The Truth About Rhinos

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Sunday September 14, 2014 · 3:40 PM PDT

2014/09/14 · 15:40

A pair of rhinos, one green and one yellow, meet at the seashore.

This article by Franette Armstrong marks another installment in the "Gray Papers" addressing all things elephant, rhino and other African wildlife now endangered due to human behavior and culture.

Rhinos. What do most people know about one of Africa's "Big Five?" Here's a short quiz to test your rhino-savvy and maybe make you a bit of an expert in the process.

Ready? True or False?

Rhinos have horns.
False! We call them horns and they look sort of like horns, but really they aren't. A true horn is bone covered with a sheath of keratin. Rhino "horns" have no bone-y core and are only made of keratin which is basically dead protein cells like those that make up your callouses, nails and hair.

Here is a photo of some buffalo horns: true horns. The bony interiors have been removed so the keratin sheath stands alone:

Compare this cross-section of a poached rhino "horn" with the true horn above. As you can see, there's no bone inside; it is keratin all the way through.

Rhino Horns Have Magical or Healing Properties.
False! There are no magical properties in keratin! If you want keratin, you can just go to any hair salon and sweep the floor. Yet, rhino horns are more valuable than gold in Vietnam, the largest market today for poached rhino horns.

In China, drinking from a rhino-horn cup is thought to bring long life and enhanced virility. It's sad that even today people believe something that looks phallic will solve impotency.

All Rhinos have at least two horns.
False! All African and Sumatran rhinos have at least two horns but Indian and Javan rhinos have only one. Males and females are both horn-endowed, which is another reason it's ridiculous to think rhino horns improve virility.

You call a group of rhinos a¦
a) Crash
b) Herd
c) Both
d) Neither

The answer is C. You can call them a crash or a herd. Technically, though, rhinos are not herd animals.

One rhinoceros, two ___?
Rhinoceroses or rhinos! Unless you are a hunter or poacher, in which case you think of animals as a thing rather than a group of individuals and call a bunch of them rhino, lion, elephant, etc. Along the same lines, hunters call safaris game hunts or game drives. So do photographers and tourists, but animals are not game and this term should be dropped by them.

Rhinos are fierce carnivores.
False! Rhinos are peace-loving vegetarians. They mostly eat leaves, but can eat bark and branches if that's what is available.

Unlike elephants, rhinos aren't crucial to their ecosystem.
False! Researchers have proven that without rhinos all other animals that depend on grazing the plains suffer. With rhinos, the number and types of plants multiply. They give back nearly as much as they take, too, as the fiber in their food goes straight through and ends up as fertilizer.

Rhinos and elephants contend for "largest land animal" title.
False! Rhinos are the second largest land animal. The largest get to about 6600 pounds, about half the weight of the largest male African Elephants.
Here a young elephant makes friends with a rhino:

More learning fun about rhinos below the keratin squiggle!

JrCrone for DK GreenRoots

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Wednesday September 10, 2014 · 2:00 PM PDT

2014/09/10 · 14:00

I am Elephant. I am Rhinoceros

Written by Rosemary Alles

http://www.march4elphantsandrhinos.org

I am elephant. I am rhinoceros. We are children of the Dark Continent, Africa. Our parents are of this land, as were theirs and theirs. Through the birth
and death of stars and the rise and fall of empires the earth has held us in trust; she has kept her promise to guide us and we have kept ours to guard the
secrets of forests, grasslands and desert, so she may live.

We know of the rise of rivers, swollen from so much rain, they run rapids, breaking their banks and tearing at the roots of acacia, which fall into foaming
waters that roar their way to the deltas and then the sea. We know from our parents’ words when these same rivers run dry; where food can be found in
droughts and where to smell for water ten feet or more beneath the parched skin of earth. We know of ancient pathways that lead to rock and valleys where
water pools into granite basins waiting to be sipped. And we know of nights so dark that that no shadow survives them and of those made bright by the
earth’s daughter, her only satellite our moon, or the tearing of the sky by the milky way, our galaxy and home to three hundred billion stars.

We know of sunrise and sunset, of our fiery star, the sun that draws an arc across the sky, defining day and separating it from night; we know of fathers,
sisters, brothers and mothers; of birth and death and suffering and joy.

Human, your story and ours is very much alike.

I am elephant; you kill ninety-six of us each day for our ivory, for trinkets. I am rhinoceros; you kill two of us each twenty-four hours for our horns;
for snake-oil medicine. It is predicted that we will not survive the next decade. From millions in numbers to hundreds of thousands, to thousands, to
hundreds, to tens; from millions of years to hundreds of thousands, to thousands, to hundreds, to tens; will we too vanish like the early mist that is
vanquished by the glare of the yellow sun?

Human, we are made of the same atoms that abandoned exploding stars so many millions of years ago. We, all of us are one. We, like you want to live.

I am elephant. I am rhinoceros.

JrCrone

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Friday August 29, 2014 · 8:29 PM PDT

2014/08/29 · 20:29

We March for Elephants
We March for Rhinos
We March for Lions

People have asked us—“Why do you march? What good is marching? You should be making direct contact with people in power, with people who can ‘make a difference.’ Every day 96 elephants are killed. That’s one every 15 minutes. A march does not stop this. You need to raise money and lobby politicians. And you should be writing: writing legislation.”

Other people have told us, “Why do you march? What good is marching? You can do nothing. Those with the power to make a difference, in China, overseeing the 37 ivory carving factories and 145 licensed shops, will do nothing because you march. Elephants will continue to die. No elephant will be saved because of the protest actions in the United States.” Regarding rhino horn, they say “you cannot lessen its fashion or influence those in Vietnam who consume it.”

The people who question us say that marches seem “nice” and make those who march “feel good,” but are ultimately useless—a futile gesture good for nothing other than the egos of those who take part, far away from the halls of power, far away from the carving factories, far away from the scenes of injustice, death, and wholesale destruction of the elephant, rhinoceros, and lion populations that have been under relentless attack by poaching, wildlife trade, corruption, and consumption. They say we are too far away and our activities are merely a waste of time and resources.

They are wrong to say this.

JrCrone

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Tuesday May 20, 2014 · 11:54 PM PDT

2014/05/20 · 23:54

Presidential Herd, Zimbabwe. Photo copyright Sharon Pincott.

Help is needed to safeguard a herd of elephants in crisis. Once protected by an explicit presidential directive, the elephants flourished. Now this directive needs to be reaffirmed. But shooting has already been heard in the area, and one of the most dedicated activists documenting this range, Sharon Pincott, is getting out. There is no reason that those gunshots might not catch her as well as an elephant.

Please sign the Petition.

*Save the Presidential Elephants Now
https://www.change.org/...

On 19 MAY, 2014, Kenesias Dambakurima, Zimbabwean activist and poet, released information about a petition he wrote on behalf of the elephants to evict the “Kanondo” land claimant and her supporters from the land reserved for the protected elephants of the Presidential Herd next Hwange National Park Main Camp.

He plans to deliver this petition personally to the Ministers who could reassert that the land is dedicated to the elephants to remain in their natural state, unmolested. Safe from culling, hunting, and poaching.

All signatures are meaningful. International support increases the likelihood of the herd's preservation. More details and links below the orange flourish.

JrCrone for KosAbility

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Sunday April 20, 2014 · 4:00 PM PDT

2014/04/20 · 16:00

A kindergarten child with moptop hair cocks his head and looks across his left hand at the viewer who can see only the child's right eye. There is distortion of blurs, flares, and light leaks that show difference and approximate the level of imagined useful vision experienced by child. — How do we know ourselves?

M. asked me a question as I was tucking him into bed, just prior to our reading time. "Am I disabled? Or am I a child?" The form was deceptive. It was framed simply. It was not a simple question. It was profoundly philosophical. Of course I was taken aback. But, it was an honest question. He wanted to know. Identity is important. “You are a child. And you have a disability. You will always have to work around it. Like you do with your art.” That was enough, for the moment. It was sufficient to settle whatever had been nagging his brain, pulling at his heart, enough to make him ask mother.

Sometimes he will ask silly questions. Questions for which he obviously knows the answers. Those are the “mastery questions,” the “start a dialogue that is a familiar game” questions, the “annoy mom” questions. For the silly questions, a good solution is to turn the question back such that he must answer it himself: “What do YOU think that blah blah blah blah blah...?” Said with a smile, but not a sentimental one. Even if the annoyance bubbles up, he wants the conversation. If I manage myself, the conversation will change soon enough. I can gently steer it. He already knows that I will do that. Lord knows, I have done it many, many times. Am I skilled? Or am I trained? But this digression deflects the depth of his question on this particular evening. He recognized his own implication in a constructed dichotomy: disabled/child.

KosAbility is a Sunday 4pm(Pacific time) community series by volunteer diarists, as a gathering for people living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues. Our use of "disability" includes temporary as well as permanent conditions, from small, gnawing problems to major, life-threatening health/medical problems. Our use of "love someone" extends to beloved members of other species. Our discussions are open threads in the context of this community. Feel free to comment on the diary topic, ask questions of the diarist or generally to everyone, share something you've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about your situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered. If you are interested in contributing a diary, contact series coordinator postmodernista.

JrCrone

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Thursday March 27, 2014 · 10:33 PM PDT

2014/03/27 · 22:33

Bust portrait of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He is weeping and wearing a Crown of Thorns

Jesus, Christie!

"Egad! Egad! Lame you'd indict me!"

With a nod to Jed Lewison, whose diary, It's official: Chris Christie lawyers exonerate Chris Christie included the following moving observation concerning the governor's emotional state:

It suggests that Mr. Christie became highly emotional at a meeting in the State House in January when he learned that Ms. Kelly and Mr. Stepien were involved in the scheme, even “welling up with tears.”

Naturally, the image of the scourged Christ, weeping for all of us, came to mind.

Not so naturally, I ended up spending way too much time making the image happen.

Welding or... Art History?

JrCrone

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday February 01, 2014 · 7:23 PM PST

2014/02/01 · 19:23

A BRIEF RESPONSE TO
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S THOUGHTFUL CONCERNS REGARDING THE
EMPLOYABILITY AND PAY SCALE OF LIBERAL ARTS MAJORS

Or, You Can Make Better Money, Potentially, as a Welder than if You Study Art History

Wherein our President takes most Particular Aim
at that most Dubious Discipline,
doubly so, in that it not only
Features Art, but History

The author does beg her betters
to consider that if we don’t have Art Historians,
how will their art purchases gain in value?

This morning when I was engaged in wasteful and non-STEM productive pursuits (ie checking in on Facebook over a cup of tea following a particularly challenging week), I noted a friend’s status update referring to the Inside Higher Ed's coverage of our President’s remarks about Art History and its general value as an employment opportunity. I consider this friend to be downright heroic in her work as a teacher who is interrogating the way we approach education. She included a pithy remark with the link and the discussion was on.

http://www.insidehighered.com/...

"[A] lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree. Now, nothing wrong with an art history degree -- I love art history. So I don't want to get a bunch of emails from everybody. I'm just saying you can make a really good living and have a great career without getting a four-year college education as long as you get the skills and the training that you need."

While her friends were in general agreement that this was a pretty outrageous thing for the President to say, there were some who did acknowledge, sadly, that there was some merit to his assertion. The tone paralleled the way that adult children lament Dad’s harsh manner even as they concede that his judgment cannot be refuted. Read More

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The Truth About Rhinos

An Activist Meditation: Rosemary Alles' "I am Elephant, I am Rhinoceros"

Why We March... Against Extinction

Zimbabwe Elephant Crisis-Your Help Needed Now. Please Sign Petition.

"Am I disabled? Or am I a child?"

Chris Christie, Man of Sorrows

Welding or... Art History?