... and They Call THEM ‘’Dumb Animals’’

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In the street in front of my house, five long days before the Fourth of July, I found some spent firecrackers and cigarette butts.

Now, there’s a brilliant combination. A thousand fires are burning in Northern California, and some local genius stood there smoking and lighting fireworks, which are illegal in my neck of the woods and should be everywhere around here, especially in fire season.

Local Genius was also starting in early on the annual ritual of the Terrorizing of the Animals. Every year, I find myself, on the Fifth of July, trying to help the victims of the Fourth of July idiocy, rescuing the panic-stricken critters whose fear of the cacophony of fireworks gives them the strength to break through windows and doors and fences, to wind up in the streets, lost or, worse, hurt or killed in traffic.

Whether it’s pets or wild creatures in parks and refuges and preserves, fireworks are an unnecessary bit of cruelty we humans inflict on animals. And now, coupled with the fire risk that seems only to be getting worse every year, it’s time to stop the snap, crackle and pop.

But alas, I’ll probably have to write the same blog message next year. And so I will -- until we get it right.

-- Patt Morrison