Some of you
may have seen a photo with this column of my dog. I am an animal
lover. However, I do eat meat, chicken and fish. I wear leather
soles on my shoes and have leather seat covers in my car. I do
not believe in being cruel to animals but I do think we can get
out of line on some issues when it comes to them (animals)
versus us.
You may have recently heard of some poor guy being charged with
animal cruelty over some goldfish. It seems this hapless fellow
was taking part in some art show and his creative efforts
consisted of five blenders with some goldfish in each one. Now,
what that was intended to describe, I don’t know, but that was
his idea of art. Well, don’t you know someone came by and turned
on one of the blenders, which rendered his exhibit fairly
gruesome I would think? In addition to not winning the event, he
was arrested for cruelty to animals. Now, you know that rates up
there with just plain dumb in my opinion. How many of you (or
me) have at one time flushed a goldfish down the porcelain
throne for one reason or another. You may have seen this
technique in the current movie called “Finding Nemo” but I don’t
think anyone was charged with a crime in that one, since all of
the animation was computer generated. We might still be
surprised; the virtual police might still charge someone in that
heinous crime. Wonders never cease to amaze us, do they?
Now, we have Alec Baldwin, the actor coming out with a short
film entitled…”Meet your Meat”. Catchy title, eh? This little
ditty is put out by the folks at PETA to demonstrate the cruelty
to animals in the making of food products. We are told that over
9 billion animals are killed each year in this country to
provide us with those giant Big Mac’s and other American
delicacies, which have become such an important part of our
society. While I don’t condone cruelty to any animal, it is a
simple fact that most of us on this planet are carnivorous and
plan to stay that way. We like meat. We fish for fun and food.
We’ve been doing it since the dawn of time. The cave men of
500,000 years ago, didn’t worry about offending someone by
killing off a saber toothed tiger for a luncheon did they? I’d
suggest to you that if they did, they would probably wind up on
the menu that evening themselves. Cavemen weren’t politically
sensitive. Mr. Baldwin certainly has the right to express his
opinion if he desires to do so; I just question the amount of
belief in his principles. Are we to believe he buys his Mercedes
Benz with cloth seating? Do they even make Mercedes with cloth
seats? When I see those award shows with all of the stars, I
have yet to see anyone wearing tennis shoes rather than $300
leather pumps. Does Mr. Baldwin wear plastic belts? Are the
private jets he flies on devoid of leather in any form or
fashion? It’s fairly easy to criticize an entire industry if you
have the time and the money to do so. I think we can all agree
that cruelty to animals is not humane, but if you are raising
something to be used for the ultimate consumption of another
species, pray tell me how you do so in a humane manner? Are we
to live as those do in India, where cattle roam the streets with
complete abandon as they are protected while millions of their
citizens starve to death each year? Why isn’t Mr. Baldwin and
his crowd over there trying to improve grain production or
alternate food sources to stop these unnecessary deaths from
occurring in the first place? No, I suspect the real reason is
this is a cause de’jure which attracts attention and makes some
people think he really cares. I’m not fooled. Comments go to
www.pearyperry.com.
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