Never Assume Anything About Your Friends

In the unending quest to find a kindred animal rights soul amongst my current friends, I ventured into animal testing territory with three friends over lunch this week (two guys and a woman). One guy I already knew was pretty hopeless (as he always eats some au jus sandwich). But I had hopes for the other two because they both started up the lunch talking about how they both bawled over that book Marley and Me. (It's about a dog and his family and it was made into a movie with Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson) The woman is a huge animal lover too who has five rescued horses and about four dogs.

So it was weird when we got on the subject of health care reform and pharmaceuticals. It was a natural progression for me to talk about how drug companies are basically out for profit, not to save people. Most of their testing is repetitive, useless, and/or designed to create clones of drugs whose patents are about to run out. I raised the example of how I thought there would be alternatives to animal testing by now if there would be profit involved. There's just no profit motive to encourage innovation.

Not a word from the woman. She is usually so passionate about these things, but nada. All I can think of is that her husband is a trauma nurse and maybe they've had this conversation before. Or maybe she disagrees with me. My male friend agreed, but chose to focus on the drug companies' business practices themselves for the rest of the conversation.

Oh, well. At least I tried....but, really, they cry over Marley and Me but not the real animal tragedies out there. Brother.

Tales from the Trenches: "We Have Conquered Nature"

As I was about to leave the office today, I could hear two of my male coworkers having some serious discussion about something "deep." I don't know what it was about exactly, but I had a feeling that I'd better stay out of it.

But I did overhear this comment from the younger one..."we have conquered nature, at least for now."

That's when I turned up my ipod. That was a conversation that I really needed to stay out of.

But I can't stop thinking about it. We have conquered nature? Are you kidding me?

First of all, clearly my coworker, who is a 28-year-old proud slacker male, does not have a yard to care for. Believe me, pavement is NOT forever. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to keep pulling up all those darn dandelions and grasses that keep breaking up and through concrete and brick. I don't know how it happens, but you can't keep them down. That's pretty impressive (and annoying!)

But seriously, I don't believe we've conquered nature at all. But we are so arrogant that we actually think we have. Or at least we think we can "manage" it. We have done so much to control and castrate the wildness of our land that we believe we are its masters. Not true. The wildness and danger are still there.

Why do I believe we have NOT conquered nature? Here are a few reasons.

1. We are not immortal. We can still die. That is the greatest natural process of all.

2. Earthquakes can still kill hundreds of thousands.

3. Hurricanes can still decimate cities.

4. Houses built on "controlled" flood plains are still flooded.

5. Viruses and bacteria are developing new strains that are resistant to previously effective drugs. Case in point is the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis that is rampant in developing countries. I thought we'd conquered that right?

I would highly recommend Jared Diamond's book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Many other cultures and civilizations have assumed that they too were the masters of the land and the supreme being. But ultimately, nature conquered them because they took their environment and their place in it for granted.

We haven't conquered anything.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

So, I belong to this book group of 5 to 7 women. I've been with the group for a while and it's not bad. I do enjoy reading books and discussing them, but I have a quandary that I'm going to post about.

There is one member of this group who works for a pharmaceutical company. She is the "science" one and likes to call herself an "independent" on the political landscape. She is a practicing Catholic. That's all fine, except for one thing.

She supports medical research on animals.

Here are the two incidents I just CANNOT get out of my head.

1. We had a discussion about Lucy Grealey's "Autobiography of a Face." One scene has the author entering the part of the hospital where the research animals are. There are awful descriptions about what is being done to them. I was the only person who remembered the scene and brought it up. This woman, who I now mentally call "THE VIVISECTOR," defended medical research. She said that there were guidelines on how to treat animals and that, in medical ethics, they are considered "sacrifices." She then said, "I think people are more important than animals."

2. She recommended a book for me to read called Angelica by Arthur Phillips. It's a good book, much like the Turn of the Screw. But the scientist husband is a vivisector back in the 19th century. The descriptions of the research subjects are very roundabout, but still horrific to me. This woman said that those scenes didn't really bother her that much, it was the ghost and sexual implications in the story that disturbed her (latter relating to the human characters of course.) Which surprised me. It didn't affect you AT ALL?

So, fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. My question though is whether I want to be in a book club with someone like that.

I went to someone's house and found out that a friend of theirs works for the University of Washington Primate Center, a horrific place with a TERRIBLE reputation for treatment of animal subjects. When I mentioned my surprise to my friend about this guy, she said that I handled it very "maturely." What did that mean? That I kept my mouth shut and smiled (which is what I did.) What if I had said something? I would have been the "immature" one at fault?

I've been dwelling on these issues for about a year and they fester and fester. Should I really spend time with people who disagree with me so profoundly on an issue that touches me to the core? Or am I being unfair and "immature" to be expecting everyone to agree with me.

Just cannot decide.

Tales from the Animal Rights Trenches 1.3

I've been completing a Cost Accounting class and haven't had much time for blogging. Thanks to Mr. Barky for picking up the slack.

On some days when I could have blogged, I discovered that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I just couldn't bring myself to look for a story about animals. The prospect was just too depressing at that moment.

Now, I know that I could just post something happy or maybe a cute picture. But then I feel like that just doesn't seem *substantive* enough. And if I did that every time I didn't want to post about animals, we might as well have a slide show of hamster pictures.

There aren't that many blogs by private citizens about animal issues. Most of the blogs are by large organizations and their paid staff. It's tough to do this on a volunteer basis because the subject matter is so intense. You don't realize how much bad news is out there until you actually start looking for it. It's all over the place, although you may not see it in your particular news outlet.

This is a whiny post I suppose, but it's not meant to be. It was just an observation about myself and also a real eye-opener about those people who actually work on these issues every day in their jobs. If I get depressed from just reading the news each day, I really have to admire the people who live with it and work on it every day.

Tales from the Animal Rights Trenches, 1.2

Last month we posted about the coyote in Discovery Park, Seattle. The park is about 500 acres of urban forest on the western edge of Seattle. There is a limited amount of private housing there and there are residential streets outlining the edges of the park.

A coyote killed a couple of cats and was seen approaching porches. There was a panicked outcry and, first, traps were set out to trap and kill the coyote. Then, a USDA guy came out to kill it with a rifle.

More outcry followed.

Finally, the City of Seattle stepped in and settled things down. With several partner groups, it held a "Living with Wildlife" workshop for the neighborhood. Because we live near the park, we got an invite too. So we went!

The meeting was very well run. Here were the represented groups, all with tables and information: Seattle Parks and Recreation, Washington Fish and Wildlife, Woodland Park Zoo, Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), and the Seattle Animal Shelter. I saw plenty of board members from Friends of Discovery Park too.

The meeting was effective because there was one presentation with a slide show....and then, instead of opening up the meeting to a shout fest (believe me, I was ready for it!), the meeting was disbursed for citizens to approach the represented groups for one-on-one talks about concerns. Brilliant, really. It diffused what could have been an angry confrontation into opportunities for real conversations and education.

There were a couple of people there ready to call for this coyote's death. One woman interrupted the presenter THREE times because two of her cats were presumably killed by the coyote. She was quite irate when he suggested she keep them INDOORS!

Another man sitting next to me said his wife was concerned about their three-old daughter. Obviously, this child is left alone in an urban forest where mentally ill and homeless people sometimes wander. But it's the COYOTE that is dangerous. My husband had to pull me away from that one.

Because we complain so much on this blog (for good reason!) I wanted to point this out as a good meeting, strategically planned for maximum effectiveness. As for the coyote, he (or she) is exhibiting normal urban wildlife behavior. As long as he doesn't threaten humans, he won't be shot.

Here's hoping we move onto another topic in Discovery Park.

Photo by Hard_Rain.

Tales from the Animal Rights Trenches, 1.1

Yesterday, I had a very distressing encounter at work (note to self: don't take breaks and leave work on time.)

First of all, I was getting ready to leave for the day when a couple of co-workers began a discussion about who was going to become President. No big deal, we had been discussing this before....sort of like who's going to win the Super Bowl.

Then I was foolish enough to ask another co-worker their opinion. It was fine until that co-worker decided to attack global warming as a bunch of lies. Then he said, quite emphatically, that he didn't care if the spotted owl went extinct because that showed that it couldn't adapt and compete so it SHOULD go extinct. Then he got into the issue of the worth of animals. According to him, people are better because "they're people." He said it three times in a row and then admitted that it's because PEOPLE have a spiritual core. He kept attacking me because he wanted me to admit that humans have a special "something" that makes them want to save others, like why else would you save your buddy on the battlefield if it's obviously going to endanger you. According to this gentleman, unless you've actually risked your life to save someone, you can't say a word about humanity and its motivations. You certainly can't say you read about such stuff in a BOOK!

He got all choked up and walked away with tears in his eyes. I later learned that the gentleman was a Vietnam War vet who saw a lot of death on the battlefield. This is what the argument was fundamentally about.

I hate these kinds of encounters. But it underscores what the resistance to animal welfare and species preservation is all about. It's about the individual opponent, their life experiences and their value system.

Is it that our opponents really love the human race or is it because they feel individually threatened by the views that they are here by means of evolution? That they are not "special?" That they are simply very fortunate to be at this end of the evolutionary path and that they are extremely lucky that dinosaurs were wiped out, opening the path for mammalian evolution?

People like this obviously have very deep issues about themselves, but they project it onto an argument on behalf of humanity. No, it's not about humanity, it's about you.

We as humanity are blessed to have higher intelligence so that we can look at ourselves, be critical, and improve our behaviors. We can learn from our mistakes. But if we aren't willing to have the humility to look at ourselves, our impact on the planet, and our impact on animal life, we can never fully understand the context and consequences of the choices we make so we can truly evaluate them.

Finally, the irony of this gentleman's arguments lies in his implied statement that he has no compassion for animals. Where is that special "spiritual core of humanity" that makes you reach out to a helpless being because it's right and not simply in your own interests?

You can't segregate compassion between sexes, races or species. Sorry, it hasn't worked well so far and it won't as we move forward and try to survive.