Got Ballot & Temple Grandin

My official PDCA Ballot arrived in yesterday's mail, so be looking for that if yours has not yet arrived.

Also, for those that may be familiar with animal behaviorist Temple Grandin there was an interesting piece in the New York Times, 'Animals in Translation': The Cow Whisperer. An excerpt:

'And that is precisely what Grandin has done in this new work, which is crammed with facts and anecdotes about her favorite subject: the senses, brains, emotions and amazing talents of animals. Written with Catherine Johnson, who may have provided its colloquial, informal tone, ''Animals in Translation'' expands on an idea Grandin first sketched in ''Thinking in Pictures'': that her autistic sensory perceptions (in particular, her intense focus on visual details) enable her to take in the world as animals do. In fact, she argues that autistic people and animals are essentially alike -- they see, feel and think in remarkably similar ways.

Although startling, this observation serves mainly as a segue into Grandin's larger point. Animals -- not just chimps and dolphins, but dogs, crows, pigs and chickens -- are, she contends, much smarter and more sensitive than we assume. They deserve ''a good life,'' as she puts it, ''with something useful to do.''

Although Grandin obviously loves all forms of fauna, her heart belongs to cows. (She's so relaxed with cattle that she'll lie down in a feedlot and let the Black Angus lick her. ''Sometimes,'' she confesses, ''I'll kiss them on the nose.'') The fact that Grandin designs equipment for cattle bound for slaughter is less contradictory than it first appears. ''Looking at those animals,'' she explains, ''I realized that none of them would even exist if human beings hadn't bred them into being. . . . We brought these animals here, so we're responsible for them. We owe them a decent life and a decent death.'' '