First it
was "increase our energy bills or the polar bears will drown!" Then
it was "Raise more state taxes or the lions and tigers will die!"
No one
has been able to explain to me how a polar bear drowns. He wakes up
on the ice shelf, dives into the water to get breakfast, catches one
of the seals that also hang around the ice shelf, and unless miles
of ice vanished completely in the short time he was gone, climbs
back out.
Maybe on
occasion a bear sleeps too long on an ice floe, which floats too far
from the shelf or from land. But has anyone seen an autopsy of a
dead polar bear that proves it drowned?
Polar
bears have survived various Arctic climate changes since they
evolved from grizzly bears; what's different now? I know: the
presence of human beings. Not the ones who drive cars and heat
houses, but the ones who use innocent animals to get their own way
on controversial political issues.
Voters
aren't concerned about the possible inundation of Miami? No problem:
use the animal lovers. If it saves just one polar bear from
drowning, we'll give the Government/Environmental and favored Big
Business lobbies control over our lives forever.
Hey,
think of the baby seals that one bear didn't live to eat then follow
the money: Al Gore and friends are making millions from "global
warming now climate change, whatever." In the latest issue of
Rolling Stone,
Matt Taibbi writes that the proposed cap-and-trade bill will
create "a groundbreaking new commodities bubble" that will "rig the
game" for Goldman Sachs in a "trillion-dollar market".
But
sometimes animals are used for much simpler results. It seems that
whenever there is a fiscal crisis in Massachusetts, we're told that
the Stone and/or Franklin Park Zoo will be closed.
Setting
aside the questions of where in the Constitution it says government
should fund zoos, and whether wild animals belong in cages, many
people who can't afford an African safari enjoy zoos and advocate
for public funding.
Despite
past threats, the zoos are still there, but now we have another
fiscal crisis and apparently a 25 percent increase in the sales tax
isn't enough to cover the non-union monkeys. Last week zoo officials
were threatening to euthanize animals if the Legislature didn't
override Governor Patrick's zoo funding cuts. Fortunately, the
governor put a stop to this manipulative hysteria, promising that
other homes would be found for them if private funding isn't.
That may
be difficult during the national recession, but other homes have
been found for Boston police horses laid off because of city budget
cuts. I wish legislators would amend the state prevailing wage law
so that money could be saved using flagmen instead of paid police
details at construction sites; I'll bet the savings would feed the
police horses and even a giraffe or two!
Voters
had a chance to repeal the prevailing wage law in 1988, and did not.
Even if they suddenly respect voter decisions, legislators could ask
voters if they changed their mind about that law, which increases
government construction costs and is one reason for our budget
deficits.
Legislators don't have to collect signatures, they just take a
majority vote in both branches to place an advisory question on the
statewide ballot. They could do the same thing about the
anti-trapping law, that was passed by initiative petition in 1996. I
voted for it, but wouldn't mind seeing it reconsidered in light of
new information, i.e., all those coyote-eaten cats that we didn't
think about when we were saving beavers.
I'd like
to see last year's dog racing issue back on the statewide ballot
too, placed there by animal-loving legislators who could suspend the
new anti-racing law until voters have a chance to reconsider laying
off all Massachusetts greyhounds.
No one
was deceived about the anti-trapping law; it's just that no one
considered the danger to our pets. But there's a different twist
with the greyhound racing shutdown. Dog owners and trainers have
recently filed a request for a judicial inquest into voter fraud,
citing Grey 2K for deliberately misleading the public with untrue
stories about animal abuse.
I found
proponents' arguments hard to believe so I went to Wonderland to
check out the dogs' living conditions, found them happy and healthy.
Unfortunately, the race track unions concentrated their opposition
campaign on their own jobs and, as with a potentially inundated
Miami, nobody cared.
They
should have realized that Question 3 last November was an animal
issue, to be won by being on the side of the dogs. They should have
shown greyhounds doing what they are born to do, running, racing,
playing with their pack, then resting comfortably in large personal
cages where they were safe and cared for by attentive owners.
Now
these wonderful dogs will be shipped off to racing states that have
fewer protections than ours, or will compete for adoption with
Massachusetts' abandoned pets and strays.
Legislators may restore funding for the zoo animals, but who will
adopt all those extra dogs?