{"id":86,"date":"2006-02-28T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-01T03:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/28\/being-kind-and-gentle\/"},"modified":"2006-02-28T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-01T03:16:00","slug":"being-kind-and-gentle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/being-kind-and-gentle\/","title":{"rendered":"Being kind&#8230; and gentle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Trudging through the mass pages of muck provided by blogs on the internet you sometimes come across a great one with an entry that is inspiring.  I found such a story on the blog <a href=\"http:\/\/www.randomasides.blogspot.com\">Random Asides<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>True character is measured by the way we treat creatures more fragile than ourselves.  Here, Tarra the Elephant observes a fledgling bird.<br \/><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/images\/baby_and_tarra1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/images\/baby_and_tarra1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With gentle curiosity she creeps closer to learn more about this funny little creature perched on a wire.  (Check out more pictures of Tara <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/tarra\/tarrapic.htm\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/photoalbum\/critter_encounters.htm\">here<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>I find this inspiring that a creature as powerful as an elephant is intuitive enough to tread lightly around a little bird.  All too often it seems that those bigger than others, whether in <a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/images\/baby_and_tarra2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 291px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/images\/baby_and_tarra2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>social stature or in other ways, overlook everyone below them.  I guess you could call it a big head.  Wouldn&#8217;t it be nice if humans could learn from Tara&#8217;s example?  It is a good lesson and one that we all should learn from.  As Winnie the Pooh once said, &#8220;If people were superior to animals, they&#8217;d take better care of the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you like these pictures please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elephants.com\/\">The Elephant Sanctuary<\/a>. It&#8217;s an amazing place where retired elephant performers can live out their lives in peace. No chains, no tricks. They&#8217;re free to play and socialize in a free-roaming environment which is a stark contrast to the show circuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trudging through the mass pages of muck provided by blogs on the internet you sometimes come across a great one with an entry that is inspiring. I found such a story on the blog Random Asides. True character is measured by the way we treat creatures more fragile than ourselves. Here, Tarra the Elephant observes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenheld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}