Indeed. And let’s not forget that even normal housecats quite literally torture bugs. It can take a cat over an hour to kill a palmetto bug, ripping it apart bit by bit. Cats are very cruel creatures. Or very scientific; take your pick.

“Anyone can get meat without killing; just go to the supermarket… No killing involved.”

Sadly, only a half dozen or so at best of the commenters on that Sorkin article pointed out his utterly ridiculous hypocrisy on the issue, even though many more disagreed with him on other grounds. I think it has to do with just becoming numb to the standard liberal nonsense – his position is no stupider than 99% of what we hear all the time. Most normal people skip past that sort of idiocy and look for something exceptionally – or at least uniquely – or at least recently – egregious.

We are all earthlings­? Even Dennis Kucinich? /g

I think the jury’s still out on that one. Incidentally, am I the only one who flashed back to the “blow up the moon” skit with Sarah Silverman?

WE’RE EARTHLINGS, LET’S BLOW UP EARTH THINGS!

Well, remember what that word means according to their dictionary. So perhaps we should check with Joycelyn Elders.

Oh dear, was that racist?

I think that’s the key right there, Neo: it was your “one and only time.” I guess most people brought up with modern values would feel the same. I don’t think there’s any argument against the fact that hunting and fishing have become, at this point, things that generally have to be taught, rather than things that are instinctual – as they are for every animal in nature; pace scifibird’s fatuous statement (“Only arrogant humans think it’s ok to take a life”), only humans, and modern humans at that, would even pause in the first place.

“I don’t hunt, either, and probably would only do so if I were starving and had absolutely no alternative.”
Fair enough. 🙂 I don’t hunt regularly myself, but I do do so on occasion – especially when this one club of mine has its annual dinner. They make a huge dish sort of like a beef wellington but with venison instead. It’s baked for almost 48 hours before they put on the pastry shell.

By the way, the whitetail is the animal responsible for more human fatalities in the United States than any other. Save a life, kill a deer.

for special occaisions we would get our bird fresh or meat from a classical butcher.

its interesting how many times in a supermarket i see people cheated by cuts of meat that are not what they are and are arranged on the tray to look different. or how thin they are and so wont really have the full round of flavors that a real deal would have.

but i remember how my grandfather would tell me that this is why we say grace, because of what we have to do to live… and we would go to waht now would be called pollo vivo…

we would walk among the cages… and we would look at the color of the beak and eyes. how its feet were, were very important… with turkies, how red was the wattle, etc.

then the hard part… put your arm into a cage with a lot of birds and grab the one you want…

then, you have three choices… if your young like i was, and havent learned yet, you hand the bird over.

a little later, you snap his neck by swinging it around

and later, the way my family did, which is as your reaching into cage, and grab the bird, you hold it a certain way, you take it out, and if its ok, you close your hand, and hand it over to the ABATTOIR

they slit its throat, hang it to drain it, steam it, remove the feathers, and you go home and eat some of the best tasting food you EVER would have in your lifetime.

its a shame to walk the aisle and look at the chicken parts and see knuckle freeze, or black bone that was broken (ie, the birds leg was broken when it was alife, not after).

but we didnt need those cultural things…

all you have to do is compare the rabbits from watership down, with pet rabbits…

one has a culture and is free and the culture matches its survival and biology

the other has none, is a prisoner, and lives at the behest of another.

[and as a matter of trivia, rabbits can scream]

Now the grace praised his wicked act. At its end
The bird on the plate
Stared at his stricken appetite.
There had been nothing to do but surrender,
To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.
-Galway Kinnell, “To Christ Our Lord”

I meant:
Hmm…It looks more like Dowd doesn’t has a certain dislike…