Willing and able beasts

Remember when Hannibal crossed the mountains with his elephants? No? Well I do (but that's another story). More recently when Ian Botham did the same thing? Well I do too!

Remember just last week, yesterday, or tomorrow, when we read, hear or see another one of the stories where "humanity" is helped by "willing and able beasts".

And yet, we all seem to be so astonished, everytime it happens. The latest thing is, of course, the transporting of the needed aid into the earthquake zone by donkeys. Sure, they are slower, but you can be certain that they will get there, and they rarely plunge from the sky taking all and sundry with them, and ending up setting fire to foodstuffs on the ground in a famine and drought area! The natives of the country are not surprised, they know the real value of such beasts, it's just the news people who seem to be amused by the transport fashion, and who present it in a light of "ancient" and "pointless".

It is a shame that hardly any fuel is left for the noisy, whirring above our head things, and that only after about 70 years of fossil exploitation! Straw and fodder is available for the 4 cloved transport means, and they even produce the means to enrich the soil afterwards, so that more straw can be produced.

They are cheap to produce, cheap to keep, and that is probably the one problem they have, they are exploited out of all proportions by the people concerned. They would never dream of treating the holy helicopters in the same manner they treat an ass or a donkey, or all the other beasts in our service. Yet it is something which is alive - not a mass of metal and cables.

Yes, I eat meat, but I don't eat metal and cables. This fact is not a sign of respect for the things, just a question of digestion! If any sign of respect is given, then strangely enough, it is given in the manner of treating the beasts I eat, if I can, before slaughter!

I do sometimes feel guilty, when I think that those self-same animals who are, at this moment, transporting tons of necessary goods there, where modern day machines cannot go, will probably reap their rewards by being slaughtered, cooked and eaten.

If I didn't think it was an insult towards the beast named, I would say that not only the law is an ass, but the race who makes it even more so!