Photo of the Week
Well, ok, this was actually last week, from Covent Garden in London.
The nearly naked 8-months pregnant woman in the cage is the gorgeous Noémie Ventura, a photographer and member of PETA. She was protesting the cramped birthing cages that mother pigs are kept in, as part of an overall statement to encourage people to go vegetarian. It was about 40 degrees in London that day, but don't worry too much about her - she was only in the cage for 45 minutes. Of course, this was meant as a shock-value publicity stunt, and of course, it worked. More photos are here, and some video here.
I'm actually fairly sympathetic to animal rights; I'm no vegetarian, but I do believe that many factory farms keep animals in the most appalling conditions to save very little money. For example, my family buys the "cage free" eggs in the supermarket, and the price is not terribly higher. But I have very little patience with the misplaced priorities of many PETA supporters who waste their time protesting things like the wearing of fur or eating meat, when there are far more pressing issues at hand - such as merely saving many animal species from extinction!
Also, in this case, PETA may be very wrong. I'm no farmer, but one commenter ("L&S") who claims to have worked raising hogs, explains that the birthing cage is to protect the baby pigs (scroll down the comment section):
To Those Thinking People Who Have Ears to Hear:Perez Hilton was not amused, and neither were the rather humorless feminists at Feministing:
Growing up raising hogs, I completely understand the reason for the ‘birthing crate’. This structure is used ONLY during the time (usually 24 hours) when a sow (mother pig) is giving birth so that she in the process of birthing will not kill her own off-spring by either rolling on them or biting them - yes, biting them. You see, pigs are pigs. Unfortunately, that obvious fact is lost on some of our species.
Once her litter (usually 8 - 12 little pigs)is nursing and safe, the sow is removed from the birthing crate and moved to a stall where she has room to roam and her litter has a safe space to sleep where they won’t get stepped on by their mother.
You see, PETA pigs are animals - NOT humans. And humans have to help animals (at least pigs, who by the way are very intelligent on the animal scale of intelligence - right up their with dogs - goes) with being ‘humane’! I wonder how much this poor, misinformed impregnated lady was paid to do such an inhumane thing?!!? Shame on you! What is your off baby going to think about these pictures of you??
For goodness sake PETA, you all need to get a grip on life! I can’t believe that I’m even taking my time to write this. People who do these unthinking things for sure won’t agree with the common sense of one who has lived, worked and cared for swine; and know that a ‘birthing crate’ is in the best interest of saving the lives of the mother pig’s offspring.
I refuse to post the image of the newest horrific stunt that PETA managed to pull off in London yesterday...That quote alone made me want to post this photo!
Sometimes it seems that PETA's sexist bullshit will never cease to haunt us
Or, even better:
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3 comments:
"(...) my family buys the "cage free" eggs in the supermarket, and the price is not terribly higher."
Good point, in my supermarket it's 30 Euro cents, i.e., close to nothing, for ten eggs.
"But I have very little patience with the misplaced priorities of many PETA supporters who waste their time protesting things like the wearing of fur or eating meat, when there are far more pressing issues at hand - such as merely saving many animal species from extinction!"
Not being a biologist, I must say I've never heard a convincing argument that the extincition of a species in and by itself is a bad thing. And hasn't it happened throughout history?
Extinctions are part of the natural cycle, and can even be a good thing. But humans are adding far more extinctions than what is natural. And like anything else in life, there is such thing as too much of a "good thing".
In the short run, extinctions don't seem terribly bad. A while ago, I wrote about the Yangtze river dolphin going extinct. The economic effect of this extinction was zero; nobody used them for food, they didn't draw in many tourists (because they were hard to spot) and the animal wasn't useful in any way except maybe as a zoo denizen.
Meanwhile more "useful" animals, such as the cow, guard dog, or chicken, will never go extinct, even in China.
So it looks like we have nothing to worry about - today. But there are some hard questions you need to deal with down the road:
1) What happens if we find out in the future that animals like the river dolphin could have been extremely useful to us in some way? We can't get them back once they are gone, at least not with current technology.
2) And then there is the general blandness of it all; do you really want your children and grandchilden to live in a world without any wild animals larger than a small bird? Because that's where we are headed. Some nations, like Bangladesh, are already arrived there long ago. Even most of Europe is there.
Somebody haul her off to the Hague. Those undies looked like they were being tortured. In obvious and permanent pain. ;)
BTW jon, you got it all wrong. Her gas is causing global warming better reduce her numbers...You know like the left would justify.
Manwhore
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