There is a movie named Margin Call that seems to me to provide some compelling illustrations of some of the things I wrote about in my previous post regarding market values. The comments on that post were cogent and stimulating enough that I've found myself thinking about their content a number of times.
My request is that you watch this movie with the post about corruption in mind. Watch this movie and try to identify folks exhibiting corrupted behavior and values...Or maybe no one exhibits corruption. Whatever the case is, please watch and let me know what you think. Who's the bad guy(s) in the movie? Are there any bad gals or guys? By the way...the movie is particularly well done (I thought) and does an excellent job of summing up some of the major factors which helped drive the recent (and ongoing) economic debacle...and does so in such a way that doesn't make you go to sleep...or start twitching.
An apology is in order for the decrease in my posting. I've been (and still am) struggling with some computer issues that have interfered with my online time. They are still occurring, so I can't be certain that more delays won't happen. Technology can be useful...it also can be unreliable.
And...if you want to reduce your own corruption level...one way of doing so is to go vegan. The planet and our fellow animals will thank you (and me too).
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Corruption...
Is an evocative word...usually of not so pleasant things. A politician taking bribes, decay, contamination....these are all meanings given by dictionaries (source, source).
In a book titled "What Money Can't Buy", author Michael J. Sandel points out that we often associate corruption with ill-gotten gains. He then notes that the word also means, when referring to a good or a social practice, degrading or treating something (or someone) to a lower mode of valuation than is appropriate to it. (p.34). His book is full of examples where "market values" have come into vogue as a way of looking at things and as a way of allocating 'resources'. Proponents of this way of looking at virtually everything argue that there's nothing wrong with such a view and indeed this is an efficient and fair and neutral way of operating in the world.
It seems that there is a serious and disturbing 'unintended consequence' of using the "market" as an allocator of goods and services and that is that there is a persistent and ubiquitous tendency of the "market" way of allocation and market-oriented way of thinking to displace nonmarket ways of thinking and allocating.
For me, the most potent and stimulating point in this book is that we have slowly and imperceptibly tumped over from a society with a "market economy" to a market society. In my lifetime I have seen this and been disturbed by this but until reading this book had never quite put it into clarifying and useful terms. Sandel says this has happened without serious and persistent public debate and one of the main thrusts of the book is that a public debate about this needs to occur.
Those interested can read reviews of this book here and here.
Simply put...ethical veganism is, in one way of looking at it, as a call to change how we value living animal beings that are not human animal beings. They have been relegated to a calculus or "valuation method" that "corrupts" their essence, their 'worth' and that must be changed. Justice, morality, compassion and "common sense" all demand and require a change. Our fellow animals have been "corrupted", lowered to a way of seeing and thinking and feeling about them that is below the truth of them, ....and ethical veganism is a way of "repairing the world"...at least in this aspect.
For this to happen, I believe, is going to require a lot more than just according our fellow living beings the respect and freedom that is theirs. A lot more. Because unless and until we "get our heads and hearts straight" about our planet, about our environment, about our place in those and about how we live in this world our fellow animals are not going to be safe from us. We are dangerous...not only to our planet and the other life thereon...but also to ourselves. How could we have practiced slavery on ourselves for as long as we have without being, maybe, somehow deranged?
Look at how seemingly difficult living with justice (fairness, equality) appears to be for human animals. Look at the length of time, thousands and thousands of years, "market values" dominated our thinking about human animals. It is astonishing (to me anyway) to realize that human slavery was everyday practice (and disgustingly enough, still is, albeit not "legally") for most of the recorded history of our species. From what I could find, it seems that the last country to legally abolish slavery did so only 31 years ago (1981). And even then, they didn't 'criminalize' it until 2007. Put it another way...it was only 5 years ago (2007) that it finally became a criminal offense in all human societies to "own" another human animal being. Think of how many thousands of years there have been human animal societies.
It is amazing to me....that the injustice of and unfairness of one human animal "owning" another human animal's life has only been prohibited by law with criminal penalties, everywhere on planet Earth, for only 5 years. Appalling. (And I know full well these despicable practices still exist and still occur even though universally illegal) In truth, whatever pit we've been crawling out of, either we are so slow as to be enshrined in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or the pit had a depth which is maybe immeasurable. If this sort of stuff doesn't make you shake your head...well...wow....just wow.
Check out Sandel's book from your local library. It isn't the most fun read and sometimes is tedious and really doesn't have any answers, only questions...but ...it will likely bring some clarity and some "aha" moments for you to ponder.
It certainly brought to me a new way of thinking about "corruption". In some instances a "market" can be a useful tool. We've become intoxicated however, and have been for a long time, with this powerful but trivial tool. We're like the person with a hammer...everything looks like a nail. Well, the truth is, when you use a "market" to value...you almost invariably "corrupt" that which you are valuing....and your thinking....and yourself....and other beings....and planet Earth.
Look around...there aren't many ills that can be identified as having human origin that can't be traced back...in some degree or another to a corruption by market valuing.
In a book titled "What Money Can't Buy", author Michael J. Sandel points out that we often associate corruption with ill-gotten gains. He then notes that the word also means, when referring to a good or a social practice, degrading or treating something (or someone) to a lower mode of valuation than is appropriate to it. (p.34). His book is full of examples where "market values" have come into vogue as a way of looking at things and as a way of allocating 'resources'. Proponents of this way of looking at virtually everything argue that there's nothing wrong with such a view and indeed this is an efficient and fair and neutral way of operating in the world.
It seems that there is a serious and disturbing 'unintended consequence' of using the "market" as an allocator of goods and services and that is that there is a persistent and ubiquitous tendency of the "market" way of allocation and market-oriented way of thinking to displace nonmarket ways of thinking and allocating.
For me, the most potent and stimulating point in this book is that we have slowly and imperceptibly tumped over from a society with a "market economy" to a market society. In my lifetime I have seen this and been disturbed by this but until reading this book had never quite put it into clarifying and useful terms. Sandel says this has happened without serious and persistent public debate and one of the main thrusts of the book is that a public debate about this needs to occur.
Those interested can read reviews of this book here and here.
Simply put...ethical veganism is, in one way of looking at it, as a call to change how we value living animal beings that are not human animal beings. They have been relegated to a calculus or "valuation method" that "corrupts" their essence, their 'worth' and that must be changed. Justice, morality, compassion and "common sense" all demand and require a change. Our fellow animals have been "corrupted", lowered to a way of seeing and thinking and feeling about them that is below the truth of them, ....and ethical veganism is a way of "repairing the world"...at least in this aspect.
For this to happen, I believe, is going to require a lot more than just according our fellow living beings the respect and freedom that is theirs. A lot more. Because unless and until we "get our heads and hearts straight" about our planet, about our environment, about our place in those and about how we live in this world our fellow animals are not going to be safe from us. We are dangerous...not only to our planet and the other life thereon...but also to ourselves. How could we have practiced slavery on ourselves for as long as we have without being, maybe, somehow deranged?
Look at how seemingly difficult living with justice (fairness, equality) appears to be for human animals. Look at the length of time, thousands and thousands of years, "market values" dominated our thinking about human animals. It is astonishing (to me anyway) to realize that human slavery was everyday practice (and disgustingly enough, still is, albeit not "legally") for most of the recorded history of our species. From what I could find, it seems that the last country to legally abolish slavery did so only 31 years ago (1981). And even then, they didn't 'criminalize' it until 2007. Put it another way...it was only 5 years ago (2007) that it finally became a criminal offense in all human societies to "own" another human animal being. Think of how many thousands of years there have been human animal societies.
It is amazing to me....that the injustice of and unfairness of one human animal "owning" another human animal's life has only been prohibited by law with criminal penalties, everywhere on planet Earth, for only 5 years. Appalling. (And I know full well these despicable practices still exist and still occur even though universally illegal) In truth, whatever pit we've been crawling out of, either we are so slow as to be enshrined in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or the pit had a depth which is maybe immeasurable. If this sort of stuff doesn't make you shake your head...well...wow....just wow.
Check out Sandel's book from your local library. It isn't the most fun read and sometimes is tedious and really doesn't have any answers, only questions...but ...it will likely bring some clarity and some "aha" moments for you to ponder.
It certainly brought to me a new way of thinking about "corruption". In some instances a "market" can be a useful tool. We've become intoxicated however, and have been for a long time, with this powerful but trivial tool. We're like the person with a hammer...everything looks like a nail. Well, the truth is, when you use a "market" to value...you almost invariably "corrupt" that which you are valuing....and your thinking....and yourself....and other beings....and planet Earth.
Look around...there aren't many ills that can be identified as having human origin that can't be traced back...in some degree or another to a corruption by market valuing.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Eye candy...
Few beings are more appealing when they are babies than are bunnies. For proof...take a look:
These babies were born in a local animal shelter and came to Heartland when only 2 days old. The photo was taken when they were about 4 weeks old. Their appeal is a double-edged thing because while baby bunnies look so warm and huggy and beautiful...they grow up. And for many bunnies the growing up results in behaviors that cause them to be avoided and neglected and abandoned and sometimes abused. But...they are, like all babies, beautiful indeed.
Here's a photo of Merlin.
Merlin is not a baby. He came to us as a grown-up and has been at Heartland for a while. He's not real impressed with us humans. He flinches and cringes when approached and while this is not common in the rabbits that are rescued...neither is it unknown. The likelihood is high that Merlin has been abused...probably he has been hit or struck or hurt or repeatedly terrified in some way by human animals. I'm pleased to report that he is slowly beginning to accept touches and petting and handling without cringing or flinching...but it will be a long time before he is able to trust that an approaching human means him no harm. He has a fairly exuberant personality when not suppressed by humans being near him and it is fun to watch him being his true bunny self when he is allowed to free range in the fenced area near the warrens.
Rescue means not only providing a home for a living being...it also means coping with and attempting to remedy (insofar as possible) the effects of neglect and abuse. It means trying to make up for harms done by others. It means trying to provide opportunities for those rescued to taste some of the good things of life....those good things that are the birthright of every being living on our planet.
If you are going to live with a member of another species...it is totally your responsibility to care for them, to meet their needs and to love them and to never never neglect or harm them. That's a big big responsibility and a demanding and daily and sometimes difficult and sometimes expensive undertaking.
Those baby bunnies in the photos will grow and grow and change and change and no one can predict what their adult personality will be like. They will go through adolescence, they will sometimes be grumpy, they may not want to be touched or bothered. They may chew on something they shouldn't...they may fight with another bunny...and on and on.
In other words a bunny is not a toy, nor is any living being. Bunnies aren't stuffed animals, many many bunnies don't care for being picked up once they aren't babies (even many babies protest being lifted off of the ground). The money hungry businesses and individuals that have the blind harmful audacity to "sell" animals care about profit and about the animal only insofar as profit is enhanced by animal. They don't tell the "customer" about bunny behavior....they rely on the "eye candy" appeal of a baby bunny or baby cat or baby dog or baby ferret or baby rat. Living beings are not objects to be bought and sold. Period.
Here's a good measure of the depth of comprehension and understanding an individual or a business has. If they sell or profit from selling animals or any "product" from animals then you are dealing with someone or something who has some serious comprehension, compassion and moral shortcomings. You are dealing with a harmer....with a destroyer...with a contributor to the misery and suffering that exists on planet Earth. Don't support them...we've way too much unnecessary suffering and harm already.
If you want to live with and befriend a member of another species...adopt a homeless Earthling. There are plenty of them. But...educate yourself thoroughly first. Responsible rescuers will be glad and eager to help you learn about the bunny or cat or dog you want to adopt. Responsible rescuers will support you and assist you for as long as you need it. Heartland Rabbit Rescue insists on bringing your new family member to your home...because we want to know where our residents are living....we want to know who they are living with...we want to know they will be well cared for...we want to know they (and you) will be happy with one another. That is the way of not increasing misery, that is the way of doing no harm, that is the way of contributing to joyous life...not sadness.
Sometimes people who want to adopt get put off by our insistence in knowing about them, about their home. It is likely they are thinking "it's just an animal, why is this information your business?". Well, we're all "just an animal" and we're all equally important and worthy of care and respect. That bunny they may want to adopt has been failed by humans before...or they wouldn't be with us...so we're going to do everything we can to avoid another failure. Merlin and China and all the other bunnies deserve that. And that's what Heartland does. We're there for the bunnies...not the humans. Once a bunny comes to Heartland...they are forever a Heartland bunny...if circumstances cause a bunny to have to leave their adopted home...we take the bunny back. We are their "forever" home. Because each of us deserves a forever home...
Any rescue organization that behaves in these ways is an organization that is doing their part to repair the world. We human animals are responsible for a horrid amount of "breaking of the world"...much repair needs doing. Responsible and caring rescue organizations and facilities are doing their part to repair that which has been broken.
And...obviously....living as an ethical vegan is absolutely necessary to contribute to that repairing of the world.
 |
| "China" and sibling. |
Here's a photo of Merlin.
 |
| "Merlin" |
Rescue means not only providing a home for a living being...it also means coping with and attempting to remedy (insofar as possible) the effects of neglect and abuse. It means trying to make up for harms done by others. It means trying to provide opportunities for those rescued to taste some of the good things of life....those good things that are the birthright of every being living on our planet.
 |
| "China" and sibling again. |
Those baby bunnies in the photos will grow and grow and change and change and no one can predict what their adult personality will be like. They will go through adolescence, they will sometimes be grumpy, they may not want to be touched or bothered. They may chew on something they shouldn't...they may fight with another bunny...and on and on.
In other words a bunny is not a toy, nor is any living being. Bunnies aren't stuffed animals, many many bunnies don't care for being picked up once they aren't babies (even many babies protest being lifted off of the ground). The money hungry businesses and individuals that have the blind harmful audacity to "sell" animals care about profit and about the animal only insofar as profit is enhanced by animal. They don't tell the "customer" about bunny behavior....they rely on the "eye candy" appeal of a baby bunny or baby cat or baby dog or baby ferret or baby rat. Living beings are not objects to be bought and sold. Period.
Here's a good measure of the depth of comprehension and understanding an individual or a business has. If they sell or profit from selling animals or any "product" from animals then you are dealing with someone or something who has some serious comprehension, compassion and moral shortcomings. You are dealing with a harmer....with a destroyer...with a contributor to the misery and suffering that exists on planet Earth. Don't support them...we've way too much unnecessary suffering and harm already.
If you want to live with and befriend a member of another species...adopt a homeless Earthling. There are plenty of them. But...educate yourself thoroughly first. Responsible rescuers will be glad and eager to help you learn about the bunny or cat or dog you want to adopt. Responsible rescuers will support you and assist you for as long as you need it. Heartland Rabbit Rescue insists on bringing your new family member to your home...because we want to know where our residents are living....we want to know who they are living with...we want to know they will be well cared for...we want to know they (and you) will be happy with one another. That is the way of not increasing misery, that is the way of doing no harm, that is the way of contributing to joyous life...not sadness.
Sometimes people who want to adopt get put off by our insistence in knowing about them, about their home. It is likely they are thinking "it's just an animal, why is this information your business?". Well, we're all "just an animal" and we're all equally important and worthy of care and respect. That bunny they may want to adopt has been failed by humans before...or they wouldn't be with us...so we're going to do everything we can to avoid another failure. Merlin and China and all the other bunnies deserve that. And that's what Heartland does. We're there for the bunnies...not the humans. Once a bunny comes to Heartland...they are forever a Heartland bunny...if circumstances cause a bunny to have to leave their adopted home...we take the bunny back. We are their "forever" home. Because each of us deserves a forever home...
Any rescue organization that behaves in these ways is an organization that is doing their part to repair the world. We human animals are responsible for a horrid amount of "breaking of the world"...much repair needs doing. Responsible and caring rescue organizations and facilities are doing their part to repair that which has been broken.
And...obviously....living as an ethical vegan is absolutely necessary to contribute to that repairing of the world.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Jojo resurgent...
I recently wrote about Jojo, a bunny rescued by Heartland Rabbit Rescue. He was the victim of neglect (and/or abuse) and had suffered severe urine scald which caused the hair on his stomach, back legs, 'nethers' and his tail to fall out...as well as causing lesions on his skin. In just two weeks he recovered wonderfully, as you can see, and he is well on his way to being fully haired again.
He is a rather exuberant bunny and it is a joy to see him playing and running. He is developing his jumping skills and has become almost impossible to contain in any enclosure without a fairly sturdy top on it. He easily sails over the 30 inch wire we use for outdoor playpens and he makes it look effortless. He's a real hoot.
By the way, I used the term "hair" deliberately...many us human animals do not realize that "fur" and "hair" are interchangeable terms that refer to exactly the same thing. So, Jojo happily has an increasing amount of fur or hair on his lower body and I have a decreasing amount of fur or hair on top of my head. Who says there's no balance in the universe?
Please live the animal friendly, planet friendly and health friendly way...as an ethical vegan. Thank you.
 |
| Jojo, after and before. |
By the way, I used the term "hair" deliberately...many us human animals do not realize that "fur" and "hair" are interchangeable terms that refer to exactly the same thing. So, Jojo happily has an increasing amount of fur or hair on his lower body and I have a decreasing amount of fur or hair on top of my head. Who says there's no balance in the universe?
Please live the animal friendly, planet friendly and health friendly way...as an ethical vegan. Thank you.
Monday, August 6, 2012
The 'ease' of destruction...
The cocoon of the "consumer" culture that occupies the dominant position in these here United States (and in European culture in general) offers, nay enforces, an obliviousness that is sometimes difficult to appreciate. Difficult partially because we are encouraged and urged and pressured to be oblivious to our obliviousness. And while blindness may hide awareness of monsters from us, it also eases our way toward behaving monstrously.
The "average" American is a monster from the viewpoint of our fellow animals. Each American, with the exception of the woefully few practicing ethical veganism, participates in...directly or by proxy...in the confinement and suffering and killing of billions of animals each year. Every day you or some that you know cause terror and pain and death to chickens and cows and pigs and sheep and and and. Every day.
And most are able to do this without hearing one scream or groan or cry or moan from their victims. Most are able to do this without seeing blood, without smelling fear or feces, without observing the despair or horror or terror. How nice...for the "average" American...for those enslaved and/or dying...not so "nice".
I've written previously about obliviousness (and here and here) but not about how effortlessly most are led into being destroyers of life, into being terrorists to our fellow earthlings . Look around, look at your friends, at your family members...look at the schoolchildren, at the teacher, at the clerk in the store, at the newscaster, at the celebrity. See the blood on their hands, around their mouths...nope....all hidden....all sanitized away. No trail of bloody corpses behind their backs, no blood dripping knife is seen. Zip zoop...all gone. Thanks to the 'miracle' of the ease of destruction. The baby cows are torn from their mothers...for that ice cream "treat"...does the child eating that treat hear the cries of the baby? The moans and bellows of the mother, her thrashing and pacing? Does the child eating the treat watch and smell and hear the baby being killed? Nope, zip zoop...all gone, all hidden...now easily denied and ignored.
We have succeeded in making ourselves (most of us, anyway) into pseudo-innocent monsters. Ready to be outraged and angered should anyone accuse us of being harmers of our fellow animals. With our lying, deliberate ignorance many are ready to be offended and disturbed should anyone point out the truth of our destructiveness. After all, that's one of the benefits of the ease of destruction.
Apologies to P. F. Sloan for the variance on the title of his song "Eve of Destruction". Just as the song laments our disbelief that we are on the eve of destruction...we are truly and deeply disposed toward denying and ignoring our "ease of destruction".
And my apologies to my fellow animals for this denial and for their misery and death and for my own years of blindness. I will never be able to make up for my own participation in this debacle...but I participate no more and will spend the rest of my days helping with the rescuing of my fellow animals and advocating for them.
For those who try to avoid reality by conning themselves with the notion that those who are about to die do not know what is happening...I offer this photo. Anyone that doesn't grasp that the rabbit in the picture knows what her/his fate is...well.
You are most assuredly attempting to console yourself with an untruth.
The bunny knows, just as the cow knows, the turkey knows, the pig knows...the only ones who don't are the oblivious human animals who support these atrocities.
There's a quote that floats around on the internet which is maybe fitting here. Supposedly voiced by Leonardo da Vinci at some time or another.
We all are encouraged to not see, make sure you let yourself see when you are shown...and once you see...opt out of the ease of destruction. Please begin now if you haven't already...to live an ethical vegan lifestyle...stop participating in this nightmare.
The "average" American is a monster from the viewpoint of our fellow animals. Each American, with the exception of the woefully few practicing ethical veganism, participates in...directly or by proxy...in the confinement and suffering and killing of billions of animals each year. Every day you or some that you know cause terror and pain and death to chickens and cows and pigs and sheep and and and. Every day.
And most are able to do this without hearing one scream or groan or cry or moan from their victims. Most are able to do this without seeing blood, without smelling fear or feces, without observing the despair or horror or terror. How nice...for the "average" American...for those enslaved and/or dying...not so "nice".
I've written previously about obliviousness (and here and here) but not about how effortlessly most are led into being destroyers of life, into being terrorists to our fellow earthlings . Look around, look at your friends, at your family members...look at the schoolchildren, at the teacher, at the clerk in the store, at the newscaster, at the celebrity. See the blood on their hands, around their mouths...nope....all hidden....all sanitized away. No trail of bloody corpses behind their backs, no blood dripping knife is seen. Zip zoop...all gone. Thanks to the 'miracle' of the ease of destruction. The baby cows are torn from their mothers...for that ice cream "treat"...does the child eating that treat hear the cries of the baby? The moans and bellows of the mother, her thrashing and pacing? Does the child eating the treat watch and smell and hear the baby being killed? Nope, zip zoop...all gone, all hidden...now easily denied and ignored.
We have succeeded in making ourselves (most of us, anyway) into pseudo-innocent monsters. Ready to be outraged and angered should anyone accuse us of being harmers of our fellow animals. With our lying, deliberate ignorance many are ready to be offended and disturbed should anyone point out the truth of our destructiveness. After all, that's one of the benefits of the ease of destruction.
Apologies to P. F. Sloan for the variance on the title of his song "Eve of Destruction". Just as the song laments our disbelief that we are on the eve of destruction...we are truly and deeply disposed toward denying and ignoring our "ease of destruction".
And my apologies to my fellow animals for this denial and for their misery and death and for my own years of blindness. I will never be able to make up for my own participation in this debacle...but I participate no more and will spend the rest of my days helping with the rescuing of my fellow animals and advocating for them.
For those who try to avoid reality by conning themselves with the notion that those who are about to die do not know what is happening...I offer this photo. Anyone that doesn't grasp that the rabbit in the picture knows what her/his fate is...well.
The bunny knows, just as the cow knows, the turkey knows, the pig knows...the only ones who don't are the oblivious human animals who support these atrocities.
There's a quote that floats around on the internet which is maybe fitting here. Supposedly voiced by Leonardo da Vinci at some time or another.
We all are encouraged to not see, make sure you let yourself see when you are shown...and once you see...opt out of the ease of destruction. Please begin now if you haven't already...to live an ethical vegan lifestyle...stop participating in this nightmare.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
On behalf of Jojo...
I'm reluctant to use the term "breed". I find it sort of offensive....in a number of ways. For one, it reminds us of our own arrogance...who in hell are we to be playing with the reproductive behaviors and pardners of someone else?
Use of the word "breed" is also used to obscure the individuality of each of the beings that are tagged with the term. Cliches like the notion that pit bulls are aggressive, they're "bred" for it (Petey, the dog with the ring around the eye on the old our gang movies, was a pit bull...real scarey huh?). In truth, it is a stupifying term. It may seduce you into thinking you know more than you do.
You know as much about an animal when you are told their "breed" as you do when you are told that a human animal is Finnish or Korean. You may have some information about their external appearance (no guarantee necessarily) but except for that it is up to you to become familiar with the particular personalities, dispositions, likes, dislikes, etc of the individual in question. Stereotypes abound...but if you think you actually know anything about the Finnish human or the Korean without knowing them...guess what....you're probably wrong.
Moving on from the breed rant (smile) brings me back to Jojo, which is where I started. He's not a baby, nor is he an oldster...he's probably anywhere from a year to three years old...and that's a guess. He's really needy right now, any human he sees is vamped mercilessly by his standing up and stretching toward them. He wants attention, petting on the head, holding...needy, needy. He's also un-neutered. He's been with us for a couple of weeks, is feeling better and safer so now he also gifts the Heartland director with a urine spray when he sees her (he thinks she's cute).
On behalf of Jojo, I want to protest this:
By the way, I blocked out Jojo's "privates" because I didn't know if he would object to my showing them to others or not. He probably wouldn't care...but better to err on the side of caution.
Jojo now appears to be on the mend. His "dehaired" areas are not nearly as red and raw looking as are in the photos and evidence of fuzz can be seen on much of the bare skin. Maybe all his hair will grow back. Maybe.
Jojo, right now, has a lap rabbit disposition. He really really really likes being held and petted. We can speculate that he was isolated and lonely, we know he was neglected...severely....but beyond that...we'll probably never know his history. Jojo doesn't speak English...
But I do...and I can object, I can protest...on his behalf. And I do. We human animals have no business being in control of other animals, none...but when we arrogate the power to ourselves to be so...then with that power goes the obligation to provide a safe, clean, rich and comfortable environment for them...one that meets all their needs. Jojo didn't have that...and I object and protest about this failure...on his behalf.
For a really good post about our arrogance and its impact on other animals you can read this offering over at the Vine Sanctuary News.
Living as an ethical vegan is the only way of behaving that I know of that approaches honoring and respecting the rights of Jojo, and all other sentient beings, to the life to which they are entitled. If you aren't doing that...why not? Really....why not? If you are...then thank you...both from me and (I think I can speak for him) from Jojo.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Art can be uplifting...
John Banovich is an artist, a painter. Here's an example of his work:
All of the images you will see in this post are from the 2012 Prix de West show which is held annually in Oklahoma City. John Banovich usually has some pieces there and ever since I discovered his work and his philosophy I've enjoyed both. He set up a foundation to promote and assist in conserving wild places and animals.
He writes: "Art can move, reveal, and inspire us to seek a deeper understanding of the world around us. It can paint a face on an issue, cause, region, or species."
One of our annual rituals is to attend the Prix de West art show and wander through the various pieces and experience reactions to the works presented. Invariably delight will occur, sometimes awe...sometimes disgust. It is always a provoking and mostly enjoyable journey and this year was no exception.
My wife is an artist, a skilled and excellent one. I have a painting of a buffalo that she did for me that hangs where it is often the last thing I see at night before I go to sleep. I love that painting. I can't create art like that...artists with talent do art and that excludes me.
What's art? One of my takes on what it is that it is one of the very very few things human animals do that brings a good thing to the world. Some visual works of art, some music...created by humans is simply exquisite...almost (not quite though) as beautiful as the planet Earth and the beings that live there. And...the fact is many of the other animals do seem to enjoy and may even be moved by some of our music.
Art and some medicine and healing activities are about the only things that human animals are able to do that has brought a unique positive contribution to our world, at least it seems so to me. We've pretty much managed to distort any of our other abilities and behaviors and "creations" into nightmare destructo insanities that put anything, except maybe the aftermath of a severe virus, to shame.
Because I actually like to think good things about human animals I always look forward to this annual art show...there are almost always some excellent and fun and enjoyable and powerful works there...and this year was no exception. My 2012 favorite:
This sculpture is about 5 feet tall, almost 3 feet wide and deep...it is massive and absolutely demands that you smile. I don't often crave artworks...but if I had an extra $50,000 and all the other animals and the planet were safe and protected...I would have taken that bear representation home with me in a moment. It is a treat. My next most favorite piece looks as if it were living, glimmering liquid.
The duck and the water are made from black Belgian marble. They looked as if you could stick your finger into them...like they were some shimmering liquid with form. Stunning.
Those two pieces were worth the trip and the cost and the time. Everything else was simply a bonus...and there were many other enjoyable works from the artists. These for instance:
First is a painting of a couple of beautiful foxes, much of what made this painting so powerful was the way the artist used the paint to depict light...it almost glowed.
The rooster was a treat. Proud, brave and defiant...he was created by the same artist that did the bear sculpture.
This painting of the iris was very evocative and eye-catching. The detailed renderings of the trees, branches and flowers were excellent and beautiful.
You can use this link to browse through photos of most of the whole art show. Just remember though that the photos in no way, shape or form convey the power or excellence of these works. You must be in the room with them to get the full effect...some are almost living and breathing. If you live in central Oklahoma go in person...if you live elsewhere find some venues where you can go experience some art. What little respect I have for our species is immeasurably bolstered by some of our artworks. Somehow, good and true art nourishes and enhances those who experience it.
Nourishing and enhancing (or at least not harming) our planet and all life requires that we live an ethical vegan lifestyle...but you already knew that.
 | |
| Colors...John Banovich |
All of the images you will see in this post are from the 2012 Prix de West show which is held annually in Oklahoma City. John Banovich usually has some pieces there and ever since I discovered his work and his philosophy I've enjoyed both. He set up a foundation to promote and assist in conserving wild places and animals.
He writes: "Art can move, reveal, and inspire us to seek a deeper understanding of the world around us. It can paint a face on an issue, cause, region, or species."
One of our annual rituals is to attend the Prix de West art show and wander through the various pieces and experience reactions to the works presented. Invariably delight will occur, sometimes awe...sometimes disgust. It is always a provoking and mostly enjoyable journey and this year was no exception.
My wife is an artist, a skilled and excellent one. I have a painting of a buffalo that she did for me that hangs where it is often the last thing I see at night before I go to sleep. I love that painting. I can't create art like that...artists with talent do art and that excludes me.
What's art? One of my takes on what it is that it is one of the very very few things human animals do that brings a good thing to the world. Some visual works of art, some music...created by humans is simply exquisite...almost (not quite though) as beautiful as the planet Earth and the beings that live there. And...the fact is many of the other animals do seem to enjoy and may even be moved by some of our music.
Art and some medicine and healing activities are about the only things that human animals are able to do that has brought a unique positive contribution to our world, at least it seems so to me. We've pretty much managed to distort any of our other abilities and behaviors and "creations" into nightmare destructo insanities that put anything, except maybe the aftermath of a severe virus, to shame.
Because I actually like to think good things about human animals I always look forward to this annual art show...there are almost always some excellent and fun and enjoyable and powerful works there...and this year was no exception. My 2012 favorite:
 | |
| Sioux...Dan Ostermiller |
 |
| Ripple...Ross Matteson |
The duck and the water are made from black Belgian marble. They looked as if you could stick your finger into them...like they were some shimmering liquid with form. Stunning.
Those two pieces were worth the trip and the cost and the time. Everything else was simply a bonus...and there were many other enjoyable works from the artists. These for instance:
 |
| Gladness |
First is a painting of a couple of beautiful foxes, much of what made this painting so powerful was the way the artist used the paint to depict light...it almost glowed.
 |
| El Pollo Loco |
The rooster was a treat. Proud, brave and defiant...he was created by the same artist that did the bear sculpture.
 |
| Wild Iris |
This painting of the iris was very evocative and eye-catching. The detailed renderings of the trees, branches and flowers were excellent and beautiful.
You can use this link to browse through photos of most of the whole art show. Just remember though that the photos in no way, shape or form convey the power or excellence of these works. You must be in the room with them to get the full effect...some are almost living and breathing. If you live in central Oklahoma go in person...if you live elsewhere find some venues where you can go experience some art. What little respect I have for our species is immeasurably bolstered by some of our artworks. Somehow, good and true art nourishes and enhances those who experience it.
Nourishing and enhancing (or at least not harming) our planet and all life requires that we live an ethical vegan lifestyle...but you already knew that.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Transforming...
that's the only word I can think of that comes close to capturing my experience over the past couple of years. It has been that long that I've been volunteering on a regular basis out at Heartland Rabbit Rescue. I still am unable to verbalize how I've been transformed or even why...but I know something has shifted irrevocably within me and some (if not most) of it has to do with being around these remarkable beings so regularly.
How could anyone not be affected? Certainly not me. To the left you see a baby recently rescued...she was about 4 months old when she came in and she begs for attention much like a puppy. When she spots a human she stands up asking to be picked up and fussed over. She was running the streets and someone took her and called Heartland.
But she is only one of dozens and dozens of abandoned and neglected and abused bunnies that live at the rescue. I've been lucky enough to come to know each and every one that live in the south warren (right now 78 bunnies I think). That's a lot of personalities, that's a lot of different rabbits to get to know. I've never ever known that many non-human animals all at once in my whole life. Some I am smitten with, others I strongly like...there are none that I dislike. If I were to become very familiar with 78 human animals all at once the outcome would be quite different. To know so many rabbits all at the same time is one hell of an experience. They are amazing individuals. And I don't know nearly them as well as I want to, I don't know them nearly as well as does Jeanne Patterson, the founder and director of Heartland...she's is with them many more hours a day than I am and has been surrounded by rabbits for many many years. I'm in awe of her knowledge about bunnies.
To the right is Cutie (again) and Simon and Dustin. Simon and Dustin are old hands at the rescue. Simon is pictured while he is running loose on the warren grounds...Cutie and Dustin are confined in outside enclosures so they can have some playtime. The confining is necessary because bunnies are very prone (especially when young) to engage in dominance activities (they fight) and separation in necessary to prevent injuries. Were it safely possible...we would let them all run free.
It is a phenomenal thing see all these guys and gals almost everyday.
We're able to get 20 to 25 of them outside each day for a couple of hours early in the morning...that's the only time the temperature is low enough for them to be out...now that the blistering days of summer are setting in here in central Oklahoma. Bunnies can't sweat hence temperatures over 80 degrees Fahrenheit begin to be risky for them. They dig and binky and play when they first go out then as it warms up many will dig out an area and lay in the cool dirt.
Here's Pippin, about whom I wrote back in August, napping in an area he scooped out so he could be next to the cool earth.
The level of play and running and jumping and nosing around is fairly closely tied to the age of the bunny. Just like human animals...if you go to a first grade playground you're going to see very different behavior than if you go to some park area where a bunch of 50 or 60 year old human animals are hanging out. The outdoors is enjoyed by everyone of all ages...they just act differently while doing the enjoying.
I guess that's a big part of the transform. It has become an indisputable fact to me as a result of my interaction with these bunnies that they are as different from one another as human animals are different from one another. Each one is a unique individual who shares some similarities with the other rabbits, just as we humans share similarities yet at the same time they differ each from the other...just as human animals do. They are as complex and as sensitive and as emotional and as intelligent as human animals...they just show these phenomena differently than human animals do. And, just like us, they vary one from the other on the range of sensitivity, emotionality, intelligence that they possess and those features vary in strength and precision depending on how the bunny is feeling and what situation the bunny is in...just like human animals. Some are elegant and graceful, others are sort of clumsy and galumphing, some are acrobatic, some aren't.
They tend to be full of beans and boisterousness and play when very young, when they're adolescents they can be real jerks and are prone to stir up trouble, once they reach adulthood they tend to be calmer and more mellow but still full of energy...(and some are feistier than others) as they enter their later years they may get grumpy and cranky and quirky. They may get arthritis, they may like to doze...their senior years are so much like humans that if you dressed them up in a human suit you probably wouldn't notice much difference at all. Except the rabbit would probably be more appreciative of dinnertime...they do tend to enjoy their food. And they don't talk much...although they do have a rather wide range of grumps, honks and growls (or a scream in an emergency) they can trot out...and some talk much more than others.
Their interests differ from us...because...well because they are rabbits. They have a different evolutionary history than we do...they've traveled a different path...learned different things...developed different skills and strengths. But...where they are identical is that they are children of this planet...just like we are. They have feelings, they think, they feel joy, they feel attachment, they feel fear, they feel hunger, thirst, heat, cold, illness, sleepiness...and on and on and on. They love their children, sometimes they love their brothers and sisters and parents...sometimes not. Some have a good sense of humor and like to tease and be teased...others do not.
Howard for instance...the big galooty white fellow I wrote about in an earlier post has as mellow and fun a personality as you could ask for. He often likes to be chased...he will put on the most excellent head-fakes and high-jumps you could ask for and then he stops and watches you to make sure you are still participating in the game.
And then there is Brett, who has a disposition that is so amazingly sweet and friendly. He patiently will let a human hold him and if you sit down near him he will climb up in your lap and put his hands on your chest asking you to pet him. He also likes to tease Marshall and Russell...two sort of macho acting bunnies that live at the warren.
And what I'm now certain of is if I had the opportunity and time to get to know 70 dogs or bats or weasels or pigs or cows or horses or wombats or sparrows or or or...I would find exactly what I have found with the rabbits. Each one is different from the others, each one is an individual. Each one is unique....and yet...we're all the same in that we're all just trying to get by, the best way we know how.
In the end, it is the emotional universe we inhabit that matters most to us. We tend to seek that which increases our good feelings and tend to avoid that which prompts unpleasant feelings. In this respect (and many others)...a rabbit is me and I am a rabbit. We each are children of Mother Earth. We each were valued enough by her to bring us into being.
Ingrid Newkirk is supposed to have said: "When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy". There are lots of other feelings that are common to all of us...probably all feelings....whatever I can feel...any living being with a central nervous system can feel. Time for us human animals to step off of our self presented pedestals and realize that all of us...all living beings are in this living stuff together...and no one is any more equal or better than anyone else.
Well, except for the bunnies that are called Dutch. Many of the Dutch bunnies (who originate from England...go figure) I have met seem to be pretty impressed with themselves.
Here's Griffin, he's Dutch...and I must admit he's quite an impressive fellow. He may well be better than all of us...but he isn't an a**hole about it...that's better than many human animals do when they get bitten with the superiority virus.
Living as an ethical vegan is the only way I know of that honors the lives of my brothers and sisters, the rabbits, the gophers, the birds, the kangaroos...all the many sorts of children that Mother Earth chose and living as an ethical vegan also honors Mother Earth's power to choose the children she wants. She's much more wise than I am...and wiser than you too...I betcha!
But she is only one of dozens and dozens of abandoned and neglected and abused bunnies that live at the rescue. I've been lucky enough to come to know each and every one that live in the south warren (right now 78 bunnies I think). That's a lot of personalities, that's a lot of different rabbits to get to know. I've never ever known that many non-human animals all at once in my whole life. Some I am smitten with, others I strongly like...there are none that I dislike. If I were to become very familiar with 78 human animals all at once the outcome would be quite different. To know so many rabbits all at the same time is one hell of an experience. They are amazing individuals. And I don't know nearly them as well as I want to, I don't know them nearly as well as does Jeanne Patterson, the founder and director of Heartland...she's is with them many more hours a day than I am and has been surrounded by rabbits for many many years. I'm in awe of her knowledge about bunnies.
It is a phenomenal thing see all these guys and gals almost everyday.
We're able to get 20 to 25 of them outside each day for a couple of hours early in the morning...that's the only time the temperature is low enough for them to be out...now that the blistering days of summer are setting in here in central Oklahoma. Bunnies can't sweat hence temperatures over 80 degrees Fahrenheit begin to be risky for them. They dig and binky and play when they first go out then as it warms up many will dig out an area and lay in the cool dirt.
The level of play and running and jumping and nosing around is fairly closely tied to the age of the bunny. Just like human animals...if you go to a first grade playground you're going to see very different behavior than if you go to some park area where a bunch of 50 or 60 year old human animals are hanging out. The outdoors is enjoyed by everyone of all ages...they just act differently while doing the enjoying.
I guess that's a big part of the transform. It has become an indisputable fact to me as a result of my interaction with these bunnies that they are as different from one another as human animals are different from one another. Each one is a unique individual who shares some similarities with the other rabbits, just as we humans share similarities yet at the same time they differ each from the other...just as human animals do. They are as complex and as sensitive and as emotional and as intelligent as human animals...they just show these phenomena differently than human animals do. And, just like us, they vary one from the other on the range of sensitivity, emotionality, intelligence that they possess and those features vary in strength and precision depending on how the bunny is feeling and what situation the bunny is in...just like human animals. Some are elegant and graceful, others are sort of clumsy and galumphing, some are acrobatic, some aren't.
They tend to be full of beans and boisterousness and play when very young, when they're adolescents they can be real jerks and are prone to stir up trouble, once they reach adulthood they tend to be calmer and more mellow but still full of energy...(and some are feistier than others) as they enter their later years they may get grumpy and cranky and quirky. They may get arthritis, they may like to doze...their senior years are so much like humans that if you dressed them up in a human suit you probably wouldn't notice much difference at all. Except the rabbit would probably be more appreciative of dinnertime...they do tend to enjoy their food. And they don't talk much...although they do have a rather wide range of grumps, honks and growls (or a scream in an emergency) they can trot out...and some talk much more than others.
Their interests differ from us...because...well because they are rabbits. They have a different evolutionary history than we do...they've traveled a different path...learned different things...developed different skills and strengths. But...where they are identical is that they are children of this planet...just like we are. They have feelings, they think, they feel joy, they feel attachment, they feel fear, they feel hunger, thirst, heat, cold, illness, sleepiness...and on and on and on. They love their children, sometimes they love their brothers and sisters and parents...sometimes not. Some have a good sense of humor and like to tease and be teased...others do not.
 |
| Howard |
And then there is Brett, who has a disposition that is so amazingly sweet and friendly. He patiently will let a human hold him and if you sit down near him he will climb up in your lap and put his hands on your chest asking you to pet him. He also likes to tease Marshall and Russell...two sort of macho acting bunnies that live at the warren.
In the end, it is the emotional universe we inhabit that matters most to us. We tend to seek that which increases our good feelings and tend to avoid that which prompts unpleasant feelings. In this respect (and many others)...a rabbit is me and I am a rabbit. We each are children of Mother Earth. We each were valued enough by her to bring us into being.
Ingrid Newkirk is supposed to have said: "When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy". There are lots of other feelings that are common to all of us...probably all feelings....whatever I can feel...any living being with a central nervous system can feel. Time for us human animals to step off of our self presented pedestals and realize that all of us...all living beings are in this living stuff together...and no one is any more equal or better than anyone else.
Well, except for the bunnies that are called Dutch. Many of the Dutch bunnies (who originate from England...go figure) I have met seem to be pretty impressed with themselves.
Living as an ethical vegan is the only way I know of that honors the lives of my brothers and sisters, the rabbits, the gophers, the birds, the kangaroos...all the many sorts of children that Mother Earth chose and living as an ethical vegan also honors Mother Earth's power to choose the children she wants. She's much more wise than I am...and wiser than you too...I betcha!
Saturday, June 30, 2012
An eloquent vegan...
That's certainly an accurate description of Phillip Wollen. You can click on his name and go to the home page of an organization he started called the Kindness Trust, there you can learn more about him and his work on behalf of animals and on behalf of the planet.
Better yet, take a few minutes and listen to him speak.
Below is the transcript of his talk. If you don't have time or don't want to listen you can read his remarks. But you really ought to listen...the Aussie accent is great. The link will take you to the page where the complete article about the debate he was participating in can be read.
It is heartening to run across a passionate and excellent advocate for ethical veganism. Thank you Mr. Wollen. (And thanks to Christine...who was impressed enough by the speech that she made a point of letting me know about it.)
Better yet, take a few minutes and listen to him speak.
Below is the transcript of his talk. If you don't have time or don't want to listen you can read his remarks. But you really ought to listen...the Aussie accent is great. The link will take you to the page where the complete article about the debate he was participating in can be read.
On behalf of St James Ethics Centre, the Wheeler Centre,
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, The Age
The City of Melbourne and the ABC
All of whom have worked together to make this event possible
I would like to welcome
Philip Wollen
((Applause))
King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asks the blind Earl of Gloucester “How do you see the world?”I especially liked the line: "Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror."
And the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly”.
Shouldn’t we all?
Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages. Vile ignoble gulags of despair.
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before.
In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.
Their cries were the cries of my father.
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals.
And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.
Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.
CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock.
Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.
Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.
We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus.
It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.
The world has changed.
10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www was a stuck keyboard, Cloud was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was a baby burp, Skype was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.
Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.
There are over 600 million vegetarians in the world.
That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!!
Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous huntin’, shootin’, killin’ cartels who believe that violence is the answer – when it shouldn’t even be a question.
Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.
Medicare has already bankrupted the US. They will need $8 trillion invested in Treasury bills just to pay the interest. It has precisely zero!!
They could shut every school, army, navy, air force, and Marines, the FBI and CIA – and they still won’t be able to pay for it.
Cornell and Harvard say’s that the optimum amount of meat for a healthy diet is precisely ZERO.
Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it.
Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.
It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.
1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever.
If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed them. We only have one. And she is dying.
Greenhouse gas from livestock is 50% more than transport . . . . . planes, trains, trucks, cars, and ships.
Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?
The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.
We are facing the perfect storm.
If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into the Bronze Age.
But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry.
The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it.
George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.
This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. This cruel industry will end because we run out of excuses.
Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth.
And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so much money they wouldn’t even bother counting it.
Governments will love us. New industries would emerge and flourish. Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would disappear.
Hell “We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”
So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:
1. Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
2. I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.
Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.
The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice.
Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. And there is unimaginable terror in those ghastly Guantanamos.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we wouldn’t need this debate.
I believe another world is possible.
On a quiet night, I can hear her breathing.
Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers.
Please vote tonight for those who have no voice.
Thank you.
It is heartening to run across a passionate and excellent advocate for ethical veganism. Thank you Mr. Wollen. (And thanks to Christine...who was impressed enough by the speech that she made a point of letting me know about it.)
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Attending a human funeral...
is one of the activities that occurs more frequently as we human animals get older. More people that we know or used to know are dying from age related conditions. That's if we're lucky enough to have adequate nutrition, shelter, medical care and live where violence or other factors do not serve to reduce our life span.
I attended one such human funeral this past Monday. The link will take you to a brief obituary if you're interested in knowing about the person who died. She was one of the children in a family that lived near us all during my childhood. She was considerably older than me and her siblings were also older. But I do remember her and do remember her fondly. She was always pleasant and nice to me and so was all of her family. So I didn't resist the obligation I felt to attend the funeral both to mark her death and as a gesture of respect and support to her surviving family. And...I have an older sister who wanted to attend and she asked me to drive her there. So going to the funeral (and I do not much like funerals) was a task that accomplished a number of things all at once...and I like to be able to do things that way when possible.
Culturally dictated activities like funerals are things that we all do. Here in this part of the country most occur in some religious building or other. This one took place in a Methodist Church. I vaguely remember from a long-ago Anthropology class that the one near universal constant seen in the human animal death ceremony, regardless of the culture, is that there is some sort of procession symbolically representing the journey from life to death. Most funerals here involve some sort of "procession" from the place of the funeral service to the place of burial. On this occasion I only attended the doings called the "funeral service".
One of the reasons I have a distaste for funerals (beside the obvious one of not generally enjoying death) is that most of them occur in a church. And I have some antipathy toward most of the brands of organized religions that I'm familiar with, particularly the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity...probably because that's the sort of stuff I'm most acquainted with. I just haven't had much of a chance to get offended by other religions.
Suffice it to say I'm not too impressed with the behavior of human animals in general but when we get into some sort of "religious" mode (especially "Christian" or "Islamic")...well...we tend to suck. At least that's my take on it. And please note...I'm not trying to degrade or offend...and I'm not talking about spirituality...which a lot of us tend to confuse with religion. They aren't the same thing. (All in all, I probably lean toward spiritual notions akin to Animism more than anything else.)
Well, one of my more dreaded experiences came to pass at this funeral. The pastor running the event made it much more into some sort of proselytizing event instead of an honoring of the dead person. Which happens way too often...I guess they figure if they have a captive audience they should push their product. Anyway...when he finally got to the rather brief part where he talked about the woman who had died...he related a story that just irritated and saddened me terribly. It still disgusts and saddens me.
The story was that this woman was kind and helpful and competent and accomplished...and one of the accomplishments he talked about was that she was a "big game hunter". He told some story about her shooting and killing a deer and behaving toward the men in her camping group as if it was no big deal...anyone could do it.
Many in the audience laughed as this story of her murdering an innocent and harmless animal was told. I was staring and the floor and struggling not to jump up and ask all those laughing why was murder a funny thing. Why was the death of an innocent being and occasion of humor? Especially at a ceremony marking a death! What kind of religion encourages killing, laughs about killing. She murdered somebody...that's an occasion for shame and sorrow...not laughter. But...I didn't jump up...and part of me still wonders if I didn't betray that dead deer. I guess in a way I did and I feel bad about that. I diminished myself by not confronting the vicious speciesism that was exhibited by that story and by that laughter.
Even looking back...I would still not jump up and confront the ugliness. I wouldn't interfere in whatever processes were going on in the family and friends. The meeting was about honoring a human female who died. But the ugliness and callousness and obliviousness shown by that story will forever mark my memory of that meeting. I will remember my shock at such a story being told and my dismay and sorrow that laughter and smiles greeted the telling. I often wonder if our species isn't fubar.
Here's what I'm going to do. I plan to write that preacher and voice my dismay and sadness that he's so oblivious to innocence and grace and beauty and horror that he tried to build up one living beings existence by presenting her as a murderer. I'm going to ask him if talking about the death of an innocent being honors the killer. I am going to do that. And...I will make a donation to our local wildlife rescue in honor of that long dead deer. And I will always be stained and diminished in some measure because I sat and heard the laughter and did not openly object. And I am diminished and stained because so many human animals think killing is humorous.
Speciesism hurts and diminishes everyone it touches and it permeates this culture. And it is ugly. And ten years ago that story would have only discomforted me, it wouldn't have mortified and offended and outraged me. So I have changed and if I can change...so can others.
I imagined attending a funeral two-hundred years in the past, and hearing some story supposedly honoring the dead human that involved their killing of an innocent slave or Native American...and I imagined hearing the laughter. And I despair...but I do realize that change from two-hundred years ago has happened and so I can also hope. I know who Donald Watson is, I live as an ethical vegan. So can other human animals. We must.
I attended one such human funeral this past Monday. The link will take you to a brief obituary if you're interested in knowing about the person who died. She was one of the children in a family that lived near us all during my childhood. She was considerably older than me and her siblings were also older. But I do remember her and do remember her fondly. She was always pleasant and nice to me and so was all of her family. So I didn't resist the obligation I felt to attend the funeral both to mark her death and as a gesture of respect and support to her surviving family. And...I have an older sister who wanted to attend and she asked me to drive her there. So going to the funeral (and I do not much like funerals) was a task that accomplished a number of things all at once...and I like to be able to do things that way when possible.
Culturally dictated activities like funerals are things that we all do. Here in this part of the country most occur in some religious building or other. This one took place in a Methodist Church. I vaguely remember from a long-ago Anthropology class that the one near universal constant seen in the human animal death ceremony, regardless of the culture, is that there is some sort of procession symbolically representing the journey from life to death. Most funerals here involve some sort of "procession" from the place of the funeral service to the place of burial. On this occasion I only attended the doings called the "funeral service".
One of the reasons I have a distaste for funerals (beside the obvious one of not generally enjoying death) is that most of them occur in a church. And I have some antipathy toward most of the brands of organized religions that I'm familiar with, particularly the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity...probably because that's the sort of stuff I'm most acquainted with. I just haven't had much of a chance to get offended by other religions.
Suffice it to say I'm not too impressed with the behavior of human animals in general but when we get into some sort of "religious" mode (especially "Christian" or "Islamic")...well...we tend to suck. At least that's my take on it. And please note...I'm not trying to degrade or offend...and I'm not talking about spirituality...which a lot of us tend to confuse with religion. They aren't the same thing. (All in all, I probably lean toward spiritual notions akin to Animism more than anything else.)
Well, one of my more dreaded experiences came to pass at this funeral. The pastor running the event made it much more into some sort of proselytizing event instead of an honoring of the dead person. Which happens way too often...I guess they figure if they have a captive audience they should push their product. Anyway...when he finally got to the rather brief part where he talked about the woman who had died...he related a story that just irritated and saddened me terribly. It still disgusts and saddens me.
The story was that this woman was kind and helpful and competent and accomplished...and one of the accomplishments he talked about was that she was a "big game hunter". He told some story about her shooting and killing a deer and behaving toward the men in her camping group as if it was no big deal...anyone could do it.
Many in the audience laughed as this story of her murdering an innocent and harmless animal was told. I was staring and the floor and struggling not to jump up and ask all those laughing why was murder a funny thing. Why was the death of an innocent being and occasion of humor? Especially at a ceremony marking a death! What kind of religion encourages killing, laughs about killing. She murdered somebody...that's an occasion for shame and sorrow...not laughter. But...I didn't jump up...and part of me still wonders if I didn't betray that dead deer. I guess in a way I did and I feel bad about that. I diminished myself by not confronting the vicious speciesism that was exhibited by that story and by that laughter.
Even looking back...I would still not jump up and confront the ugliness. I wouldn't interfere in whatever processes were going on in the family and friends. The meeting was about honoring a human female who died. But the ugliness and callousness and obliviousness shown by that story will forever mark my memory of that meeting. I will remember my shock at such a story being told and my dismay and sorrow that laughter and smiles greeted the telling. I often wonder if our species isn't fubar.
Here's what I'm going to do. I plan to write that preacher and voice my dismay and sadness that he's so oblivious to innocence and grace and beauty and horror that he tried to build up one living beings existence by presenting her as a murderer. I'm going to ask him if talking about the death of an innocent being honors the killer. I am going to do that. And...I will make a donation to our local wildlife rescue in honor of that long dead deer. And I will always be stained and diminished in some measure because I sat and heard the laughter and did not openly object. And I am diminished and stained because so many human animals think killing is humorous.
Speciesism hurts and diminishes everyone it touches and it permeates this culture. And it is ugly. And ten years ago that story would have only discomforted me, it wouldn't have mortified and offended and outraged me. So I have changed and if I can change...so can others.
I imagined attending a funeral two-hundred years in the past, and hearing some story supposedly honoring the dead human that involved their killing of an innocent slave or Native American...and I imagined hearing the laughter. And I despair...but I do realize that change from two-hundred years ago has happened and so I can also hope. I know who Donald Watson is, I live as an ethical vegan. So can other human animals. We must.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The Face of War.
The Face of War is the title of a book by Martha Gellhorn. I became interested in her writing because of a movie on HBO called Hemingway and Gellhorn. She was briefly married to the author Ernest Hemingway and apparently dumped him because he was too bossy for her. She was a war correspondent and covered war beginning in 1936 with the Spanish Civil War through the horrors sanctioned and supported by President Reagan against the citizens of the small countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s.
The movie wasn't all that great but two things were intriguing about it. The first was that the characters were inserted into actual news footage of the various wars being reported on...and done so in a very skilled and realistic way. It is creepy how well they were able to make it look like the movie characters were actually in the scenes depicted in the newsreel footages. Very disconcerting and spooky.
The second intriguing thing was Martha Gellhorn. I liked her character enough to want to read some of her writing and The Face of War just happens to be a book my local library has. The book is just superlative. It offers an eyewitness look (by the same person) at multiple wars occurring over a period of 50 years or so. I plan to obtain my own copy of the book just a soon as possible...I can think of no better writing chronicling the violence and destructiveness humans visit upon each other and on the planet than this collection of eyewitness reports.
She received the news that Germany had surrendered in 1945 while at the Dachau concentration camp. She wrote:
This isn't a book about veganism...but it is in a strange way. For instance at the end of the book she writes:
The movie wasn't all that great but two things were intriguing about it. The first was that the characters were inserted into actual news footage of the various wars being reported on...and done so in a very skilled and realistic way. It is creepy how well they were able to make it look like the movie characters were actually in the scenes depicted in the newsreel footages. Very disconcerting and spooky.
The second intriguing thing was Martha Gellhorn. I liked her character enough to want to read some of her writing and The Face of War just happens to be a book my local library has. The book is just superlative. It offers an eyewitness look (by the same person) at multiple wars occurring over a period of 50 years or so. I plan to obtain my own copy of the book just a soon as possible...I can think of no better writing chronicling the violence and destructiveness humans visit upon each other and on the planet than this collection of eyewitness reports.
She received the news that Germany had surrendered in 1945 while at the Dachau concentration camp. She wrote:
"...Dachau seemed to me the most suitable place in Europe to hear the news of victory. For surely this war was made to abolish Dachau, and all the other places like Dachau, and everything that Dachau stood for, and to abolish it forever."Her writings begin with the Spanish Civil War. Her feelings about this conflict are much the same as mine...that anyone who helped the Republican side (the democratically elected government of Spain) was someone helping all of us. That England and the United States did nothing to help these folks was a mark of shame. There's a good chance the horrors of WWII might have been avoided if the democracies had stood together against the fascists...in Spain. But they didn't.
This isn't a book about veganism...but it is in a strange way. For instance at the end of the book she writes:
"I hold to the relay race theory of history: progress in human affairs depends on accepting, generation after generation, the individual duty to oppose the evils of the time. The evils of the time change but are never in short supply and would go unchallenged unless there were conscientious people to say: not if I can help it."Well, the fact that our fellow animals aren't recognized as the owners of their own lives is one of the evils of our time...and it is our duty...if we wish to progress...to oppose that evil...to challenge that evil....to worry and harass that evil and to refuse to participate in that evil. In that respect Martha Gellhorn and I see things very much the same. She closes the book with a statement that I absolutely and totally agree with:
"There has to be a better way to run the world and we better see that we get it."Read the book, you'll get a rare longitudinal eyewitness look at some of the stupidities and brutalities of humans toward other humans and toward our planet that is rare and unique. You'll also get acquainted (to some extent anyway) with a remarkable human woman...someone that I believe would have understood the justice of and the necessity for the vegan way of life.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
The heart asks...
The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The privilege to die.
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The privilege to die.
Emily Dickinson wrote this poem and it has always haunted me. Anymore I can't read the poem without thinking of the millions of chickens crammed into battery cages...who...when young had hearts that asked this world for pleasure. Instead they spent short miserable lives with no anodynes to alleviate their suffering...all because we humans wanted money or a taste.
Each cow, each pig, each chicken, each sheep, each goat, each dog, each cat, each rabbit, each being that is a child of this earth...each one was born with a heart that first asked for pleasure...and billions...billions of them quickly wished for anodynes that weren't granted. I have no doubt so very very many were relieved to have the escape of death visit them.
We have no right to deny young hearts the pleasure of the world...we have no right to deny any heart such pleasure.
We have no right and yet we deny them and hurt them for selfish reasons and we provide them with no anodynes and then we kill them. We diminish and degrade ourselves. Never wonder if there are monsters...there are...shamefully and sadly...there are. And they are not rare...they are not few in number...those who choose to not behave monstrously are the few. Sadly and shamefully.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Who has time for justice?
"In Memory Of Rosa Robota, Estusia Wajcblum, Ala Gertner, Regina Safirztain and Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, who all died from different manifestations of the same disease."
Thus is written the dedication of a novel titled "The Street Sweeper" by Elliot Perlman. One of the main characters in the novel is a psychologist who travels to Germany in 1946 to interview survivors of the Holocaust. This psychologist, after hearing a woman tell her story of having to abandon her infant daughter in a futile attempt to save the child's life, asks himself: "Who will sit in judgement over all this?"
Close to the end of the novel, a female physician faces a situation wherein she is called upon to intervene on behalf of a fired hospital cleaning worker.
One of the more sympathetic characters in the novel is an African American man who is kind and gentle and sensitive, helpful to a fatherless boy, and who also 'works' as a "splitter" in a slaughterhouse...he spends his working life murdering or dismembering pigs.
And yet...and yet...this is a sensitive and powerful and well-written novel about the horrors and damage and suffering and deaths that accompany the ugliness of racism...but the novelist and the characters are oblivious to their perpetuation of the same behaviors and attitudes that so scarred and injured and diminished their lives. How can this be?
I know the novelist did not set out to write a novel about racism and injustice and human blindness and human casualness toward perpetrating or supporting horror that exemplified the very thing he was attempting to explore and highlight in the book...but he did. His work is tainted and diminished so terribly much by his own blindness...by his (and thereby his characters) own inability to perceive that speciesism is simply another manifestation of that terrible 'disease'.
I found reading the novel to be so disorienting...for instance in one part a mother and daughter are discussing the Upton Sinclair novel "The Jungle" and on the following page are talking about the ugliness and wrongness of using the "Nword" when referring to African Americans. With never a hint that the pigs and cows and sheep murdered by the slaughterhouses referenced in Sinclair's novel are murdered for exactly the same reasons that slavery once was legal...for exactly the same reasons that the Germans built the gas-chambers, for exactly the same reason that using the "Nword" is ugly and wrong.
They were (and are) enslaved and murdered because they are considered to be "inferior", unworthy of serious consideration...or dog and cats and rabbits are murdered because no one wants to care for them...or for "sport". It is the same...the same old story of devaluing those who are "different", of denying the worth of those not the same...your life is forfeit to the group in power if you don't fit their criteria of worthiness.
And Elliot Perlman has written an excellent treatment of racism directed toward African Americans and Jews. And Elliot Perlman casually and apparently with absolute obliviousness supports and reifies and normalizes at places in his book the same ugliness, the same 'disease', when directed toward those who happen to not look like a human animal. Without a thought or a word or a tear for their anguish, for their terror, for their lives. How sad, how very sad.
"Who will sit in judgement over all this?"
Please don't be someone who doesn't have time for justice...ethical veganism is the only way of living that supports justice for those who don't happen be human animals...and...while you're at it...live a just life toward your fellow human animals too.
Thus is written the dedication of a novel titled "The Street Sweeper" by Elliot Perlman. One of the main characters in the novel is a psychologist who travels to Germany in 1946 to interview survivors of the Holocaust. This psychologist, after hearing a woman tell her story of having to abandon her infant daughter in a futile attempt to save the child's life, asks himself: "Who will sit in judgement over all this?"
Close to the end of the novel, a female physician faces a situation wherein she is called upon to intervene on behalf of a fired hospital cleaning worker.
"...what a tremendous injustice it was for him to be accused of theft and fired because of it. She worked at the hospital but not in Human Resources. She had her own life. She had her own problems. Who had time for this kind of thing?I'm not going to 'review' the novel...there are a number of adequate ones available on the web. Instead I want to write about the bitter and tragic fact that in a very well written novel such as this...in a novel that addresses beautifully the disease that kills (racism) noted in the dedication quoted above...this novel is blind...utterly...to speciesism (which also kills).
She asked herself this and then wondered what she meant by "this kind of thing." She concluded a few seconds later that what she had really meant was "justice" of some kind. So what she had, in fact, asked herself was "who had time for justice?" and the fact that she had articulated this question, even if only privately to herself, jolted her. She caught a vague, elongated momentary glimpse of herself walking past a reflecting surface and, not wanting to be the sort of person who asked her self that question, ..." p.596-597
One of the more sympathetic characters in the novel is an African American man who is kind and gentle and sensitive, helpful to a fatherless boy, and who also 'works' as a "splitter" in a slaughterhouse...he spends his working life murdering or dismembering pigs.
And yet...and yet...this is a sensitive and powerful and well-written novel about the horrors and damage and suffering and deaths that accompany the ugliness of racism...but the novelist and the characters are oblivious to their perpetuation of the same behaviors and attitudes that so scarred and injured and diminished their lives. How can this be?
I know the novelist did not set out to write a novel about racism and injustice and human blindness and human casualness toward perpetrating or supporting horror that exemplified the very thing he was attempting to explore and highlight in the book...but he did. His work is tainted and diminished so terribly much by his own blindness...by his (and thereby his characters) own inability to perceive that speciesism is simply another manifestation of that terrible 'disease'.
I found reading the novel to be so disorienting...for instance in one part a mother and daughter are discussing the Upton Sinclair novel "The Jungle" and on the following page are talking about the ugliness and wrongness of using the "Nword" when referring to African Americans. With never a hint that the pigs and cows and sheep murdered by the slaughterhouses referenced in Sinclair's novel are murdered for exactly the same reasons that slavery once was legal...for exactly the same reasons that the Germans built the gas-chambers, for exactly the same reason that using the "Nword" is ugly and wrong.
They were (and are) enslaved and murdered because they are considered to be "inferior", unworthy of serious consideration...or dog and cats and rabbits are murdered because no one wants to care for them...or for "sport". It is the same...the same old story of devaluing those who are "different", of denying the worth of those not the same...your life is forfeit to the group in power if you don't fit their criteria of worthiness.
And Elliot Perlman has written an excellent treatment of racism directed toward African Americans and Jews. And Elliot Perlman casually and apparently with absolute obliviousness supports and reifies and normalizes at places in his book the same ugliness, the same 'disease', when directed toward those who happen to not look like a human animal. Without a thought or a word or a tear for their anguish, for their terror, for their lives. How sad, how very sad.
"Who will sit in judgement over all this?"
Please don't be someone who doesn't have time for justice...ethical veganism is the only way of living that supports justice for those who don't happen be human animals...and...while you're at it...live a just life toward your fellow human animals too.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
A day for Honoring all Human UnMothers.....
On my behalf and on behalf of all sentient beings I want to thank and honor all of you human animal females who have avoided becoming mothers. Thank you Thank you and Thank you! You have chosen to not participate in or contribute to the ongoing and accelerating destruction of most of the current habitat and environment of the planet Earth.
The human overpopulation of the planet is destroying other species and the environmental conditions necessary to support Earth's species at an astonishing rate. The single most significant thing any human animal can do to reduce their negative impact on the ecosystem is to not reproduce. While not disrespecting those who have children...the real heroes who deserve acknowledgement are those brave women who have had the courage to remain childless.
Look at the bottom left corner of the graph, it is estimated that the human population of the planet exceeded 1 billion in 1804. In general, thought suggests that a human population of around 500 million (in other words, a population of humans half of the 1804 population) is a "sustainable" number of people. If you want to poke around, there is an abundance of information available...
What is important to remember is that every additional human animal on the planet means two things for our fellow Earthlings:
A. Less space and food (natural habitat) for other animals.
B. More animals killed for food by humans.
The direction of the number of human animals needs (for the sake of the planet, for our fellow Earthlings and for ourselves) to be decreasing, not increasing. We could make the number decrease by killing (and we are amazingly good at that) or by death from disease or starvation or whatever....or we could make the number decrease by not adding to it and letting death due to age begin to bring the number down. Obviously the least violent and painful way to make our numbers drop is to quit having so many children.
So...thanks is due to those courageous and heroic human females (inadvertently or not) who have had the generosity and vision to help all living beings by being UnMothers. Your planet thanks you, your fellow Earthlings thank you...especially all mothers who aren't human animals, and I thank you. You are appreciated and valued and treasured.
Your not having children means you voted to have more tigers living in the wild instead of another McDonalds hamburger joint.
You voted to preserve, not to destroy. You voted for the future, not for the now. This is caring, this is concern, this is love...this is true "mothering". Be impressed with yourselves, you should be...we all should be. Thank you!!! (Repost from May 7, 2011)
The human overpopulation of the planet is destroying other species and the environmental conditions necessary to support Earth's species at an astonishing rate. The single most significant thing any human animal can do to reduce their negative impact on the ecosystem is to not reproduce. While not disrespecting those who have children...the real heroes who deserve acknowledgement are those brave women who have had the courage to remain childless.
When scientists talk about overpopulation, they are usually referring to a population exceeding its biological carrying capacity which is defined as "the maximum number of animals that a specific habitat or area can support without causing deterioration or degradation of that habitat.”
What is important to remember is that every additional human animal on the planet means two things for our fellow Earthlings:
A. Less space and food (natural habitat) for other animals.
B. More animals killed for food by humans.
The direction of the number of human animals needs (for the sake of the planet, for our fellow Earthlings and for ourselves) to be decreasing, not increasing. We could make the number decrease by killing (and we are amazingly good at that) or by death from disease or starvation or whatever....or we could make the number decrease by not adding to it and letting death due to age begin to bring the number down. Obviously the least violent and painful way to make our numbers drop is to quit having so many children.
So...thanks is due to those courageous and heroic human females (inadvertently or not) who have had the generosity and vision to help all living beings by being UnMothers. Your planet thanks you, your fellow Earthlings thank you...especially all mothers who aren't human animals, and I thank you. You are appreciated and valued and treasured.
Your not having children means you voted to have more tigers living in the wild instead of another McDonalds hamburger joint.
You voted to preserve, not to destroy. You voted for the future, not for the now. This is caring, this is concern, this is love...this is true "mothering". Be impressed with yourselves, you should be...we all should be. Thank you!!! (Repost from May 7, 2011)
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Joie de vivre!
The french phrase, which means pleasure or joy in living or life is one that comes to mind every time I think about or see Howard. The photo below shows Howard doing one of the things he seems to enjoy totally...running. He moves pell-mell wherever he goes....
and he seems to always be going somewhere. Except when he's not...then he might be looking to see where he wants to go next.
I've been wanting to write about Howard for a long time but words about him come with difficulty. He came to us after having been dumped in a parking lot (in a cardboard box). He was picked up by the local municipal animal shelter and his execution time was approaching...that's the penalty in Oklahoma if you're a bunny without a home. Death. He was thrown away. The best estimate of his age is that he is between 2 and 4 years old...likely he is on the young side of that range...he seems to have grown a little since he came to us and his energy level certainly is that of a kid.
Howard is what is known as a "New Zealand White". Now, first of all these guys don't have a damn thing to do with New Zealand...the "breed" was developed in Mexico...supposedly in 1916. The "big whites" (that's what I like to call them) were "bred" for their "fur" and for "meat" and for "use" by laboratories. I'm enclosing words that are repulsive and euphemistic in quotation marks because they obscure the horrific reality that these bunnies were manipulated by humans for profit...absolutely and totally ignoring the rights and needs of these beings. But...that's a rant for a different time.
Howard came to Heartland because the Director made the space for him (even though we didn't have it...Heartland is chronically over capacity) to save his life. When he first was given a chance to run around it didn't look good for him. He was very shaky and had a difficult time staying upright...his balance was very poor and he evinced ongoing tremors. It was apparent he had some sort of neurological or motoric problems and we were very concerned about him. But...he was a poster child for the word exuberant. He would run and fall and immediately spring back up and keep on going. If he was still (which was not very often) and tried to scratch or wash his face...he would often fall over...but it sure didn't seem to bother him. There was no way to watch Howard without breaking into a big smile.
The pinkish skin and reddish tint of his eyes are typical in his "breed" because there is a strong element of albinism in these sort of bunny folk...albinism makes it easier to test cosmetics and chemicals in their eyes and on their skin...the damage done can be more easily seen and the tissue is more sensitive. What a bunch of creeps we human animals are...disgusting. Howard though, is anything but disgusting...he is a special special being.
Over time, and he's been with us for around a year now, his shakiness and wobbling has diminished considerably. He still tremors and falls sometimes but not much and not very often anymore. He's too busy...and busy is the perfect word for this fellow when he has a crack at running around the rescue property. He is either going full speed or he is lounging somewhere resting as hard as he runs. Or...he's looking for women...Howard is a lover and a runner and nobody knows which he prefers...both are primary considerations for him. He is adept at climbing out of enclosures, breaking into enclosures and generally going where he isn't supposed to go. All these things he does with gusto and joy and (I secretly think) a big bunny smile...
Now, due to the hugeness of his personality, he has been tagged with some interesting names by the bunny slaves at Heartland. Mr. Wobbles is one name that is applied to him sometimes but the name that causes the most laughter and pleasure is that of Mr. Naughtytrousers...because it so aptly describes him and because that name is so unusual sounding to us in America. The name was borrowed from a bunny who resides at Big Ears Animal Sanctuary in northern Tasmania. The folks who operate the sanctuary recently took on 300 rabbits rescued from a "meat farm" and I can only marvel at their energy and excellence in attempting such a huge undertaking. A big thanks to them and a big Hooray for them!
Howard is unusual in some other ways...in addition to his large helping of personality and lebensfreude...he is a rag doll bunny. He hardly ever flinches or tenses up if he is picked up by a human...he usually just relaxes. Totally. Which is not often seen in bunny folk. He enjoys being petted and groomed and will even allow...with absolutely no indication of discomfort...grooming of and even pulling gently on his tail. Most rabbits get rather excited or irritated if any sort of touching on their tail goes on...not Mr. Naughtytrousers...he calmly and majestically endures and enjoys any and all sorts of petting or grooming. He's a treasure and a wonder. And some human discarded him like an empty tin can...
But Howard doesn't hold a grudge...he just runs and runs or sometimes he digs.
And when it all becomes too much and too tiring and there's a convenient human around...Howard just lays back and naps. When he's in that state he's much like those little dolls that were played with by little girls many years ago...you know those that had the eyelids that closed when you put them on their back...that's Howard. Pick him up and lay him on his back in your arms and his eyelids slowly close...and poof...he's gone off to napland.
It is getting to spend time around phenoms like Howard that helps keep me going. Howard possesses a restorative spirit and is as generous with it as it is possible to be. Thank you Howard...thank you, thank you.
Support your local animal rescues, support anyplace that might provide a safe and forever home to wonderful beings like Howard. We need all the Howard spirit in the world that we can get.
Ethical veganism is a way of living that embodies and expresses respect and caring for all living beings (including ourselves) and for Mother Earth. Sadly, any other way of living implements destruction and death and suffering and horror...inevitably and inexorably. So...knock it off if you haven't already.
Howard is what is known as a "New Zealand White". Now, first of all these guys don't have a damn thing to do with New Zealand...the "breed" was developed in Mexico...supposedly in 1916. The "big whites" (that's what I like to call them) were "bred" for their "fur" and for "meat" and for "use" by laboratories. I'm enclosing words that are repulsive and euphemistic in quotation marks because they obscure the horrific reality that these bunnies were manipulated by humans for profit...absolutely and totally ignoring the rights and needs of these beings. But...that's a rant for a different time.
Howard came to Heartland because the Director made the space for him (even though we didn't have it...Heartland is chronically over capacity) to save his life. When he first was given a chance to run around it didn't look good for him. He was very shaky and had a difficult time staying upright...his balance was very poor and he evinced ongoing tremors. It was apparent he had some sort of neurological or motoric problems and we were very concerned about him. But...he was a poster child for the word exuberant. He would run and fall and immediately spring back up and keep on going. If he was still (which was not very often) and tried to scratch or wash his face...he would often fall over...but it sure didn't seem to bother him. There was no way to watch Howard without breaking into a big smile.
Over time, and he's been with us for around a year now, his shakiness and wobbling has diminished considerably. He still tremors and falls sometimes but not much and not very often anymore. He's too busy...and busy is the perfect word for this fellow when he has a crack at running around the rescue property. He is either going full speed or he is lounging somewhere resting as hard as he runs. Or...he's looking for women...Howard is a lover and a runner and nobody knows which he prefers...both are primary considerations for him. He is adept at climbing out of enclosures, breaking into enclosures and generally going where he isn't supposed to go. All these things he does with gusto and joy and (I secretly think) a big bunny smile...
Howard is unusual in some other ways...in addition to his large helping of personality and lebensfreude...he is a rag doll bunny. He hardly ever flinches or tenses up if he is picked up by a human...he usually just relaxes. Totally. Which is not often seen in bunny folk. He enjoys being petted and groomed and will even allow...with absolutely no indication of discomfort...grooming of and even pulling gently on his tail. Most rabbits get rather excited or irritated if any sort of touching on their tail goes on...not Mr. Naughtytrousers...he calmly and majestically endures and enjoys any and all sorts of petting or grooming. He's a treasure and a wonder. And some human discarded him like an empty tin can...
But Howard doesn't hold a grudge...he just runs and runs or sometimes he digs.
Support your local animal rescues, support anyplace that might provide a safe and forever home to wonderful beings like Howard. We need all the Howard spirit in the world that we can get.
Ethical veganism is a way of living that embodies and expresses respect and caring for all living beings (including ourselves) and for Mother Earth. Sadly, any other way of living implements destruction and death and suffering and horror...inevitably and inexorably. So...knock it off if you haven't already.
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