Groups like the ALF and ELF have the courage of their convictions. More than I can say about a “radical” like yourself (or myself, for that matter.)

It’s one thing to not care enough to act yourself; it’s another to celebrate the imprisonment and persecution of people who do care enough to act.

The reports of the behavior of the participants and happy observers is proof that the sickness goes way deeper than some particular administration or issue. It’s endemic and systemic sociopathy.

But there are worse abuses than this; rich scumbags all over the world pay big money to kill lions, tigers and other amazing animals in “canned hunts.” They’re beneath contempt.

And HR, most animal rights activists are as pissed off as you are about the crimes of the Bush Administration, the military and the government.

Damaged Animals

1.

The first time I remember that I saw my father cry was when we were living on a small ranch in the south-central Texas hill country, when I was seven or eight. There was a pond about half a mile from the ranch house where my father and his friends shot doves late summer and early autumn evenings. Beside the pond was a raised platform with a roof, and the shooters would stand on the platform in partial concealment, drinking beer, talking, and waiting for the birds to come winging in to water for the night. When someone knocked a bird down into the pond, the dogs raced to retrieve it; and the man whose dog swam back first with a downed bird won a bet, as of course did the man who downed the bird. Across the pond from the platform, there was a telephone pole standing in long grass and weeds.

I’d been begging my father for what seemed like an eternity to let me come to the pond when the men were shooting. He always said no, it would be too dangerous. Then one day he gave me an old 410 shotgun of his, took me out, showed me how to load and unload, aim, and shoot. And he must have told me that the men would hold off shooting until I’d got a bird and gone back to the ranch house.

Which was how I came to be sitting by a pond, in the early evening of a hot September day, in long grass by a telephone pole waiting for a dove to land on a wire. But I had buck fever and missed the first two birds, just sitting there no more than thirty feet from me. To the great amusement and guffaws of the men across the pond. I had better luck with the third dove and knocked it off the wire. It fluttered down into the grass where I found it immediately, not dead but alive and looking me directly in the eye. Its head and neck were beautiful and incredibly graceful, its coloring an astonishing grey. I called out, “Dad, he isn’t dead.” He said, “That’s all right, son. Pick him up and pull his head off.”

At first I simply did not believe my dad had said that. But I realized he did say it when he repeated with implacable and irrefutable adult logic: “The bird is suffering, son, pick it up and pull its head off.” So I picked the bird up. And I said, “I can’t, Dad.” I could tell dad’s anger was rising, and this put me on the edge of tears. He said, “Pull the goddam bird’s head off, G.L., or you’re going back to the house.” In tears now, I repeated that I couldn’t. “Pull the bird’s head off, and put it out of its misery, or you’re going back to the house and you’re not coming back to shoot with the men.” By this time my face was crimson with tears and shame and the only thing I could hear or see was a noise inside my head. I stood underneath the wires with the dove in my hand, bawling. Then I was running back to the ranch house.

I’m sure my mother and sister must have consoled me when I got back to the house, but I don’t remember. The first thing I do remember was dad coming into my bedroom hours later, and he was crying. He told me he was sorry for getting angry with me. How he could understand why I didn’t want to pull the bird’s head off. And that when I got used to pulling the heads off sparrows that I knocked out of trees with my BB gun, I could come back to the pond and shoot with the men.

- GL Rowsey

What diseases do pigeons carry and what’s the alternative and cost of that alternative to exterminating them?

As far as the “pigeons”, actually rock doves, go, if ALL of them in North America disappeared overnight, it would be fine with me. Incidentally, pheasant aren’t native either, nor are Hungarian partridges, or chukar partridges.

I just get livid over these animal rights nut cases. Wonder how many of them have called the scum who supposedly represent them in “congress” traitors for destroying the Constitution and accomplices in war crimes for continuing to fund the war. Do these foks give a damn that our military, for which we are responsible, has murdered over a million civilian humans in Iraq? Do they care that we murdered over 3 million in the Vietnam war? Do they use medicine when they are ill?

Folks, there are REAL problems in the world.