A Sad Little Bird

Gentle Reader, forgive me if I am about to wax maudlin, as we already know that to not be my preferred style of writing.  But there are some things that completely escape sarcasm, cynicism and irony.  And such thing I witnessed yesterday.  It was a tiny bird, fluttering lamely on the sidewalk, as though already dying.  I stopped to look and wondered what I could do to help.  This bird was tiny.  It might have been a species of warbler (female, I think) or a kinglet.  It had olive green plumage and yellow underparts.  I phoned the City Hall help line for advice and the bird suddenly held very still on the pavement, breathing, its eyes open and its bill gaped open as though in an expression of supplication.

The City Hall employee transferred me to Wildlife Rescue and I stood and waited stupidly before I could figure out their complex caller menu.  I left a voice mail with a detailed description of the bird and the address of the house it was languishing in front of.  A few minutes later I got a call from one of their staff who made unreasonable demands and asked rather stupid questions without considering that I had already done all I could and could not be any later for work, since that's where I was headed.  She concluded by lamely telling me there was no one available to pick up the poor bird and we'd might as well consider it dead or a live snack for one of the local cats (my interpolation, not hers).

Now, I happen to love cats.  Dogs, I like, certain breeds and mutts I love, but cats I generally and universally adore, though I will never have one again for a pet, given that I just couldn't give a good home to a pet of any species or breed.  I am too busy taking care of myself these days.  But cats, as much as I enjoy stopping to pet them on the sidewalk really ought to be kept indoors.  They are the number one culprit for killing our birds and with all the kibble they eat they certainly don't need the live food.

I went on to work feeling badly about the bird.  It was so vulnerable and I wanted to do something, anything, but had to accept that this was beyond my purview, just as I am not able to shelter homeless adults in my tiny bachelor unit. 

We are surrounded by vulnerability and we ourselves are often vulnerable in our helplessness to do something.  It creates a kind of paralysis.  I think some people try to cope with this paralysis by taunting and mocking and victimizing the already vulnerable.  Since people of colour, queer people and the disabled are finally off limits for this kind of mistreatment (thank God for this) there still seems to be an open season on the poor and homeless.  Stand up comedians are especially bad for doing this and I am completely flummoxed that there has been no public outcry about this.  Perhaps because people aren't really as compassionate as they could be?

This evening I shut off the radio in midstream while listening to the CBC program, Laugh Out Loud, because their idiot de jour was suggesting they put electric fences around panhandlers so they can't bother people on sidewalks.  I also sent an email to Ali Hassan, the host of this program:

"I enjoyed Martha Chaves, as always.  She also has the decency to not target the vulnerable for cheap laughs, unlike the second comedian who was on. When  he took a cheap shot at homeless panhandlers needing electric fences around them I`d had enough and turned off the radio.  This day and age it is no longer acceptable to mock people because of race or sexual preference.  It is time this respect was extended to the poor.  Shame on you, Ali, especially given that you as a member of a visible minority might have a little more empathy for others who are targeted by bullies.  I expect better from you and from the CBC.
aaron"

I don't expect that Ali Hassan has much of a conscience, but it's worth a go.  It also seems to me that when Hitler and his Nazis were just coming to power in Germany it was already de rigueur to mock and deride the Jews.  I hate to imagine the kind of slippery slope we'll find ourselves on if we don't soon halt this fashionability of bullying the already helpless and vulnerable, in our case, the poor, the homeless, the beggars.  We deserve better and we deserve to be better, Gentle Reader.