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#45186 10/21/01 10:59 PM
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Dub-dub, describe those dogs please.

It's been suggested that the wild "breed" called the Carolina Yellow Dog may be very close to the early ancestral type, by reversion from domesticated dogs gone feral.

Do the dogs you mention resemble those pictured and discussed in the Smithsonian article at
http://smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues99/mar99/dogs.html?


#45187 10/22/01 01:39 AM
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Many thanks, Ken, for obtaining this most enlightening commentary.

I also question the rabbi's assertion that "rod and staff" are incorrect. Rod, maybe, but not staff. The mishan which he describes could certainly be translated as "staff", in the same sense as "quarterstaff" (the pole used for fights or sporting demonstrations). I think it is quite possible that the KJ translators had the first sense of "shevet" in mind and maybe they might have used the word "ensign", meaning battle standard (flag). You also have to remember that the original meaning of "comfort" was not, as now, "console" or something similar; it comes from cum forte = "with strength" and hence means "strengthen". So we might consider that "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" means, "Your standard and staff strengthen me" or, "Your ensign and your staff arm me", or, "Your banner and your staff are my defense."

Again, I can't thank you and the rabbi enough. I have been saying and hearing this Psalm all my life and this opens up new areas of meaning to ponder.

OK, everyone, you may now go to the dogs again.


#45188 10/22/01 02:01 AM
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Dear Keiva: I subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine, but missed that article, for which I thank you. But even that article does not mention their being domesticated. If they were, it would be extremely surprising that they were not found throughout America. I have read that the Indians in Northeast were terrified by the colonists' mastiffs. They must have acquired dogs soon after Europeans arrived though. They would have been very valuable for warning of approach of hostile Indians. I have never heard of the Indians using the dogs for hunting. I have heard of them being eaten by the Indians when food was scarce.Actually, I am surprised that small dogs like that would not have been wiped out by wolves. Maybe that was what limited them to the South.


#45189 10/22/01 05:13 AM
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I remember reading about a couple million NZ sheep being slaughtered and buried because there just too damned many of them.

Urban myth, pure and simple. We leave that kind of thing to the Brits, whose scientists can't tell the difference between sheep and cows ...



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#45190 10/22/01 11:10 AM
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whose scientists can't tell the difference between sheep and cows ...

yeahbut®

There's a wonderful, funny yet serious word issue behind this. First a quick recap for anyone who has not followed the English Brainless Disease Part 253:
1. Scientists were set the task of checking whether sheep's brains were carrying the same patterns of disturbance as found in cattle with BSE symptoms.
2. There is a test that checks for this with results avaialable in 1 week, but being Scientists this was far too easy and too sneakily like cheating, so they did the old-fashioned method that takes 4 years!
3. Only now at the conclusion has it emerged that they have, er, somewhat compromised the results by testing brains of cattle and not of sheep. D'oh!
4. The resulting consumer scare will probably now finish off the entire sheep farming industry in the UK.

Now, the delightful thing is this: Brit scientists, raised in the classical snobbery of not wanting to share their language with the plebs, tend to use the Latin terms. This is the context of a simple labelling error.

Ovine to Bovine is one small step for idiotkind...


#45191 10/22/01 03:03 PM
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to byb: thanks -- but 100% of the compliment goes to rav lipman. I merely forwarded your interesting inquiry.

to dr. bill:
Keiva's note to self: read the durn url before posting it. The url is a very short summary of the article, but you'll find more by clicking the sources the url lists. They show that these dogs are about the size of a lab (not small).

The "feral" issue not what I'd recollected. The theory is that the Carolina Yellow Dog "breed" is not modern breeds gone feral, but is rather a direct descendant of the dogs brought by the earliest human to this continent; that is, of the peoples who crossed from Asia to North America over the Bering Sea land bridge.

Related question to our Kiwis and Aussies: roughly when, according to the latest data, did the first (aboriginal) humans reach your respective islands?



#45192 10/22/01 10:31 PM
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#45193 10/23/01 12:23 AM
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Dear Wordwind: About ten years ago, my wife saw about a dozen armed animal control officers (can't remember title) in Oakton VA surrounding carcass of rabid fox they had just shot. They can be beautiful, but they can also be troublesome.


#45194 10/23/01 12:38 AM
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"Now dr., let's fix that header!" he said, with dogged persistence.


#45195 10/23/01 12:47 AM
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Jazzo

As we'd say in straya - Good onya mate!

Old Hand eh - only another 500 or so posts for stales.....

stales


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