Happy Monday News Viewers, welcome to Free Range, our beginning of the week Free Chat. This is an open forum for free ranging discussion moving over continents, time, space, memory, questions, answers, mind and soul.
Soul. Today’s photos show us soul in the midst of an invaded Ukraine– the effort to rescue the animals, pets, farm animals, zoo animals– I call that soul anyway, and it’s that part of some of the inhabitants of this planet to save, preserve and value rather than exploit, destroy, dismiss. Good to remember — there may be hope for humanity after all. . . . . .or at least SOME of them.
As for the remaining soulless humans, like my dear Dad used to say, “they ain’t worth shootin”.
A woman carries a dog while crossing the Irpin River on an improvised path under a bridge, as people flee the town of Irpin, Ukraine, on March 5, 2022A Ukrainian civilian takes shelter with a cat in their backpack at the Przemyśl train station, 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, in Przemyśl, Poland, on February 28, 2022Four Paws helped Romanian aid group ARCA to bring four horses to safety in Moldova Four Paws has also supplied food for stray dogs and coordinated an emergency evacuation of horses from a stable near Odesa.A woman who was evacuated from Irpin cries while kissing a cat wrapped in a blanket at a triage point in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 11, 2022A woman plays with her dog in a temporary shelter in a high-school gym in Przemyśl, near the Ukraine-Poland border, on March 15, 2022A bag full of puppies, carried by a Ukrainian family to a railway station after crossing the border at Záhony-Csap, as they fled Ukraine on March 6, 2022, in Budapest, HungaryVolunteers arrive with more than 50 dogs and cats at the ADA Foundation in Przemyśl, Poland, on March 8, 2022. Pets are among the hundreds of thousands seeking refuge in Poland since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The ADA Foundation was started to provide shelter for abandoned animals. Its priority now is to provide food, medicine, and medical assistance to animals in Ukraine, but mostly to evacuate animals into Poland. The organization has been able to evacuate more than 300 animals that have been brought to Lviv from the eastern part of the countryLarger animals, like elephants and giraffes, can’t easily be evacuated and are under stress as fighting rages nearby However, some larger animals have made it out of the country to the safety of shelters abroad. Around 80, among them lions and tigers, were evacuated in early March from a sanctuary near Kyiv and taken to a zoo in Poznan, western Poland.Farm animals trapped in the war zone also need urgent care in early March, the Four Paws team helped evacuate seven bears from a sanctuary near Kyiv to relative safety at another shelter run by Four Paws in Domazhyr, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the Polish border. There, they joined 29 other bears already in residence.A veterinary assistant carries cats from a group of 20 at the ADA Foundation on March 8, 2022, in Przemyśl, Poland.A cat meows in its owner’s bag after fleeing from Kiev to Romania, at the border crossing in Siret, on March 10, 2022
Today we meet online in the space between our local daily lives and our distant lives of news in the bigger world. Let’s talk about any and all of it. What’s going on in your neck of the woods? And what are your thoughts about the reality going on in the distance? All topics all the time, anything goes and everything stays except what breaks the “No Assholes” rule– what a great rule, right? Short and sweet, clear as a bell. Happy Monday again, hope it’s a good one. . . .
