This is another of those days when the mind is blank. It’s one of the side effects of living in Chicken Little’s henhouse where TV news broadcasts and political documentaries are not allowed.

One is forced to deal with unrelated, unnecessary thoughts that have no real world value. For example, has the reader ever been on a farm, perhaps playing softball or having a picnic – and a cow across the fence stands still, watching you intently, not even twitching an ear? What is that cow thinking? The cow’s thoughts certainly aren’t rationalizing what actually is happening in context; what could possibly hold the cow’s interest in what the humans are doing?

Humans often are not aware of the extent to which other animals have unique mental faculties. For example, did the reader know that robins have amazing eyesight that can identify very small objects as much as 40 or 50 feet away? A few days ago, mariner was sitting on the porch when he saw a robin land on the electric service line to the house; the line was about 30 feet in the air. The bird sat there several minutes until suddenly, like an arrow, it flew to the ground in a straight trajectory to the end of the yard where it snatched an earthworm! There aren’t many humans that have such accurate vision – let alone fly.

Some birds have remarkable sympathy, maybe even enough to qualify as a democrat. There is a documentary showing two crows in separate but adjoining cages. There was a small slot in the common side. When only one crow was fed, it shared its food with the other crow by passing it through the slot. When the roles were reversed, the same sharing occurred.

In another experiment, a rat was put in a cage that required a procedure of several steps before it could open the door to its food. It tried fruitlessly to open the door. Then the rat was shown a video of another rat who knew the steps. After watching it once, the rat went straight to the door and opened it.

Maybe humans depend on the frontal lobes too much.

Ancient Mariner