The war against the carriage park horses has the feel of a jihad, a holy war, it is relentless, fanatic, self-righteous, uncompromising. I suppose in many ways this campaign is an inevitable outcome of the emotionalizing of animals, a process that has been accelerating in America as more and more Americans see the lives of animals through the prism of rescue, abuse and dependence.  The animal exists to be rescued, to be saved, to make us feel better about ourselves in a disconnected and fragmented society. We know longer know them, only what we need to know about them.

As Henry Beston wrote, animals are not our dependent children, they are our partners in the world, we are obliged to make room for them, to give them purpose and meaning, to keep them in our lives. If they are driven from New York, I feel as if the city will have cut out a piece of its soul.