At the risk of sounding like the illegitimate son of Marlin Perkins, I have to admit after nearly 60 years on this planet, I have more of an affinity for non-human living things than I do for Homo sapiens.

Some, but not all, family members excepted, I’ll take just about any four-legged, gilled or invertebrate critter over good old Humanus Assholus any day of the week.

The reasoning is pretty simple.

Most living non-humans are simple creatures with very little motivation beyond living and, perhaps, procreating.

They’re in an environment rarely of their own choosing and they attempt to stay alive in it. And in almost every case, their inability to reason or deduce or be creative – those wonderful attributes humans believe make them superior to non-humans – is a plus.

Sure, humans are capable of producing wonderful works of art, curing diseases, creating vehicular travel and dozens of other jaw-dropping treasures. But unfortunately, too often those items are produced with some insane value and ownership strings attached.

Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is a gorgeous and intriguing creative work, but in order to view its beauty you’d better be prepared to create something called money.

Why?

Because humans actually put arbitrary and ridiculous values on articles that would be better left to be enjoyed, admired or ingested by the masses.

Non-humans have little interest in anything beyond survival. They will help each other without expecting reciprocation. The only time they will fight is if they feel threatened or if something they need to survive or have just given birth to is threatened. Humans will fight over whether a fictitious ball crossed a fictitious line in an X-Box game.

They’ll fight over whether their personal ideologies are accepted or rejected by another group of humans. They’ll fight because they feel like fighting, or kill because they feel like killing or spit on another human being because they feel like spitting.

And should one choose not to answer such a threat, they are branded a pansy, or worse.

As for their place on the planet and looking out for others of the same species, most humans will do whatever the hell they feel like doing with virtually no regard for its repercussions on the environment in which they live or the creatures who inhabit it. When’s the last time a section of land was not permitted to be developed out of concern for the other living things in the immediate vicinity?

Nope, as long as some human is “benefiting” from erecting another house or houses on said property, all is hunky dory.

I can’t recall too many tales about cougars snapping out from the pressures of life and murdering a dozen other cougars. Humans do such things as a matter of course and then achieve some type of notoriety because of it.

Humans love to puff out their collective chests and crow from the tops of high buildings how they band together and help each other in times of crisis. The 9/11 tragedy is the perfect example. “Look how Americans pulled together and lent their unsolicited hands to the area around Ground Zero,” they said. And to their credit, they were right – for about two weeks. As soon as the country returned to some semblance of normalcy, the humans went right back to trying to screw each other out of everything they possessed.

Greed seems to be inherent in the human being, whereas personal survival seems to take the first three places on the non-humans’ list of dos and don’ts.

Oh sure, a couple of dogs may scrap over a bone, but it’s unlikely that same dog will invade his adversary’s home later that day with an Uzi.

If there is a mass homicide involving four-legged critters, bet the furniture it was instigated by the two-legged species ( Michael Vick, take a bow).

Do I have it in for the human race?

Honestly, no, but the jerk-offs are outnumbering the good folk by the minute.

And until the odds begin trending in the other direction I’ll cast my lot with the four-legged, the backbone-less and those with wings.

To put it simply, I prefer the company.