A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Animals

  • Sen. Robert Byrd, animal advocate

    Obviously Robert Byrd was a complicated man. He went from being a segregationist (and Klan member!) to an ardent champion of civil rights and supporter of Barack Obama’s election. He also went from being a supporter of the Vietnam war to a fierce critic of of presidential warmaking and executive power, giving eloquent and impassioned Read more

  • Jonathan Balcombe on the lives of animals

    Ethologist Jonathan Balcombe has a new book called Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals and was recently interviewed on the Diane Rehm show (listen here). Not a lot of earth-shattering information in the interview if you’ve read much in this area, but it provides a nice overview. Balcombe also makes a good case for Read more

  • Edwards on animal redemption

    If the entire creation–not just human beings–is to be taken up into the divine life (deified, to use the term Edwards prefers), then it makes sense to ask whether individual, sentient, non-human creatures (i.e., animals) will participate in the new creation. Edwards thinks that, based on the character of the God revealed in Jesus, we Read more

  • “Cetacean psychosis”

    Does captivity drive orcas crazy? Read more

  • Of wolf and man

    I “tweeted” recently that I head read and really enjoyed Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf. Rowlands, the eponymous philosopher, has written a bunch of books, including an excellent introduction to animal rights. TPATW defies easy summary, but it’s part-memoir and part-philosophical rumination arising from Rowlands’ experience living with a companion wolf named Brenin Read more

  • More on assisted migration

    Here’s a Wired article from last year on assisted migration (or colonization) for species endangered by climate change, as discussed in the previous post. Apparently this is something that at least some ecologists take quite seriously. Obviously, a huge concern is the havoc that such transplants could wreak on their new ecosystems, as Camassia pointed Read more

  • Incarnation and animal redemption

    I recently got my hands on an excellent anthology of essays–Creaturely Theology: God, Humans, and Other Animals, edited by Celia Deane-Drummond and David Clough. It brings together essays on history, theology, philosophy, and ethics to deepen the conversation about the place of animals in Christian theology and practice. So far I’ve only read a few Read more

  • Prayer for a squirrel

    Christopher has a terrific piece up at Episcopal Cafe on how prayer can and does connect us with our fellow creatures: …to bless God for the life of just one animal, who has been a friend and companion, begins to have us think anew about our fellow creatures, about creation, about ourselves, about God. Such Read more

  • Orangutan and dog make friends

    This is pretty great: Read more

  • A berry enjoyable morning

    It’s been uncharacteristically pleasant weather here for July. Today we drove to Homestead Farm in Maryland for some pick-your-own produce (blackberries and some peaches). I commented on Facebook on the irony of doing something for leisure that others do as backbreaking labor. Seems a bit decadent. On the other hand, blackberries are actually pretty easy Read more