On March 7, 1997, three youths broke into Noah's Ark, a cat shelter in Fairfield, Iowa. Using baseball bats, they brutally bludgeoned 27 cats, leaving 17 dead and many others maimed for life.
Horrifying? Not so, according to some of the residents of this town, which lies philosophically somewhere between bucolic nostalgia and new-age transcendence.

"I agree what the things did you and I do growing up that we wished we wouldn't have done?", "I think it's a thing that boys have.

You used to see them out hunting, targeting cats with .22s," and "If I'd been with him that night, I would have helped," were comments heard from the "old-timers" (the latter comment from a teenage boy.)

As animal advocates raged country-wide, the town split asunder, with pleas from the "old-timers" to "just go away and leave us alone." Many residents considered the event just a "boyish prank", but not so the founders of Noah's Ark and their supporters.

Legislation Urged and Found

Existing Iowa law in 1997 treated such crimes as misdemeanors unless the value of the property destroyed constitutes a felony. The ruling in the Noah's Ark case was that "stray cats" had limited monetary value, therefore the standards of felony destruction could not be applied.

The disappointing trial verdict in Iowa led Noah's Ark founders along with the Iowa Federation of Humane Societies, to launch a fund-raising campaign to hire a lobbyist and develop a campaign for a legislative initiative that would make animal cruelty a felony in Iowa.

I am pleased to note that stronger felony laws were instituted in Iowa in the 21st century. Perhaps other states will soon follow suit.

Albert Schweitzer Saw it Coming

• In looking back to the end of the century, I could never understand the optimism over the achievements of the times. Everywhere, many seemed to suppose that we had not merely advanced in knowledge, but that we had reached heights in spirituality and ethics we had never attained before and would never lose. But to me it seemed that we not only had failed to surpass the spiritual life of past generations, but that we were really only nibbling from their accomplishments, and that in many respects, our spiritual inheritance was dribbling out of our hands.
  (Origin of Reverence for Life)

As we enter yet another century, we find ourselves asking the same kind of questions Albert Schweitzer asked a hundred years ago. His thoughts then were both dismal and encouraging:

• We live in a dark frightening age. One reason for this is the part played by the ideology of inhumanity in our time.
  "The Philosophy of Civilization"
  Because I have confidence in the power of Truth and of the spirit, I believe in the future of mankind.
  "Life and Thought"
  

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