Christina Yen is an anthropomorphic and fantasy artist who creates works under the name Sixth Leaf Clover. One of her specialties is dragons, variously anthro and not, and especially those of a “metallic” variety. Therefore it’s especially apt that she has released an art tutorial book called Metallic Dragons. In it you will find not only instructions for drawing dragons in various forms, but also coloring instructions (in both digital and traditional forms) for making your dragons look like silver, or gold, or steel, or what have you. She has also released a portfolio book of her artwork entitled Sixth Leaf Clover — The Art of Christina Yen. Both of her books are available in trade paperback on her art web site — and of course, so are a collection of prints, 3D works, and other fancies, including a 2013 calendar.

image c. 2013 Christina M. Yen

Pups of Liberty: The Boston Tea-Bone Party, an educational animated short film by Bert and Jennifer Klein’s Picnic Pictures – available on DVD from Amazon.com for $15 (or from izzit.org); 18 minutes -- about the outbreak of the American Revolution, featuring dogs as the American colonists and cats as the British oppressors, has been referenced on the Internet since 2009; but I do not believe that it has been reported on Flayrah.

This new Cartoon Brew post reveals that it was made by moonlighting Disney animators, including many top names.

Of more anthropomorphic interest, however, is the commentary on this article, arguing whether it is “natural” to portray cats oppressing dogs. Why not dogs oppressing cats? Or cats oppressing mice? Or mice oppressing cats? Or any animals oppressing any other animals, because this is a humanocentric concept that animals do not really share?

Do any Furry fans have any comments on this? The Cartoon Brew’s website is open.

It seems California's flag is appropriate, as this story echoes one we brought to you a few weeks ago. The Bear Cavalry has struck again, this time at a middle school graduation ceremony!

Apparently one young teenage black bear wanted an education so badly that he decided to enter Ramon Garza Elementary School in Bakersfield, California, scaring the students, and causing staff to usher them inside for safety.

The bear then wandered over to the neighbouring Sierra Middle School. This understandably threw the school into chaos and lockdown, while the California Department of Fish and Game were called and eventually tranquillized the bear (with assistance from Kern County Animal Control) at a nearby apartment complex; he was later moved to a remote area and released.

Police were called to Kimbrough Middle School in Mesquite, Texas, after a squirrel was seen behaving erratically. The concern was that this can be a sign of rabies.

As a baby squirrel hopped towards a policeman in the grounds of a school, he took out his pepper spray, apparently to defend himself against the potentially infected animal. As school children pleaded with the officer not to harm the creature, the squirrel advanced and the man reacted by spraying it. The squirrel became disorientated and started writhing on the ground.

A Mesquite Animal Control officer was called and cleaned the spray off the squirrel. After being given a satisfactory bill of health, it was released back into the wild.

A video recording of the pepper-spraying incident, made by students, generated outrage after it was posting on YouTube. Having received over 700,000 views in one week, comments on the video are split between those condemning the officer's actions as heavy-handed, and those sympathising with his need to maintain personal safety in the face of a possibly rabid animal.

A class on Anthropomorphic Taxidermy was held last Sunday in Brooklyn, New York, suggesting that the hobby is far from a historical pursuit.

Run by taxidermist and tattoo artist Susan Jeiven, the $45 class assumed no prior experience, and supplied each student with a deceased mouse obtained from a snake-feed store. The 15 places quickly sold out.

Tracy Butler of Lackadaisy has posted a tutorial on depicting facial expressions.

A slow news day in San Antonio leads to coverage of teenage therians in Texas high schools.

Featured is the John Marshal "wolfpack" containing Wolfie Blackheart, previously covered after her experiments in taxidermy went public.

MIT researchers have discovered that baby birds have something in common with baby humans: they first "babble" to learn to speak. In this case, the "speech" of a bird is the adult bird's song. The parallel between bird and human may lend insights into the mysteries of human language-learning.

The full story is available at Discovery News.

Due to Aatheus' interest in furthering his education, he has found he has less time for Furbid. He says, "I don't want to end up giving FurBid and its users any less time than they deserve, but I will have to do so for the next several years." Control will be turned over to Ayukawa, previously an assistant.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

If you stop there, what you're describing is literally a prison, albeit a part-time one. The problem is, many schools practically do stop there. The stated purpose of schools is to educate the kids. But there is no external pressure to do this well. And so most schools do such a bad job of teaching that the kids don't really take it seriously-- not even the smart kids. Much of the time we were all, students and teachers both, just going through the motions.

Capital One invited NCAA Division IA and IAA schools with football programs to nominate their mascots for the Capital One National Mascot of the Year. Visit the site to vote for one of the twelve finalists selected from participating schools. Each of the team members will receive $5,000 to use toward scholarships for his or her school's mascot program. The National Mascot of the Year will receive a total of $10,000.

Personal note: My alma mater's mascot, Monte for the University of Montana, is one of the twelve finalists!

CG animation conference, UK, 19-20th November

Swansea, UK is hosting an international animated computer graphics conference in November. Registration for the two day (19th and 20th November 2002) Swansea ANimation Days 2000 is free, hosted at the Taliesn Arts Centre on the Swanea Uni campus.

Talks cover both games and film, with speakers from academia and industry, including FrameStore, Dreamworks, Soho601, Codemasters.

The Library of Congress Professional Association's What IF... Discussion Forum for Science Fiction and Fantasy present

Speculative Fiction: Writing, Selling, and Marketing Long and Short Fiction

A presentation by Mindy Klasky, author of Season of Sacrifice

Monday, Mar. 11th, 2002 12:10pm
West Dining Room (6th floor)
Library of Congress, Madison Building

KATU is reporting that a Portland student will not have her picture in the yearbook because she has her pet rat on her shoulder. The picture is in the article.

Further Confusion 2002 will offer two writing workshops.

The limit is six authors.

Each author who wishes to have a story criticized needs to submit it to Further Confusion not later than December 1, 2001. Those authors selected will receive notice via email of their selection. They will also receive a copy of the manuscripts from the other authors in their group.