Watching me

Who knew we loved Lions so much? We knew we loved Polar bears of course, but now we really love Lions, we don’t love Melissa Bachman much even though she helped us realise how much we love Lions.

There was me thinking Lions just spent all their time lounging about beneath an African tree in between bouts of dining on antelopes and Zebra’s but now they are the new poster beasts for man’s (or woman’s in this case) inhumanity to animals.

It looks like the whole Internet is up in arms over a pretty girl who really, really likes to kill living things. I had a look at her website before she dismantled her online presence in the face of an international wave of condemnation on a scale formerly reserved for, for…no, she’s in a league of her own isn’t she? The thing about Melissa I found so repugnant was her absolute glee in the death of living things, zero empathy or respect for the newly ex-wildlife. But I’m bored with speaking about Ms Bachman now, as she is not what this is about.

There were the usual outbursts by the fans of shrubbery and fluffy animals about how the world would be a better place without humans in it. I take issue with that as people are AWESOME, or OARSUM, if you are from New Zealand.

Let’s look at the facts. People are better than animals. There, simple when you put it like that but I’m sure there are those among you who would want a more convincing argument.

I can start with our former favourites before we loved Lions so much. Dolphins and Polar Bears, Panda’s and Penguins. Not one of them has invented a cure for the Plague or walked on the moon. I love a Dolphin as much as the next human but I’ve yet to see them organize a fundraiser for Typhoon victims or fill Wembley Stadium for seven nights in a row. The Pinnacle of Dolphin achievement is making people smile and jumping really high out of the water. I’m not seeing the superiority there.

We change the cars we drive and how much we heat our houses with Polar bears as the point of reason. We mustn’t use our greenhouses too much or the Polar Bears will have to travel further to eat seals and if that happens our winters will be less severe. I like to see a Polar bear and it’s cubs on a nature program of course, but do I really have to drive an electric car to do so in the future? I hate electric cars.

People go all gooey over a Panda but what does it actually do apart from sleep, eat Bamboo and look like something we might like as a pet? I imagine they are delicious though and I bet there are at least a handful of Chinese people who can confirm that for me. In fact Panda’s are completely useless as a species but we love them so much we will travel across a whole country and pay a fortune to see a baby one, sleeping.

Enough about the animals who are less awesome than people. Animals are amazing of course, but people are awesome. The only animals in attendance when Batkid was saving San Francisco were dogs on leads. It was awesome people who gave that little boy the best day in his short life, he wouldn’t have got the same life changing day from stroking a Polar Bear although he certainly would have found it (briefly) more exciting but most likely not in a good way.

To the people who say the world would be a better place without people in it, I say, who would know?

A world without people would be a world without the best stories ever told, most likely with Rats and Cockroaches in charge.

People have changed people’s lives. Animals change the contents of a menu. People inspire other people to do the most incredibly awesome, arduous, heroic or even insane things. Animals make us go ‘awww’, (or ‘Arrrgh!’ If we meet a man eating one.)

People fly aeroplanes into forest fires; they risk their lives to help other people they don’t even know. They change the way they live and behave to make other people happy. A person can decide to devote their life to changing the world, an animals biggest decision is what to eat and when, or should they stay or should they go.

Watching people being awesome is really easy as well, you just sit in a chair in the high street or stand around in a group of them and observe. To see the proper animals rather than the ones you’ve domesticated or farmed for eating or clothes requires some considerable expense, discomfort and hardship to get to them. So mostly we see them on television, their antics recorded by David Attenborough for our amusement or amazement.

For the sake of fairness, Awesome doesn’t necessarily have to mean good of course, awesome can also just fill you with awe, but not in a good way. We also have people who are awesome for all the wrong reasons, but still no less awesome.

Awesome = adjective

1.

Inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: an awesome sight.

2.

Showing or characterized by reverence, admiration, or fear; exhibiting or marked by awe.

Look at people who make chemical weapons for a living. Imagine just for a moment how awesome those people are? They went to school, studied really diligently, and got a degree, a properly hard one, not media studies. They then applied to work in a lab to figure out how to kill everyone on Earth as painfully as imaginable. That’s Awesome when you think about it. That’s way more awesome than toothy Melissa with her bow and arrow.

People make you cry laughing by telling you a story, if you cry laughing at an animal, it’s most likely not getting on with it’s immediate environment and you are actually being a little bit cruel instead of helping it.

The most awesome feats achieved and performed by people have always and invariably been for other people,  awesome feats both good and bad. Whole countries have banded together in triumph and adversity, usually either of those are to do with things people have done, are doing, or are about to do and not because of the antics of a Penguin.

I love animals; I always have and always will. But I’m not all that keen to see people as a species eradicated to make a more pleasant environment for my dinner to roam freely.

No, it’s people who are awesome, while animals are amazing. The world would not be a better place without people. There would certainly be more animals, being amazing, but who would know and record it on film for my amusement or amazement?