Earlier today Jeff and I were shopping at our favorite animal food supplier, when we noticed something moving on the shelves. It was “live food” for reptiles, that included different types of insects. There is something terribly wrong with this: to keep a wild animal captive and feed him with another animal… alive. This is all but “the order of nature”. This is just sick.

Some weeks ago Jeff and I attended a speech by Dr. Kevin McCarthy at the Irish-Jewish museum of Dublin. There, we met Margaret, one of the volunteers that run the museum. She does that with such passion and dedication that, at the end of the conference, we decided to get involved too, and give a little bit of our time to help them keep up the conservation of priceless documents that are part of the untold history of Ireland.

The recent terrorist attacks in France are a good starting point. As I have written before, in Europe we have a misconception of reality: in spite of a wide media coverage, we pay little attention to what’s happening around us, unless we are directly affected. And sometimes such shortsightedness hides obvious phenomena.

I have been silent for the last two weeks on the latest terrorist attacks. I have assisted with interest to the unrolling of the events, as in Paris as in Nigeria, as in other parts of the world. I have assisted to the flooding of the ‘Je suis Charlie’ motto all over the web, and I respect that. I have also liked the “Charlie Hebdo” Facebook page in solidarity with their victims (and colleagues). But no, I don’t feel like joining the tide. Je ne suis pas Charlie (I’m not Charlie).

It’s no mystery that we are animal lovers. We are vegan, we have two wonderful kittens that are part of the family. Two days ago we had a very unhappy experience with the rescue of a cat. An experience that left us wondering why humankind is all but kind.

You can see them riding their bikes in the coldest of weather, wearing their fluorescent yellow bibs and some funny hats that make them immediately recognizable. But you can also see them riding horses, motorbikes and driving their colorful cars. It’s the An Garda Síochána, the Irish “Guardian of the Peace”. And they carry no firearms.