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Weak XLII

15 October 2024

No. 1,361 (cartoon)

How’s your battle with alcohol going?

I rolled over and played dead.

So it would appear.

16 October 2024

Thanatology

Another day brings another word or two; today it’s anthropectomy and thanatology.

I’m surprised I’ve never heard of anthropectomy before since it’s the opposite of anthropomorphism. On the other hand, thanatology—the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it—is a word I never would have imagined.

I’m grateful to Susana Monsó’s book, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death, for enlarging my vocabulary. She gives the example of dogs that ostensibly love their owners will eat them when they’re dead. I think she’s overthinking things when she describes that as a paradox, since the curs’ behavior seems as simple as their primitive brains. Dogs see humans as a source of food, whether it comes from a can or an abdominal cavity.

I know Monsó had to pad her text to fill up all the pages in a book, but the question of how animals react to death seems equally straightforward: they rot.

17 October 2024

KaBOOM! No More Noose and Squirrel!

Climate change is affecting every corner of the globe, or, more accurately, it would if a sphere had corners. We’ve all heard about the hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and more, and now things just got worse.

There are no more exploding horses, mules, and moose in Wyoming. Yes, I’m afraid that’s as true as the nose on your face (assuming you have both).

In backcountry parlance, a dead horse is known as a grizzly bear banquet, so rangers rely on an obscure technical manual, Obliterating Animal Carcasses with Explosives. Given how unusually dry conditions are now, the rangers can no longer blow large dead animals to Smithereens (population nine) lest the sparks from the blast start a fire.

Climate change literally stinks in Wyoming, and the grizzlies may soon return to the bear buffets. As always, things aren’t as simple as they smell, and generations yet unborn may enjoy the incomparable spectacle of exploding moose.

But I doubt it.

18 October 2024

You Don’t Need Words to Think

You Don’t Need Words to Think is the refreshingly succinct headline in a recent edition of Scientific American; bravo! A lesser periodical might have teased me by asking if words were necessary for thought, then made me scroll past too many ads before the conclusion: nope.

I wish more publications would simply tell me what I want to know without spraying me with a firehose of superfluous verbiage. After reading the definitive six-word headline, I didn’t bother with the rest of the article, which carried a warning that it was a nine-minute read. I now have nine minutes of my short life to waste on something else; thanks, Scientific American!

19 October 2024

Without Wishing It Were Something Different

I don’t follow trends in journalism, but I do try to keep abreast of new opportunities for slothfulness. And that brings me to infinitely reusable headlines pioneered by The Washington Post with, Why [fill in the blank] are better off dead, and, Nearly everything Americans believe about [fill in the blank] is wrong. The New York Times got in on the game with, [Fill in the blank] Could Bring Excitement, and Chaos.

And now The Manchester Guardian (even though it’s no longer called that) has joined in by using a Kari Leibowitz quote as a slug, Appreciate winter for what it is, without wishing it were something different. I can’t think of a single word that can’t be inserted here: Appreciate [fill in the blank] for what it is, without wishing it were something different.

20 October 2024

Mucus Parachutes

A couple of years ago I wrote about my imaginary garden at the bottom of the ocean where I'd grow Osedax mucofloris, the bone-eating snot flower. And now, thanks to Manu Prakash, I see how that could work.

The clever Stanford bioengineer cobbled together a device he calls a gravity machine to study how sinking dead stuff makes it to the ocean floor, then made a brilliant discovery: some sinking microorganisms use mucus parachutes for the descent! What a lovely picture, my humble plot of bone-eating snot flowers thriving on a gentle rain of nutrients floating down from above on their dainty little mucus parachutes.

Oh, what joy for every girl and boy!

21 October 2024

Mangy Dog Story

I apologized for showing up at Rebecca’s studio twenty minutes late, and explained that I needed to take a circuitous route through the park to avoid a nasty unleashed dog that was growling and barking at me. Not only was that a fine excuse, but it had the added benefit of actually being true.

“I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t a small child,” she replied.

“What are you on about?” I asked. “I could have easily fought off any vicious tyke.”

“I’m sure you could have,” she lied.

We have a great relationship, in part because we each know when to tell the truth and when to fib a wee bit.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2024 David Glenn Rinehart