OFF WITH THE GLOVES!

Oh, how remote the mighty among us! I got a little bit of this when I was doing Public Affairs in the federal government of Canada, where messages were carefully constructed to be as clear and as ambiguous as the occasion demanded. But even there, the messages concerned people who were in their position by the grace of the people, who could voice their displeasure at the next election.

Then there are those who are insulated from the sordid world around them by their vast monetary holdings, like rows upon rows upon rows of Teflon shields that serve their purpose of keeping the protectee lily-white. The rich are different because of this, because protection can be bought so that precious little will adhere. A case in point: the Mayor of New York City, one Michael Bloomberg, net worth $18.1 billion in 2011, the thirteenth richest American.

$18,100, 000,000.00 just for perspective which - as one might imagine - can be fairly skewed from such august heights. Especially in the land of filthy lucre, whose entire goal and purpose appear to be for one to make as much money as possible, by hook or crook. Crooks such as Bernie Madoff really only incited the wrath of the public once his illegal schemes had been unmasked; before that, it seems, everyone loved Bernie.

The Mayor of New York City's web pages state that the Mayor's Alliance has as its admirable goal the elimination of kill shelters - animal shelters that kill their captives if they fail to be adopted in very short order. Even the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals kicked in one million dollars a year and a bit ago - April, 2010. Its news release, however, was very carefully worded: "to end the killing of healthy and treatable cats and dogs" that populate the wretched shelters run by Animal Care and Control.

And here I always thought that a healthy newborn kitten was an admirable creature to protect until it was adopted out to a loving family.

Bet you didn't think that you would ever see a picture such as this:

Yes. This is a healthy mum with her little clutch of kittens. In a cage. A cage so small that she cannot raise her head. So small there is no room for food or water.

A cage, moreover, that sits on the floor with the rest of the garbage. (Photo courtesy of Urgent Part 2, a division of urgentdeathrowdogs.com)

Don't feel too bad about them. They were all euthanized. They are feeling no more pain. And just so you know, this picture has been up on Facebook for many days and nobody from ACC has contradicted the descriptions of the cage, the location, or the cats' health.

I sent the mayor a message about this - as a matter of fact, I have sent a few to him of late, all about the sad state of cats in his fair city. I sent one on 8 August 2011 about a cat whose hind legs were both badly broken and who, according to the ACC report alongside, was of NO CONCERN! but don't worry. He was euthanized.

On 11 August I sent the mayor another message, this one about a badly injured cat who sat, in her pain, with bleeding open wounds. He didn't reply about that one either. But not to worry. The cat was euthanized.

On 17 August I sent another message - this one about the cat and kittens so woefully depicted above. What did Gandhi say? - oh yes, a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

Not so great, are we? WE have invited the cat and the dog into our membership for millennia. We ask them to work for us for nothing more than a corner in a barn or a kennel and some food. Many of us never give the cat or the dog their due, never give them love, care properly for them. Some of us have done atrocious things to them whereas most are simply callous, careless, mentally otherwise occupied. And now that there is a devastating recession that won't go away, we cannot muster the moment's thought about the welfare of our animals - many of us have literally tossed them aside or dropped them off at "shelters" such as those execrable miniature concentration camps in New York.

When one spends one's days killing animals one develops a crust of indifference. One no longer sees the life, the love in their eyes, their mute requests for help, their pleas to retain what we all have and about which we care so little - life.

NYC and ACC have gone too far. Today and yesterday they euthanized a kaboodle of healthy kittens one week old. Needless to say I vented my displeasure to the mayor by way of his page, which is located at:


http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

Please. If you think that killing healthy week-old kittens is acceptable, of leaving seriously injured animals without care, of processing so many units in the euth. room day after day is wrong, tell the mayor. He wants to know what you think.

And this will not become a discussion about the merits of human beings in tight financial spots versus expensive-to-maintain animals. This is about one thing only: the inhumanity we accept so easily, as long as someone else is doing it where we can't see.

Boxing glove image courtesy of andrewsrobichaud.com