Animals – Page 10

Hola

Hello, my darlings.

It’s Lauren, here for the weekend at Jill’s behest. Although I started this here blog a few years back, I’m most regularly found at Faux Real and occasionally blogging about politics at the mega-parenting site Offsprung with co-blogger Amanda Marcotte.

I can’t believe I signed on to blog on weekends for the rest of September considering I have a few things on my plate, but I will do my best to offer some uncrappy writing, and in turn, make demands of the Feministe community.

To start, I need an animated gif of this cat sneezing.

Update: BONUS! XtinaS delivers in the comments.

Someone, please, put Pete Doherty in rehab for a long, long time

Apparently, being a raging drug addict isn’t enough for Pete Dougherty — now he’s making his cat smoke crack.

He’s pretty much the most fucked up human being ever. He’s barely even human anymore. He’s a walking sack of cocaine wearing a fedora.

And I know it’s not funny funny, but the last line of the article did make me laugh, even if the rest of it made me want to cry:

In the US, crack squirrels are a recognised problem in New York and Washington DC parks.

Thanks to Lauren for the link.

Only in New York, kids. Only in New York

Via Lauren comes this tale of what happens when you put a shark among a bunch of New Yorkers:

A lifeguard saved a shark from a mob of panicking swimmers off a beach on New York’s Coney Island.

Marius Mironescu grabbed the 2ft sand shark in his arms and swam out to sea with it, reports the New York Daily News.

“There must have been 75 to 100 people circled around the shark in the water and they were bugging out,” said Mr Mironescu, 39, of Brooklyn.

“They were holding on to it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face. Well, I wasn’t going to let them hurt the poor thing.”

He carried the shark – a baby and harmless to humans – to a less populated area and started backstroking out to sea, dragging the shark with one hand.

“He was making believe like he’s dead, then he wiggled his whole body and tried to bite me. He didn’t get it,” added Mr Mironescu.

Tough crowd.

What he said

I don’t want to drag out the Save Monty drama any longer than necessary, but I will point you all to Elaine’s response to my post. It’s worth a read, and I appreciate her engaging these issues. She makes many interesting points, but I think it’s rather obvious that we are coming from fundamentally different places, and there are some gaps that just aren’t going to be bridged. Although, damn, I’ve never had someone call me “anti-animal-rights” before. But it’s your movement, and if you want to draw the “If you aren’t with us then you’re against us” line, I suppose that’s your prerogative.

We’re mostly at an impasse, so I’ll just let Brooklynite do the talking for me:

Criticized for describing animal breeding as “slavery,” Elaine Vigneault comes back with this:

The only difference between a mentally disabled human and a cow is that one is my species and one is not.

Look. I’m sympathetic to the pro-animal cause. I’ve been trending in that direction intellectually over time, and I’ve recognized recently that I really should do more to bring my actions into line with my abstract beliefs.

But even in circumstances where the moral and historical parallels are strong, equating different oppressions is a dicey business. Even if you’ve done all your homework and you’ve tailored your arguments narrowly, you’re going to catch flak. If you haven’t done that — if you just toss out an analogy to appropriate some heft — you’re going to get slammed, and you’re going to deserve it.

There is no good ending to a sentence that begins with the words “The only difference between a mentally disabled human and a cow is…” Not any. If you ever find yourself typing such a sentence, make a beeline for the delete key. Press it and hold it down until the impulse passes.

You’ll thank me later.

One more thing: Let me be clear that I realize Elaine doesn’t speak for all animal rights activists, and that there are many animal rights activists who also cringe at this comparison. It’s unfair to paint all ARRs with a broad brush. So this post is directed specifically at Elaine’s comment, not at the animal rights movement in general (or at least, not at the very large contingent of that movement that would bristle at the cow/disabled person comparison). Like the feminist movement, the animal rights movement is a diverse one. And just as my posts here don’t speak for all feminists and don’t represent anyone else’s feminism but my own, Elaine’s above comment should not be construed to represent anyone’s animal rights beliefs but hers, and my response is directed at her statement, not at everyone who subscribes to the animal rights movement.

Drive-by puppy-mommying

Over at Feministing Jessica is under fire for buying her dog from a breeder. I’ve been following the thread since yesterday and was planning to write about it, but it looks like Zuzu beat me to it.

But I’ll add a few things. First, I think it’s important to emphasize the fact that I’m very sympathetic to the animal rights cause. I was a vegetarian for eleven years. As a kid, I wrote letters to Proctor & Gamble protesting their animal-testing policies. I make an effort to buy cruelty-free make-up and other beauty products (although I’m aware that the ingredients used to make those products are often tested on animals, even if the products themselves aren’t). I support stricter animal abuse laws, no-kill shelters, and more regulation of the meat and factory farming industries. My childhood dog (who we got from a friend who had to give him up, not a breeder) was a member of my family, and I still get teary-eyed when I talk about him. I absolutely adore my current dog (who we did get from a private breeder, and who lives in Seattle with my mom), and I desperately want to adopt a dog in New York — but because I know I can’t be a good pet owner right now, I haven’t. I have serious issues with, to borrow Carol Adam’s title, the sexual politics of meat (a book sent to me by fellow animal-lover Hugo). Feminism and animal rights do intersect, particularly in terms of the cultural mythology of meat — that is, the masculization of meat-eating, the feminization of vegetarianism, and the imaging of the female body as meat and a product for consumption. These issues matter, and it’s good to discuss them. But the way we discuss them matters too, and I don’t think that the appropriate place to bring them up is in a thread where a feminist blogger posts a cute video of her puppy. Commenters on that thread argued that the weren’t judging Jessica, but were simply criticizing a choice that Jessica made. But I think we all know it’s not that simple, and that separating the choices people make from the people themselves can be tricky business.

When we’re talking about animal rights, ethics and morals are going to play into the conversation, so I’ll put my animal-related moral code out there so that everyone knows where I’m coming from from the get-go. I believe that human beings have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and other animals to the best of our ability. I do not believe, however, that animals are people, too. We have an obligation to treat non-human animals with kindness, to not abuse them, to not subject them to unnecessary pain and suffering. However, I do believe that humans have greater rights than non-human animals. I don’t think that eating meat is morally wrong; I do, however, thing there are serious moral wrongs happening in the meat industry. I don’t think that having a pet is morally wrong; I do, however, think that there are serious moral wrongs happening in the animal-breeding industry. I can understand the argument against consuming animal products, and I do find meat-eating troubling to an extent, even though I do it. And I can understand the arguments against adopting pets from shelters instead of buying them from breeders, even if I think the way they were thrown at Jessica were really offensive and inappropriate.

What I can’t understand are comments like this:

My assumption: animals are not the property of humans to be bought and sold like slaves for our pleasure. They are other nations, to be respected and treated with dignity. Humans are responsible for cat and dog overpopulation, therefor we are responsible for caring for those animals that need care, the ones in shelters. There is absolutely no need to breed animals for profit, be them for pets or meat. It’s slavery and it’s wrong.

Holy. Crap.

I can’t believe I just read this. From a thread on Feministing responding to a cute video of Jessica’s puppy Monty, in which several people excoriated Jessica for getting Monty from a breeder, and demanded she justify her decision because she’s a feminist and dog breeding is somehow a core feminist issue:

There is absolutely no need to breed animals for profit, be them for pets or meat. It’s slavery and it’s wrong.

I just — that’s offensive to me on so many levels; I simply can’t imagine how that feels to someone whose ancestors survived the Middle Passage only to be sold at auction and kept in bondage for the rest of their lives; someone whose relatives in living memory were denied civil rights, equal access to education, and subject to lynching for nothing more than looking at a white person funny.

That’s just so willfully blindly privileged, and tin-eared, and utterly cruel, and racist all at the same time. But I suppose, given PETA’s history of racist and anti-Semitic ads, where images of black slaves and Jewish inmates at extermination camps were set alongside images of cattle going down a chute or chickens in battery cages, that this is not so uncommon an attitude among the animal-rights set. From Steve’s* post about Ingrid Newkirk’s dismissive response to the objection of James Cameron, the director of America’s Black Holocaust Museum to PETA’s “Slavery” campaign: (my emphasis)

Remember, [Dr.] Cameron almost died at the hands of a lynch mob. They were screaming “get the nigger” and had yanked him out of his cell. Only the lone voice of a woman saying “leave that boy alone” saved his life. But this harrowing experience means nothing to Newkirk, his pain is irrelevant to her. I thought I had seen cruel responses to Mrs. Sheehan. But this tops them. By a mile.

It’s the same kind of ignorant cruelty Cindy Sheehan is facing. Newkirk is simply incapable, like most fanatics, of seeing any side but her own. And she is blind to the outrage this will cause. She has no idea of how her response is not going to go over with black people. Even her explaination is as tone deaf as George Bush. That may go over well with her donors and allies when she makes a mistake, but it will fall on deaf ears with black people. I dare her to defend this on any black radio show, or even Air America.

Now, not only is PETA refusing to apologize, as they did with the Holocaust ad, they intend to continue the tour, well until they’re denounced on Tom Joyner and from church pulpits. To compare black people to animals is the gravest insult a white person can do, and no matter how “liberal” PETA says it is, this will dog it until their tour is cancelled. Because she is fucking with something she does not understand in any way, shape or form. Angry isn’t the word. I’d be surprised if Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton aren’t outside PETA HQ at the end of the week.

So, given that this is the mentality of PETA’s leadership, do you think it’s fair to call them racist, now?

Somehow, it’s even crueler when the animal in question is not a steer being led to the slaughterhouse, but a well-loved puppy from a responsible breeder.

I’m just gobsmacked.

And after I originally wrote this, the commenter explained herself:

Regarding Zuzu’s comments about slavery: Only people who think their lives are more important than non-human animals’ lives can be offended by the comparison of human slavery to animal slavery. The definition of slavery is to treat another as property. Property is the essential concept of slavery. Property. The only way you can be offended is if you think it’s OK to treat non-human animals as property. I’ve had this discussion on my blog before: http://www.elainevigneault.com/politics-of-power-and-peta.html
so you can read more if you’re truly interested in understanding my perspective. Or you can just ignore my criticisms and right me off as a loon, like you normally do.

I just really don’t know how to respond to that.

You?

(cross-posted here)
_________
* God, I miss Steve.

The Animal Game

Of all my favorite games, The Animal Game tops all (with Would You Rather coming in a close second). It’s pretty simple: You evaluate people you know according to what animal they look like. Everyone has an animal, and it’s a real skill to figure out who looks like what. Some people (like horse and cat people) are pretty obvious; others, like camels and turtles, are a little harder to identify. Your animal has nothing to do with how attractive you are, it’s more about which features you possess; that is, a dog or a fish person could be super hot, while a siamese cat or fox might be butt-ugly. So it’s not an attractiveness-rating game, it’s more of a matching and identifying exercise. And it takes serious skill. Lauren, for example, is a total angel fish. According to my two friends who are world champion Animal Gamers, I am either a red fox (the actual animal, not the slang term) or a raccoon. But I’m thinking that perhaps I’m actually a small marmalade-colored kitty who makes ridiculous faces. To wit:

True Happiness

Originally uploaded by JillNic83

Compared to…

And Now, For Something Completely Different!

Greetings Feministers!

I’m Rosanne Griffeth of the Smokey Mountain Breakdown and I will be using my guest blogging appearance to blog about Appalachian women.

I’m a writer and a teller of tales. It’s what I do best. My plan is to post essays and stories between Feministe and my blog through the week, each dealing with an aspect of these amazingly strong women’s lives. While my stories are largely fiction, they are derived from oral traditions passed on to me from the women of Grassy Fork, Tennessee. So, if there is an essay on Feministe…there will be a story on the SMB that relates to the essay…or if there is a ficlet here, I’ll be running my mouth over there.

Perhaps my two favorite fictional representations of Appalachian women are Fairlight Spencer in Christy by Catherine Marshall and Ruby Thewes in Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Both of these women ring 100% true to me, perhaps because I live 5 miles from the factual “Cutter’s Gap” and 20 miles from the factual Cold Mountain. My essays and stories will be drawn from my observations from this still remote area of Appalachia.

About me… I have a BA and an MFA in Theater. My emphasis was on costume design with a research interest in dramatic criticism, specifically feminist theater and women playwrights and women’s roles of the English Restoration period. I spent my early career working in “the vanities” of the film industry as a make-up artist and wig master throughout the US and the UK. I then moved on to costume design and from there to broadcast media at CNN.

My writing is heavily influenced by Marjorie Rawlings and Flannery O’Connor. I avoid Faulkner like the plague. I am, indeed, a Southern writer of the Dead Mule school in the sub-genre of Southern Gothic. I’m extremely interested in the intersection of beauty and the grotesque. I’m very interested in the psychology of faith. I’m also a contributor for Hillbilly Savants, Appalachian Writers and Dew on the Kudzu. If you are looking for political correctness, you will be sadly disappointed in me.

Kidzilla I now live on a mountaintop with my dogs and my goatherd. I consort with and write about Jesus’ Name Serpent Handlers, moonshiners, cock fighters, tent revival preachers, and sweet little old women who are waiting to die.

Welcome to my world and I hope you enjoy my visit on Feministe.

Tomorrow I will talk about the history of women in Appalachia and have a retelling of local story from the post-Civil War era.

On Ethical Food

To my surprise, my food posts (I am, after all, supposed to be feminist & foodie) have sparked serious controversy ’round these parts. So let’s see what happens today, when we throw religion into the mix.

Interestingly, though, here it is religion that is the issue around which people are converging, or at least a motivating factor for that convergence. Yesterday, the NY Times Dining & Wine section featured an article pithily titled “Of Church & Steak,” which surveyed various religious movements working toward more ethical food production. Movements are emerging among Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, and Muslims that push not only to slaughter animals in the most humane way possible (a focus of the Jewish kashrut laws or Muslim Halal), but also to ensure that the animals live cage free and that the people who care for and slaughter the animals are treated with respect and are paid living wages (not minimum wage). It’s food as social justice.

It’s not that this blending of green/sustainable/humane living and religion is anything new (eco-Kashrut has been around for about 30 years, as the Times notes, and which finds a modern home here). What’s new is the growing popularity of these movements, and their increasing power within their own religions. In Judaism, for example, the Conservative movement (less tied to the texts of Jewish law than Orthodox but more concerned with tradition and law than Reform) is in the process of creating a new kind of Kosher seal that would take into account issues of sustainability, humaneness during life, and treatment of human workers. (Apologies for the focus on Judaism; it’s what I know most about and would welcome perspectives from other religions on comments).

This change is clear both in the growth of interreligious work on ethical meat and in each religion. In the words of the inimitable Joel Salatin, proprietor of Polyface Farms, and a central figure in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, put it well in the Times article:

“Ten years ago most of my farm visitors were earth muffin tree-hugger nirvana cosmic worshipers,” Mr. Salatin said. “And now 80 percent of them are Christian home schoolers.”

I can’t preach from a bully pulpit on this issue — I’m headed to Peter Luger‘s tonight, where I doubt they use what I would call ethical and sustainable meat. But for me it’s something to aspire to, for ethical reasons that are both religious and secular.

(also at LGM)

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Well, it’s been quite the week, hasn’t it?

My time here at Feministe is coming to an end, and I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Jill et. al. for handing over the keys to the Porsche. I hope I didn’t put too many dings in it.

In all seriousness, this has been an awesome (though also occasionally terrifying and/or overwhelming) experience. Y’all — commenters, readers, bloggers, everyone — have consistently surprised me in the best of ways with your generous contributions and challenges and support. I’m a girl who likes to stir the pot on issues I care about, and y’all stirred it right back at me, in ways I couldn’t even have anticipated. That was the best part.

In gratitude, and because I can’t resist, I leave you with three parting gifts:

1) A Call to Action

Some of you may already know that the Elizabeth Stone House here in Boston suffered a devastating fire this week. Stone House has been doing heroic work for over 30 years and is the only domestic violence emergency shelter in the state that allows women to stay with their children while they get help, and it also houses a groundbreaking program for women with mental health issues which empowered them to take a strong role in their own care. These losses are devastating for the displaced women and children, who obviously are already at a major crisis point in their lives, even before this fire. Check this quote from The Boston Globe:

But for Erika, who had just set up the playpen for her infant and was hauling the last of her goods into the apartment Tuesday afternoon when the building started to burn, the loss was impossible to quantify.

“I’m just devastated,” said Erika, 34. “I just know my life was starting over . . . [now] I have nothing — nothing, nothing, nothing.”

No donation is too small to matter in a crisis like this. If you’ve got anything at all to spare, here’s how to give.

2) A Shameless Self-Promotion

If you enjoyed my blogging, you’ll probably enjoy my performances. The best way to keep track of when & where I’m on stage next is by joining my email list. (Mostly I perform in New England/NYC, though I definitely get to Montreal sometimes and I take gigs anywhere I can find them, so you never know. I do have stuff coming up for the Fall, it’s just not on my gig calendar yet, sorry.) You might also check out Big Moves, as a lot of what I do these days is make theater & dance-style trouble with those broads.

You can also make some trouble of your own by buying & wearing my Sticks & Stones Clothing tshirts, all of which feature insults usually used to shut us up (i.e. lying, man hating whore, angry black woman, hairy-legged lesbian, etc.).
lisa shirt

Because words can’t hurt us if we make tshirts out of them. You can get them in a wide variety of styles, sizes & colors. Plus, every purchase you make supports a struggling feminist writer/performer. (That would be me.)

While I’m at it, let’s call this the Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday thread, since no one else seems to have started one. Promote away!

& finally:

3) Some NSA Love for Everyone, Even The Trolls.

(Be sure to watch through to the end, there’s an extra payoff. H/t Flea.)