Rene Beresford very eloquently said:

> Next when you kill a fish, animal, look it
> into the eyes and ask yourself whether you would like to be in the
>position of the fish, animal...etc., etc., etc.

Too bad Rene won't see this, because I was going to take the
unpopular stance of thanking him for singing the compassion song,
even though it was preachy.  Kirt's rebuttal was right on, but, well,
sometimes it's just nice not to be singing solo. (I'm picturing Peter &
Kirt throwing shoes out the window at us singing alley cats.)

My compassion takes a little different form than Rene's, though, it
seems.  His is more across-the-board for beings of the animal
persuasion.  Mine is sort of hierarchical.  The more like me a being is,
the more closely I can "relate" to its suffering.  In approximate
top-down order: people other apesother mammals birds reptiles &
amphibians fish larger invertebrates (squids, lobsters....) bugs.
This is not to say I have *no* compassion for bugs.  I dislike killing
them, though I sometimes do.  During my "Raid" period I would
watch with both fascination and horror as the ants would do their
death dance.  It made me feel like crap!  I soon gave up that
practice!

Cheers,
Martha