BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 10:36 PM

Fortunately, Harley is a vegetarian, even if he can face down a pack of sheep dogs.

Tigs is tigs, and pigers are pigers! We may end up with a very mixed up song!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: JennyO
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 05:48 PM

maybe next trip!

Which I heard is going to be later this year! Harley's waiting....

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: JudyB
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 01:07 PM

I don't think we did meet Harley (and I'm not actually sure that I'd heard the song at that point, so if I saw him I might not have realized who he was) - maybe next trip!

All the best,
JudyB

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 11:09 AM

Yes Charley, I suppose they are genetically modifying just about everything so maybe we will get a 'PIGER' soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: JennyO
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 10:08 AM

Charlie, when you and Judy were here in 2003, did you meet Harley Dinosaur? John has one - it's a brown soft toy triceratops. It is sitting out in the hall, along with a few teddy bears, even as we speak!

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:34 AM

JennyO-

Thanks for posting John Warner's song. It's one of JudyB's favorites.

Georgiansilver-

I suppose if one can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, one could try for a tiger. It just takes a little gene-splicing and there you have it, moreor less!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 08:49 AM

I suppose with a voracious appetite, a tiger could be accused of making a pig of itself but pigs, making tigers of themselves? The highere the rank the more stripes eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: JennyO
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 08:21 AM

Here's John's song - Harley Dinosaur:

HARLEY DINOSAUR
John Warner (1991)

This story is true except that the dinosaur was actually a sheep. Written during John's "Browns" period at Murrumbateman, NSW. Names have been changed to protect the sheep.

'Twas at the Murrumbateman tip when no one was about,
A giant egg lay in the sun and a dinosaur hatched out.
The only creature round the place, an ancient mother sheep
Adopted him at once instead of the lamb she failed to keep.
She called him Harley Davidson, her baby dinosaur,
From a picture in a magazine she'd seen some days before,
She sang him Sheep May Safely Graze and Baa Baa Black Sheep
Until her young triceratops was safely fast asleep.

And it's oh my! you never saw before
Such a thumping great triceratops like Harley Dinosaur!

Now in the paddock by the tip, young Harley grew and fed
And by three weeks had overtopped his mother by a head.
And soon some forty head of sheep and half a dozen rams
Saw one bright, young triceratops at play among the lambs.
But springtime brings the shearing, the crutching and the like
Of the sorts of things they do to sheep to keep down blowfly strike,
And so one worthy grazier, by name of Thomas Scroggs
Set out upon his motorbike and with him four sheep dogs.

The Honda roared across the land with rattles, thumps and bangs,
When Harley heard the racket, something ancient bared its fangs,
And as the sheep in panic fear all fled in leaps and bounds,
A fully grown triceratops stood up to face the hounds.
Now Blue and Dolly, Bill and Meg were sheepdogs of the best,
Prize winners all though they might be, they'd never faced this test.
"Get in behind!" cried Farmer Scroggs, his face a wrathful frown,
So in behind the log they got and kept their heads well down.

At this the fammer's face went red, he said a nasty word,
And rewed his motor-cycle round to catch that fleeing herd.
But Harley charged that mean machine, his great feet squashed it flat,
He chased the farmer up a tree and that, my friends, was that.
And so we leave good Farmer Scroggs his features turning black
His sheep behind their dinosaur can laugh at all attack
I'll leave his dogs behind their log and terminate my rhyme
By saying "Harley Davidson beats Hondas, every time!"

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Cluin
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 08:05 AM

Ah! That scared me! Google scares me.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 08:02 AM

And as Pogo says, " When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last!"

Then there's John Warner's song "Harley Dinosaur" about a Triceratops that is raised by a herd of sheep, and defends them from the sheepherder and his dogs: click at Your Own Risk!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Mr Fox
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 06:55 AM

And the lion will lie down with the lamb.

But the lamb won't get much sleep.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 08:05 PM

One from Joseph Campbell:

   The story I'd like to give is that of a tigress who was pregnant, and starving hungry. She came upon a little flock of goats. And in pouncing upon them, with the energy that she expended, she brought on the birth of her little one and her own death. So she died giving birth to a little tiger. The goats, meanwhile, had scattered, and they finally came back to their little grazing place, and they found this just-born little tiger and its dead mother. They had very strong parental instincts, and they adopted the little tiger, who grew up thinking he was a goat. He learned to bleat. He learned to eat grass but the grass was very bad for his digestive system. He couldn't handle the cellulose. By the time he was an adolescent, he was a pretty miserable example of his species.
   At that time a male tiger pounced on the little flock, and they again scattered. But this little fellow was a tiger; he wasn't a goat. So there he was, standing. The big fellow looked at him. And he said, "What? You living here with these goats?"
   The little tiger goes "Maaaaaaaa" and begins nibbling grass in a kind of embarrassed way. The big fellow is mortified, like a father coming home and finding his son with long hair, something like that. So he swats him back and forth a couple of times because the little fellow could only bleat and nibble grass. Then he takes him by the neck and carries him to a pond. There was no wind blowing; it was perfectly still.
   Now the Hindus say of yoga that yoga is the art of making the mind stand still. The intentional stopping of the spontaneous activity of the mind itself. It's as though a pond was to be made to stand still. When the wind is blowing, the waters are rippling and all these little broken reflections come and go, come and go, come and go, and that's the way we are in our lives. We identify ourselves with one of these coming and going reflections, and we think--Oh dear, here I come, there I go. If you make the pond stand still, then the image stands still and you see your eternal presence, and identifying with that, you're relatively indifferent to the world.
   So this little tiger is now being introduced to the principles of yoga. And the big fellow says, "Now look into that pond." And the little one puts his face over it. And for the first time in his little life he sees his actual face. The big tiger puts his face over and he says, "You see? You've got the face of a tiger; you're like me. Be like me!" (Now that's guru stuff: I'll give you my picture to wear and you'll know who you are.)
   Anyhow, the little tiger's beginning to sort of get the message. The big fellow's next discipline is to pick him up and take him to his den, where there are the remains of a recently slaughtered gazelle. The big fellow takes a chunk of this bloody stuff, and he says to the little one, "Open your face."
   The little one backs off. He says, "I'm a vegetarian."
   "Well," says the big one, "none of that nonsense!" And he shoves it down the little one's throat. And the little one gags on it, as the text says, "As all do on true doctrine."
   So, gagging on the true doctrine, it's nevertheless getting into his system since it is his proper food, and it activates his proper nervous system. Spontaneously moved by his proper food, he gives a little tiger roar, sort of Tiger Roar 101. Then the big guy says, "There we are. Now we've got it. Now we'll eat tiger food."
   There's a moral here, of course. It is that we're all really tigers living here as goats. The function of sociology and most of our religious education is to teach us to be goats. But the function of the proper interpretation of mythological symbols and meditation discipline is to introduce you to your tiger face. You've found your tiger face but you're still living here with these goats. How are you going to do that?
   What you will have learned is through all the forms of world, the one radiance of eternity shows itself. You can regard the appearance of the miracle of life in all these forms. But don't let them know that you are a tiger!

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 02:07 PM

Tiger-tiger, burning bright,
Smells like bacon, that's alright.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 09:49 PM

I don't know nothun about Tiger-Piglets, but every time I see the subject I read it as "Tiglath-Pilaser." Go figger!
Oh, they were Assyrian kings, back when there were such things, at least three of them, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:01 PM

Georgiansilver-

:~)

But possibly more young humans have been killed by pigs than tigers. Pigs will eat anything. In that way they are similar to humans, not to mention their other shared traits.

There was a young lady of Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

The above thanks to William Cosmo Monkhouse.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:26 PM

It was a cold cold morning and my turn to feed the tigers. I walked slowly and with a sort of cautious reserve, towards the tiger enclosure with legs of animal meat in my wheelbarrow. There seemed to be no tigers in sight so I confidently opened the gate and entered the enclosure. I had however missed the one which lay close to the fence and it immeditely rose to its feet as I locked the gate behind me.
"Oh good gracious me"! I thought, "What on earth do I do now".
It was now running towards me with jaws open and looked ready to pounce..but as it reached me it slowed down dramatically, looked at me with its fierce eyes and roared at me.......oink oink!

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:29 PM

Bainbo-

I certainly agree with you that there's something repulsive about dressing up the piglets in tigerskins and presenting them with their foster tiger mother as entertainment. It really should be enough to see tiger mothers raising tigers in a display area that approximates wild habitat. I'm not against well designed exhibition of wild animals in general. It's probably better that people see these animals in "zoos" than intrude on the few remaining wild areas, and start feeding them hotdogs!

I do like web cams as they provide us almost unlimited access to what is going on in a nest or den, with a minimum of human intervention, and sometimes they even generate proceedes which are used to defend and expand wildlife habitat.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 09:43 AM

There was a photograph in an English paper a few years ago which showed Tippi Hedren (star of Hitchcocks 'The Birds') on her ranch in the US somewhere with one of her pet tigers jumping in through her kitchen window. From the top of its head to its front feet which were touching the floor, it was taller than Tippi.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:25 AM

You're ahead of the game, Charley. The picture's in today's Sun "newspaper" in Britain, with a story repeating the line that the striped coats are there to fool the tiger into thinking she's their mum.

Good job nobody believes what they read in the papers, eh? Still, you shouldn't believe anything you read on the internet, either, so who knows?

For the record, if the story about them being dressed up for entertainment is true, then I'm with kat. I think it's horrible.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Bagpuss
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 04:35 AM

I think interspecies adoption is fascinating. See this example of a lioness who took to adopting oryx calves. She wasn't nursing them, just looking after and protecting them, but it is fascinating nonetheless.

http://www.lewa.org/oryx-lioness-facts.php

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 01:13 AM

You're most welcome, Charley.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 08:26 PM

I'd like to see people intervene to rescue people from the business practices of (some) other humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:31 PM

Kat-

Thanks for the link. It's still nice when people can intervene and save another creature, even if it's from the business practices of other humans.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:26 PM

Thanks, McGrath. Beautiful.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:20 PM

Here's a Tiger Sanctuary in Thailand that's more encouraging - the Tiger Temple

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:13 PM

THIS ONE was true and filled me with sadness and tears...humankind is so fucked up...then something like this comes along and jumbles up all of my emotions.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:13 PM

McGrath-

"So what happened to the piglets?"

There was some reference in the link that some mother pigs that were raising tiger cubs had been raised themselves by tigers. But most likely the piglets go the same way as other piglets in Thailand, to market, and eventually to someone's plate.

We really didn't doubt the story when it was e-mailed to us by friends. We were just surfing the WWW to find a direct link to a story which included the digital images and then post it on Mudcat. What we found totally discredited the original heart-warming story. But it's still an interesting story.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:08 PM

Sounds like the real zoo is terrible and bizarre. Hope they close it down.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 06:47 PM

So what happened to the piglets? Nursing mother animals, including cats, often seem quite willing to take on young of other species, so I can quite imagine that might apply with tigers.

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 06:01 PM

Give 'em a little lettuce, a little tomato....

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:48 PM

The wunderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things...

Hello, Piglet!

*CHOMP*

Subject: RE: BS: Tigers-Piglets-Urban Myth
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:46 PM

And I really believed that tigers loved streaky bacon!

Subject: BS: Tigers-Piglets Images-Urban Myth!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:43 PM

Some us have been receiving recently intriguing images of a tiger mother nursing her adopted piglets. The pictures are real enough and cute, but the story is not true, according to this link: Click here for website

But the pictures are so cute!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble