Chapter 19: The Value of a Life

Death is a tragic thing. It's all around us - there's just no escaping it. The way we go can sometimes be controlled, whether we smoke or drink ourselves into an irrecoverable state, or we shorten our lives drastically more in order to escape the troubles in life that we might otherwise find to be too hard to cope with. So we live, we love, we die. Sometimes we skip the middle one. But this here and now is about death. Not so much about how or why some people have to die, but rather about the taking of lives.



Recently my neighbor's cat has gone missing. It was an adorable peachy kitten with a pink nose and blue eyes. His name was Oliver and he loved to aggravate Cosmo by coming realll close, pawing (not scratching) then taking back off to the hedge where my dog couldn't reach him. My dog would kind of paw back and bark, but never anything more.



I have an optimistic hope that my new little friend found himself a home with a nice family that was looking for a cat just like Oliver. But it sickens me when I open up the morning paper and read about how kids are facing charges for microwaving a cat to death.



I've been wanting to write about this for months (likely even before it was translated into my 19th chapter of blogs) but the recent accounts of 2 dogs being found in a west Edmonton lake I guess, had finally done it for me. They said the dogs were too decomposed to determine cause of death, yet there is suspicion as to whether gunshots were heard the night the dogs went missing.

Beyond recognition. Beyond recognition? Beyond recognition.

Can you imagine? Someone you love being treated in such a way so that the next time they come around, they are beyond recognition?



Personally, I wouldn't know what I would do to the person that ever hurt my Cosmo. Once at the local store, I practically went postal at a guy for upsetting my dog when he was tied up outside.



So if it's not a pet that dies, it's another human. I suppose I could talk about how we also have the power to kill other lifeforms than human beings including cows, pigs, fish, moose, bears, trees, orchids, ants, wasps etc. By exerting our Power to Kill beyond our own need to survive through eating, we are showing how primitive & ruthless our species truly is and how society celebrates those who can display that much power over its defeated counterpart.



But where to draw the line, hey?

That is sure an amazing 29 pound salmon that I have hung there over the fireplace, but I wonder what god thinks of me for robbing little nemo of a family, or at the very least, a really good healthy member of a thriving fish species?

Screw it! If I didn't kill it, someone else would have!!

Murder? Fish murder. K this IS a joke of a blog. Waste of time.



Yet recently there was a man sentenced to 22 years in prison with no chance of parole after being convicted of a triple homicide (no reference). This, in comparison to a 29 month sentence after a conviction for the lesser charge of manslaughter after an attack on a gay kid in the states. When drunk drivers can be sentenced in terms of months for robbing a family from a son or daughter or brother or sister, there is cause to worry about how much value we really put on life.


But I suppose we have the amazing Canadian Justice System to decide that. Where noone ever falls through the cracks, and the rightfully convicted serve their debts and suffer a loss of freedom, and of course, have to live with what ever they did for the rest of their life, with only god to pray to for redemption.


So I suppose you can only ask yourself this simple question about respecting all forms of life:


What would Oprah Do? WWOD. But if you are a fan of 24 and not Oprah, you might ask yourself What Would Jack Bauer Do? But we all know that the answer to that would be KILL! KILL! KILL!

Who else can we look to for guidance? Our church? Our inner-selves? Our parents? Our girlfriend? Politicians maybe! I dunno. Please tell me. Is it god that really allows 70,000 dead Chinese to be erradicated from the earth in a devastating earthquake? Who can I blame for all of the misgivings of this world?

What gives me the right to live?

What gives guys like Robert Pickton or Vince Li the right to live? The second guy was pleading for death after all! They are drains on society, and in this fine country called Canada we will be injecting millions of dollars into the courts to decide that they should never set foot on free land again. Instead, it is our responsibility of us as Canadians to pay to feed & clothe these disgraces to the human race for the rest of their lives. That's a little bit more expensive than a 5 cent bullet. Up the taxes. In America, Dubya approved the killing of a soldier who was a serial murderer/racist. What power.
But for myself? For now I think I will keep to killing the ants with that white powdery stuff. Maybe it is justified after all, if I happen to injest enough through breathing it in and develop cancer in 30 or 60 years.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080106/animal_abuse_080106?s_name=&no_ads=


http://www.outinasheville.com/outloud/?p=283

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12129.html