Large Fierce Mammal

Gird your loins Brethren and Sistren, for another Winter campaign! (click to enbiggen)

Beginning today and running up to include New Year’s Eve, this will be the first in an eleven part series of articles in which I will make personal observations on the season of Yule as I have come, and am still coming, to know it.

With those words a year ago, I ended my introduction to the first iteration of A Long Winter’s Night. It was well received, and now it’s back.

This is a particularly interesting time to start because according to a lot of people, a group of people they know next to nothing about did some time keeping things they also know next to nothing about, and somehow calculated that the world will end today. I find this remarkably similar to another Apocalypse I survived not so long ago when, according to a lot of people, another group of people they knew next to nothing about did some time keeping things they also knew next to nothing about, and thereby guaranteed that the world as they knew it would end at the instant all computer clocks on the planet recognized the magic moment when the year 1999 turned to 2000.

I’m not going to be overly wordy about this – at least not now. Instead, I’m turning commentary over to The Burning Hell. What better harbinger of the inescapable Truth that Winter is coming?

First, and most gripping, dance the Apocalypso to When the World Ends.

And finish with Last Winter.

Welcome to A Long Winter’s Night 2012.

This is a mild example, but the message of pictures like this makes my eye twitch. Best of all, the magic of facebook brings us more examples every day!

I ask why the definition of a good dog is often, “You can do anything to him.” That wouldn’t make any sense if phrased in terms of other relationships: “I have a really good wife. You can do anything to her.” Creepy! ~ Madeline Clark Gabriel

The quotation above came from an excellent article titled Safety Aside, What Happened to Respect?, brought to my attention by our Esteemed Friend Silvia Jay. I urge you to read it through and absorb what it has to say before going further.

Following on last Wednesday’s introduction to what we’ll be talking about for the next few WWW episodes, today we’ll be looking at what I like to call the Great Divide. I wish that my use of that term described the terra incognita lying between the way a thing really is, and the way it is perceived to be, for such a case as that would permit an easy mapping of the unknown terrain through the eradication of ignorance by education and study. Problem is, we don’t always get what we wish for.

Rather, I use “Great Divide” to describe a state created when willful ignorance sold and bought as truth brings about an unwillingness to understand the way a thing really is in favour of embracing a false “knowing” based on the way it is desired to be. The example I’ve chosen to illustrate this is one I know a fair bit about – Dogs.

I’ve quoted J. Allen Boone before and will continue to whenever it suits my purpose. In fact, I’m going to do it again right now because, as is said, truer words were never spoken – “There’s facts about Dogs, and then there’s opinions about them. The Dogs have the facts, and the humans have the opinions. If you want the facts about the Dog, always get them straight from the Dog. If you want opinions, get them from humans.”

For a Dog living in the society of Man, tolerance and understanding are required on both sides. A Dog must have a sufficient level of tolerance and understanding to permit safe and comfortable coexistence with Humans, and Humans must reciprocate in equal measure. This situation grows Trust built on one key ingredient – MUTUAL RESPECT. There is no sliding scale of Respect to be applied differently to Humans, Dogs, Deer, Trees, your personal and professional conduct, or operation of dangerous machinery. There is only Respect.

I’ll give you a week to study and talk on this, then we’ll meet here again.

Yesterday I put out my observations and personal position on the predictable Hell in a handcart response to last week’s school attacks – in short, when evil incarnate stalks the land, blame the thing that’s in its hand.

In a comment on that piece, Mrs. LFM posted a link to a Gawker.com article titled I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother that I want to specifically spotlight here because it contains a reference that illustrates the ineffectiveness of taking away the tools as an answer to homicidal rage.

I’m specifically referring to this:

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7- and 9-year-old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

Encapsulated in this one little snippet is a personalized representation of desperation and helplessness in the face of a rampaging maniac, temporarily resolved by the usual process of negotiation coupled with immediate lock down of people and force multiplying tools to minimize casualties. Did it work? In the short term, yes, as evidenced by the fact that nobody died, but the measures taken were very risky emergency action drills necessitated by known and long standing behaviours that had never been resolved. They were not answers.

If you read the article in its entirety, you will see that they had no effect on eliminating the danger, only averting it. In the end, the security and safety of this family was restored only by removal of the causal element – the troubled son. The actions of two troubled sons half a world apart are why we’re having this conversation.

If your anger goes forth, withhold your sword; If your sword goes forth, withhold your anger. ~ swordsman’s axiom

Last week’s tragic attacks on school children in the United States and China have been met with the predictable media frenzy and polarized posturing on both sides of the gun control demarcation line. It happens every time and I’m about as fed up with it as I can get.

I am a highly skilled shooter and gun owner, as well as an accredited hunter safety and firearms trainer. I am also trained and skilled in methods of dealing death employing means that make a lot less noise. These are a part of my Martial training, and as such, they represent components of the package that goes to making me ME. I don’t practice any of them out of a burning need to hurt or kill. Quite the opposite actually, because the learning of your own measure has to come before the moment of Truth, only at the end of rational, intelligently approached preparation, and the internalizing of the Fact that he wins the greatest victory who succeeds without need to engage in battle.

I am a hunter, and so have demonstrated that I carry within me the willingness and ability to take the life of a fellow creature. I am honoured to have the Love of the finest Woman I could ever imagine, even on my most imaginative days, and we have worthy dependents who look to us for everything they need. While I have never yet been called upon to do it, and expend every effort to minimize the chances of ever having to, I have no doubt that if push came to shove, I would inflict every manner of mayhem within my power, up to and including taking the life of anything, or anyone, who attempted to harm any of mine, and the only thing that would save the attacker from my wrath would be immediate retreat or complete surrender. I am not an executioner or vigilante, nor am I a walking anti-personnel mine treading the Earth in anticipation of some hapless nutter triggering my fuse. I am simply a creature of Nature, vigilant to avoid conflict, but willing to fight to the end. My philosophy and motivation in this is sewn throughout this website for all to see.

Chase the Rabbit, generally held to be among the meekest of creatures, and you will soon learn that its conflict resolution skills begin with fleetness of foot. Yet corner it and seek to take it in hand while it still draws breath and it will teach you of other skills – those of tooth and claw. As is said, the thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.

As I sit at my desk writing this, I am in the company of one exceptionally fine Woman, and six trusty companions of the canine persuasion. Every one of those I just described has the ability and willingness to do as Nature has prepared them to do, and yet I am comforted instead of concerned. Yesterday, Mrs. LFM and I attended a movie in the company of two Gentleman friends, one a law enforcement official who works armed daily, both of whom own firearms and a selection of other lethal implements, and are possessed of the skill and willingness to employ them should the need arise. They know the measure of us, and we know the same of them. We live in a country wherein the tools of defense permitted to be carried by law abiding citizens such as we are limited, but limitations notwithstanding, that portion of the theatre occupied by our company was made a safer place because, put to the test, everyone in it would fight to the end, as Nature intended, with bare hands, teeth, knees, and elbows if needs must.

I recently had cause to interact in a matter that involved a local man with serious anger management issues, and a seemingly bottomless inability to end relationships without attracting the police. His propensity for employing the internet and text messaging to harass and threaten anyone he got mad at – and women breaking up with him after inevitably discovering what an ass hat he is were a particularly sore point – led to his arrest and confiscation of all means by which he could perpetrate his bullshit. I mention this because this man’s case is far from rare or atypical in the world, and yet there has so far been no public outcry in favour of banning computers, cel phones, iPads, or the internet in general, on the grounds that if it just saves one woman from harassment, then it’s worth it. I may be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that even if this man, or another thousand like him, had successfully badgered anyone into ending their own life using the same tools, there would be no such outcry.

So, that brings me to an article I read this morning, and that I feel represents a shining example of why the problems that led to the recent attacks on school children are unlikely to result in any kind of meaningful response. Written by David Callaway for USA Today, it bears the title Kids died in Connecticut school shooting, but not in China attack. Column: Time to take a stand on gun control.

The article opens with these lines:

Several hours before Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults Friday in an attack on a school in Newtown, Conn., a 36-year-old man a half-a-world away in China attacked 22 children at a primary school. None of the kids died. The reason? The man in China had only a knife.

Troubled or deranged attackers are not an American phenomenon. Guns are. Guns make the attacker more lethal.

Motherfucker.

Two men decided on the same day to take a weapon in hand and attack defenseless children. I will stand here before you right now and tell you that I don’t care what was in the hands of either – gun, knife, baseball bat, rock, or pointed stick. What was in the hand matters not a bit because the outcome was the result of what was in the mind.

Children were attacked using lethal weapons wielded by two unconnected men on opposite sides of the Earth, and the Great Truth Mr. Callaway sifted from it all was that the incident in China represents conclusive evidence that gun control needs to be revisited. That somehow, if the crazed among us were limited to cold steel, the world would be a kinder, gentler place. That stabbed and slashed children are somehow better off than dead ones. Mr. Callaway, you are too far from me and not worth the effort in any case, but with all due respect, and with the utmost sincerity, I would ask that you promptly invite your largest best male friend to kick you in the taint three times while he is simultaneously imagining planting a fence post in hard packed earth. As you bask in the afterglow of that, I want you to meditate on how much better off you are than if he’d shot you instead. Imagine that instead of doing it by invitation, he’d assaulted you for reasons of his own. I think you’ll come to realize it’s not the method that matters to the target, only the outcome and how the why might have been changed for the better.

If a month ago I had gathered up and disposed of every potentially hurtful item in my possession – every firearm, blade, and bludgeon – and employed all my eloquence to convince every one of my worthy Comrades to do the same, the world would not be a better or safer place, the events under discussion today would still have occurred, and bastards such as those who planned and perpetrated the late unpleasantness would still go abroad unhindered. Focus on the issues that caused this, if you can find them under the bullshit.

The words “lost knowledge” conjure imaginings of arcane wisdom once known in antiquity, but that has disappeared from the ken of Man leaving the world a lesser place. Regrettably, this is not the case because, more often than not, knowledge isn’t so much lost as misplaced, and each year more time is spent by researchers who are attempting to solve a problem in first researching whether or not someone else has already solved it. If you think on this a moment, you will see how it can come to pass that a solution to a very real problem may be solved in intricate detail, and then shelved rather than implemented.

Let’s say that tomorrow, a team of engineers develop a design for a high efficiency engine that would permit a medium sized vehicle to travel 100 kilometers on a fuel load consisting of a single milliliter of Scotch whisky. Beautifully engineered, all the calculations and computer models show that it will work perfectly, except for one small fly in the ointment – all moving parts, plus the lubricant they will require, must be made from from materials that don’t yet exist, and that nobody has so far devised a development path at the end of which they may reasonably be expected to exist.

Fast forward now 25 or 30 years, and we find a new crew of young turks wishing they had a way of using up all the surplus Scotch whisky in the world in some way that will benefit the greater good. After a few weeks of diligent scavenging, they turn up the design aforesaid and immediately go to the Canadian Tire website to order the materials they need, all of which are now mundane, over the counter items.

This facetious example highlights a situation that confronts anyone who seeks research funding – first proving that the thing you’re trying to do hasn’t been done before. Just saying, “What do you mean? It’s not being done, so I think if it had been done we’d be doing it now,” isn’t enough because inventors are often ahead of their time. A design for an airplane supported by detailed, working, proof of concept models will not yield a useful man carrying flying machine if your current level of technology cannot also build a means of propulsion that is at once sufficiently light in weight, and powerful enough, to make it work, but that doesn’t make the work any less valid as far as you were able to take it. Get my drift?

Not all problems require a technological solution, and in fact not all problems were even problems until previously known knowledge was somehow forgotten. In these cases, more often than not, knowledge that was once in general use fades into obscurity when it comes to be generally held that new ways of thinking, possibly combined with a technological crutch, have rendered it obsolete. Too often, this leads to the adoption of inferior methods, much effort expended to redefine inferior as the new superior, and the appearance of problems that never existed before that both afflict and come to be blamed upon a previously unafflicted party.

Let this be your introduction to an area of lost knowledge that has tenaciously refused to disappear – the reality of the Dog. The next few Worldly Wisdom Wednesdays will shed a light.

Today’s Worldly Wisdom Wednesday has been delayed for special treatment thanks to late breaking events, so to give you something fun to do while you wait, I want you all to learn this song.

This morning on the CBC News website I found an article with the title Cole Harbour child recovering after pit bull bite. Lest it gets the usual, all too common, retroactive CBC editorial treatment, I’ll supplement the direct link just provided by quoting the article in its entirety, as it appeared this morning:

A four-year-old girl bitten by a pit bull in Cole Harbour was taken to the IWK Health Centre in Halifax on Sunday. RCMP were called to a home on Arklow Drive at about 1:15 p.m.

Staff Sgt. Peter Ferguson said the girl’s injuries were non-life threatening.

“The child was actually a visitor to the residence at the time of the incident,” said Ferguson. “I’m not sure whether the child was familiar with the dog or not from past experiences. The pit bull remains in the custody of the homeowner on Arklow Drive where the bite occurred.”

Ferguson said he doesn’t think the dog has bitten anyone in the past.

Members of HRM’s Animal Services are investigating to determine if the owner will face charges and what will happen to the dog.

So, to sum up, a four year old girl visiting a residence was bitten by the family Dog – a Dog believed by police to have no prior bite history – and subsequently taken to hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Police were called, and left the Dog in the custody of its owners, inferring that they did not regard the animal to be an ongoing threat to public safety. The matter was referred to HRM Animal Services for investigation and further action as deemed warranted.

The events as described, while undeniably traumatic for all involved – including the Dog – are far from notable. This week in Canada alone, similar stories will play out repeatedly, for reasons I’ve previously discussed in such articles as Some Tales From the Unpredictability Chronicles – Kid and Dogs. Exacerbating the potential for disaster at this time of year is that the households of the nation are presently in the throes of playing host to holiday gatherings that bring excited children, family pets, tantalizing foods and smells, and frazzled, distracted parents into tight quarters.

As a professional Dog behaviour consultant, I don’t expect any news reporter to provide the kind of details that might permit some sort of intelligent assessment of what transpired between the girl and the Dog in Cole Harbour, but I do expect responsible journalism. If the Dog had been roaming at large, attacked the child, and was subsequently removed from the equation by police, then I would consider it newsworthy. If the family that owned the Dog were known to be harbouring a fierce and dangerous animal, or responding police felt justified in making that assessment while on the scene, then that would be newsworthy. My assessment of the net news content of this story is that it serves primarily as a vehicle for making damn certain the reader knows the Dog involved was a Pit Bull, and that is the least important part of it.

The majority of child/Dog bite encounters share a common element that has little to do with the breed of the Dog, and that’s not simply my opinion. Rather, breed is routinely rendered irrelevant to the equation because the owners involved have behaved as though it doesn’t matter, either unknowing or uncaring that some breeds, and some individual Dogs regardless of breed, will have limited tolerance for child behaviour. Speaking for ourselves, we’ve long gone past all possible tolerance at the commonly held definition of a “good Dog” as being one that is permissive of being struck with hands and objects, having its ears, tail, and coat pulled, toys and food taken away, and being used as a punching bag/trampoline/mattress by the children of the house. While I can’t say with certainty that negligent Dog handling or parenting were the foundation of the recent Cole Harbour case, I can say that what has been reported fits the profile, breed notwithstanding.

If you spend more than five seconds next to a camp fire, you already smell better than anyone who hasn’t, and you’re painfully aware that you’re just your next shower away from ordinary. But fear not! Salvation is at hand, brought to you by Campfire Cologne.

Serendipity brought this to my attention today. Priceless.

The strongest emotion I remember from every one of those trips was the overpowering sense of freedom that came over me the moment I felt my canoe leave the shore at the start. At that instant, nothing back in the so called “civilized” world mattered. Only the real things mattered, and if you’ve ever experienced what I’m talking about, or if you ever do, you’ll know the sensation without further explanation. I was free of everything artificial and responsible only to a much higher power. ~ Being in the Wild: The Original Control/Alt/Delete

Among the problems with society is that words and the ideas they are intended to convey have become redefined over time to create problems that never existed before. Like we need that.

For example, let’s look at the word “stress”. In the 21st century lexicon, stress is a bad thing, but by Nature’s definition – the only one that matters – stress is a prime motivator in getting things done. I solve the problems of other people for a living, and have worked in what most would see as an exceptionally stressful environment for most of my professional career. By that I mean the kind of stress generated exclusively by the necessity to manage the problems created and imposed upon people by the fact that they are living, and trying to make their way, in society. These are not Natural problems of which I speak, they are, in fact, artificially generated by society, and very very toxic.

The way Nature sees it, stress is the motivator for an organism to do something to relieve it. If you’re hungry, find something to eat and eat it. Thirsty? Find water. Too cold? Seek warmth. Too hot? Seek shade or some other method of mitigation. Tired? Find a way to get some rest. Threatened? Flee or fight. Sexually aroused? If you need me to clarify the solution to that, you don’t belong here. The point is that these are real problems shared by all Nature’s creatures, and illustrate one of the reasons why your Dog doesn’t care how much money you make. Stress becomes negative when we embrace living with it in self-imposed perpetuity, permitting our action to be limited or even paralyzed completely by a belief that certain plans of attack will fly in the face of the way things are “supposed to be”, or the way others expect you to conduct your affairs. In truth, it’s not always as simple to define as that, but in far too many cases, it is. The magic lies in knowing when you’re letting yourself fall into the trap.

“Conflict” is another word that’s been handed a bum rap, and government policy makers, corporate CEO’s, and school administrators wring their hands daily over finding the best way to eliminate it from the Earth. Good luck with that.

In Nature – including the office I’m sitting in at the moment – the world is abuzz with Conflict, but for the most part with nary a raised voice, harsh word, drawn blade, nor bared fang. Conflict is inevitable when organisms in Nature compete for the same resources, but conflict and fighting are not the same thing. While fighting is an expression of conflict, not all conflict involves fighting, nor even negativity for that matter.

I’m constantly inspired by ongoing correspondence with that treasured assemblage of intimates that I regularly refer to here as Esteemed Friends – not least among them is Gary Carbone of whom I’ve spoken before. In a recent interaction that ranged from the training of Dogs to the role of fighting in Nature, I made this observation –

I always teach my Dogs to wrestle and play fight with me the way they’d do with other Dogs. Many trainers advise against this for reasons that routinely center on a supposed risk of giving the Dog the “wrong idea” about where it fits relative to you in the social order, but if you watch Dogs play fighting, you soon learn that it routinely happens between animals of uneven social status, not always between social equals. So what’s the problem? To us, it’s intimate interaction, it’s fun, it teaches the Dog to control bite pressure in a state of excitement (or else the game ends abruptly, and who likes that?), and to cease and desist the engagement immediately on command. For the human participant, it teaches the reflexes and best methods to handle a Dog who’s doing his or her best to “get” you, but in a safe, fun, positive context. Win – win from our perspective.

The more I’ve studied the application of fighting arts and delivering lethality, the more I came to eschew the posturings of “toughness” and implied violence. I always laugh at the old saying that you should never fight with an old man because if he’s too old to fight, he’ll just kill you. It carries a solid element of truth at its core methinks. Study your methods and tools, train, and don’t fight unless your predetermined limit is reached. Then it’s all in – the way animals do. Fighting is counterproductive and wasteful – NOT at one with the Way of the Wild as a point in and of itself, but as a necessary element of survival that must be learned by everything that walks, swims, slithers, or flies, each in its own way.

And so ends this Worldly Wisdom Wednesday.

Here’s a thrilling little ditty that’s as unsafe for work as you can get at this hour of the day. Yes, writers are sexy. You’ve seen my Wife – I’m living proof! That’s why writers write – because we can’t contain all the sexy, even during sex!

Here’s Rachel Bloom in the official music video of her immortal Fuck Me Ray Bradbury –