The obscene and cruel sin of bestiality

Avner Shats writes in a piece dealing with thoughts during army reserve service in the Har Dov region (25.5) about a story he heard from one of the soldiers. "The following is not a whole-family story, no matter how delicate I'll try to be," he begins. ... During my army service as an officer in the northern command I watched several times a short video taken from a great distance by one of the intelligence lookout posts in the central Lebanese region. The video shows a shepherd committing bestiality, and I think it is likely that this is the origin of the story which has become a legend, going down from generation to generation among the IDF posts and bunkers. I don't know when it was shot, but if I'm not mistaken I saw it for the first time in August 1993. I don't remember if it was at the end of a tape with a collection of air force attacks in Lebanon, or on a separate video. In any case I watched it for the first time right after the said air force attacks video. There was a Mediterranean grove, and a donkey tied to a tree, which was probably an oak, afflicted by black goats pasturing around it, and a shepherd who tied the donkey to a tree and took him from behind, standing on a stone step. On the same video there was another flick taken by the lookout unit during a holiday in Eilat, showing a man having sex with a woman on a hotel porch. The woman lies on her back on an easy chair, the man lies on top of her, moving up and down for a few minutes, suddenly stops, goes to the porch railing and looks at the view, turns again to the woman who is lying all that time on her back without moving, continues to move up and down for a few minutes. Than he returns to the railing, and over again. Another couple was seen making love sitting down.

Misgav Har-Peled

[From Haaretz Tarbut Vesifrut literary supplement, Friday, June 1, 2001]

In Praise Of Possums

As a follow up to last week's "Possums O' Plenty" (City Beat, June 14 [1996]), I would like to salute the possum. Specifically, I would like to say that possums are much better than cats. They eat the same carrion, but they don't kill sweet little birds. They are amazingly stupid (possums can just barely learn to navigate a T-maze!), primitive, slow, durable and ugly and no one feels sorry for them, no matter how pathetically they die. Next time you abuse possums, imagine the alternative: cats! - cats that eat up all your wrens so they can have six kittens each under your bedroom window, mewing watery-eyed and skeletal until you start to cry. Feeling as guilty as if you'd never seen a cat play with a mouse for half an hour, you set out food in a pie plate. Perhaps you will attain your goal - one of the kittens will survive. In six months it will be chomping the heads off orioles so it can make six more. But you smiled when you read that 25 baby possums are born to 13 teats. At heart you are as hard and merciless as the cats you love. Yet it is the possum who allows you to show your feelings openly. The possum has much to teach us.

Nell Zink

Editor, Animal Review

West Philadelphia

Corrections 

[Regarding "The Pears of  Uzbekistan," 19/12/00:]
 

1. An Uzbek pear tree once grew in Nahalal. I ate one off the tree when I was maybe seven.

2. My pear fantasies were fueled just as much by Ayin Hillel's* masterpiece "Chutzlaaretz, Chutzlaaretz." Quote: "'Portofino!' our leader
Yechiel cried .... Just then we began to feel hungry, or perhaps got hungry at the sight of a fruit store full of magnificent crops: pears, apples, grapes, plums. But a grape here is a plum of ours; and a pear or an apple here is a grapefruit of ours! A moment later we already were devouring those giant pears, their juice dripping on our collars."
 
* Ayin Hillell - the best analogy I can think of is
to Dr. Seuss, only better, but this is far from accurate. A poet, but mainly remembered for his children's books and poems. "Abroad, Abroad!" is about an Israeli-born kibbutznik going for the first time abroad in 1952 or so. He sails in the S.S. Kedmah to several Mediterranean ports. It was a very influential book.

- Avner 

True enough 

I'm not ready to concede that it's possible to dislike the Beatles. It's like loathing Cole Porter. They were a dependable source for appealing songs and pretty ok at regulating the sugar levels. Kind of a poor choice for one's all-time favorite rockin' combo 'cause there are plenty of more brilliant and distinctive people out there but they would leave a bigger vacuum in your life than coriander.

- Patrick

A triumph of the human spirit

Yesterday on one of the morning shows I saw Emeril deep-fat frying a turkey in an outdoor fryer -- it was scary to watch as long rods and safety glasses were employed, and he used 2-1/2 gallons of peanut oil. But then the turkey was oddly appealing when it was lifted from the grease all blackened -- kinda the same way Cheetos taste great, but if you really looked at their color and contemplated how bizarre they are, you'd never eat them. 

- Ms. Jumbo Loopy Chenille

Report from the front

Overnight, approximately 2,000 huge statues of penguins, each different in shape, color, and texture, popped up all around Tel Aviv.

- The Flightless Ibis