Not Easy Being Against Everything
by Baxter Black, DVM

The New York Times printed an interview with a convicted animal rights terrorist. The prisoner's comments spoke for themselves. He was a thrift store version of the Una-Bomber. You could almost hear the slicker ANTI groups running for cover.

In the USA Today that week I read a big article entitled "Honk If You're Overrun by Geese." The story explained that normally migrating Canadian geese are choosing to stay in the U.S. year round and are multiplying rapidly. They are despoiling city parks, suburban open spaces and golf courses with hundreds of thousands of tons of goose poop. Suburban and city dwellers concerned about the public's aesthetics, health and safety are calling for drastic control measures, even to the point of depopulating them. Animal rights activists are unhappy. One is quoted as saying, "They are attempting to get permits to just go out and kill birds!"

Well, duh.

Then, in the same newspaper two teams of geneticists were hailed for mapping the genomes of rice, one of the most widely consumed grains in the world. One scientist was quoted as saying improved strains and genetically modified rice will be the result, thus allowing rice breeders to expand crop yields and alleviate hunger. Conspicuous in the article was that no opinion was included from genetically modified food opponents.

The bombing of New York - Washington, D.C., has made us look differently at our lives, the earth and our place on it. When people or groups espouse silly ideas, mock legitimate science or refuse to acknowledge our global responsibility, they place themselves in contempt. Or worse for them, they are deemed irrelevant. This is what's happening to the ANTIs, whose extremist behavior and terrorist bedfellows have engendered increasing public distrust.

Never underestimate the common sense of the everyday working mother. She can spot a lunatic quicker than the FBI, CNN or airport security.