Sometimes you hate to be right....

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:40:38 +1000

I wrote a post a few weeks back called The struggle for survival is neither cruel nor triumphant where I detailed the human and orca escapade during an orca attack on two grey whales. In that post I wrote:

“I have always had an uncomfortable feeling watching people (and people’s kids) volunteer to be kissed by an orca at an aquarium. I have this unnerving suspicion that one day, that orca will show its true nature, and there will be plenty of cameras recording the scene. Let’s hope they stay well fed with fish instead.”

Well sadly that has proven true, though I take no credit for making this claim first since, as you can read for yourself, this “accident” had already happened somewhere else and was just going to happen again if given the time.. and the time came.

Sometimes, you just hate to be right.

Beaver, Penis and the Map of Tassie

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:15:04 +1000

My wife and I had the pleasure of spending a week in Hobart (Tasmania) not long ago. It was a wonderful holiday and we’d recommend it highly, but I bet you’re wondering what that has to do with the title of this post.

One night while watching the news there was a segment on a dog that had eaten some grass seed, quite possibly accidentally when the owner or a neighbour had spread the seed on the lawn and the dog inhaled or licked it up somehow. The crux of the story was how painful and dangerous this undigested grass seed had become when it was lodged in the dog’s penis.

Pardon? Penis? Did I say that?

In the news segment neither the reporter nor the vet interviewed used the term penis. The reporter commented on how the seed had become lodged in the dog’s “boy bits” and the vet (of all people) used the even sillier term “wee wee.” (Now to be fair the reporter may have cautioned the vet not to say penis since it might not make it to air; nevertheless, the vet should not have obliged, respectfully.) There was nothing sexual from the use of the term, the dog was in pain, not hard up.

When I taught Grade 9 Science in Ontario, Reproduction was a quarter of the course. It included mitosis, meiosis, asexual and sexual forms of reproduction, the structure of flowers, and included a good amount of time on human reproduction (or at least its biology/plumbing aspects). At the beginning of the human reproduction segment I would outline the main points we were to learn (as I did with the other segments); however, being cognizant of the unease in the class I would get my students to say the words “penis” and “vagina” out loud a couple of times - it helped to get the giggles out and made the rest of the teaching palatable for everyone involved. (Oddly enough, my last two classes were predominately girls, which did not bother me but made them a little more uneasy, not to mention the seriously out-numbered boys.)

Penis and vagina. They’re just words right? Anatomical words at that. Besides, far worse words are said on air to describe anatomy, so what’s wrong with the proper words of penis or vagina? Which brings me to the beaver.

In 1920 a magazine called The Beaver was founded by the fur trading institution The Hudson’s Bay Company, which not surprisingly traded in beaver fur, among others. The aim of the magazine was to highlight Canada’s history and it has done so admirably ever since. Except that recently the name of the magazine has become a bit of a distraction, a titillation if you will.

You see “beaver” has a double meaning in this situation; the first is plainly obvious, it’s just a fur-bearing water mammal with a rich historical claim to being a part of Canada’s history, but the second meaning is as a euphemism for a vagina, and as such it has caused a stir when many of The Beaver’s potential readers were searching for it over the internet, the magazine that is, not a vagina. Not surprisingly then, they often ran into porn sites instead of the correct one. Therefore the publishers of the magazine Canada's National History Society have decided to change its name to Canada’s History, fittingly.

I say all the power to them for making this bold and brave decision, who knows what kind of confusion words and phrases with double entendres might lead to. Can you imagine the palpitations someone might experience searching for information on skinning a beaver only to find instructions on how to give yourself a Brazillian. And see, it’s called a Brazillian, so isn’t it good to know these sexual terms and phrases are international. Which leads back to our trip to Tasmania.

You see here in Australia, a Map of Tassie, is a phrase used to describe the patch of pubic hair on a female since it resembles the shape of Tassie (Tasmania). Honest, go have a look... at a map.

I’m not really sure how long it was after Tasmania was charted before someone noticed the resemblance, but I bet it was worth the exploration. When I started teaching here the odd student would make me say “root” to get a few giggles in class, since outside of its biological context it has the same connotation as “screw” does to represent sex. So I can only imagine how many students in Tasmania would get their teachers to say “map of Tassie” for a giggle or two. Geography class must be fun. I can hear a Uranus joke here as well.

The reality is any word or phrase can take on a sexual connotation over time, it just takes an imagination, and possibly a map. The original founders of Canada must have known the term beaver was going to rise in sexual prowess, that’s why it’s not on the Canadian Coat of Arms, as opposed to the Australian Coat of Arms which bears both a kangaroo and an emu - two animals happily served up on a dinner plate here. You see, in Canada, eating beaver...has a whole different meaning.

John Daicopoulos

India and Australia: the racism claim is silly

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:31:05 +1000

Over the past few months there have been a few attacks on Indians studying in Melbourne. There is a large number of foreign students studying here and as such the attacks have garnered quite a bit of press; however, the claim that these attacks are signs of endemic racism are a bit over the top.

Now let’s be serious, there is no way in any nation, small or large, every member would be understanding, tolerant or indifferent to others. There is no way to eliminate racist feelings from within everyone; however, that does not mean that a large portion of the population, let alone everyone, is racist. These individuals or individual events are not symptomatic of the population or of a system of racism. Punctuated events, especially those stoked by the media, should not be used by anyone to tar an entire nation.

No nation can claim to be free of racism; but the claim that racism is institutionalized here does not merit any discussion. It’s not institutionalized here, nor in Canada or in dozens of other places. Having said that, I would certainly agree that attacks on individuals can be racially motivated and the subsequent investigations need to be taken seriously.

John Daicopoulos

The struggle for survival - the causal life

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:01:21 +1000

Before you read this posting you’ll need to read the previous two:
The struggle for survival is neither cruel nor triumphant (part I)
and
The struggle for survival - Media and Education (part II)

I ended the last post by claiming that the struggle for life is not cruel, but causal. So what do I mean by causal?

If you recall this entire stream of argument stems from a video of two orca pods attacking a grey whale cow and cub; there was nothing cruel in the attack, it’s just that the orcas were hungry (there was some idle speculation in the video that the orcas were “teaching” their young attack skills since the cow and cub eventually escaped, but that’s not relevant, they could have easily continued with the attack and killed the pair).

What makes this whole affair causal is that over time (a very long time) organisms have evolved the necessary skills and physical characteristics to eat more often than others, evade being eaten more often than others, and to procreate more often than others. That’s the casual nature of this whole struggle. In each struggle for survival act an individual’s characteristics are put to the test. Slightly faster, slightly slower, a little more coloured like the surroundings, a little a better eye-sight, a little more protective of your young, etc...

What exists today, the myriad of flora and fauna, is all a result of the previous struggles between individuals within populations (remember individuals do not evolve, it’s populations that do).

For us to look at the variety of life on this planet without regards to what the individuals of each species had to endure over the history of life is to be reckless with the facts. Pretty flowers, tasty fruit, cute and cuddly creatures, animals with big teeth that growl, such are the products of the struggle for survival.

John Daicopoulos

The struggle for survival - Media and Education

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:28:31 +1000

As I wrote in my previous post (The struggle for survival is neither cruel nor triumphant) there was more I had wanted to say but would wait, so here’s the next part of that theme. (You’ll need to read the previous post on this issue to be completely in tune with my ideas here.)

My concerns, with respect to highlighting the struggle for survival as something negative, are multi-faceted so I’ll only touch on one of them here; but they focus on how the image of that struggle is portrayed, in particular how carnivorous animals are characterized in the media and education, and how the hunting of other creatures is portrayed as inherently bad for the prey (in the next post).

Let’s look at the image of carnivores in media and education. To put it simply, the vast majority of carnivores are portrayed by the media and (most primary school) teachers as not only being angry, mean-spirited and power-hungry, hence their need to eat helpless other creatures, but as males with deep voices whereas the prey are innocent females or young males with pre-pubescent voices. Now before you get your knickers in a knot, yes there are some animals in the media that have nasty female characterizations, but that’s rare. Either way, they too are imagined to be angry and mis-guided. “If they only knew better then they wouldn’t eat other creatures.” You can do the research yourself by watching any popular animation, but just look at The Lion King or Happy Feet to name two.

The argument is: Females are good and caring, males are cruel and individualistic. Rubbish. Are female lions, tigers and orcas vegetarians? Of course not, so why should those animals be characterized strictly as males in the media and education? My hypothesis contends that this portrayal works for compelling children to emotionalize and anthropomorphize nature, these are strictly human attitudes and don’t belong in nature. Like it or not, nature (and that includes us at times) is simply about eat more than others, avoid being eaten while others are eaten, and procreate more than anyone else. That’s not cruel, it’s causal.

Causal?

You’ll have to read the next post.

John Daicopoulos