Duncan Ville

Archive for January, 2010

Human contact with dolphins is limited. In recent years, the animal with whom most of us have had the greatest contact is the dog. One doesn’t have to be a “dog-lover” to recognize that these beings have provided enormous amounts of companionship, devotion and loyalty to people over the years.
Television shows like “Lassie” and “Rin Tin Tin” were not wholly contrived fantasies. They were dramatic representations of the loyalty, devotion, and intelligence of dogs. There are actually thousands of filly-documented and independently verified incidents that make the adventures of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin pale by comparison.
One day in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 1955, a man named Ken Wilson was trying to teach a horse to accept a saddle in his corral. Ken wasn’t at all concerned about his three-year-old son, Stevie, who he thought was playing at a neighbor’s. But what he didn’t know was that little Stevie had wandered off alone, fallen into a pond, and sunk to the bottom. The boy’s dog, Tafl’, however, saw the disaster and immediately raced to the corral, barking uproariously, and demanding Mr. Wilson’s attention. When the man ignored him, TailS’ made a big show of charging into the pond, all the while continuing to bark at the top of his lungs. Then he raced back and nipped at the horse’s legs. Finally Mr. Wilson realized the dog was trying to tell him something, and dismounted. Immediately, Taffy bolted to the pond, barking for the bewildered man to follow him. When Wilson got to the pond, he saw his little son’s red jacket floating on the surface of the water. Finally realizing what had happened, he instantly dove headlong into the four- foot-deep water, found his unconscious son, and lifted him from the bottom. It was six hours before Stevie regained consciousness. But when he did, the first thing he saw was his little dog Taffy, sitting prayerfully beside his bed.’3
Tafl’ is not the only dog that has saved the lives of children. There are thousands of such cases, filly documented and verified.
One such child was two-year-old Randy Saleh, of Euless, Texas. Little Randy wandered away from home one day. When his parents noticed his absence and couldn’t find him anywhere, they called the police. But even a two-hour police search did not locate young Randy. The parents were becoming extremely alarmed, and when they noticed that the boy’s dog, a St. Bernard named Bingo, was also missing, they found themselves praying that the big dog was with their little son, and was somehow protecting him.
Meanwhile, a man named Harley Jones had to stop his car for a traffic jam on a highway about three quarters of a mile from Randy’s home. Getting out of his car, he asked other stopped motorists if they knew what was the problem. They told him the trouble was “caused by a mad dog in the road ahead.” Curious, Jones walked toward the head of the line of stopped cars to see for himself what was going on. What he saw was a St. Bernard, stationed resolutely in the center of the highway, barking wildly, and letting no car move by in either direction. Jones saw the dog was protecting a little boy who was merrily playing in the center of the heavily-traveled thoroughfare. The dog would stop any car that dared attempt to drive through the area, and then would immediately rush back to the little boy, and nudge him toward the side of the road. But the little fellow, thinking the whole thing was just a game, would return to the center of the highway.
Jones spoke soothingly to the St. Bernard, and managed to calm him down. But the dog would not let a single car move by until little Randy was safely off the road. I think you’d have a hard time convincing little Randy’s parents that animals are lust mechanical contraptions.
Now, if you are like me, you may get a little choked up when you learn of these incidents. These are not just cases of dogs waking up their masters because they are panicking in the midst of a fire, and then later getting credit. These are not the work of machines without feeling, driven only by instincts and reflexes. They are demonstrations of courage and devotion and selfless love. They are intelligent and brave responses to emergencies.

The official position of the Catholic Church has long been that animals don’t have souls. During a Church council in the Middle Ages a vote was taken on whether women and animals have souls. Women squeaked by. Animals lost.
One thing is sure. Yvonne Vladislavich would give you quite an argument if you tried to tell her animals don’t have souls. In June, 1971, Yvonne was aboard a yacht that exploded and sank in the Indian Ocean. Utterly terrified, she was thrown into shark-infested waters. Then she saw three dolphins approach her. One of them proceeded to buoy her up, while the other two swam in circles around her and guarded her from the sharks. The dolphins continued to take care of Yvonne, and protect her, until she finally drifted to a marker in the sea and climbed up onto it. When she was rescued from this marker, it was determined that the dolphins had stayed with her, kept her afloat, and protected her across more than 200 miles of open sea. And there’s more. On May 28, 1978, four fishermen became lost in a fog off the coast of Dassen Island, South Africa. They knew there were dangerous rocks in the vicinity, and they feared running into them because the fog had become so thick they couldn’t see where they were going. Then they became aware of a group of dolphins nudging and pushing the boat, and forcing them to change course. Suddenly, through the fog, they saw sharp rocks protruding through the water. The rocks only became visible as they floated by them, and the fishermen realized at once that the dolphins had saved their lives. Meanwhile, the dolphins continued to push the boat along a course known only to them, until it reached calm waters. Then they swam away, evidently feeling their job was done. When the fog lifted, the men were flabbergasted to find themselves in the very bay from which they had originally set out early that morning.

Many readers of this site will want not only to read what others have published don the Web, but also to do some Web publishing themselves.
The tool that you use to create hypertext documents for the World Wide Web is called HyperText Markup Language (HTML). If you want to create your own homepage, or render a document in a form readable on the Web, you need to get a good HTML editor and learn how to use it. This involves assigning document tags and working with basic text structures. You may also want to learn how to incorporate images into your HTML documents.
You’ll be glad to hear that HTML is not all that hard to master. One
of the best introductions to HTML is freely available on the Web itself:
Introduction to HTML
http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html
Another very good alternative is:
HTMLelementary
http://labrocca.com/htmlementaiyl
Before you can learn to use an HTML editor, however, you have to have one available on your platform. Many excellent HTML editors are available on the Web for Macintosh, Windows and UNIX machines. Here are some addresses where you’ll find them available
for download:
ANT HTML (PC Windows a Macintosh versions)
http://telacommunications.com/ant/ Download a demo version of this great macro for effortlessly con-
veiling Microsoft Word documents into HTIvIL.
COFFEECUP HTML EDITOR ++ (PC Windows)
http://www.coffeecup.com/
Download Coffeecup HTML Editor ++ for a 30-day free trial. Cof-
feeCup HTML Editor++ is a full-featured HTML editor that includes
Expresso FTP for uploading and downloading; an image gallery with
quick-linking images; highlighted tags; style sheet help; automatic
image sizing; a line reader; and tips. It comes with 30 background
images, more than 175 animated OlE s, upwards of 140 Web icon
graphics, 60 JavaScript scripts, a frame designer, and an HTML strip-
per. You can work on and test multiple pages at once. Other features
include an internal browser for testing and surfing, an image-pre-
viewing utility, a sound gallery, on-line help, and a step-by-step Web
design guide and references for the latest HTML 4.0 tags.
HOT DOG WEB EDITOR (PC Windows)
http://www.sausage.com/
Download a free 30-day trial version of any one of several fast,
flexible, and friendly versions of the Hot Dog Web Editor for Windows.
HTML GRINDER (Macintosh)
http://www.matterform.com/grinder/
Download a free, fully functional demo copy of HTML Grinder, a
robust HTIVIL editor for the Mac. Decide you don’t like it? Then just let
the software expire and keep its highly useful “Find and Replace Tool”
as a gift from the good folks at MatterForm Media. Note: Macintosh
SEJ3O or better, System 7, 8MB RAIvI (16MB RAM recommended).
Compatible with MacOS 8.
INTERNET LIST KEEPER (PC Windows)
http://www.drweb.com/
Go to “Dr. Web’s” home page to download a free coy of Internet
List Keeper, a very simple, template-based HTML tool for creating
Web pages.
Simple HTML Editor (S H E) version 2.9 (Macintosh)
http://wivw.lib.ncsu.edu/staff/morganfsimple.htmi
Simple HTML Editor (S H E) is just that, a simple editor for creat-
ing hypertext markup language (HTML) documents. It is in the form of a HyperCard stack, and therefore, it requires Hypercard or HyperCard Player, as well as a Macintosh. Take a free download of the software and try it on for size.
SITEAID HTML EDITOR (PC Windows)
http://www.siteaid.com
More than just your average HTML editor, SiteAid is a tool for
managing your entire site. From creating HTML, Javascripts and Style
Sheets, to uploading them to your Internet server, SiteAid has you
covered. You are invited to download and test drive this shareware
free of charge.
ULTRAEDIT HTML EDITOR (PC Windows)
http://www.ultraedit.com/
Download the full version of this great shareware HTML editor for
Windows.
UNIX HTML EDITORS
http ://www.xcelco.on.cafr.johnston/htmls.html
Here is a wonderful megalist of dozens of powerful Unix-oriented HTML editors available for downloading through quick-click hyperlinks.