Obama stops Chukchi Sea Oil Drilling

Androcles to President Obama: "Thank you from my heart for stopping the oil drilling proposed in the Chukchi Sea. What you did is another step forward in the evolutionary development of homo sapiens as shepherds of the planet. We must ask in every instance: does this action harm the world of the earth, the world we don't acknowledge, the world of the earth in which we are creatures along with other creatures and wonderful living things beyond the imagination of our most brilliant minds? We will not survive as dominating killers and destroyers. The planet is not to use up and discard. Let us cherish all the life of the earth and the earth itself, our great home of all time, long before and ever since our linage began. Humanity has no other treasure that can compare with the planet.

Killing as entertainment

Comment sent to Animal Planet TV: "Please re-consider both the title and the premise of "River Monsters." In the evolving thought about the planet is it a good thing to label a living creature as a monster and then kill it for show? In war we label "enemies" with negative words and then kill them. A new vision is necessary. These river creatures are not as monstrous as those who kill them. I like Animal Planet and I question using killing as entertainment. The mainstream channels do it; but there is a higher and brighter ground. Please consider the evolving role of humans as shepherds not killers of the world."

Words to Kerry and Brown re Great Ape Bill

I ask you to support the Great Ape Protection Act, to be introduced soon in the Senate. The U.S. needs to evolve into a society which does not use killing and torture as either a routine solution to problems or as "scientific research." Most actual studies reveal that we do not have to torture humans as part of war or non-humans as part of "research."

Millions of federal research dollars are be wasted on the ineffective and unethical "research use" of chimpanzees. I want my tax dollars to be spent on superior methods that include ethical, human-centered studies, in vitro testing, and tissue engineering.

Why is torture in secrecy still part of the America way? Studies show that chimpanzees, intelligent and social, suffer extremely in laboratories from pain, anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Since they are long-lived this can go on for decades as regulations permit them to be kept in cages the size of a kitchen table, placed in isolation, and repeatedly physically harmed.

Tourists Pay to Kill Lions as Trophies

In South Africa some 4,000 trapped lions are shot to death each year by rich tourists. This legal business practice,"Canned Hunting," makes money by breeding lions in captivity. When they are cubs tourists pay to cuddle them. When they grow larger they are locked in fenced areas where they cannot escape tourists who pay to kill them for trophies.

Up to 50,000 Euros is charged for permission to kill and take away the corpse of an adult male lion. From 2006 to 2008 the number of shot lions more than tripled; most of the killed were born in captivity. More of these coward-hunters are expected this year since South Africa hosts the World Cup.

Such practices in regard especially to foxes are permitted as business operations in some American states. The hand-reared foxes are put into fenced areas where pseudo-hunters can kill them, usually by following one of the human-friendly foxes up to a fence barrier and blasting it with an assault rifle. Additional money comes from the luxurious hunting lodges provided for customers.

All of this relates, of course, to the business of whale killing. With technically advanced search devices and military guns those on whaling ships are doing the equivalent of shooting fish in a bucket.

Our species uses the phrase "homo sapiens" to describe itself; maybe a better phrase would be something like homo assassinios. Comes a time...maybe...when -- many generations beyond now -- our descendants will say: "Why did they kill so unceasingly? Why was killing at the heart of their lives?"

Think this over-stated? Almost nothing is more political than eating. Each American eating meat from supermarkets and restaurants participates in the death of more than two thousand animals a year.

Then "civilization" adds in all matter of pseudo-hunters, baby seal killers, whalers, poachers, bushmeat eaters -- hundreds more. One study shows the English language has 85 words relating to killing, including:

ecocide destruction of the entire natural environment
ethnocide destruction of an entire culture
genocide destruction of an entire national, ethnic or religious group
mundicide destruction of the entire world
onmicide destruction of all living things
populicide killing of all people
speciocide killing of a species

To protest canned hunting in South Africa: https://www.secureconnect.at/4pfoten.org/petition/100427/

Obama may permit commercial whaling

As a candidate Barack Obama declared that commercial whaling was “unacceptable.” Now as President, his International Whaling Commission (IWC) delegates are currently backing a plan that would legitimize commercial whaling for the first time in over 20 years.

Greenpeace link: http://us.greenpeace.org/site/DocServer/Photos_to_Save_the_Whales_Toolkit.pdf?docID=521

Androcles wrote Obama: "As a candidate you said commercial whaling was 'unacceptable." Changing your policy on whaling is more than 'unacceptable' -- it's horrifying. The world has moved beyond promoting mass murder of species. I do not want my America to join the nations who pursue such ignorant practices. All of knowledge and all of history stand against mass killings as an acceptable answer to anything in life itself. Stewardship of the earth has to replace 'anything for business.' I plead that you do not go backward. Stand with life, not death. Please."

TEXAS GOVERNOR PRAISES HIMSELF FOR KILL

Texas Governor Rick Perry shot a coyote while walking with his dog, then telephoned the Associated Press to describe his heroism. He used his laser-sighted.380 Ruger pistol because he said the coyote was "staring" at him and dog.

The Republican governor told the AP: "The coyote became mulch."

Wendy Keefover-Ring of WildEarth Guardians said "With all due respect to his manhood, 90-pound women in tennis shoes effectively scare 30-pound coyotes away with a sharp shout." She added that "Rick Perry's fierce attack on a little wild dog doesn't bring to mind the image of a macho gun-slinging Texan on the wild frontier. Sam Houston he is not."

Androcles left a note on the governor's site: "The way you've tried to make yourself into a national hero because you shot a coyote is sad. The intersections between humanity and the "wild" inhabitants of the earth grow ever more indistinct as habitats vanish. I can understand protecting your pet but why shoot and why call the press to brag? Such encounters are a tragedy, brought about entirely by humanity. We have a responsibility as stewards of the earth. The "solution" you espouse -- carry guns and kill animals at will -- is outmoded and marks you as more pitiable and ignorant than brave. A new world is evolving. I am sorry you belong to the destructive past."

Scene (Seen) near Boston's Copley Square

She had a cap of bright white hair in a swinging cut just below her ears. Her smartly-cut jacket in tangerine stopped at her waist to display her black well-cut slacks. Black wedge shoes lifted her about two inches above the ground which was important because she was five-feet tall at the most. Her body was more gently square than curved.

I was watching her out of a taxi window. Here’s the important thing: As striking as she was in general her face revealed her as being in her unsurgically-altered late eighties. But there’s more. She drew my attention because she was crossing in the middle of a block -- Boston style -- and was giving the classic “What” gesture with her shoulders and face to the taxi that had just braked to avoid her. Her upper body gesture with the accompanying facial expression could measure with the best of “street” language. But there’s more. As she made these gestures -- somewhat incongruous in the gorgeous outfit and coming from the small person capped with such a striking haircut -- she was putting a dark (Belgian?) chocolate into her mouth and held another one in her other hand.

She walked on through the next lane of traffic and proceeded with constant energy diagonally across Copley Square, a paved place with a fountain, a few trees, a few flower beds and some sculptures, in front of the Boston Public Garden.

As my taxi moved on I almost told the driver to let me out. I wanted to follow her, maybe talk with her. WHO are you? But the weight of groceries piled into the taxi’s trunk held me snared as my taxi moved on.

Who was she? Her clothing could have cost a lot or could be made up of expensive pieces she’d saved for years. The haircut was both casual and stunning in the way that either costs a lot or maybe was done in a student academy. The chocolates? Who knows?

But there was so much more: the spirit, the mien, the persona, the being that she was. Did I invent her? No, my good imagination is not that good. A fantasy? No, I was sane that day under the blue skies.

If she continued her diagonal path through Copley Square it would lead to the Copley Plaza Hotel with its gilded entry hall, its brilliant chandeliers, its Oak Room bar the most elegant in Boston. Was she staying at that stately hotel after dropping into Logan Airport on her private jet -- a roaming trillionairess who did as she pleased as the years ticked into larger and larger numbers?

Was she a free spirit who would continue on past the Copley Plaza into the deeps of the South End of Boston to her studio apartment where she had lived for decades? The South End with its historic brownstones sprucing farther every week from its polyglot past, some of its artists yet hanging on.

Who ever she was, she was a vision. Maybe an avatar? From the past? From the future? From the slippery now that some of us yearn to inhabit?