Animals

The Year of the Rat

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.

January 19, 2020

The Chinese New Year is fast approaching (January 25). The cats know this and they are now all gathering in massive numbers in the streets to welcome the advent of their long-lost friends. They only meet as friends once every 12 years to renew their resolve to live in peace and harmony.

Yes, a long, long time ago, before we even appeared on Earth, rats and cats were the best of friends. They were inseparable partners in life. Whenever there were rats, there were always cats feasting on cosmic abundance together and living peacefully and harmoniously. The entire world was their playground.

But our appearance changed all this. We stole their food. We deprived them of their liberty to live and exist freely above ground. We hunted and divided their once peaceful world. Not even satisfied, we kill and eat them for stealing our precious food and destroying our property.

In no time, due to food scarcity, cats and rats began to fight against each other for survival. Evolution must have favored the cats. For the latter have become legendary for their nine lives. Cats live up to 16 years, nine times more than rats, with a lifespan of a little less than 2 years.

But the rats are wiser, wily, cunning, and smarter. They refuse to become the prey. They dig elaborate mazes of underground tunnels and safe houses, elaborately designed for food storage and sexual reproduction.

In their dark, stinking rat holes, they spend their life crammed, wet, and cold, spending most of their time contemplating, planning, and strategizing how they can access abundance from the world of the giants and powerful. In a short time, they amassed wealth and food, storing them out of reach of the cats, who naturally became furious and violent.

Small as they are, the rats became a power to reckon with to the homeless, vagrant, mendicant, and always starved cats.

Whenever cats and rats accidentally run and bump into each other, life becomes a race for survival. In anger, the cats vow even to eat the rats. It means food not only for them but for their offspring as well.

But the rats cannot just simply share their hard-earned wealth and food with the lazy and ever-sleeping cats. To them, food means the preservation of their extremely short life and their race.

The rat-cat life, then, becomes one of hide-and-seek, dreadful but astonishingly impressive and merrily entertaining, as nicely portrayed in the animated Tom and Jerry series in television.

The dictionaries say that if someone calls you a rat, it's an insult, referring to a hateful person, liar, double-crosser, stealer, robber, thief, betrayer, or traitor.

But how did the rats land as one of the animals in the Chinese horoscopes? How come they are even consulted by people today when it comes to wealth, power, health, love life, career, and the future that awaits them?

Earning a living or storing money and wealth by stealing and betraying someone at the expense of others is certainly not humane.

I asked many of my Chinese friends about this. Maybe, I will continue to ask and do some more research until I get my answers.

In the meantime, to me, a rat is still a rat, a harbinger of illnesses and deaths. Remember the historic bubonic plague and today's leptospirosis? Rats can even easily destroy an entire rice field in a matter of days.

Nevertheless, we can only blame ourselves. We made the rats do such dreadful things. In revenge, they gave us all kinds of diseases and illnesses, vowing to ransack our refrigerators. Our inhumane acts towards them boomeranged on us. We acted like rats. Our life has become a rat race, just like them.

Yet, rats, like us, deserve to live and should not be made to suffer in hunger and poverty. We don't have the right to poison and kill them wantonly with our deadly pesticides. We have to share our abundance with them.

Just like us, rats have the right to be respected, and the right to live in dignity and comfort. For after all, the atomic and molecular ingredients of life are the same for rats and for humans, coming, as we all are, from the wombs of the stars. They are our cosmic kindred.

And for the cats?

Well, I will simply wait for the time to come when cats land on the Chinese animal calendar. This is possible if they are not always napping every time there is a race.

In the meantime, I will continue feeding and loving both my cats and rats.

While I don't make resolutions and do rituals during Chinese New Year, I wish my Chinese friends a prosperous life this 2020, and may you live long and continue to live in peace and harmony with your non-Chinese kindred, regardless of race, religious beliefs, and political affiliation.

Gung Hay Fat Choy! 恭禧發財

The Fifth Greatest Commandment: Love the Animals - Part 1

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - November 10, 2020

Be More Compassionate with Animals, Otherwise They Will Get Back to Us With Greater Vengeance and Furious Anger.

"Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." --Arthur Schopenhauer

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." – Mohandas Gandhi

Animals help us in many ways. We rely on them for food, service, and companionship. They also play a role in the ecosystem. They provide manure, help pollinate, fertilize plants, and protect the habitat.

In turn, we take care of them and help them improve their breeding, prevent diseases, and provide them safe nutrition so they grow well and stay healthy. In this manner, they are able to produce better quality meat, milk or eggs for our consumption.

But we have ruined their lives for commercial purposes. Since our appearance, we have become their most powerful predator.

We have disrespected their lives that many have gone extinct, while many more are in danger of extinction.

We have fed and injected them with all sorts of chemicals. We have reengineered their genes and DNA that only did damage to their internal organs.

We have inseminated cows with sperm from bulls to produce a genetically superior race. Inbreeding among cows is getting common, forcing them to produce more offspring.

We are even creating clones, producing test-tube calves and chicks, as well as perform in-vitro fertilization to mass produce them.

Animals are known to suffer great pain and suffering, producing toxins within their bodies that are carried on from generation to generation.

Whatever we did to animals boomeranged on us in the form of sickness and diseases that are also inherited by our children and the next generations.

The root cause of all this is unfettered greed and widespread corruption. As long as there is a demand, the market of animals will always exist. Billions of money per year are poured in for animal slaughter that are done worldwide even in so-called protected areas.

We all understand the law of supply and demand. There will always be people willing to meet the demand. It can’t be stopped.

Commercialization of animals has become so lucrative that it created turfs and monopolies in many places across the globe. Today, these cartels are out of control and they can manipulate the market supply and demand. Even, the government has no power over them despite the many laws protecting animals.

Violence begets violence. It is not only against animals but also against humanity. It escalates overnight since, today, everybody is doing it, as if it's the normal thing to do.

Oiling or giving grease money can easily bend any principled individual. If it's not enough, there are always arms that can be used to intimidate people.

Those who renounce violence even recourse to violence by arming themselves for their own safety. Anyway others are getting violent. We might as well be violent. So the reasoning goes.

While animal cruelty can't be stopped, it can certainly be checked. The short-term demand can be met, without threatening the long-term survival of animals. One way is by decreasing its demand. We can decrease our animal consumption by eating less and less meat daily or by abstaining it altogether on some days.

I am not that fanatic to encourage people to be absolutely meatless, though. There are continents in our globe that sustain their lives only by herding cows or hunting whales. These are places where grass, crops, and trees do not grow at all and where access to areas where these are organically grown, are hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Anyway, we still have that freedom within us. Knowing both the negative and positive effects of meat consumption on our bodies, we can always exercise our choice without totally disrespecting the lives of animals who, like us, have also the right to live and exist in this world in peace.

Let me end here with a quote from Ezekiel 25:17.

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

Thanksgiving Day!

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – November 25, 2021

In a way, I'm happy that I grew up in a community that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving Day, the way the Americans do. In my culture, thanksgiving is celebrated everyday as we rise up from bed because of the so many things to thank for during the day. Certainly, we don't do it at the expense of turkeys.

What if we begin to look at Thanksgiving Day from the perspective of the turkeys?

Well, the photos below (with captions) illustrate it.

Only humans breed millions of turkeys and butcher them on Thanksgiving day. Cruelty to animals does not apply to turkeys on this day.

While killing those who prey and butcher animals would be a great help in solving our ballooning population, worsening ecological destruction, and our nearly irreversible extreme climate changes, turkeys never butcher and prey on humans.

Why not adopt a living turkey today as one of our pets?

But humans have to chip in to nourish and keep them safe and healthy every day. Not with their lives, but with their time, resources, and compassion to feed them, just as we do to our pets and dogs daily.

However you celebrate it and whatever you have for dinner: "Happy Thanksgiving Day, folks".

It's always the animals who are sacrificing for us

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – July 26, 2021

How about sacrificing those who are cruel to them? This is simple physics. In every action, there's always an opposite reaction.

For the conservatives, in the Old Testament, this is "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

But one may say: "there are moral and ethical issues involved here". Common, tell this to the marines.

What's the difference between the life of animals and that of humans? We are all made of the same atoms and molecules, animated by the same energy, force, or breathe of our Lord Almighty.

And to think that we are the only ones responsible for killing animals--not God, not the devil--makes us even more ridiculous. By our desire to appear innocent to the whole world, we blamed everything to the animals as the culprits. We enslaved and imprisoned them in our homes and laboratories to our hearts content. We made them guinea pigs and inflicted them with all kinds of viruses, illnesses, and diseases to find antidotes for our sufferings.

I'm hopeful, however, that the time will come for the perpetrators of animal abuse to realize what they are doing. God's love to its creatures is boundless and abundant.

Let's hear from Charles Darwin in his "The Descent of Man":

"For my own part, I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions."

Even the animal's love for us is limitless and boundless. They merely suffer in silence like the lamb that is led to the slaughter to be butchered by us.

Love Our Pets

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - November 11, 2020

Let's Love Our Homeless Stray K9 Friends by Providing Them Food or Shelter.

This is the same with stray or feral cats and all other kinds of animals. Let's love all of them by nourishing, caring, and protecting them.

How did dogs, once originally wild beasts, able to live in comfort and treated much better than most of us humans today? This question was the focus of the documentary “K9 Conspiracy” that appeared on television.

(Source: Shelton Ranasinghe. 2012. Self – A Delusion? Ohio, USA).

"The movie very illustratively showed how the dogs manipulated human beings to accept them initially and then gradually made their way up to the present realm of social status that they now enjoy.

"Originally dogs were hanging around people, but at a distance. They were not allowed inside hunters’ dwellings.

"The cuddled puppies produced by the dogs played with the children of the masters. Through the children, first the puppies and then the adult dogs gradually made their way into the houses.

"Today dogs render very little service to man, other than the companionship. Really, the people have become slaves to dogs now. People bathe them, look after their health, give them nutritional food, allow them to sleep on their beds and even clean-up their messes.

"Even the Presidents of United States carry and comfort them in the White House. If the very first dog that master minded this conspiracy was living today, I am sure it would have a permanent canny grin on its face to reveal the success of its plan."

K9 Conspiracy

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – November 17, 2021

How did dogs, once originally wild beasts, able to live in comfort and treated much better than most of us humans today? This question is the focus of the documentary “K9 Conspiracy” that appeared on television.

“The movie very illustratively showed how the dogs manipulated human beings to accept them initially and then gradually made their way up to the present realm of social status that they now enjoy.

“Originally dogs were hanging around people, but at a distance. They were not allowed inside hunters’ dwellings.

“The cuddly puppies produced by the dogs played with the children of the masters. Through the children, first the puppies and then the adult dogs gradually made their way into the houses.

“Today dogs render very little service to man, other than the companionship. Really, the people have become slaves to dogs now. People bathe them, look after their health, give them nutritional food, allow them to sleep on their beds and even clean-up their messes.

"Even the Presidents of United States carry and comfort them in the White House. If the very first dog that master minded this conspiracy was living today, I am sure it would have a permanent canny grin on its face to reveal the success of its plan.”

(Source: Shelton Ranasinghe. 2012. Self – A Delusion? Ohio, USA).

Humanity and Animals

July 26, 2016

Our deep connection with animals is unquestionable. We depend on each other for our survival, the reason why we instinctively share with each other Nature's abundance.