Brian Flemming, who can always be relied on to have something intriguing on his mind, is wondering about the animal rights movement.
Imagine a Martian is given an assignment by his superiors: Go over to Earth, study the humans there, and determine how they feel about the other animals on their planet. My guess is the first lines of the resulting report would read as follows: "The humans on Earth revere the non-human animals. Also they despise them. Also they have no feelings at all about them. At any given moment the humans will passionately rally to save the life of an animal, and in the next moment will slaughter another one without mercy. They will find unremarkable a lifetime of human-imposed suffering by a million members of one species, while finding the nature-imposed suffering of a single member of another species to be a tragedy worthy of heroic measures. The only near-guarantees of survival for an individual animal on Earth are to be of a species deemed 'cute' in that particular geographic region or to fall into a novel predicament and receive media coverage."
A news story is the impetus for Brian's musing. An alligator was recently captured by officials of the U.S. Postal Service. Someone had tried to ship it and it gnawed its way through the carton.
The alligator will remain at a shelter for a week before being shipped to a northern Illinois sanctuary, said Len Selkurt, executive director of the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control. The sanctuary owner will then take it to Florida, he said. Alligators longer than 20 inches (50.8 centimeters) are not allowed to be sent through the mail, and officials said the shipment from Milwaukee to Colorado was under review.
Brian has a suggestion: "Kill the alligator." He points out that doing so would save money, time and hassle. Furthermore, being killed is the fate of many an alligator, so why spare this one? I'm inclined to agree with Brian, though his suggestion may be tongue-in-cheek. If no one wants the alligator or it isn't eligible for pet status, euthanize it.
Why are you gasping? Let me guess. You saw the word 'vegetarian' in the headline and thought, 'she's a softy when it comes to animals.' Not so. I'm middle-of-the-road in regard to animal rights. I definitely stop short of considering animals equal to humans.
Brian is puzzled by the dichotomous attitude most Americans have toward animals. There is the touchy-feely anthropomorphization common in childrens' stories and the cards sold at chain card shops. Then there is the reality of the diet of most Americans — replete with the same animals. Talking about irony.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very reasonable indeed MD, thanks!
2 - The roots of racism
Program on the emergence of civilization.
"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa."
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.
The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as "god"
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management â€"
3. Mafia (evil) aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere ("On planets where they approved evil.")
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia - the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
Survival of the favored.
Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1986 James Bond View to a Kill â€" 1989 San Fransisco Loma Prieta earthquake.
Journal: 10 composition books + 39 megs of text files
3 - Christy Mason
If you eat meat and wear leather, you are not a vegetarian. It's that simple. You're a reasonable meat-eating, leather-wearer.
The word "vegetarian" used to mean someone who didn't use any animal products at all, even those that aren't fatal to animals. A new word has been derived from that to refer to its original word- vegan. What are they going to call non-leather wearing egg and cheese-eaters if you claim the word? Please, for the love of the English language, have the sense to call yourself what you are.
4 - STM
I don't agree with the leather-wearing bit. That's nonsense. Plenty of vegetarians have not eaten meat but will wear leather, and that's been the case for as long as I can remember.
Vegans, however, don't. They don't eat much of anything, really. Iron tablets would be a really good idea for most vegans, but that's another story.
But Mac, sorry, I have to say this: if you eat fish and seafoods, you aren't a vegetarian. Not even a semi one.
Fish and molluscs are animals.
5 - STM
"Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals."
No but with kangaroos and wallabies everywhere they looked, they didn't need to.