once again i'm NOT preaching

i read these articles (and actually have seen some HORRIFIC things) and i think to myself, how can we consider ourselves human? do most people know how their steak actually gets into the supermarket? do most people who bring their kids to the circus know the elephants are jabbed with big hooks (and of course all of the other animals are mistreated too). there is a woman at work who wears the pelts of dead bunnies. i CRINGE every time i see her in that horrid bloody jacket. i wonder to myself if she knows how those bunnies died.

i know not everyone agrees with me here, but if one mistreats animals, it's a very small (tiny, miniscule) step to mistreating one another. it is ugly business. our consumption of animals. first this article i found in the wapo today and second an article forwarded to me from justin goodman was in sunday's ny times. the second article is NOT about abuse. it's about our consumption of dead animal flesh (and organs)

Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse

By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer
Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the "downer" cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals' noses -- all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply.
Moreover, the companies where these practices allegedly occurred are major suppliers of meat for the nation's school lunch programs, including in Maryland, according to a company official and federal documents.
The footage was taken by an undercover investigator for an animal welfare group, who wore a customized video camera under his clothes while working at the facility last year. It is evidence that anti-cruelty and food safety rules are inadequate, and that Agriculture Department inspection and enforcement need to be enhanced, said officials with the Humane Society of the United States, which coordinated the project.........

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
By MARK BITTMAN
A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil. It’s meat.
The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.......

CONNECTICUT FOR ANIMALSconnecticutforanimals.blogspot.comwww.uchckillsmonkeys.com

this is what happens at puppy mills

please don't get a dog at a pet store. i'd even go so far as to say don't get a dog ANYWHERE but a shelter. there are purebreds a plenty there too you know. perhaps you don't get the papers, but why the hell would you need them? you're NOT going to breed those dogs of course, you're going to have them spayed or neutered (if they aren't already). this is dedicated to nancy who just last week lost her dog of 17 years. it's also dedicated to my but (big ugly thaing. sometimes that's what i called him. i did it because we both knew he really WASN'T ugly at all), my ranger danger (my little niece named him. well at the time she was little). we found ranger roaming around (my parents house). he was healthy and fed but FILTHY. my mom brought him in and he never left. he had to be part shepherd and part rottie. he was about 2 years old when we found him, give or take (according to the vet). my mom called all of the local vets in the area, the local shelters and put ads in the local paper. no one ever claimed him. he knew his basic sit and stay and paw type requests. he was loving and smart and funny. well loving to ONLY family members. when ANYONE and i mean ANYONE came over, we'd have to put ranger out on the porch or outside or even tie him up in the kitchen. he HATED ALL strangers. funny, he was so gentle with all of my sisters (at the time VERY YOUNG) children yet so vicious with outsiders. he never bit anyone when he was in our care. he WOULD have though. we just made sure he never had the chance. he was hand shy. someone must have beaten him badly. i don't know how people can do such things.

one day when he was outside (on a heavy chain. he only stayed out when he wanted to go out and he was immediately brought in at his FIRST bark) i happened to look out the kitchen window. i saw my parent's neighbor cross over into our yard. he was VERY ill at the time, terminal. i quickly dashed to the back door thinking i'd never stop the impending tragedy. by the time i had opened it, i saw ranger on his back on the ground letting the neighbor rub his belly. i never went outside. i just let ranger and my parent's neighbor bond. it was something they both needed i guess.

i guess i'll also dedicate this to my moms too (she has passed as well). ranger got very ill a couple of years after he adopted us. of course he was under a vet's care but when he was home, every evening at 10:00 my mother would peel him an apple and feed it to him along with a little vanilla ice cream. when i asked her why she gave him a peeled apple and vanilla ice cream every night at 10:00 she said, 'a rose is a rose, i do it because that's what HE LIKES'. looking at me as if i was an alien for not knowing that tidbit of info...........

anyway, i LOVE DOGS (i like all animals but i LOVE dogs). please adopt one (or a cat or a bird or a hampster or whatever) from a shelter in your area. they'll love you like you need to be loved

Dogs' Best Friends to the Rescue
Volunteers Rush to the Aid of Animals Seized at Suspected Va. Puppy Mill

By Annie Gowen and Donna St. George Washington Post Staff Writers
Some of the adult dogs arriving at the Montgomery County animal shelter Thursday acted like newborn pups with splayed legs, wobbly as they tried to walk. They had never been on solid ground.
At first, they didn't know how to eat from a bowl, so accustomed were they to the troughs at the puppy mill in southwestern Virginia from which they had just been rescued. Several had matted hair around their eyes and couldn't see. The pads of their feet were sore or cut from being confined to wire cages.
When word of the dogs' plight surfaced this week on the Web site of the Humane Society of the United States -- that officials in Carroll County, Va., had seized nearly 1,000 dogs from a suspected puppy mill -- reaction from animal lovers was immediate and intense.
Volunteers from the Washington region joined others from Florida and New York who streamed to the rural town of Hillsville near the North Carolina border. Families began calling to ask when they could adopt the dogs. Donations rolled in; PetSmart sent a trailer full of kibble and other supplies. .............