I've always been slightly indifferent about animals. I was-- as part of a field trip-- dragged to the San Diego Zoo as a 7th grader-- and this year, under duress, I visited the Dallas World Aquarium (which, I might add, was most intriguing). That is the extent of my personal connection with the animal kingdom. Psycho-analysis revealed two events that scarred me. As a lad of seven years, me and Jean (the neighbor girl) were in Mrs. Blackmon's yard looking for a lost baseball. (Although once there, I learned Jean had more nefarious purposes in mind for me --but that is another post.) Mrs Blackmon's angry dog, a typical inner city cross breed, came roaring at us. We raced toward the wooden fence with Jean tumbling over first. I was behind her and just at the moment I thought I was safe, the cross breed peeled a chunk out of my ankle, just missing my Achilles.
Sensing that death -- or rabies-- was imminent because I disobeyed my Mom (first, by being with that 'little fast girl Jean" and second by being in Mrs. Blackmon's yard, I hid in my room. There was no one to tell. I went to our medicine cabinet to retrieve some concoction known as 'Tincture of Mercurochrome' and waited to die for my sins.
it was, I think, less than a year later that I was in the barber shop and saw a photo in Life Magazine where a group of police dogs were on the verge of tearing into people whom I later learned were staging a 'sit-in.'
Dogs, I decided, were not the best friends of people who looked like me.
The hoopla around Michael Vick is an example of the hypocrisy that stands at the heart of the U.S. culture crisis. At thirty I moved to Texas and met many new friends. Everyone had at least four guns and hunting was a popular weekend activity. Being an inner city L.A. kid, I thought guns were needed to defend oneself in a drive-by. My new Texas caballeros were enthralled with deer hunting. As I learned more about this endeavor, I couldn't envision the appeal of sitting twenty-five feet above the ground and picking off unsuspected deer with a high-powered rifle. The animals weren't killed for food-- but, for the savage thrill of killing. My friends would explain that 'they were doing the deer community a favor." "Why," I asked naively. "Because there were too many and would die of starvation in the winter." Killing them quickly was preventing a long, sad death from lack of food. "It isn't about the sport," they would steadfastly remind me.
It struck me as odd--but, Texas was my new home and I wanted to fit in-- so I tried to hide my looks of, "you have got to be kidding me.'
Then, I encountered other wealthier types who routinely hunted 'big game.' Their goal was to kill an animal and have it's head immortalized on their wall as a trophy.'
Again, the whole scheme struck me as odd. They would scoff at me and say: "You L.A. boys just don't get it...this is the way it is in Texas."
The poultry industry puts ten thousand chicken to death each week. I can't even speculate on how many cattle are slaughtered (and not just by curious aliens!) Ok, I've got to come all the way clean and admit my personal guilt -- I love turkey bacon and turkey sausage. And, I presume there is no way to get turkey bacon from a living, breathing turkey. It has to die. Cows have become milk machines. Hens have become egg machines. Chickens have become Chicken nugget machines.
So what makes dogs so special? Is it because they've been immortalized in movies and cartoons: (Underdog, Deputy Dog, Lassie, Old Yella')
Is it because we like dogs and they are elevated to 'companion animal' status? Well, many Filipinos living in Northern Luzon like dogs - they like them marinated and served over rice with fresh vegetables on the side.
Is it because Mr. Vick and friends electrocuted or otherwise behaved cruelly toward the animals no longer able to compete? Or, is it because he initially bred the animals to fight? Are those protesting against Mr. Vick, demanding incarceration and loss of livelihood themselves without sin? If they awoke to find an asp of unknown origin slowly slithering across their bathroom floor, would they offer the reptile a reprieve? Have the protesters ever tasted lobster or salmon? Do their children drink milk?
The hunter lurking around the savannah to shoot an exotic animal in order to possess a trophy does so for one reason: Ego. Mr. Vick, I suspect, engaged in dog fighting and had the animals killed for the same reason: Ego.
Animals get the worse end of the deal every day. And, that's sad--even tragic.
The greater sadness is 400,000 deaths in Darfur. The combined outcry for the deaths of these human beings-- and the two million who've been displaced from their homes-- is as loud as the ambient noise in the waiting room at the Dog & Cat Hospital in Congo. Protesters have marched in the streets to protest Mr. Vick's treatment of animals in a 'dog-fighting' scheme but so few mourn the death of men and women who had the wretched misfortune of being born a human in the Sudan instead of a pure bred dog en route to Westminster.
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