Miaow

Editor’s address  

Welcome to the pets and animals issue.  

It seemed to be appropriate that I, Pocket the MAWSA cat, take over as the editor of this publication. I have been informed it is supposed to be for this week only, but I have my sights set higher than that. When the editor Leila’s back is turned, I am making major editorial moves. I plan on revolutionising student media as a whole, if I can fit it in before my next afternoon nap.  

Since it is the animals issue, I have decided to craft my editorial into a fine learning opportunity for the slavering, uneducated masses (not you, dear reader. I have been informed that as the editor, I should never speak poorly of the reader, so this is not about you; you are good-looking and of normal intelligence.) The great and noble history of animals is not often included in the school curriculum (speciesism, really, it brings the whole animal rights movement down), so it is in my paws to give you a rundown of some special animals that have made contributions to the fields of medicine, art, and science.  

Balto, Togo, and the sled dogs of the great race of mercy, 1925 

While I dislike dogs as a personal maxim, I have to admire the dedication, fortitude, and physical prowess of these Alaskan sled dogs. In the winter of 1925, a potential outbreak of diphtheria in Nome, Alaska, threatened the lives of many of the city’s young people. The only serum that could stop the outbreak was in Anchorage, and the only plane that could transport it quickly was iced over in the Alaskan winter. Officials decided to transport it by sled dogs, through high winds and low temperatures, in a journey that would cover over 1000 kilometres. Over the next 5 and a half days, several teams of mushers and dogs passed off the diptheria antitoxin to one another, through the harsh conditions, totalling around 150 dogs and 20 mushers. The last leg into Nome was (reportedly) led by the quick Balto, who quickly became a canine celebrity in the news coverage. However, the longest and most treacherous leg was led by the brave Togo, covering around 420 km of the journey compared to Balto’s 89km. Every dog (and human) on the journey played a part in preventing loss of life, and they are all very good dogs.  

Congo the painting chimp  

Congo was an artist, painter, and chimpanzee who learned to draw in the late 1950s at the age of two. When I was two, I had already mastered expressionist landscape and portraiture and was well on my way to founding the influential ‘feline-futurism’ movement, but Congo was only a chimpanzee and not a cat, so this was indeed impressive. Congo’s paintings demonstrate a basic sense of composition, and an inherent understanding of symmetrical consistence; when a zoologist would mark one side of the paper, Congo would balance the structure on the other half. He also had an artist’s sense of ‘completeness’, refusing to work on a piece once he had deemed it complete and throwing fits if his picture was taken away before he had finished. His work grew mainly aligned with the abstract impressionism style, and three of his works sold at auction in 2005 for over $25,000 USD.  

Dolly the sheep  

Dolly the sheep was born on July 5th 1996, and captured the imagination of the news media for being the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Because Dolly’s DNA came from a sheep’s mammary gland, scientists perhaps crudely named her after the well-endowed country singer and cat-lover, Dolly Parton. While Dolly didn’t necessarily do anything special except be born, I have still included her in this list because she did a very good job of being a sheep. Over the six years she lived at the Roslin institute, she had a total of six lambs, made the occasional media appearance, and generally ate grass and frolicked. In her death, she was donated to the National Museum of Scotland, where she became a very popular exhibit. So good on you, Dolly. You did everything we could expect from a sheep, and we thank you. 

Enjoy this week’s Massive, dear readers, and I hope you find more inspiration from all the good animals in the pages of this issue, but especially from me. 

Regards, 

Pocket.