I’m the odd one out in even my pro-animal-rights family when it comes to Peta‘s antics that
seem well outside the scope of serious work for the cause. The latest flap about the executive fly-swatting incident is a case in point.
“It makes us all look ridiculous,” William said today. “I know Peta has done a lot of good, but do they expect us to have flies all over and roaches in our houses?” We’ve have the “flies and roaches” talk before. Well, before it was “rats and roaches.” Today it was flies because — well, Peta got us, and thousands of other people, talking. That’s the point.
For the record: I have committed cockroach-icide. And I’ve killed waterbugs, too, but that’s nothing to be proud of because they’re harmless and I’m just too freaked out by their size and feelers to grant them the courtesy of being carried outside in a jar. That’s what I do for other critters who have a right to a home, just not my home.
I was doing this before Peta was born in a Washington, DC, apartment in 1990. I was four years old when I walked in and told Dede, the wonderful woman who lived with us and took care of me throughout my childhood, that I’d killed a red spider with my bare hands. She said, “What had he done to you?” I’d never thought of it that way before.
Fast forward to age twenty: I’m working as an assistant librarian at the Olcott Library and Research Center of the Theosophical Society in America in Wheaton, Illinois. My boss, a wise woman in her 70s named Helen Lohenholt, told me a story from her youth. She was working in a dentist’s office and a fly was buzzing around. She reached for the fly-swatter and one of the waiting patients said, “Let me take care of it.” He’d procured a cup and piece of paper, adroitly caught the little insect, and set it free out the window. Helen was flummoxed. She remembered earning a small trophy in her childhood for killing the most flies one summer when her hometown of Minneapolis was overrun with them. This person seemed like a visitor from another dimension. She wanted an explanation. He smiled and said to her, “Well, I don’t see a reason for killing anything unnecessarily. After all, nobody knows what life is.”
This “reverence for life,” as Albert Schweitzer put it, is my reason for treading lightly when I can. I keep my home clean so bugs won’t want to move in. If one does, I take it outside. If an infestation were to occur and nothing less drastic worked, I’d consider it war and respond with lethal force. But I don’t have an infestation today and I’m happy that, should I come upon a creepy-crawly, I need not be armed.
Self-preservation is a given. And protecting one’s family and loved ones. What’s wrong, once that’s done, with extending–to quote Schweitzer again–our “circle of compassion to include all living things”? When we do that, in the good doctor’s view, we ourselves have a shot at knowing peace.
posted June 19, 2009 at 6:08 pm
And if a mosquito flies up your nose while you are talking, what then?
posted June 20, 2009 at 10:17 am
Victoria,
Upon hearing this news story, the advice, “choose your battles wisely” came to mind. While I think it’s admirable to protect creatures of every size, in this case, I think that Peta and certainly President Obama have bigger fish to fry! (pun intended).
Theresa
posted June 20, 2009 at 3:39 pm
At some point in his life it occurred to my husband that it’s arrogant to kill someone — even an insect — just because you can, for mere convenience. Termites destroying your house is one thing, a fly buzzing around your head annoying you is another.
Our behaviors reflect on us. If I can capture a bug in a jar and release him outside, well, isn’t that a kind thing to do? Isn’t that better than squashing him?
Basically, what Victoria said.
posted June 20, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I have to agree with Theresa!
posted June 20, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I gotta go with Vicki. An interesting perspective on this topic is Machaelle Small Wright’s book “Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered.”
posted June 20, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I agree with Theresa here. Flies are at the bottom of my list of things to be “saved”.
posted June 22, 2009 at 5:33 am
I’m afraid I kill all cockroaches when I’m in rental properties in Greece, mosquitoes too. I kill flies here in Scotland if they refuse to be shoo-ed out of an open window. (They never co-operate with the glass technique as they sense the disturbance in the airstream.) I have kids and it’s my job to keep them safe and healthy withing our home. I’ve seen maggots in people’s houses and it only takes one fly. Spiders I hate, but I always relocate them with the glass and piece of card technique.
President Obama’s a good man; we need to let him get on with his job of saving the planet. If we humans keep on screwing things up, there’ll be no planet left for any living thing, including flies, and the cockroaches will probably get the ultimate revenge and be the only survivors.
posted June 22, 2009 at 1:55 pm
So mass extermination of insects to prevent transmission of disease or for reasons of pest control is okay, but god forbid you should swat a fly??? Yeesh!
posted June 23, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I’m glad you blogged on this. I was hoping to hear your point of view.
Thanks.
posted June 24, 2009 at 7:49 pm
What about genista caterpillars that are defoliating my mountain laurel trees?. There were hundreds in my trees. I was torn. I don’t like to kill anything, yet these pests are in the process of killing my beloved trees. At first I captured & released the pests, but then decided why should I relocate a pest that will end up affecting other trees. Sadly I decided to drop them in a jug of soapy water where they drowned. At least I did not have to use pesticide that would kill other bugs. I wish birds would eat the caterpillars, but when the caterpillars eat the mountain laurel leaves they absorb a chemical that birds do not like, so the birds do not eat this caterpillar.
Back to the fly issue, if you want to either swat or capture a fly it helps to know that a fly takes off backwards. So anticipate that he will fly off not to the front but to the rear.