Girl Under Glass Chapter One

www.emilysplants.com

 Girl Under Glass Intro

                             Chapter 1

Kelsey McCully waits while the girl at the Rite Aid pharmacy counter searches the shelves for her mother’s prescriptions. “M-A-C?” she asks—same as last month.

“M-C,” Kelsey says.

The pharmacist glances up. “How’s your mom?” 

“Fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

There are times Kelsey thinks she was born inside out—every nerve exposed—feeling everything one day, and nothing the next. She either hates this monthly charade, or has to fight back tears because some one bothered to ask about her mother. Ronald, the pharmacist, always asks. Kelsey always lies. Her mother worked here five years ago, but was fired. No one cares how she’s doing, and today Kelsey hates them for pretending they do. 

Her friend, Carly, waits outside, guarding her bicycle. Kelsey comes out, and tosses the bag of prescriptions into her basket.

Carly nods toward the store employee, whose butt-crack is exposed every time he bends to reset plants blown over by the last night’s gusty winds.

Kelsey watches him pick up the lone gardenia, and put it back on the stand. She looks at Carly and grins. “My mother loves gardenias,” she whispers, wheels her bike to the plant stand, presses her nose into the single, sweet blossom, and breathes deeply.  

 Carly pushes her bike into position between the clerk and Kelsey and holds one hand behind her back, ready to signal when he isn’t looking.

Kelsey feels light-headed and her heart thuds. She sniffs the white blossom again, sneaking a peek at the blue-vested employee. He’s watching a woman in high-heels walk to her car.  

When Carly flaps her hand, Kelsey snatches the gardenia, jams it into her bike basket, and rides away. She shoots across the parking lot toward Coast Tire, then out onto the sidewalk. She flees past the Tradewinds Motel, turns up Hazel Street, slows, circles back, and peers around the corner. When she sees Carly ride out of the parking lot, she starts back toward her, grinning, but Carly looks over her shoulder, then shouts something.

“What?”

“Go. Go!” Carly screams.

Kelsey turns into the Tradewinds’ parking lot, pedaling as hard as she can toward the Franklin Street exit. She bounces over a speed bump and nearly falls as she makes a sharp left onto the sidewalk behind the motel. Jerry Curtis, the same Fort Bragg cop who caught her when she sneaked off to a party in her mother’s car a month ago, stands in the center of the sidewalk with his hands on his hips. She tries to steer around him, but he catches her around the waist and lifts her off the bike, which crashes into the only section of the motel’s back wall that isn’t hidden by thick clumps of pampas grass. The potted gardenia flips out and lands right side up on the concrete. The bag of prescriptions sails out and lands in a puddle the drip system has left.
            Kelsey tries to act innocent and confused. “Geez, Jerry, you scared me.”

            Carly comes out of the motel’s rear driveway, sees them, and turns the other way. She glances back once before crossing Franklin, and riding, hell-bent, up Chestnut.

            “Nice gardenia.” Jerry picks it up and smells the bloom.

            “I bought it for my mother.”

            Jerry’s a neighbor. He lives one block over from Kelsey’s house—too close as far as she’s concerned.

“I bet she’ll like that.” He smiles.  

            “Yeah. They’re her favorite.”

            “They don’t do well here. Too cold, I guess.”

            Kelsey can’t tell if he believes her. “Well, I gotta go.” She rights her bicycle.

            Jerry grabs the handlebars. “Sure, Kelsey, I just need to see the receipt.”

Kelsey pretends to look for it: in her backpack, on the sidewalk, then she shrugs. “It must have blown out of my basket.”

            “Did the bag blow out too?”

            “They didn’t give . . .” Kelsey turns and follows Jerry’s gaze.

            The Rite Aid clerk is jogging up the sidewalk toward them, his belly bouncing like a beach ball. “There were two of them,” he pants.

            Fat-so.

            “I know them both,” Jerry says. “Take the plant, but leave me your name. You’ll probably be called to testify.”

            “Not a problem. I’m sick of these kids ripping us off when they’ve got more money to pay for stuff than I have.”

            Jerry nods. “Tell me about it.” 

            Kelsey swallows, determined not to cry. “Jerry, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise. Mom’s been sick, and I wanted to bring her something.”

            “Sorry, Kiddo. You were warned. No more free rides. Maybe a few weeks in Juvenile Hall will change your tune before it’s too late.”

*

Kelsey spends the morning watering down her mother’s drinks, trying to keep Lydia sober enough to walk and talk, but drunk enough not to know what’s going on. Before the time comes to leave for court, Kelsey gets her mother to eat a little lunch, and baits her into getting dressed by asking Lydia if she wants to stop at the liquor store after they go to the courthouse to pay a parking ticket.

“When did I get a parking ticket?” Her mother stands in front of the bathroom mirror letting Kelsey comb her hair.

“Two weeks ago. Don’t you remember?”

“I guess I do. In front of the post office, right?”

“Uh huh. There.” Kelsey puts the comb down. “You look nice.” She smiles at Lydia’s reflection in the mirror. They look eerily alike and unrelated at the same time. Kelsey’s hair is a mousy, dull brown; her mother’s a graying shade of dishwasher blond. Kelsey’s eyes are brown, her mother’s are pale blue, red-rimmed and bloodshot. All they have in common is the same pug nose and the same gap between their front teeth. Sometimes, like now, with her mother’s hair combed, they resemble each other, but so superficially that Kelsey feels pretty sure that her mother’s drinking has nothing to do with having Kelsey as a reminder of her lost youth.  

*

The bailiff calls, “All rise” when Cindy Mayfield, the Mendocino County Juvenile Judge, enters the courtroom. Kelsey drags her mother to her feet and keeps her steady with a hand on her shoulder. After Judge Mayfield takes her seat, Kelsey sits and pulls Lydia into the seat beside her.

“Well, which is it?” Her mother’s voice is slurred.

“Young Lady,” Judge Mayfield says.

            “Yes, ma’am.” Kelsey stands again, but keeps a firm hand on her mother’s shoulder.

            “It’s yes, your Honor.” 

            “Yes, your Honor.”

            “I’ve read Officer Curtis’s report and heard the testimony of Mr. Jennings from Rite Aid, and I have reviewed your record. This is your second arrest for shoplifting, which means, incidentally, that you aren’t very good at it; you’ve been picked up three times for truancy, and you have a speeding ticket. That’s quite a record for someone too young for a learner’s permit.” She puts down the file, folds her hands, and glares at Kelsey. “Here’s the deal. You’re fifteen. In spite of the recommendation of Ms. Rontero of the Juvenile Probation Department, I am loathe to send you to Juvenile Hall at your age, but I see no other way to get through to you.”

            Kelsey concentrates on picking at the chewed skin around the nub of her thumbnail.

            “Look at me.”

            She sucks on the inside of her cheek and looks up at the judge.

            “I want to hear your excuse.”   

            “For which thing?”

            “The one you’re here for now,” Judge Mayfield snaps.

            “My mother’s . . .” Kelsey whispers.

            “Speak up.”

            “. . . been sick. She likes flowers.”

            “So you stole one for her. Would a stolen gardenia have made you feel better, Ms. McCully?”

Kelsey glances at her mother.

Lydia McCully’s head comes up lazily, and she blinks at the judge.

“Say, no, your Honor,” Kelsey hisses under her breath.

“No, your Honor.” Her mother smiles dimly. 

Kelsey’s shoulders sag. She tried to keep her mother out of this by erasing the message the police left and intercepting the notice to appear in court, but three days ago that woman from the Mendocino County Juvenile Probation Department came by to make sure her mother knew Kelsey was in trouble again. She’d come late in the afternoon, but Lydia managed to appear lucid. After the woman left, Lydia fixed herself another vodka and water, had a good cry, turned on the television, and seemed to forget all about it. 

Judge Mayfield studies Lydia. “How are you feeling now, Ms. McCully?”

Kelsey turns to whisper the answer, but her mother says, “Not well, your Honor.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Gout,” her mother answers.

Kelsey coughs to cover her astonishment. Where the hell did that come from?

            “Uh huh.” The judge stares at Lydia for a full minute, then turns her scary gaze on Kelsey. “Here’s the deal,” she says. “I see in your file that your sixteenth birthday is in six months, so I’m giving you one more chance—six months probation and 300 hours of community service. That means every day.” She shakes a finger. “Every single day after school, and all day on weekends you will work for Dr. Jonathan Hobbes. The bailiff will give you the address. Is that clear?”

            “A doctor?”

            “He has a PhD in botany. You’ve got yourself six months to grow a gardenia for your mother.” She writes something in the file, and hands it to the clerk. “Kelsey . . .”

 “Yes, your Honor?”

“If I hear you’ve missed a day or caused Dr. Hobbes one minute of trouble, you are going to Juvenile Hall. Is that clear?”

Kelsey nods.

“I never want to see you here again.”
            “You won’t ma’am. I promise.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I mean it this time.”

“You had better, young lady. You are headed down a dead-end road.”

*

RECENT SCIENCE

“A Colorado State University scientist has re-engineered plants so that they can detect explosives, air pollution and toxic chemicals. Plants fixed with custom-made proteins in biologist June Medford’s lab signal the presence of potentially deadly vapors by turning white from green. Military and federal Homeland Security research directors Wednesday said they envision wide applications for the genetically modified plants positioned in buildings, war zones and cities where terrorists could set up covert bomb-making factories.

…from The Miami Herald, February 2011

*

 "They tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is immortal but this, I think is something that we know very nearly nothing about."  …John Muir

*

“It’s never too late to become who you might have been.”

                                                                                                         Unknown

Girl Under Glass Introduction

Meat Eating Plants  kids.nationalgeographic.com

 In 1966, FBI polygraph instructor, Cleve Backster, solely on a whim, hooked his undernourished, and often ignored, office plant to a lie detector. He was curious about whether he could record its physiological reaction to receiving water. He expected increased electrical conductivity as the water reached its leaves. Instead, the polygraph needle trended in the opposite direction, equivalent to a sigh of relief. Backster was so surprised by this reaction that the possible explanation began to consume him and, until his death, he pursued what he believed happened that day, that he had established contact with the plant kingdom.

            I think it was 1974, when I first read about this experiment and many others in a book entitled The Secret Life of Plants, which is still available and selling well on Amazon—perhaps even your local bookstore. I found it fascinating, as did others. It launched an era of people talking to their plants and playing them classical music. Funny now. Kind of. The thing is, poor Cleve Backster was ridiculed by the scientific community for the rest of his life, but he never conceded defeat. He studied plant communication right down to a cellular level until the end of his life. I spoke with him some years before his death, and he sent me the book he’d written on the subject, which he called Primary Perception.

            The most remarkable experiment Backster performed went (as well as I can remember) as follows: He put two plants in his lab, one of which was hooked to a polygraph. He then had his students draw straws. The one with the short straw—and no one knew who that was—went into the lab and destroyed the plant not attached to the lie detector. He torn it out of its pot, ripped its leaves off, and stomped on it. Afterward, Backster filed his entire class through the lab and when the “murderer” passed by, the witness-plant had a violent reaction—recorded on the polygraph.

            I love gee-whiz biology.
           In 1974, I was not a writer. The idea of becoming a writer had never crossed my mind. I was a college drop-out who failed English numerous times. In 1974, I was a flight attendant, and recently married. At that time, Colombo was a wildly popular detective series, featuring a rumpled-trench-coat wearing Peter Falk as Colombo. The twist was, viewers got to see how the perpetrator planned and carefully carried out the murder, then watched Colombo try to figure out how it was done, and how he was going to prove it.

            I was so enamored of The Secret Life of Plants, I thought it would make a great Colombo episode. Imagine the perfect murder with a house plant as the only witness. I did something I’d never done before, or since, I wrote the producers, and received a short reply: “We have writers.”

            In 1977, I went back to college. In 1982, I wrote an editorial for a local newspaper about an abandoned dog. It was published and one of the editors called me and said, if I could write like that, they’d publish anything I wrote. The phone called that changed my life! At the time, I was a biology major and had Organic Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus yet to take. I signed up for a creative writing class instead. Really. That’s how this thirty-year plus odyssey began.

            The first story I wrote in my first creative writing class was the one about my husband sinking his airboat and walking out of the Everglades. The second was entitled, The Greenhouse, about a young girl whose biology professor is murdered and she figures out the plants in his lab are witnesses. It was, frankly, crap. I still have it around here somewhere, in case I ever get to thinking I was blessed with a story-telling gene.

            And the point is? I have five published novels, and five unpublished novels. One of them is entitled Girl Under Glass. It’s The Greenhouse with 30 years of writing experience under my belt. I love this book, but no publisher (and I’ve had four different ones) has ever shown any interest in it. I like to think it’s because Marketing doesn’t believe kids (my main audience) will be interested in reading about plants. I think anyone who enjoys a good mystery, or sci-fi (even if it's not,) will like this book.

By now, you get where I’m going.

I’ve had nearly 80,000 hits on this blog. I realize that may well be 100 of my best friends who have dutifully clicked on each and every post over the last four years. Still it's a place to start.

When Backster did his experiments, he was unaware of the recent research into plant communication. In The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, explores the way plants have for centuries maneuvered us into protecting and propagating them, how they lure us with beautiful blooms to provide food, water and space to grow. They enlist us as allies to ensure their survival. But what if it goes beyond the exchange of nutrition, transportation and space? What if they form attachments—perhaps care enough to use their defenses to attempt to warn us of danger?  

In Daniel Chamovitz’s recent book, What Plants Know, he delves into the mystery of how they can warn each other of predation; how carnivorous plants know when to spring the trap. It's another fascinating read.

This is the Girl Under Glass “elevator speech,” sent to disinterested editors.

When Kelsey McCully, shoplifts a gardenia for her mother, she steps across a line and discovers how deep a relationship with the botanical inhabitants of this planet can go, but the question remains will Kelsey McCully, a troubled teenager, find—in a cranky old man, a roly-poly cat, and a greenhouse full of plants—the support she needs to straighten out her life?

Maybe this will work out, and Girl Under Glass will find an audience. Maybe it won’t. Either way, it will be out there for a few to enjoy, and that will make me, and my philodendron happy.  

I’ll start with this Introduction, and post a chapter a week. Tuesday's with Kelsey. At the beginning of each chapter will be a link to the Intro and any preceding chapter.   

             

GIRL UNDER GLASS / Synopsis

Girl Under Glass builds on the intriguing scientific research into plant communication as detailed in the still popular, best-selling The Secret Life of Plants, and more recently The Botany of Desire, and What Plants Know. 

Kelsey McCully, 13, is fatherless and living with an alcoholic mother. When she gets arrested for shoplifting, the judge sentences her to community service with a local botanist who is trying to duplicate experiments done with plants. When the botanist is severely beaten and robbed, Kelsey discovers the secret of these communications but must convince the police that the greenhouse plants are witnesses to the crime.  

Girl Under Glass weaves the themes of family alcoholism, family secrets, and the everyday struggles facing most teens with the mystery and intrigue of our relationship to the natural world. It moves Kelsey from coping with her loneliness and self-doubt expressed through bad behavior and association with other outcast kids, to learning to trust enough to ask for help for herself and her mother.     

*

Despite not having brains or nervous systems in the traditional sense, plants are surprisingly sophisticated. They can communicate with each other and signal impending danger to their neighbors by releasing chemicals into the air. Plants constantly react to their environment — not only light and temperature changes, but also physical stimuli.       

                                                                                  Washington Post.com 7/10/14

 

I'd love to buy you a beer...

If you'll spring for the airfare.  

Bag of Nails pub in Bristol.   

Daniel Garrett, BBC News

Cat Pub

 

Non-Human Persons. Cheers for India!

 Animal Minds 
A thought-provoking TED talk.

India Declares Dolphins "Non-Human Persons", Dolphin shows BANNED.

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1226634/-India-Declares-Dolphins-Non-Human-Persons-Dolphin-shows-BANNED?detail=emailclassic

By Jason Hackman  

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has decided to forbid the keeping of captive dolphins for public entertainment anywhere in the country.

 In a policy statement released Friday, the ministry advised state governments to reject any proposal to establish a dolphinarium “by any person / persons, organizations, government agencies, private or public enterprises that involves import, capture of cetacean species to establish for commercial entertainment, private or public exhibition and interaction purposes whatsoever.”

More: 

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1226634/-India-Declares-Dolphins-Non-Human-Persons-Dolphin-shows-BANNED?detail=emailclassic

To the Baby in Front of Me by Jessica Kotnour

FYI. Two years ago Jessica won one of the 5 Under 25 scholarships to the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. Here is a good example of why.

To the Baby in Front of Me

You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Our paths seem to have crossed. You’re in the seat in front of me, on a flight from Columbus to Orlando. I’m sure you’re going to Disney. Or maybe to visit your grandparents. You are in your mother’s arms. You are laughing, even if you were crying, it would be okay. You are in a flying tube. You are allowed to cry.

You’re standing up now on your mother’s legs. Stand there as long as you can. Let her be your rock. Your foundation. Grip your tiny toes into her quads. Dig deep. Leave marks.

You keep looking around. Observing. I wish the top of the plane were glass so that you could see all of the clouds. They’re so much prettier when you are in them than they are from the ground. Well, they are still pretty from the ground as well. 

Your sister keeps peaking her head back and smiling at me. She’s reading a book. I hope that she never stops reading.  If she ever needs a book, you call me and I’ll make sure you get one. 

Your sister just handed your dad a sticker. What a special gift. I pray that he saves it. Sticks in on the car window. Sticks it on his phone. Sticks it on his heart.

You are so very young, too young to be forming memories. By the time you’re my age, you’ll have formed so many memories, but you’ll have even more to form. Some of them will be good. Some will make you cry.  Most of them will involve your favorite people, maybe your parents, or your friend, or your first dog. I want to tell you to form memories of every moment. But you can’t. I am sorry about that. Try to remember the small things. The way your mom’s legs feel underneath your feet right now.  The way your sister gives the most meaningful gifts, like stickers. If you have a dog, remember the way it feels when he falls asleep on your feet. Hug him often. Hug everyone often.

When you get older, scary things might start to happen. Tumors will be found in your best friend’s leg. You won’t be able to shower because the floor has MRSA. You will be so scared, but you will never be alone. 

I’m on this flight now, heading back from college. Heading back home. Back to my mother’s legs. I’ll lay on the couch with her tonight and my unshaven legs and hers will be next to each other, with the dog laying on both of our feet. 

You are crying now.  I am crying now. 

Your sister keeps smiling at me. And I keep smiling back.  She’s missing some teeth. She is not fully formed, but neither am I. Neither is anyone. 

The flight attendant is coming through now. We are about to land. I hope that you enjoyed your flight, but if it was scary and stressful, that is okay. No one expects you to be able to handle everything. 

For now, all we are asked to do is to stand on our mother’s legs and take it all in.

Can you guess what this is?

nationalgeographic.com

Living life raft 
News cast from South Carolina

The first time I saw a raft like this was after drenching rains in Texas. I was so astonished when I realized what it was that I nipped the image to create a scene in Lost in the River of Grass. Readers, do you remember where it is?

oilpalmbiodiversity.com

Chimps Face Abandonment

 I quietly posted this last week because there was no way to help. Now there is.
 How we can Help
 

AP Photo

Stranded in Liberia

By Jonathan Paye-Layleh BBC Africa, Monrovia

A group of 66 tame chimpanzees used for US medical testing faces being abandoned on six Liberian islands amid a potential funding crisis. The animals are those left from 108 chimps used for biomedical research carried out by a New York-based charity, Blood Center.

Uncle Charlie

Charlie and my birth mother, Ruth

On July 3rd, my uncle Charlie died. Twenty years ago in September 1995, Lee Nichols, editor of The Outlook, a small Mendocino paper, invited me to write about finding my birth mother. Charlie, Ruth, and my half-sister, Lynn, subsequently became character-names in my novel, Hurt Go Happy.

If it hadn't been for Charlie's kind and generous heart, I probably would never have met any of them: My mother, my sister, her five sons, my cousins--all of whom I resemble. In his honor, here is that story: 

AWAY GROWING OLD                                                       

 September 1995

I have been away growing old is a line from a poem by Dave Smith, an acquaintance of mine. It is what I would like to tell my mother, if I meet her.

            I've created an image of her fifty years ago, a young girl, pressing my tiny hand to her lips, then passing me to a stranger who took me away to be raised by other strangers. I'd like to reassure her that there was no right or wrong in the act. I know only what was revealed to me on the course my life took from that moment on. I do not believe in greener grass, just as I don’t believe that each choice made has a black and white side, is right or wrong. To have kept me would have been right if she could have; to give me up was just as correct a choice. Only when the choices are nearly equally impossible to make, do we feel the one we made must have been wrong. She should not grieve.

            Three years ago, after twenty-five years of searching to my own dead ends, I enlisted the aid of an organization that specializes in putting adoptees and their biological parents in touch with each other. A few months later they called to tell me that my father was dead but they had found my mother, did I want to call her or should they? I chose for them to call. She was sorry, they said, but she couldn’t see me. Since then, I have wished I had chosen to call myself. Would she have said no to me?

            Last week, Jack, an attorney friend of my husband’s was going to the town where she lives. My husband, whose choices rarely confuse him, had him call her. A man answered. Jack told him who he was and that he was just calling to ask a few questions. The man said he was my mother’s brother, could he help in some way? Jack said no, it was a private matter.

            I do believe we are sometimes given second chances.

            “Is this about her other daughter?” my mother’s brother asked.
           "You know about her?" Jack asked.
           "I'm the only one who does."
           My uncle went on to say how happy he was Jack called. He was visiting because my mother had open-heart surgery and was recovering at my (half) sister’s house.

            I have a good friend who believes what ails us is an outward manifestation of where our grief and pain is. A sore throat comes from a voice we stifle; a stomach ache from grief we swallow. I think, if my friend is right, there may now be room for me in my mother’s heart.

            My uncle will be home from the visit with my mother the first of August. He wants to know me. He said, “Tell her she has an Uncle Charlie who wants to meet her.”

             So now, a half century later, it works out that on my 51^st birthday, I will see the first blood relative I have ever known. Someone who may say to me, “Why you look just like . . .” And I’m hoping that between Uncle Charlie and open-heart surgery, my mother will accept this message: I’ve been away growing old and in all that time, I have learned all about pain and joy and losses and rewards. I believe that the same door that opened for her two year ago is open again, and beyond it—through it—is simply her other daughter.

Charles Grether

October 19, 1926 - July 3, 2015

I'm going hog wild . . .

No posts for 6 months, now you can't shut me up.

The larger lesson from Jurassic World

 Does ‘Jurassic World’ remind you of ‘Blackfish’? How a dinosaur movie tackled animal rights. By Emily Yahr

This article compares the treatment of these dinosaurs to the treatment of captive Orcas. 

Think about it!

 

This isn't my Public Shtick, but...

  I grew up in central Florida in the 50s and 60s, and God love 'em, my parents were racists. They hated JFK, MLK, and LBJ. They adored Lucinda, our black housekeeper for nearly two decades. Daddy called crying when she died. 

The article that motivated me to write this out-of-purview post is below. It coupled with the outlandish, offensive, bigoted statement about Mexicans by "The Donald" --a national embarrassment and Republican presidential candidate, makes it impossible for me to stay quiet. Besides, I've been there, done that.

It didn't take a college education or a graduate degree for me to recognize how wrong my parents were. It took a 1963 bus ride. My moment of insight is on my website: 

A Vote for Lucinda --if you're interested.

Some of you may be thinking I should just stick to my little animal stories, but the belief that we have the God-given right to lord our superiority over even the smallest, most defenseless of other species is what I write about. It stems from exactly the same mind(less) set as racism. It's called speciesism--the belief that the human race is superior to other species, and that exploitation of animals for the advantage of humans is justified.  Encarta ® World English Dictionary ©

I think following article is important to consider. I hope you feel the same. And to my readers in Europe, Asia, South America, and especially in Mexico, we won't actually elect The Donald, or Ted Cruz. I'm almost positive.

*

 Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America | Psychology Today

"In considering the senseless loss of nine lives in Charleston, of course racism jumps out as the main issue. But isn’t ignorance at the root of racism? And it’s true that the bloodshed is a reflection of America's violent, gun-crazed culture, but it is only our aversion to reason as a society that has allowed violence to define the culture. Rational public policy, including policies that allow reasonable restraints on gun access, simply isn't possible without an informed, engaged, and rationally thinking public." 

For the entire article...

 Anti-Intellectualism by David Niose

If Corporations are People . . .

 A judge in New York has issued a writ of habeas corpus in a case brought by animal rights activists on behalf of two chimpanzees.

 If Corporations are people...

Personhood could end this.

Watch only if you have a strong stomach.

I haven't done a post in six months. It's certainly not because I had nothing to say or there weren't animal abuses going on, or good news to report. I've been working on a couple of projects. One, of course, is How to Speak Dolphin, my new novel about an non-verbal autistic child and a captive dolphin. It's out now and available in bookstores--especially your local independent bookstore. 

 I guess this post is part ad for HTSD, so I might as well add that the e-book version of Dolphin Sky, which I rewrote a year or so ago, is on sale through Kobo, Nook, Kindle, and iBook.

My other excuse: I've been researching my first attempt at writing historical fiction. When I returned from a research trip to Texas, Cory, my 16 year old cat, was blind. She coped far better than I did, but every moment of the rest of her life became precious. She spent the next seven months on a pillow in a desk drawer at my elbow as I wrote. She died May 21st. I suppose her decline and loss has made it hard for me to feel strongly about anything else.  

I have a new favorite quote. From MC Davis

 "I can't change people your age," he says, "but give me a fourth-grader."

  

And then there is China

UPDATE: JUNE 19
Chimpanzees may be added to the Endangered Species List.  

Happy Holidays to all

worcestervets,co.uk

babble.com

Remember your pets at Christmas

timeoutdubai.com

Happy Animal Club update

I received the news yesterday that Ken, founder of the Happy Animals Club (see last week's post), has been awarded a $1000 grant from The Pollination Project. This is the first time, in the three and a half years I've been blogging, that I've been made aware of a domino falling. My tail's wagging.

 

The Pollination Project

Giving Seed Grants to Social Change Projects

We provide $1,000 startup grants to individual change makers and projects that promote compassion around the world.

Watch the CBS This Morning segment on the Pollination Project

Seed money sprouts change for tiny non-profits - CBS News

www.cbsnews.com/.../seed-money-sprouts-change-for-tiny-no...

CBS News

Mar 23, 2014 - Seed money sprouts change for tiny non-profits ... He gave away his 447th grant this morning -- that's $447,000 and counting. In the past ...

Happy Animals Club

Happy Animals Club is a non-profit no-kill animal shelter project in the southern Philippines, started by a 9-year-old boy with help from international donors. Imagine, if one child can accomplish this in the Philippines...

 Happy Animals Club

Bring a Sandwich. Maybe not Tuna

America's First Cat Cafe


The Cat Town Cafe is split into two rooms. ". . .the Cafe is minimal, but awesome." 

They serve coffee, locally made bagels and pastries, with limited indoor and outdoor seating, plus viewing windows into the Cat Zone should they reach capacity.

The Cat Zone is where you are welcome to bring food and a beverage.

• We have between 6 - 20 free roaming cats who are available for adoption. Since founding, we’ve helped get over 600 at-risk shelter cats out of the cages of Oakland Animal Services and into loving foster and permanent homes.
• We allow 14 people to enter every hour on the hour, this is to help limit the stress and over stimulation of our four legged friends.
• Walk-ins are welcome, but we highly recommend that you make a Cat Zone Reservation for a $10 donation to Cat Town, especially on weekends! This will ensure your visiting time is available and support a great cause. 

I fell in love hook, line, and sinker.

Some of you may recall that I had a bat in my bathroom for seven summers. Last year, Johnnie failed to reappear. I'm optimistic that he just reached an age when looking for female companionship was far more interesting than buzzing me on his way to the bathroom.

A friend sent this link to me this morning. I'm totally smitten. The pictures are melt-your-heart great. 
 

Baby Bat hospital

Black Cat audition circa 1961

I'm afraid my old girl would have been sent home, though she often looks cranky enough to be a star.

Black Cat audition

Thinking Outside the (nest) Box

Marbled Murrelet odysseykayaking.com

Portia Halbert, of Humboldt State University, was thinking outside the (nest) box when she came up with a unique idea to save the endangered Marbled murrelet, a small seabird that feeds at sea and nests only in old growth forests. 

Stellar jays and Ravens eat murrelet eggs, so giving them a reason to never eat another was her clever idea. So far so good, but outsmarting a Jay can be tricky. Read the full story: Dietary Lessons

blackhills.audubon.org

Marbled Murrelet conservation

Upgrading the cells at San Quentin

Lolita  at the  Miami Seaquarium

 SeaWorld to Upgrade Killer Whale Habitats
By Tom Gara

"SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. (SEAS), suffering from negative publicity and flagging attendance, plans to announce on Friday a new expansion of the habitats housing its signature killer whales."

The entire article. 

First let's define the word habitat, because saying you are going to upgrade a captive marine mammal's habitat sounds upbeat, doesn't it? Like adding wallpaper to a prisoner's cell at San Quentin or Sing Sing, and putting in a porcelain toilet with a heated seat.

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © defines habitat as:
1.  ecology home environment: the natural conditions and environment in which a plant or animal lives, e.g. forest, desert, wetlands, OR OCEAN.
2.  typical location: the place in which a person or group is usually found -- OR OCEAN.
3.  artificially created environment: a sealed controlled environment in which people OR CAPTIVE ANIMALS can live OR BE KEPT ALIVE in unusual conditions such as under the sea or in space. OR IN A CONCRETE TANK.

"The company is locked in a battle with animal-rights activists, who say that training and publicly performing killer whales is an inherently cruel act. The documentary "Blackfish," which has been screened in cinemas and broadcast multiple times by CNN, raised these criticisms to a higher level of public awareness, and has harmed the company's financial results."

So SeaWorld's solution: Add 15 feet of depth to their pool and 5 million more gallons of water. Happy Whales. And their real motivation? "Investors haven't been kind. SeaWorld shares fell by one-third on Wednesday and are off nearly 50% over the past 12 months. The stock declined another 4.8% to $18 on Thursday."

We can still fix this by not going to SeaWorld or the Miami Seaquarium, now or ever.

Lolita is 21 feet long in a tank that is 23 feet deep. She shares this space with 3 Pacific White-sided dolphins. It has been her habitat for 44 years.

The Tale of a Nose by Sallie Reynolds

Charcoal by Sallie Reynolds

Sallie and I were emailing back and forth a week or so ago, and somehow the subject of Turkey Vultures came up. I told her about my friend Shelia Gaby, who did her PhD thesis on Turkey Vultures. As I recall she would cannon-net them at the Miami dump to tag them. The president of the University of Miami visited the site one day and, while helping Sheila tag one of her subjects, was thrown up upon. My version of the story is secondhand at best, so Sheila feel free to correct me. I then commented to Sallie that If I could come back as an animal, it would be a Turkey Vulture. That's always good for an UGH! My reason: they don't kill their own food, love to sit with their backs to the sun, never have a bad hair day, can soar on thermals with their friends, and rarely dine alone. Ahhh, what a life." GR

The Tale of a Nose by Sallie Reynolds

Ginny loves Turkey Vultures as much as I do. But most of you probably don't often think about them, any more than you think about garbage collectors. Silently, these birds perform a similar great service. Many more animals die than can be consumed quickly by predators, scavenging mammals, insects, and microbes. So it's avian sanitary engineers to the rescue: From the air, they find carcasses more quickly and can get to them speedily. And since the sight of descending vultures is like a dinner bell, a carcass is often picked clean by a large crew, within hours.

You can Google “New World Vultures” and find the basics of their lives (try my website: www.takethemoment.org/species for a detailed introduction). But here are a few esoteric bits:

The story of our Turkey Vulture, or TUVU – one of the two vultures we have in California – is the tale of a nose. TUVUs are different from other vultures. They have a keen sense of smell, much keener than the famous nose of bloodhounds, much much keener than the noses of all other vultures (except two cousins in South America). Miles away and high overhead, they sniff out all newly dead creatures. Hawks, eagles, and other diurnal hunters find their prey by sharp eyesight; owls, being nocturnal, find theirs largely by hearing. TUVU uses his nose. It's not that other birds can't smell – we're discovering that that old wives tale is false. But TUVU's nose rules and he is the first to the party. Good thing, too, because, unlike hawks and owls, TUVUs can't kill with their wimpy feet, and their beaks are not very powerful either. This may be one reason they hang around roads: cars carve up the dinner beast before they get there, so they can eat fast before the rough, tough coyotes arrive and drive them away.

The adult w/ red head, shows the incredible nostril of this smelling machine

Vultures not only clean up dead animals, they reduce contaminants in the soil around their dining room. Their super-acid digestive juices (truly odoriferous!) kill many serious pathogens, including those causing salmonella poisoning, rabies, and anthrax. The indigestible bits from their meal are then compacted by the gizzard into a large pellet. This they regurgitate, a little present for microbes (microbes have the last word on us all). And since bird poop is mostly liquid and their intestines don't store wastes, the slurry is eliminated as it is produced. Vultures squirt it onto their own legs, apparently as a cooling mechanism, but it also sprays generously onto the ground, a tidy if stinky solution to potentially dangerous problem.

Whew! Did I say “keen noses?” Well, yes; even though they love smells we hate, they are, in own their way, quite discriminating. A few years ago, a captive TUVU developed a strong attachment to one of his keepers. He'd approach the fence when the man appeared and behave in a friendly manner. Then the man died. Two years later, his wife visited the compound and approached the TUVU's cage. The bird made a bee-line for her, displaying all the signs of recognition and affection he had shown toward his friend. Turns out she was wearing her dead husband's jacket.

This extraordinary nose lets the TUVU perform another little service: Before piping gas from a well to a storage tank, gas companies perfume the odorless natural product with ethyl mercaptan, the chemical produced by decomposing bodies. When a pipe springs a leak, TUVUs quickly gather overhead. Company crews can then find the leak and repair the pipe.

Fledgling with gray head and blue eye.

What would happen if these birds disappeared? In the last 20 years, India and Pakistan have seen their billions of vultures dwindle to a few thousand, poisoned by a cheap non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug given to cattle raised for leather and dog-food exports. For millennia, the birds had kept down filth and pathogens, even in large over-crowded cities. But today, garbage areas have become stinking sumps and rabies is spreading from the mammalian scavengers to humans.

Fortunately this is in no danger of happening here. In the US today our vultures are thriving: TUVUs are common and increasing. The smaller, scrappier Black Vulture, found in the East and South, is moving into new territories. And the California Condor, after a truly dramatic recovery process, is coming back from the very brink of extinction.

The line drawing is of a single vulture, from a photo of a wall painting in Catal Huyuk, Turkey, from about 8000 years ago.

Books by Sallie Reynolds