Elephants Are Matriarchal and Kind to Females in the Animal World | Stop the Republican Disgrace of Elephants

Anne here, wanting to share a few Daily French Roast thoughts on the history of America’s party animals. We all agree that Democrats can be genuine jackasses, but what Republicans have done to besmirch the matriarchal pedigree and social organizations of elephants demands a new party animal.

The now-famous Democratic donkey was first associated with Democrat Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign. His opponents called him a jackass (a donkey), and Jackson decided to use the image of the strong-willed animal on his campaign posters. Later, cartoonist Thomas Nast used the Democratic donkey in newspaper cartoons and made the symbol famous.

Nast invented another famous symbol—the Republican elephant. In a cartoon that appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey clothed in lion’s skin, scaring away all the animals at the zoo. One of those animals, the elephant, was labeled “The Republican Vote.” That’s all it took for the elephant to become associated with the Republican Party.

Democrats today say the donkey is smart and brave, while Republicans say the elephant is strong and dignified. via FactMonster.com

Elephants for Real

Real life elephants are matriarchal and hardly a boys club with males making all the rules.  All young elephants live with the females until the male elephants reach adolescence. Until this age, he is completely in the care of females — not males, who are not even part of his social organization and have no say in how he is reared.

Truthfully, males and females don’t even live together.  Males aren’t out hunting, bringing home dinner for the little lady and kids. Males roam in bachelor herds until they grow older, leaving their boys club to travel alone, except for mating.

Unlike males, the female generations of elephants are known to be very close, grieving for each other when one dies. Elephants are considered to be compassionate, self-aware, and highly intelligent unlike the current Republican crowd.

I’m thinking that GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons must be a Republican. A quick Google search confirms that he is. Last September, I posted a link to Bob Parsons taking pleasure in shooting an elephant in Africa — just like Sarah Palin loved gunning down her caribou, in an act of “ethical hunting” she calls it. Presumably, Sarah knows what she’s talking about.

Protest was major against Parsons, who responded in typical Republican fashion that he was doing African farmers a favor in killing the endangered species. It is true that there is a collision between farmers and elephants in Africa.

I argued Parsons’ arrogance over shooting the elephants reflected both his belief in dominionism — that man is in charge of women, animals and all of nature , a cornerstone of Rick Santorum’s philosophy — and his stupidity in not understanding less violent, more female-centric ways of solving the elephant-African farmer problem.

A female mind — in this case Lucy King of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology is busy building bee fences in Africa.

Just placing a beehive on land can scare the wits out of most elephants. Scientists speculate that result — after all, there were no bees in the hives — is linked to the fact that the elephants remember painful past encounters with African honeybees and avoid the sights and smells associated with them.

On the one hand we have Republican guy, master of the universe Bob Parsons killing the elephant. On the other we have more progressive, female mind Lucy King scaring the elephants away with empty beehives.

It is exactly this kind of intelligence that today’s Republicans detest — and especially in a woman. Guns and vaginal ultrasounds are their best weapons for keeping herds in line. I beg Republicans to find a new animal to represent the insantity they are perpetuating on America and American women in particular. Elephants don’t deserve this dishonor.  Anne

Observing Cuttalossa Farm | Can Humans Find Peace By Studying Animal Behavior? | Beehives Save Elephant Deaths

Before Monotheism, Killing Dolphins Was a Capital Crime

Returning Ancient Greek ‘Person’ Status to Dolphins AOC Green Beings

In ancient Greece, dolphins were seen as messengers for the gods. And while there was no knowledge of the fact that dolphins have lived on Planet Earth for 38-50 million years by current estimates, the mammals were revered and awarded ‘person’ status. 

The clues to dolphins as ‘female’ are prolific in Greek and Roman art, and also in earlier Minoan artifacts. PBS ‘Frontline” reports in “A whale of a business: man & marine mammals : dolphins in ancient mythology”.

Without romanticizing the centuries preceding the dawn of Christianity for women or for nature, it seems that Judaism, Christianity and Aristotle emerged in a coalition of thought that celebrated man’s rational nature while condemning women’s emotional, irrational and natural state of being. 

Simultaneously, in moving to embrace a single God, there was little room for feminine principles, and that includes dolphins.

After all, man — the superior creature — was dominant not only over women, but over nature.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, nature is the result of an orderly, hierarchical succession, where man is created separate from the land, seas, flora, and fauna. He is the boss, according to Genesis:

Farmers, Elephants & Bees

We’re all just walking each other home. ~ Ram Dass

Beehive Fences Keep African Elephants Away from Crops Wired Science July 12, 2011

Wired updates a 2009 story that caught our hearts — a woman’s idea of how to keep expanding elephant populations safe in their conflicts with Kenya’s farmers, whose crops are trampled by these wonderful creatures.

Elephants and Bees: Mother Nature Provides Possible Solution to Elephant Conservation in Africa AOC Green Beings

Just placing a beehive on land can scare the wits out of most elephants. Scientists speculate that result — after all, there were no bees in the hives — is linked to the fact that the elephants remember painful past encounters with African honeybees and avoid the sights and smells associated with them.

GoDaddy.com founder defends elephant-hunting video CNN

AOC will ask GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons to stop shooting elephants and instead support the work of Lucy King of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology by building bee fences in Africa.

Animals on Human Condition

Carversville, Cuttalossa Road, Cuttalossa Farm and a Peaceable Kingdom AOC Green Beings

Leaning casually against the fence, I had no idea that a vision of nearly epic importance was coming. Out of nowhere, the formation appeared … a simple, bucolic scene unfolded before my eyes that I will never forget.  I don’t remember who led the parade … probably one of the dogs, but they came two by two.

Unlike Noah’s Ark,  they were not matched pairs. The dog ambled along with the rooster. One of my precious Babydolls frolicked with a duck.

This Solebury barnyard menagerie of totally unrelated animals was paired in formation,  and everyone was getting along. 

Honestly, the goose’s bill was bobbing in the air, laughing away. The hens were cackling and the bog barked joyfully, creating an incomprehensibly silly sight.

The scene polarized me for several minutes, burning a vision of hope in my mind. It sounds so trite and overly simplistic to say this, but I remember thinking to myself: “If they can get along and have such a good time together … well, why can’t we humans do the same thing?”

These animals couldn’t be more different, but they had connected with each other, surmounting their differences to create a scene of unimaginable delight for themselves and the entire world.