Dear Ramsey:

I remember part of a nature movie I watched long ago, something that  shocked me and therefore I remember it so clearly so many years  after. It was about hyenas, this one hyena somehow found itself in the territory of a few other hyenas. I doubt he  intended to get into that situation, and it really  is not fair for a few hyenas  to..  own a territory, correct?

Yet the  group of hyenas chased that one hyena relentlessly and then did  a horrible thing, bit its behind repeatedly and… bit its intestines, pulling it out of the body of the  hyena that tried to escape.

This visual memory still disturbs me greatly, that  hyena must have died shortly  after that  video was taken, many, many years ago,  yet I remember  it so  well, feeling empathy for that one hyena who probably found himself there by  accident, didn’t  mean any harm to those   others   hyenas, yet his punishment  was severe. Why didn’t those  other hyenas satisfied with just chasing him out of the territory, why did they have to kill  it so cruelly…

There are other thoughts that disturb me, those … sports and entertainment in Roman times, pulling a person in two  directions, maybe using  horses, so the person tears apart, arms pulled one way, legs, the other way. And people watching, enjoying it, it being nothing  more than entertainment for them.

Cruelty and injustice have always been here, on Earth, it is not an invention  of  modern times. It doesn’t make current cruelties and injustice okay, but I am saying, it’s always been around, unfortunately, including in nature, cruelty exhibited by non-humans.

Those Roman forms of entertainment were outlawed sometime along history. The acceptable practice of parents killing their children when inconvenienced  by them was  also outlawed. See, there  is some progress.

And progress is a value you care about, isn’t it? Making life more fair, or less unfair, less unjust..?

anita