Monday 4 April 2011
Rich Heathens
My grandmother was a Catholic. She came from a simple background. This is a euphemism for poor and uneducated. That combination made her a particularly devout Catholic. It's seems odd to me that the people with the least seem to be the most vocal in thanking God for it. Anyway, she was largely responsible for looking after me from the ages of two to seven since my parents both had to work. I think she must have taken the Jesuit maxim of 'Give me the boy till he's seven and I will give you the man', as she dragged me off to Mass at every available opportunity, no doubt in the hope that I wouldn't grow up into a faithless pagan like her son, my father.
I had mixed feelings about Mass. Though I liked the ceremony I didn't have the Latin so much of it was lost on me. This gave me a lot of time to study the Stations of the Cross of which our church had a fine set. I grew to realize that religion is essentially morbid, much given to the fetishization of pain and suffering, and even at a young age I began to question it's healthiness. And while I appreciated the priest's imprecations for us children to be good, I couldn't go along with the more way out stuff like transubstantiation, where the wafer and the wine ACTUALLY turn into the body and blood of Christ (where? I used to think. In my mouth, my oesophagus or my stomach?) or indeed, Heaven and Hell. Grandmother, being a simple woman (poor, ill-educated etc.) I now believe sniffed out this latent atheism in me and was determined to stamp it out.
I remember one morning coming out of church and, in the entrance, seeing a particularly vivid picture of Hell on a pamphlet. Think Hieronymous Bosch on acid. "There" said Grandma, "I told you there was a Hell." I spent many sleepless nights after that considering an eternity in that ghastly place being too young at the time to spot the flaw in her reasoning. That some proof outside the walls of our Catholic Church would be altogether more compelling.
The priest had a slight edge over Hell in the terror department as far as I was concerned and his occasional visit to our house (which I now know was in an attempt to get my parents to remarry in the Church of Rome, their Methodist wedding not being recognized) filled me with a nameless dread. His bright pink sausage fingers and watery, whiskey soaked eyes, his pompous patrician manner (remember he was God's direct representative in our 'hood) all gave me butterflies and of course in the light of subsequent revelations who knows what desperate alarms where instinctively going off inside me. Something I didn't want him doing!
As I grew older my skepticism ripened and I began to challenge this up-bringing even more. Despite the ghetto nature of the place where I lived, (solid Irish Catholic), they couldn't hide from me for long that other people in the world had different beliefs, a fact so well hidden that when I first discovered that not everyone was a Catholic, I felt dizzy.
I turned to my in-house spiritual guide and expert on all things religious. Grandma. "But what about all these other people of which I am starting to hear, nan? They are presumably decent folk and they aren't Catholics" Her logic was impeccable, her faith, unshakeable. "Well, son," she started and looked upon me with an indulgent smile. She may have stroked my shining, freshly washed hair, I can't remember. "There's a lot of people in this world will do anything for money!" Ah, it all made sense. Somewhere an evil cadre was lavishing material wealth on the peoples of the middle and far east and all they had to do in return was to feign belief in these pretend religions, and all just to piss off the Pope! How could I have been so blind?
Like so much of my contact with the religion of my forefathers this left me with a bizarre image of the world that it took me years to shake off. I imagined a third world of Hindus and Muslims and Sufis, morally bankrupt and living high on the hog, coining it in, and lying through their gold-capped teeth.
Despite all this I was fond of Grandma. A warm, loving woman who let me eat biscuits in bed and would show me my christmas presents early if I asked. Not like Grandma Sperring. But her tale is for another day.
I had mixed feelings about Mass. Though I liked the ceremony I didn't have the Latin so much of it was lost on me. This gave me a lot of time to study the Stations of the Cross of which our church had a fine set. I grew to realize that religion is essentially morbid, much given to the fetishization of pain and suffering, and even at a young age I began to question it's healthiness. And while I appreciated the priest's imprecations for us children to be good, I couldn't go along with the more way out stuff like transubstantiation, where the wafer and the wine ACTUALLY turn into the body and blood of Christ (where? I used to think. In my mouth, my oesophagus or my stomach?) or indeed, Heaven and Hell. Grandmother, being a simple woman (poor, ill-educated etc.) I now believe sniffed out this latent atheism in me and was determined to stamp it out.
I remember one morning coming out of church and, in the entrance, seeing a particularly vivid picture of Hell on a pamphlet. Think Hieronymous Bosch on acid. "There" said Grandma, "I told you there was a Hell." I spent many sleepless nights after that considering an eternity in that ghastly place being too young at the time to spot the flaw in her reasoning. That some proof outside the walls of our Catholic Church would be altogether more compelling.
The priest had a slight edge over Hell in the terror department as far as I was concerned and his occasional visit to our house (which I now know was in an attempt to get my parents to remarry in the Church of Rome, their Methodist wedding not being recognized) filled me with a nameless dread. His bright pink sausage fingers and watery, whiskey soaked eyes, his pompous patrician manner (remember he was God's direct representative in our 'hood) all gave me butterflies and of course in the light of subsequent revelations who knows what desperate alarms where instinctively going off inside me. Something I didn't want him doing!
As I grew older my skepticism ripened and I began to challenge this up-bringing even more. Despite the ghetto nature of the place where I lived, (solid Irish Catholic), they couldn't hide from me for long that other people in the world had different beliefs, a fact so well hidden that when I first discovered that not everyone was a Catholic, I felt dizzy.
I turned to my in-house spiritual guide and expert on all things religious. Grandma. "But what about all these other people of which I am starting to hear, nan? They are presumably decent folk and they aren't Catholics" Her logic was impeccable, her faith, unshakeable. "Well, son," she started and looked upon me with an indulgent smile. She may have stroked my shining, freshly washed hair, I can't remember. "There's a lot of people in this world will do anything for money!" Ah, it all made sense. Somewhere an evil cadre was lavishing material wealth on the peoples of the middle and far east and all they had to do in return was to feign belief in these pretend religions, and all just to piss off the Pope! How could I have been so blind?
Like so much of my contact with the religion of my forefathers this left me with a bizarre image of the world that it took me years to shake off. I imagined a third world of Hindus and Muslims and Sufis, morally bankrupt and living high on the hog, coining it in, and lying through their gold-capped teeth.
Despite all this I was fond of Grandma. A warm, loving woman who let me eat biscuits in bed and would show me my christmas presents early if I asked. Not like Grandma Sperring. But her tale is for another day.
Friday 1 April 2011
Well... D'uh!
Gorillas are wonderful creatures that speak to our deeps. When most people see one in the flesh or even in a photograph they usually take a moment, however brief, to reflect on their own humanity. After all, we share 97 per cent of our DNA with the Great Apes and are descended from the same ancestors. We are closely related.
So when I saw a picture of a family of Lowland Gorillas at play in a Canadian magazine I started to read the article. It concerned the inhabitants of Toronto Zoo. Every Zoo has, as a star attraction, along with the Big Cats, a couple of Gorillas or in the bad old days of London Zoo one very lonely one, in that case called Guy. Toronto has seven.
Leaving aside the whole question of Zoos and their right to keep wild animals for the moment, and leaving aside my own personal views since the great Silverback at LA Zoo threw one of his own turds at me (completely uncalled for, I had been nothing but respectful), the article concerned some troubling trends with the world's captive Gorillas. It seems that in every zoo their populations are becoming obese. Rolls of fat hanging round their torsos (the pot-bellies it seems are perfectly natural which I personally took great comfort from). Not only that but a behaviour, not seen in the wild, is becoming endemic. That is, the voluntary re-gurgitation and re-eating of their food.
Toronto Zoo has been at the forefront of research into these areas and has come up with a solution. Gorillas are vegetarian, browsing animals (unlike chimpanzees) who in the wild spend most of the day eating low energy, high fibre food. Bark, leaves and grass with the occasional treat of berries when they can be found. But in zoos they are fed a brick of much higher energy grains called Gorilla Biscuit and the floor of their enclosures are scattered with fruits like, apples, bananas and oranges for them to rummage through, all high in sugars and energy. The result is that their diet is a rich one (hence the obesity) and they can get all the nutrition they need in a short feeding time leaving the rest of the day free for them to twiddle their opposing thumbs. Many zoos give them toys to play with, which on the whole the Gorillas tend to shove into a corner and pretend aren't there, preferring instead to bring up their food so they can have the pleasure of eating it again.
Toronto's solution? To give the animals A SIMILAR DIET TO THE ONE THEY HAVE IN THE WILD! Really? D'ya think? The Gorillas have shed between 15 and 20 pounds each over the last few months and are some of the healthiest in North America. There is even a plan afoot to purchase some land to grow the type of trees they like so that their diet is completely sustainable.
While the zoo at Toronto is to be congratulated (It is completely privately financed and has one of the most progressive breeding programs in the world) I was amazed that in this day and age a feeding regime like that was not common practice everywhere. I was equally surprised that it would take so much time, research and presumably money to come up with, what might seem, such an obvious solution.
But then perhaps not. Man is a simple creature who takes time to work out things that come naturally to the higher order mammals... Like Gorillas.
So when I saw a picture of a family of Lowland Gorillas at play in a Canadian magazine I started to read the article. It concerned the inhabitants of Toronto Zoo. Every Zoo has, as a star attraction, along with the Big Cats, a couple of Gorillas or in the bad old days of London Zoo one very lonely one, in that case called Guy. Toronto has seven.
Leaving aside the whole question of Zoos and their right to keep wild animals for the moment, and leaving aside my own personal views since the great Silverback at LA Zoo threw one of his own turds at me (completely uncalled for, I had been nothing but respectful), the article concerned some troubling trends with the world's captive Gorillas. It seems that in every zoo their populations are becoming obese. Rolls of fat hanging round their torsos (the pot-bellies it seems are perfectly natural which I personally took great comfort from). Not only that but a behaviour, not seen in the wild, is becoming endemic. That is, the voluntary re-gurgitation and re-eating of their food.
Toronto Zoo has been at the forefront of research into these areas and has come up with a solution. Gorillas are vegetarian, browsing animals (unlike chimpanzees) who in the wild spend most of the day eating low energy, high fibre food. Bark, leaves and grass with the occasional treat of berries when they can be found. But in zoos they are fed a brick of much higher energy grains called Gorilla Biscuit and the floor of their enclosures are scattered with fruits like, apples, bananas and oranges for them to rummage through, all high in sugars and energy. The result is that their diet is a rich one (hence the obesity) and they can get all the nutrition they need in a short feeding time leaving the rest of the day free for them to twiddle their opposing thumbs. Many zoos give them toys to play with, which on the whole the Gorillas tend to shove into a corner and pretend aren't there, preferring instead to bring up their food so they can have the pleasure of eating it again.
Toronto's solution? To give the animals A SIMILAR DIET TO THE ONE THEY HAVE IN THE WILD! Really? D'ya think? The Gorillas have shed between 15 and 20 pounds each over the last few months and are some of the healthiest in North America. There is even a plan afoot to purchase some land to grow the type of trees they like so that their diet is completely sustainable.
While the zoo at Toronto is to be congratulated (It is completely privately financed and has one of the most progressive breeding programs in the world) I was amazed that in this day and age a feeding regime like that was not common practice everywhere. I was equally surprised that it would take so much time, research and presumably money to come up with, what might seem, such an obvious solution.
But then perhaps not. Man is a simple creature who takes time to work out things that come naturally to the higher order mammals... Like Gorillas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)