri-Cities Herald reports that one Buddy is the top cat in his house after the muscular 17-pound bobtail fended off coyotes in the home of William and Shannon Secolo. Read about it here.
"I heard this blood-curdling scream," Mr. Secolo said, which was followed by the sound of claws on tiles. He got up, went to investigate and stepped into a pile of coyote feces.
"There were fur balls everywhere," Secolo said. "Those coyotes didn't stand a chance."
With all the fur and poop, he thought there might have been more than one. That's one tough cat, who was found sitting in the dining room with fur in his claws.
Fortunately, the Secolo's other cat, who's not so tough, was found safe outside.
Ironically, Buddy was purchased two years ago to replace a cat that had been killed by coyotes.
Watch cat. From the choices above, we'll give that as our top use for a live cat.
posted Dec. 17, 2008
Anchorage could hire new Grizzly Adams
Grizzly Adams, where are you?
There might be a job for you in Anchorage, Alaska. After three bear attacks on humans last summer, the city assembly is considering hiring a bear tracker.
A "seasonal wildlife specialist" could be hired to respond to bear sightings then "harass" them out of town or relocate them, and as a last resort, kill them.
Ok, Dan Haggerty, who played the bear-befriending character in a movie and TV series, you're out. They need the real John "Grizzly Adams," a bear hunter and trainer in the early 1800s. He died at 48 after a bear claw wound exposed his brain and a "biting show monkey is said to have infected the vulnerable head wound and killed him." Read about him here.
Anyhow, most cities don't want humongous muscular terrors attacking their citizens — Anchorage must know how NFL cities feel — so some are asking for more safety education on how to keep trash locked away.
The city already makes it illegal to place out garbage before the morning of pickup, and now the fines might begin in earnest.
Bears have a fantastic sense of smell, and enjoy eating. Even trash. Some are pushing for the city to require steel or super strong plastic cans that lock down and keep the trash in, the bears out.
Digressing again. The best ad for a bear-proof container, the Bear Vault BV450 Solo Bear Resistant Food Canister, starts as such:
- Nature is great. Until you get eaten by a bear. So next time you're on a solo trip into bear country, bring along ...
The BV450 costs $66.95. A bear-proof trash container can run $300 a pop.
"We'll never get rid of bears in the city until we deal with what's attracting them," state wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott said.
And some want the city — pop. 279,671, sal-ute! — to foot the bill. With more than 94,000 households, that's a chunk of change.
Other considerations are to close down trails when bears are present and to open up more areas to hunting. Sinnott has said Anchorage is home to 200 to 300 black bears and at least 36 grizzly bears.
In 1995, bears killed two runners south of town and this summer the city proper experienced its first maulings.
But bears aren't the only threat in the City of Lights. Moose, which rise from a summer population of 250 to 1,000 in the winter, are hazards to drivers and pedestrians. More than 100 moose are killed in vehicular accidents each year, and two people have been stomped to death by moose in recent years.
There are counter plans and clarifications of duties for the bear tracker, but the sponsor of the proposal, Eagle River Assemblyman Bill Star, said in a Daily News-Miner story that it comes down to this:
"The issue is the defense of life and property. You know, we need to take responsibility for our public spaces and defend our own."
So you needn't apply just yet, but resumes should be updated for any wannabe Anchorage Adams. Especially if you can just walk them out of town.
posted Dec. 12, 2008
Down and dirty ways to deal with pests
C'mon Scottie, play nice!
A group of kids who continually toilet-papered a 50-year-old man's house were in for a little surprise one night in September.
Scott Edward Wager of rural Willmar, Minn. — pop. 18,351 sal-ute! — was waiting this time. Watching for them ... with night vision googles. He was armed ... and wasn't afraid to fire.
When a groupd of teens came armed, he confronted them. He shot. Several of the TP brigade were hit. They were down ... and dirty. Seems Wager filled a "supersoaker" squirt gun with fox urine. (Now where the heck does one get enough fox urine to do that?)
Anyhow, Wager faces charges of fifth-degree assault, theft and disorderly conduct. For complete story, click here.
Oh, and where does one get fox urine?
Online, of course, and from some feed/grain stores and farm supply stores and even certain pet/vet stores.
An 8-ounce bottle of 100 percent real fox urine goes for $18.50, plus shipping.
Why would someone need fox urine? Glad you asked.
A couple drops here and there and it makes "varmits like rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks think foxes are around. They react instinctively to their fear of this predator."
One Web site also reports that fox urine keeps away feral cats. And just a dab will do ya'. I'll bet.
"A couple drops in a small area will be plenty. Be sure not to overuse to keep the "natural" essence about it. Place a cotton ball in one (or all depending on coverage area) of the dispensers, and pour urine to fill up right above the cotton ball. This helps the product evaporate a little slower and last up to and sometimes over the 30 days."
One would certainly imagine.
Here comes some more digressing. Heard to keep snakes away, you spread a line of lime to create a perimeter that they won't cross. Fascinating!
Anybody have any other foolproof ways to keep away pests? Please comment on ESPN Conversation.
posted Dec. 11, 2008
Are you nuts, that's my car!
Hope Wideup of Demotte, Ind., pop. 3,234 — sal-ute! — could only think one thing when her car didn't work quite right, "Aw, nuts!"
Of course, that's what she found in the engine compartment. Bunches of them.
"There were thousands in there. They were everywhere," she told the Post-Tribune of the black walnuts busting her buggy to the tune of $242 for towing and repairs.
Seems a chipmunk turned her vehicle into a storage facility, packing the idle car for quite some time. Read the report on the AP wire here.
On the same thread, a cat required surgery to reattached part of its face after it sought the warmth of an engine compartment but apparently didn't wake in time to get out of the way of a fan belt. Read story
posted Dec. 10, 2008
Call to police for illegal logging leads to buck-tooth culprits
"There's somebody cutting down trees in a nature reserve," came a call to police in Subkowy, Poland.
Green campaigners called in to report what they thought was an illegal logging site after finding 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and other trees marked for felling by notches. Wide, deep notches with teeth marks.
Police came and through crack investigative work followed the trail of a tree being dragged. There, police quickly wrapped up the escapade as they found a beaver dam in the river.
Maybe the greenies should get out more. The unmistakable teeth marks left by beavers should have tipped them off.
"The campaigners are feeling pretty stupid," a police spokesman said. "There's nothing more natural than a beaver."
posted Dec. 8, 2008
Dogs have sense of fairness, and much more
We know dogs are smart, especially most every sporting dog, but now a study shows they possess a sense of fairness.
Dogs know when they've been ripped off and will tell you so.
A team at the Univeristy of Vienna's Clever Dog Lab — the one in Austria — put dogs side by side and gave each a treat for a trick. When one dog had his treat pulled, presumably a Vienna sausage, that dog pulled the trick, even going as far as turning away and refusing to look at the researcher.
"Animals react to inequity," said lead researcher Friederike Range. "To avoid stress, we should try to avoid treating them differently."
The entire story from The Associated Press can be read by clicking here.
But Clive Wynne isn't so sure it all equates to recognizing fairness.
"What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well," said the University of Florida associate professor of psychology.
Semantics.
It'd be nice if those brainiacs could agree on what this AP report tells us of canine capacities.
Surveillance cameras on the freeway in Santiago, Chile, caught a dog being mortally hit by a car and another dog coming to its aid, dragging it from the rushing traffic to the median.
The video was been broadcast locally, creating a hero among Chileans, many of whom called with offers to adopt the homeless dog. Highway workers and a television crew couldn't find the dog, who is receiving tens of thousands of hits on YouTube.
What do you think? Respond below in the ESPN Conversation.
posted Dec. 4, 2008
Right out of the bowels of fish
Joe Richardson of Buna, Texas, is happy today and assuredly a little more curious about where his class ring had actually been. It was recently returned to him by a fisherman who found it — get ready — upon catching an 8-pound bass.
Seems the anonymous angler caught the lunker at Lake Sam Rayburn the day after Thanksgiving. The caller told Joe they reeled in a fish and a ring popped out of the fish's mouth and onto the boat. Through his name etched on the band, Joe Richardson was run down after an internet search and several phone calls.
Richardson, a 41-year-old mechanic, had lost the ring fishing on Sam Rayburn two weeks after he graduated from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. That was in 1987.
Because that is a touch longer than most bass every live, Richardson was left to wonder "how many fish it's been in," he told The Associated Press.
This is not the first time something like this has happened this year. In January, Kristy Brittain was kneeboarding behind a boat east of Hobart, Tasmania, when she was thrown and lost a nose stud she had less than two weeks.
Brittain, 25, of Magra, never expected to see the tiny stud again. You guessed it.
It showed up in a flathead three days later, but the twist was the fish was caught by her fiancé, Darren Triffett. What are the odds?
Yet if she wasn't there during filleting they would have never known what the chunk of metal was.
"They thought it was a little tack or nail," Brittain said. "I was standing near them talking to them and realized it was the nose stud I had lost in the ocean."
"How could it have ended in the fish? I suppose it would have sparkled and they (flathead) eat pretty much anything. But you think how many fish are in the sea ... and to catch this one."
Read the rest of the story here.
posted Dec. 3, 2008
Clichés, more fun than a barrel of monkeys
Ever eat crow?
Bet you have. Admit it, you've been that fish out of water up that creek, had that albatross around your neck in a situation for the birds, barked up the wrong tree or couldn't even see the trees for the forest.
Everyone has had to admit a mistake, thus eat crow. But where did that saying come from?
Ever ponder the origins of clichés? James Rogers did, and published more than 2,000 in The Dictionary of Clichés.
Among those entries, complete with etymology, are a number related to the outdoors.
But I Digress, being a semi-geek for words costing less than 25 cents, finds the origins of such phrases interesting. Well, some of them.
According to Rogers, eat crow — to acknowledge a mistake; humble oneself — can be traced back to the War of 1812. In 1888, the Atlanta Constitution relayed a tale of an American soldier killing a crow.
A British officer complimented him on his shot and asked to see his gun, then turned it on him, admonished him for trespassing and forced him to eat a bit of the crow, never a popular dish.
Don't worry, the American won in John Waynesque fashion. The story goes when the officer gave him his gun back, the soldier made the Brit eat the rest of the crow, thus humbling him.
And now you know ... the rest of the story.
That's the part that's interesting. Some of these clichés are self-explanatory, and some make you wonder where the heck did that come from. From time to time, I'll dig up some good'uns with unusual background and do ya some learning.
If you like, submit your own.
So, lick your chops till next time, when we'll eat humble pie, which involves animal entrails. Interesting. Very interesting. (If you know, chime in on the ESPN Conversation at the bottom of this page.)
Here's one for Black Friday, er, brown
Forget the elves, especially when you can get a holiday bauble straight from the reindeer. Practically straight out of the reindeer.
The gift shop at Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, Ill., is selling "magical reindeer gem ornaments" for "$5. Reindeer gems ... my that is such a nice way to describe the material from which the ornaments are formed: feces.
"Oh look, Fido left us some gems on the carpet."
Zoo marketing director Susie Ohley is scategorically a genius, collecting the droppings of resident reindeer Eala and Rika for the definitively artsy-crapsy project. The marble-sized pellets are dried and clear-coated, strung together in festive designs, then painted or rolled in glitter. They actually look kinda neat. See here
Some zoo workers, along with Ohley's daughter Shayna, 16 — how many teen girls would go for this? — made and donated the ornaments for a zoo fund-raiser. No word on who did the gathering.
Now why didn't Santa ever think of this? Uh-oh, maybe he did. Hasn't everyone gotten a Christmas gift that they thought was ... well, you know.
Sure, magical reindeer gen ornaments are unique, sure it's for a good cause, but will it fly? I mean, some will not respond well when told their tree looks like ... well, you know.
This does open the possibilities of eliminating other animals elimination, like maybe elephant dung bocce balls.
Come up with your own and email it. Most clever product wins a cookie, or whatever else I can scrap up. So, be careful what you wish for.
posted Nov. 24, 2008
When roosters go bad
Small towns being small towns, here's news from the southern Illinois city of Benton — population 6,880, sal-ute!
Police took a rooster into custody after it "allegedly confronted a woman and her child," reads an article in The Southern Illinoisan that was picked up by STLToday.com, presumably because one doesn't hear stuff like this every day.
(OK, is "allegedly" necessary here? Do chickens require such rights? Would the woman make this up? Was there some long-standing feud? Can you imagine somebody saying "I'll get that rooster." Hold it, done that myself.)
Anyhow, in subsequent big media fallout, Police Chief Mike O'Neill commented that this offending fowl had been bothering people lately, trying to keep them from getting where they want to go. The ruffian!
So to straighten out the pecking order, a dispatch sent out Benton's finest. And after what was described as a brief scuffle playing out without injury, the poultry was apprehended and put in the pokey.
The report didn't say if the rooster was processed — doubt it — since it was penned up near the station and living on chicken feed and water.
Intrepid STLToday.com reader Steve Holt was quick to give this pointed comment on the petty poulty proceedings:
-
This is exactly why I moved into the city — to get away from those thug roosters and their cocky attitudes. It's about time the cops did their jobs — I hope he fries for this.
Nice one, Steve.
But what happened was that police located the owner, who got the aggressive guy back only after promising to find it a new home in the country: This very progressive city doesn't allow chickens within its limits.
We only have so many eyes here at ESPNOutdoors.com and want to get you involved.
If you come across any wild, wacky or really out-there outdoors occurrences, or have something extraordinary happen to you, send it to me here at espnoutdoorsblog@careersportsentertainment.com.
We love your hunting and fishing photos, so keep sending those, but we also want your news, thoughts and comments.
Sometimes these things escape us. Take last year, we received this photo making the rounds on the Internet of a bobcat with its jaws wrapped around the neck of a deer.
Our efforts to find this person, however, proved futile.
Such oddities take place all the time, and we want to hear from you and present them to the world, at least the World Wide Web.
Please pay attention to what you are shooting — and what's behind it
Folks, know what you're shooting at. And what's behind it.
Two recent incidents bring this issue to the forefront.
In South Haven, Minn., a hunter's shot that missed a doe running the crest of a hill traveled another three-quarters of a mile — that's around 1,300 yards — and broke a window of a couple's house, the wife inside and the husband on the roof hanging Christmas lights.
The article in the St. Cloud Times reports the hunter only faces having to pay for damage to the window.
However, another hunter, Edward Taibi, 45, of New York, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and held without bond after his wayward shot killed a toddler last Monday near Swan Lake, N.Y.
After firing from a tree stand, he climbed down and fired his .30-caliber rifle again. This time it went through the wall of a trailer home 400 feet away and hit 16-month-old Charly Skala. Read the complete report in the SCTimes.com by clicking here.
One moment of misjudgment can have monumental consequences. The horrors of doing something like this — or having it happen to someone you know and love — will haunt all involved the rest of your lives.
One supposes that is why most of the states issue their seasonal safety warnings. From Wisconsin, warden Dave Horzewski listed the four basic rules of safe gun handling for an article in the Baraboo News Republic:
- Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
- Always point the muzzle in a safe direction.
- Be sure of your target and what's behind it.
- Keep your finger out of the trigger guard and off the trigger until you're ready to fire.
Old man and the fishing ballcap
"My wife says she is leaving if I didn't stop fishing and I'm going to miss her."
— Seen on hat of an old fisherman
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About the author: Mike Suchan has been editor at ESPNOutdoors.com the past three years. He's worked in journalism for 25 years, winning state and regional awards. Email him here.
