Here’s a sweet little lagniappe to go with your morning coffee, or lunch time sandwich or evening cup of tea, depending on where in the world you are today.
It comes from the Humans of New York project.
About Humans of New York:
My name is Brandon and I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010. I thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants, so I set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map. I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs.
“I try to come out here in the mornings before work. I know what it’s like to be hungry and not have a voice. I grew up 50 years ago in the housing projects of London. We didn’t starve, but a lot of times we had nothing for dinner but beans, or maybe some ham on toast. So I went to bed hungry a lot. And when you’re a kid, you don’t really have a say in the matter. So I feed the animals because they can’t really tell you if they’re hungry. I’m not changing the fucking world. But it’s better than not doing it.”
Hat-tip: Dennis D.
Amazing pic
I like the paw-to-hand contact. So trusting.
That was how I got bitten a few years ago. Twice in a week! Well, fingers look like peanuts! But VERY sharp…
I was breakfast that day…!
The person being quoted is wrong. He/she IS changing the world. Simple acts of kindness, witnessed by someone who might not feel kind at that time, might change that person’s perception of the world.
Maybe not in New York, though. I’m just sayin’…
And it changes oneself, being kind, too of course.
And yet, there’s this quote from Richard Dawkins that “If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.”
So is it really a good policy to feed wild animals? I don’t know…
I’m not sure “natural” applies to NYC though.
~Grania
Well, they recently discovered a new species of frog on Staten Island, so there’s some nature left there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_frog#New_species
Well, I think it is a good idea to feed the wild animals since we have taken away so much of their habitat and even sometimes made extinct their food sources. Who wants to be the last human on the planet with nothing but cockroaches to look at.
Sitting in a restaurant in London last year with my children, their spouses and my grandchildren, attention was drawn by a grandchild to a squirrel on the pavement outside the window with the exclamation, “Oh Granddad look, that squirrel’s eating a chocolate muffin!” Observation over a few seconds revealed that in fact the little creature was licking, and turning over in its paws, a large, dried, dog turd! It quite put me off my lunch!
Comments from the coprologists among you? T.
Sub
Because of this site, I started feeding squirrels walnuts. We have the diminutive red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) here, so I shell them.
Mike
Cute!
His swear quote at the end is awesome!
It’s true — and you can tell from his explanation of why he feeds squirrels, that he is a good person. Never trust anybody who doesn’t like squirrels is a good rule to live by.