Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 503 Editor's Choice: 32
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Unjust punishment
[Read the article: Tigers don't belong in zoos]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know if the assholes who were taunting this animal deserved to die, but I do know the tiger didn't. It's unbelievable that she would be murdered just because she reacted naturally, the way ANY big cat would to being pestered like that.
What is with this automatic tendency to kill any animal that tries to defend itself or its territory? Is this how we would react if a human did so? I think not. There's constant controversy over the death penalty for humans, no matter how heinous the crime. Yet animals who do not go out of their way to hurt anyone, who are simply reacting to the actions of encroachment of humans (much like a human homeowner using his shotgun on a burglar) are summarily executed. It's just assumed that if the animal has killed once, why, of course she'll do it again!
Was there even an attempt to observe Tatiana and see if she showed any signs of animosity towards humans after the attack? Was there any effort to put her in a better environment and see if there was any further trouble? No? You mean the zoo decided to blame her and not themselves for dragging their feet on the subject of building SAFE enclosures for dangerous animals? Imagine that!
We can't leave this planet soon enough.
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Something else just occured to me
[Read the article: Tigers don't belong in zoos]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've read here and elsewhere that a great reason the life in zoos is stressful and ugly for animals like tigers is that they are secretive creatures that hide and are private in the wild, so being stared at by thousands of people a day depresses them and makes them unhappy. Damn, fair enough! I know I'd want to knock a few heads off after just a day of that!
Well, why should the tigers have to be aware of the humans looking at them? Seems to me it's a simple enough solutions - install one-way mirrors around the cages/enclosures so the animals never see the observers. It would be tricky because of light and how it works with the surfaces, but investment and experimentation could yield great results. Of course, it's not guaranteed that it would work, but wouldn't it be worth the time and effort to find out? Wouldn't finding a way to relieve that particular stress on the animals (if possible) result in happier animals, better exhibits, and less danger of these sorts of incidents?
As pointed out here and many other places, this isn't the 1930's. We have technology that might be able to solve problems like these, or at least point the way towards possible solutions.
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@Anonymous
[Read the article: Tigers don't belong in zoos]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Didn't read the rest of my comment? If the tiger liked killing humans, that's one thing. But there's no evidence that she did. She was reacting to a bad human.
If you'd read farther, you'd see that I asked if there was any effort to find that out. From what I've read, it was just summarily decided that she would kill again. How do we know that? Do we automatically get out the gun and execute any human that kills? No, we don't. We put them in cages for decades, or life. Since that's exactly where the tiger was in the first place, why not simply put her back in an improved space, where such an incident won't happen again? Why the rush to bloodshed? How do two wrongs make a right?
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@ReveredZafod
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Heretic!! You Bobists-come-lately's are forgetting the original humor religion - Erisianism. Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger were poking fun at the stuffy conventions of religion before you! The Sacred Chao sees your pipe-smoking dweeb and says, MU!!
Praise to the mighty Goddess of Chaos! Bow before the great Dismantling!
Hail Eris! Hell yes!!!
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"Consignment places?"
[Read the article: Not-so-green jeans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What the heck are those, Lobelia? Sounds like a euphemism for used clothing places that want to charge high prices. You know, "vintage". I get my jeans from thrift stores, which have whole racks filled with well-worn, perfectly good jeans in all sizes. Since half the attraction of a good pair of jeans is that worn feeling, just buy a pair that someone else has broken in for you! Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul's, Out of the Closet - all of these are excellent places to find really good jeans. And you won't pay an arm and a leg for 'em, either.
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I'm confused
[Read the article: How to solve America's water problems]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You say the Great Lakes are at their lowest ebb ever, low enough that tankers have to turn back because their hulls hit bottom. But then you say there's enough water to supply "millions more" people than already live there. So which is it - is there enough water or isn't there?
Not that I'm going. Sorry, but "a little cold weather"? Yeah, right. Having to break my back shoveling a ton of snow every day and scraping ice off my car just to see the road, not to mention risking my neck trying to drive in those snowstorms or yours - no, thanks. I'd rather have a cactus garden and bathe only once a week than endure that kind of hell.
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@bfree4me
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Uh, dude? The commandments had nothing whatsoever to do with the founding of our system of laws. American governmental structure is based on the Iroquois Confederation, which was a system of government created by the PAGAN tribes of the Northwest, along with the principles of Greek democracy, another governmental system invented by a PAGAN people. These systems were so admired by the "founding fathers" that they avidly imitated them, caring not a whit that they were following principles invented by people who WEREN'T CHRISTIAN.
Next time, go pick up a Civics textbook and do some research before you go making claims about American history.