Animal cruelty - creating dialogue about ourselves? (originally posted 8/10/08)

"To be sure, both the care and lack of it that is being directed towards non-human animals is interesting. It raises a lot of questions about how we look at ourselves, much less the aforementioned critters."

Dear friends,

To be sure, both the care and lack of it that is being directed towards non-human animals is interesting. It raises a lot of questions about how we look at ourselves, much less the aforementioned critters. Of course, that means a lot of things. I hope to raise some dialogue about this issue. After all, especially religious institutions have made most people see humans as being apart from nature, when, actually, just like birds and fishes, we are a part OF it (i.e., nature). Consequently, it seems, at least to me, that issues about the abuse of domesticated pets, for example, are very much connected to the same problems that humans experience as a result of our violent sentiments and actions, including personal conflicts as well as international wars....

In recent times, a professional football player, Michael Vick, and his brother were convicted of perpetrating very sick and cruel acts upon some dogs they "owned". Yet, the abuse of dogs like greyhounds, as well as horses, for example, is quite legal and, in fact, proliferates on race tracks, almost everyday, in our country. What distinguishes the cruelty that was delivered by the Vicks from their counterparts at the race tracks just mentioned?

Nevertheless, the author of the article on the link below, Dana DiFilippo of the Philadelphia Daily News, is someone with whom I have connected every now and then, over the past several years. He writes about a variety of topics. However, I had to touch bases with him on this one, not just because it is quite informative, but, as well, it made me reflect upon issues of both violence and the lack of civility that is ingrained in so many citizens in our society. Worse yet, the improprieties are not just directed towards dogs and such, for it seems to spread across the Ocean Sea, as it were, denying other nations their rights to territorial integrity. "What's that all about?", as the jargon goes.

G. Djata Bumpus
Animals 'jailed' for owners' legal woes Philadelphia Daily News 07/31/2008*
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Update on Western media blackout of Exxon/Mobil's cirrent monstrous oil spill in Nigeria

"“The company is acting with impunity because there’s nobody holding them to account. Would they dare do the same thing in Europe or the US?” "


Dear friends,

This is an important point in world history. People from all over Africa are thoroughly in support of the team from Ghana, hoping that that productive African nation will win the World Cup. This is exactly the spirit of Pan-Africanism that Drs. W.E.B. DuBois and Kwame Nkrumah, two of the most recognizable original Black leaders to call for a United States of Africa, would have enjoyed. Now, if we can only get the same enthusiasm between African peoples, on all five peopled continents, to give attention to the horrific oil spills that continue to plague Africa without any notice from the Western media, including the USA with its “black” president.

We now have a great chance to connect, worldwide, with the Internet. Why not put pressure on Exxon/Mobil, a huge North American oil company, so that it is as isolated as BP?

On the link below, our Nigerian brothers and sisters at SaharaReporters.com provide us with an update of the current deadly spill that is spewing oil in the Niger Delta.

Long live African peoples – here and abroad!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/sr-headlines/6394-exxonmobil-nigerian-officials-blamed-for-akwa-ibom-spills.html
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