Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am

( The undelivered Speech to Kacheliba Secondary School students written sometimes in 2008. I realized that elements of bad weather and rats might deprive me of this piece so I let it be here)

The Principal, the deputy, teachers and students…I feel excited to stand before you today. I am animated, enthusiastic and thrilled to address you today. More than seven years ago, I sat for my K.C.S.E in this school. I sat in the same classes you are sitting in today and faced almost the same challenges that you are facing today.

I remember a classmate friend of mine straight from primary who was outside the head teacher’s office. An English teacher asked him whether he had come to “borrow the school” to which our chap responded that he had. Our English teacher asked him: Friend, since you are “borrowing the school” when do you intend to return it? My classmate stood there confused and confounded, baffled and befuddled. Such was his faze and flummox. Undeterred, he indicated that he will “return the school” when he finishes.

I also remember being a “mono” and being invited for valentines with a Form two girl. On that day, I was “wed” to this girl. Flowers were exchanged and marriage vows said. Being a mono was tough but it had its fun and amusement, mirth and pleasure.

What comes into my mind now is my English teacher. You are fresh from Class Eight and he talks of things as puzzled, perplexed, entangled, ensnared, bewildered, flummoxed. Why couldn’t he just say confused? I once borrowed from him an English textbook. While returning it he asked: Was it valuable or invaluable? To which I dutifully answered it was not invaluable but very valuable. My English teacher just laughed. Little did I know that those were synonyms!

Students, I have a quote for you today from John Kendrick Bangs in “My Silent Servants”. It says:

If…I find [a man] enriching his mind with constant drafts upon the treasures of song, or feeding his soul upon the spiritual meat of the great masters of letters, or delving deep into the veins of the mines of philosophy, he seems to me to have become a promising initiate into the goodly company of the immortals.

Let me repeat that:

If…I find [a man] enriching his mind with constant drafts upon the treasures of song, or feeding his soul upon the spiritual meat of the great masters of letters, or delving deep into the veins of the mines of philosophy, he seems to me to have become a promising initiate into the goodly company of the immortals.

How many times do you enrich your mind? How frequent do you feed your soul? How many times do you commune with the immortals in books? How many books have you read? Apart from the textbooks you read for your exams which other books have you read for the fun of it or just to expand your knowledge?

It is never too late. 

Here’s a proverb in “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion, when the sun comes up, you better start running.

Students of Kacheliba, the sun is up and you better start running. Let me tell you my story. In 2002, I sat for my K.C.S.E and got a grade B failing to join public university by two points. I felt sad, dejected, humiliated and disconsolate. My dreams were lofty, my plans grand and ambition soaring into the skies. These dreams, these plans, these ambitions were worthless, futile, profitless, vain. I had always dreamt of becoming two things in life: A lawyer or a journalist. With my failure of joining a public university, my first option was pipe dream, an exercise in futility. After finishing form four I taught Kacheliba Girls Primary for almost a year before going to Nairobi for my packages in Computer .

I came back home and went to St. Comboni Amakuriat Secondary school to teach Computer and Kiswahili. Four years later, yet I had not joined a University nor enrolled for some journalism course. I received an admission letter from Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) to study print journalism. I declined partly because I didn’t have the requisite fees and that  my heart was still fixed on a career on law. Somebody told me that if we talk frequently about our dreams and aspirations then we, at the end of the day will achieve those dreams.

I always believed that “I must keep on rowing, not until I reach port but until I reach my grave”. I always hoped that even after having spent four years at home after completion of my fourth form, God, in his mysterious ways could have fixed things for me to do law.

Right now I am at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa pursuing law. I am in my third year. My story could be a part of your story too, a story about patience and perseverance, a story about fortitude and long-suffering and stoicism. I am not any different from you. Let us get more practical now.

Number  1, you are a fool. 

That is why you are here. Start from there. Search for knowledge. Stretch your mind to the limit. Be humble. Respect your teachers even when they might have iron hands. Read books as if you are chasing after somebody whom you are afraid of losing.

Number 2, know where you are going. 

What do you want to become in the next 10 or 15 years? Do you believe that you are such a person? What is it that you need to do daily to become such a person? How do you improve yourself? Remember if you don’t know where you are going any road can lead you there. Don’t fall a victim.

Number 3, let your poverty be your incentive, your bait, your impetus, your motivation, your enticement.  

When you wake up to a thin sugarless millet porridge, when you take a morsel for food and sleep on mud bed, when you go back home to find your family having migrated far away where there’s green grass..all these should be the building blocks to your academic success. Get positively angry with your poverty.

Number 4, never be a victim of narrow learning. 

Read for your exams. Do it. Pass your exams. But if after finishing your exams you only know the molarity concept and scramble and partition of Africa you are not learned. Be an intellectual. You see, Ali Mazrui once said that an intellectual is a person who is fascinated by ideas. Ngugi said that an intellectual is a person who  knows something about everything and everything about something. Develop a curiosity within you, an inquisitivenss, constructive nosiness about something about everything. Learn history. Learn arts. Learn science. Read novels. Observe nature. Create within you child-like curiosity about everything. Never stop to ask why.

Read books, students. I am not any different from you. But I read books. After finishing form four I embarked on a journey into the world of books. I realized the wisdom of one Jesse Lee Bennett who said:

Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.

So I immersed myself into books. I read Kiriamiti’s My life in crime and son of fate. I read Ngugi’s Petals of Blood and Grain of Wheat and River Between. I read Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart. I read Katama Mkangi’s Walenisi and Buriani and Masaibu ya Ndugu Jero and Mashetani. I then read John Grisham’s legal thrillers like A Time to Kill and Runaway Jury and the Brethren. I read Ben Carson’s Think Big and my life was never  the same again. If you have not read that book please find time to read it and if you will still doubt your abilities come back to me so that I can trade my lungs for yours. I then read my Bible and other religious books like the Q’uran and Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishad. I read philosophy and science and arts. I discovered that, like Gjertrud Schnackenberg:

In my room

Among cities of books

Stacked in towers

Each book is a room

Students, make it happen. History abounds with tales of experts who were convinced that the ideas, plans, and projects of others could never be achieved. However, accomplishment came to those who said, “I can make it happen.” I got these stories from somewhere.

The Italian sculptor Agostino d’Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, “I can do nothing with it.” Other sculptors also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone and visualized the possibilities in it. His “I can-make-it-happen” attitude resulted in one of the world’s masterpieces- David.

The experts of Spain concluded that Columbus’s plans to discover a new and shorter route to the West Indies was virtually impossible. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ignored the report of the experts. “I can make it happen.” Columbus persisted. And he did. Everyone knew the world was flat, but not Columbus. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, along with Columbus and his small band of followers, sailed to “impossible” new lands and thriving resources.

Even the great Thomas Alva Edison discouraged his friend, Henry Ford, from pursuing his fledgling idea of a motorcar. Convinced of the worthlessness of the idea, Edison invited Ford to come and work for him. Ford remained committed and tirelessly pursued his dream. Although his first attempt resulted in a vehicle without reverse gear. Henry Ford knew he could make it happen. And of course, he did.

“Forget it,” the experts advised Madame Curie. They agreed radium was a scientifically impossible idea. However, Marie Curie insisted, “I can make it happen”

“Let’s not forget our friends Orville and Wilbur Wright. Journalists, friends, armed forces, specialists, and even their father laughed at the idea of an aeroplane. “What a silly and insane way to spend money. Leave flying to the birds,” they jeered. “Sorry,” the Wright brothers responded. “We have a dream and we can make it happen.” As a result, a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, became the setting for the launching of their “ridiculous” idea.

Make it happen, students. Make it happen for your studies. Make it happen for your Chemistry and Mathematics and English. Make it happen for your grades. Make it happen for your academic success. Make it happen! Make it happen! I also have another story for you. 

The Brooklyn Bridge that spans the river tying Manhattan Island to Brooklyn is truly a miracle bridge. In 1863, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea for this spectacular bridge. However, bridge-building experts throughout the world told him to forget it; it could not be done.

Roebling convinced his son, Washington, who was a young up and coming engineer, that the bridge could be built. The two of them developed the concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With unharnessed excitement and inspiration, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project was only a few months under construction when a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling and severely injured his son, Washington. Washington was left with permanent brain damage and was unable to talk or walk. Everyone felt that the project would have to be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built.

Even though Washington was unable to move or talk, his mind was as sharp as ever, and he still had a burning desire to complete the bridge. An idea hit him as he lay in his hospital bed, and he developed a code for communication. All he could move was one finger, so he touched the arm of his wife with that finger tapping out the code to communicate to her what to tell the engineers who were building the bridge. For thirteen years, Washington tapped out his instructions with his fingers until the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge was finally completed.

That is the story of determination. That is the story of John Roeblings and Washington. That is the painful story of perseverance. You have a bridge of your own to build: the bridge of your academic success. Fortunately, you don’t need to tap any code to communicate. You walk freely unlike Washington who was bedridden. We need more John Roeblings in this school. We need more Washingtons who finish what they have started no matter the tragedies and vagaries of life. We need Roeblings and Washingtons who don’t follow the crowd, who follow their convictions and beliefs and strengths.

You can make it happen. If you think you can, then you can. If you think you can’t, then you can’t. It’s all in the mind. If you believe that you can ride a bicycle on a tight rope tied between two tall buildings then let me be honest yes, you can ride it. I believe that an injection is the most painful torture than can be inflicted upon me by the hands of man. You cannot say the same about the medicine tablets that I comfortably swallow. Give me any tablet with or without water any time and I will swallow them as if they are Patco. I knew of somebody who on the sight of tablets developed fright over them.

It is all in the mind. As a man thinketh so is he. Descartes said:

Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.

If you think you are a winner and a non-quitter then the world will be shaped according to your desires. If you think that there is a curse of failure which follows your lineage and family tree than who am I, son of the hills, to intercede in your generational curses. Beware of what you consciously think about every day because it will follow up with you sooner rather than later.

I had already told you about what Thomas Friedman said:

That…

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion, when the sun comes up, you better start running.

Start running. It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion. Remember that rule number one, you are a fool; rule number two know where you are going, rule number three let poverty be your incentive; and rule number four never be a victim of narrow learning. Don’t forget those rules. Be fascinated with ideas. Read books. Make it happen. Remember that Columbus made it happen even though the crowd thought that the world was flat, circumnavigation was possible. Henry Ford made it happen with the Ford motors. Orville and Wilbur Wright, the so-called Wright Brothers made it happen. They made flying happen.

You too can make it happen. Believe that you can make it happen. And when you believe that you can make it happen there is no limit as to how far you can reach. You can be anything in this world. Think that you can. Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.

Thank you for lending me your ears. God bless Kacheliba, God bless Kenya, God bless this world. Thank you.

Mr. Lion's Speech

Fellow animals,
Monkeys, chimpanzees, baboons, apes, gazelles, tigers, zebras, cockerels, hens, dikdiks, warthogs, wildebeests, elephants, hares, hyenas;

Dear animals,
Aardvarks, badgers, alligators, barracudas, camels, anteaters, cattle, bullfinch, butterflies, alpacas, blackbirds, coyote, crab, crocodile, gorillas, doves, ducks, goose;

Dear brothers of the feline family,
The tigers, the leopards, the cougars, the cheetahs, the lynx, the caracals, the bobcats;

Fellow animals, the birds,
The buzzard, horned-owl, the pigeon, the falcons, the ring-doves, the cuckoos, the re-foots, the red-caps, the purple-caps, the kestrels, the divers, the ouzels, the ospreys, the wood-peckers;

Our burrowing friends,
The moles, the earthworms, the ants, the armadillo, the bilbies, the cicadas, the desert tortoises, the fennec foxes, the ferrets, the mongoose, the hamsters, the meerkats and the kangaroos;

Our brothers, the reptiles,
The turtles, the lizards, the snakes, the tuataras, the dinosaurs, the geckos, the iguanas, the anacondas, the pythons, the black mambas, the komodo dragons, the leatherback turtles, the kraits, the bearded lizards, the boa constrictors, the bull snakes, the emerald tree boas, the frilled lizards, the king cobra, the rattlesnake;

All the animals, in the sky or underground, on land or in the sea, on the trees or inside caves, living in bondage with man or in freedom;

All fellow animals I have forgotten to mention;

I greet you all.

You elected me as your King to chart the destiny of this Jungle. You still remember how I promised to deliver to you; how I will improve the lives of you folks, the birds, the reptiles, the felines, the burrows and the land brothers.

You still also remember how I promised to fight for your cause and liberation from our common enemy, the Man. That I, your King, with the roar undisputable and the mane that make man dance with fear, will unchain you, fellow animals from the slavery of man.
That I, with the agile claws that can tear a tree-bark into two, will restore the peace that used to reign in our deserts, our seas, our forests, our skies, our caves, our habitats.
That I, your undisputed King of the Jungle, the desert, the skies and the sea, will unite you against man so that never again should man reap from where he never sowed or venture to where he never lives or disturbs what is never his.

My fellow animals,
I read this speech thanks to the help of the feathers of the hummingbird and the watery droppings of the woodpecker. These two friends of ours make this speech a reality. How can I forget the help of our friend the pigeon who scribbled the words using his beak as I dictated to her. I thank the ant too for assisting to lick away misspelled words. Such sacrifice, fellow animals! The woodpecker whispered to me just some few minutes ago that the pigeon deserves congratulations since his droppings were acidic! Never mind, I am just teasing.

I would like to thank our four friends, the geckos, who held every corner of this paper as pigeon was writing it. Thanks, too, for our friend the chameleon for accepting to lend us his many font colours as the speech dictated. Right now he is recuperating inside that cave on the right after donating so much ink for this speech. I wish him quick recovery.

Thanks are also in order for the valiant work of the Anaconda for proof-reading the fine text of this speech as keenly as he could be and providing worthy suggestions. It may please to tell you that our own anaconda used his fangs in circling and underlining ungrammatical words and providing synonyms from our dictionary that our son the parrot wrote two years ago.

Brothers,
You sent me to learn of the ways of our Enemy, the Man, so that we could try to find ways in which we can unchain ourselves. You told me to go and explore his nature, attitude, habits, strengths, weaknesses, tricks, magic.
You sent me to go and find out why our brothers the cats, the doves, the ducks, the donkeys, the cattle, the pigs, the pigeons, and others liked to live with man.
You asked me to go and ask Man why he hated us, animals, as if we didn’t have blood like theirs, skin like theirs, minds like theirs although they think they are sharper than us. You asked me to go to Man and investigate may be what our forefathers did to man so as to ask for his vengeance.
You sent me to Man to ask him why he taught his children not to be as poor as a church mouse or as bald as eagle or as proud as peacock or chattering like a monkey or moving like snail or eating like a pig. You, the moles, the hawks, the parrots sent me to ask man why he said eyes like a hawk, beating around the bush, making a mountain out of a molehill or saying, when they are sick, as sick as a parrot.

Fellow animals,
You sent me and I went to the Kingdom of man. The Kingdom of Man is a big mess. You don’t hear the buzz of the bee, the twit twit of the birds, the cuckoo of the cuckoo, the coo of the doves, the honk of the geese, the laugh of the hyena, the hoot of the owls or the cock-a-doodle-doo of the roosters;

In the Kingdom of Man , it’s the scream of dying people, the honk of their cars, the screech of their cars, the noise of howl of their drunken fellows, the blare of their sirens, the groans of their beggars, the whines of their battered wives and the deafening noise of their politicians.

Fellow animals, the Kingdom of Man is filled with noise of confusion and smell of bilge. They shake hands without emotions, they love hatred, and they glorify war and constantly plan how to sell us to their Foreign Masters. Dear animals, even the same human beings divide themselves as black or as white. Who has ever seen us calling our brothers the monkeys blacks or our sisters the doves whites?

Brothers and sisters of the Animal Kingdom,
I went to Forest Arena of man (they call it Parliament). It is just like this Forest Arena that I am addressing you from. Man is not creative. He does not have something of his own. One of his parties called Kenya Social Congress has its symbol as a dove. Doves, you are beautiful, nobody should cheat you. They use the symbol of Bee for another of their party called Kenya National Democratic Alliance, and the giraffe for Federal Party of Kenya, and Lion( my own symbol, fellow animals) for FORD-K, and the trumpet for Peoples Party of Kenya, and the Flywhisk for the people's Solidarity Union of Kenya, and leopard for National Alliance Party, and the African Horn for the United Democrats of Peace and Integrity in Kenya, and bull for National Labour Party, and Elephant for the Social Party for Adavancement and Reforms,and ostritch for Kenya citizens Congress. Even the cockerels they so much slaughter during their celebration madness they have even used for one of their parties
called KANU!

They realize the animal power.

They realize the gentleness of the dove, the sweet honey of the bee, the elegant tallness of the giraffe, the ferocity of the lion, the slippery swimming of the fish, the beauty of the flywhisk, the elegance of the leopard, the sweet sound of the horn, the commanding presence of the elephant and the beauty of the ostritch.

Fellow animals, that is why I bring you the message of hope and the rallying call for our unity. Man is divided.
Here, the leopard can rub the shoulder of its cub but in the land of man their children are thrown in latrines and sewages.
Here, the elephant sets out in the morning to look for food but in the land of man they set out to kill, to rape, to steal, to philander, to loot, to destroy, to shout, to revenge, to get more and more.
Here, the monkey eats quavas, mangoes, oranges and wildberries and leaves the rest for fellow animals in the Kingdom but in the land of man he eats till he constipates then throws away the food.
Here, our dutiful birds sleep early and wake up early and chirp to welcome a new day but in the land of man they eat and drink and dance and indulge from daylight to daylight.
Here, we are patient to listen to rhythm of our own hearts but in the land of man they sulk and scowl and sully their faces. They crease their faces against all. They talk in monosyllables and cannot listen for more than one minute. Even his speech of mine, if I were to read it to them, they will sleep and snore.

I don't understand the ways of Man. He destroys the other in rape and war and call it a beastly act. Crazy! Don't we as male animals breathe on the tails of our female counterparts before we can mate? If a lion did that to a lioness and the lioness ran away, did the lion chase her and tear her and hurt her? Don't the donkeys go hee-haw before they can mate? or the owls go tu-whit, tu-whoo to call the other in the quietness of the forest? Why then does man call their acts beastly when as beasts we don't do as they do? And when they throw missiles, tomahawks and bombs at each other and dwindle their number, why do they call it beastly?

Dear Fellow animals, you still remember the affront of man on our dignity when Bird Flu descended on our colleagues, the birds. How they all coughed and sneezed and threw panic to the length and breadth of the Animal Kingdom. How their chirp were reduced to subdued chat on their impending deaths.
The memory is still there, my dear animals, of how man was happy. How man viewed us with suspicion and hatred and contempt. You remember how our brothers enslaved by man were slaughtered in their thousands and buried in deep graves and how man said that this was a ‘security issue’. Which then prompted us to send our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Pigeon to plead for the lives of our remaining colleagues who were languishing in stuffy wood structures. I feel like to weep, brothers, remembering how man threatened to shoot our very own Hon. Pigeon and make a good ‘foreign dish’. And so we were killed, we were maimed, we were sent to early graves at the altar of man’s arrogance.

Brothers, the Bird Flu came and went an in came Rift Valley Fever. Our brothers in man’s bondage were viewed with suspicion. They needed to be strong every time and everywhere. If they showed dizziness, they were slaughtered and their bodies hurriedly buried.

On the two occasions when we beseeched man to let us have the bodies of our fallen brothers and sisters to be buried in animal dignity near the graves of their forefathers, man just laughed and cursed and said: When did animals bury their dead? When if I may ask? So they never knew that we too respect our fallen ones. They never knew that the birds sung dirges for the entire period when their brothers were being slaughtered by man. They never knew that the animals here in the forest walked with lowered heads of sorrow, shame and mourn. They never knew that in my heart I was weeping for the lives of our very own birds and cows. And man says, when animals buried their dead.

We continue to be exploited. We are milked dry by man. Our brothers remain imprisoned in man’s forest. Our brothers eat their own grass, drink their own water, live their own lives. But man, and he thinks he is kind, showcases us to his friends all day all night and he is paid for that! He reaps where he doesn’t sow, I told you. For the worth of his barbed wire fence, man drives near our brothers when they want to mate and procreate, peeps t them without shame and even honks at them. When our brothers want to get out of that prison, when they try to jump out in order to meet old friends and broken kinship, man’s fence hits him back hard into the prison. We did the burial of our own, the Elephant, Margarita, when his tusk broke because of this, rotting several months later and causing his death. Man disturbs us from the sky when he counts us aerially, blaring his machine on our ears, our spouses, our offsprings.

We, animals, have the power to unchain our friends in the slavery of man. Our friends in the captivity of man regard us as barbaric and uncouth. They talk in their noses. They don’t chew hard grass, they want soft ones planted by man. They are lazy and pampered. They are still our own, lazy or not lazy, nonetheless.

Our brothers, the donkeys, deserve special mention. They carry the sacks of man on their frail backs from the time the birds chirp in the morning to the time the forest full of cricket sounds! They wag their tongues all day long and pant in short, warm and bloody breathes, they are whipped and chased around. And man, in his kindness, calls him the beast of burden. What’s with man with beasts, beasts. Here, our brothers the donkeys bathe in sand and run happily in freedom. But I tell you, fellow animals, the Kingdom of man wages full war on our brothers the donkeys. When they get sick they are sold to crooked butcheries to be slaughtered, cooked, sold unsuspiciously and eaten by other hungry men. So for the dutiful service of carrying man’s burden and yoke, they face the butcher’s knife. A perfect retirement package indeed!


Fellow animals,
I called you here to show you that we need to be united in order to defeat man. He's too pre-occupied with many things. If he's not campaigning, he's dying of hunger, if he's not raping, he's bashing his wife, if he is not looting, he's killing.

That's why we need the agility of the monkeys to be Traffic Policemen, the Baboons to be Security Guards, the Giraffe to be the Tour Guide, the elephants to be Vehicles, the doves to be the Receptionists, the frogs to be Alarms, the leopard to be the Finance Minister, the Anaconda to be the Internal Security Minister, the pigeon to be the Minister For Foreign Affairs, the Cow to be the Minister of Livestock, the Tilapia to be the Minister of Fisheries.

We need the fox as our Government Spokesperson to spin good tales about the Animal Kingdom.

We also need the Chimpanzee as the Speaker of the House. We will find him an equivalent for man's spectacles made from cowrie-shells.

Fellow animals, I want us to unite our twits twits, peep peep, croaks and honks, brays and coos to unchain ourselves from Man. In solidarity we will forge forward. In the Animal Solidarity we will oust man.

So fellow animals, sharpen your beaks, train your fangs, deepen your roars, train your claws, increase your speeds;

Monkeys, increase your tricks of jumping from one twig to another;
Snakes, train to slither on pavements- the Man's land is no grass;
Birds, learn a trick or two from the woodpecker-I want your beaks sharp and strong
Eagles, fly ever high and double our visions-your work will be to spot where man is so that the boa constrictor does something to him;
You pigs, don't embarrass me. Man has a lot of garbage so don't your snouts on them- our mission will not be eating but sweating!
And as for you the Owls, it will be hoot, hoot, tu-whit, tu-whoo till man faints from the noise.You get me?
You the birds will attack man from the skies-fly in a swarm and aim the aeroplanes. Some can sacrifice to be sucked into the engine for our cause. You falcons, don't betray us!
Our burrowing friends will attack man from under the soil and the reptiles will dominate the see.
On land, flat as it is, leave it to us the lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars, cheetahs, lynx, caracals and bobcats

Power to animals! Power to the Animal Kingdom!