today i took a late lunch at work and went down to the sammich shop attached to the gas station down the street. in the parking lot was a car festooned with stickers, one of which prominently said '"PETA'". Since there was no qualifier that said "People Eating Tasty Animals" i judged it was for real and looked at some other stickers.

because they WANT you to look. otherwise they wouldn't uglify the car with so many stickies.

Most of em had pictures of piggies on em, either photographed or drawn. "Meat's no Treat for Those You Eat!" and "No, I DON'T have any Spare Ribs!"

i never give this stuff much thought, to be honest. by the time meat hits your plate it don't look anything like Mr. Pig wallowing in his poo (or free range, for greater flavor and less guilt somehow)

Maybe such concerns over where food comes from is the luxury of living amongst plenty. I think i can safely guarantee if food is scarce in your neck of the woods, Mr. Chicken is less of a fellow creature and more of a means of survival. Redneck comedy tells us that non-meat-eaters are a bunch of limp-wristed nancies, but i can see where a person is coming from. i think compassion towards all creatures is a noble enough trait.

at the same time there's a lot more pressing things to demonize your fellow human for. we kill each other off for much sillier reasons than scoring a meal. but that's another topic, no?

i've seen a lot of slaughterhouse pics and footage (a lot of those occasions were brought to me by well-meaning people with TVs outside the grocery store) but "shock" wears off faster than the tread on low-grade tires in today's society. "Oh my God, that's terrible!" tends to fade into oblivion when faced with choice cuts of meat. We may differ on that topic; i know some people simply can't stomach the idea. Personally, i don't care for beets, and it horrifies me that millions of plants are grown only to be destroyed for greedy humans' tastes at dinner time. (That was a joke, unless you think plants are sentient, in which case i feel for you.)

What really weirds me out is when cartoon pigs are used as logos or advertisements for meat products. Like the Pig they use for Famous Dave's barbecue, or the Piggly Wiggly pig advertising a meat sale. Like so many things, when you think about it for more than 5 seconds it's really morbid. It would be like a picture of me holding a selection of human organs "for outrageously marked down prices!" ...not that any such pictures exist. o.o

i think this is one of those issues, like religion, where people could argue for days but nothing is going to radically change. Short of a cow or pig gaining the power of human speech and lobbying before Congress, people as a whole aren't going to suddenly turn their backs on the meat industry for all the cute and cuddly creatures. Even if such an animal testified before our elected representatives, there'd probably be a conflict of interests with meat companies and said cow/pig might be handsomely paid off to keep quiet or get "disappeared".

Still, i can't condemn people for thinking it's wrong. If it can't be fully resolved, it's simply a matter of personal choice and you can choose not to be party to it. That might not sit well with people who consider lack of action to be the same as endorsement of the activity you are opposed to, but it's a bit like war. "Until I punch you in the face and both our noses shatter, things will continue as they are." How very true.

It's been said that most people only want to save the cute animals, and it's still true. I think if you're going to take a stand for all life, then eventually there will come a time where you basically have to abandon loyalty to your own species or survival instincts, as bacterial disease and cancer cells are living things too. I guess that's the "Circle of Life", though. Parasites, insects, elephants, pandas, worms, spiders, lions, tigers, reef sharks, barnacles...

It's really hard to divorce yourself from inflicting human emotions and thought patterns onto animals (and trees). I myself find it hard to consider my dog might be thinking and feeling completely independent of the emotions i perceive her as having. Granted, living with humans in close proximity probably ensures a certain amount of shared psychology, but really, on those nature shows where the narrator or naturalist goes into great detail describing an animal's reactions, i always develop an extreme case of the Raised Cynical Eyebrow, which lasts for days, sometimes. Even if animals did generally operate from the same suite of emotions as humans, there are a hell of a lot of other variables that your average human can't really calculate. An animal's physiology, environment, heritage, "culture", memories, etc can lead to "love" and "anger" being much more complex (or primitive) than "The Elephant has grown to trust me over the years."

Case in point: Ever see the movie "Grizzly Man"? I recommend watching it with a friend and maybe a beer or two to really start a vibrant discussion afterwards. If you've never seen it, a crazy man (don't tell me otherwise, i swear) goes to live in the wild with the bears and eventually it ends predictably. No, he does not become assimilated into bear society. He doesn't consummate his love for bears (known hereafter as The Love Which Dare Not Scream Its Name, Bloodcurdlingly). He is, of course, slain and eaten, having insisted on hanging around when food is scarce and bears, you know, act on their tradition of getting whatever food they can. When you're ready to eat your own young as a means of survival, the notion of killing and eating a defenseless failed actor is not what one would call a "moral barrier." (as a side note, this film is a true story, cobbled together by bits of the man's recordings while on his mission to "save the bears"--which, ironically enough, existed within a protected reserve to begin with.)

if i haven't convinced you that some people's love for animals borders on the pathological, consider dog-sweaters and gourmet cat food. Or collars iced with bling. Or people who torment their trusting pets with fastidious and obnoxious grooming, claiming all the while their undying love for them. The skin crawls.

Remember when Sigfried and Roy's tiger went "nuts"? Imagine a news story where you hear about a man who goes to work at his office every day with 4 loaded handguns. He never displays much emotion, but goes through the motions of his day as he is told. People don't trust him with his 4 handguns, worn in plain sight, and people who are new to meeting him are understandably a bit nervous. However, the management touts him as a star employee and insist he's harmless. Then, one day, he "panics" and shoots a fellow employee in cold blood. The newscaster puts on a look of "shock" and understandably shaken co-workers are interviewed. Overall there is an air of confusion. Meanwhile, you sit in your chair, attempting to boil your own brain with your rage.

That was more or less my reaction too.

But there i go comparing animals to people. they just ain't people. does that make them "less than"? Maybe. Hell, maybe animals are more enlightened than people. Maybe not. I'm only human. If eating meat is wrong, then carnivorous animals are guilty of moral transgressions every day. "But humans can live without meat". Also true. You got me there.

Jeez, where was i going with this?

Oh yeah, people are crazy. Crazy, crazy, extremely crazy. If it turns out that vegetables are thinking, feeling entities, i'm going to eat my hat and shoot myself with a frozen meat bullet. (I saw that on CSI once, it was pretty cool)

ja, mata