We're all animals, Dune, Richard Dawkins, Steve Irwin and the Sea Shepherd ship named after him, killing Crocodiles VS killing Cows, New Zealand rabbit shooting "competitions, "The Easter Bunny Hunt", The Simpsons "Whacking Day" and Animal Rights reactions to the "Double Down" burger. Oh, and Gore, its ok to be gay :-)
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Hello and welcome to episode 55 of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals, The Rabbit Hunter.
I hope you'll enjoy this episode, I've got plenty of things planned for the future, especially for INVSOC, the Invercargill Vegan Society, and so it was a little delayed, sorry.
I've still been listening to audiobooks. My largest problem with the show is actually winnowing down my clip supply, I have many hours worth of clips on my harddrive, ready to use when the stars align, from audiobooks and news reports I've heard. I'd probably prefer to just produce podcasts, to make clips and write scripts, and have someone with
A recent audiobook I finished was Dune, or, in American, "doon", just like how we would say "You Tube", and they say "u TOOB", you've got to shorten it down a bit.
If some poor woman is unlucky enough to carry my child, they're gonna be named either Frodo, or Muad Dib
Yes, we certainly ARE all animals, whether we like to admit it or not. We talk about "giving animals human emotions", but shouldn't that be "animal emotions"? Imagine if we were so arrogant to see other animals moving, and say "yeah, thats a human form of movement, when they use their legs, but its not quite as good as when we mighty humans do it". Lets get over ourselves!
Our hallowed Dawkins would set Paul Atrides, or "Muadib" as his friends call him, straight
Sea Shepherd is certainly not Animal Rights, regardless of the common misconception. They are not against killing animals, they run "Vegan Ships", apparently due to "conservation", environmental reasons. They are not Animal Rights.
And we can see this in the naming of their ships. One well known vessel is the Steve Irwin, who we all know better for appearing on the Australian 500 diggery dollar note, with the caption of "crikey!" underneath.
I've long disagreed with Sea Shepherd, who are generally remembered for going after whale killing. I don't like their boat ramming stunts, how they throw smelly liquids, and use violent imagery. I say this while calling myself a dictator for life.
I don't like how they have giant metal poles, referred to as "The Can Opener", and being proud of sinking ships. Also, the whole pirate thing is a few hundred years out of date, they're basically extinct! Now likening your one member Vegan society to an oppressive, all powerful government, NOW you're talking cool analogies! "Stopping whale killing makes us pirates", biiiig deal!
Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter" ran Australia Zoo, the guy ran about tackling animals to the ground, tying them up, sedating them, putting them in this giant zoo. He was not Vegan, and Zoo's are not heaven for wild animals. And yet Sea Shepherd, often believed to be an Animal Rights group, has one of their main boats named after this guy, the Steve Irwin, its just weird!
Digging around this old hard drive, I came across a New Zealand radio stations interview with Irwin. The Edge radio station, with the Morning Madhouse, which rests firmly in the "morning zoo" radio show category.
In this first clip, the world learns there actually IS a difference between Australian and New Zealand accents, and its not just New Zealanders totally sounding sexier:
<2 skin boots>
Its important to see the difference between Animal Rights and "conservation", Animal Rights has concern for the individual, we're all children of our lord, Steve Jobs, we're all someone special in his eyes. Even if he totally doesn't reply to our emailed suggestions for the iPhone 5, like "make it cooler and stuff".
Conservation cares for the species, it sort of like pokemon, or stamp collecting, you'd like there to be a wide variety of animals alive, to be seen for our enjoyment. Each Chicken or Crocodile or Whale doesn't matter, but if they were the last of their species, and they were to die, then its a tragedy, because there would be no more of Species X in the world.
Steve Irwin cared a lot about Conservation, if thats defined by wearing clothes the colour of light dirt, jumping on large animals, and putting them on display at your zoo.
Cattle are not close to extinction, Crocodiles, comparatively, are. Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter", liked Crocodiles, I guess its like when little boys and girls fight, its because they like each other? Steve Irwin is not Vegan, he had no problem with wearing "common" animal skins in the form of shoes, but wouldn't even entertain the joke of wearing "crocodile skin".
Is there any ethical difference between a Cow and a Crocodile? I don't think the Cow would think so!
In this clip, we find out how PC the developed world has become, in comparison to how young Australians spend their time:
<3 learned behaviour>
Now, we here in Australasia have high standards of culture, may I remind you that New Zealand was the first country to give all citizens, male and female, the right to vote? We make really great movies, we're generally opposed to war, over 70% of our power is generated renewably, decades ago we experimented with LPG gas in cars, trying to move away from overseas oil…. and uh, Australians… well, they're good at sunshine and surfing? With our great achievements in mind, and… well, Australias nice beaches, filled with friendly Great White Sharks, stinging jellyfish, the poisonous snakes….. I play this next clip
<4 nonvenomous snake clip>
I should jump in and mention here, the Morning Madhouse have often made adult jokes, and had plenty of "competitions" where Jayjay, the sole female had to take her top off in public. Recently, came out with some news of his own
I'd stopped listening to radio by the time Mike "came out" as homosexual, but it was really impressive for me. Mike grew up in Gore, a part of Southland not far from Invercargill, and uh… how should I put it… if Invercargill is NOT known for Veganism, Gore wouldn't be known for Tolerance towards homosexual people. Theres long been a stereotype of bigoted, redneck, white trash people living in Gore, in Southland, and that it wasn't very Gay friendly. Its not exactly the most developed area, having only recently gotten a McDonalds, how could we live without McDonalds? So yeah, it'll be a little while before there are any Vegan restaurants run by homosexual owners in Gore.
Recently I bought a few gay rights t shirts, clothing for equal rights regardless of who we are. I rather like wearing one in particular, "Gore, its not that gay", with an image of two civil gentlemen having a picnic beneath a nice tree. In Southland, its quite common to say "its gay", as a negative thing, a tv show you don't like? "yeah, thats gay". Having homework? "gay". I've started calling my friends out when they say it, and it comes up surprisingly often.
On the Mr Vintage website, a description explains the shirt:
"Back in 99, Gore was labelled the ‘Gay capital of New Zealand’ by some dudes with a sense of humour. The people of Gore were quick to react, and recently statistics showed Gore as one of the least Homosexual towns in New Zealand. Their Mayor has been very diplomatic in stating how “inclusive and accepting” Gore is towards Homosexuals, but it appears that his declaration is not widely shared by the Gore public. A local Wedding celebrant even admitted “Homosexuals are frowned upon” in Gore, and more recently, one of those who ushered in the ‘Gay Gore’ jibe (Jeremy Wells) was harassed by some residents of Gore, and labelled a “f**king homo” for his troubles.
Come on Gore, get with the times – There’s nothing wrong with being Gay."
Yeah, recently Jeremy Wells, media personality stayed overnight in Gore, somehow, a mob of people recognized him, and he was trapped in the hotel room, with angry Gore-its, or whatever you call someone from Gore, I propose Gor-ons, angry he had claimed it was a "gay" town. Wells was apparently rescued by police.
Just a little bit of New Zealand pop culture, with one of the few openly homosexual media personalities in New Zealand, from Southland, my region, and proud of who he is. I wear my equal rights t shirts with pride, gay pride you could say.
We learn about The Crocodile Hunters fashion sense, and moral compass
<6 clothes>
Ok, so the man doesn't like to change clothing much, we get it.
Older listeners may remember yet another Australian man with "Crocodile" in his media persona
<7 crocodile hunter dundee>
Crocodile Dundee was "a poacher, and if I ran into him in The Bush I'd take him out"? What? He shot wild animals? Rare animals? He wore the skins, teeth etc from Crocodiles?
About "taking him out", I've seen the Crocodile Dundee movies, where Dundee kills a near endless stream of goons by himself in "The Bush", and while The Crocodile Hunter managed to beat up single animals, Dundee "took out" entire armed squads in the Australian Outback. Those Australians, must be something in the Vegemite! Australians wrestling each other never solves anything, actually, its generally the cause of the worlds problem. Violence doesn't solve violence.
Dundee killing crocodiles, is this any different from "The Crocodile Hunter", ironically against actually killing Crocodiles, instead preferring to wrestle them into submission, tie them up, take them from the wild and put them in zoo's… who wore the skins of other animals? Who was Non Vegan?
I really don't think so. And especially, if Sea Shepherd WERE an Animal Rights group, if they would name one of their boats after such a man. Both are for conservation, they were or are not Animal Rights.
Regardless of their adoration, I don't think its a good idea to go after Celebrity Vegans. To build someone up, to give them book deals, pay them a million bucks to appear half naked in your welfare campaigns etc. "cash cows" are not Vegan :-)
Even if he was
<8 incredible character>
It wouldn't be a good idea for an animal rights group to use Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter", to spread a message of respect for all animals, namely, because they were not Vegan themselves.
In New Zealand, we have a problem with wild rabbits. Well, "Farmers" have a problem with wild rabbits. I rather like the "wild" rabbits that live in our nearby public gardens, I've taken several videos of them and put them on my YouTube account, I'll link to them in my shownotes. www.youtube.com/jaywontdart .
I've gotten within touching distance of them before, until they were scared away by loud noise in the distance. I wouldn't try and pat them, or pick them up, but it was nice seeing how close I could get to them, while staying a respectful distance apart. If a few rabbits want to live in the Otepuni Gardens, and keep the grass levels down, more power to them, I say.
On our "farm land" however, where we fence in Cows and Sheep, Rabbits cause problems with erosion, they supposedly spread diseases which Cows can catch, and their holes can cause farm animals to break their legs.
Its not often mentioned that New Zealanders released Rabbits here, so we could shoot them for fun, and "use" their dead bodies, for flesh, for fur. When the rabbits wisely focused NOT on war, but love, this ended up in massive numbers of rabbits.
New Zealander farmers use all kinds of methods to kill them, or "control rabbit numbers", from releasing viruses, you know, chemical warfare, great stuff Saddam, to having organised shooting campaigns. This was in the New Zealand news recently, and a quick heads up to those who care for Rabbits, the videos which I'll play in audio form contained rabbits being shot, their skin taken off, and their bodies being ground up, into "pet food". And for "posh" pets too, for all those "animal lovers" who loved their Cats and Dogs, but apparently not "food animals". I go through this each day, knowing my Chicken Friends, it upsets me to see a hundred plus dead Chickens at the supermarket, as people scramble over each other, grabbing a plastic container of their body, the head and legs cut off, for about 5 dollars odd.
Yes, we even have small children getting in on the fun, of killing animals, and local groups make money from this, having the children clean up the body piles! Some of the event posters mentioned "Rabbits are Evil", and it seemed to be sponsored by alcohol companies.
I recently met a bunch of local Geocachers, grown adults who go on treasure hunts using GPS devices, like an iPhone, or even some of those Android devices, if they can stop crashing for five straight minutes. Many showed up, 24 people, which is a lot more than I was expecting, and we had a great time talking about having fun outdoors.
But many had "fun outdoors" in other ways, through killing animals, and they talked about this. Quite a few were "dairy farmers", and they talked about their "gypsy day" moves, changing farms around this time of year, having "cull cows on the truck", the older or sick cows being thrown on a truck, to be delivered to the slaughterhouse, etc.
There isn't a difference between "killing the easter bunny", and killing a cow. Regardless of how some religions feel about them, I don't think the cows care, whether our superstition holds them as "sacred", or as being under our "dominion", meaning we can kill them on a whim.
But its not just Australians wrestling/killing Crocodiles for fun, New Zealanders deeming rabbits enemies of the state, needing to be killed en masse at easter time, in competitions, all around the world cultures kill other animals.
Even in the fictional, yellow skinned, four fingered world of The Simpsons.
<1 2>
Often killing animals much smaller than ourselves is seen as being somehow "masculine", that women cant resist a man who shoots or clubs the defenseless to death
<3 4>
You could make a remark about regulating atrocities there, about change from within. I'd much rather promote Veganism.
This next clip is particularly odd, in future episodes we find out Apu is Vegan, while here, he promotes Whacking Day, which isn't very well thought out in multiple ways
<5 6>
Everyone gets behind such events, its seen as noble, angelic, and manly, even for those who had their testicles cut off!
<7>
<8, 9, 10>
<11>
Unfortunately, the real, non Yellow skinned, five fingers (email to… jaywontdart@gmail.com, subject… technical error in episode 55… message… dear Mr Wyatt… in episode 55, you incorrectly counted the human thumb as a finger…") …. world isn't as simple as a 30 minute episode of The Simpsons. Before that guy starts emailing me again, yes, I'm aware each Simpsons episode is closer to 23 minutes in length without commercials.
I really think we're doing the right thing by promoting Veganism, a respect for ALL animals, rabbits, whales, crocodiles, Chickens, and yes, even for hellish countries, like Australia, that have them, snakes.
Perhaps a large percentage of my generation have grown up with subliminal messages from The Simpsons. That we've grown up with Lisa The Vegetarian, and Whacking Day episodes of the show, and this shows that saving other animals from death can be a decent thing to do. Perhaps we only need to promote Veganism to tie into these childhood feelings towards other animals. And what better way to do that, than by using childish language, and talking of your Chicken Friends all the time?
Although, not all cartoon television series, easy to find through Bit Torrent, have such a positive message towards other animals. Take this episode of King of the Hill, about the co op,
It can be difficult being around people like that in real life, "but if Jesus didn't want us to kill Chickens, why did he make them out of Chicken flesh, and let a southern gentlemen put 12 "secret" spices on the corpse?"
I think we need to be careful how we talk with Non Vegans too, like this news story about that bloody "Double Down" burger, made from the bodies, and abuse of Chickens, Pigs and Cows, this news story sought a counterpoint from SAFE, trying to end the accusations of the media giving KFC free publicity, where SAFE say the problem with this product is that the Chickens are not "raised or killed humanely". I say the problem is that we are hurting and killing 56 Billion plus animals a year, but I'll hold my comment until I've read 3 News report:
"The KFC Double Down burger has been widely hailed as the new super-villain of fast food but its lack of nutritional value isn’t the burger’s worst attribute, according to New Zealand animal rights group SAFE.
3 News has received a number of comments expressing concern not just for the burger’s health benefits, but for how humanely the chickens that become the Double Down are reared and killed.
SAFE director Hans Kriek believes the concerns are valid, and says he doesn’t think the chickens used by KFC New Zealand are raised or killed humanely
Mr Kriek said the chickens KFC buys are from the same companies that produce supermarket chickens - "probably Tegel and Ingham" - and are reared in the same way, saying that in New Zealand the way chickens are farmed is “all standard”.
He says the chickens – which are alive for six weeks before being killed and sold – are kept in hugely overcrowded sheds, with up to 19 birds per square metre
In order to grow the birds to slaughter weight in a short time, Mr Kriek says they are fed antibiotics which promote growth and also keep the birds from dying.
“If you didn’t feed them the antibiotics, they probably wouldn’t live. As a side effect, it makes the birds grow faster and bigger.”
Mr Kriek points to footage taken inside New Zealand chicken factories where “birds are starving to death next to their food trough with their legs bowed… they can’t reach the food troughs because their bodies are so heavy”.
“We have an industry where 3 million animals die every year because of health-related illness. It’s a major problem.”
A KFC spokesperson denied the claims, saying that animal welfare is an issue the fast food company feels strongly about.
"All the chicken we use in New Zealand comes from Inghams and Tegel – two companies committed to following all the right animal welfare codes and guidelines and ensuring the humane treatment of all their birds," KFC said in a statement this afternoon.
"There are lots of negative stories out there about the living conditions of animals raised for food, so we’re proud that International Animal Welfare Practice expert Doctor Temple Grandin has audited both Inghams and Tegel and says their New Zealand operations reach a Gold standard in the treatment of broiler chickens."
Both Inghams and Tegel's websites state that the companies ensure their chickens are as healthy and comfortable as possible."
I don't think its a major problem if an extra 3 million Chickens die before we can kill them, when we "successfully" kill 49 Billion chickens each year.
I really wish Veganism was mentioned in the report, the problem is not how "humanely" we as self ANNOINTED semi divine beings kill those lesser, gentle species, but that we do it at all. Heres my published comment
"What a terrible shame, however, the problem is not how "humanely" we *kill* other sentient beings, but that we see them as "things", as chattel property to begin with.
We kill over 49 Billion Chickens each year, and for what? Tradition? Perceived pleasure? Profit?
"Fried Chicken", a certain Mister Jackson mentioned taking a look in the mirror, of making the change we wanted to see in the world. Take a look at yourself, at you, that "u" can quite easily be rotated a little, make it an "n", and add that to "Fried Chicken". What will you have?
Why, for almost zero cost, not a greasy lump of corpse, on either side of a dead Pigs flesh, the processed breast milk of a mother Cow, but a *Chicken FrieNd* :-)
I know I love the Chickens Friends I know :-)
They rather like eating Falafel, and sharing amongst their family :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sjLbUUtxWg
Its as easy to be Vegan as not, and the least other animals deserve, not to be seen as a thing, as an "it", but respected as our friends.
Jordan Wyatt
Invercargill
Vegan Society
www.invsoc.org.nz/ "
Yes, I knew what kind of responses I'd get from Non Vegans. Oh, he's just another one of those pushy greenies, who wont shut up about his way or the highway, who thinks he's better than everyone else, and he's probably one of them homosexuals too. I managed to bring Veganism into the story, just by speaking out, and hopefully Non Vegans would see my comment, and visit the Invercargill Vegan Society website, or, better still, the direct link to a video of Mr Rooster enjoying Falafel. Who would want to hurt such a friendly, gentle animal? I hope more people can watch videos of my Chicken Friends, and realise they are connected to the pink fatty blob on their plates, and that they too will want to have Chicken Friends of their own.
Thank you for listening to Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals.
You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals at coexisting with nonhuman animals . co .nz
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, or on Twitter, if you're one of the five people in the world still using it, twitter.com/ j a y w o n t d a r t, I'd appreciate it.
Thank you for listening.
Sources
======
Gore its not that Gay t shirt
http://www.mrvintage.co.nz/shop/MENS/T-SHIRTS/GAY+GORE+MENS+T-SHIRT.html
Australia Zoo "Home of the Crocodile Hunter"
http://www.australiazoo.com.au/
Sea Shepherd Steve Irwin ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MY_Steve_Irwin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Crocodile%22_Dundee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Crocodile%22_Dundee_II
"Double Down" burger
http://www.3news.co.nz/KFCs-Double-Down-puts-spotlight-on-animal-rights/tabid/1160/articleID/210586/Default.aspx
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