Boys will be boys. We've all heard it. Many of us have probably even said it a time or two.  To some extent, I even believe it. A little. To be fair, I've never had brothers or a son, so my reactions to this phrase, when it comes to cruelty to animals, may be a little extreme.

In the shortest terms: I think it's a bullshit excuse.

When I was growing up, my parents (especially my mom) drummed "kindness to animals" into me from, well, probably from before I could understand what she was saying. Why is it that boys get some kind of pre-accepted "free pass" to cause pain to living things? Why is it explained away as "boys will be boys"?

I mean, forget about the links between torture of small animals in childhood and serial killers in adulthood. I think there have been enough non-serial-killing males who tortured or abused animals when they were children to have made that a laughable, joke-able, comment. But ... does the cruelty really leave? I have to say, I have had reason to hypothesize, as of late, that cruelty is cruelty, and if it is not nipped in the bud when a boy is young, it simply manifests itself in other areas as the boy gets older.

I seriously believe that.

So, if you're of the camp that boys who hurt animals when they're kids grow up to be fine, upstanding human beings with no lingering cruelty, I would ask you, when, exactly, does the "boys will be boys" excuse stop excusing abhorrent behavior?

When they illustrate an understanding that it is "wrong"?

When it escalates to cruelty against humans?

When they finally "get caught"?

A 5 year old boy and his 7 year old cousin go out to collect eggs from a hen house. Though the 5 year old has never done so before, when his 7 year old cousin starts kicking the chickens, the 5 year old joins in. They're only chickens, and boys will be boys, right?

Two little boys, 10 and 13, are dipping lizards in gasoline and setting them on fire. Boys will be boys, right? One of the lizards lives, runs into the underbrush, and causes a massive wildfire that results in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage. Ah yes, boys will be boys.

A teenager stuffs firecrackers in the shell of either end of a turtle and lets them explode. Boys will be boys.

A boy in college, driving down the road, swerves to hit any animal that gets close to being in the roadway: turtles, frogs, birds ... ah, those silly boys. You know what they say ...

A man buys a puppy for his kids. While playing, the puppy gets overly rambunctious and bites the man. The man, in turn, kicks the puppy away with his foot. Boys ... men ... will be ...

Here's the thing. I believe that children are good, by nature. I believe they are innocent and kind and loving. And I believe that as they grow up, they experience cruelty in life, and they have to figure out how to deal with their own frustrations. If they are led to believe that it's "expected" that boys will be ... uh, "boys", in other words that they will be cruel to animals who may have no reasonable means by which to defend themselves and perhaps no voice a human being can hear by which to alert us to their pain, then I believe we are guilty of creating a very cruel society.

But you know .. maybe I'm wrong, huh? To my knowledge, Jeremy was never ever interested in hurting an animal when he was a child. Himself, yes.  That boy blew up more things (including his own thumb) more times than I'm comfortable thinking of. But never another living thing. I know other people who have raised their children to know that cruelty is NOT acceptable, even if it's "just" *insert an animal type here*. When we teach children that animal life, no matter HOW "insignificant" it may seem to us, has no value, I believe it is a very dangerous, slippery slope.

And as I said before, I believe cruelty and aggression does not "disappear". It merely manifests itself in other ways, ESPECIALLY when it is continually explained away as "boys will be boys." Boys are not born with an innate sense of cruelty or a need to "hurt". I believe that wholly. I believe it is a learned behavior, and once it's learned, and continually excused, it stays with them. They become cruel friends, or cruel fathers, or cruel husbands or co-workers or teachers ... often very likely unable to even recognize their own cruelty for what it is. It might come out in the way of teasing that gets a little too mean, or comments made off-the-cuff, in a criticizing manner. It may manifest in overly criticizing or belittling children or maybe in always having to be right or win ... at any cost and by any means. And these would be the subtle ways in which it comes out. As we all know from either personal experience or other stories, cruelty can be much less subtle and much more painful.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I think "boys will be boys" is a really really bad way to explain way cruel behavior and, while I'm not a parent, I wish I could ask all parents to not explain or laugh away cruel and aggressive behavior in such a manner. Teach your kids to respect all life, and to know that just because an animal can't let us know it's in pain doesn't mean that it's not. And that animals do feel fear, just like we do. Ask them if they like it when THEY are scared? Teach your kids compassion and kindness. Their future wives, children, friends, family ... everyone in their future life ... will thank you.

My friend Kat has a blog about her poor unfortunately argumentative cat, Bela, who keeps playing Houdini and getting out to beat up whatever other cat he can find. It's the kind of thing that makes you chuckle (or at least makes ME chuckle), until you realize the personal danger he's facing (because he doesn't always win) and the mounting vet bills as a result of this not-so-prizewinning fighter.

The reason I bring this up is because of the comments that have been posted in response to this blog. You can go over there and read it yourself (click on the "Kat" link above) or I'll share the comments here that I wanted to bring your attention to.

Over the course of a few comments, a person not only insinuated that Kat's cat was dumb, but that cats, in general, are unintelligent. Here are some of the comments:

See, that's why I don't have a dumb cat!
I notice next door has a cat, Oh no! not another thicko!

All cats are dumb!

My cat never comes when I call her.
She cannot remember her name.
Her brain is the size of a thimble.
And that’s why my cat is so lame.

I tried to teach her to roll over,
to shake, beg, and fetch wooden sticks.
We practiced and practiced and practiced.
My dumb cat could not learn the tricks.

Then one day my cat was a hero.
She captured a small, squeaky mouse.
She hid the dead mouse in the sofa.
My dumb cat stunk up the whole house.

I wonder why cats were invented.
They eat and they drink and they purr.
There’s only one trick they know how to do:
they sit on your lap and shed fur.

My response to said person was:

I've found very often when a person says "*insert animal type here* are dumb/stupid/etc." it usually means they've never been able to get said animal to do what they want.

Coincidentally I've often found "choice" to do or not do something is confused with "inability" to do or not do something. Two very different things. :)

I think a lot of animals are smarter than we give them credit for. I think I'd like Bela ... I'd just try to stay on his good side. ;)

They then countered (quoting my first line from above):

I have never found it difficult to get an animal to do what *I* want. Also there is such a thing (just as in humans) as stupid/dumb animals. Clearly you haven't been around many animals or you'd know that.

My response:

Ah well, nothing left to do but pity you for your ignorance. Oh, and pity any animals that share your living space.

Also, just to clarify, I never did claim that there was no such thing as a stupid/dumb animal.

And at this point, that's where it's ended. I'm sure there will be more, because some people always have to have the last word, y'know? haha. Anyway, that's not my reason for posting all this and, to be fair, much of it is taken out of context, so if you're curious about how the rest of it played out, definitely pop over there and read the blog.

My reason for posting this is simply that just because _I_ think something doesn't make it true. I happen to think that some animals are indeed very intelligent. I also happen to get very offended when someone says something nasty and/or ignorant about my dogs, and I watched Kat trying to defend Bela to this person and imagined she was fairly well offended, too. Those of you who know me pretty well surely got a chuckle out of this person telling me that clearly I've never been around many animals. I didn't feel the need to set them straight on that one. :)

I have found, at least in dogs, that it is the more intelligent ones that many people seem to think are stupid, because they don't do what the human wants them to do. I would argue that's not a sign of lack of intelligence - just a sign that the animal might well have decided it just doesn't want to do what the human wants it to do (fetch, roll over, etc.) No one will ever be able to convince me that dogs don't think, reason, feel emotions, etc. And I don't think that cats are so different from that. Just because they don't always do what we want them to do does not mean they're stupid.

Of course this person who claims they have NEVER had a problem getting an animal to do what they want ... well, I might question THEIR intelligence. Or at least their self-perception. ;)

So - what's your opinion?

I got this in an email and don't normally share things like it, but a few of them made me smile. I thought maybe someone else out there might be able to use a smile or two today, so here are my faves, with captions:

This morning, Jeremy and I got up early (around 5:30-ish) and headed up into the mountains, just to see what we could see.

Pelicans! I love pelicans. I think they are just some of the neatest birds, and really, so graceful, for as big as they are.

We headed up to Indian Creek Reservoir, and this was what we got to see. A bunch of really cool birds just hanging out in the early morning light.

I got a picture of one that was kind of hanging out by himself and I thought maybe he was doing so because he had some sort of abnormality of some sort.


However, upon doing further research, we learned that this is something that the American White Pelicans grow during the mating season! According to one web site, it may look funny to us but to another pelican it's daaaaaamn sexy.

Huh. Ok.

I'm not sure about sexy, but I sure like watching (and photographing) these birds!

After that, we headed over Monitor Pass. Unreal. It is absolutely unreal how beautiful it looks right now, but in morning light it just looks hazy so we're going to go back tomorrow night for some shooting (tonight we have dinner with the dogs over at Karen's). It is .. well, Monitor is one of my favorite passes anyway, but it is at its absolute BEST right now. Snow at the top, green at the bottom, flowers in various stages all up and down, and the mtns in the background, all snow-capped. It is unreal. Seriously. You'll see, tomorrow. :)

To leave you with an idea of our trip over Monitor, here is the flowering sagebrush. It only flowers for a short time and it smells absolutely incredible. Sagebrush is the Nevada state flower ... some of you might know them as ... tumbleweeds. :) Actually, there are a couple different kinds - not all flower like this, and I don't think the flowering kind turn into tumbleweeds. But they sure look pretty in this stage, regardless! Last year you could barely find any even flowering due to our dry conditions. Ours in our old front yard never made it. It was great to see them this year.

Hope you're all having a fantastic weekend.

I have one more thing I want to share. It's a video our friend Robin emailed. Robin, you should have seen me .. my jaw fell open about halfway through and didn't close until the video was done. Like the guy you can hear talking in the background, I've never seen anything like it in my life! Thank you for sending it!

Everyone else, this is a 8-minute video, but it is so worth taking the time to watch. For those of you with kids, it is a jungle scene with some animals attacking others (but it has an AMAZING ending .. seriously!) - I just wanted to warn you in case your kids night not be ok to see that kind of stuff. I've never seen behavior like this in the wild. It's so impressive!

Of course, the best for last. The BEST reason to visit northern NV/CA?

US, of course!!
(and of course by "us" I mean ALL of us .. including the dogs)

So ... have we convinced ya? :)

Ok, so, this is a continuation of "Why Northern Nevada/California?" - I'm trying to convince you in the only manner I know best: photographically. :)

WEATHER
We have our share of interesting weather here, including fires and what they call here the Sierra Wave (other places just call it the lee wave), which creates, as an old friend of mine used to call it, a "river of clouds" in the sky. I love the weather patterns here.


JUST SOME SCENERY
Most of it's been covered in the last blog and above in this one .. but here are just a few more.

And in the final blog to this series, I'll give you the best reason to visit northern NV/CA!

Recently, a Multiply get-together was suggested by Sandy. A debate over where it should be held ensued, and as someone suggested Reno, a question was brought up: Why Reno? Well, I thought I'd expand upon that a little and make it "Why northern NV/CA?"

These are my stomping grounds, and by golly I'll try my best to answer that question.

I know some of your are really tired of snow after this winter, so I'll keep my snowy scenery pics 'til as close to the end as I can make it. :)

This area has a ton of diversity. Desert, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, ghost towns, wildlife, and extreme temperatures.

Within 2 hours' drive from Carson City (the capitol .. located about 20 min south of Reno), I could have you exploring ghost town ruins (even crawling around in them, if you so desired), witnessing Mono Lake (made famous probably mostly by Ansel Adams), swimming in Lake Tahoe, hiking the "California Alps" or Kit Carson Pass up to 10,000 feet or a little above, in Sacramento, in the Black Rock Desert (where burning man is held every year), exploring hidden waterfalls, driving through Sunrise Pass, where you're almost guaranteed to see wild horses, watching cheetahs run, out on "The Loneliest Hwy In America" where you would likely not see another car for hours – well, you get the idea. This area is an outdoors-person's dream. Probably not the best place for "city slickers" or people looking for a lot of culture (unless you really consider "Cowboy Poetry" cultural).

Let's break it out into categories (I'll do my best).

WATER
It's not quite the desert .. it's the high desert. So yep, we have water!



ANIMALS/WILDLIFE:


Ok .. I'm getting nervous this is too long and I'm going to lose it, so I'm ending this post here. Next one will include NV/CA weather and scenery. :)

(This is a re-posting of an older 360 blog, for those I didn't know well back then. I'm reposting it as a follow-up to my Picture Perfect post for the theme of "Red" where I shared my photo of a red fox skull and my ideas about photographing an ecological/environmental series of images. As I mentioned, I've not successfully used the skulls to illustrate my point yet, but I was (un)fortunate enough to be able to capture another image which did. If you click on it, you will be able to see it larger. Therefore, a re-post of a sad night):

I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I just kind of operated on auto-pilot, so maybe it was a mistake. All I know is that I did it for good reasons, so that has to count for something, right?

Last night, as Jeremy and I were coming home from a drive in the Sweetwater Mountain area, we were just pulling into town when the car two cars ahead of us hit a young coyote. As we passed, I watched it in my side mirror and saw that it was still moving. I told Jeremy I wanted to make sure that it was either a) actually dead, but just having convulsions or b) not hurt badly, then we could help somehow or c) hurt badly and dying, that we could find some way to put it out of its misery. We turned around and pulled into the center lane (she was lying between 2 lanes of traffic), put on our 4-way flashers and got out. As we approached her, she tried to stand up, so Jeremy ran to get a sheet (we carry sheets and blankets and other emergency items with us) so that we could take her to the veterinary hospital on the other side of town. I sat with her and talked to her as quietly and calmly as I could, telling her it was ok, and to relax and that we were there to help her. I watched her labored breathing, as that was her only movement at that point. As Jeremy came over with the sheet, she sighed her last breath and then lay still.

We both agreed that we couldn't just leave her body in the middle of the road to get run over more, so we wrapped her up in the sheet and placed her in the back of the Explorer. My mind was already thinking about how we could make a statement - how her death could help spread the word about how important it is for people to slow down and be more careful and respectful of the wildlife that was here before us ... that WE are chasing out of its natural habitat by building new homes and shopping centers and such. As those of you who read my blog with any regularity know, I purchased some skulls a few months ago, and my plan was to take shots similar to this - environmental impact images - with the skulls, to make my point. I just haven't been able to get the shot I wanted yet.

So, we brought her to a hill above Carson City and I took this shot. Once I stopped crying, that is. Then we wrapped her back up and brought her to a small mountain near our house. We drove up an old dirt road for a while, and then got out and Jeremy carried her up the hill as I followed along behind, under a night sky blanketed with stars, taking her to a more natural, quiet place to rest. We laid her in amongst a large group of sagebrush and said a few words and then turned to go home.

I think I cried more last night and this morning than I have in the last year. I don't know if anything we did was right. Maybe I should have just kept driving when I saw her in my mirror. Maybe going back scared her more than it calmed her in her last few moments alive. Maybe we should have just taken her body to a field near where she died and laid her to rest there. Maybe taking the picture was wrong. I don't know if I have any solid religious beliefs, and I don't know if laying her to rest in a much quieter place even matters. I guess I'd like to think that some peace would come from that, as opposed to her lying in the road, getting run over repeatedly and finally scraped up by the DOT and thrown in an incinerator. Maybe it's just a thought I keep because it makes me feel better, but I guess I better stick with the knowledge that what we did last night was done with good intentions, or it will slowly drive me crazy with regret and "what if" questions.

Like I said, I don't know if anything we did last night was right, and deep down I think Jeremy thought I was fairly macabre to take this photo, but I guess my thinking is that if it can make one person drive a little more cautiously and watch for wildlife a little more closely, then maybe it's worth it. I feel so sorry for all of the displaced animals that don't know where to go anymore with our rapid rates of urbanization. They can't possibly understand what's happening or why .. all they know is that we move in and we kill them. I guess the hope that this could somehow make a difference is the reason I wrote this blog, too.