Tag Archives: animal welfare

I’m in my Blog, Calling Y’all Out

You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals.

Alabama has the weakest cockfighting laws in the nation. There is a $50 fine if caught. That’s a parking ticket. Dinner for four. Alabama is one of only 13 states where cockfighting isn’t a felony. One of those 13 states isn’t Louisiana. One of those 13 states isn’t Georgia. For a good time, “sportsmen” from Louisiana and Georgia come here.

In case you don’t know:

“In a cockfight, two roosters fight each other to the death while people place bets. Cockfighters let the birds suffer untreated injuries or throw the birds away like trash afterwards. Besides being cruel, cockfighting often goes hand in hand with gambling, drug dealing, illegal gun sales and murder. Left to themselves, roosters almost never hurt each other badly. In cockfights, on the other hand, the birds often wear razor-sharp blades on their legs and get injuries like punctured lungs, broken bones and pierced eyes—when they even survive.”

–the Humane Society of the United States

Does that strike you as something deserving of a $50 fine? The price of a concert ticket. A night at the movies.

The federal government doesn’t think so. Cockfighting is punishable by up to three years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000 if perpetrators buy, sell or transport an animal used for fighting across state lines.

So what’s your problem, Alabama? Once AGAIN a bill to stiffen the penalties for cockfighting in Alabama has made it out of committee. Once AGAIN the cockfighting lobby (Do you get to have a lobby for something that is ALREADY ILLEGAL?) is making an effort to keep the bill from coming to a vote. Since a good chunk of Alabama’s legislators are cowards, they may succeed again. No one wants to vote against the bill because then they are the “Cockfighting Senator” and no one wants to vote for it because “that nice young man who watches roosters murder each other brought me a muffin basket.” Or maybe they enjoy a cockfight every now and then themselves.

This is not OK. And you don’t have to live here to tell them so. Last time the bill was up, cockfighters from Georgia called the Alabama statehouse to have them kill the bill. All’s fair. I’ve made it easy for you: at the end of this post, there is a list of the state representatives who are blocking the vote, their districts, and how to contact them by email. Do me a favor. Tell them to suck it up and vote. Tell them the world is watching. Tell them 2009 poll of Alabama voters, 82% favored stronger penalties and believed cockfighting is cruel and inhumane.

Never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The 32 names that follow are the 32 representatives that asked the Speaker of the House to not let the bill be heard.

  • Micky Hammon / info@mocold.com / Limestone and Morgan
  • Dan Williams / dan.williams@alhouse.gov / Limestone
  • Ed Henry / ed.henry@alhouse.gov / Cullman and Morgan
  • Ken Johnson / kenjohnsonrep@gmail.com / Lawrence & Winston
  • Jeremy Oden / Jeremy.oden@alhouse.gov / Blount, Cullman, & Morgan
  • Mac Buttram / mbuttram@att.net / Cullman
  • Bill Roberts / broberts1229@cs.com / Walker
  • Richard Baughn / rgbups@yahoo.com / Tuscaloosa, Walker, & Winston
  • Daniel Boman / daniel_boman@thebomanfirm.com / Fayette, Lamar, & Tuscaloosa
  • Mike Millican / mike.millican@alhouse.gov / Marion & Winston
  • Jim Patterson / jimpattersonhd21@gmail.com / Madison
        According to the source of this list, Patterson is PRO-cockfighting.
  • Todd Greeson / todd.greeson@alhouse.gov / DeKalb
  • Kerry Rich / kerryrich@bellsouth.net / DeKalb & Marshall
  • Wes Long / weslong@mclo.org / Marshall County
  • Steve Hurst / steve.hurst@alhouse.gov / Calhoun and Talladega
  • John Merrill / john@tuscaloosagop.org / Tuscaloosa County
  • Harry Shiver / harryshiver@aol.com / Baldwin, Conecuh, Escambia, & Monroe
        Contacted about stalling: “I’m a yes vote for Jim Barton’s bill. We need to strengthen this bill.”
  • Alan Baker / staterep@co.escambia.al.us / Baldwin & Escambia
  • Lesley Vance / Lesley.vance@alhouse.gov / Lee & Russell
  • Mark Tuggle / tughd81@gmail.com / Lee & Tallapoosa
  • Paul Lee / pwlee@graceba.net / Houston
  • Steve Clouse / steve.clouse@alhouse.gov / Dale & Houston
  • Randy Davis / rmdavis14@aol.com / Baldwin & Mobile
        Contacted about stalling: “not true I am prepared to vote”
  • Joe Faust / jfaust@co.baldwin.al.us / Baldwin
  • Steve McMillian / bcld07@gmail.com / Baldwin
        Contacted about stalling: “you have been grossly misinformed”
  • Mike Jones / mljatty@andycable.com / Covington & Escambia
  • Barry Moore / barry@barrymooreindustries.com / Coffee
  • Alan Boothe / alan.boothe@alhouse.gov / Dale & Pike
  • Paul Beckman / paulbeckmanjr@yahoo.com / Autauga & Elmore
  • Donnie Cheesteen / dchesteen@panhandle.rr.com / Geneva & Houston
  • Duwayne Bridges / duwayne.bridges@alhouse.gov / Chambers & Lee
  • KL Brown / klbrown@cableone.net / Calhoun

Representative Jim Barton was courageous enough to sponsor HB74. jbarton104@gmail.com

The source of this list is a petition that targets residents. If you live here, please take 30 seconds to sign. If you don’t live here, please take 30 seconds to sign, I’m told the petition will work. Representatives phone numbers can be found here too.

Resolve: Reduce and Refine

I don’t think that it is inherently wrong to eat meat. Humanity has spent thousands of years domesticating animals for use as food. Physically, people are designed to eat meat along with the bajillion other things we are designed, as omnivores, to eat. I do think that it is wrong, categorically and unquestionably wrong, to torture an animal before eating it.

This is not a happy post. It’s an upsetting post. There is no knitting. But it’s a post I’ve been thinking about for a long time about an issue that is important to me. I’ll get some of Ellie’s Christmas video edited for tomorrow to take the edge off. Here we go.

Most Americans don’t know where their chicken nuggets come from. When we think of chickens, we think of chickens pecking away in the dirt until someone wrings their necks, plucks them and makes chicken and dumplings. Cows graze in a pastoral meadow until they get bonked on the head (quietly and from behind where they won’t see it coming) for hamburger. Pigs root in the mud, get fat on slops and make friends with spiders until they magically transform into bacon.

Most Americans haven’t seen or even heard of a factory farm. In these mechanized wonders, animals are treated as commodities rather than living creatures so that institutionalized cruelty can provide Americans with cheap meat. I’ve provided links throughout this post if you choose to know more, but feel free to just trust me when I say it’s bad. Very bad. So bad that even if you don’t think that animals are especially sentient, just knowing the filth and squalor and damage to the environment that produces your chicken sandwich will be enough to make you skip it today.

Food animals are not just mistreated in life, but also in death. The US Humane Slaughter Laws are only as good as their enforcement (and don’t apply to poultry) and the USDA has proven over and over again that they can’t be trusted. Remember that downed dairy cattle in the school lunch meat thing? Or more recently, the appalling cruelty to veal calves (which was ignored by the USDA inspector who was present at the time*) and pigs (not to mention the pregnant sows jammed in gestation crates where they can’t even turn around). The cruelties to poultry are too numerable to list. A quick Google search will turn up many many many more incidents of abuse and cruelty in factory farms and slaughter houses that have nothing to do with the production of food.

In 2009, the Miracle household stopped eating meat (and gelatin, lard, etc.) unless I was confident that it was treated like an animal while it still was one. We order local, we buy Certified Humane, we read labels, we do our homework on brands before purchasing. Since we live in the rural south, this pretty much means that we are vegetarians outside our home. And in our home, we eat meat about once a week. In 2010, we will also reduce the amount of non-organic dairy we use. This is going to be harder than just not eating meat because of availability (and our devotion to cheese of all kinds). Organic certification has an animal welfare component and is more strictly overseen. We already use organic milk and eggs, so we’ll start 2010 with butter (organic butter costs twice as much, so we have to reduce our consumption by half). I’ll be trying new recipes and revamping old favorites. I think I’ll start sharing when I come across something delicious.

All this to say, this country has a problem with animal cruelty: puppy mills, abandoned, neglected and abused pets, abuse of feral cats, faux fur that isn’t faux, dog fighting, hog fighting, cock fighting, unnecessary and unnecessarily inhumane animal testing and even something as cute as a chicken nugget. I am through being a part of it.

If you feel the same, the Meatless Monday movement is a great place to start reducing suffering and make people more aware of where their food comes from. Try a classic Peanut Butter and Jelly for lunch instead of a turkey sandwich a couple times a week. Reduce your consumption. Reduce suffering. Let the industry know that this is not OK.

*As far as I can tell, that guy still has his job. The USDA won’t answer my emails, the HSUS has no further information. There is VIDEO EVIDENCE that the guy endangered our food supply, and the only thing anyone will will say is that the “matter is under investigation.” At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut: that is how our government is looking out for you.