🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2b7a1ee9-4f.5chi.places-1@vpnet.chi.il.us> akcs.plato@vpnet.chi.il.us (Daniel Lindahl) writes:
>Come on, really.  Aren't we all in cages if you really think about it? 
>Our jobs, our suburbs, our cities.  We're all just waiting for the cage
>to open but it never does.  So serious you are, but there is little
>freedom in the American way beyond the deals you make with yourself.  If
>you don't like zoos, stay away, but don't give me that PC manure about

Babble, babble, babble.

>what I can and cannot enjoy.  I've travelled all over the world and there
>is no wonderland.

If that is true, then you are correct, you are in a cage.  I have travelled
in a limited portion of North America, and have found several wonderlands.

> Take what you can from life and deal with the
>problems, but don't give me that old argument about anthrocentric ideals.
>If you wantt to see a real zoo, go to the loop and look at the people. 
>At least we agree to feed the animals in Lincoln Park.  In short, bug
>off and leave us alone.  If you can't relate with collection and
>exhibition, fine.  I like zoos. 

If you are responding to my negative comments on the Licoln Park Zoo,
then read again, and you'll find that I like zoos, too.  I am a member
of the Chicago Zoological Society, which operates the Brookfield Zoo.
And having seen a glimpse of what zoos _can_ be, I get impatient when
I see what zoos used to be.  If you want to see rare animals in a box,
try the Field Museum - they've got animals there that will never again
be seen in zoos.  If you want to see live animals, go to a zoo, but
don't fool yourself into thinking there's no room for improvement.

>We have had
>thousands of years to find a free and natural life and still we box
>ourselves away in highrise apartments and billion dollar urban office
>complexes.  We are running the environment into the ground, but will

The search for a "free and natural life" didn't really begin in earnest
until this century, regardless of what you feel humanity's history
may have been.

>boycotting the zoo bring back the things we've destroyed.

No, but improving the zoo will give the future generations an appreciation
for the things we've destroyed, and if we're lucky, will help them to
avoid destroying more.

> If you want to
>change the world, do it, but frankly I don't think you can do it.  There

I've already done it, thank you.

>are too many deals and too much money at stake where it really counts to
>reverse the flow of this world's downward spiral.  Eventually we will no
>longer have the room to exist and then the system will start again, just
>as it always has, but until then we are basically running down a blind
>street so enjoy it while you can.

This is quite possibly the most self-deafeatist and hedonistic philosophy
I've ever heard.  Don't you have _any_ hope in you?

>out of your utopian didactics.  If you like animals and you can't pop off
>to Africa, go to the zoo.  Take some pictures.  Relax.  If you can't deal
>with that, don't go, but quit lecturing.

Thank you, my wife lived in Africa for several years, and took lots of
pictures.  Not too many animals, but then, she lived in a village, not
"the jungles of darkest Africa".  Why should we go over and spoil their
wilderness, when we haven't finished spoiling our own?
-- 
Jonathan E. Quist                              Lachman Technology, Incorporated
jeq@lachman.com  '71 CL450-K4 "Gleep", DoD #094        Naperville, IL
 __       There's nothing quite like the pitter-patter of little feet,
 \/                   followed by the words "Daddy!  Yay!"