*Editor’s Note* – I have always referred to the American culture, when it comes to animals, as perverse, for surely it is. Yesterday, I spotted, what has become a common expression of animal perversion within our culture, a woman walking down the street pushing her dog, dressed like a little girl, in a child’s stroller. I remember the first time I saw such a thing. I, and others, thought it very strange. However, today, it’s just a common thing. I turned to my brother and said, “I’m willing to wager that if that woman had children, they didn’t get treated so well.” Perhaps I was being a bit unfair, but hopefully you get my point.

I think Jonah Goldberg hits the perversion nail on the head in his recent article about bear propaganda…as his wife calls it. I might add to his observation that the nonsense isn’t relegated to movies. It’s become an ingrained part of our everyday and it’s sick. Yes, it does tell those of us willing to make an honest evaluation, a great deal about ourselves. But, then again, there are none so blind as he who will not see.

I’m also reminded of a book I read some time ago about Thomas Jefferson – The Young Jefferson – 1743 – 1789, by Claude G. Bowers, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston – 1945. Jefferson spent a great deal of time in Paris, France. His purpose was to find trading partners, as many of those in Great Britain, after the war, were no longer interested in trading with the United States. It was written that Jefferson often employed a certain routine prior to making personal contacts within a village he might be seeking trade with. He would climb to the highest point overlooking the town – often a church steeple. After attempting to get a “sense” of what was before him, he would stroll around the village getting an even greater sense of what the village and the people were about. It is written that if he observed many people about with their dogs,  perhaps not pushing them in strollers, but something equivalent for the period, he refused to enter into business with any representative of the town, declaring them to be of “unreliable character.” Perhaps Jefferson was a more brilliant man than we thought. Certainly an expert on human behavior.

“Many of these movies treat humans as the enemy — cruel, careless despoilers of the environment — while at the same time telling us that the highest compliment we can pay to animals is to assume they’re just like us. These movies tell us virtually nothing about animals but a great deal about ourselves.”<<<Read More>>>