My fellow Americans — I heard or read the Trump sound bite — “These are not people. These are animals.” — several times this week, always with no context to clarify who or what the pronoun “these” refers to. I plan to use that line next time I visit the National Zoo. It’s going to be hilarious. Listeners and readers were invited to apply the broadest possible interpretation, i.e., Trump said immigrants are animals. He was reviled by people who relied on the short, skewed attention span of the American public to avoid facing the regrettable fact that they use the same “dehumanizing” language themselves. This doesn’t work as well as it did before Twitter became an online memory bank for better or worse. For example, here is CNN “journalist” Ana Navarro: Once it became widely known that Trump was referring specifically to MS-13 gang members, Nancy Pelosi and other… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Zoos
Could Falling Into a Gorilla Exhibit Happen to Anyone?
I hope our boy appreciates that his mom and I never let him fall into a gorilla enclosure. He’s 22 now. Anything he falls into going forward is on him. I’m not in the “could have happened to anyone” camp on this. The Cincinnati Zoo has more than 1.2 million visitors per year. Out of tens of millions of visitors, only one has fallen into the gorilla exhibit. A 1 in 10 million occurrence doesn’t fall under the “could have happened to anyone” umbrella in my opinion. Read more →
R.I.P. Knut
It breaks my spirit to see a magnificent animal die in pain in front of all those people. Folks, if you want to see a polar bear, go to the Arctic Circle. Animals aren’t happy in zoos. I know you’re thinking, “But Lightning, you live in captivity and you’re happy.” Even as a house pet, I have more freedom than a zoo animal. My owner takes me on frequent trips to the dog park, where I’m able to exercise my innate dominance of the canine kingdom. I couldn’t live in an enclosure because I wouldn’t be able to be who I am. — Lightning Read more →