#88: The Tie that Binds Animals and Humans

I think the reason a lot of people are against the animal rights movement, or maybe they just don't care about it, is because the extremists ruin it for everyone. While PETA is great at sending undercover spies into places suspected of being cruel to animals and coming up with some great evidence to either shut them down or ruin their reputation, they are extremists. Their agenda is to turn everyone into vegans who never use animals for any purpose, even common practical purposes that are not cruel to animals. They view animals as being 100% equals to people. While this is a great notion, and I commend anyone who lives his/her life this way, it's not reasonable, and it's definitely not realistic. The truth is, animals have been living side-by-side with humans since humans first showed up on this planet. I know some people think I'm some crazy animal advocate, and I am, but I'm more reasonable than I think some people realize.

People and animals can have a mutually beneficial relationship. People can own horses and use them on their farms or for horse-back riding and even in competitions. Horses usually enjoy this, as long as they're allowed to run around in fields for most of their lives and are only kept in their stalls during the night. Usually horses love to be ridden and let out to run around with their owners. I mean I hate using the word owner. To me, it's "Pet Mommy." I mean I don't like the idea of capturing and trading animals for money, because that's generally what I consider to be animal exploitation, since living beings should never be "owned" by someone else. But in this day and age, it's kind of difficult to not do this, since that's our form of trade, and if you want to be a horse mommy, then you have to shell out some money for one. Otherwise, how are you going to get one - go steal a wild horse from its natural habitat? I think this is pretty much unavoidable these days. The same goes for cats and dogs. Anyway, the point is, as long as you're treating animals fairly and giving them enough room to roam free and giving them plenty of love and attention, I don't see anything wrong with it.

Here's something I do have a problem with: Keeping animals locked up in tiny cages and tanks in your home. This is why I hate pet stores. They capture innocent snakes, rabbits, fish, etc. and sell them for their own benefit. The animals don't have a choice. They are forced into this and are kept in tiny cages and tanks their whole lives. Animals live much shorter lives in captivity, on average, and tons of people take in exotic animals and don't understand exactly how to properly take care of them. My cousin's old roommate took in a baby Ball Python. When I met him, he was already dead, because she didn't keep his tank warm enough. WTF. This is something that happens all too often. But cats and dogs are a different story. They were bred to need families to take care of them. For the most part, they usually can't survive in the wild. And they need loving parents who take care of them, give them lots of space to run around and play, and give them lots of love and attention, just like the horses I mentioned. But seriously, guys, don't give pet stores your money. Pet stores should be put out of business. All they do is exploit animals. Buy your pets from shelters. You'll save a life. Buy your pet food and toys from your vet. The vet is more likely to know what type of food is best for your pet anyway. If you want to read more about this, read my note "Dodger Logic #54: Animal Tips, If You Will."

Something else I hate: I've told you guys this before. I hate when animals are exploited in any kind of way, such as those stupid pony Mary-Go-Round things at pumpkin patches and fairs. Also I hate the set-ups with "giant rats" in cages and "giant pythons" in tanks at fairs. I hate bull-riding, because those bulls are constantly hit with whips and forcibly angered. I hate circuses, because those animals are hit with whips, forced to do their masters' bidding, and live in cages their whole lives. I hate animal testing, as an animal gets absolutely no benefit from this and has no choice in the matter. It just has to sit there and be injected with toxins that make their eyes swell up and their hair fall out, or they have a cream rubbed on them that makes their skin itchy. And then, when these "scientists" are done with them, they dispose of them. I'm against the fur and hide industry, because instead of using hide from animals that have already been killed for their meat, they use perfectly good animals and simply kill them and remove their hide and move on with their lives. In my mind, in this day and age, where there are all kinds of things we can use for clothing, there is no reason to kill an animal for the soul purpose of its hide. Yes, killing an animal and taking all it has to give is a fantastic way to go about it, if you ask me. Eat the animal's meat, and then use its hide for clothing. That's great. I think animals should be used for all they're worth if they are to be used at all, but that's not how the fur and hide industry works. These animals are born to be tortured and die, and they have no say in it. All of these things should be illegal.

Yes, I eat meat. I love meat. And I believe that it's ok to eat meat, as long as you eat animals that were treated right in life and in death. That means eating wild caught fish, as well as free-range chicken and eggs that were never pumped full of chemicals or hormones and were fed an all-vegetarian diet. That means eating animals that came from farm or that you hunt yourself and NOT giving your business to the mass meat production industry. (If you want to learn more about this, read my note "Dodger Logic #16: Don't Be a Vegetarian; Instead, Change the System.") Here's the thing. Snakes eat frogs. Cheetahs eat gazelles. Bears eat fish. It's natural to eat meat that comes from animals below you on the food chain. All sorts of animals do it. We are animals, and we are naturally made to be omnivores, which means we eat both plants and meat. It's the reason we have canine teeth, advanced stomachs and digestive systems, and appendixes (which used to function in aiding the digestion of raw meat.) As long as we do it the right way and don't overeat certain animals or destroy any habitats with our eating patterns, I don't see anything wrong with eating some meat.

That being said, a lot of environmentalists are against hunting. Now, hunting purely for sport is aboslutely wrong and should be illegal. That include fishing just to play "Catch and Release." But as for hunting for food, I only get if you are against this if you're a vegetarian, pesketarian, vegan, etc. But if you eat meat, then there is absolutely no reason to be against hunting for food. On the contrary, it is much better to do this than to fuel the mass meat production industry. If you hunt an animal and kill it fast with a bullet, you know it died quickly and wasn't tortured to death. Also, you know that animal lived a full, free life without torture or being confined to a tiny living space its whole life. Hunting is under-valued and overly-criticized. Hunt away, my friends! - As long as you're hunting for food, not fun.

There is a way to live alongside animals and have a mutual beneficial relationship with them. When I shout animal rights from the rooftops, I don't mean that we should altogether leave animals alone. Yes, that would be great, but that's not realistic, and it's not really necessary. I have 2 dogs, and I love them to death. They seem to love me too, and they are super spoiled. They have plenty of room to run free and get plenty of food and attention. They are well-taken care of. That's how you have a mutually beneficial relationship with an animal.

 See? Humans and animals are definitely tied together!

 These are too funny.

#87: 10 Egyptian Plagues Explained Scientifcally

I am currently watching "The Reaping," in which Hilary Swank plays the main character, Katherine, who is a former ordained minister who no longer believes in God, Satan, or any part of Christianity. Her new job and mission is to debunk any phenomenon that anyone has chalked up to be a "miracle." In the town of Haven, the lake in town has turned red, and throughout the movie, 9 more biblical plagues seem to occur afterward, and Katherine shows up to investigate. **SPOILER ALERT** Even though, in the end, it turns out the plagues are real, and God and Satan turn out to be real, Katherine has a line in the movie that I think is brilliant and captures the idea that everything has a scientific explanation, even if you don't know it. (I'm not saying there aren't things out there that can't be explained by the human mind. But I am saying that there is an explanation out there for everything, whether the human brain can comprehend it or not.) My point is, there seem to be a lot of "miracles" that supposedly occurred in biblical times, and the following quote from "The Reaping" just goes to show that there are explanations for seemingly miraculous phenomena:

"In 1400 B.C., a group of nervous Egyptians saw the Nile turn red. But what they thought was blood was actually an algal bloom, which killed the fish, which prior to that had been living off the eggs of frogs. Those uneaten eggs turned into record numbers of baby frogs, who subsequently fled to the land and died. Their little rotting frog bodies attracted lice and flies. The lice carried the bluetongue Virus, which killed 70% of Egypt's livestock. The flies carried Glanders, a bacterial infection, which, in humans, causes boils. Soon afterward, the Nile River Valley was hit with a three-day sandstorm, otherwise known as the "Plague of Darkness." During the sandstorm, intense heat can combine with an approaching cold front to create not only hail, but also electrical storms, which would have looked to the ancient Egyptians like "fire from the sky." The subsequent wind would have blown the Ethiopian locust population off course and right into downtown Cairo. Hail is wet; locusts leave droppings. Spread both on grain, and you have got Mycotoxins. Dinner time in ancient Egypt meant the first-born child got the biggest portion, which in this case, meant he ate the most toxins, so he died. Ten plagues. Ten scientific explanations."

I'm not saying this is what actually happened to the ancient Egyptians, but it is a pretty rockin' potential explanation. I'm also not saying the story of the plagues in the Bible is or is not explanable by the human mind. I just thought I'd share this and show you guys how it can sometimes pay off to look into the science of things, rather than look at things through eyes blinded by faith. It might open your mind to new perspectives, even if you still decide to believe in your faith. Don't always assume something is miraculous. Then again, you should also never dismiss anything as unmiraculous, because you never know what is out there.

Also, I'm going to take this opportunity to bring up how the Butterfly Effect is explained in this explanation of the biblical plagues. An algal bloom kills the fish who previously kept frog populations in check. In this case, an algal bloom killed off an entire species in this particular habitat, which in turn, caused a spiraling effect of an insane number of frogs. This massive outbreak of frogs had to have had an effect on the populations of whatever these particular frogs ate. Also, what came from all of this? Disease. This disease killed all kinds of livestock and made the Egyptians ill and killed off some of them. No one knows how that algal bloom occurred. It could have been natural or caused by human interaction with the environment. Who knows? But the point is, a lot of crap can happen when an ecosystem is disrupted, so let's try not to disrupt any ecosystems through our actions!

By the way, I read on one website how the algal bloom supposedly occurred. Between 1500 and 1650 B.C., a volcano erupted in Greece. The subsequent ash landed all over the place, including in Cairo and the Nile River. (This ash has been tested and is proven to have come from this particular volcano.) The plagues supposedly occurred between 1400 and 1550 B.C., so this fits perfectly with the eruption of this volcano. The ash from this volcano changed the pH of the Nile River, allowing the algae to bloom. BOOM. There's your explanation for how the algae "miraculously" started blooming there. Another myth potentially busted, but this time, there's actual scientific tests that prove that this theory is quite possibly correct. Also, this myth-buster has a fair timeline for further potential proof. It's pretty cool to think about. But I'm just glad humans weren't the reason for this disaster. Usually when you hear about a Butterfly Effect of events that destroyed entire ecoystems, humans are the initial cause. Ha.

One explanation that I found online, however, had a slightly different explanation than Katherine's explanation in "The Reaping." According to the author of this web page, the "Plague of Darkness" came from the volcanic ash, which also is what caused the hail and red lightning (or "fire in the sky") due to chemicals from the ash. Also, this author explains that the locusts came around due to the dampness of the area, to which locusts are attracted. Also, the explanation of the death of the first born is more understandable through this author, as he/she explains that the first-born was "king" in families, because he was the one who would head the family after the death of his father. Not only would the first-born eat first, but in times of famine, sometimes he would be the only one to eat. Since the locusts ate pretty much everything in sight, these were definitely times of famine. Boy, this sure was an ironic "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation - to eat or not to eat; that is the question! If you eat, you die. If you don't eat, you die. Well, sh*t.

Here is another theory I found online: Instead of the first-born children being killed, it was the first crop that was killed, and something was lost in translation when the Bible was written and translated into English from Hebrew and all kinds of other previous languages in which the Bible was written before it made it to English. This is an interesting theory and is neat to think about. I don't necessarily think it has any merit, but it's pretty cool to think about. I mean, supposedly God told Moses to tell all of the Israelites to put lamb's blood over their front doors, and this would cause the angel of death to pass over their house. I don't know where in the world that would come from if they really meant the first crop died and not actual children.

Now I read all kinds of criticisms of the above theories, and the best criticism is this: Why in the world hasn't something like this ever occurred in other days and times? I mean, most of the time the earth has been around has not been recorded, but since we started keeping records, why haven't we recorded something insane like this occurring in other instances? I mean we've seen such algal blooms in other places, but they haven't had quite such a major Domino Effect on the ecosystem living there. Or have we? That's for other people to give me information on. As I'm standing here, I can't think of anything. But that's not to say that there wasn't something coincidentally special and unique about this particular algal bloom in this particular ecosystem that made it uncharacteristically disastrous. Furthermore, why haven't we heard of anything happening during this exact same time in the surrounding areas of Egypt, such as Greece, for instance, since that's where that particular volcano supposedly erupted. Surely, these surrounding countries would have seen a lot of similar disasters as the ancient Egyptians, right? Sure. But this one I actually have an answer to. The only people in that area back in this day and age that had written records were the Egyptians. So even if something did happen in the surrounding countries, which I'm sure did, we wouldn't have any record of it.

Here is probably the best criticism: The frog eggs survived in the polluted water and turned into frogs, but the frogs couldn't live in the polluted water, so they fled the water and ended up on land. How could these frogs survive babyhood in polluted water but couldn't survive the water in adulthood? Well, this is just speculation from my Environmental Science background, but there are a lot of toxins that affect animals in their adult states but not in their larval states. That's just a speculative theory. I haven't put any research into that answer, so that's a decent criticism.

Here's another one: How do we know the Red Tide is the algal bloom that occurred, and is it toxic? Also, is it able to live and grow in that region of the world? Answer: We don't know if that was the exist algal bloom that is supposedly the initial cause of these plagues. There are all kinds of algae that contain different colored pigments, including the color red, and can turn water red. However, it is commonly believed that the Red Tide is what did this, and yes, the Red Tide has occurred in many places at many times and not done as much damage, but that only depends on concentration. The Red Tide is only toxic to fish at high concentrations. As for whether or not the Red Tide could grow here, the Red Tide usually shows up in the Atlantic area, so it makes sense that it would potentially show up in Egypt, which is extremely close to the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, the growth of the Red Tide is, at least in the second theory, is attributed to the pH level change that came from volcanic ash after the volcanic eruption. This is really what the Red Tide growth depends on in order to grow, rather than geography - the pH level change.

Here's an interesting criticism: One guy asked, "How do you explain how Moses knew which plagues were coming before they came and warned the Pharaoh of them?" Simple. Anyone who doesn't buy this story will tell you that part of the story was just a story. Either it was added in to add to the moral of the story, or someone added that in there to show the power of God and enhance the reader's belief in him. Or, I have another explanation for this for those of you who believe in God and the Bible below.

Ok, now I'm going to blow your minds. What if God does exist, and he used the laws of the earth that he created to cause these plagues? This means that it's possible that God told Moses these plagues were going to happen, and then he made them happen through the laws of the earth. This scientific explanation could probably more readily be used to exemplify God's power, rather than to debunk his existence. I'm not saying what I believe, but any of this could be used for the argument of both beliefs - the one where God exists and the one where he doesn't. Anyway, that brings us to the question of why God would do such a thing. I mean, think about it. Who was he against? The pharaoh. Why? Because he enslaved his Egyptian people. Who did God punish with the plagues? The Israelites who were enslaved! How does that make any sense? Why would he punish the innocent victims in order to teach the evil dictator a lesson? That just makes no sense and is cruel. And to children, no less! Yes, he told Moses to tell the Israelites to put lamb's blood over their doors, and that would make the angel of death pass over their houses, but to my knowledge, some Israelites didn't do this, which means their children were killed based on the parents' decision. That's not fair! And even if he gave the Israelites this chance to save their first-born, why would it be necessary in the first place? Why didn't he just send this plague, and all of the plagues for that matter, to the Pharaoh? Why did any of it have to affect the innocent Israelites? I could go on and on about how the stories of the Bible seem to show a ruthless, cruel God, rather than a merciful one. Check out my previous note "Dodger Logic #21: Metaphors and Inconsistencies (Oh, dear. What Am I Getting Myself Into?)" for more examples of this.

What is really cool about this story is that it is scientifically possible, and scientists have actually concluded that the 10 plagues of Egypt did, in fact, actually happen. That's what's so cool! And now we have a scientific explanation as to how it happened. And think about it. The fact that these plagues actually did occur is potential proof that the Bible is true, since it has an accurate record of at least one event in history. However, anyone could argue that that came from ancient Egyptian written records that were used to write that Bible story, and that humans enhanced the story of this event for their own personal agenda and added it into the Bible as they were writing it. I don't care what you guys choose to believe, but this is some cool stuff to think about.

This is what the algal bloom of these theories looks like. It's called the Red Tide, and the algae that causes this are actually a kind of phytoplankton called Dinoflaggelates. Now, these guys are only toxic to fish in high concentrations, so it's possible that this is, indeed, the algal bloom that occurred back then, but it is also likely that it is a different algal bloom that occurred, but this seems to be the one a lot of theorists point to. However, there are many algal species that can turn the water red, as lots of algae contains different pigments for different colors, including red.

This is just one example of an awesome-looking electrical storm. Is this the "fire from the sky?"