01-19-2012, 04:11 PM
I call them friends. Native Americans call them brothers and sisters. But there is nothing wrong with "animal" . . . only in the context of human behavior is it derogatory and ironically it's human behavior that can be despicable. The suffering of our animal friends brought on by humans is something that I find difficult to accept, while our cruelty to each other is at least (theoretically) a collective learning process we have agreed upon.