{"id":35966,"date":"2022-02-15T21:36:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T03:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=35966"},"modified":"2022-02-15T21:36:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T03:36:38","slug":"briefly-do-you-suppose-animals-look-at-us-and-wonder-why-were-in-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=35966","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: Do you suppose animals look at us and wonder why we\u2019re in charge?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Thomas-relaxing-in-basket.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-35967\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Thomas-relaxing-in-basket.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Thomas-relaxing-in-basket.jpg 920w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Thomas-relaxing-in-basket-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Thomas-relaxing-in-basket-768x548.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we\u2019ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I\u2019m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided \u2014 and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they\u2019re a tiny minority, but I know better. It\u2019s times such as this when I most need to escape much of \u201ccivilization\u201d and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of \u201cruling this planet,\u201d we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly \u2014 and to think, <em>\u201cWhy do you folks get to be in charge?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we\u2019ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=35966\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-briefly","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-9m6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35969,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35966\/revisions\/35969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}