87 · non-sequitur said

Yup. Come January 7th some buck(eyes) are hoping to gang up to smother the tiger offensive…

They can hope all they want but the buck(eyes) are way too slow compared to the tigers. Jan 7th will be a repeat of the Christmas day mauling.

I’d like to rehash this clairvoyant post of mine

Great post, gm. I agree with this and the rest of it too. You have to be a pretty sorry human being to think not caring about animals or abusing them is funny.

What about vegetarian stew? You may have heard about it – the recipe calls for tomatoes, two vegetarians, salt and pepper to taste, and so forth.

Again, it’s just my opinion but a situation would have to be very severe to justify eating meat.

Actually, it tastes pretty good (depending how it’s cooked).

Chicken Malai or Tandoori or something else?

In fact, not all of them are cruel to animals.

What? Not all Indian guys are cruel to animals? Just some? This argument is getting too nuanced for me.

Actually, the vedic concept of Ahimsa (translates to non violence in thought,word and deed to all living beings) is from Hinduism and Buddhism which originated from India. Whether people practice it or not is another issue. But in my household and my family, Ahimsa IS Hinduism and vegetarianism. (My only exception to that rule is spiders. Feel free to stomp on any spider that is indoors. Give it a head start on it’s next life because trying to catch it and take it outdoors is a royal pain.)

Actually, it tastes pretty good (depending how it’s cooked).

For the record, my south Indian father and my south Indian husband and his brother are strict vegetarians and support most of PETA’s goals. My father is actually more vegan since he avoids milk, ghee,butter and eggs. I have personally seen their monetary contributions (occasionally) to animal welfare organizations (like the SPCA, PETA etc). They are very enlightened people who detest any animal abuse and totally respect other animal life. On my mom’s side, her brothers and my maternal grandparents have taken in stray dogs (in India) as respected family pets and gave them food and shelter. Maybe they are in the minority among Desi (males.) I really don’t have any statistics on Male Desi animal cruelty so I am speaking purely from my observations.

But what about rodeos (US), bullfighting (Spain), circuses, hunting, fishing (putting a sharp steel hook into an innocent fish for amusement and food), dog fighting, chicken fighting(on other chickens – usually in Louisiana and sometimes in the Phillipines), etc. Personally, and I don’t mean to hurt anyone by stating this, I think meat eating and raising animals to be killed for eating and fur, & cosmetics testing, are especially cruel. Again, not to hurt anyones feelings, but the halal way of killing animals for meat sounds very brutal. Correct me if I am wrong about this.

I have mixed feelings about pharmaceutical testing with animals because it can benefit other animals but it is still brutal to the caged animals getting pumped up with drugs. Computer models only tell you so much from what I understand. Maybe testing technology will improve to the point where it is unneccessary to test human and animal drugs on lab animals. But I think research for treating cancer, AIDS, and other horrible illnesses need the current methods of lab animal testing as long as the animals are treated as humanely as possible.

Regarding meat eating, there are so many good vegetarian alternatives as everyone knows. I would probably excuse meat eating for someone who is wasting away due to cancer, aids, debilitating & severe food allergies, or someone who is trapped/lost in a forest away from civiliation, etc. Again, it’s just my opinion but a situation would have to be very severe to justify eating meat. I don’t like to be judgmental, but “Meat is murder” just like the title of one of my favorite songs and albums. (So many of my friends eat meat and they are wonderful and kind people. There are vegetarians who can be real a@@holes too.) But one excellent way to contribute to animal welfare is to be a vegetarian.

Aside from the pros and cons of hunting, meat eating, etc it is plain common sense to not taunt animals. It’s hard to believe adults need to be taught that.