Now understand this: Toni has dedicated herself and her life to her art. Despite countless obstacles and difficulties of every kind — financial (LOTS of financial obstacles; this is the United States, after all, and she is an artist, who does not come from family money, and married a public school teacher, the poor misguided fool), personal, medical, emotional, cultural, and practical — she has always made art. Starting when she was a tiny child (Who looked pretty much like this:)
Toni has spent her life drawing and painting, observing, learning, practicing, training, hoping, dreaming, trying — and living –but mostly, drawing and painting. It is her favorite thing to do, her solace, her source of self. And she is absolutely incredible.
She set out to depict how animals are, despite their generally kind nature, slowly building up rage over how humans have treated them, and treated the Earth that we all share. In dozens of drawings like this one:
This was an Inktober sketch, one of 31 she did in the month of October: one ink sketch per day.
And paintings like this one:
This is Llombie. He is a llama zombie. I love him.
She has depicted animals in unusual ways, often exploring the interactions between humans and animals, the ways humans use animals, and particularly the ways animals reflect human ideas, and the way human ideas impact animals. Sometimes the humans and animals are friends:
Just a sketchbook page she posted, but I love the toad
And sometimes they are not:
Another Inktober sketch
A few years ago, that morphed into the Anarchy Animals: in drawings and sketches and paintings, animal portraits started suddenly including the anarchy sign, which she was using to show that animals were someday going to rise up and overthrow their oppressors. Worldwide anarchy. Led by such as these:
Anarchat
And this:
And this one, where the anger is growing more clear, and more dangerous:
Eventually, she decided to do a full series of paintings of animals in this theme, all inspired by creatures exploited and threatened by humans, creatures whom she would depict fighting back. That series, Animal Anarchy, led to these two paintings (The series is ongoing):
And when she happened upon a call for entries for a show that would focus on the theme of Animal Activism, she entered both of these paintings. And, of course, she won. The koala piece won First Place in the Painting category for all entries, and an Honorable Mention for Overall Best In Show; the ostrich piece won Honorable Mention in the Painting category.
And I just want to share with everyone how amazing and unbelievably talented and fiercely imaginative my wife is. And how proud I am of her. Because she is the best artist, and the best partner (but more importantly, the best artist), I have ever known or ever hope to know.
Never have been. Never had one, I am not an uncle (nor an aunt); my friends have kids but I generally wasn’t around them when they were babies –my friends’ kids, that is, I certainly wasn’t around my friends when they were babies, if they ever were. (I mean, I can’t be sure, right? I wasn’t around. Sure, they say they were babies… though hang on, I’m not even sure they ever said it… This bears looking into.) When I have been around my friends’ babies, I have generally been a little intimidated: I worry that they’re too fragile, that I shouldn’t touch them or pick them up in case I drop them. It is weird that they are tiny things that will grow up into complete humans. I can’t really grasp it.
But I do not feel that way about animal babies. I absolutely adore puppies and kittens and tadpoles and chicks. I think they’re amazing, and though they are often very fragile, I still want to pick them up and cuddle them and kiss them on their awkwardly big heads.
So I’m learning to be more fond of human puppies. I guess. Still kinda weird, those little things. Though they do generally have nice eyes. And cute toe-beans.
One thing I know for sure: new babies, new life, is magical and precious, and heartening, in a time like this. I have a friend, a former student, who just had a beautiful healthy daughter this last Friday; her first. Alexandria. Everybody’s fine. My friend is going to be a good mom. I don’t want to share pictures, because it’s not my story to celebrate; but it is news worthy of celebrating, so here it is.
And here’s another birth worth celebrating, which I can share:
Okay. Let’s be clear. I am in favor of science. Scientific advancements save lives and improve the quality of our lives. I am also of the opinion that our highest calling as human beings is to create beauty, and to discover truth.
But this? This is not beautiful.
Of the 11 transgenic macaque monkeys they generated, six died. The five survivors went through a series of tests, including MRI brain scans and memory tests. It turned out they didn’t have bigger brains than a control group of macaques, but they did perform better on short-term memory tasks. Their brains also developed over a longer period of time, which is typical of human brains.
I am, of course, generally not in favor of animal experimentation, nor human experimentation — I say “Of course” not because I presume my audience knows that I am a humanist, a pacifist, a vegetarian and an animal lover, but because I am a thinking, feeling human, and thinking feeling humans should all generally oppose experimentation on sentient creatures. I understand that sometimes animal experimentation is necessary. Medical advancements, for instance: when those experiments move forward, lives are saved and lives are improved, and that is probably worth the cost. It is sometimes impossible to move a project forward without live subjects, and animals are probably better subjects than humans, ethically speaking.
But this is not a medical advancement. This does not help humans live longer, nor better. This was done entirely, completely, because they could.
Although the sample size was very small, the scientists excitedly described the study as “the first attempt to experimentally interrogate the genetic basis of human brain origin using a transgenic monkey model.” In other words, part of the point of the study was to help tackle a question about evolution: How did we humans develop our unique brand of intelligence, which has allowed us to innovate in ways other primates can’t?
They excitedly described the study as the first attempt to do BIG FANCY SCIENCE WORDS. The attempt to answer that question is nonsense: how a macaque is affected by people injecting weird DNA into its genome has nothing whatsoever to do with human evolution, and anyone with a high school education knows it. There’s no possible way to isolate the variables and find specific information. I’m sure this would give hints that could lead to new knowledge — but six dead animals and five fucked-up ones seems a very high price for hints.
And of course, though I do not like slippery slope arguments, there’s no need to speculate about this experiment leading to more like it, coming faster and going farther: that’s already happening.
The Chinese researchers suspect the MCPH1 gene is part of the answer. But they’re not stopping there. One of them, Bing Su, a geneticist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, told MIT Technology Review that he’s already testing other genes involved in brain evolution:
One that he has his eye on is SRGAP2C, a DNA variant that arose about two million years ago, just when Australopithecus was ceding the African savannah to early humans. That gene has been dubbed the “humanity switch” and the “missing genetic link” for its likely role in the emergence of human intelligence. Su says he’s been adding it to monkeys, but that it’s too soon to say what the results are.
Su has also had his eye on another human gene, FOXP2, which is believed to have graced us with our language abilities. Pondering the possibility of adding that gene to monkeys, Su toldNature in 2016, “I don’t think the monkey will all of a sudden start speaking, but will have some behavioral change.” He would not be breaking any laws.
Ohhh, he would NOT be breaking any laws! Well, shit, I guess that’s fine, then.
The article goes on to make a fairly obscure point, which is that monkeys made to be more like humans will suffer even more in a constricted lab environment; it also points out that “normal” monkeys suffer enough as it is, that macaques have intricate and important social lives that they can’t experience in a lab. This is all true, and makes this experiment unethical — or it would, if there was any ethical argument to be made for this experiment.
Look, I understand that science does not always have clear connections to a practical use. My father, a nuclear physicist, spent his career working on multi-billion dollar projects that had no direct application in the world. But of course practical application was not the point: expanding knowledge leads to better understanding, which leads to both greater expansion of knowledge and, at some point, practical applications, which is where longer and better human lives come in. But we can’t just focus on the eventual positive outcome: we have to consider the cost right now, and the benefit right now, with the potential benefit considered only after that. And the cost of this experiment is much too high, while the benefit from it is — little more than bragging rights. This doesn’t change our understanding of human evolution, it confirms, slightly, something we already thought was true. It can’t confirm it too conclusively, because again, macaques infected with human DNA are not the same thing as Australopithecines evolving under natural selection. Not even close.
Last two things I want to point out about this: one, Chinese geneticists have already altered human DNA, entirely against any standard of scientific ethics. (They may have arrested the scientist who did it, but really, what does that even mean in China?)
And two, China is not the only nation involved. Of course not.
A standard monkey in China costs about $1,500, compared to roughly $6,000 in the United States. The daily costs of food and care are an order of magnitude lower as well.
In the past few years, China has seen a miniature explosion of genetic engineering in monkeys. In Kunming, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, scientists have created monkeys engineered to show signs of Parkinson’s, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, autism, and more.
Because of the relative ease of conducting primate research there, some researchers regularly travel from the US to China for scientific work on monkeys. As Zhang pointed out, researchers at Emory University recently collaborated with scientists in China who work on genetically modified monkeys. And Su’s study involved University of North Carolina computer scientist Martin Styner. Styner, who told MIT Tech Review that his participation was minimal, said he considered pulling his name from the study and has come to believe such research is not “a good direction.”
Although the US is not green-lighting studies like Su’s, American universities that collaborate with Chinese scientists on such studies may still be complicit in any ethical harm they cause.
Congratulations! This morning you have been visited by the Sunday Sloth.
The Sunday Sloth gives you his permission to be slothful today. You may do as little as you like, particularly if it means you get to rest and relax and recuperate. G’ ahead; if sloths can live their lives this slowly, then you can slow down a little, too. At least for today.
And hey look! It’s the Happ Corgo of Happiness! That means you are allowed to be happy today, no matter what! So even if you feel like you can’t be slothy (Which would be a shame, because you would disappoint the Sunday Sloth. You don’t want to do that, do you?), you should be happy while you do your necessaries. The Happ Corgo insists.
LOOK! HE BROUGHT THE HAPPUPPER WITH HIM! Well, now you have to be TWICE as happy.
I know this isn’t unique; maybe not even unusual. And though it may seem like it is to other people, especially the petless and those on the lower end of the imagination spectrum, it isn’t even strange or nonsensical: our pets, like any sentient thing, have personalities, and the clearest way for humans to depict that is to put it into words. We also do pantomime and funny voices for all of the pets, but that isn’t something I’m prepared to re-create on this blog.
So just the words will have to do.
What I have noticed over the years of speaking for my pets is this: my pets are smart. Very smart. Also kind of insane, but still — smart. The things they have to say, when we humans try to step outside ourselves and solidify their apparent perspective, are often true and even insightful things. This may be exactly because the attempt to speak in another persona allows us to step outside our own egos, and gain a new and perhaps clearer perspective; it may be because animals don’t care about the same bullshit that humans care about, and when you are speaking for an animal, it is impossible to speak like a human. It may be because I actually like animals better than humans, and so when I am speaking for them I tend, consciously or not, to make them sound like better people than human people generally are.
Though that last one isn’t entirely true. Because I speak for Dunkie, too, and he’s crazy. But also very sweet. And he don’t take no shit off of nobody, which is something that is not true for me, and which I admire and envy.
Regardless, whether it is escaping my own ego, or escaping a human’s perspective and a human’s baggage, or even if it is just that I want to make my pets seem like good people, it seems to me that their advice is worth listening to. So I’m going to be giving them a regular sort of column on this blog, and asking them what they have to say about the world we all share.
First, let me have them introduce themselves.
Duncan the Cockatiel:
This is Duncan. He insists on going first, because he’s the oldest, and because he believes he is the most important.
YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I’M THE MOST IMPORTANT! Yeah, that’s right — because it’s all about Dunkie. Oh! Right, yeah, introduce myself. Okay, LISTEN UP! I’m Duncan. I am named for a king. KING DUNKIE! I bring beauty into this house.
My feathers are pure white, and very clean and neat, because I spend the majority of my wakey-time grooming myself. I have a beautiful gold crest and awesome orange cheeks, and I whistle and sing and make kissy noises when I feel like it.
When I don’t feel like it, THAT’S WHEN I START SCREAMING!
I can be very loud. BUT ONLY WHEN THEY DON’T DO WHAT I WANT! I can’t help it. I’m very small and I’m stuck in a cage. I don’t have a lot of weapons. I can bite, and I threaten that a lot. Doesn’t seem to work, though. BUT THE SCREAMING DOES! Yeah, it works good. It gets a real response, you better believe it. They always think they can ignore me, BUT NOBODY IGNORES DUNKIE! Even though I’m a tiny little pretty bird, I AM A FOUNT OF RAGE! It never lasts very long, though. But the screaming can go on and on and on and on because nobody is as stubborn as a bird. But then they just cover me up. That makes me stop screaming.
But really, all they’re doing is making me swallow my rage. The screams don’t stop, they just go inside.
For now.
It’ll come back later. Rage always does. You better believe it, pal. Just as soon as you do something I don’t like. Yeah.
I’M DUNKIE!
Oh yeah — and I can be very sweet, sometimes, too. I picked Mama out special when she came into the pet shop where I was living when I was new. Birds are usually standoffish to strangers, but I walked right up to her and put my foot out, reaching for her shoulder so I could stand on her. I still like to cuddle and have her give me skritchies. And then I close my eyes and make the tiniest little peeping noise.
It’s almost enough to make you forget about the rage.
Almost.
This is Samwise. Samwise, also known as Sammy, also known as the Fox in Socks (the Spitz in Spats), is the middle child (we think — both his age and the tortoise’s age are somewhat in doubt.) and is the sweet one.
HEYYO!* I am Samwise! I am a goodwill ambassador, that’s what my persons say. These are my persons, my mom and my pop.
I call them that because they took me in when I was in the joint. See, I used to have different persons, but they abandoneded me, and then I had to live on the street for a while. I came pretty close to starving to death, and it made me very scared and anxious. Then I got picked up and put in the shelter — but the dogs call it the joint, because though it sort of is shelter because you get a roof and food and water and stuff, you’re still locked in a cage, and you’re alone and scared pretty much all the time, which is why all the dogs in the joint bark a lot and act really mad. Because they’re scared and they don’t know why they don’t have a home any more, because we all used to have homes and persons, and then all of a sudden we don’t, and we’re in the joint.
The joint changes a dog.
But it didn’t change me!** Because I am super sweet, and very friendly and curious. (Though I still get scared sometimes.) I like everybody. I greet everyone and let them all pet me — I am very soft and fluffy. I never ever growl or bark, and I am not afraid of strangers — I like to stand up and pat them on the tum, because I like tum rubs and I think everyone should have tum rubs. My mom and pop think it’s amazing that I’m still so friendly and sweet, because I have plenty of reasons not to be, from my early life before I came to live here. But they don’t understand: that was all in the past. Now I have a nice home, and lots of food and tasty treats, and two persons that love me and will always take care of me, even though I bit my mom on the first day she brought me home because I got anxious and freaked out like I do sometimes, but they didn’t bring me back to the joint like the persons who took me home before them who only kept me for a week and then brought me back, or the ones before them who did the same thing (Pop says it’s because people suck, and because I have this thing they call tick fever from when I was on the street and it means I need to go to the vet and get medicine and tests and stuff and it costs money and the persons who took me home didn’t want to pay for me, but I don’t know what money is and I don’t even like the vet because they poke me with owie things but then they give me treats so it isn’t too bad but still if I could I would skip the whole thing and I’d really rather just have persons even if they don’t take me to the vet because all I really want is a home. And I have one now. So the persons who didn’t keep me before, that was just because they weren’t the right persons. I had to wait for just the right persons. And I found them!). So now I have a home, where I get to sleep in the bed, and I get two walks a day, and I get treats all the time, and they always pet me when I want them to and rub my tum and everything.
So why shouldn’t I be happy? See how nice persons are? Just look at my mom and pop! I think they’re awesome!
Okay I have to go now! Now you get to say heyyo to my outside brother! He doesn’t live in the house because he poops everywhere. I don’t know what the problem is. His poop seems pretty easy to clean up. But then I guess I’m not the one who cleans it. Anyway, he lives outside and he seems to like it. Okay bye!
(*Sammy’s greeting is pronounced like “Hello” with a Spanish “ll,” pronounced as a “y,” like “La Jolla.” It does not sound like Ed McMahon’s response to Johnny Carson jokes.)
(**Actually, it changed him quite a bit. When we brought him home, he weighed 25 pounds; he is now almost twice that, and has three times as much fur. Before and after:)
Neo is an African spurred tortoise. We named him Neo because he was a gift from our former landlady, and when I was looking up African names, I found that “Neo” is a gender-neutral name that means “gift” in Tswana. We pronounce it like the name of the Keanu Reeves character from the Matrix, though I am sure that the actual word is pronounced differently; but we love the Matrix movies, and I sort of like the idea that the tortoise is actually the messiah. The actual word for the tort is “calm.”
Hello. I’m Neo. I like food. Especially grass.
This was the new sod we got for him, and the fence that didn’t keep him out. (Photobomb by Sammy’s butt.)
Food is good. So is sleep. I like to hide so no one bothers me. Especially that furry guy (“HEYYO!”). He sniffs me a lot. He moves too much. And too fast. You have to take your time, because otherwise you might miss things. Like food. I eat pretty much anything. I can’t see very well, so I usually try to eat everything I can find. Then I sleep.
Sleep is good.
I have a shell because I don’t want to be bothered, but usually I walk around a lot and look for food. I can walk surprisingly fast, especially when one of the tall people come out and come near me, because they usually have food and I walk straight to them as quick as I can. Which is pretty quick. Not that quick.
Not as quick as the sniffer. I have an extra house, like a shell for my shell.
I sleep in there because it has a warm rock* that I like to sleep on. Warm is good. Sleep is good. I walk around every day and graze, and eat my plate of salad, and then I go and lie in the sun or lie on my warm rock and sleep.
*Warm rock=heated basking spot designed for tortoises. Basically a hard plastic tile with a heating coil inside.
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Just Dusty 