On May 28, 2010, at 8:17 AM, My friend Len Frenkel wrote:
AN UNTRADITIONAL MEMORIAL DAY
Please allow me to express some ideas about Memorial Day that go beyond the traditional. Of course I honor those men and women who have given their time, their bodies, their lives for the betterment of this country or the salvation of another. I honor those unfortunate innocent civilians caught in the crossfire who have lost their homes, their belongings, their lives.
But I also honor those living things and beings, innocent of any crime, who have also lost their place, lost their right to exist in peace, or lost their lives after brutal treatment by humans. I refer to trees cut down, needlessly; to fish corralled in nets by the zillions, needlessly; to mammals that undergo painful testing, needlessly; to animals in circuses and zoos forced to perform unnatural acts or live in constrained spaces, needlessly; to the billions of chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys, sheep and goats that are confined and brutalized for their short lives so that we can eat them, needlessly.
That’s what my Memorial Day is about, and it is a profoundly sad one. When will humans learn to cohabit with other life forms rather than treat them as property to be used for selfish purposes?
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