The Old Rugged Scratching Post

There was a period in my all-too-brief, unenlightened youth when I considered somewhat reasonable the Catholic Church stipulation that only beings with souls could pass through the pearly gates of Paradise. It was, after all, their rules, however heartless.

I should point out that, at the time, during which my family was undergoing oft-blogged bouts of financial hardship, owning a pet was a bit of a luxury and, being a young man, I had no inclination to consider the larger ramifications of anything that didn't involve my penis, especially the existence or non-existence of souls. So acquisition of and empathy towards animals was definitely way down on my list of "Things I Must Have" after food, shelter, and nookie. Unless showing affection towards an animal got me some nookie which, theoretically, could have happened.

But the years inevitably passed and I matured, to a questionable degree, and I eventually found myself in possession of, or possessed by, a cat or two who completely altered my opinion on the question of man's dominant position on Earth. To me, these little beasts had every bit as much "soul" as any Pope ever did, probably more as I never saw either of my moggies try to shtup an altar boy. I'm sure that when you look into the eyes of your dog, cat, or wolverine you feel the same way.

Some people sidestep the issue by saying that "With God, all things are possible" which, to me, means if an animal like Dick Cheney can stalk the West Wing then Fluffy can certainly adorn the halls of Paradise. And I know which I'd prefer to see.

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You know where everything started going wrong concerning this immigration issue? It's when the first farmer, in a tribe we'll call the "Musks", planted the first row of beans and said "These beans are my beans and this land they're growing on is my land, so get the heck away from my land and leave my beans alone or I'll conk you with this asses jawbone, so help me giant-glowing-thing-in-the-sky!"

Eventually many of the other Musks saw the wisdom of farmer Musk's organic enterprise and, because the land they'd settled was so fertile, in no time there were lots of beans to go around, a comfortable enough surplus that soon the Musk tribe had all the free time they wanted to make pottery and weave clothes and create art and forge weapons.

Yes, weapons. Danger lurked everywhere, especially among the unevolved tribe in the next valley, who we'll call "Republicans". They weren't very good at agriculture, mainly because they thought it looked kinda gay, but they prided themselves on their ability to clobber small helpless animals although, when the small helpless animal supply ran critically low, they certainly weren't above clobbering nearby tribes and eating their supply of beans.

The Musks couldn't possibly defend their world, horizon to horizon, from the ravenous Republican hordes so they set sensible geographic limits on their territory. "From the big tree to the flat rock to that small stream to that pile of ass jawbones, bright with foam, those are the boundaries of our home sweet home." The Musks then proceeded to erect fences around their swath of earth and posted signs that said very uncomplimentary things about Republican mothers. They also patrolled the perimeter accompanied by fierce beasts that didn't taste very good but were willing to chew on trespassing Republicans with vicious aplomb.

And so the Musk-Republican wars raged.

After awhile this bizarre idea of "owning" land began to be accepted as perfectly sensible, especially by Republicans, and it wasn't long before the land was parceled out until there was nothing left to own. That's when the Musks and the Republicans began to squabble amongst themselves over their territory, fighting wars so fierce and destructive that afterwards nothing would ever grow there again. Not even beans.

Come to think of it, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

=Lefty=