See
also Heros and
This Just In (Good News for a Change)
Cheering and jeering the good, the bad and the indifferent in the "compassion versus suffering" realm of animal welfare.
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Having read "Slaughterhouse:
The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect,
Congratulations and Thank You for your thorough coverage
On March 23rd, Mike Gallagher, a syndicated New York radio talk show host, executed a rating stunt that left one dead--a 4-year old cow named Old Blue. In what Gallagher called a response to(retaliation against?) PETA's controversially designed campaign to get people to stop drinking milk ("Not Milk...Got Beer", which was pulled voluntarily by PETA when concerns over underage drinking were expressed by MADD), Gallagher slaughtered the calf for his radio audience. Paying a cattle rancher and donating a significant portion of the meat to charity, Gallagher calls PETA responsible for the animals death--abdicating his own culpability--and is now smuggling selling "Old Blue" t-shirts adding insult to injury. Please don't listen to or support Mike Gallagher; consider writing to Mike and his station with your opinion on this despicable stunt. If his problem was genuinely with PETA's campaign, he should have addressed it with them directly rather than taking it out on yet another innocent animal. Mike Gallagher and Old Blue--before and after his stunt.
Read an article based on Gallagher's press
release announcing the stunt. Read an
article about the stunt including Gallagher's final thoughts
as Old Blue was killed. Claws Out at FTD.Com
Nauseated by the prospect, I hopped on the net to find (of course) LobsterGram.Com with the obligatory "happy lobster" logo and an array of equally barbaric "gifts" available. Then, another quick search at FTD.com, yielded steaks and chops, etc. (I was not aware they sold those items). I plan to write FTD telling them to remove my name and e-mail address from their list and informing them that I'll not be using them while they support the cruel trade of live lobsters (and meats). I want a florist who deals in flowers, plants and maybe a few balloons or teddy bears, not animals and corpses.
[NOTE: This is the first Claws Out this website has declared...] When ABC first teased the sitcom Dharma & Greg, I was skeptical that it would succeed, but I happened to watch the season premiere and immediately changed my position. Dharma & Greg was different and fresh, and I loved it! ABC was managing to humorously present someone who had an alternate belief system and perspective on the world without making her appear the fool and she (Dharma/Jenna Elfman) and the actor/character (Greg/Thomas Gibson) had a wonderful on-screen chemistry. It was fun and funny without mocking either belief system or view of the world. It actually seemed to be encouraging people to try and enjoy life and other perspectives. It was for two seasons a MUST SEE in our household and there are very few tv shows that we care that much about to consider them MUST SEE TV. But, the show's plots have lost all the things I loved about them. And, the characters have compromised what I greatly appreciated about them and thought what made them enjoyable, laughable and non-stereotypical of today's sitcom characters. The primary reason the show's writers/producers get a claws out involves Dharma's radical disregard of what appeared to be long-held beliefs. Dharma started the series as a strict vegetarian who didn't eat meat out of a deep respect for all living creatures. Now, not only does she eat meat with great relish (no pun intended; note the fervor with which she tears into a chicken dinner in "Dharma's Inferno"), but cooks up an atrocious (to veg'ans) meal in "Fairway to Heaven" when she makes haggis (a Scottish dish which involves stuffing mutton suet and lamb innards into its own stomach and boiling it) to try and deter Greg from "finding his roots" in Scotland. Dharma has lost her respect for life and given up
her beliefs for mere laughs. ABC's writers/producers have made her
into a clown who's alternate perspectives only come into play when
they serve to further the plot by ridiculing them. Likewise, Greg
has lost some dignity in the deal by making him appear a great fool
when he tries to pursue something other than money. With Dharma
and Greg's loss of regard for their principals, the sitcom has lost
my respect and laughter. Sure, it's only a tv show. "Big deal!"
you say. But, its one I'll never watch again. Home Depot is currently running a commercial in which
a compassionate passerby happens upon a mother duck who's babies
are trapped down a sewer. She can't find anyone to help and finally
enlists the help of Home Depot and its inventive and knowledgeable
staffers. They rescue the ducklings (pulling them one by one from
the sewer in a net), and the passerby guides/leads them to safety.
To send POSITIVE feedback (what a nice change) to Home Depot, you
can e-mail them at consumer-affairs@homedepot.com.
Mary Kay has signed an agreement to never again test
their products on animals or purchase ingredients from companies
that test on animals. A spokesman for Mary Kay has indicated that
the company has had a moritorium on such practices since 1989, but
have made the decision to sign a commitment agreement to improve
public relations by putting that commitment in writing. See PETA's Website for more details. This act will place Mary Kay in PETA's Guide for Compassion Consumers as a company that DOES NOT test on animals. What can I say--thanks Mary
Kay! |
Four
Paws Up for 
Added
04.07.00
Claws Out at the
Paws Up to ABC's sitcom "Sports Night" for the following scene:
| ABC: | SPORTS NIGHT
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| Cast: | Robert Guillaume ~ Isaac Jaffee Felicity Huffman ~ Dana Whitaker Joshua Malina ~ Jeremy Goodwin |
| Synopsis: | Tuesday, October 6, 1998 (9:30-10:00
p.m., ET) "The Hungry and the Hunted" - Jeremy accepts an assignment to produce segments for CSC’s hunting-oriented "Outdoorsman Show," but he may be in greater danger than the targeted deer. Meanwhile, Casey begins to notice Dana in a different light. |
| Isaac: | Tell us about your hunting trip.
|
| Dana: | The first day you were going after New
England blue Mallard.
|
| Jeremy: | Yeah, Bob and Eddy were using the IR-50
Recon by Bushcomber. Its got a 16" micro-groove barell with a 30-30
mags, side-scope mount, wire-cutter sheath, quick-release bolt, mag
catches and a 3-pound trigger, so I figured we must be going after
a pretty dangerous duck.
|
| Isaac: | You can wise-ass all you want, you're going
to tell me what happened.
Jeremy: We shot a deer...[pause]...in the woods near Lake Mattatuck--the second day. There was a special vest they had me wear so they could distinguish me from things they wanted to shoot, and I was pretty grateful for that. Almost the whole day had gone by, and we hadn't gotten anything. Eddy was getting frustrated and Bob Shumaker was getting embarrassed. My camera guy needed to reload, so I told every one to take a 10 minute break. There was a stream near by and I walked over to it with this care-package Natalie made me, sat down. When I looked up, I saw 3 of them. Small, bigger, biggest... recognizable to any species on the face of the planet as a child, a mother and a father. Now the trick in shooting deer is you've got to get them out in the open, and its tough with deer 'cause these are clever, cagey animals with an intuitive sense of danger. You know what you have to do to get a deer out in the open? You hold out a Twinkie(tm). That animal clopped up to me like we were at a party. She seemed to be pretty interested in the Twinkie(tm), so I gave it to her. Looking back, she'd've been better off if I'd given her the damn vest. Bob kind of screamed at me and whispered, "Move away!" The camera had been reloaded, and it didn't look like the day was going to be a washout after all. So I backed away--a couple of steps at a time. And, I closed my eyes when I heard the shot. Look, I know these are animals, and they don't play bridge and go to the prom, but you can't tell me that the little one didn't know who his mother was. That's got to mean something! And, later, at the hospital, Bob Shumaker was telling me about the nobility and tradition of hunting and how it related to the Native American Indians, and I nodded and said that was interesting while I was thinking about what a load of crap it was. Hunting was part of Indian culture--it was food and it was clothes and it was shelter. They sang and danced and offered prayers to the gods for a successful hunt so they could survive just one more unimaginably brutal winter. The things they had to kill held the highest place of respect for them and to kill for fun was a sin. And they knew the gods wouldn't be so generous next time. What we did wasn't food, and it wasn't shelter and it sure wasn't sports--it was just mean.
|
| Isaac: | Jeremy, why didn't you tell us how you
felt about hunting when we gave you this?
|
| Jeremy: | Because you told me you spoke to Mark Savath
at USA Today--in fact, I know you must have spoke to him before you
ever hired me.
|
| Isaac: | Well of course I did. I also spoke to Dave
Heller at the Free Press and Tom Monahan at the Sacramento Beat.
|
| Jeremy: | And they all said pretty much the same
thing.
|
| Isaac: | Yes, they all said that Jeremy Goodwin
was a bright guy with a world-class understanding of popular sports,
but that he didn't quite fit in and there was little chance that he'd
advance in their organization.
|
| Jeremy: | With due respect, Mr. Jaffee, but I have
$80,000 in student loans to pay back. My instincts told me to shut
up and do what I was told.
|
| Isaac: | Your instincts were wrong.
|
| Jeremy: | Not fitting in is how qualified people
lose jobs.
|
| Isaac: | Yeah, but a lot of the time, its how they
end up working here. [long pause] Now you had an obligation to tell
us how you felt. Partly because I don't like getting a phone call
saying I've put one of my people in the hospital. But, mostly because
if you feel that strongly about something, you have an responsibility
to try and change my mind.
Did you think I would fire you simply because you made a convincing argument? Its taken me a lot of years, but I've come around to this: if you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people; and if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you. I'm an awfully smart man and Mark Savath is an idiot--he had you and he blew it! You're going to do great here, but you've got to trust us. You fit in on your own time. When you come to work for me--you show up to play. I'm going home. You don't know us very well, so if its hard trusting us at the beginning, maybe it'll help to know that--we trust you. G'night. [Leaves]
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| Dana: | Goodnight, I'll see you Monday.
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| Jeremy: | Goodnight.
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