Month: June 2004

PETA's Nonsensical Attack on Future Farmers of America

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ activist Jacqueline Domac recently posted an article attacking the Future Farmers of America on one of PETA’s web sites. Fortunately, Domac’s article was up to PETA’s usual standards of truth and accuracy.

Domac’s article begins thusly (emphasis added),

Yakima County, Wash., prosecutors recently filed felony charges against five youths accused in the killing and maiming of 35 pigs at White Swan High School. Reports indicate that the pigs were repeatedly axed, beaten, and sodomized and then left to die in the school barn. The five students involved, all aged 12 or 13, were reportedly seen laughing in the back of the police car as they were driven away.

The lurid nature of this crime captured national attention, but what the media missed was the string of similar events occurring across the nation—all stemming from Future Farmers of America (FFA) programs, which sponsor the raising of animals for slaughter on public school grounds. The FFA program fosters young people’s natural empathy and compassion by having them care for animals, then forces them to sell these animals, whom they have nurtured, for slaughter at the county fair. Because the lessons of callousness that this process teaches have no rightful place in our school system, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the Department of Education to immediately discontinue the use of animals in all FFA programs

  • Miss Piggy, an animal in the William Turner Tech High School FFA program in Florida, was spared slaughter after the young student who had raised her pleaded for her life at auction. But when the pig was returned to the school to await transport to a sanctuary, she was repeatedly stabbed with a knife, and her pig companion was shot to death.
  • A Hillsborough County, Fla., FFA teacher reportedly begged students to assist her in chopping off the heads of young rabbits. Ruling that this was a “common practice” on farms, the school board took no action against the teacher, who killed the animals herself.

There’s just one problem with these claims, according to the FFA — none of its members were involved in any of these three incidents. According to an FFA response to Domac’s claims,

The youths involved in the Yakima, Wash., incident of animal abuse were not FFA members or agricultural education students, and no involvement by FFA or agriculture students has been demonstrated or suggested by authorities. Nor are FFA members responsible for the events in Florida. PETA’s article seeks to create an impression that FFA and agriculture students were involved in attacks on the animals.

On top of that, Domac’s call for “the Department of Education to immediately discontinue the use of animals in all FFA programs” is a little odd since, according to the FFA, the organization and its programs do not receive any federal funding,

Funding for FFA on local, state and national levels comes primarily from members’ dues, sales of supplies and merchandise to members, and program fees paid by students and chapters . . . These collective funds [including from a long list of industry groups] make available important educational opportunities and award programs — at no cost to taxpayers — that provide further incentives for FFA members to further their education and career development.

Finally, FFA notes, correctly in this writer’s opinion, that exposure to FFA programs is likely to make students less prone to commit acts of violence or mistreat animals in their care. As the FFA argues,

PETA’s assertion that FFA members who work with animals in schools are “desensitized” and more prone to commit acts of violence against animals are unsupported and contradicted by experience. FFA members and agriculture students are taught to care properly for animals by understanding their biology, health and nutritional needs. There is every reason to belive that familiarizing students with the care and feeding of animals, whether livestock or pets, develops skills and promotes greater sensitivity to an animal’s well-being.

Source:

PETA Launches Attacks on FFA. Press Release, Future Farmers of America, June 4, 2004.

Future Farmers of America Must Go. Jacqueline Domac, PETA, June 2004.

Man Faces Life In Prison for Killing Dog

A California man could spend the rest of his life in jail after being convicted of killing and then decapitating his German shepherd.

James Abernathy, 42, was convicted of beating the dog with a golf club, shove a stake through its heart, and then decapitating the animal with a pair of pruning shears. Abernathy was apparently angry after arguing with his girlfriend and took out that anger on the dog.

Under California law, felony animal cruelty only carries a three year prison sentence, but Abernathy was previously convicted in 1986 of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. That makes him eligible for life in prison under California’s three strikes law and the prosecutor in the case is asking the judge to impose that life sentence.

After his conviction, Abernathy’s lawyers argued that he was insane when he killed the dog, but a judge in the case agreed with prosecutors that it was anger rather than insanity that led Abernathy to kill the dog.

In 1996, the California Supreme Court upheld that state’s controversial three strikes law, but gave judges the discretion to strike or dismiss previous felony convictions.

Source:

Man could spend his life in prison for beheading killing his dog. Claire Luna, Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2004.

Judge finds convicted dog killer sane after hearing testimony. Associated Press, June 10, 2004.

Dave Winer and the Golden Rule

This Dave Winer post had me laughing out loud. It’s so bizarre to see people who get themselves in situations largely through their own bad acts and then seem clueless about that. Winer is upset that he’s being attacked for taking down Weblogs.Com and that no one is coming to his defense,

And I said next time, and there will be a next time, it would be nice if the people who know me, would say publicly that I am honest and hard-working, and to give me a chance. The reason so many of these people say ever-more-damning things about my integrity, is that no challenges them. Every time it’s like starting from zero, I have to prove that I’m not the cretin they cast me as. Next time, would the Internet have a memory please, and would the people who know me, who even would like to think of themselves as my friends, say something, publicly, so people know.

The problem Dave has, however, is precisely that the Internet does have a memory. Winer’s spent the past few years raging at and abusing pretty much everyone he’s come into contact with. There are a significant number of ex-Userland customers who migrated to other platforms largely to avoid having to deal with Winer’s outbursts. Winer is a case study in how to create an exciting technology and then completely alienate people who otherwise might be champions of said technology.

But Dave is completely oblivious to this, so he turns to his ongoing sexist mantra — they must dislike him because they’re women,

I’m a big, strong, intelligent, self-reliant male. Our culture acts as if such people never need help. “Be a man,” they say. Enough of that bullshit. Inside every strong self-reliant male is a scared kid, who doesn’t think he’s going to get out of this alive. The attackers are dispropotionately women. Do you think maybe they’re using me to get even for how someone treated them? A father, a brother, an uncle, an ex? Does our culture let them be abusers, assuming the man is always wrong, guilty until proven innocent?

Ah, yes — they’re women and they’re attacking Dave, so they’re probably just taking out some irrational rage on him. Heck, Dave, it’s probably just PMS.

As I’ve said before, why would anyone ever want to work with someone who posts such bizarre crap?

Screw the UN — the US/UK Should Have Acted Unilaterally in Sudan Already

I agree completely with Jim Moore on the ongoing genocide in Sudan. It is long past time for the United States to stop twiddling its thumbs waiting for the United Nations and act unilaterally again to stop genocide in Sudan.

A bigger question is exactly what the hell would have to happen for the United Nations to actually do something about genocided. It sat on the sidelines while hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were slaughtered. It sat on the sidelines again in Yugoslavia while mass graves and institutionalized rape were being used, and now it is standing by while Sudanese Arabs slaughter Sudanese Blacks.

What would it take for the UN to actually intervene to stop genocide? Does a country have to actually put out a sign saying “Gas Chambers Here”?

Not surprisingly, again China, France and Russia are the main obstacles to getting a resolution passed in the Security Council (France’s position seems to be that the only time it wants to send troops anywhere is to defend those responsible for genocide, as it did in Rwanda).

Octopuses Prefer 1 Arm Over 7 Others

Nature has a summary of a fascinating find mentioned at the 41st Animal Behavior Society meeting, Oaxaca, Mexico — octopuses favor one of their 8 appendages over the other. According to Nature,

Most octopuses have a favourite arm, zoologists have discovered. This is the first time they have been found to show any bias when choosing which of their eight limbs is right for the job.

The creatures use their trusty first-choice appendage when exploring a new nook or cranny, says Ruth Byrne of the University of Vienna in Austria. She presented the discovery on Sunday at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Oaxaca, Mexico.

. . .

What’s more, the creatures tended to deploy favoured combinations of one, two or three arms when manipulating objects, said Byrne, and used them in particular orders. In studies of eight octopuses, the researchers observed only 49 different combinations of one, two or three limbs, from what they calculated to be a possible 448.

Researchers also have a good idea as to why octopuses end up favoring one or a small combination repeatedly — 92 percent of the octopuses they studied had a preferred or dominant eye. Byrne believes that the octopuses favor the limb(s) closest to the dominant eye.

Source:

Octopuses have a preferred arm. Michael Hopkin, Nature, June 15, 2004.