Monday, November 5, 2012


Sight  'Sight' relates to vision. It is the power of seeing.  It can also be something that is seen.   
Site  The
noun 'site' refers to a piece of land.  As a verb ('to site'), it means 'to position in a place.'
Cite  The verb 'cite' means 'to quote', 'to refer to', 'to summon to appear before a court of law' or simply 'to mention'.  http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/cite_sight_site.htm

The rhinoceros could hardly be described as an attractive beast.  Its massive build, short stout legs, rough hairless hide and two stout horns protruding from the front of the nose, give it a prehistoric look.  For the record, the black rhino is no more black than the white rhino is white; both are dark gray, with the black rhino slightly darker.  Tragically, the black and white rhinos are the only two left in Africa and both face extinction.  In fact, the black rhino is disappearing faster than any other large animal on earth.  Weighing more than a ton, the rhino can be unpredictably aggressive, and has been known to charge vehicles or campfires and toss people on its front horn.  It has poor sight and relies on its acute senses of hearing and smell to locate an intruder.  The black rhinoceros, with its three toes, belongs to the perissodactyla or "odd-toed" group of mammals, which take the main weight of the body axed on the central toe of each foot (like the horse).  http://www.un.org/works/OLD/environment/animalplanet/rhino.html 

July 12, 2012  Singapore Zoo recently celebrated the birth of its thirteenth White Rhino -- an adorable and curious youngster.  Aptly named Jumaane (which means born on Tuesday), he arrived on Tuesday, April 10, weighing approximately 155 pounds (70kg) at birth -- undoubtedly one of the biggest babies the Zoo has welcomed to date.  He can be seen running or rolling around in the mud in his spacious exhibit at the Wild Africa region. Mom Shova is always close by, keeping a watchful eye.  White Rhinos are considered near threatened in the wild on the IUCN’s* Red List of Threatened species.  Together with the Indian Rhino, it is the largest species of land mammal after the elephant.  They are hunted for their horns, which some believe to have medicinal properties.  In fact, the horns are actually made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails, and there has been no scientific evidence to suggest that they are a cure for any condition.  Singapore Zoo currently has eight of these majestic creatures in its collection, and boasts the most number of White Rhinos bred in a single zoo in Southeast Asia.  Of the 13 babies born there, some have been sent to Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and Korea as part of the Zoo’s ex-situ conservation efforts through its worldwide exchange program.  http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2012/07/white-rhino-big-bundle-of-joy-for-singapore-zoo.html  On my one visit to the Singapore Zoo, I watched a zookeeper feed a bunch of bananas to a rhino--the sound of snapping jaws was incredibly loud, like an echo of thunder.

Rhinos in literature: 
Rhinocéros was initially a short story written in 1957 by Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994), who was influenced by his time in Romania as a young man when nearly everyone around him converted to fascism.  Alongside Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter, Ionesco was a major figure of the “Theater of the Absurd.”  Rhinocéros begins in a small town square where Jean meets his apathetic friend Berenger for a drink.  A rhinoceros runs through the square, shocking all except Berenger.  The square is soon overrun as people in the town begin to transform into rhinos.  Berenger, on the other hand, transforms from being indifferent and aimless to a having something to believe in and fight against: the tyranny of the rhinos.  A parable about French collaboration with the Nazis, Rhinocéros serves as a metaphor for people resisting the crowd and standing up for their own ideas.  http://ums.org/performances/ionescos-rhinoceros

Rhinos in art and history: 
Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros, a drawing and woodcut  Germany, AD 1515
The ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Muzafar II (1511-26) had presented it to Alfonso d'Albuquerque, the governor of Portuguese India.  Albuquerque passed the gift on to Dom Manuel I, the king of Portugal.  The rhinoceros travelled in a ship full of spices.  On arrival in Lisbon, Dom Manuel arranged for the rhinoceros to fight one of his elephants (according to Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis ('Natural History') (AD 77), the elephant and rhinoceros are bitter enemies).  The elephant apparently turned and fled.  A description of the rhinoceros soon reached Nuremberg, presumably with sketches, from which Dürer prepared this drawing and woodcut.  No rhinoceros had been seen in Europe for over 1000 years, so Dürer had to work solely from these reports.  He has covered the creature's legs with scales and the body with hard, patterned plates.  Perhaps these features interpret lost sketches, or even the text, which states, '[The rhinoceros] has the colour of a speckled tortoise and it is covered with thick scales'.  So convincing was Dürer's fanciful creation that for the next 300 years European illustrators borrowed from his woodcut, even after they had seen living rhinoceroses without plates and scales.  See image at:  http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/a/albrecht_d%C3%BCrers_rhinoceros.aspx
"Probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts"
Clarke, T. H.,'The Rhinoceros from Dürer to Stubbs:  1515–1799'.  See famous picture at: 
http://www.crouchrarebooks.com/prints/view/1627/

Rhinos in music: 
My Rhinoceros - Lipton, Edward   32 Sing Out! 30 (1986)    
Rhinoceros - Stecher, Jody  Going Up on the Mountain, Bay 210, LP (1977), trk# A.05
http://www.ibiblio.org/keefer/r05.htm
Rhinoceros, U.S. rock band (1967-1971, with a reunion in 2009 at the Kitchener Blues Festival)  http://www.rhinoceros-group.com/r

Ohio is one of 20 states with laws against making false or misleading statements in political campaigns.  A violation is a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.  But a prosecutor can't file charges without a complaint being filed with the Ohio Elections Commission, a seven-member bipartisan board that rules on election complaints.  And in the last decade, the commission has not referred a single case involving a false statement to a county prosecutor.  Philip Richter, executive director of the commission, could recall only four such referrals dating back to when he joined the commission in the mid-1990s.  While most observers see lying in campaigns on the upswing, Richter said that complaints about alleged campaign falsehoods are actually down this year compared to previous years with just 38, compared to as many as 98 in 2010.  Records supplied by Richter show the commission has heard 176 complaints involving allegations of false and misleading statements in the past three years and found violations in 14 cases -- which is 8 percent of the time.  In all of 2012, the commission issued only two findings of violations involving false and misleading statements -- both involving candidates who implied they already held the office that they were running for this election.  State Sen. Tom Patton, a Strongsville Republican, said the public's perception is that politicians get away with lies while others can't.  He said a car dealer friend recently asked him about the apparent double standard.  "My friend said, "I can't put out a false or misleading ad.  Why am I being held to a different standard?" Patton said.  "Why are these politicians able to get up there and say anything they want?"  Patton said he's interested in "improving the dialogue and dialing down the nonsense," but isn't sure yet that Ohio's laws need an overhaul.  He said he plans to talk to Attorney General Mike DeWine and his colleagues to see how others feel about it.   Aaron Marshall  Read more, including information on judicial candidates and see a map of states in the U.S.with laws against lying in elections  at:  http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/10/despite_laws_against_lying_tal.html

More than 58,000 presidential campaign ads ran in Ohio during the last month, according to a Bloomberg News study.  And it's not even certain that the ads are having their intended effect.  See descriptions of "best positive" ads and "most effective" negative ads at:  http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/31/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus-political-ads-20121031

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