Cecil is dead and human lives are threatened every day

Don't get me wrong. I'm a cat person. My wife and I have two longhair domestic felines with whom I would not part. I support Ernie Chambers' proposed ban on hunting Mountain Lions. My high school mascot was the mythical Bearcat.

But people, let's get over this killing of Cecil the black-maned and well-loved lion (read that tourist attraction) in Zimbabwe.

Yes, we have heard that a dentist in Minnesota allegedly killed the lion and that the Zimbabwe government has arrested and charged the two local guides who baited the lion to come out of the protection of a wildlife refuge. The dentist is in hiding and the accusations and the headlines continue.

Yes, it's wrong. Baiting animals for the kill is illegal in Nebraska as well. Although, it does seem strange that it's OK to tree a mountain lion and shoot it for sport if the "lucky" hunter wins the lottery for a license to kill.

But what about the 4,800 people who were killed by Ebola last year? And the hundreds of Christians being slaughtered in the Middle East? Or the 200 missing school girls in Nigeria and the 43 male students missing from a school in Mexico? What about the 10 men on death row in the Nebraska prison system?

The issue here is ... there are other issues. Matters of the life and death of humans.

Advancements have been made in the treatment of Ebola. There were twice as many cases reported, as there were deaths, so something is working.

As for the Christians being slaughtered, the recent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Copts has led others to flee. Some say as many as 700,000 Christians have left Syria where they once numbered 1.1 million. Others have faced enslavement, torture, massacre or crucifixion.

The missing school children are seemingly unfathomable in this country. Yet we are told that kids go missing every day, some in custody disputes, some to sex trafficking, some just running away. They rarely make national headlines, but it is happening.

As for the 10 on Nebraska's Death Row, it seems that their individual lives are being overlooked as attention focuses on a group trying to undo a ban on capital punishment passed by the Legislature this year. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty have until the end of August to get enough valid signatures of registered voters to bring the matter to a vote of the people in the 2016 general election.

Election laws require that the group needs to collect signatures of at least 5 percent of the voters in each of 38 of the state's 93 counties. If they collect 115,000 signatures by the end of August, they can prevent the ban from taking effect before the election. The measure, passed by an override of Governor Pete Rickett's veto, takes effect 90 days from the date of the override.

Lawmakers were given fair warning that a veto was coming. Ricketts was given fair warning that the Legislature would attempt an override. He vetoed, they overrode the veto. But it was only a matter of days before the petition group formed and the governor invested $100,000 of his own money and $100,000 of his dad's money in the effort. He recently donated another $100,000 to the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty.

Granted, that's not illegal. The governor can do whatever he wants to with his own money. But am I the only person in Nebraska who sees a dangerous precedent here? If things don't go your way, just throw some money at it and "buy" the results you wanted.

I know that there are those who believe that corporate America has bought Congress. But folks, right here in Nebraska?

One has to wonder why the governor is so intent on the death penalty that he had the Department of Corrections buy the drugs to perform lethal injections in spite of the Legislature's action. Drugs, I might add, that have yet to be delivered and may not be FDA approved.

What other issues do you suppose the governor is so serious about that he is willing to buy the outcome he wants?

What does that attitude do to the division of power? If legislative decisions can be changed with personal funds from the chief executive, where is the citizen's voice?