June 23rd, 2008

I was wrong when I said no beluga whales have survived in captivity in the Vancouver Aquarium (June 13th, 2008 - Save the whale!). One has lived to adulthood, and another one lived for three years. It may weaken my argument some, but it does not completely eliminate it. I still predict a dead beluga by the end of Summer.

Though I hope I'm wrong.

But, in any case, it's good news for the Vancouver Aquarium: Apparently, it's been raking in the big bucks hand over fist. Right on. That baby whale's death won't be in vain after all; someone will make a nice tidy profit from it.

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Warning to my wife: Don't read this next part, it is scary and grisly and may make you lose sleep! It's like CSI times 2.

OK, so I read this little blurb in my desk calendar about heads after decapitation. (What does one call those? "De-corpused" heads?)

It started with this myth: During the French Revolution, when anyone with a degree and an air of superiority (I would be doomed) was being separated into a head-part and a rest-of-the-body part by the riff-raff, people told their friends that they would, after having their heads removed, wink at them for as long as they could ... and then they did just as they promised! They rolled their eyes around to look at the crowds, showed recognition in their eyes when they saw someone they knew, and winked for a few seconds when they remembered to do so.

Based on several of these fairly well-documented incidents, and also based on slightly more scientific evidence from scientists working with lab rats being decapitated prior to experimentation (the rats, that is), it is generally thought that a decapitated human head might stay at least partially conscious for as long as 15 seconds. Wow, that's a long time to roll around there in that basket thinking, "Shit, that hurt ... so this is it, eh? Wow, this sucks ..."

Anyhow, just a pleasant little thought going through my (still-attached) head today.

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