A little perspective, people....

Let me start off by saying that I am an animal lover. Dogs, cats, birds...it doesn't matter. Animals seem to like me as well, and somehow that sort of makes me feel better in a Stuart Smalley kind of way (I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, gosh darn it, animals like me). I think that animals are much more adept than people at sniffing out BS; they see through the players and can tell which people are sincere and which are not.

Having said that, I think that we tend to lose perspective when it comes to animal cruelty. Now, I am not here advocating that we should all go out and beat up a bird, but when the news days is dominated by the news that a somewhat pro golfer killed a hawk by hitting it with a golf ball, we need to step back and take stock in what is really going on in the world. True, it is a tragedy that deserves a quick mention, but PETA is already out there beating the drum for this golfer to be strung up by his own petard for the temerity to kill a bird. As if Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders don't commit this very same heinous act millions of times per day. As if all of us, in the middle of our chicken dinners, will pause for a moment of silence for the spirit of the dead bird.

Do I sound harsh? If I sound harsh, this is why:

Benedict Rogers book is an account of the systematic genocide of the Burmese people. The Karen are a peaceful people who live an agrarian lifestyle, but they are being killed by the ruling regime. Where is the righteous indignation on the part of the press concerning GENOCIDE? Oh, right...a bird died. Stop the presses. The people will put down their chicken dinners to shed a few tears for a bird on a golf course, but AN ENTIRE POPULATION in a country most Americans cannot even point to on a world map? Someone else's problems. Those of you who own rubies or want rubies, consider this: over 90% of the world's rubies comes from a single valley in Burma, where the workers are akin to slaves. Remember that the next time you take out your ruby jewelry.

Have we also forgotten about this?


The Darfur conflict is ongoing. The tribal civil war in Sudan has claimed between 200,000 to 400,000 people. That's hundreds of thousands, people. Are the world governments in an uproar over this? Well, there are SANCTIONS, but because we can get oil elsewhere, we are not supporting the Sudanese government's attempts at genocide...yet. The Chinese government has no such hesitation, as they are purchasing most of the oil that the Sudanese government sells. And what does the government buy with the money? Why, the latest and greatest arms with which to mow down innocent civilians. Why give kids who are running from the violence a chance when you can purchase a brand new RPG and get rid of a whole lot of them in one fell swoop.

Now, a lot has been mentioned about what is going on in Asia and Africa. We still have problems in our own country. Remember this?


I know that Daisy does. This is an image taken in the days following Hurricane Katrina. Now the rest of the country, thanks to the news media, wants to believe that everything is back to normal in New Orleans. It isn't. When a couple of friends visited the city for the BCS "National Championship" (yeah, it's in quotes for a reason), they recounted how the side streets were still pretty deserted and how the city seemed like a shell of what it must have been. People are not moving back, and the country has apparently forgotten about this classic American town (built below sea level by the French...so they are the real culprits in the tragedy).

But no...instead of focusing on real problems such as genocide in far away places or poverty and hardship right here in the US, we get stories of PETA demanding action for a bird that died. In the grand scheme of things, aren't there other things that are more important?

I am sad about the bird, but I am haunted by reading about the Karen people genocide.