Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.John F. Kennedy

January 2012

  • One For The Animals

    Florida, Colorado and Arizona are proposing an online registry for animal abusers and the director of legislative affairs for The Animal Legal Defense Fund expect similar proposals in several other states. Suffolk County on Long Island created a registry in 2010 which is only now about to go up and other New York counties have followed. In the Suffolk registry abusers will appear for five years, and failure to register may lead to up to a year in jail. The issue in many of the proposals is not whether or not there ought to be a registry, but the terms and conditions under which it would operate. In Florida the proposal includes a $50 yearly fee to fund it and to be paid by the abuser. As is the case for sex offenders registries, names, pictures and addresses would be posted.
    I have strong reservations about such public registries and their unintended consequences leading to offenders disappearing or being unable to find housing and employment. While my reservations extend to animal abusers, the idea of registries elevates the crime of abusing animals and that’s definitely to the good of all.

  • Rising From The Ashes

    The Auschwitz Memorial Museum has just published sketches which were done by a prisoner at the Birkenau extermination camp somewhere around 1943-44. The sketches are very precise including the badge number of guards or numbered plates of trucks. The scenes they depict are heart wrenching like children being separated from their parents, guards smoking near the crematoria or bodies being loaded onto a truck.
    The 22 pages of drawings had been hidden in a bottle and are part of a Polish-English publication launched by the Auschwitz Archives, and are part of a commemorative project being undertaken by the museum. What is poignant is not the scenes or the details which by now are known, but that out of the daily horrors of an extermination camp someone with the initials MM used art as a language. He or she clearly wanted to communicate the details of everyday life in the camp, but perhaps more importantly let us know that life can rise from ashes, hope from despair, beauty from horror.

  • Another Look at Termites

    Our culture doesn’t like termites. We associate them with being destructive and exterminate them. As much as our attitude is based in reality, compared to what they’re beginning to do with termites in Africa, it may reflect a certain bias. Termites, as well as ants, are used to improve crop yield. Given the one billion hungry people in the world, finding any way to increase crop production is a big boon. Recent research at the University of Sydney reveals that by digging tunnels termites and ants irrigate the soil and allow plants greater access to water. In many arid areas of Africa, that is being shown to make a big difference making soils more fertile and productive.
    Maybe we can now look at termites without shudders and fears.

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