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Fuzzy Logic 2: How to Keep Thinking Like a Veterinarian

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J. Aaron Gruben

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“My politically charged coming-of-age story Voices in the Forest brings the futility of the bygone Croatian marriages to the fore. If the pretty but obtuse image of Fairy of Velebit personifies the Queen of Croatia, it would be better for Croats to dethrone her and put equally beautiful but the shrewd image of Zsa Zsa Gabor in her place. It would give Croatia a new angle how to manage her future marriages while still sexy and in demand. Remember, every marriage a box of diamonds and a house.”

Marriage QuotesMarriage AdviceMarriage HumorCroatian CultureFutility Of MarriagesEvery MarriageFairy Of VelebitQueen Of CroatiaVoices In The ForestZsa Zsa Gabor
Author:Vinko Vrbanic
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“Blackbeard the pirate was actually Edward Teach sometimes known as Edward Thatch, who lived from 1680 until his death on November 22, 1718. Blackbeard was a notorious English pirate who sailed around the eastern coast of North America. Although little is known about his childhood he may have worked as an apprentice on an English ship, during the second phase in a series of wars between the French and the English from 1754 and ended in 1778 as part of the American Revolutionary War. The war had different names depending on where it was fought. In the American colonies the war was known as the French and Indian War. During the time it was fought during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, it was called Queen Anne's War and in Europe it was known as the War of the Spanish Succession. During the earlier period of hostilities between France and England, some English ships were granted permission to raid French colonies and French ships and were considered privateers. Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716 operated from the Bahamian island of New Providence. Captain Hornigold placed Teach in command of a sloop that he had captured and during this time he was given the name Blackbeard. Horngold and Blackbeard sailing out of New Providence engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition of other captured ships. Blackbeard captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. He renamed it “Queen Anne's Revenge” referring to Anne, Queen of England and Scotland returning to the throne of Great Britain. He equipped his new acquisition with 40 guns, and a crew of over 300 men. Becoming a world renowned pirate, most people feared him. In a failed attempt to run a blockade in place and refusing the governors pardon, he ran “Queen Anne's Revenge” aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina and settled in North Carolina where he then accepted a royal pardon. The wreck of “Queen Anne's Revenge” was found in 1996 by private salvagers, Intersal Inc., a salvage company based in Palm Bay, Florida Not knowing when enough, he returned to plundering at sea. Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia formed a garrison of soldiers and sailors to protect the colony and if possible capture Blackbeard. On November 22, 1718 following a ferocious battle, Blackbeard and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard. After his death, Blackbeard became a martyr and an inspiration for a number of fictitious books.”

HistoryEnglandFrancePiratesMma Captain Hank BrackerPirates Of The CaribbeanQueen AnneFrench Indian War
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, The Exciting Story of Cuba
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“In 1955 flying was much more dangerous than it is now, but there was a party atmosphere aboard long flights and everyone enjoyed the ever-flowing drinks and food. Smoking was the norm and it didn’t take long before the cabin was full of smoke. The stewardesses were friendly and I can remember some that were very friendly. I don’t remember much about my time in Lisbon because, before I knew it, we were in the air again heading south across the ocean to the vastness of the North African desert. The light yellow sand under us in Morocco and the Spanish Sahara was endless. The fine sand went from the barren coastal surf and endless miles of beautiful beaches, inland as far as the eye could see. After a time I saw what I believed, at the time, to be a radio relay station located out on a desolate sand spit near Villa Bens. It was only later that I found out that it was Castelo de Tarfaya, a small fortification on the North African coast. Tarfaya was occupied by the British in 1882, when they established a trading post called Casa del Mar. This forgotten part of the world is now in the southern part of Morocco.”

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Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater Two...."
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“No place in Haiti was easy to get to and to drive to their lodge would take a couple of hours, so they sent a van to pick us up. It was already evening and the sun had just set, as we made our way up into the mountains behind Port-au-Prince. As we bounced along the dirt road winding through the hills, I could distinctly hear the rhythm of drums and see fires on the distant mountains. Mrs. Allen, who was with us, explained that in the 1940’s devout members of the Catholic faith considered the Voodoo rites an abomination of their faith. They armed themselves and started to eradicate from Haiti what they considered a cult. The entire thing turned into a war! They burned voodoo temples and shrines, and killed some of the practitioners as well as voodoo priests. In the end, the Catholic hierarchy gave up and after a time reached a tacit understanding with them. They now allowed Voodoo drums and songs to be sung in Catholic Church services and ignored what they once called devil worship. At the lodge, we were assigned rooms with real beds instead of the cots we were used to on the ship. Dinner consisted of chicken in a hot tomato and garlic sauce, over rice, with a heap of picklese on the side. Picklese is a pickled dish or Vinaigre Piquant, indigenous to Haiti consisting of peppers, shredded cabbage, onions, carrots, peas, vinegar, peppercorns and cloves. The dessert was Haitian Flan. It could not have been better and I was glad that I had availed myself of this generous offer. After dinner we went outside to where there was a large fire roaring, surrounded by benches made of split logs. We were warned that it gets cool in these mountains, and I was glad that I had brought along a sweater and jacket. We seated ourselves on the logs around the fire and listened to a gaunt-looking old Haitian woman explain what Voodoo was. She sounded convincing as she told of the Grand Voodoo Zombie rituals that were held at “Wishing Spot,” and how snakes slithered about the feet of the young women dancers. She spoke reverently about the walking dead in the Lower Artibonite Valley and the Spirits trapped in bottles near Cape Haitian. It was all very spooky and gave me something to think about that night. However before her talk ended, she came directly up to me and, looking deep into my eyes, said that I was to beware…. “I would witness death before leaving the island….” Ouch!”

HaitiVoodooMma Captain Hank Bracker
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One"
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“As a newly acclaimed author in the literary world, Night Flight, or Vol de nuit, was the first of Saint-Exupéry’s literary works and won him the prix Femina, a French literary prize created in 1904. The novel was based on his experiences as an early mail pilot and the director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline in South America. Antoine is also known for his narrative The Little Prince and his aviation writings, including the lyrical 1939 Wind, Sand and Stars, which is Saint-Exupéry’s 1939 memoir of his experiences as a postal pilot. It tells how on the week following Christmas in 1935, just a year after I was born, he and his mechanic amazingly survived a crash in the Sahara desert. The two men suffered dehydration in the extreme desert heat before a local Bedouin, riding his camel, discovered them “just in the nick of time” to save their lives. His biographies were quite hot for the time and divulged numerous affairs, most notably with the Frenchwoman Hélène de Vogüé, known as “Nelly,” who was referred to as “Madame de B.” Photo Caption: Monument of Saint-Exupéry’s airplane in the Sahara desert. Read these award winning books!”

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Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater Two"
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“Into every life some rain must fall and December was one of those months when the downpour was beyond reason. Ursula, my wife of 61 years, had the same problem that I had about five years ago. Namely she had inflamed intestines brought on by a gallbladder operation which caused an intestinal blockage brought on in part by having had a total of 9 intestinal operations over the years. This time it necessitated having the numerous adhesions and quite some internal scar tissue removed. It also required the surgeon to remove a part of her small intestines (with me it was two feet) before being able to glue the two severed parts together again.”

SurgerySpouseMma Captain Hank BrackerIntestines
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Salty & Saucy Maine"
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“There are many stories about seagoing cats. My research indicates that cats were domesticated about 9,500 years ago. I really don’t know anyone who was around at that time to verify this, but I also don’t have any reason to doubt this little bit of trivia. It is documented that the Egyptians who kept cats around to bring the good luck, also used them to catch thicket birds that lived in the tall grass along the riverbanks. I guess that these small birds were a treat and a welcome substitute for the usual river fish that the sailors would catch with hooks fashioned from bones. In time it was the Phoenicians who inadvertently brought cats from the middle east to Europe. It seems that sailors had cats with them on their ships from the beginning of recorded history. They successfully used the excuse that the cats would keep the rat population under control. I don’t believe that this was really true since there are stories of where the cat befriended the rats, but in most cases the cats did keep the rats from invading their living spaces. Six-toed cats were thought to be better hunters and to this day many islands in remote areas are overrun by these cats and rats that managed to get ashore from ships that foundered along the island’s shore. Sailors are notoriously superstitious and have always believed that cats can predict the weather and bring luck. There are many accounts concerning this and there may be some truth to this but you’ll have to be the judge. Because of their sensitive inner ears cats can sense barometric pressure drops, indicating foul weather and being warned frequently crawl into their safe hidey-hole prior to a storm. A cat named Oscar, or Oskar in German, was the mascot on the German Battle Cruiser Bismarck when she was sunk by the British. Found floating on a wooden plank, Oskar was rescued by the crew of the British ship the HMS Cossack. No sooner recued and with Oskar renamed Oscar, the HMS Cossack was sunk by the Germans. This time Oscar was rescued by the crew of the HMS Arc Royal, which was then also sunk by the German navy. Not believing their bad luck the Brit’s blamed poor Oscar and renamed the cat to the German Oskar. Thinking Oskar to be the harbinger of bad luck they contacted the German Navy and offered to return their cat. The Germans refused the offer, so the British retired Oskar to a home in Plymouth, England. This time they banned poor Oskar from ever sailing on a British Naval Vessel again and changed his name to Sam. The British Navy banned cats from sailing on British war ships in 1975. Even though the British Navy has banned cats from their ships, other countries and merchant ships still have cats aboard.”

PetsMma Captain Hank BrackerCats At SeaHistory Of Cats
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Salty & Saucy Maine"
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“Born in 1635, Henry Morgan was a Welsh plantation owner and privateer, which was really the same as a pirate, only with the consent of the king who was Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland at the time. Little is known about Morgan’s early life or how he got to the Caribbean. He began his career as a privateer in the West Indies and there is evidence that in the 1660’s he was a member of a marauding band of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs . Having an engaging personality he soon became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, who was the English Governor of Jamaica. Captain Henry Morgan owned and was the captain of several ships during his lifetime, but his flagship was named the “Satisfaction.” The ship was the largest of Morgan’s fleet and was involved in several profitable conflicts in the waters of the Caribbean and Central America. More recently, on August 8, 2011, near the Lajas Reef, off the coast of Panama, a large section of a wooden hull, that is believed to have been the sail ship “Satisfaction,” was found by Archaeologists from Texas State University. In 1668 Captain Morgan sailed for Lake Maracaibo in modern day Venezuela. There he raided the cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar and taking the available gold divested the cities of their wealth before destroying a large Spanish naval squadron stationed there. In 1671 Morgan attacked Panama City during which he was arrested and dispatched to London in chains. When he got there, instead of imprisonment he was treated as a hero. Captain Morgan was knighted and in November of 1674 he returned to Jamaica to serve as the territory’s Lieutenant Governor. In 1678 he served as acting governor of Jamaica and again served as such from 1680 to 1682. During his time a governor, the Jamaican legislature passed an anti-piracy law and Morgan even assisted in the prosecution of other pirates. On August 25, 1688 he died on the island, after which he became an inspiration and somewhat of a glorified hero in both pirate stories and in the movies.”

ShipsPiratesMma Captain Hank BrackerHistory Of The Caribbean
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, The Exciting Story of Cuba
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