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Index of Subjects This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_15V/zDqrKWOd5QtpgW2FJQ) Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Interesting that you find this bat scary looking, Jeannie. To me it's appealing, vulnerable, cute, maybe frightened. Many people find spiders terrifying, and some people also react to snakes in the same way. My grandmother couldn't tolerate looking at even a photo of a snake, and my sister can't stand even a tiny spider in the room with her. These are irrational fears, but they are very real and deeply-felt to those who feel them. I've often wondered if these feelings are some automatic reaction buried deep in our brains from the time when we were more connected with the natural world and had to make rapid automatic decisions that might be life-saving. On the other hand, they could be mere cultural conditioning: there are so many folk tales in our culture. For example, bats wanting to get into your hair, and bats are often associated with Dracula tales, Halloween and so on. In any case, bats are fascinating creatures and, if not ill with rabies or living in our buildings, completely inoffensive to people. It's worth reading up a little on them to find out something about their lives. And for really cute faces, check out "flying fox" in Google Images. Peter Payzant Jeannie Shermerhorn wrote: > Hi,was wondering if anyone could tell me what kind of bat this? It > sure is scary looking. --Boundary_(ID_15V/zDqrKWOd5QtpgW2FJQ) Content-type: text/html; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> <font size="-1"><font face="Arial">Interesting that you find this bat scary looking, Jeannie. To me it's appealing, vulnerable, cute, maybe frightened.<br> <br> Many people find spiders terrifying, and some people also react to snakes in the same way. My grandmother couldn't tolerate looking at even a photo of a snake, and my sister can't stand even a tiny spider in the room with her. These are irrational fears, but they are very real and deeply-felt to those who feel them.<br> <br> I've often wondered if these feelings are some automatic reaction buried deep in our brains from the time when we were more connected with the natural world and had to make rapid automatic decisions that might be life-saving. On the other hand, they could be mere cultural conditioning: there are so many folk tales in our culture. For example, bats wanting to get into your hair, and bats are often associated with Dracula tales, Halloween and so on.<br> <br> In any case, bats are fascinating creatures and, if not ill with rabies or living in our buildings, completely inoffensive to people. It's worth reading up a little on them to find out something about their lives. And for really cute faces, check out "flying fox" in Google Images.<br> <br> Peter Payzant<br> <br> </font></font><br> Jeannie Shermerhorn wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:97B83FA7B6AD4213852B76EECF0E5577@ownerpc" type="cite"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; "> <meta content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.17063" name="GENERATOR"> <style></style> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Hi,was wondering if anyone could tell me what kind of bat this? It sure is scary looking.</font><br> </div> </blockquote> </body> </html> --Boundary_(ID_15V/zDqrKWOd5QtpgW2FJQ)--
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