-
You must be logged in to see or use the Shoutbox. Besides, if you haven't registered, you really should. It's quick and it will make your life a little better. Trust me. So just register and make yourself at home with like-minded individuals who share either your morbid curiousity or sense of gallows humor.
ghosttruck
Level 57 Taco Wizard
Geez... Swimming in the deep end of the gene pool alright. Poor kid, obviously this has been going on a while.
Fellofftheporch
Understanding things at 20% or less
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the conversation went down about the squirrel. Hey Ima take this here squirrel and poke it with a stick. *knee slapping laughter* Then Ima hang it there on that door to scare people. *more knee slapping laughter*
I hope that boy never had to go home to another woopin again.
Post automatically merged:
I hope that boy never had to go home to another woopin again.
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Just avoid eating the brains and spinal areas, especially in the SE US.
Squirrels are suspected of carrying and passing on Jakob Creutzfeldt disease, the human variant of "mad cow", it's assumed this is done primarily via the tradition of scrambling the brains with eggs.
(I kid you not.)
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Bruises from punches and bedbug bites on his head.
Goddamn, this kind of fuckery just makes me want to torture the mom and BF to near death, douse them with lice and bedbugs, then tie them on to the courthouse door handles.
Can you imagine being a child and faced with the position of having to humanely kill (albeit a wild) small animal in order to save it from a certain death of cruelly inflicted pain and torture?
This on top of the mother's nonchalant attitude when asked by LE if her BF beats the child, "Why does it matter?", and my heart just shatters knowing as you said, this is just another run-of-the-mill day for too many little ones in the US.
Somehow, this child has gained compassion for other living creatures where there was none taught to him at home.
May he be freed from that hell forever, and a loving family find him and cherish him as their very own, always.
When I was in my early twenties I was driving to work it was a midnight shift. On the way they White Rabbit ran out in front of the car from behind another vehicle and I hit it crushing its back end. It did not die and that was the first time I ever heard a rabbit scream... If you have never heard that I pray that you never do. So I started crying I turned my car around aimed at the rabbit and hit the accelerator finishing it. I know it was the Humane thing to do I know there was no way to save that animal. I never thought of it as being particularly heroic I just wanted it not to suffer anymore. I carry that with me still 30 years later. This will be with that boy a very long time.
myra manes
Veteran Member
Post automatically merged:
Siobhan
Trusted Member
I had friends who raised rabbits for food, and they'd had another little old man friend housesit for them while on vacation.
He called me at 5am one morning terrified, because the rabbits were screaming, and he was scared to go check on them. I went out, and saw their big white cat laying on the ground, got a bit scared for it myself, until it ran over to me.
When I went to the rabbit cages, there were two dead on the ground, partially eaten, but mostly torn to pieces, I looked around and saw BIG cat paw prints (I suspect a bobcat) and long scratches on one of the top flap cage doors, all of the other rabbits were untouched, but had died of fright.
I sat with our mutual old friend for the rest of the day to comfort him as he cried, remembering the sound of rabbit screams from my childhood, and understood why this frail 80+ year old man was too frightened to go outside and check on the animals alone in the dark.
It's worse than the shrill screams of a peacock/peahen screaming, and if you've never heard either rabbits or peacocks scream, they sound like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs as if she's being murdered.
Our neighbors have peacocks/peahens now, and I still sometimes startle when I hear their screams, until I remember and tell myself "it's just the peacocks, Sio".
I agree @Sejanus ,that child will never forget being forced into the position of needing to act humanely while still having to take the life of an animal who'd done nothing but simply exist for someone else to think it was their right to painfully torture, kill and then use as a joke on some unsuspecting neighbor.
Post automatically merged:
I had a family friend die of this, and fortunately her family was put in touch with a Dr. who was at UTF when she passed; he had studied "Kuru" disease of the New Guinea tribes (suspected contaminant was eating human brains).
He had the ME send the late woman's head and shoulders to him at UTF and confirmed it was JCD, then began asking the family about her childhood background.
She'd grown up on a Tenn farm, during the '40's and their primary source of meat was hunted, outside of hunting season, they eaten squirrels, and squirrel brains scrambled with eggs was a family breakfast favorite.
Her relatives were instructed to have all of her remains cremated, sealed in triple bags and then put into an urn that could be permanently sealed.
He explained that because it is a prion disease, and prions can not be killed (as they're not actually alive to begin with), if her ashes were to be spread, they could possibly contaminate all plants and the creature that ate those plants.
As he explained, if the ashes were scattered near say, an apple tree, then the apples from that tree could contain the prions and spread to other humans.
The woman who died was my grandmother's best friend, and her daughter and I have been very close since we were 6 & 8 years old. We're still waiting to see if my friend may have inherited JCD from her mother, as she has been experiencing brain infections and coordination problems for over 15 years now.
The disease can sometimes take 4-5+ decades for symptoms to manifest.
Last edited:
He looks like the kind of guy that would bend your ear for half an hour with an interminable, half-plausible, semi-coherent story about how he was right about some dumb shit that only he cares about. If you let him.
Fellofftheporch
Understanding things at 20% or less
You probably don't have to let him. As long as you made what he considered eye contact it would be on.
Siobhan
Trusted Member
I think your cat will be ok, as cat's jaws aren't usually strong enough to fully crack open the squirrel's skull, and it's life expectancy is much shorter than the usual duration of time it takes the disease to manifest.
The traditional way of scrambling squirrel brains with eggs was to put the intact, skinned skull into the frying pan, and letting the heat actually "pop" the skull open, allowing the cook to then empty the brains into the pan and discard the skull.
These are also normally hunted species by domestic cats, and I suspect that cats and other animals who hunt squirrels may have some immunities or resistance to prion infections specific to those species.
I would say that if you live in an area with prairie dog populations, try to keep you cat on flea resistant/killing medications/treatments, as the fleas from prairie dogs (or infected prairie dogs sold as pets) have been the cause of a few Y. pestis (aka plaque) infections in the US over the past 20 years.
That illness is easily treatable with antibiotics, once it's been properly diagnosed, and in all of the cases I've read about here in the US, Dr.'s were able to quickly diagnose it in the very earliest stages due to the patient's quick onset of very high fevers and either their living locations or by the fact that they had pet prairie dogs.
Something tells me your cat lives up to his/her name as being a bit mischievous.
=^.^=
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Yeah, prions are just a bizarre type protean that sort of remind me of plastics; plastics can be created, but never completely destroyed, some particles will always remain.
I really worried when they started having trouble in the UK about 25 years back with having to destroy tens of thousands of cows, and they'd already had problems with sheep (especially in Scotland) with what the farmer's then called "scrapie" because the sheep would rub the skin and flesh off of the faces as if they itched.
Then we found out it was all variants of prion disease like "mad cow", and I wondered and about all of the beef I eaten while living in Europe during the mid '80's.
And Lord help me, but I love lamb, I'd choose it over just about anything but fresh shellfish, but I'm really careful about buying lamb that's either from Australia/New Zealand, or locally grown in my county.
I've even tried to persuade my family to get a few head of sheep, shear their wool, trade some lambs for fresh genes and butcher the rest, but they come from a long line of rabbit raisers food wise, and that's all they're willing to go for ATM. Chickens are out of the question for me, we have way too many fox and coyote to have free range, and I don't care for caged chickens or their eggs as possible salmonella contamination is more likely with them living in their own waste.
Sudonim
Trusted Member
When I was younger we did a lot of grouse hunting. Generally I just went along because we'd do some target practice along the way. The first time I decided to kill a grouse myself was also the last time..
All the grouse I seen die and I had no clue that a grouse could scream just like rabbits do until I made a few really bad judgement calls. I normally used a .22, that day I had the shotgun and didn't take distance and spread into account. Grouse went to fly, I shot and spent the next 5 minutes wandering around, crying, in the bush trying find the screaming grouse. Spread was to much and it clipped it in the neck instead of being a fatal shot.
Step-dad taught me a very valuable lesson that day when I brought the still screaming grouse back for him to kill. He told me that I shot it, I had to put it out of the misery I caused. I bawled like a baby while snapping its neck. Was the last time I went hunting
That JCD story broke big about 2 weeks after I got back from the UK in the 90s.
I'm willing to bet it wasn't the kids first time killing an animal. I know I shot plenty of squirrels when I was a youngster. None of it bothered me. What did bother me was when the older kids would wound them and them make them suffer. I gladly put more than one out of it's misery.
Growing up we had rabbit many times. Dad would buy them from a friend at work. We would go out to his place, pick the rabbits we wanted and then come home and butcher them. Dad always killed them with a karate chop right behind the ears. In the hundreds of them we butchered, I only remember one time when his chop didn't kill the rabbit. The screams were horrible. Scarred me for quite a while.
When my wife and I raised rabbits, I always just shot them behind the ears with a .22. Never missed and the died instantly.
I am permanently banned from donating blood because I was stationed in Europe in the military in the early '80's and I "might have" been fed beef that had mad cow.
I'm always game to try something new. My biggest adventures came with two years in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm still not sure what I ate at some of those dinners.
I honestly had one of the tenderest beef filets ever when I was over there, and there was zero mention of the BSE story in the media over there at the time. I get back to the states and that's all that's in the papers- the big British BSE epidemic, and I'm like "no wonder that beef was so fucking tender, those fucking Brits served me mad cow!"
Siobhan
Trusted Member
OMG, I could never eat elephant, big cats, horse, or other rare/endangered species, and I'd have vomited that up all over the teacher if I'd been tricked into eating it too.
Deer, moose, rabbit, even wild hog sows if they're bled/brined right, and nearly anything that swims in the sea except mammals, yes, I'll eat and enjoy, but there are some animals that when I've made eye contact with them, there is such a strong connection and I feel their sorrow if in captivity, that I rather eat my own waste if I was starving.
I love to fish, but if I'm not going to eat it, I release it; and I've killed my share of live purchased rabbits raised for consumption with a single .22 shot to the back of the head/ear, cleaned and light brine soaked them for dinner to draw out the extra blood.
Down at the Gulf, I go out on the piers during incoming tides and play my guitar, knowing that if I'm patient, the dolphins will come to play and "bark" with the music. Many of the older locals that have known me for decades go there too, to relax and just watch the water. When I show up, most of them wave to me and ask if I'll bring the dolphins in today so they can watch them play.
Dolphins seem to like the guitar, mandolin, and banjo better than a keyboard or a fiddle; I don't sing when I do this, I just play back and forth between finger picking and rhythm strumming, and I don't know why, but the dolphins love it, as do I, because they give me joy in seeing them playing in their natural habitat.
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Oh I did! She had to spend the rest of the day wandering around Kruger Park with my vomit speckled on her dress. I can't TELL you how much 12 year old me enjoyed that part of it! Mind you it had only been 6 weeks or so since my father had died and she had embarrassed me in front of the entire class over it. I really, really dislike her, to this day even and she's probably dead and buried. She and Mr McClanahan are the only two teachers that I ever had that there was an instant and permanent mutual dislike!
Your bayou forays sound AMAZING. I'm officially jealous!
I wanted to "like" this post, and I can't because it hurts knowing your father died when you were so young.
I don't have the "share the love" option either, but I know this same pain all too well.
Fathers are incredibly special, and in many ways, more so for daughters than sons - they're the first man you look up to, love, and who will be the role model example for all men in your adult life.
I'm so sorry you lost him so young.
I am, however, thrilled to know that you puked all over her, and I hope the odor lingered in her nose and throat for days!
I had friends who raised rabbits for food, and they'd had another little old man friend housesit for them while on vacation.
He called me at 5am one morning terrified, because the rabbits were screaming, and he was scared to go check on them. I went out, and saw their big white cat laying on the ground, got a bit scared for it myself, until it ran over to me.
When I went to the rabbit cages, there were two dead on the ground, partially eaten, but mostly torn to pieces, I looked around and saw BIG cat paw prints (I suspect a bobcat) and long scratches on one of the top flap cage doors, all of the other rabbits were untouched, but had died of fright.
I sat with our mutual old friend for the rest of the day to comfort him as he cried, remembering the sound of rabbit screams from my childhood, and understood why this frail 80+ year old man was too frightened to go outside and check on the animals alone in the dark.
It's worse than the shrill screams of a peacock/peahen screaming, and if you've never heard either rabbits or peacocks scream, they sound like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs as if she's being murdered.
Our neighbors have peacocks/peahens now, and I still sometimes startle when I hear their screams, until I remember and tell myself "it's just the peacocks, Sio".
I agree @Sejanus ,that child will never forget being forced into the position of needing to act humanely while still having to take the life of an animal who'd done nothing but simply exist for someone else to think it was their right to painfully torture, kill and then use as a joke on some unsuspecting neighbor.
Post automatically merged:
I had a family friend die of this, and fortunately her family was put in touch with a Dr. who was at UTF when she passed; he had studied "Kuru" disease of the New Guinea tribes (suspected contaminant was eating human brains).
He had the ME send the late woman's head and shoulders to him at UTF and confirmed it was JCD, then began asking the family about her childhood background.
She'd grown up on a Tenn farm, during the '40's and their primary source of meat was hunted, outside of hunting season, they eaten squirrels, and squirrel brains scrambled with eggs was a family breakfast favorite.
Her relatives were instructed to have all of her remains cremated, sealed in triple bags and then put into an urn that could be permanently sealed.
He explained that because it is a prion disease, and prions can not be killed (as they're not actually alive to begin with), if her ashes were to be spread, they could possibly contaminate all plants and the creature that ate those plants.
As he explained, if the ashes were scattered near say, an apple tree, then the apples from that tree could contain the prions and spread to other humans.
The woman who died was my grandmother's best friend, and her daughter and I have been very close since we were 6 & 8 years old. We're still waiting to see if my friend may have inherited JCD from her mother, as she has been experiencing brain infections and coordination problems for over 15 years now.
The disease can sometimes take 4-5+ decades for symptoms to manifest.
Yes, prions are terrifying. Virus is weird, in its dormant stage you could think of it as no more alive than a crystal, but prions are far more primitive. Unlike a virus, a prion has no DNA, it's only RNA.
I’ll have to remember that one!
Hey— me too! I lived in Europe 1980-1984. I donated a lot of blood before the Red Cross started screening for that. Sorry, anonymous recipient!
Last edited:
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Exactly, without having DNA, it's not "alive", but just having RNA somehow keeps it from be able to be destroyed.
I often wonder as we spread out into our solar system and hopefully beyond, what strange forms of life or even
"non-life" may we find?
Perhaps not all life is carbon based, maybe some is silicon based, or might we even find a world full of only RNA proteins and objects that seem like plants/animals but are like tumorous prions, IE: jellyfish/man of war/coral - multiple "cell" community prions that take on a visually standard formation?
Post automatically merged:
Your bayou forays sound AMAZING. I'm officially jealous!
Please DM me, TYIA!
Last edited:
Ramona the brave
Trusted Member
Well I had spent a good year having forgotten about prions and how fucking terrifying they are. I just lost the game.I had friends who raised rabbits for food, and they'd had another little old man friend housesit for them while on vacation.
He called me at 5am one morning terrified, because the rabbits were screaming, and he was scared to go check on them. I went out, and saw their big white cat laying on the ground, got a bit scared for it myself, until it ran over to me.
When I went to the rabbit cages, there were two dead on the ground, partially eaten, but mostly torn to pieces, I looked around and saw BIG cat paw prints (I suspect a bobcat) and long scratches on one of the top flap cage doors, all of the other rabbits were untouched, but had died of fright.
I sat with our mutual old friend for the rest of the day to comfort him as he cried, remembering the sound of rabbit screams from my childhood, and understood why this frail 80+ year old man was too frightened to go outside and check on the animals alone in the dark.
It's worse than the shrill screams of a peacock/peahen screaming, and if you've never heard either rabbits or peacocks scream, they sound like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs as if she's being murdered.
Our neighbors have peacocks/peahens now, and I still sometimes startle when I hear their screams, until I remember and tell myself "it's just the peacocks, Sio".
I agree @Sejanus ,that child will never forget being forced into the position of needing to act humanely while still having to take the life of an animal who'd done nothing but simply exist for someone else to think it was their right to painfully torture, kill and then use as a joke on some unsuspecting neighbor.
Post automatically merged:
I had a family friend die of this, and fortunately her family was put in touch with a Dr. who was at UTF when she passed; he had studied "Kuru" disease of the New Guinea tribes (suspected contaminant was eating human brains).
He had the ME send the late woman's head and shoulders to him at UTF and confirmed it was JCD, then began asking the family about her childhood background.
She'd grown up on a Tenn farm, during the '40's and their primary source of meat was hunted, outside of hunting season, they eaten squirrels, and squirrel brains scrambled with eggs was a family breakfast favorite.
Her relatives were instructed to have all of her remains cremated, sealed in triple bags and then put into an urn that could be permanently sealed.
He explained that because it is a prion disease, and prions can not be killed (as they're not actually alive to begin with), if her ashes were to be spread, they could possibly contaminate all plants and the creature that ate those plants.
As he explained, if the ashes were scattered near say, an apple tree, then the apples from that tree could contain the prions and spread to other humans.
The woman who died was my grandmother's best friend, and her daughter and I have been very close since we were 6 & 8 years old. We're still waiting to see if my friend may have inherited JCD from her mother, as she has been experiencing brain infections and coordination problems for over 15 years now.
The disease can sometimes take 4-5+ decades for symptoms to manifest.
Siobhan
Trusted Member
Try not to worry too much, as farmed for food animals from all over the world are now screened specifically to prevent the spread of prion diseases.
Just beware when traveling to exotic places that certain delicacies like bats and other unusual animals are not really safe to try.
I've seen some fried cobra served with the snake's bile in hard liquor (vodka I think) that looks delicious, and wouldn't hesitate to try over other wild/unusual animals that are known for carrying rabies/prions.
And no matter where you are, avoid eating land/air animals brains, and you should be safe.
Post automatically merged:
I tried to send you a DM, but it wouldn't go through.
I just wanted to offer you an open invitation that if you ever come to Florida, I'd be more than happy to travel to where you're at to show you some of our beautiful waterways, and historical/archeological sites that are off the beaten path.
We'd put politics aside *completely* and just enjoy the natural beauty of the state, and of course, some of the best fresh seafood you'll ever have!
I'll also be very glad to take to some of the areas where the dolphins come to play, so you could see them frolicking happily in their natural splendor.
Last edited:
Share this page
Latest posts
-
Father Charged After 9yr Son’s Body Found in Burning Car- Latest: Sugar Cookie
-
Three Canadian Cops Charged In Shooting Death Of 18MO Boy- Latest: BuffettGirl
