llihcruhc

Idk if this counts as a peeve more of an art-astronomy pet peeve

but when people draw the cresent moon and where the dark, shaddowed part of the moon is they put in stars

like studdenly that part of the moon is invisible instead of just being in the shadow

If you’ve been around any sort of animal media/news media lately, you’ve likely heard of the tragic incident at the Palm Beach Zoo involving tiger keeper, Stacey Konwiser.

Now, animal attacks and injury are not necessarily something that we’ve never heard of in the zoo world.  It’s a risk you know you take every day when you choose this career, especially when working with Class 1/”hot” animals.  Miss that one lock(when a keeper on any shift can be responsible for as many as 70+ locks/gates/pulleys), take that wrong step; it’s a risk these keepers take on every day to care for the animals in their charge and give them the best lives possible.  Which is why the one word you can use to describe zookeepers, at any time, is passionate.  And that’s exactly how Stacey was regarded by her peers.  She was described as “upstanding, professional, passionate, dedicated, and kind,” and she was considered a “staff mom” at the facility because of it.  

Here are the facts, as we know them at this time, and as I have gathered from people that know the facility and knew Stacey.  The tiger, a 13-year-old Malayan, was never loose in the zoo like guests were told.  The accident happened off exhibit, in the nighthouse area, during routine procedures.  The media and other groups have indicated that the tiger is going to be euthanized as a result; I have been told and discovered that as of now, this is not true. The tiger is a valuable part of the SSP, and an endangered species.  He will not be killed.  He has since recovered from the tranquilizer and I have heard nothing else to indicate that he didn’t fully recover.  From everything I have seen, and comments from people familiar with the facility, I can find no evidence that PB Zoo was free contact.  The zoo has since reopened.

It’s also important in these situations to make the distinction in language with words like “attack” with sensitive stories like this.  Another incident happened this same day in El Salvador, at a private zoo where someone was mauled by one of their tigers.  That was an attack.  What happened here, with all of the details we have at this point, was a bite.  Not all bites are attacks.  The importance of this distinction, with regards to the implications of the word in the humanized way the media has been using it(see: “revenge”), will be highlighted later.

Accidents like this might not be so unusual for us to hear of in the animal world, but what is sticking out in this case is the mishandling of the story by the media.  And what is standing out to me even more is the opportunity groups have taken, in light of this tragedy, to decry zoos and captivity as a whole.  Even going so far as to slander Stacey herself.  It has been a gradual snowball over the last few days with selective language, inconsistent details, and distasteful opportunism.

Stacey had years and years under her belt working with the big cats, which may have earned her the “tiger whisperer” title that the media has given her, or that coworkers may have offhandedly referred to her as.  And boy, have news outlets latched onto it.  While that might seem like a title of honor to some people, it actually very subtly undermines her in a way that is entirely unfair.  Giving that title to her after the bite and using it in headlines and as your hook is a really underhanded way to cut her down.  “Tiger whisperer killed by tiger.”  From a media standpoint, that’s your kicker; that’s a huge story.  But it paints Stacey as the ‘poor disillusioned keeper that paid the price.’  Which is so disrespectful no matter how you look at it.

What this also has done is throw fuel onto the anti-zoo fire.  PETA has spoken up,

“Today’s incident is only the latest in a long list of fatal maulings around the world, and that list will continue to grow as long as tigers and other exotic animals are locked in cages and compounds for human amusement.”

[…]

“PETA sends our condolences to the zookeeper’s family and hopes that this incident will save human lives in the future by making zoos everywhere reconsider the confinement of big cats and other wildlife.”

I can’t really expect much else from PETA, but this is a perfect example of the opportunistic and underhanded language that these groups have taken up.  “Haha see we’re right, stop keeping cats in zoos! Oh and sorry this person died we guess.”  Which can really be used as the tagline moving forward with the statements that have been made against the zoo.

Perhaps what has been most disappointing for me personally, is that Big Cat Rescue also released a vague, non-specific statement: “When Tigers Kill Keepers.”  This was a terrible, awful, distasteful move on their part.  The day after the incident.  There was no time allowed for grieving and really not even half an attempt to offer condolences.  Just immediately jumping to the anti-zoo stance.  I 100% do not support this move on their part, nor do I support their gradual increase onto the anti-zoo front.  It was a terrible PR decision and as a facility that is very close to my heart, it was very sad and disappointing for me to see.

The rush to anthropomorphize this tiger, saying he “took his chance for revenge” as a way to say that tigers cannot be kept in zoos has also been a shoddy argument.  This was not a tiger taking a chance at revenge.  This wasn’t the result of the tiger “plotting” over time to get out.  This was a wild animal that saw an opportunity for something new, that was stimulated by it, and acted like a wild animal.  Is it a testament to how dangerous these animals are?  Absolutely.  No good zookeeper is going to forget that and I doubt Stacey did.  

We cannot attribute these human concepts of “revenge” to this animal, as a vehicle to decry zoos.  An accident like this, a type of accident that can happen with ANY animal field, was not the nail in the zoo coffin.  It does not negate the valuable conservation projects and research done all over the world by accredited zoos. This was not a result of an animal being abused, this was not a result of someone treating a tiger inappropriately like pet owners and roadside zoos do.  It does not mean we cannot feasibly and successfully keep these animals in managed care.  This was not the act of an “angry, imprisoned animal.”  It was the act of a wild animal that could have happened under any circumstances.  This is something any good zookeeper is aware of and knows intimately well.

In lieu of the recent Palm Beach tiger incident and the furor around the zoo profession as a whole - most of it political and hurtful when the community is mourning the death of a friend and colleague - I want to share something important written by a keeper I know. 

“It is likely that if you haven’t already, you will soon hear about the tragic loss of one the keepers at Palm Beach Zoo due to an incident with one of their tigers. This keeper was talented, experienced, and loved. She was also human. Rather than giving the zoo, its staff, her husband (also a keeper there) and the rest of her family time to greive, the media has launched itself on the subject. And worse, despite not having all of the details, I’ve seen countless news outlets pointing fingers in various directions as to who gets the blame. We don’t know what happened yet. We don’t know what went wrong and yet people have already started to talk as if this keeper didn’t know what she was doing and that is how she got hurt. This was a horrifying situation, but the scary thing is, things like this aren’t always negligence. 

If you aren’t a zookeeper, it is hard to understand the massive consequences of a simple mistake. If you work at a restaurant, and you give someone the wrong meal, the world won’t end. If you work at a store and give the wrong change, you aren’t getting fired. And if you are the average human, you’ve probably made a mistake at your job. Zookeepers don’t have that luxury. People wonder how it is, that a lock can get left undone, but let me ask you… have you forgotten to lock your car door? Your front door? Let me paint you a very real picture, with very real numbers. 

Today I had touched 51 individual locks. Tomorrow I will touch around 42. When I worked in Connecticut I touched up to 72 individual locks. In NJ that number could range from 27 to 89 depending on the section is was in. And no, those aren’t counting doors with sliding bolts instead of locks, or pulley doors with latches, or any other form of closeable doorway that doesn’t require a distinct key. Why do I say individual locks? Because most of those locks I will unlock and relock 2-3 times or more per day. More if I am doing extra tasks, or I forget to bring something with me, or I get called to a different part of the zoo. So let us aim for somewhere in the middle. Let us say that I only handle 60 individual locks a day. And let’s aim for the middle again and say I don’t need to do anything extra or open locks, and I average 2.5x per day. That is 150 locks per day, on the middle to low end. Sound like a lot of locks to remember? No? That is 750 locks per week. How about now? Still no? Well now 52 weeks a year, 750 locks a week…39,000 locks. Per year. Now imagine you are like me, and you get your first full gig at 21. Say you are the average keeper and your body eventually gives out after years of physical labor, so you take a management job around age 45. Heck, you had a bad knee, let’s make it 41. That is a 20 year career. That is 780,000 locks. That is assuming you’ve never in that 20 years, had to go to the sections with more locks, or back tracked, or done a single extra project in your career. 

So now.. what if you left 1% of that unlocked? I mean it is only 1% of the time…oh yeah. 7,800 unlocked locks. Well, what about 0.01%? I mean. That is miniscule, barely an error margin even worth looking at right? Or you know, 78 unlocked doors with animals walking out of them. So what is 1 unlocked door? One single, tiny, completely human mistake? It means you made a mistake 0.00012821% of the time. A single mistake, by even the best keepers, can have huge consequences. A single unlocked lock, out of 780,000 locks, can be the difference between life and death. At that is if you did correctly lock all of your locks 99.99987179% of the time. 

First letter of your last name

Second letter of your middle name (or parents name if you don’t have one)

Third letter of your first name

Any letter you choose to end

“Stop Hitting Your Brother” (1999)

!!!!!!DONT LET THIS GO UNNOTICED!!!!!!

All Three Major News Networks Ignored Bernie Sanders’ Speech Tuesday Night, To Show Empty Trump Podium

As Bernie Sanders took the stage on Tuesday night, the cable networks continued doing what they do best – talking.

Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all declined to carry Sanders’ speech, instead offering jokes about the evening while showing live coverage of Trumps empty podium while promising that we were all, “AWAITING TRUMP” and “STANDING BY FOR TRUMP.“ 

In Fact: EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE HAD AIR TIME EXCEPT FOR SANDERS

As if these stations couldn’t get any more corrupt, The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone reported that the media have collectively given Trump some $2 billion worth of free air time.

Don’t be fooled by the media ya’ll. You can watch his incredible speech here & remember You ARE his media

Source

The Dog Psychology center was visited by Animal Control as a response to the Simon & The Pigs clip wherein a dog with known small-animal aggression had been let off-leash around pigs and allowed to attack them. CM was away on a business trip (he’s scheduled in Vegas) and is now required to contact authorities within 24 hours. 

National Geographic’s PR machine is on overdrive and it’s still spouting bullshit that protects this ass. 

“A representative from Nat Geo WILD, which airs Millan’s show, issued this statement:

“Cesar Millan has dedicated his life to helping dogs and to showing how even the most difficult “problem dog” can be rescued and rehabilitated. In a recent episode of the Nat Geo WILD series “Cesar 911,” Cesar works with an aggressive French bulldog/terrier mix named Simon, who has a history of attacking other animals, including his owner’s pet potbellied pigs. A short clip from the episode was shared online and showed Simon chasing a pig and nipping its ear, causing the ear to bleed. The clip caused some concern for viewers who did not see or understand the full context of the encounter.“We have included an additional clip from the same episode to provide missing context. Cesar has created a safe and controlled environment at his Dog Psychology Center (DPC) in California in which to rehabilitate some of the most extreme — or “red zone” — cases of dog aggression, such as Simon’s. It is important to clarify that Cesar took precautions, such as putting Simon on a long lead to assess his behavior, before making initial corrections and removing the leash. The pig that was nipped by Simon was tended to immediately afterward, healed quickly and showed no lasting signs of distress. As the additional clip reveals, Cesar and his animal pack effectively helped Simon to overcome his aggressive behavior toward other animals; as a result, Simon did not have to be separated from his owner or euthanized.“”

Let’s look at this, shall we?

“A short clip from the episode was shared online and showed Simon chasing a pig and nipping its ear, causing the ear to bleed. The clip caused some concern for viewers who did not see or understand the full context of the encounter.”

Y’know how I always say that a good trainer shouldn’t ever be getting bit because they should know how to prevent it? That applies to animals in the area, not just the trainer. Simon should have never gotten to bite the pig because he shouldn’t have been set up to fail.

“Cesar has created a safe and controlled environment at his Dog Psychology Center (DPC) in California in which to rehabilitate some of the most extreme — or “red zone” — cases of dog aggression, such as Simon’s.”

Prey drive isn’t aggression. Killing a pig is not red-zone aggression. Way to misrepresent this. 

“It is important to clarify that Cesar took precautions, such as putting Simon on a long lead to assess his behavior, before making initial corrections and removing the leash.”

Hello yes we’re clarifying that he took entirely inappropriate precautions that we’re still touting to protect our golden boy nyah nyah nyah. Let’s see. He put the dog on a long line around animals he’s already proven interest in and ability to kill. (He also referred to a long-line as a muzzle. Speaking of, this dog has already killed a pig and he didn’t think a reasonable precaution around them involved a muzzle). Then, when that didn’t prove interesting enough, he took off the device that allowed him to control the dog around the things it likes to kill. That’s not a reasonable precaution, that’s stupid and setting the dog up to fail. 

Reasonable precautions would involve working on desensitization from a distance, with the dog on a short leash and on a muzzle to protect the pigs, and not letting the dog actually interact with the pigs it likes to kill. 

“The pig that was nipped by Simon was tended to immediately afterward, healed quickly and showed no lasting signs of distress.” 

It doesn’t matter that the animal still got hurt under his purview, because it healed and was fine and showed no lasting signs of trauma! Exactly like how it didn’t matter that negligence at daycare let your kid get burned while playing with the kitchen stove, because there’s not even a scar and she doesn’t seem to be scared of fire! 

He let an animal he was responsible for get hurt because he chose to let another animal he was responsible for out of his range of control, knowing that second animal was inclined to hurt the first. That’s irresponsible and abominably unprofessional. 

“Cesar and his animal pack effectively helped Simon to overcome his aggressive behavior toward other animals”

Y’know what I see? I see a clip that focuses almost entirely on the dog that is not Simon and his stellar behavior, a clip that often cuts Simon out of the frame, that barely focuses on Simon when he’s in frame. I see a dog whose body language is still and awkward, not the loose movements of a comfortable dog. That’s not a dog whose behavior is ‘fixed’ - that’s a dog who is shut down. Just like every other ‘fixed’ dog who comes out of CM’s facility, he’s uncomfortable and unwilling to move or interact for fear of the reaction he’ll get. Who knows what else happened to this pup off camera that’s causing him to act that way? I don’t think we’ll ever know, but this is not the body language of a dog who has gone through a successful and humane behavioral modification program.

I have been tracking this whole tampon recall business very closely. I’ve saved every article, even though they are extremely limited. I have collected any testimony I can find online. It’s an important issue to me for many reasons, the first being I’m a woman and I happen to menstruate every month. The second being I was one of the 60% of women affected by this recall.

I have decided to document my exact experience, in case something even worse starts to happen. I bet a lot of you reading this have had a similar experience with the recall. If so, please let me know. You are not alone. I live in America so I can only speak to my own experience, although I know similar events occurred in the UK, Canada, and other countries.

I was offered large sums of money to keep my story quiet. We all were. But I am not taking their money. Women died because of this. I saw a woman waste away in front of me and they want me to shut up? Never. I don’t care what happens now.

It was last November when I started experiencing symptoms. Now take into account – I’ve been using tampons since I was fifteen. I know all about toxic shock syndrome and basic hygiene. I am no menstruation newbie.

But that month I started experiencing something odd. I got my period near the 1st, like I typically do. About a day into my period I started feeling an intense itching sensation. It wasn’t a normal itch. It felt like someone was dragging a rake down the inside of my vagina. I wasn’t worried it was an STD, since I hadn’t had sex in almost a year. I spent the whole day at work uncomfortable, squirming around in my chair. I couldn’t wait to get home.

When I finally did I drew a bath. I took off my clothes, took out my tampon, and lowered myself into the water. The warm water made everything much better. I breathed a sigh of relief. It must have just been a weird reaction to something. I got out, put in a new tampon, and went to sleep.

I woke up in the middle night in extreme pain. The itching was back but now it was more like razors. I pulled away my covers to see that my lower half was covered in blood. I screamed and tried to get to the bathroom, but my legs were too wobbly from the pain. I ended up crawling there, sobbing. It seriously felt like someone was cutting me up from the inside.

I managed to kneel by my bathtub and fill it with water. I reached down tentatively, afraid that taking out the tampon would cause me even more pain. I slid it out and stared. The tampon looked as if it had been ripped apart while it was inside of me. I got into the bathtub, but the pain didn’t stop. If anything it got worse.

I remember getting lightheaded. I realized that the blood filling up the tub wasn’t just my period. I must have wounds inside my vagina that were bleeding heavily. I was losing too much blood. The water was drawing it all out of me and my mind was getting fuzzy. I blacked out.

Thank god my neighbor heard me screaming and called 911. I woke up in the hospital. My legs were in stirrups. The pain had dulled, although I could still feel an ache from between my legs. I moaned in agony.

My sounds must have alerted the doctor, who shuffled over to me. I looked up at him. “What happened to me?”

He frowned and checked one of the machines I was hooked up to. “You lost a lot of blood. You can’t get into bath if you’ve got a cut that deep. That’s how people kill themselves!” He sighed. “You are the thirteenth woman to be admitted here with these kinds of wounds. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened. It just started suddenly.”

“Let me guess – are you menstruating?”

I squinted at him. “Yeah.”

“Did you use a tampon?”

“Yeah…”

And that’s when he told me about the recall. Apparently it hadn’t gone public yet, but companies had alerted the surgeon general that they were about to announce a world-wide recall of all tampons. The surgeon general had alerted hospitals that they may see an influx of patients with extreme wounds inside their vaginas.

Bastards, right?

I was too injured to go home so I stayed at the hospital. My wounds were not getting any better. A doctor would stitch me up (thank god for morphine) but within a few hours the stitches would be broken. They ruled out a rash and knew I wasn’t doing it to myself. A nurse told me that by my second day there were forty other women in the same condition. I learned later that two women had already died.

I was terrified. I had no idea what was wrong with me and the pain was horrible. If it weren’t for the drugs they gave me I might not have made it.

It was ten days later that the press conference was held. I watched it from my bed. I was now always hooked up with pints of new blood, since I kept losing so much. By this time I wasn’t menstruating anymore. It was all blood lost from the cuts that kept ripping up my vagina.

The woman who gave the press conference wore a neat pink skirt-suit. She repped Tampax, but all the brands were giving the same speech. She said that something had contaminated the entire stock of tampons. She called it an ‘unfortunate event.’ She recommended that anyone who had used a tampon in the past month report immediately to a hospital. She said that although there were extreme medical concerns associated with the tampon use, there was a cure. It was called Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis. I figured it was the technical medical term for some drug. She apologized once (ONLY ONCE!) and then the press conference was over.

After the broadcast, the hospital was filled with women. They didn’t have enough rooms for everyone. Eventually there were two cots brought into my room and I now had two ‘roommates.’ Their names were Mary and Justine. I was honestly grateful for the company.

Mary was in terrible shape. She had used the tampons for her entire period (almost 7 days) and ignored her pain and bleeding. She had no insurance so she didn’t go to a hospital. Justine told me that the ‘infection’ had spread to her uterus and was most likely loose in her body. Mary’s skin was gray and she was always crying. The doctor gave her as much pain meds as possible, but it didn’t help. Justine and I would talk lightly while Mary sobbed in her bed.

They gave us the cure as soon as it arrived to the hospital. It was contained in a pill that we were supposed to put inside our vaginas. The pill would disintegrate and the medicine would be absorbed. Of course, the insertion was incredibly painful. But I just wanted this horror story to be over.

No one told us…no one said what would happen. No one told us exactly what was going on. That’s why they offered us all a settlement after it was over. If we stay quiet, they can rebuild. But what I saw that night will live with me forever.

Once the suppository was in place, the doctor left our room and closed the door. It was a bit weird that he closed the door, but I didn’t notice it at the time. I made some stupid joke about this being the most action I’ve got in months. Justine laughed, I think. Mary was whimpering. A few hours passed. We watched stupid TV and chatted aimlessly.

Right around 11pm Justine said she felt something weird. I looked over at her and she was twitching. I asked her if I should call the nurse but my mouth went dry. I could see them coming out under her gown. There must have been thousands.

Thousands of tiny ants started crawling out of her. She began to scream. They moved with robotic symmetry. All of them following each other out from between her legs. They crawled up her body onto her face. She tried to swat them off of her but there were too many. They all crawled to the top of her head and sat there. They were covered in blood. They tracked blood on her skin as they crawled. I pushed the nurse button again and again but no one came. Yells were echoing from the other rooms as well.

Then Mary started to scream. I was afraid to look but couldn’t take my eyes away. Ants started crawling out of her as well, but they also seemed to come from other places. Then it donned on me – they were eating through her skin to get to the surface. The ‘infection’ had spread to so much of her body that the ants were everywhere, digging their way up to the top of her head. I watched in horror was one ant borrowed out of her eye. She stopped screaming and started gurgling. I’m ashamed to say I looked away. She was going to die from this.

It happened to me too, but I don’t want to go into detail. Just know it was the worst thing to have ever happened to me. I can’t sleep because I still see them crawling over my skin, leaving marks of red all over me. I can’t go an hour without feeling like they are still crawling on me.

No amount of money will erase those memories.

It turns out Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis is a fungus. It eats ants from the inside and takes a hold of their brains. It makes them go to the highest point they can before killing the ant. The surgeon general must have been forced to use this because the ants were borrowed so deep in our bodies that typical methods couldn’t reach them.

The doctors knew the entire time that we had ants inside of us, but said nothing. The tampon rep said nothing. They allowed us to suffer by ourselves in the unknown. Bastards.

Like most of the women affected, I have lasting damage. My vagina is scarred and sex is nearly impossible. Even worse, I will never be able to carry children. For weeks afterwards a lone ant would climb out of me, finally submitting to the fungus. I used to worry that I would never get rid of them.

We have no idea what effect the fungus itself will have on us. I heard a rumor in my support group that an affected woman climbed to the top of a telephone poll before dying, just like the ants did.

Needless to say, I don’t use tampons anymore.