Ronnie on Politics

Every year thousands more are born. We bring them home and smother them with love and attention. We buy them their favorite foods and little toys to play with.

When they grow up, many of them will take on important jobs at institutions such as hospitals, and nursing homes, while others will take on more dangerous jobs with police departments and the military. Some will even find themselves in prison.

While many will stay at home, and live pampered lives, even more will find themselves homeless, roaming the streets in search of food and shelter.

No, I’m not talking about our children; I’m talking about our pets.

Today I am going to write about the many uses we have for pets in our society and the way in which we treat them.

The origin of domesticated cats and dogs, or pets as they are more commonly called today, remains unknown.

One theory of how cats were domesticated is that cats may have started the process of domestication without the help of people. Cats might have acted as four legged mousetraps around farms and in the storage grain bins around settlements. If the cats only killed the pests and did not try to attack people then the people might have decided to let the cats hunt in their storage areas.

We do know that cats were kept as pets in Ancient Egypt around 2,00 BC. So they have been around for a long time.

The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, about 10,000 years ago. It is widely believed that dogs are descendants of either a wild dog, or a smaller wolf species, which are now extinct.

Regardless of how or when dogs and cats were domesticated, one fact we do know is that, pet ownership plays a very important part in our daily lives.

According to a survey conducted by the American Pet Products Manufacturing Association in 1999:

• There are approximately 62,400,000 owned dogs in the United States.


• There are approximately 64,250,000 owned cats in the United States.

There are many ways that our society benefits from pet ownership.

They fulfill a basic human desire by offering unconditional love and affection. Who among us has not heard the phrase, puppy love?

They make us feel needed and important by their dependence on us. They provide friendship and companionship when we are lonely.

Best of all, our little animal friends can help us stay healthy and happy.

Petting an animal is a rhythmic, repetitive activity that has a meditative effect on us.

When I was a Drill Sergeant in the Military, I keep a fish tank behind my desk. When I felt myself getting stressed out I would turn around in my chair and watch the little fish swim around. It had a very calming effect on me.

Pets provide many other useful purposes in our society.

Seeing Eye Dogs are used to lead the blind.

Canine Search and Rescue teams use dogs during times of disaster to search for survivors.

Police K9 units use dogs to search for explosives, control crowds, and to track, and subdue criminals.

However, all is not well in the world of pet ownership.

As a nation, we claim to love cats and dogs. Millions of households have pets and spend billions of dollars a year on pet supplies and food. But as a nation, we should also be ashamed that another statistic runs into the millions each year.

According to the Humane Society of the United States:

• There are over 8 million cats and dogs entering shelters each year.


• Over 4 million of them are euthanized by the shelters.

The problem is simple: we have too many dogs and cats. We throw away pets as if they were just garbage. The most common solution to this problem is to kill the extras or the unwanted. This solution has been considered acceptable, as though there were no other way to control the crisis. And we spend over $1 billion dollars every year destroying “mans best friend.” To many this is known as the “Hidden holocaust”.

For many of the animals the nightmare doesn’t end at the local animal shelter. Many city’s and counties have pound seizure ordinances. If an animal is not claimed by its owner or adopted within five days, the shelter is required by law to turn the animals over to laboratories for experimentation.

And where do you think that little doggie in the pet store window comes from?

The vast majority of dogs sold in pet shops, up to half a million a year, are raised in “puppy mills,” which are breeding kennels located mostly in the Midwest. They are notorious for their cramped, crude, and filthy conditions and their continuous breeding of unhealthy and hard-to socialize animals.

Between unsanitary conditions at puppy mills and poor treatment in transport, only half of the dogs bred at mills survive to make it to market.

By not spending money for proper food, housing, or veterinary care, the breeders, brokers, and pet shops ensure maximum profits.

Cat breeding occurs on a smaller scale, but under similar conditions.

Many cat owners allow their cats to roam free. Cats allowed to roam as well as strays are often hit by cars or die from disease, starvation, poisons, attacks by other animals, or mistreatment by humans. Free-roaming and stray cats also prey on small mammals, songbirds, and other wildlife.

There is one other very serious problem concerning pet ownership. And that’s dog attacks.

According to a report issued by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention: From 1979 through 1994, attacks by dogs resulted in 279 deaths of humans in the United States.

As you can see we have many uses for pets. However people need to understand that these animals are not just possessions or products to be bought, sold, or tossed out when you get tired of them.

These animals have emotions, feelings, and can feel pain in much the same way as you and I.

We do not really own these animals. They are our companions.

Today I did something that I haven’t done in a few years. I spent twenty minutes sitting on a stool in my back yard staring at a patch of ground one square foot in size.
The soil in this small patch of earth is dark gray in color and is made up of millions of tiny grains of sand and other small pieces of organic matter. The organic matter is a darker color than the sand and is in the form of many irregular shapes, unlike the grains of sand which appear to the naked eye to be round.

In the middle of this patch is an ant hill. Not a very big one but an interesting one anyway. The sand that makes up the ant hill is a lighter color than the surrounding dirt. It appears to be composed completely of grains of sand that the little ants have piled up, without any of the organic matter. I wonder what they do with the organic matter. The ant hill is not cone shaped like many of the hills I’ve seen before. It’s shaped more like a crescent with a hole in the middle. There are about a dozen ants, dull orange in color and about one quarter inch in length, working around the ant hill. Some of them are carrying out bits of sand while others are carrying in what looks to me like some kind of seeds.

There are many leaves, from an old live oak tree, scattered around the ant hill. These leaves are long and oval shaped. The top side is a nice brown color with an underside that looks tan. The leaves have dark brown veins running through them. As I sit and watch, mother nature adds a few more leaves to my “one square foot.”

One of the local cats stopped and wanted a little attention from me. She flicked her tail back and forth across the ant hill smoothing it out. Lot’s of ants are coming out of the hill now. I bet those ants are mad as hell. I don’t think I’ll stick around to find out.

I enjoyed the time I spent watching this small patch of ground. It’s not often I slow down and take the time to really look at the wonders of the natural world. Perhaps I should do this more often.

Note: I wrote this last year but missplaced it, along with several other essays, but better late than never.

I'm a strong supporter of our troops, having spent 20 years in the Infantry, but fighting for oil and fighting for our freedom are two different things.  Bush's invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with our freedom, weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism.

Why did the US go to war in Iraq?  We know that there were no WMDs, (perhaps that shows the sanctions and inspections were working).   We know that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11.  In fact secular Hussein and radical Islamist Bin Laden were enemies.  Bin Laden had wanted to overthrow Hussein.  We were then presented with the reason of liberating the Iraqi people.  Hussein was still a brutal dictator, but his genocide and many of his killings ended 10 years ago, when sanctions and inspectors started doing their work.  In ‘liberating the Iraqi people’ we have bombed innocent civilians and destroyed infrastructure.
 
Colin Powell had argued that no troops should be committed without specific objectives, a clear and achievable definition of victory, a clear exit strategy, and open-ended commitments should not be used.  He has pointed out that none of these are present in this war.
 
So Bush went to the UN Security Council with false information and asked for their help, but he knew that the US would go to war whether they had support or not.  While he sought help from other countries, he refused to relinquish control over the shaping of Iraq’s military, political and economic future.  This was the main reason the UN Security Council decided not to participate.  His refusal to relinquish control made other countries believe that the US was invading Iraq not for any of the reasons given, but for what the US would gain after the war.  By the US keeping sole control of Iraq  meant that the Iraqi economy would be controlled by US corporations, the US would control the political structure to suit economic and strategic interests, there would be US military bases in Iraq to enhance US power in the Middle East, an enemy of Israel would be eliminated, reconstruction profits would go to US corporations, like Halliburton, the US would have control over the second largest oil supply in the world, with refining and marketing profits to go to US & British corporations.  This is not a war of liberation, or against Al Queada. 
 
Hunting down and killing every single terrorist on the planet is not a feasible argument.  What is Bush saying: that one day, because of him, there will never, ever be another terrorist?  While the world was behind the US after 9/11, and believed that invading Afghanistan was just, invading Iraq was not a just war and has bred even more terrorists, and they are not all in Iraq. 
 
Islam is the largest and fastest growing religion in the world.  And a growing number of Islamists are becoming fundamentalist and radical.  Hunting them down and killing them once they have already become terrorists will be a never ending battle, expensive and inefficient.  The way to deal with terrorism is to deal with it on all levels.  Yes we need to hunt them down, we also need to infiltrate their organizations, and we need to work with moderate nonviolent Islam clerics, leaders and teachers.  We need to help Islam change the mindset of the mostly young men from mostly poor and hopeless situations who become terrorists.

I’m retired from military service now but If I were still in the military today, and knowing what we know now, I would refuse to fight.

Americans seem to really enjoy eating their beef. It makes your mouth water just thinking about that thick juicy steak cooking over a bead of coals or that big double bacon, cheese burger from McDonalds. Even though most Americans consume beef, many of them might give it up if they knew the horrors that cattle endure at the slaughterhouse.

Cattle arrive at the slaughterhouse tightly packed in large trucks. Many are old, worn out cattle like spent dairy cows. A lot of them, due to disease and injury, die in the trucks during transport and many more arrive too sick to walk off the truck on their own. These cows are called downers. To remove the downers from the truck, slaughterhouse employees attach one end of a chain around the cow’s ankle, and the other to the loading dock, and the truck is driven out from under the cow allowing the cow’s body to slam to the pavement.

Those that are able to walk are herded down a long corridor to the waiting chute, many being shocked along the way, by men with electric cattle prods. The downers are dragged there with a hoist using a chain wrapped around their ankle. At this point the cows are beginning to get nervous and anxious, unsure of what’s happening to them, unaware of what is taking place on the other side of the large steel doors that lead into the killing station. The killing station is where the knocker renders the cows unconscious with an air gun, that drives a three-inch-long, solid-steel rod into the animal’s brain.

Once the knocker is ready, the doors to the killing station are swung open and several of the frightened cows are forced through the doorway and into a narrow stall, nose to tail. By now the cows can smell the blood and see his or her former companions in various stages of dismemberment. They begin to thrash about wildly in the confines of the stall. The knocker moves quickly from animal to animal, stunning them with his air gun.

After the animals are stunned, the side of the stall is raised, and a chain is secured to the cow’s right hind leg and he or she is hoisted up and passed on to the sticker. It’s the sticker that slits the animal’s throat allowing the animal to bleed to death. Sometimes the knocker is unable to knock the entire group of cows unconscious, leaving some of them kicking about wildly, making it impossible for the sticker to slit their throat correctly. Many of them leave the kill station dazed but still aware of what’s happening to them.

Next the cows, including those still alive, are sent to the disassembly station. Here the cows have their heads removed, are skinned, and the headless animal is dropped to the floor. Then the feet are removed and the body is slit down the middle, and the hide is peeled away. A yoke is then hooked to the stumps of the hind legs, and the body is lifted, gutted, and sawed in half.
And finally, the “sides of beef” are sprayed down with water to wash away some of the filth and reduced to parts, by blood-drenched butchers, for the supermarket and your dining room table.

It’s a horrible price the cows must pay in order for us to enjoy our beef. Perhaps the next time you’re shopping at the grocery store you’ll pass on that bloody red steak and opt to eat more veggies instead.

We’ve all seen the photos of skeletal Ethiopians, especially children, with sunken faces and painfully thin bodies, in the newspapers or on the evening news. At least eight million Ethiopians are likely to suffer hunger or starvation this year, a crisis that could rival the 1984 famine that killed at least a million people. This is the nations fifth famine in the last 30 years. There were three basic factors that caused this famine: a nation wide drought, wide spread poverty, and a war between Ethiopia and its neighbor Eritrea.

Drought is the chief cause of famine in Ethiopia and has devastated the country every decade or so for the past 100 years. The failure of rains over the past three to four years has lead to the most recent famine. Some aid experts suspect Ethiopia’s droughts are coming more frequently, and perhaps more intensely. A review of regional climate data indicates that some changes are taking place with the climate. The most commonly held belief is that El Nino and La Nina are the cause of these droughts while others blame Global Warming. No matter what the cause, the results are the same. Crops have withered and died, leaving millions of people with little or no food. There are reports of increasing deaths of cattle due to water shortages and lack of pasture. Once the cattle and crops are gone, the people are not only left with little or no food, but also with no means of income.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Half of its growing population, which doubled its size since the 1984 famine to over 50 million inhabitants, lives in poverty. On average the family income is $130 per year with most of the population depending on their crops for food. During periods of drought, when crops are ruined, many people starve because they lack the money to purchase food. During the 1980's about one million Ethiopians, including many children, died from starvation. Although massive aid programs are under way, even those receiving aid are getting so little that many have turned to drastic measures to survive, such as eating roots, or selling goats and chickens that are their only long-term dependable source of food. The aid that has arrived may have come to late for the most severely effected people.

We may never know how many Ethiopians starved while waiting for food to arrive from international relief agencies. Relief shipments were severely hampered because the Ethiopian government refused to allow aid to be shipped through the ports of its enemy, Eritrea, after a border war broke out in May 1998. This war was fought over a sparsely populated plain around the village of Badme. Both countries insist Badme falls on their side of the geographically invisible borderline, and they appear willing to commit tens of thousands of lives as well as millions of dollars to win the argument. It was pressure from many international aid agencies that finally brought the war to an end on May 25, 2000, and opened the Eritrea ports for food deliveries. These agencies, along with many nations, also argued that if Ethiopia had not engaged in a war with its neighbor, it could afford to purchase more food imports to feed its starving people and would not need the full 836,800 tons of food aid it had requested.

So far, estimates of famine-related dead in Ethiopia range from the hundreds to the low thousands, chiefly among nomadic herders. No one knows what the final body count will be. Even though the famine was caused by a natural disaster it was intensified by wide spread poverty and war. Emergency aid is flooding into Ethiopia from all over the world; it may not be enough to stop this cycle of death. Action must be taken to prevent famine before it happens. Ethiopia’s foreign debt amounts to more than $10,000 million, more than ten times the value of its exports. Perhaps it’s time to forgive this debt and give Ethiopia the economic boost it so desperately needs to carry itself through times of severe drought.

How you can help: http://www.savethechildren.org/emergencies/africa/east_africa.asp