"Animals in Human Society" Course at UIS

I have just learned that the American publisher has finalized an agreement with a press in China to my publish book The Mythical Zoo in Chinese translation. This will be my second book to be published in Chinese. I like to think that maybe the dragons put in a good word for it.

Suggested by Jeremy Thomas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90CkXVF-Q8M

Crows are the bird watchers, and we are their birds.

I was pretty startled at the number of birds killed by the Department of Agriculture, because farmers claim they eat grain and are pests. This does not even include the numbers killed by the farmers themselves, which might be far larger still. http://www.nytimes.com///americas-wildlife-body-count.html

The Animals and Human Society course is in the catalog at State University of Illinois at Springfield in the fall semester for the first time in over a year. Those of you who have taken the course in the past and enjoyed it are encouraged to recommend it to your friends.

I am happy to announce that the "Animals and Human Society" course will run again next fall at the State University of Illinois at Springfield. As you may possibly know, it won a national award form the Center for Respect for Life and the Environment in 2007 as "the best new course." For a few years, it was so popular that three sections would fill up almost instantly, but when it was changed from an interdisciplinary course to a philosophy one, it was impossible to get sufficient interest to run it every semester. It has not run for about a year or more, so I am delighted that, at least for a while, it is back.

What does this have to do with Puritans, Indians, turkeys, and sales? Probably not too much. But it does have a lot to do with Thanksgiving. Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

http://stanfordpress.typepad.com//plants-are-the-new-anima

I just saw a television show, in which several climate change deniers were interviewed. Just about all of them said that human beings could not possibly be resp...onsible for an impact on that scale. Why not? They didn't say. Yes, I realize as well as anybody that this position is irrational, as well as probably suicidal. But it also occurred to me that, translated into ecospeak, they seem to be saying that environmentalists are "too anthropocentric." And their position. You might possibly call it "theocentric," but God is not a very vivid or immediate presence in contemporary culture, either on the "left" or on the "right." The dynamics here are not very clear to me, and I do not wish to make any dogmatic pronouncements. But it seems to me that conservatives, like liberals, may intuitively sense that the focus on humankind in modern culture has been excessive, and the two may, in the long run, share more than either group realizes, even if they express this in radically different ways. I am also thinking that the common distinction between those who are "anthropocentric" and those who are "ecocentric" is probably far too crude, and may conceal at least as much as it illuminates. Any thoughts? See more

I have just learned that the American publisher has finalized an agreement with a press in China to my publish book The Mythical Zoo in Chinese translation. This will be my second book to be published in Chinese. I like to think that maybe the dragons put in a good word for it.

I am delighted that The Poet's Press has made my last collection of poetry The Raven and the Sun available as an ebook for just $2. The poems mean a lot to me, ...which is why this message is probably about as close as I will ever come to promoting them. Poetry is meant to be shared, not marketed. But here is the very first poem in the collection: WITHIN AN APPLE SEED "Inside your walls Are generations of trees, A vast horizon And apples enough to last Until the end of time, So, surely, there is room For me as well... Let me in!" I call, yet nobody Answers, for those in the seed Are resting underneath A fragrant bough. One thinks, "Is that a squirrel In the leaves?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The book can be purchased for two dollars at:

This contains some interesting information, but it uncritically repeats the fakelore about the ravens at the Tower of London being domesticated by Charles II.

Which animal is most like humankind?