Thanksgiving and Christmas

Note to "Green Guide" -- For next Thanksgiving why not include information about non-turkey dinners? I know Thanksgiving has evolved into a significant family holiday but the underlying realities consist of a national slaughter of millions of turkeys and a national obsession with gluttony that is encouraged and applauded as part of "family values" and "the American way."

In the same way that Christmas exists primarily as a commercial observance of consumerism, Thanksgiving is a commercial observance of gluttony and denial of history.

Especially in light of the profound challenges our society faces now, why not encourage alternative ways, more questioning and aware, of looking at these customary holidays? Thank you.

Schwebel's Bakery Withdraws from Ringling Brothers

Schwebel's Bakery Company based in Youngtown Ohio has withdrawn its agreement to provide customers with discounted tickets to Ringling Brothers Circus after they began receiving messages about the circus's cruelty to animals, especially elephants. I have written a Thank You to the company for their compassionate, brave and enlightened change of mind.

Update on elephants - Ringling Bros

PETA asked for letters to Schwebel's Bakery which has offered discount tickets for the circus to its customers. I wrote: "I'm sure you at Schwebel's entered innocently into your arrangement with Ringling Brothers Circus. Please Hear the the voices that are now telling the truth about the circus's documented cruelty to elephants. Ask yourselves why the circus elephants wear such elaborate ornamented tapestry around their heads and necks -- it is to hide the wounds and scars from being beaten and jabbed with bull hooks. Of course the public relations campaigns about "The friendly circus" have been successful and have become a part of accepted myth in our society. But one of the good things about our society is that we can change when we learn a truth about cruelty that has been hidden from us."

News - Ringling Bros just had to cancel its scheduled appearances in Spain and parts of Germany because of new laws about animal cruelty.

Kill All The Rats?

A friend concerned about seeing rats in the parks of Boston at night asked if I knew about the poisoning policy. I replied that I know poison is put out with some frequency. My email discussion: "I think they have to strike a balance between having a dangerous amount of poison continuously present in public areas (danger to humans, children and pets) and putting out enough to try to control the rats. It is an extremely difficult problem because construction never stops in Boston and therefore displacement of mice and rats doesn't stop.

"A former commercial exterminator whom I happened to meet last week said he was called to Bay Village when the Big Dig got underway. There he found thousands of quite beautiful and sociable rats of a type no one seemingly had encountered before. Displaced by the massive dig, these creatures seemed to have rarely -- if ever -- encountered humans and went right up to them. He said they had reddish golden brown fur like cats and in general were sociable and sweet-tempered animals. Because of their lack of fear it was easy to kill them, he said. Nevertheless it was a massive effort -- perhaps even an extinction for that kind.

I am sympathetic with people who get upset upon seeing a mouse or a rat -- the typical "eek" scream -- although I am also aware that deeply-entrenched cultural repulsion is based on incorrect data fearfully impressed on them when they were children. It's a generational and favorite fallacy that rats caused the bubonic plague. Not so. The plague resulted from human-fecal-contaminated water in the streams. Perhaps it would bring a bit more equilibrium to society if humans who get very terrorized about the idea or the presence of rats could be re-educated.

Animals do live in the city and in the world with us. Trying to kill all the mice and rats in a city is a bit like trying to kill all the squirrels or pigeons or seagulls -- the desire to do so is perhaps understandable but there are deep, nuanced and little-understood consequences about declaring any area of the planet a "human only" zone.

When I see my friends or others scream in panic upon seeing a mouse or rat, I try to calm them down and then see if they possibly might be receptive to unlearning a cultural bias based on a prevalent misconception, probably so powerful because of fear of death. To see a rat and think "death" is no more fact-based than to see a pigeon and think "death."

Non-human animals are often judged as dirty, brutal, disease-carrying and worse. Could we once in a while give a few seconds of thought to the idea that those words -- with emphasis on disease-carrying -- could apply quite handily to "human" animals?

World Cup Football wants to sacrifice animals

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) plans to sacrifice 10 animals to "bless" the world cup. I wrote them:

There are good reasons why modern humans do not copy the more brutish practices of our forebears. Do you realize how close "animal" sacrifice is to human sacrifice? In today's world humans can choose mortal sacrifice for themselves -- and even that is against the law in most countries. Who are you to decide to copy this atavistic and horrible custom by choosing "animals" to die? Shocking and ugly. This brings despair to those who are trying to evolve into the humans we have the capacity to be.