Comments on: The Greatest Show on Earth?

By: Charlie (Colorado)

Charlie (Colorado) — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 05:04:32 +0000

I dunno, Kevin, since torturing small animals is highly correlated with things like serial killing in later life …. I don’t mean that I think they’re crimes of equal seriousness, rather that I think they’re crimes that arise from the same moral flaw. Although I was a vegetarian for some years, I’m not one any longer, and don’t have any moral qualms about killing and eating animals. But causing them pain for the amusement value is something else.

Of such complexities is a 50 year old cowboy Buddhist capable.

I think you got my real point, though: equating what went on at Abu Ghraib with real torture trivializes torture.

By: Knucklehead

Knucklehead — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 02:57:53 +0000

StarHawk,

I would hope Roger would pick a baseball game for that “major sporting event”, but since he’s hooked on basketball, oh well… He’s converted from Leftism – I can’t expect a conversion from basketball as well.

But you are right… take the kid to a ballgame (a real one where baseball is played).

By: Roberts

Roberts — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 02:46:26 +0000

I’m with you, Kevin. I don’t care for the abuse of animals but they are animals and not humans. And while I don’t agree with Charlie on the nearness of animal abuse and human torture, you are dead-on about the silliness of exaggerating the level of abuse at Abu Ghraib.

By: Jan Bear

Jan Bear — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 01:56:13 +0000

They need to import clowns from the Moscow circus. The funniest anywhere–and great gymnasts in their own right.

By: Terrye

Terrye — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 01:22:39 +0000

I live iin the sticks and here lately the city epople have decided that we can’t have animals [like dogs] running around. In fact a friend of mine had his dog taken from his property and put in the pound because it was not tied up. The guy owns 200 acres. That is right coyotes are running wild around here because farm dogs are tied up. I myself think putting a dog on a chain is cruel. They are also trying to pass a law to the effect that cats have to be restrained. I want to be there to see a county official try to load up a van of barn cats and live to tell about it.

Sometimes people just don’t have enough to do. They have to devote themselves to coming up with stupid crap for the rest of us to deal with.

By: Kevin P

Kevin P — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 01:22:27 +0000

Charlie:

I should have been more clear. I was not trying to say that the treatment of those chickens was good. Frankly I think it is sick. The problem I have is the equating of animals with humans.What those employees did should get them fired and fined.Torture might be too severe for the prison situation but if they did it on their own those soldiers should do some jail time. I am not for animal cruelty I just have a problem with making it equal to human cruelty.

By: Starhawk

Starhawk — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 01:19:05 +0000

kh,

Hey you left out going to a baseball game.

That is almost un-american.

By: Charlie (Colorado)

Charlie (Colorado) — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 23:23:14 +0000

You know, Kevin, beyond the PETA stuff, I’m really getting tired of people who can’t tell the difference between kicking and stomping small critters — which, frankly, strikes me as not much different from torturing people — and pointing at someone’s peepee and laughing.

Anyway, Chuck, thanks for the link. The place where the social-feral behavior is most often seen is in “barn cats”, where there is an artificially high density of small prey because of things like animal feed storage.

By: Kevin P

Kevin P — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 22:24:18 +0000

To all You PETA fans:

There is a editorial in Sundays Los Angeles Times opinion section comparing the slaughter house employees torturing chickens in the slaughterhouse Of KFC to the Abu Ghraib prisoners.Now I think that those employees who were smashing the chickens about should probably be fired but I don’t think it quite matches up to Human torture.But I guess my thought process isn’t as nuanced as it should be.Maybe we should refer it to the World Court.

By: Skookumchuk

Skookumchuk — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 21:37:47 +0000

When I was a little kid my Dad, who had quite a collection of antique circus posters, knew people in RBB&B. Guys like Hugo Zacchini, the Human Cannonball and a few of the Wallendas. And the great clowns like Emmet Kelly, who swept up the spotlight with a broom – sort of Chaplinesque – and Lou Jacobs, who led the other clowns in climbing out of the little car. We used to visit them on the circus train when they came to LA. Glad to know they are still around.

And your Madeleine is an A-100 cutie-pie.