The Cuckoo's Net

I can go anywhere I want. I can read or watch anything I want. I can listen, I can buy. I can download, cut, paste, burn. I’m talking, of course, about the Internet, also known as “the net,” the giant emporium of multimedia text and images that forms the global playland of young and old alike. But not if the corporate Big Brothers take it over. If that happens, you and I might find ourselves on a slow, three-foot wave surfing kiddy pools while those who are willing to pay more get to shoot the pipeline.

So much for net neutrality, the notion that free speech, capitalism, and democracy are inherently ours to use openly as we wish, without restriction, censorship, or exclusion.

I love the Internet because
But if the corporate conglomerates put their big d___s in the net, animal-rights organizations like PETA could find that web pages containing information about animal cruelty, factory farming, furs, and pharmaceutical and cosmetic testing won’t load, load slowly, or perhaps donors will no longer be able to make online donations. If you want to support an organization, you may have to pay to access their site.

I visited New York City’s Chinatown once, where you could play or watch other people play tic-tac-toe with a chicken. The chicken won every time. She had to. Unless she won, she didn’t eat. Food was her reward for playing. That’s net neutrality folks: you bet, you lose.

YOU, however, can keep the net free, like the good person who freed “Lily” the chicken.

Becoming humane means waking up to personal responsibility. There are no masters, only slaves. Instead of asking, “How can the banks and corporate giants keep getting away with it?” or “How did this war start?” or “Can I trust the media?” become a citizen journalist and free the chicken inside of you. Free other chickens! Peck away at your keyboards, write your elected representatives, refuse to pay higher prices to participate in democracy, refuse to bail out the pigs on Wall Street. Refuse to be caged.

Images from Google images. Cartoon by Peter Steiner, Copyrighted by the New Yorker.

Urban wildlife

A few weeks ago, I read a gardening article in the San Francisco Chronicle that made me shake my head in complete disbelief. You know, the kind of disbelief that ends in WTF?? Anyway, the scenario was this: A lady wrote to ask the columnist how she could "rid" her garden of raccoons and squirrels. The columnist's response was appalling! She should have stuck to roses or weeds. What she said was this: "The raccoon and squirrel population boom you are experiencing is probably due to practices in your neighborhood that are allowing them to multiply more rapidly than usual. Much of the available advice on managing these animals assumes a moderate population, but when the animals are very crowded, the usual advice may not work. What you need to do is try to find out the reasons for the population boom and seek wider help removing them." WTF???

Multiply more rapidly than usual? Does that mean crank them out faster, or crank out more? The reasons for the so-called population boom is that these animals' habitat--normal nesting and feeding areas, has been destroyed. There are more of US and so we see more of "them." Removing "them" does not work.

As a long-time wildlife rehabilitator, former veterinary technician, and head of a large humane society's humane education programs, I am frequently surprised at how little people know about other animals, both domestic and wild. I say "other" animals because humans are also animals. This blog will be about our kinship with other animal species, about the myths and bullshit that have been and continue to be propagated to justify "removing" (a euphemism for killing) them, and I will offer tips for caring for our in-home or urban furry and feathered friends.

Myth buster #1: squirrels and other rodents almost NEVER have or transmit rabies. Want to know why? Stay tuned.