World’s Greatest Squirrel
Newspaper blogger decides unknown visitor needs a proper funeral
Zennie Abraham usually comments on everything from world affairs to sports to Hollywood. He holds a master’s degree in city planning, his blog is featured by the San Francisco Chronicle, and he does video-blogs for CNN.
So you might think that one little squirrel is not something that would capture his attention. But it did.
“A squirrel managed to get into our indoor-outdoor den while we were away,” he writes after arriving back home in Georgia recently. “A few days after we returned, the poor lost thing turned up dead in a corner of the room. Since it’s more outdoor than in, and has a screen door, it must have entered in a way that I didn’t anticipate. At any rate, it seems to have electrocuted itself in our house, then froze during the great Georgia freeze of two weeks ago.”
Zennie decided that the least he could do would be to give the squirrel a good funeral and to make a video of it and post it on his blog. He explains why:
“All too often we are exposed to images of people shooting animals. The latest example being Sarah Palin shooting moose in Alaska, then rubbing America’s nose in it. It’s helping to producing hard attitude among us, where we don’t care about life. It’s a horrible message to send to our kids.”
Zennie describes the funeral, takes note of the fact that some people have ridiculed it, and concludes thus:
“Life, in all forms, is to be celebrated. Just because we hunt for food doesn’t mean the animal being hunted wants to be in that position. Moreover, we’re conditioned to think that animals don’t “think,” but really how the hell do we know, anyway?
“Some of us don’t seem to think either.
“So, this is my bid to right things. Yes, I’m a meat eater. I’ll admit that. But also use meat alternatives when they’re available. And just because I eat meat doesn’t mean I have to want to hunt or not feel sad if an animal is killed, especially on my property.
“And that’s not supposed to happen. We can draw the line. We should draw the line.
“It’s the civilized thing to do.”
Here’s his video blog: