Just Like Us

Dear Rifkin

            I had read your article “A Change of Heart About Animals” and I’m totally agree with your point of view. Our fellow creatures are like us in many ways.  Animals have feelings just like us, they feel our actions, even do they don’t express themselves in a way that we humans understand but if one as a human pay close attention to our fellows then we’ll be able to understand or at least get an idea of what animals feel. Just by looking at their eyes you can imagine how they feel. Like those commercials that are on TV that put those pets that had been abused and they want a home where they will receive love, just by seen those looks I got that feeling of feeling sorry for those poor animals, that cruel people that abused of them have a rock instead of a heart, how can people abuse of those creatures that are the best friend of a the man. Animals can defend themselves against the people that abuse them, but they don’t do it, why? because even do the treatment they receive is not okay they don’t defend themselves just because they love their owners.  

            While I finished reading the letters to the editor in response to your article "A Change of Heart About Animals" I was laughing at the last paragraph of the second letter in response; "...vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. Meat eating and animal abuse lead to spiritual disturbance and physical disease."  I mean it is understandably what he/she is saying, but don't expect people do that, I don't think anyone will stop eat meat and start to eat vegetables, from my perspective I'm not going to do that, I'm Mexican, I like meat and I don't like to eat vegetables. What I'm trying to say is that humans will continue to eat meat and products that come from animals just because that's how the food chain goes. Don't expect a person that eats meat two to three times a week become a vegetarian from one day to another. I never met a person that just eats vegetables, I don't even knew the definition of "vegetarian" until I came here, to the United States. 

            Animals have abilities that humans could never imagine. They have an intelligence that is pretty impressive as they been animals. According to some studies made in animals, the dolphin has been declare the most intelligent animal, well after the chimpanzee. “Equally impressive is Koko, the 300-pound gorilla at the Gorilla Foundation in Northern California, who was taught sign language and has mastered more than 1,000 signs and understands several thousand English words. On human IQ tests, she scores between 70 and 95.” For me this is very impressive since I think I don't own several thousands words in English as the gorilla, and also score 70 out of 95, that's a good score for someone that it's not a human, it's an animal. 

           Also I was very surprise when I read the sentences "Strangely enough, some of the research sponsors are fast food purveyors, such as McDonald's, Burger King and KFC. Pressured by animal rights activists and by growing public support for the humane treatment of animals, these companies have financed research into, among other things, the emotional, mental and behavioral states of our fellow creatures." It was like a "what?" in my mind, I never thought fast food restaurants would be purveyors to finance the research into the emotional, mental, and behavioral states of our fellow creatures.

         All they do is give love and security is that a bad thing?

          Sincerely,

          Jaira Ontiveros