Every so often, I get a dose of pure, absolute cuteness in my email inbox.
It comes from a link to a website run by two gerbils named Timon and Pumbaa (https://gerbilsworld.wordpress.com/).
The gerbils, who are brothers, describe their activities, food, human guardian, exercise, and other fun aspects of their existence.
They have a loving mom, lots of toys, a clean and safe environment, delicious food.
In return, they’re pudgy, cute, sweet furballs.
The gerbils remind me of an episode from the original Star Trek series, called “The Trouble With Tribbles.”
I won’t do a spoiler on it, but I can share with you that Tribbles are cute furballs, perhaps too cute.
You’ll want to watch the Star Trek episode to find out why.
Gerbils are particularly low-maintenance animals to have around the house because their desert origins mean they use little water and thus they excrete a lot less urine than dogs, cats, and other animals humans have as companions.
They’re very smart and loving, without aggressive tendencies or annoying habits. Plus, they’re active and personable.
As a Vegan Samurai, I’m totally opposed to vivisection and any form of animal experimentation.
Unfortunately, Timon and Pumbaa would be outraged to discover that greedy corporations have genetically modified gerbils and use them in all kinds of cruel research.
For example, a sinister corporation called Janvier Labs describes “their” gerbils as “products” and “models,” the same way a car company would refer to cars.
This same company also offers mice, rats, and many other mammals on its “product” list.
The “product description” for gerbils indicates that they’re radiated in some experiments, and subject to all kinds of other tortures.
Indeed, the use of “rodents” in animal testing for the pharmaceutical, chemical, military, surgery, and many other industries is a major source of suffering for innocent, defenseless sentient beings.
More than 100 million mice, gerbils, rats, rabbits, and other mammals are tortured and killed every year to support needless animal testing.
The kinds of things done to these innocent, sweet little creatures are so cruel and grotesque as to defy your darkest imaginations.
Corporate lab techs and academic researchers drill holes in the skulls of unanesthesized animals.
They electroshock them.
They drown them.
They burn them.
They induce cancers and other fatal, painful diseases.
They poison them.
The humans who do these things are cold-hearted and soulless, impervious to the pleading eyes, pain, suffering, and helplessness of the tiny creatures they torment and murder.
When you read the blog postings and look at the pictures on Timon and Pumbaa’s “A Gerbil’s World” website, you feel a poignant pang in your heart.
I often look at the gerbil pictures when I’m depressed, and they always cheer me up and remind me that the universe gives us gifts of living sweetness to counteract the harsh realities of the human world.
Being sometimes depressed is a natural thing for an authentic vegan, living in a world surrounded by humans for whom harming, eating, tormenting, and exploiting animals is considered fun, useful, and totally acceptable.
Our current human culture is extremely disappointing in its careless brutality towards innocent animals and the earth itself.
I’m constantly meeting people who love to hunt, fish, eat animals, go to rodeos and circuses, and who vehemently defend what they see as the “right” of humans to do whatever they want to all other animals, and the earth.
It wears me down, makes me sad, and sometimes makes me angry.
So when I see the many pictures of Timon and Pumbaa, and read of their fun life and how much their human “mom” loves them, it’s a healing moment.
If you love animals and see how cute and sweet they are, how majestic they are, and how every animal feels pain and wants to be left alone to live as Nature intended, you’ll be vegan.
And when you want your own dose of cuteness and relief, visit Timon and Pumbaa.
It’s so good to know they’re loved and pampered, safe forever from the vivisectionists, hunters, dogs, and others who’d harm them.
The Vegan Samurai 