1/12/2004: Civet cat kill
 

http://cellar.org/2004/civetcatkill.jpg

If it's an animal pic, and it's not Friday, it's not gonna be good. And this is not good. This is part of the effort to prevent the spread of SARS in China; they're killing all the civet cats that were expected to become food. They think there might be a disease connection.

It looks like this is not the normal way of killing them; this one tried to escape, says the caption, and so it wound up getting a sudden death by bludgeoning.

Weird fact of the day, then: historically, a lot of perfume has been produced using the "skunk-like spray" of the civet cat. This gunk was actually collected from little sacs under the cats' tails. You could say "ewwwww" and try another brand, but that one might be made from the peri-anal glands of the beaver, or "ambergris" which is basically whale vomit. But nowadays, apparently the animal-derived scents have man-made chemical reproductions which are cheaper to produce. Leave the cats and their poor little glands alone.

Gee honey, you smell amazingly like whale vomit tonight.

I LIKE it!

:)

Hasn't one of the basic problems been one of hygiene? A friend came back from that part of the world in September and noted that the 'wipe with one hand, eat with the other' ethic is still fairly common.
On top of that, there are just LOTS AND LOTS of people, which, even under the best of circumstances (which China is not), leads to large-scale spread of disease.

The chemically synthesized perfumes often contain chemicals that are considered toxic. Better not to wear any of it.

I read that SARS started with the cooks that prepared these civet cats.
If you want to smell good use vanilla extract.

Yeah, the real stuff and not the fake vanilla.

Killing the civet cats has really bothered me. All these critters, I read something like 10,000 to be killed, are kept in lousy conditions just because people want to eat exotic meat. Who the heck needs to eat a civet cat? Does anyone know whether these are wild caught animals?

or shower more than once a week..... (Ba-dum-dum-cha!)

Do you do everthing the hard way?:)

As an unspoken rule, founded on courtesy, nobody uses perfumes in the restrictive confines of a warship but one girl tried to circumvent this by wearing a vanilla based scent.
We were on station for four and a half months.
Vanilla, VANILLA! ...... !!!!!SERENITY NOW

You would think that the same rule should apply in offices and especially in hospitals. I hate the perfume wearers! I don't want to smell you 3' away.

I use cedarwood oil from time to time. Very subtle and very natural.

Definately a case for Orwells' Animal Farm...

Do we know these are perfume civets and not coffee-cherry civets?

When I want that fresh-brewed flavor in the morning, I reach for Civet Cat (tm)!