…you can bet I will be writing letters to the editor:
If I’m going to be in Wichita….
…you can bet I will be writing letters to the editor:
Posts from April 2012
Love. This.
“Screw PETA”
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| “Be very, very quiet…I’m hunting squirrels.” |
Jennifer Lawrence is about to learn what it’s like to have every little comment said in passing scrutinized — yes, she’s a bona fide star. The actress was dubbed “the coolest chick in Hollywood” by Rolling Stone, and in the magazine’s latest issue she recounts her on-screen squirrel-skinning scene in the 2010 movie “Winter’s Bone.” “I should say it wasn’t real, for PETA. But screw PETA,” she told the magazine. Lawrence’s interview has been on newsstands since March 30, but the comment went unnoticed until it was picked up by a hunting magazine, which praised Lawrence for the comment. In response to the actress’s comment, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told Gothamist, “[Lawrence] is young and the plight of animals somehow hasn’t yet touched her heart. As Henry David Thoreau said, ‘The squirrel you kill in jest, dies in earnest.’ We are told that this squirrel was hit by a car, but when people kill animals, it is the animals who are ‘screwed,’ not PETA, and one day I hope she will try to make up for any pain she might have caused any animal who did nothing but try to eke out a humble existence in nature.” Regardless, it doesn’t sound as if Lawrence is going to be a PETA spokesperson anytime soon. The actress, who spent a month in Missouri with a rural family learning to shoot rifles and chop wood in preparation for “Winter’s Bone,” and was trained by four-time Olympic archer Khatuna Lorig for her role as Katniss in “The Hunger Games,” also told Rolling Stone, that when she is done with her next movie she is “thinking about buying a house. And a big dog. And a shotgun.”
1. We could do with a lot more celebrities saying “Screw PETA,” couldn’t we? Maybe Lawrence could sit down and have a chat with these people.
2. I somehow doubt that Lawrence’s youth is the reason her heart hasn’t been touched by the plight of animals. Young female actresses and singers seem like PETA’s bread and butter, all too ready and willing to support a disingenuous and vapid group that equates broiler hens to Holocaust victims and has tarnished the cause of animal rights so much by its antics that they should get kickbacks from ConAgra and shout-outs from Ted Nugent. Young women who have not so much as seen a farm in person seem like the best candidates to view all animals as cast members from Bambi, and to think that posing nude accompanied by the slogan “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” somehow draws attention and sympathy to the pathos of minks, foxes, rabbits, etc. bound for coat-dom rather than a mixture of eye-rolling, leering, and condescending chuckles.
3. I haven’t seen “Winter’s Bone” or “The Hunger Games,” but am pretty sure that Lawrence’s role in both films has something to do with…you know, hunger. That her character is herself trying to “eke out a humble existence in nature,” and would be either an idiot or a masochist to turn down a nice bit of squirrel for dinner when it’s offered. Ever watch one of those survival shows, like Out of Alaska or Man vs. Wild? The people on those shows try to shoot, snare, or catch animals for meat first and foremost for a reason, and it isn’t because killing animals is fun or they don’t care about their “plight.” It’s because meat is the best kind of food you can have if your goal is avoiding starvation most efficiently. Now, to be fair Newkirk’s quote was reacting to Lawrence saying “Screw PETA” concerning the question of whether any animals were actually hurt in filming (at least, that’s my impression). But Newkirk did toss out an unqualified statement condemning killing animals in general, so I feel comfortable calling it absurd and mindless without qualification.
4. In case it needs to be reiterated, I am concerned about animal rights. I think causing unnecessary suffering is wrong and should be avoided, which leads to a revulsion for all sorts of very common practices in the food industry that make many animals’ lives torture from beginning to unfortunate end. But PETA is possibly the worst organization claiming to battle this suffering, and ridiculous hand-wringing over the death of any animal by Newkirk and patronizing denouncement of anyone who supports such a thing under any circumstances certainly earns the dismissal “Screw PETA.”
Timesucker: Drawception
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| “Batman changing his pants” |
Other people are currently obsessed with Draw Something, but I have neither iPhone nor iPad so I’m immune to the contagion. What has caught my interest lately (and time, and energy, but not money) is Drawception. It’s a free browser-based game that combines drawing with Telephone. Their description:
1) A player begins a game with a short phrase – for example, “A cow jumping over the moon”
2) A randomly chosen player then draws that phrase
3) Another random player describes the new drawing
4) Yet another player draws the new description
5) Steps 3 and 4 repeat until 12 unique players have participated
When completed, the participating players can view the often unexpected and hilarious results!
They are indeed hilarious, and the two things that make this possible are a) the fact that it’s random, and the only thing you will see when you click “play” is the drawing or interpretation of the person before you (or a box into which you type a phrase, if you’re starting a new game) and b) it’s timed, so each player only has ten minutes to finish his or her turn. This makes the game proceed relatively quickly. It is possible to skip a turn and not participate in the game that has been handed to you, but most people don’t seem to do this. And most people by far are not skilled artists (though some are astonishingly so), so there’s no need to get caught up in how pathetic your mouse-drawn sketches are. You just read things, draw things, and have fun. Here’s a sample game in which I participated under the name Rillion. The game is still in its early beta, but has been getting all sorts of attention and new features are being added daily– your profile now includes a list of games you’ve participated in, drawings you’ve done, favorite games you’ve seen, people you’re following, and people who are following you.
Oh, and people who insist on drawing nothing but penises and poop, regardless of what the clue was? They get banned, quick-like. In addition to being able to upvote or downvote someone’s drawing/interpretation, you can report them outright for screwing up the game. It’s so much more fun to see people actually doing their best to figure out how on earth they’re supposed to depict the bizarre phrases they were given, or figure out what the hell the drawing they’re looking at is supposed to be.
T-shirts for women
I really enjoy reading everything Greta Christina has to say on her blog. Sometimes I forget to check it, which is an oversight on my part, but every time I go and read through a new entry I feel edified by the experience. The same, sadly, cannot be said of the comment section. Which is not to disparage the comments– they are usually dominated by insightful additions or reflections on the original post by readers. It’s just that the more seemingly obvious the point Greta Christina makes, the more inevitable it is that someone will show up in the comments who missed that point entirely, and wants to use the opportunity to lecture her on how wrong-headed she is.
Exhibit A: Fashion Friday: Atheist T-Shirts in Women’s Styles.
Obvious, Seemingly Non-Controversial Thesis: When skeptical/atheist organizations have a conference, it sure would be nice if they offered t-shirts which come in women’s sizes in addition to men’s. This acknowledgement that the word “unisex” really is a misnomer when it comes to t-shirts (because the typical female is shaped differently from the typical male in important ways) would go a long way toward making women feel more included, and make it much easier for these women to fulfill the intended purpose of labeled t-shirts (wearing them, and thereby spreading the message of whatever that label represents) because the shirts will look better on them, not having been made to fit men.
Trollish disagreement: You are just trying to find ways to create discord and emphasize exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness. “Standard” t-shirts really are unisex– they aren’t for men, and they don’t look any better on men. If you don’t think they look good on you, then you should just not buy one and shut up about it. Or maybe we should get rid of t-shirts altogether. It doesn’t matter because nobody wears those things anyway, and it’s been this way for a very long time so you’re just demanding something extra and special. In asking for this thing that suits you more, you have stopped fighting for equality across the board and are just pursuing your own interests.
Yes, seriously.
*facepalm*
I’m not going to go over the (obvious, shouldn’t have to be said) response to this, because it has been made by Greta Christina and others on her blog post already and you can just go read them. I’m just saying that this kind of thing is really tiring. Tiring to read, tiring to rebut, tiring to contemplate that people can say write such things presumably with a straight face.
So if or when the urge arises to dismiss the very real and necessary work involved in combating this nonsense, think again. Certain people function as bullshit lightning rods. Greta Christina’s one of them.
Thought for the day
When talking about laws impinging on freedom, laws that impinge on important freedoms matter. But laws that impinge on unimportant freedoms matter more.
Why?
Because a law that says you fundamentally may not say what you think or feel, own your own property, express a meaningful choice about your rulers and representatives, or conduct your personal relationships and interactions as you choose certainly represents an obvious threat to basic human happiness and flourishing.
But a law that constitutes a threat to a specific way or specific version of expressing one’s thoughts, the ability to own one’s own property, to vote as one sees fit, or to relate to others as one chooses, amounts to the government saying “Even this I may forbid.” Certainly a government which can prohibit the most benign and superficial expression of a freedom can find justification to prohibit the more significant. And it is these admonitions, which address particular expressions and behavior that the majority do not desire, that the majority will not rise up and defend.