Spring Fever and the Dogs of War

Crows are carrying straw and twigs off to make nests, house finches are settling in, and robins are singing their territorial ditty, joined by spring peepers.

     Spring seems the appropriate time to pick up David Abrams’ Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (2010), a^. poetic exploration of how humans can open their senses to the world that envelops them. For Abrams, physical, philosophical, and intellectual consciousness merge. There is no dualism: body and mind are integrated. He had previously written about “phenomenology” or the nature of human awareness in The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World.  The earlier book read like a sensitive-guy-does-science; Becoming Animal aspires to an even more transcendent fusion of material and spirit.

                But it is not for me to immediately continue down Abrams’ all-feeling path. My senses rebelled at some invader and at the heavy rains and wetness that is suddenly sweeping Minnesota from barren dormancy to a humid impersonation of mid-summer. I can’t smell, hear very well, or see very well in Sinus Hell. (Where do allergies fit into a divine or evolutionary scheme?) And my mind, if not my body, smashed into a deadline for a conference paper on dogs and geography.

So I turned to tales of Dogs at War. I’ve just finished From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava by Lt. Col. Jay Kopelman with Melinda Roth.  You can skip to the tale’s end by following the link to a CBS News video featuring Kopelman and Lava.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2069798n&tag=related;photovideo

In essence, the story begins in Fallujah, Iraq, late 2004, after the U.S. Marines have retaken the city. It was in Fallujah the preceding spring that four Blackwater contractors had been dragged from their vehicles to be killed, torched, and displayed. Kopelman is focused on his Marine mission—find and eradicate the enemy—foremost and is training the “pro” U.S. Iraqi soldiers who don’t comprehend his screamed orders and who receive regular death threats from insurgents. After a night of  shock-and-awe bombing, a day of being fired at by snipers and avoiding bombs,  Kopelman and his Lava Dog platoon are investigating mysterious sounds in a house: “a sudden flash of something rolls toward me out of nowhere, shooting so much adrenaline into my wiring that I jump back and slam into a wall. A ball of fur not much bigger than a grenade skids across the floor [. . .] Like I’m tired and wired and anything quick coming at me jerked at my nerves, so I peel back off the wall and reach for my rifle even though I can see it’s only a puppy.” Shooting the starved puppy isn’t “worth the ammunition” though Kopelman expects euthanasia is in the animal’s future. In a war zone, pets are forbidden: all resources and concentration must be dedicated to survival.

                Despite, or maybe because of the training meant to keep Kopelman an efficient killing machine, the pup now named Lava is somehow fed (MREs or Meals Ready to Eat—an unappetizing update on Tang) and dewormed with tobacco. And he develops the habit of sneaking into Kopelman’s sleeping back to snore on the Marine’s feet.

                Keeping Lava, and keeping him save, becomes its own mission, an innocent life to save.  But From Baghdad, With Love is more complex than a sunny moment of puppy love in a grim war. Kopelman  speaks of his fellow Marines with loyalty and pride and identifies with his warrior role. However, his view of his Marine self, like his affection for Lava, does not stand without doubts and questions.  Kopelman, without discussing politics, makes it clear that he thinks the war a mess. He also wonders if his dedication to Lava is a saving grace or a neurotic distraction indicating the toll of war, and any distraction could easily push him and his group into harm’s way.  Kopelman had been in active duty before 2001, gone back to civilian life, only to find that “it never felt normal. It was like There has to be more than this. What’s the point? What are the objectives? What in the hell are the rules?” After 9/11, Kopelman returned to active duty and was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom: “My third deployment in two years swept me into Camp Fallujah, where I trained the Iraqi special Forces who are now out here on the streets of this godforsaken ghost town watching stray dogs eat their dead countrymen.” Even more disturbing than confusion of a war where the occupied, terrified of insurgents and of Americans, seem far from free, is the Marine’s initial reaction: “But it feels normal. Despite the bombs and the insurgents and the rubble, it feels like I belong here. And how screwed up is that?” (37)

                That last passage refers to one type of dog mentioned in the book: strays who eat the corpses. In a country where resources have vanished before bombs and corruption, these dogs may carry parasites, diseases, even rabies. Even Americans who did not share the Arab attitude that dogs are generally “unclean” would have trouble sympathizing with these animals which were often shot. Also, insurgents sometimes attached bombs to stray dogs, donkeys, and cows, and tried to direct them to Americans. In one case the “mule” to be detonated was an unsuspecting teenager with Down’s Syndrome.

Several other dog-types appear. There are fighting-duty dogs, devoted to their Marine handler, but often euthanized at the end of active service because they may attack anyone—a sibling or delivery person—who makes an unexpected gesture.  Becoming more common (and better prepared for retirement) were bomb sniffers trained to be “passive responders” to threats. I’ve seen such a dog on duty (there may be more on him in the future), and these dogs have a Marine-type drive to keep hunting for dangerous materials, but when such materials are found they sit like a stone. The concept is that this gives the handler a clear, safe signal that matter has been found and the dog will not disturb it.

                Lava was not so well behaved and his “rooing” at noises was potentially dangerous for the forbidden pup and for the Marines. So Operation get Lava to the States begins, which provides the book’s drama and suspense. Just as Lava seems about to escape, Kopelman hears about abuses at the Abu Ghraib and the use of dogs to terrify prisoners.  The stress of war took different groups in different directions—in one case illegal emotionally loaded abuse, in the other the illegal over-weighted rescue of one puppy.  With Lava, outsiders helped provide moral clarity and a plan.

Among the many unexpected events and realizations of Kopelman’s tale:

Although relationships between Marines and Iraqis, even the cooperative ones, generally rested on fear and chaos more than trust, all the bodies of the dead the Marines found—U.S., Ally, Insurgent—were treated with respect.

An NPR reporter (yes, the network that some think commie-pinko-liberal ), and a woman reporter at that, Ann Garrels, receives for her bravery and her reporting and her efforts to help Lava enormous respect from the Marines.

Lava’s rescue depended on Iraqi help, and the dog would not have gotten the necessary exit papers without one young Iraqi taking enormous risks. Any help provided an American could mean death, but he found dog biscuits in rubble and help-who-knows where  It was not easy getting a dog safely across the border, but as this young man noted, it was much more doable than getting an Iraqi like himself out.

                Kopelman, in an indirect response to his helper’s realization, ends the book, “Why wasn’t my time spent helping people instead of a puppy? I don’t know, and I don’t care, but at least I saved something.”

More on recovering life and spring later. . .

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Spooked Horses, Hester Prynne, and Richard Burton

A girl's fantasy

Today the "random" trumps the "animal." I saw two movies this April fools weekend--one the new version of Jane Eyre.  The actress who plays Jane, Mia Wasikowska, was Alice in Tim Burton's homage to Lewis Carroll-Johnny Depp, and perhaps inspired the Eyre remake with the ethereal potential of her features. The role of Rochester goes to Michael Fassbender. This is perhaps the first costume drama that Colin Firth has escaped, because you see Colin Firth and you see, you know the scene in the BBC Pride and Prejudice when. . .

Anyway, the not-so-plain Jane first encounters Rochester when she "bewitches" his horse in mysterious woods. To cut to the chase, intense, inscrutable, seemingly fickle Rochester soon confesses that he wants Jane's "soul." O.K. a woman probably wrote that line. We know which one. True, when Rochester possessed women's bodies by acts of innuendo, he ended up with a child that may or may not have been his and a madwoman in the attic. Maybe time to try for the soul.
I did realize in watching this movie (spoiler alert only if you never had an English course and never used Cliff's Notes) that Jane is the Anti-Bertha. Rochester had already tried dark, voluptuous, nonverbal, violent, hirsute. So why not go for repressed, overwrought, anemic?
Richard Burton once played Rochester, and he seemed crazed enough to think he believes a line like "I want your soul" when you know he can't stop there or anywhere. Poor lost Liz Taylor--as a child she had a bit part in a different Jane movie. If only the Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf Taylor could play mad Bertha and a just-past National Velvet Liz play Jane (standing behind a lot of tall chairs to hide her figure). It would be interesting to see Burton/Rochester negotiate upstairs/downstairs Liz-Martha/Liz-Jane. Upstairs Liz would win that one.

Jaundiced Jane AKA C. B.

This new Jane version acquitted itself quite well, after some unnecessary messing with the chronology, though it took a leap of faith to get from about 10 words of dialogue to passion. Then, if you look around those moors, THERE'S NOTHING ELSE GOING ON. IT'S DARK IT'S DREARY. THE WELL WATER RUNS THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD. Maybe because it's been a long winter in Minnesota, the bleak scenery made me want to shout, "TURN ON A LIGHT! VITAMIN D! MEET PEOPLE! GO TO SAN DIEGO!"
California Girls were on my mind because I also saw via DVD this weekend Easy A. Those California girls are reading, or watching the Demi Moore non-version of, The Scarlet Letter. An orange blossom replaces the rose bush by the prison door, and students want a fallen reputation. It's has a skewed wit and treats oversexed teenagers with  irony, while still keeping them oversexed. But any movie in which Stanley Tucci gets to say totally nonfiltered lines is worth some time. Stanley Tucci as Rochester would spook the horse. He might make an interesting Jane.
Happy Belated April Fool's Day

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Cathedrals, Poisons, and the Sacrifice of Dogs

Spring is reluctantly dragging its way into the upper Midwest. Harrier hawks have arrived to catch the rodents flooded out by the all-saturating snowmelt. The cardinals and sparrows that toughed out the winter are brightening in song. It will still be a long month, though, before most warblers make their way to the 45th parallel.
Spring proves that the "temperate zone" is a misleading name for the middle states. I traveled southeast to Pittsburgh to be greeted by snow, rain, sun, snow, all in one day, while the Twin Cities, its street corners still obscured by blackened snow hills, basked in 50 degree (felt like 70 I'm told) sunshine. The Pitt hills, black beneath with coal, did see sun long enough to highlight the University's "Cathedral of Learning." It's reassuring to think that once learning seemed worthy of a cathedral, and inside the fan-gothic ceiling rises from the labors of students and ipads and touchscreens.

I was laboring not so much with the elevation of ideals as with a more sensational read, The Poisoner's Handbook by Pulitzer-Prize winning science writer, Deborah Blum. The subtitle explains Blum's nonfiction narrative mission: "Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York." Blum, at a talk I heard, says she intends to draw the reader in with a seductive first paragraph. Here's how the Handbook begins: "Until the early nineteenth century few tools existed to detect a toxic substance in a corpse. . . . As a result, murder flourished. It became so common in eliminating perceived difficulties, such as a wealthy parent who stayed alive too long, that the French nicknamed the metallic element arsenic poudre de succession, the inheritance powder."

With macabre detail, Blum tells of scientists Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler who spent personal fortunes and logged in long hours to make forensic science an essential reliable force in securing justice. A number of the cases echoed Sherlock Holmes scenarios or inspired writers like James M. Cain of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. There are also tales of accidental poisonings, like those of the "Radium Girls" who painted luminous, radioactive dials on watches: studies of their decline and deaths led to breakthroughs in understanding radiation's dangers.
What I hadn't expected to find was the significant and sad role dogs played in the new science. In one case, cats and dogs that had been found dead were placed in chambers filled with carbon monoxide to test the theory that a corpse does not absorb the gas, which blew apart one man's explanations of how his wife died by a leak rather than, say, strangulation.  In other tests, the animals suffered as the scientists measured the escalating impact of different substances: "Two dogs received measured doses of potassium cyanide through a stomach tube; the others were forced to inhale hydrogen cyanide" by being strapped down with a cone over their muzzles." Dogs were also used to determine the levels of chloroform in the brain that produced a light stupor, unconsciousness, or death. In a case when a young woman died on an abortion table, the doctors claimed accidental bleeding as cause of death, not their use of chloroform. The forensics department was suspicious but "wanted the results to be inarguable." So dogs were tested to determine the lethal level. Another test seems more harmless: some dogs were habituated to alcohol, others not, and then both sets were administered alcohol to see the impact: "At half a cup, the chronic drinker [dog] was unfazed, as 'playful as ever.' His companion, though, developed a slightly staggering walk and then sat down and refused to move." Double the alcohol and all dogs failed sobriety. To get exact measurements of alcohol levels, the dogs were killed and their organs analyzed.
The scientists featured advanced lab techniques and knowledge about chemical uses and dangers--their learning served health and justice.  However, scientific evidence can only go so far in creating moral clarity out of hearsay, hidden motives, ignorance, need, and competing interests. Blum avoids passing direct judgment but presents evidence that speaks and outspoken scientists. Charles Norris repeatedly denounced Prohibition as a colossal failure that made drinking sexier, more potent in alcoholic content (bathtub gin have a much greater kick than beer or wine), and more dangerous. "Choose your poison" could be a literal statement during the Depression, when bootlegged hooch frequently contained dirt-cheap toxic methyl (rather than potable ethyl) alcohol and other potentially lethal ingredients added by unscrupulous bootleggers or by law-agents trying to discourage drinking.  This didn't turn so many from drink as it drove them to the gutter or morgue.
TV show forensics often present exact answers provided by a minuscule slide sample, with no worry about financial or ethical costs. Blum chronicles all kinds of costs: the murders and accidents that created the need and evidence; the masses of body parts pulverized, steamed, distilled; the criminal results of desperation; and the stress on victims, police, doctors and scientists who often lacked financial and social support. Blum does not editorialize on the use of dogs, presented as part of the scientific method of the time. Whatever you think of animals and scientific testing, we can all hope that the methods of the 1920s and 30s prepared the way for much less dangerous and invasive forms of investigation that does not cause suffering to sentient beings--an issue that must be continually reviewed. And we can recognize the important sacrifice of animals.

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The Dog-niscient Narrator

The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein (New York: Harper, 2009)

Imagine your story told from the point of view of someone who loves you unconditionally, who witnesses your public and private moments, your successes and sorrows, who always believes the very best of you and thinks you the center of the universe. Who gives you complete and undivided attention when you are near the treat container. And who knows the intricacies of racing Ferraris.
This is the premise of Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain, a novel narrated from the viewpoint of "Enzo," the lab and terrier and something mix-of-a-dog who tells the story of his human Denny.  That human has drawn Enzo, named after the founder of the Ferrari line, into the intricacies of auto racing, and into the rough uncharted track of human relationships. There is lust and love--Denny and Eve. Birth and delight--Zoe. And neglect, illness, stuffed toys, death, sex crimes, BMW's, lawyers and in-laws. Possibly redemption and the winner's circle. All this is held together by two literary devices.
The first is the nearly all-seeing, all-smelling dog's viewpoint, a more sympathetic version of the "fly-on-the-wall" technique. Enzo perceives through a moral, emotional filter, but with a few significant exceptions, cannot much interfere with the human plot entanglements. The second is the zen of motorcar racing applied to the emotional stew of life, to mix metaphors. Some of the advice is gnomic--"that which you manifest will come before you"--and other seemingly pragmatic--a car is only as good as its tires. The racing lore matters less when the track is perfect and other drivers slow and well-behaved, and far more when conditions become treacherous, when other drivers spin out of control, when the track itself is badly planned.
The Random Animal is not much for speed--case in point, this novel has been out for a few years. But the racing information was handled with dexterity, and dog-narrator Enzo's view on a number of things were amusingly skewed by a perspective that didn't care how culture critics rank TV shows like The Rockford Files and Colombo with that odd-duck actor Peter Falk. Sometimes the dog-niscient view bolstered by a racing obsession that at first seemed overdone, but what obsession is underdone?
The canine-racing viewpoint did not venture much into the character of dog-life in contemporary society except for some glimpses of a heartless puppy mill owner and discussion of hip dysplasia and animals in pain. In a few cases, the canine-savant acts very much like a puppy, as in this passage when a friend takes Enzo in at a time of family despair and asks the dog to retrieve his own "puppy" from under the sofa: "'Where's your dog?' I didn't want to admit that I still slept with a stuffed animal but I did. I loved that dog, and Denny was right, I did hide it during the day because I didn't want Zoe to assimilate it into her collection and also because when people saw it they wanted to play tug and I didn't like tugging with my dog. And also, I was afraid of the virus that had possessed the zebra."
You'll have to read the book to learn more about Evil Zebra. And Racing in the Rain is often a delightful, but emotionally taut read.  I had and keep some hesitation about the gimmicky dog-niscience, but it allowed a story that could have been a dreary soap-opera to keep an innocence and optimism. There's nothing like a dog's eager hopefulness and a bright red Ferrari.

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Monkeys on the Brain

Yes, for a nominal fee, this monkey will dance on your head! Sometimes even more happens, but that may fall in the TMI category.
I was lucky enough to be in Central America on "business" and participated in a few "eco-tours." The word "eco" is often used loosely to mean something done outdoors, involving contact with water, rock, or animal. An ideal eco-tour, I guess, would be one that created a small carbon footprint with proceeds going to the protection of  indigenous species. What I saw was in between beach shops catering to a drunken spring break crowd and a less penetrable rain forest grown over Mayan ruins. The jungle-park excursion kept some jungle protected, I assume, and provided income for some people. (Not much, apparently, from the look of nearby dwellings.) The animals were tamed (somewhat) examples of what lived beyond the park. Probably better for tourists to encounter a few tamed examples than to disturb wild populations. And it is probably better to keep a few capuchins about for display rather than selling them as pets or meat. On another excursion, untamed howler monkeys made their statement and briefly appeared in the trees. Another appeared hanging over a river.

It is exciting, and a relief, to see wild animals still in their habitat. It is difficult to gauge, though, the extent of long term environmental protection in countries where human habitation often seems on a poor grounding.

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At Sea

“The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea / in a beautiful pea green boat.”

I’m at sea and have seen neither an owl nor a pussycat. The boat, ship rather, is the color ships are wont to be—white with a beautiful sea blue trim.

I’m not exactly on an eco tour, but there are opportunities for nature encounters. One occurred with sting rays that could seem as affectionate as the owl and pussycat. It was in the shallows of the Cayman Islands, where virtual banks float in tax-free waters. In the deep deep seas, the water is royal blue. In the white sand shallows, where the rays, linger, it modulates to translucent jade.

There people—retirees, teenagers, couples—mingle with sting rays who brush by their guests. For over 30 years, the rays have been fed tidbits that that escaped the anti pasta tray to become sashimi for sea life. Under the influence of wildlife biologists, I remain suspicious of feeding wild animals, of encouraging a dependence on wet-suited adventurers. Or maybe it’s co-dependence. Those in the water thrilled at being brushed by water wings. In the name of research, I joined them. In the rough seas, I had trouble balancing on the shifting sands—treading water would have kicked up too much sand. Others around me would hold baby squid just under the stingray so the animal could hoover it in. I tried, with my thumb tucked in as directed, but the ray still got a sample of finger—leaving a nip mark that in a few hours disappeared from view, like the ocean floor.

The stinger attached to the top of the tail can cause serious harm, but as long as you don’t lunge for eyes or spine, the rays are content to flutter by, held in orbit by the floating bait bucket.

“They’re like puppies,” someone said. Eager for attention, amenable to being stroked. But puppies they aren’t.  Maybe the rays’ tolerance and seeming good nature argues for keeping lovely and clear their pea green home.

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Cougars, Bison, and Cows

The Random Animal has been sucked into the vortex of work deadlines. Do non-human animals have deadlines? There are biological imperatives: breed now, eat now, hibernate now. I suppose if a deer doesn't make it from the cornfield to the woods before a hunter shoots, she's literally met a deadline.
A more serious deadline has been encountered by the Eastern cougar, now considered extinct, as reported by The Huffinton Post. Bison, however, have returned in large enough numbers to the Plains and the West that they can be hunted again by Native American Tribes . (Some animal advocates are against all hunting, while others support hunting that is "traditional" and considered part of an indigenous group's regular sustenance. For others, like the environmentalist Aldo Leopold, hunting should suit ecological balance: all positions can seem logical--or a strange game of hair splitting with fungible categories.)
And the family farm remains endangered. But a relative sent me a link about dairy farms in Maine, much like the one I grew up on. Farmers in Washington County, according to the New York Times are trying to control their own destinies and tap into the locavore movement. It is not an easy life; these people have dedication to pursue their dream of a successful MOO coop. A video shows some stark winter scenes in Maine dairy country. I remember the thick coats of cows allowed to go outside. A gentle storm would blanket them, and they seemed reluctant to move, for then the blanket would fall to the ground.
I once saw a bison in winter. That enormous head swivels back and forth in the snow, sweeping it to the sides. All for the crispy-cold grasses beneath.

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