Suicidal Fish

This subject has been bugging me for quite some time now: if it’s true that animals are capable of committing suicide (a fact yet to be proven by science and Youtube bloggers)… well, bummer! It’ll be a strong blow to human vanity, don’t you think? We’ve always thought that animals were kind of dumb compared to us: happy in their ignorance, unaware of their own mortality, incapable of deep thought or complex behaviour. But hey, didn’t men think the same thing about women not so long ago?

Rrrright…

Let’s start by saying that if animals are unaware of their own mortality, it’s absurd to talk about “suicide”, we all agree on that. One thing’s true, though: pets suffering from depression (because they’ve been abandoned by their owners or a pet friend) might let themselves die of starvation.
I know this, I googled it.
And this isn’t exclusive to domestic animals: there’s this famous case of a pair of lions hunting together somewhere in the savannah... One of them got injured and died a painful death. The other, full of grief, immediately gave up his will to live. He laid at his friend’s side until he died of starvation.

It is said that Emperor penguins mate for life, and if one of them dies, so will its mate not long afterwards. Same with swans and seahorses, to name but a few. I'm not really sure if this is caused by depression or lack of sex, but either way, it proves my point.

Aside from depression, there are various other reasons why an animal would –voluntary or not- kill itself: excruciating pain, for instance. I heard of a black cat that jumped out a 7th storey window when his beloved owner died.
It’s important to add that the man was lying in bed listening to Anastasia’s single “All 4U” when he met his maker.
On “Repeat” mode.
The cat survived him a day.
Those are the facts, you jump into your own conclusions.


A reconstruction of the tragedy played by a professional stunt


It’s weird, but some animals definitely “know” that something very very very bad is gonna happen to them, so they kill themselves first in a less painful manner (or so they try, at least).
Check this out: scorpions, when surrounded by flames, will sting themselves in the back.
Agonizing bees will sting you to tear off their bellies and end it all faster.
And I’m sure you’ve got a friend, or a friend of a friend, who saw a crazy dog jumping off the bridge trying to avoid being run over by a car. That’s a classic.

Then there’s the altruistic kind of suicide, like when your guardian dog gives his life to protect you and your family from rogues.
I knew this 3-year-old Doberman that prevented a home robbery when the owners were out partying, as always. He scared the shit out of the intruders, who run away seconds after breaking in through the backdoor. Two days later, the dog died from asphyxia. This was so unexpected, that the owners took his body to a vet for an examination. They found two gloved fingers stuck inside his larynx.
Gross, right? Surely that poor beast hated being left home alone, but stayed true to his owners till the end.

My favourite case of altruistic suicide is perpetrated by a particular kind of termites in Australia. These suckers will explode their bodies if their nest is under attack. I’m not kidding, it seems that their guts are so sticky that can immobilize the intruders right on the spot. Can you beat that?!

“Assisted death” is not unheard of in the animal kingdom either. There’s a parasite called Horse Hair that can force crickets to commit suicide by jumping in and out a pond to exhaustion. As it turns out, this is the only way in which Horse Hair parasites can kill themselves. And fortunately for them, crickets are too dumb to stop helping.

Salmons will jump right into a bear’s open mouth if, after swimming 2000 miles upstream, they don’t get laid.

Luckily, there are no mass suicides in the animal kingdom.
You probably heard of the “lemmings”, right? A.k.a “the suicidal animals”…? It is said that whole flocks of these cute little rodents would jump off cliffs or drown themselves… Bull! It was recently discovered that a population of lemmings would split into two groups when their numbers are too high for the food available. This happens way too often because lemmings reproduce at an alarming rate (it helps them keep warm, they say). So some will stay behind as the rest migrate to find alternative food sources to survive. This isn’t mass suicide, these dudes really want to make it!


Lemus Lemus a.k.a Lemming. Ain't it cute?!

Ok, sure, some might get disoriented and stampede against a rock or fall off a cliff in hordes… That’s quite common when you’ve been on the road for so long, in inclement weather and with scarce food around; your tiny paws swell and you realize that it isn’t worth it. The ones you’re sacrificing for are safely at home, fucking like hell and probably giving shit about you right now.

I don't know if you saw Disney’s documentary White Wilderness, which won an Academy Award in 1958. It featured some staged footage with lemmings jumping into sure death after faked scenes of mass migration. A Canadian counter-documentary, Cruel Camera, found that the lemmings used for the film were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, where they did not “jump off the cliff”, but in fact were launched off using a turntable.
Jeeeesus.
A Times Magazine article dated two days later, reported that the crew of White Wilderness committed mass suicide after having been publicly exposed.
A counter-article retorted that they’ve actually been murdered by a bunch of Canadian animal rights lovers armed with poison snakes.
And finally, 11 lemmings jumped right under an Amtrack train after reading the whole story. Fortunately, the literacy rate among lemming colonies dropped to zero afterwards.

So what about whales? It is known that stranded whales were surely following a leader that for some reason lacked a sense of direction or was simply berserk. Some scientists believe that in order to get rid of their gaga elders and stupid youngsters, middle-aged well-to-do whales came up with this idea of “join in and follow the crippled leader”. This allows them to get rid of all their scum in one go.
Many oceanographers currently use this argument to demonstrate the superior intelligence of whales and other sea mammals over human’s.


Some extreme left-wing whales stranded on a beach in the coast of Peru.


There is a spooky case that remains yet to be solved… it certainly beats me. In Jatinga (north east of India) every year during the monsoon season, thousands of birds supposedly commit “mass suicide” by either crashing into the ground or jumping into fire. The ones that survive show no desire to fly back. Since the average size of this bird’s brain is way smaller than the whale’s (and slightly smaller than an average school teacher’s), scientists believe that there’s no complot involved here. Some say that these birds might be collectively attracted either to light (if they jump into the fire) or darkness (if they crash into the ground).
I say… guys, maybe it’s a bit of both; maybe it’s a creepy chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events like leafs falling down the tree in Autumn. Some got bored, some lost a bet, some tripped, others went sad at the loss of their kins… It may turn out to be a simple case of multiple “individual suicides” happening at the same time for very different reasons.


Birds drawn to fire in Jatinga.


In any case, it is generally believed that domestic animals are more prone to suicide than wild ones. I used to think that this was a misconception, because ordinary people witness domestic deaths more often than in the wilderness. I would think that MOST animals in the wild will eventually find enough reasons to put an end to their miserable lives. If they're lucky. I mean, before they end up hunted down by predators or catch an unspeakable decease when scavenging on rotten food, or suffer from a fatal case of diarrhea after drinking from a polluted pond (yes, I’m a National Geographic reader... sue me.)
But recently I came across a very interesting article written by a British animal behaviour psychologist. He says that pets are more prone to suicide because “most owners breed them as surrogate friends and partners, thus transferring a lot of strain and negative emotions onto them”.
Ok, ok… now we’re talking, this I can relate to.

If this chum is right, this might help explain why cats and dogs -in particular- show clear suicidal tendencies, even during carefree play.


Compilation of caught-in-the-act cats displaying suicidal tendencies


When it comes to dogs… well, they can get pretty suicidal too, you know?
Let me elaborate.
Various studies demonstrate how a specific scene or location can trigger unexpected responses in people and animals alike: an eerie echo in the breeze… an unfamiliar odour… a creepy looking tree in the middle of the garden…
In case you didn’t know, the most famous suicide hotspot in the world is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Being one of the major tourist attractions in the United States, and knowing that the U.S. suicide rate is 11.1 per 10.000 people per year (ranked #41 in Wikipedia’s list), one must assume that people must travel from all over the world just to jump off that monument. Well, if I were to kill myself, I’d probably leave my squashed body for somebody-I-give-a-shit-about to clean up after, too.
What is it with the Golden Gate Bridge that drives them wiiiiiiiiillllld?! Beats me.

Now, guess what? Dogs have their own Golden Gate Bridge. It’s called Overtoun Bridge and it’s in Scotland. In the past 50 years, over 50 dogs “committed suicide” jumping off that bridge and into the river some 300 feet below.


Overtoun Bridge

Curiously enough, in Celtic mythology, Overtoun is known as “the thin place”, an area in which heaven and earth are reputed to be close. Were these dogs 'spooked' by some supernatural or external force emanating from the bridge and deliberately leapt to their deaths? A Daily Mail online article shines some light for us: “Psychic Mary Armour took her own Labrador for a walk along the (Overtoun) bridge to test the theory. However, she reported no unusual sensations. ‘Animals are hyper-sensitive to the spirit world, but I didn't feel any adverse energy' she said afterwards”.
Ok… thanks for the enlightening input, you freak.

I found on Youtube a short movie based on Lucky Rocky's story. In case you haven't heard of it, it's the story of a monogamous dog that caught his bitch cheating on him and went suicidal. Check it out, the leading dog's performance does Rocky justice:





Ok, enough of this intro; what’s the story about Suicidal Fish, anyway?

Right! This subject’s been bugging me for quite some time now.

You know what? I think this article is getting a bit too long, so I’ll tell you all about it on my next post.

Stay tuned :)

Yours unlawfully,
Pinker Mint

- - - - - - - -

Related articles

On suicidal birds in Jatinga
On Lemmings and the White Wilderness story
Daily Mail article on Overtoun Bridge
Time Magazine, online edition. "Do animals commit suicide? A scientific debate"
List of Countries by Suicide Rate

Tall Truths Tetris Taught Me

I’m prone to procrastination like the next person, so I develop addictions to keep myself “occupied”. TETRIS is definitely a must-have; I need a fix everyday, a couple of games at least. It’s discrete and doesn’t have secondary effects, except for compulsive hand-twitching and an irreversible loss-of-time. Not that bad, is it? Besides, if someone asks me what I’ve been doing this week, I'll say “I quit smoking”. That’s a killer: you get everybody’s immediate respect, and rest assured that they won’t be the least interested in knowing if you wrote those 20 pages you were supposed to. Of course, I should point out that I’ve never been a smoker (well, maybe some pot once in a while, but only for the heck of it and to fuel lateral thinking, you know?).

If you’re an English speaking person (which I, evidently, am not), I’d suggest you go for “I’m learning Spanish.” Or French. You’ll never need them, so who will find out?! Have you any idea how much time Asians spend trying to learn English each year?! And what about those drug or sex addicts in rehab?
I say, if you don’t have REAL addictions, you’re entitled to good-old-fashioned procrastination, it’s free and harmless (mainly to others).

I believe that at 36, I’ve spent approximately a ninth of my life playing TETRIS. In fact, I know the drill so well that I can play it by heart now: I learned to bypass the conscious brain when connecting my hands to my eyes, so they're able to work out the blank spaces and proper rotations on their own. This saves me up to 70% of GMP (Grey Matter Power).

This is great, because it gives me a lot of time and energy to lateral-think. I love lateral-thinking (with or without pot), it’s the pink couch in the middle of my comfy-zone. There are no bad ideas in lateral-thinking, how cute is that, huh?! The trick is to forget everything you know and use the opposite hemisphere to solve your problems. If it’s maths, draw. If it’s of a moral nature... I don't know... dance. Lower your GMP, it's the closest thing we Westerners have to real meditation.
And if you’ve no problems at all, use lateral thinking to create some; people will appreciate that you’re a suffering asshole like everybody else.

Screen snapshot of one of grandma's TETROLLAPSE games. She liked the result so much that she decided to knit me a sweater with that pattern.


TETRIS is a great teacher of mine, my guru in a Mighty-Favog-kind-of-way (although when he says “It’s gonna cost yah!” he doesn’t mean “Chick’ns”, he means “Time”. Yay! Where the hell could I get chick’ns from 2 to 6 am in Barcelona?! But as for Time, I get a free 24-hour-ration every day, plus a 24-hour bonus every four years, if I don’t lose count. Boy, ain’t it cheap to be alive?).

I read somewhere that TETRIS is being prescribed to patients who suffer from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). I’m not kidding; it seems that when you’ve been through a traumatic experience, your brain needs to playback the torturing scene over and over in your head to numb the pain and save you from potential new traumas by confining you to bed for a long time.
That same part of the brain (I can’t remember which) is the one you exercise when playing TETRIS, because it also regulates the mental rotating and translating of objects in space. So scientists discovered that PTSD patients would eventually replace the mental reruns of car crashes, rapes and extended episodes of "Lost" with endless rows of squares, L’s and Z’s, rotating and falling within a rectangular container to the rhythm of an obnoxious MIDI version of Ivan Petrovich Larionov's "Kalinka". How harmful can that be, right?

It’s not surprising that the “Quilmes Psychiatric Hospital” has sponsored the winning team in the last TETRIS World Cup held in February 2008 in Buenos Aires. I heard they gave their representatives colored wristbands and matching toe tags (just in case) with the hospital's logo on them. The team was awarded a check for 10.000 Argentine pesos, which the doctors immediately took away from their patients’ twitching hands to invest in medical equipment and, of course, to keep them all traumatized and warmed-up for next season.

Not that any of this would take the fun out of MY TETRIS. Maybe I’m overcompensating for a childhood trauma I haven’t dealt with in time; hey, now that I come to think of it, this might have saved my parents loads of money. I'll make a note of that before I forget.

The following are but a few things that I’ve learned from master TETRIS. I wish my grandma would have come up with these when I was a kid, it would have saved me lots of trouble. Then again, she grew up playing with dolls, Scrubble and Domino; what good can come out of those lame games remains a deep mystery to me.

1. If it’s too late to change your mind, DON’T EVEN TRY!
Have you ever tried placing a piece in the right spot at the very last second? It’ll screw it all up, trust me, you’ll never stick it there on time. The piece is coming down fast, you know you’re missing the right spot and your mind starts yelling “Go for it, you cow!” as your guts twist and turn fixing your fingers in place. It makes you wonder if you’ve always been all thumbs (which alas! doesn't help in this particular game). Face it, the only reason you want to try for that unreachable spot is because you’ll never forgive yourself if you don't.

Well, guess what? WRONG MOVE!

You’d better paralyze, it’s natural so it must be good for you. Heed your guts, allow yourself to look like a mindless idiot as you clear up your mind for the next piece. It ain’t that bad, even the soldier with his finger on the trigger does it when facing death… And don’t waste your remaining GPM cursing yourself as your piece falls inexorably into your self-created doom. It’s a lose-lose situation, so choose the lesser loss and act as if you knew what you were doing all the time, people might buy it; nobody argues with a genius or a mad man, so how would they know the difference? Jeez, I always wondered that…

Here, I'll make it simple: if Chaos Theory has taught me anything, it’d be that “Errors are accumulative”, like innocent snowflakes. If you already pressed the “SEND” button on your cell phone, don’t try cancelling it now, you gawky dwarf!! Either you’ll get your phone busted or the recipient will get half of an illegible message. He/she will eventually fill in the blanks and make out the right characters (those suckers can be really bright when they want to) and will KNOW that you tried to cancel the sending because you haven’t got the guts to say what you really mean, whatever it was. Worst case scenario, you’ll get a late reply reading “Got a garbled text from you this morning. Stuck your thumb in butter or are you on drugs again, you creep?”
Btw, I just came across this article on "How to retract or recall an email sent by mistake"
http://www.ehow.com/how_4881362_email-sent-mistake-microsoft-outlook.html
Can you believe that?! Mighty Favog, what's becoming of humanity?!

Listen to me: don’t ever, I mean E*V*E*R, retract. Use paralysis as an asset. Keep your mind clear for the next piece and place it right this time. Snowflakes melt easier than snowballs, everybody knows that.

2. It doesn’t matter how deeply you want it, IF IT’S THE WRONG SHAPE, IT WON’T FIT!
This is a tricky one and it's cost me way too many games. Like some of you, I used to believe that what I think shapes the world. My ass! Things are what they are and they’re clearly shaped and groomed by Objective Reality; your faith won’t turn water into wine, so if you want to get drunk, go to a bar.

3. KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE FALLING PIECE
Don’t take it for granted, even though you’re sure that it will fit this time, something is very likely to happen that will screw it all up: a slight twitch of the hand, an unwanted pressing of the button, a phone call, a sneeze… There are many variables in life that can affect the outcome of your move, so don’t think you’ve got it all under control or you’re dead meat.
Haven't I told you the story about the goose and the anaesthesiologist? Well, maybe some other time…

4. TAKE A QUICK PEEK AT THE UPCOMING PIECE
This is crucial; knowing which piece’s coming up next is the key to success. It’s also kind of weird, because something that’ll actually take place in the future is determining the rightness of you current action. In real life this is what some call “Karma”. Karma means “Action”. Your actions in the past determine where and who you are now, and what’s stored for you in the future determines where and who you are now, too.

Hang on… I’m not sure this makes sense.

Ok: what you do now affects who you are, same as what you don’t do. And you are what other people do and don’t do to you, the same way as you are what you do and don’t do to others, now or in the past.
Rrrright, that’s Karma.
So… if you’re the result of your own actions and inactions as well as others’ actions and inactions upon you… man, you’re everything. Which is exactly what the Buddhists say.

Now, can anyone explain to me why people don’t make the most of this “coming next” feature in real life?! Granted, the next piece isn’t necessarily in plain view as it is on the TETRIS screen, but it’s surely out there somewhere, you’ve just got to search for it. It often takes the shape of a bomb about to explode… like when your lover says “I’ve had enough of this shit” and strides out the door carrying a half-closed suitcase. I bet that -in retrospect- you’ll find zillions of warning signs all over the place; you should have paid more attention, you should have known that this was going to happen, thus changing your current behaviour pattern and making it impossible for your partner to leave you.
Like stealing his/her suitcase or gluing the door to the frame.
I mean, if you can put together the pieces now that your partner’s gone, well jeez!, he/she must have left them there for you some time ago, right?! How come you've never seen them?!

I know this is deep… it's one of the hardest truths I acquired from playing my computer and I can't still wrap my mind around it.

In any case, if you’re one of those jerks who can’t take their eyes off the Present Road and have “Carpe Diem” embroidered on their lapels, I’d suggest you enjoy this TETRIS "coming next" feature as much as you can; don’t take it as “cheating”, but as a magic power you’re entitled to in the Realm of Play (that’s what I do).

5. BEWARE OF THE SQUARE!
That's what grandma used to say (I swear I never understood what she meant until I started playing TETRIS).
Any player will tell you that the Square is the most troublesome piece. Why? Well, quite simple, really... It's got double symmetry. Which means, it looks the same whether you rotate it vertically or horizontally. Which in turn means, that there is NO WAY you can reason with it, shape it the way you need it to, or at least, soften its edges to diminish the damage of against-the-grain penetration. A square is WHAT IT IS, no matter how you look at it, no matter how right you are, no matter how delicate the situation is. You could say it's the fundamentalist character in the party, the spoiled rotten child of the family, the General Batista of the gameboard.
As much as I would want to free the universe from this kind of garbage, I am alas! but a humble player, forced to do my best with the hand I've been dealt. Look around you, dear reader: those squares are everywhere, raining down on your parade, demanding you save a proper place for them in your life or deal with the consequences of your "neglect".  Those suckers will force their way through and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, save bending the knee and keeping that gap wiiiiide open.
I've met a few players who seriously think that the Square is the voice of God. "It teaches you to be humble!" they say. "It's Perfect. Eternal, impervious to time, change, and even prayer!".
Hm, somehow that kind of makes sense to me.
"Look at it this way..." others would point out: "In the end, what are ALL the Tetrominos made of, huh? Well yeah, of course, of little Squares! The Square is the origin, the Square is the cell,  the spinal cord of the TETRIS entity".
Ok, I'm not a fundamentalist, I see what they're getting at with this. Square is fair, I guess... Who knows??! Perhaps they ARE the key element in this masterful set of rules; the secret ingredient to keep luring people all over the world to leave their families and riches behind and rejoicing day-in and day-out in the nonsensical pleasure of play. Things would soon get a bit bored without those blue suckers around... And I guess we all need a ration of Destiny shoved up our butts to truly appreciate Free Will, right?
Whichever the case, whatever my belief at any given period of my pathetic life, after each overdose of TETRIS on long wintery nights, I would go to bed with a tingling sensation falling into the spiral structure of my ears... that sweet whispering voice would come to me, like an unforgettable 80s-pop tune: "Beware of the Square, my child! Beware of the Squaaaaare!"
Thank you, granny. Shakespeare couldn't have put it any better than this.

Unfaced friends, only addiction beats addiction. If you suffer from PTSD, anxiety, compulsive hand-twitching or time overdose, give master TETRIS a chance. Look, I’m posting a link to the best online TETRIS page below so you won’t even have to google it.

Procrastinate away, fellas! Who knows? Wisdom may come out of it someday…

Yours unlawfully,
Pinker Mint


The following space is reserved for paid ads:

> PLAY ALL KINDS OF TETRIS ONLINE FOR FREE AND FOREVER AT
http://www.tetrisgames4all.com/

> IF YOU SUFFER FROM TETRIS ADDICTION, GET IN TOUCH WITH OUR SPECIALISTS RIGHT NOW AT:

Quilmes Psychiatric Hospital
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C.P. 1818
Quilmes, Provincia de Buenos Aires
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24/7 Emergency Helpline: +54 11 542 34636
But don't mind phoning, we disconnected the line because it was too distracting.

An open letter to Sarah Silverman

Hey there. I thought it’d be easier to have my point across by posting an open letter on my blog, because somehow you strike me as a person who might enjoy some egosurfing once in a while… and if I’m wrong, well, no harm done, right?

I bet you’ve got plenty of things to do so I’ll go straight to the point: whatever happened to your alternative comedy?! I’ve been through your work chronologically (an exercise I recommend anybody-without-a-life to do) and noticed how your brilliant, acid monologues have eventually deteriorated into what’s been the third and fourth seasons of “The Sarah Silverman Program”. I mean, guys, didn’t you sit on the same table to go through the characters’ storylines together anymore? It was like watching two different shows on the same channel… at the same time. And as for the jokes… well, let’s just say that they began to s*t*i*n*k.

What’s become of your edgy, unique sense of humour? I guess everybody has to compromise at certain point to get their own time slot on mainstream TV. Hey, who wouldn’t? Congratulations, you’ve made history. Now, don’t you think it’s time to give us back the nasty Sarah Silverman we’ve all learned to love?

You’ve jell-o-ed, guys.

If you don’t believe me, please explain this: how else could “30 Rock” rip off a storyline from you and get away with it?! Huh?!
(see the “Face Wars” episode of the Sarah Silverman’s Program aired in October 2007 and 30 Rock’s episode “Believe in the Stars”, aired in November 2008).

You know what? I, for one, seconded Comedy Central’s motion of slashing your budget by more that 20% … that would have definitely forced you to be the creative guys you really are instead of losing yourselves in special effects and endless jokes about farts. Yeah, we all know you love your fart jokes, so I wonder... why don't you MIAT (Make It A Treat)?! They're only funny for a while (let me vocalize, FOR A WHILE). And as for Rob Schrab, I like his work like the next nerd, but you know? Maybe he should get his own show et voilà, everybody's happy!

It’s a pity you got away with it in season three...

Sarah, do you remember those glorious days when you could make us laugh our heads off by standing in the middle of a wooden board with just a mike in your hand?

I hope you do.

Looking forward to seeing "Take This Waltz" and other stuff you’ll bring us in the future,

Cheers from Barcelona,
pinkermint


Sarah doing some standup in 1992




An excerpt from her "Jesus is Magic":



Visit
>http://sarahsilvermanonline.com/