January 11, 2009 7:22 AM

Doing the right thing...ur doing it right

(thanks to Kyrie O'Connor for this one....)

MY NEW HERO #136: Rescue Ink

A group of tattooed bikers rescued 180 stranded kittens yesterday afternoon, as part of their 'in your face' approach to animal rights activism. They call themselves Rescue Ink. The cats were all living in a single house in Moriches, New York, that is currently facing foreclosure. When the bikers heard about the soon-to-be homeless cats, they rushed to the scene. Today they begin the task of rescuing and rehabilitating the 180 felines, a job that will take about a week.

Over the past few days, my faith in the basic goodness and decency of humanity having been pretty much shattered, it's done my heart some good to learn that there are still people out there who do the right things for the right reasons. Whatever you might think about "bikers",. "motorcycle gangs", or whatever label you happen to want to hand on these folks, anyone who takes it upon themselves to alleviate the suffering of innocent sentient beings is a veritable candidate for sainthood in my book. I'm sorry, but those who mistreat animals occupy the highest level of disdain in my world. To my way of thinking, they're cowards and reprobates, and barely worthy of the fellowship of man.

Were I to be elected King of the World, there would be a lot of things that would change dramatically. At the top of my list of things to change would be eliminating the infliction of senseless and gratuitous cruelty (which, if you think about it, is quite redundant...all cruelty is senseless and gratuitous). The punishment for this crime would be for the miscreant to experience the same manner of suffering that they've dealt. I'd hazard a guess that 'twouldn't be long before this sort of animal cruelty and neglect would become, if not extinct, then certainly less frequent and egregious.

The problem, of course, is that there will always be those misanthropes among us who take pleasure from the infliction of suffering upon other sentient beings. Perhaps it's the feeling of being in control when so much in their life feels as if it's out of their control. Or perhaps they really do possess the corroded morals of Idi Amin. For this reason, I'm grateful for the people of Rescue Ink, who at times like this help me see that humanity is not by definition a bad thing. In fact, there's a lot of good out there; it's just that the imprint of bad is uglier, hurts more, and lasts far longer.

Now if I could just find a way to believe in the rest of humanity....

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 11, 2009 7:22 AM.

Sarah Palin: the gift that keeps on giving...and giving... was the previous entry in this blog.

Yes, they're so precious at that age, aren't they?? is the next entry in this blog.

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