Jun 30
I was going to get into the “pet owner” versus “pet guardian” debate, until I realized it’s based on the premise that it’s okay to have “pets” (i.e., animals kept for our amusement or companionship). Ideally, every species would live…
I just realized a letter of mine was in the Palm Beach Post on Tuesday (June 27). It was similar to my entry of June 18 (Good Intentions Gone Bad). Here are the facts: Muscovy ducks are adorable sweet creatures…
My latest letter, again in The New York Times, deals with the all-emcompassing question: What is the purpose of this life? It saddens me to read letters like the one by Carl Gutman from Albuquerque, above mine on the opinion…
I couldn’t be happier that more and more Americans are making compassion a factor in their dietary choices. But compassion doesn’t stop at your palate. If your intention is to align your actions with your beliefs, you must address your…
Frank Bruni’s, “It Died for Us” in The New York Times (06/25/06) explains that more Americans are pondering the ethical implications of their diets. And he wonders whether this trend is elitist. He refers to the ever-popular books: The Omnivore’s…
I’ve always been fascinating with linguistics and semiotics. So much so that I earned at doctorate in Applied Linguistics from New York University. Ever since I was a child, I was perplexed by the human tendency to categorize ourselves as…
Anyone who has dealt with wildlife rehabbers knows that their world has a dirty little secret: Many wildlife rehabbers are hoarders in disguise. And their disguise isn’t working. If you go to a rehab “facility” (which is often no more…
About fifteen years ago I was in the Dominican Republic on a humanitarian mission with an handful of monks from the Ananda Marga spiritual/social service organization. There I was, in my thatched hut at the top of a large hill,…
If I see obvious abuse or neglect, that’s easy: I find a way to diplomatically address it. The diplomacy is important, as many people will simply move their anger toward you in the direction of the poor creature who is…
California’s Rep. Richard Pombo, who is castigated daily by environmentalists, is at it again. This time it’s personal: he’s knocking at my door. Pombo and his Big Oil Buddies want to open the coast of Florida to oil drilling. And…
Since the start of the Avian Flu (H5N1) scare, we’ve been hearing about the “culling” of sometimes tens of thousands of birds at a time. “Culling,” of course, means killing, but doesn’t produce the same visceral reaction. This morning I…
In Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill, author/Buddhist Monk, Matthieu Ricard writes of the obligation to relieve suffering. “At any given moment, tens of thousands of [animals] are being killed by humans, torn to pieces, and canned….
Today’s Palm Beach Post (06/18/06) has an article about our forever-controversial Muscovy duck population (“Neighbors Cry Fowl Play in Duck War,” by Kelly Wolfe). The short version: some people love them, some people hate them, and rarely do you encounter…
As I expected, the lobster condo was deemed an inhumane way to store live lobsters for sale at Whole Foods. Kudos, once again, to Whole Foods for doing the right thing. I can’t let the original NYT article of 6/10/06…
As Brenda Goodman reported in the New York Times (“In Test Program, Whole Foods Becomes a Lobster’s New Best Friend,” 06/10/06), today’s the deadline for the program. If the new lobster condos have been a success and the lobsters are…
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