Letters to the Editor
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An Olympic disgrace
Thank you so much for writing this article. The world needs to know about the atrocities that are being inflicted upon companion and other animals in China. What you mentioned is just a small look at what goes on over there. China has no animal welfare laws what-so-ever. A few months ago there was a rabies scare. What did the government do? Send officials to beat and kill dogs in the street. Not just stray dogs, but dogs that were being walked on leashes by their owners! Their pets were killed right in front of them! What kind of message is the government sending to its children? As you stated in your article, cats are hung on wires and skined alive for their fur. Raccoon Dogs ( a wild animal that looks like a cross between a raccoon and a dog) are slammed to the ground until stunned and then skinned alive. I have seen the videos and it was awful!! There are some good people over there who are trying to change things. I am in no way saying the US does not have problems. No country is perfect. However, why are the Olympics being held in a country well known for its Human Rights violations?
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Remarkable
What I will always find remarkable is how often the response to blatant cruelty is to somehow affix some objectionable and minimizing label. Transferring "human" feelings onto animals, raising dogs and cats up to demi-gods, etc. And then we have the "oh my poor ears" people who are so deeply distressed by any inference of negative actions towards animals that they will have nightmares.
Hmmm.
Let's see. Where to start. Anyone who has been around an animal - cat, dog, pig, cow, chicken, horse - knows with absolute certainty that they have individual personalities, expressions, and yes (gasp!) feelings. Anyone that has witnessed the slaughter of pigs, lambs, cows, chickens knows with not one shred of doubt that those animals experience absolute terror and pain. Do not rock back and forth in your sweet little plastic world believing THAT for one more second. If you heard the screams of animals being dissected, castrated, stripped of their skins, you would never ever be able to say that there's a question as to whether they "feel" or not. Is that said so often by so many as some kind of blanket justification? It makes no sense, unless, you are woefully removed from the reality or so desensitized to others that you can move through life holding onto something so terribly untrue and misguided.
I do not "worship" my dogs. I don't say prayers to them. I do, however, say prayers for them. And for the multitudes of innocent beings that are brutalized every second of every day because they are weaker. Caring for other beings does not mean that you care for only a few - most people that care for animals care pretty deeply for people as well. I do not believe that my dogs will someday be sitting with me holding a conversation about the middle east. However, just because I don't understand what they are saying does not mean that they are not saying anything. How ridiculously arrogant is that? Think about that for one moment and you realize that you are buying a common misconception that essentially was cast out decades ago. Whales communicate to each other constantly, chickens have different calls for aerial and ground predators. Come on now, let's at least deal in facts.
My feeling is that we as a country, as part of the global community can do so much better. I am not judging any country's traditions. I am saying that when cruelty is part of a tradition, you need to change it.
And for the sensitive souls that find this type of material devastating, you better not be partaking in any form of any animal's flesh or you can officially call yourself - PART OF THE PROBLEM.
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Get me a doggie bag
My B.S. alarm went off immediately when I read this piece. It plays on all the urban myths about "foreign" cultures and the bizarre, destructive things they do. I was just waiting for the punch line, the "no, seriously, folks, I was just running this by you to see what your reaction would be." ("And then I noticed my two-year-old son was missing. . .")
I don't know how many times I've heard people tell stories about bringing Bowser into a Chinese restaurant and seeing him broiled on a platter 5 minutes later. The story about romping with a dog in the afternoon, then seeing him gutted for dinner in the evening, has the same slick, fabricated feel that most Salon pieces do. I think stories about the consumption of dogs and cats may be complete myth, or at least an exaggeration, to give Westerners a visceral thrill and yet another reason to hate and fear Asians.
So please, get some non-fiction writers on staff. Apparently, most Salon readers don't have the discernment to see that the gutted-dog story is only a device, a means to an end (manipulating the reader, who seems all too willing to be manipulated: "Oh my God, they do THAT?"). Ted Kerasote should quit journalism and write novels, or, better yet, horror stories.
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empathy for suffering is universal and not limited to the first world
Excuse me, I beg to differ with the writer who thinks that the animal had a good time before being slaughtered. Where does pain and fear factor into having a good time? I'd like to see you have a good time in an abbatoir trussed up and ready to have your throat slit. Perhaps in your next life you will be so lucky.
I'm from Viet Nam and I do not eat dog or cat, it is a choice. Do you assume that all people from third world countries are savages, or that we live in a hut and sleep on a straw mat? The decision to be humane is a universal one and not reserved for supposedly more enlightened Westerners. Budhism is our national religion, many of us practice vegetarianism. My uncle considered becoming a monk at one point, he decided to become a doctor instead to support the family, but he is still a devout Budhist and vegetarian. My father on the other hand ate anything including dogs. We were not starving peasants, we were middle class people with plenty of food and money. Our choice of food was not directed by famine nor poverty.
Cruel and inhumane treatment of any being is wrong, regardless of where you are from. Any reasonable person with empathy and conscience would recognize this.