Richard Snow Writer, Strange news.

Odd stuff I found in the papers this week.

1 Comment

In Britain, a young woman has had her stomach removed after drinking a cocktail made with liquid nitrogen. Gaby Scanian, 18, a resident of Haysham in Lancashire, drank the cocktail at Oscars Bar in Lancaster. The bar had advertised the drink on its Facebook page.  Adding liquid nitrogen to the cocktail makes it give off white smoke. Liquid nitrogen is often used to chill food and glasses, but if swallowed may burn your mouth, throat, and stomach. The bar has since stopped serving the drink.

Cocktail Picture by Lynn Kelley Author, WANA Commons

Scientist have discovered a new type of squid, named  Vampyroteuthis infernalis, (Latin for  “Vampire squid from Hell”).  The squid lives at ocean depths so low that it can’t form muscle tissue, so it lives on  dead things, and guess what else? Faeces. Yep, that’s right. Apparently this doesn’t require a whole lot of muscle development.

Some squid that live in the waters around the states of Victoria and Tasmania, Australia, use up so much energy in mating that they swim slower for half an hour afterwards. The “dumpling squid” only live a year, and become sexually mature at four months, so they have to get it while they can. Melbourne University Master of Science student Amanda Franklin studied the squid and published  her findings in the Journal “Biology Letters.” According to Franklin, the squid have multiple partners and the males initiate sex “whenever they can.” Being slow to swim afterwards makes them vulnerable to predators, so they bury themselves in sand to hide.

A bride in the town of Jallias  in western France gave birth to a baby, only minutes after the wedding  ceremony. She was not due for a week, but felt unwell after a ceremony at the town hall and went back inside. Minutes later paramedics were called after her waters broke. The local mayor, Jean-Robert Gachet, said it was a very emotional moment for everyone when the baby was delivered. Yeah. sounds like bad planning to me. I wonder what the wedding photos will look like.

If anyone would like to alert me to weird stuff in their newspapers, please let me know.

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: There has been a lot of discussion this last couple of weeks about the film “Innocence of the Muslims,” and the resulting riots in many counties, including at least a couple of dozen people who have been killed. I found this video by a Muslim man, Syed Mahmoud, urging his fellow Muslims not to demonstrate or riot. I agree. The film is an artless piece of junk that looks as tho a-14 year-old made it just to be provocative and seek attention. Mahmoud argues that by continuing to demonstrate, people are simply giving the film free publicity, for no good outcome. I agree, and   here’s the link to his video.

Have a good week.

Richard Snow

My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, here :The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here.

Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Uncategorized

When ‘Art’ insults Religion; where are the limits?

Leave a comment

Contents of ‘When ‘Art’ insults Religion; where are the limits?’

Piper Bayard has written in  her blog  about the current  film on Youtube which has resulted in riots and protests in several counties. Bayard states that “…religion, like politics, is visceral and rational discussions of either are rare.” She’s dead right. Her blog also has a discussion (which I recommend) of which countries might stand to gain from the current unrest, which I won’t attempt to summarize here.

Here in Australia there was a demonstration this week in which an adult held a sign saying “behead those who insult the prophet” and a small child (aged 6-7) held a similar banner, given to the child by its twenty-six year old mother.  You can see the sign here. Several police and demonstrators were injured when the demonstration moved to Martin Place, home of the US consulate.

A childish, stupid film, by a dishonest director

I’ve seen the film on Youtube. It’s childish, stupid, and is clearly intended to offend. The director has been dishonest with his actors, because he overdubbed the actor’s voices with other dialogue after the film was produced.  You can easily see where the producer (Sam Bacile) overdubbed the voices to make the actors say lines that weren’t originally in their scripts: the overdubbed voices don’t even sound like the original ones. (The actors claim to have been used and didn’t realize what would be done with the film.) It features a donkey who appeared to have converted to Islam.  I gather there are still arguments about whether the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was related to the film or was already planned, so I won’t comment on that.

The film, we are told, only had one public viewing, in one cinema in Hollywood, for one night, and the audience consisted of about two dozen friends of the director. Without further publicity his film would have just fizzled away into the dustbin of history.

As best as I can figure, with the latest bombing in Afghanistan, the death toll appears to be about 20. (I’m writing about 4 pm Australia, Wednesday).   By demonstrating as they have, Muslims have only given the film free publicity and caused more people to click onto Youtube to see “what it’s about.”

So what role do we have – if any – in protecting the feelings of those who may be offended by deliberate insults to their religion?

Christians didn’t react with violence to the film Life of Brian. As far as I know Christians didn’t organize book burnings or demonstrations in response to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. If they had it would probably just have increased his sales. Dawkins referred to the Christian God as a monster and a child abuser for ordering Abraham to (almost) sacrifice his son Issac on an altar as a test of faith. (For a summary of Dawkins’ claim and Christian reaction to Dawkins click here. ) On Melbourne television last night Muslim leaders appeared urging Muslims in Australia to ignore text messages and not to demonstrate.

Australia has a widely accepted  system of film censorship that mostly relates to sex and violence, but not religion.

So the central question: is how do you respond to so books or film that argue with or insult a religion?

Should we have censorship on the internet?

Should such things be censored?  Generally, my argument is no. In most of the English-speaking world, it’s legal to criticize, or even make a comedy about  a religion. I don’t see a way of banning the Youtube video unless Youtube itself pulls it – which it has done in several countries where the content would be illegal. But elsewhere governments have no power to do so. (Except China – but we don’t want to go down that pathway). Even if they had, the question becomes where do you stop? If governments had the power to ban this video, do you ban the Life Of Brian? Mel Gibson’s film, ‘The Passion of the Christ? Certain episodes of Southpark? I don’t see that religion is in a special category of its own that should somehow be exempt from logical criticism, humor, or ridicule. If there is a reason for religion being a special category, let’s discuss that – calmly and rationally.

On purely pragmatic grounds it sometimes helps to hold your tongue. If you’re at a family gathering and you think Mormon baptism of the dead is ridiculous (which I do think), or a loving monotheistic creator wouldn’t create a world in which the majority of its inhabitants are destined for hell, (which happens to be my own view) but you have a Mormon family member at the barbecue, it’s better for the sake of peace in the family to stay quiet.

In Australia, any religion is free to set up a table on the street or on a university campus, and debate or criticize the beliefs of others, including atheists, and others are free to criticize their religion – in fact any religion – and the best course of action is to respond with rational discussion debate. Explain why you think your religion is better than others, but do it logically.

Why give your enemy free publicity?

The actions of perhaps 50 people in Sydney have reinforced stereotypes of several hundred thousand other Muslims in Australia, who had nothing to do with these demonstrations. Many Muslim leaders in Australia have urged their followers to stay away from any similar future demonstrations about this film, and in this, I think the local Muslim leaders are correct.

We all have to accept that free speech means sometimes people will think that what you say is offensive, and they might think your views are offensive, so keep the response rational and civil.

Additional note: I found this video by a Muslim man, Syed Mahmoud, urging his fellow Muslims not to demonstrate or riot.  Mahmoud argues that by continuing to demonstrate, people are simply giving the film free publicity, for no good outcome. I agree completely, and   here’s the link to his video.

Chess, The benefits of practice

What does Chess teach us about life?

Leave a comment

I recently start playing at a chess club after not looking at the game for 30 years, and observing some of the club players, and the game itself, a few thoughts occurred to me.

Photo by Richard Snow

Chess teaches us to think about the consequences of our actions. In chess we constantly have to think that “if I do this, the other guy will do that, and then I’ll have to do something else.” Too often in real life we do things without thinking how the other person will react, or what we’ll do in response.

The more often you practice the better you become. This goes without saying in chess, but it’s true for most things in life. The eight-year-olds, who regularly beat me at the club, have been playing since they were four, and they play on-line  every night.

Stopping and starting at things doesn’t make you good at anything. If you want to become good at something you have to practice regularly.

There’s no point in slamming your pieces around the board. Some people do. But if you have a strong position and a good move, it doesn’t become stronger because you put on a theatrical display of banging your pieces around. Same when you have a weak position and are making a weak move. Same thing in life. If you have a good argument for something, it doesn’t become better when you shout and carry on, or thump the table.

And finally, if you lose a game it’s not the end of the world. On some Saturdays, I’ve lost  eight games in a row. But that’s to be expected when I’ve only taken the game up a few months ago.  Some of the people at the club have been playing for thirty years.  At the end of the day, I learn some trap to avoid or some strategy to use. And I just need to plug away for a couple of years to become better at the game.

So what about you? Do you have any sports,  or hobbies that teach you more general lessons about life?. Leave a comment. Let us know.

Richard Snow Writer, Strange news., Strange things, Uncategorized

The world is getting stranger: what do chess games have in common with assault rifles?

2 Comments

Chess players with assault rifles? Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? But first some other strange news:

A consumer agency in the US filed a law suit to ban the sale of “Bucky balls” (shapes that fit together with the aid of magnets inside them.) A total of twenty-two children had swallowed the magnets and suffered an injury, out of a total of 475 million magnets sold. Someone did a  bit of mathematics, and calculated the rate of injuries per 100,000 people from Bucky balls, tennis, skate boarding, and dog bites. Guess what’s most likely to give you an injury that needs medical attention? Guess first. I’ll tell you at the end of this blog.

In Australia, a youth on the run from the police decided to hide in the roof cavity of a house when the police came to a party. He should have stayed still, because when the moved, he fell through the ceiling, and into the long arms of the law. I’m sure the cops were surprised too.

Can you imagine chess players with  assault rifles? Neither can I. But it turns out that the Sicilian Defence, one of the most common chess openings, has a variation called the  Kalashnikov variation  What the Hell?? Well, the AK47 weapon was named after an Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented it in 1947. Chess openings, as it happens, are often named after the city where they were first successfully used in an international tournament, or the player who made them famous by coming up with a new twist and winning unexpectedly. But the various chess websites and books I’ve consulted have no information as to which Mr Kalashnikov started the chess move. His first name appears lost to history.

AK 47 (photo from Wikipedia Commons)

And what about the Buckey balls? It turns out that tennis is more likely to cause you an injury than skateboarding, dog bites, accidental poisoning with household substances, and Buckey balls come last.    Click here for the stats.

Richard Snow Writer

A stranger in a strange land: my strangest experience in a foreign country.

Leave a comment

This week, a post in Piper Bayard’s blog about Russian naval spying bought back a memory of perhaps the strangest experience I ever had as a tourist. In 1985, I visited the USSR, as Russia and it satellite countries were then called. In those days, Russia had strict currency exchange control laws. The Rouble was tied to the British pound at one for one. But, on the streets, one British Pound could get ten Roubles.

Red Square – from Wikipedia commons

The Russian authorities wanted to control street speculation: they wanted all the foreign “hard currencies” to go to the state, not to private individuals. How they achieved this was unbelievable.

On the train going into Russia from Finland, the dining car took western currencies. Shortly before we crossed the border, the waiters stopped taking new orders, and went to balance the cash register. When we crossed the border, we pulled up at a train station where we were all encouraged to get out of the train, and changed our foreign money into Roubles. I had Deutschmarks (the German currency before the euro.) I changed my money, bought something in roubles, and a few hours later we arrived in Leningrad (now called St Petersburg). In between, I saw what the waiters were going. They were balancing the tills in different western currencies, before they changed to operate  in Roubles. It dawned on me. The waiters were not allowed to handle Roubles and western currencies at the same time. If they did, a customer would pay with a British Pound, the waiter could put a Rouble from his own pocket in the till, then sell the British Pound on the street for ten roubles. The waiter would get the benefit of the Pound, not the state.

After checking into my hotel, the problems began.

The hotel had two bars: a Rouble bar, for visitors from communist countries, and a western currency bar for types like me. I made the mistake of going into the Rouble bar and trying to order a drink. The waiter point-blank refused to serve me. He pointed up the corridor  the corridor to the western bar. I went. In the western bar, I tried to order a drink. But the barman wouldn’t serve me there either. I had my money in hundred Deutschmark travellers’ checks. He could only take real money: Deutschmark paper money. He told me to go to the gift shop. They would take my travellers cheques and give me Deutschmark paper money in change. Up to the souvenir shop. Yes said the woman, she could take my travellers cheques and give me change. BUT, only if I bought 85 marks worth of souvenirs, and then she would give me fifteen marks of change.

WHAT?

I have to buy 85 marks of tourist photo books and grandmother dolls to get fifteen marks of change to buy a drink?? I’M GOING TO BE IN RUSSIA FOR TEN DAYS!! THIS IS A FINANCIAL DISASTER! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR FOOD?

Down to the hotel foyer. They tell me to go to the bank opposite. I do. The bank teller will cash my 100-Deutschmark notes into Roubles. Not Deutschmark paper money, just Roubles. That’s no help.

Back to the hotel.

I’m grinding my teeth into dis-existence with this frustration.

A Finish woman asks me what’s wrong. “Didn’t you know?” she asks. “When you come to Russia, you must bring many small paper monies. US one and five Dollars, one, five or ten Deutschmarks, or one and five British pounds?”

“No. No one told me.”

I go to the hotel counter again. This time a woman tells me to go to the desk which sells opera and ballet tickets. The woman there can take my travellers checks and give me Deutschmark change. Hallelujah! I buy an opera ticket for that night. Who cares what the opera is? Not me. It turns out to be something about drunken priests in a monastery, but I can’t follow the plot. I have change. The whole process of being given the run-around has taken about three hours. Seriously.

The next day I meet an American couple from Chevy Chase. I explain my problem and ask if they want to see any opera or ballet. Yes. Could I buy their tickets for them? Yes. We go to the desk and find out the price in Marks and Dollars. I buy the tickets for them in Deutschmarks, They give me American Dollars for the tickets. Now I have two useable currencies. The woman on the ticket desk watches us, but doesn’t care.  Everyone’s happy.  For the next ten days I become a man of culture.

So what about you? What’s the strangest experience you’ve had in another country?

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, at:
The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here:
Strange news., Strange things, Weird things

The world is getting stranger: that piranha ate my kid’s finger!

3 Comments

Here’s a collection of strange things I’ve come across recently.

A family in Chicago thought their pit-bull had eaten one of their daughter’s finger. When the doctors said it wasn’t a dog injury, the father went home, gutted one of the family’s two piranhas and found the finger. Seriously? They have a toddler and a pit-bull and two piranhas?

In Britain, a team at Bristol University  has developed  a chewing gum called Rev7. It’s water soluble and  won’t stick to footpaths (sidewalks).  London Mayor Boris Johnston is strongly in favor. He’s tired of the cost of cleaning gum and other “adhesive” objects off the  streets.

Motorist Flora Burkhart  has been charged in Van Buren, Arkansas, for rear-ending another vehicle and then fleeing the scene of the collision because she didn’t want her ice-cream to melt.

Two cops in New Mexico, Ernest Armijio and Brian Bernal,  aren’t allowed to carry guns  because of their law-breaking history. One because of a dispute over child support arrears, and the other because of domestic violence.

Some things in life are too quaint for words. I learned this week that Britain has a public office called  “Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary”. What does it do? Conducts reviews of how well the regional police forces in England and Wales are doing their jobs. But it’s a cute title, isn’t it?

Recently, I came across the Finnish and Russian habit of swimming in frozen, or near-frozen rivers and lakes.   Apparently they punch a hole in the ice and jump in, often wearing ordinary swimwear rather than wetsuits.  How do you stop the ice freezing up again on you? Keep a pump in the water to keep it circulating.

So would anyone else care to contribute  anything odd you’ve come across in papers, on the net, or seen personally? The stranger the better!

– – – – – – – – – – – –

My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, at:
The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s.
If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here:
Protest in Russia, Russian Politics, Uncategorized

Official over-reaction: Pussy Riot again.

Leave a comment

I’ve blogged before about Pussy Riot, the all-female Russian punk-rock band, some of whom were arrested and charged with “hooliganism” after five of the members performed an anti-Vladimir Putin song in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox church cathedral on February 21. Talk about an over-reaction!

Pussy Riot, image from Wikipedia Commons

A you tube video is here.  (The group has ten members, but not all perform at everything they do. They wear coloured balaclavas so that the police can’t tell who is who.) OK, It’s not exactly the greatest song I’ve ever heard, even allowing that I don’t speak Russian. The song asks the Virgin Mary to “Drive Putin Out.” (Putin being the current President of Russia, and former head of the FSB, successor to the KGB.)

Three of the women who sang in the cathedral were arrested, and two of these women have children. They have been held without bail, on a charge that carries a potential seven-year jail sentence. Amnesty International has designated them “prisoners of conscious” on the basis that the potential penalty is totally disproportionate to the “crime.”  On July 2, Faith No More performed in Moscow, and invited some of Pussy Riot onstage to hold up a banner after FNM’s encore. You can see the youtube clip here.  Last week, the three in jail went on a hunger strike starting Wednesday 4,, after their case was bought forward to Monday July 9. They said they would be unable to prepare a defence in time because of numerous procedural points of law they wished to challenge. Over the weekend, their lawyers claimed to have received assurances that the group would be released on Monday.

So let’s see what happens. Frankly, I’m not optimistic. Over 300 journalists have either been murdered or disappeared in Russia  since 1993.   It doesn’t sound like a state on the way to becoming a liberal democracy. I’d like to think the judge might acquit, or just sentence them to time served. It’s about the best you could hope for at present. I’m posting this late on Monday in Australia, so by this time tomorrow, Tuesday will have arrived in Russia.  Let’s see. In the meantime, what’s the biggest over-reaction you’ve ever come across to a work of music or art?

– – – – – – – – – –

My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, at:
The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771 
Books, Books - thrillers, Books action adventure, Film Reviews, Films, Literature, Novel, Novels action adventure, Novels thrillers

How many characters spoil the plot?

3 Comments

Last night I saw Prometheus, the supposed prequel to 1973 film Alien, with Sigourney Weaver. Frankly, the plot didn’t impress me, and the film suffered from what I suspect is a common fault in films and books: too many “main” characters. It becomes difficult to emotionally identify with any one character. I felt no real identification with any of the on-screen characters in Prometheus. When I think back over some of the best films, there are usually one or two, maybe three main characters, but that’s the limit. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoohas Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

Poster for 1984, from Wikipedia

Catch 22 has Captain Yossarian. We see the other characters, but none of them gets even remotely equal time with Yossarian.  George Orwell’s 1984 has Winston Smith. As best I recall we never see his lover, Julia, nor his torturer, O’Brien, without him. As a result, we are totally invested in Winston. Even though Harry Potter has Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, and Snape, we know who the main character is. (And Rowling had the advantage of seven books over which to tell her story.) Steel Magnolias had half a dozen, but we are mostly invested in Julia Roberts, as Shelby, who is diabetic, not expected to be able to carry a child, and becomes pregnant anyway. She needs a kidney transplant, gets it, it fails, and finally she has to be disconnected from life support.

In order for me to be invested in the fate of a character, they need to be centre-front. They need to have a problem I can identify with.

So what about you? Do too many characters make it hard for you to get invested in a film or book? What’s your limit? what do you prefer? when you think about the films you thought were “best” films, how many lead characters did they have?

(On an unrelated topic, Piper Bayard and Holmes have an interesting article on spy ships between WWI and WWII. at Piperbayard.wordpress.com)

– – – – – – – – – – –

My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, at:
The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here:
Uncategorized

The world is getting stranger: two hours to make a lunch box.

Leave a comment

 Would you spend two hours making a lunch box for your kids, so that the food looks like a picture of Barack Obama, Michael Jackson or Harrison Ford? No? Well in Japan the way food looks is almost as important as it how it tastes. And keeping up appearances matters. You can’t just send your kids off to school with a few sandwiches in some cling film. Japanese mothers create artistic looking combinations of rice, fish, seaweed and vegetables that look like true works of art.

Totoro (Image from Totoro.org)

Some of the lunches look like a piano or the control console for a video game. Some look like Hello Kitty, or Totoro, a Japanese cartoon character. Some look like people. Tomomi Maruo runs classes in her apartment where she teaches other mothers to make lunchboxes. The lunch boxes with faces take two hours.

In this BBC story young mother Yayoi Uemura, one of Tomomi’s students confesses that she feels pressured by Japanese culture to come up with something  novel to match the other moms. “I feel, oh my gosh, it’s sports day, the expectation is getting high, you have to sit next to other moms. I feel pressured.” And most of the kids featured in the BBC story, the ones eating these lunches, are in kindergarten.

Barack Obama lunch, made from rice and seaweed.

Watching this story, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the mothers. As well as going to the office, or working in a shop, or doing ordinary housework, the thought of spending two hours on a kid’s lunch box seems, well, pretty demanding.

I’ve been to Japan three times as a tourist, and had Japanese students board at my house. I was learning the language until the writing part got so time-consuming I couldn’t continue. Japan is a country where part of the culture says you have to fit in. One Japanese saying is “Deru kugi wa utareru.” The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. It means you conform or else.

Watching the BBC story made me stop to think: is there anything that I do that serves no real purpose except  to fit in with other people? We’re all social beings. We all try to fit in to some degree with other people, but most of the time we’re not very conscious of it. Sometimes, at family gatherings, we have to hold our tongue for the sake of harmony. But I struggle to come up with anything in Western culture that even remotely resembles what these mothers are doing. Is there anything I’m missing here? Are there things we do just to fit in? What do you think?

Uncategorized

The World Is Getting Stranger: Psychics Who Talk to Animals

5 Comments

Australian newspapers carried stories this week about Pea Horsley, an English woman who is coming to Australia. Ms Horsley can read your pet’s mind – even if they’re dead. Horsley, an ex-theatre manager, says she was a confirmed atheist and sceptic, until she went to a seminar she thought was on training animals, or reading your dog’s body language. At least that’s what she thought it was. But the title was a little bit misleading – it was really about communicating with your animal, which turned out not be the same thing.

What’s its favorite TV show?

She soon found herself communicating telepathically with a rabbit who told her he liked to sit on the sofa. The rabbit had a favourite TV show: You’ve Been Framed. Soon somebody else was communicating with Horsley’s cat: via a photo of the cat. (By the way, the rabbit communication seems to have also been via a photo, that’s what they all brought on the first day. Soon she was studying ‘to master level’ at the College of Psychic Studies. In Australia, she’ll communicate with your animal, tell what it thinks and teach you the same, for only $425 (about the same in US dollars). Her website (www.animalthoughts.com) shows lower fees for consultations in the UK, and it’s not clear if the $425 in Australia is for consultations or a seminar where you learn to do it yourself.

This all got me thinking. If we could talk with our animals, what would they tell us?

I don’t think my dog has very complicated thoughts. Perhaps that’s because I haven’t trained him to read or solve complex tasks that stretch his mind. I suspect his most complicated  thought is, “I want more walkies.” I had a more intelligent dog in the past. I’ve owned four Dalmatians at different times. The first, Engels, used to dig holes to bury his bones. But he didn’t bury the bones. He’d drop them in the hole and then lie with his chest in the hole so the second Dalmatian, Waldo, couldn’t get them.

But what about a rabbit? Can it really have a favorite TV show? What does a tortoise think about? Would it be worth paying $400-odd to discover what a goldfish thinks?

Is the fee just? Should there be a sliding scale based on the complexity of the thought? On that basis, communicating with an elephant should probably cost a few thousand.

Pea says she knows vets who can communicate with animals but they keep it quiet.

So what do you think?

Have you ever communicated psychically with your pet? Did they tell you about their favorite TV program? am I too skeptical? Anything else interesting to tell us? Please share!

Just another WordPress.com site