The End of the World as We Know It
By A.J. Llewellyn
I am not a doomsdayist but ever since my niece started telling me that one of her teachers believes December 2012 will be the end of the world and several readers have written me to ask for my opinion on the subject – I am starting to wonder.
I’ve always longed for the perfect world, a Dystopia where everyone was happy and treated each other right. As a kid I loved fairytales. I believed in them.
And I still want to.
The way we are all treating each other and the increasingly despicable things we are doing to animals, children and the elderly, makes me despair that we will never even come close to it.
I think we are at the end of the road as a species.
Last night, I watched in horror a terrible story on the news about a local woman in Burbank who stabbed her family’s cocker spaniel to death. Three people have been arrested in what police say was a horrific incident of animal cruelty.
A few days ago a friend called to tell me of a woman he knew who started starving her Chihuahua in hopes it would die. Starvation is not a swift way to go, even in a small dog. After several days when the poor, helpless animal began to convulse, she finally smothered it with a pillow and killed it.
This story has given me sleepless nights.
My friend relating the story has been a good, solid friend for eighteen years but the fact he did not report this to the police in Detroit (where the incident occurred) really bothers me. The fact that he would not tell me who the woman was so I could report it bothers me more.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Anyone who can harm an innocent animal WILL at some point hurt a human being.
Each and every day, new and worse atrocities make the news. A Brazilian nurse, Camila de Moura, beat her innocent Yorkshire terrier to death in December and her neighbor put the results on Youtube when the police refused to arrest her.
Why didn’t this neighbor do more than just video it? How could a mom beat a tiny dog in front of her toddler?
Why is she not in jail?
Last month, 101-year-old Texana Hollis was evicted from her home in Detroit, Michigan because officials deemed it unfit to live in. Were it not for the kindness of strangers she would be homeless. And still, her situation is dire. Her kindly Samaritans have no ramp for her wheelchair.
How far must we continue to fall before it all is really and truly over?
Yesterday, Josh Powell, the man suspected of murdering his wife, Susan, torched himself and his two tiny sons before social workers could stop him.
I despair of us as a race…I can’t bear to watch youtube videos of anything but Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles. The bullying, the videotaped bashings, the despair of our teenagers who wonder if it really does get better?
How can we say it does when people bury dogs alive, stab their neighbors’ cats for no good reason…and the electric companies turn off services when people can’t pay? How do we justify 93-year old World War II veteran, Marvin Schur, freezing to death inside his Bay City, Michigan home?
Who is that we honor?
I could go on and on but I am too outraged and utterly devastated that this is world as we know it. I have friends who wonder how I can spend my whole day writing but for me, living in a world of love and romance beats reality. I like my protective bubble, not that it isn’t frequently burst, but I believe in the power of positive thought, of kindness to our fellow earthlings.
All of them.
And I believe this our challenge now, to protect, respect and cherish every man, woman, and creature that shares this sacred space. I hope for everyone who feels victimized and hopless that a beautiful change is coming.
I hope I am not just whispering into the wind…
Aloha oe,
A.J.
I totally feel what you’re saying. Society is falling apart.
Posted by Megan @ Riverina Romantics on February 12th, 2012 at 12:46 am