Dogs – They’re Just Like Us!

They love 2 B loved like us

*By the way, this little guy is most likely still kickin’ it at The Orange Bone puppy store on Melrose in L.A., which takes animals destined to be put down or sometimes from the street and tries to give them another chance. Click the link if you’re in love.

They dig argyle like us

They gots ta chill like us

Elephantine Cruelty

Orange County People for Animals (OCPA) demonstrate in Anaheim, California to show circus-goers the animal cruelty recently exposed by the Ringling Brothers in their disgusting treatment of elephants.

PETA recently went undercover backstage at the Ringling and Barnum & Bailey Circus and captured Ringling workers on video as they beat the elephants in their show dozens of times in venues across the country.

• 8 employees including an animal superintendent and a head elephant trainer used bullhooks and other objects to strike elephants on the head, ears, and trunk
• employees whipped elephants and a tiger, including on or near the face
• employees hooked and yanked elephants by their sensitive skin using the sharp steel tips of bullhooks
• one elephant, Tonka, repeatedly exhibited signs of severe psychological stress but was nevertheless forced to perform night after night

OmShan Tea

www.omshantea.com

Radwood Forest

Islands in the Sky

Every beach is so different-

islands in the sky

Mesmerized by the tide

through dunes of time.

Heart twist, no bliss

take back your kiss.

New blood, new era.

Booya.

Isla and CL’s New Era

Canada’s Next Top Model Forgets A Little Something

We all know that the Procter & Gamble sponsored CNTM (like its inbred cousin ANTM) is by no means ethical entertainment, whoring out everything from animal-tested Cover Girl make-up, to animal-tested Crest Whitestrips, to animal-tested Olay… but when HSUS spokesperson and professional dreamboat, Nigel Barker, took the girls on a photoshoot to harp seal breeding grounds, he forgot to mention the horrific slaughter these baby seals experience yearly in the Canadian commercial seal hunt. Now that would have been a sexy photoshoot -

Hakapixies On Ice!

“This is their territory, this is their house, and we’re the guests…” Barker explains, omitting the fact that men with hakapiks come into their “house” and sloppily kill them off in front of their mothers by the thousand. Even Rebecca Aldworth from Humane Society International doesn’t mention the bloody massacre of 300 000 baby seals that occurs here yearly.

Were they censored? Or did they sell out?

It appears they consented to censorship, as Nigel Barker is more than aware and concerned about the issue:

Nigel blogged about the controversial trade, first explaining that this is a large-scale issue for the animals: “Canada’s commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth. In the past three years, more than one million seals have been killed for their fur.”

The practice is condemned, supa-fine Nigel said, for the particularly cruel way in which the seal fur is gathered. “In 2001,” he writes, “an independent veterinary panel studied the commercial seal hunt and concluded that the seal hunt results in considerable and unacceptable suffering.”

Nigel isn’t afraid to give his reader a less-clinical take on the practice (readers who are particularly sensitive to animal cruelty might find some of this paragraph a little rough to read), “Well, being clubbed over the head when you were only a few weeks old and left to drown in your own blood could give that impression! Almost half the baby seals aren’t even unconscious from the clubbing before they are skinned alive.”

The America’s Next Top Model judge won’t be swayed by any arguments that the trade is too vital an industry to be discontinued, saying, “In Newfoundland, where more than 90 percent of sealers live, income from the seal hunt accounts for less than one-half of 1 percent of the province’s economy and less than 1 percent of Newfoundlanders participate in the seal hunt. So banning the hunt is not about the small financial inconvenience to a few humans but the massive suffering of millions of beautiful baby seals…..”

He’s created a tee-shirt for the cause – a line drawing of a seal with a collar saying “Save Me” and has a website – www.bansealtrade.org – at which other individuals who have concerns with this practice and for the humane treatment of other living creatures can sign a petition in protest of the practice.”

Zexy is as zexy does.

Rebirth – Fo Shizzle

I just did a search for “dawn of a new era” “image”, and found this gem: WTF!

Why is Barack doing laps in the harbour with a blinged out cell phone, Snoop’s mojo, three thumbs on one hand, and a pet unicorn?

Feeling Sketch?

Sketchbooks Gone Wild

Veganarchy

When you realize that soylent green is made of sentient beings…

Go Veganarchic!

(*Isn’t that the prettiest symbol?)

Check it out yo:

http://veganarchy.net/

“ Only a perspective and lifestyle based on true compassion can destroy the oppressive constructs of present society and begin anew in creating desirable relationships and realities.

— Brian A. Dominick, Animal Liberation and Social Revolution: a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism.

“ To decide one oppression is valid and the other not is to consciously limit one’s understanding of the world; it is to engage oneself in voluntary ignorance, more often than not for personal convenience.

- Brian A. Dominick

*You can download a free issue and/or print it out and circulate it.

 

What is Veganarchism???

Veganarchism is the political philosophy of veganism (more specifically animal liberation) and anarchism, creating a combined praxis as a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan diet. It is either perceived as a combined theory, or that both philosophies are essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation.

Veganarchists typically view oppressive dynamics within society to be interconnected – from capitalism, racisn, and sexism, to human supremacy, and redefine veganism as a radical philosophy that sees the state as harmful to animals. Ideologically, it is a human, animal, and Earth Liberation movement that is fought as part of the same struggle. Those who believe in veganarchy can be either against reform for animals or for it, although do not limit goals to changes within the law.

Google It

Did You Know…?

• it’s against the law to interfere with someone eating foie gras a meal?
• and that if “people complain”, then the grey area as to whether activists are doing anything “illegal” is breached?
• did you know that you’re not allowed to cover your face if you behave in a “grey area” fashion unless you’re Muslim?

Yeeeeaaah… we didn’t think so either.

Which is how a “law” became a suggestion when the officer below tried to order certain activists to take off their masks. However, credit where credit is due, I will compliment him on his listening skills.

And so as we called the officer’s bluff, the law magically became a suggestion. We proceeded to chant as the officer canoodled with the force feeding enablers and perused the foie gras laden menu.

Our exit was marked by some chalk, which infuriated restaurant manager, Catherine, who came out to join in the fun by stomping on the artwork and exclaiming that we were getting chalk on her pants. Robert Belcham was apparently waiting for with enthusiasm for us to chalk it up – with a large bucket o’ water and a broom.

It’s not poor people (poor foodies, poor restaurant owners, poor passerby…), it’s poor animals!

Force feeding trumps annoyance.

Cruel Cruel Summer

It can be a Cruel Cruel Summer

unless you’re doing your label-reading

But NOTHING is hotter than consciousness…

zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz!

(…sexy chainsaw noise)

10 Cruel-Cruel-Summer Free Products!

1) Eco-Tools Kabuki Travel Brush

Whether your going somewhere this summer or spinning your wheels like a post-adolescent drop out, this Eco-Tools Kabuki Travel Brush has synthetic taklon bristles just as soft as any animal hair brush (ahem… MAC, Jane Iredale…) and its retractable case is made with recycled aluminum. How dope is that?

2) OPI Nail Polish

OPI makes all the lists as being a company that does not test on animals. If anyone knows differently, I’d love to hear. With colors like Suzi & the Lifeguard, Blue Me Away, and I’m Not Really A Waitress, OPI has quite the high paid marketing team, but in all valley-girl seriousness their nail polish goes on smoothly and lasts longer than other brands.

3) Alba Sunscreen

Alba sunscreen is one of the few brands of sunscreen you can buy at the drugstore that does not test on animals. You can kiss your Ombrelle goodbye because it has been infiltrated by the evil that is l’Oreal. Alba also has a facial sunscreen for sensitive skin. Eff off skin cancer!

4) Jane Iredale‘s SPF 20 Mineral Powder Compact

This product beats MAC’s Stuio Fix powders because unlike the MAC powder, Jane Iredale powder uses minerals as its base, not talc,  which has been listed as a potential carcinogen. This powder blends right in; you can’t even tell you’re wearing make-up. Unfortunately, it’s about three times the price of MAC powder so you might consider getting your steal on. Jane Iredale is a company that doesn’t test… but they still use animal hair in their brushes.

Where do those animals live? How are they killed?

5) Dr. Michelle Copeland’s White Smile

I’ve been scouring cyberspace for a teeth whitener that isn’t tested on animals because as my friend, Chuck, says: “not all of us are dirty hippies. Some of us still like to look good.” So Dr. ‘Michelle’ Copeland’s seems aight because it has trays, not strips  (which only cover the front teeth and only on the front side). This product claims it’s not tested on animals. If anyone knows differently, drop me a line.

6) Jason Aloe Vera 98%

Why use that blue, goopy, chemical-ridden Hawaiian Tropic aftersun shit (tested!) when nature has already created a solution for your sun-overconsumption. Aloe vera, man. Doesn’t have to be Jason, but this company doesn’t test on animals.

7) Naturcolor

Naturcolor is easy to use, gentle, all natural, smells good, and leaves your hair shiny. Pretty much all the home hair-dye kits at the drugstore are tested on animals (Garnier and l’Oreal dominate the market), so Naturcolor is a great solution if you’re feeling colorful.

8) Davines Hair Products

Davines uses low-impact packaging (as you can see above, their conditioners come in a tub), and they do not test on animals. Their shampoo lines come with names like Love, Nou Nou, and MOMO, named by worker babies of the most untainted creative flow who are quarantined to preserve their purity of spirit.

9) Kiss My Face Moisture Shave

Gilette, owned by Procter and Gamble, is the cruelest a (wo)man can get. So check out Moisture Shave from Kiss My Face. It goes on smooth AND it didn’t have to be poured into the eyes of bunnies to work. Booya~

10) Crazy Rumours A La Mode Lip Balm

This cruelty-free vegan lip balm comes in Orange Creamsicle, Pistachio, Banana Split, Raspberry Sherbet, Mint Chocolate & Almond Fudge. Made with jojoba oil and shea butter, these delectables are cruelty-free and vegan.  Click the link to check them out @ Karmavore online.

Sigh… We Still Love Your Asses

Haye-haye meat-eaters… Just thinking about how many of you I tolerate love in my life. Being raised in a hardcore barbecueing Albertan family, playing dress up in my grandma’s fur coats, riding around in leather-interior vehicles, and chilling with Buckshot at the Calgary Stampede -I just want you all to know that it’s a process!!!

You can help end the cruelty even if you like meat.

If everyone cut their meat consumption in half, billions of animals would be spared from suffering.

Click Here!

Here are some excerpts from the fantastical brochure above.

• “When we picture a farm, we picture scenes from Old MacDonald and Charlotte’s Web, not warehouses with 10 000 chickens… When we look, it’s shocking. Our rural idylls have been transformed into stinking factories.”

The Los Angeles Times

“The High Price of Cheap Food” 1/21/04

• In the past half-century, most U.S. livestock production has moved from small family farms to factory farms – huge warehouses where animals are confined in crowded cages or pens in restrictive stalls. The competition to lower costs has led agri-business to treat animals as mere objects, rather than individuals who can suffer. Hidden from public view, the cruelty that occurs on factory farms is easy to ignore. But more and more, people are taking a look at how farmed animals are treated and deciding that it’s too cruel to support.

• To reduce losses from birds pecking each other, farmers cut a third to a half of the beaks off chickens, turkeys, and ducks. The birds suffer severe pain for weeks. Some, unable to eat afterwards, starve.
  

  Yep, it's vegan.

• When I saw what life is really like for pigs on today’s farms, I was left feeling sick for days. I knew they lived on concrete, indoors in factory farms. However, I was not prepared for the awful reality of their boredom. In the gestation shed, sows continuously hit their heads against their cage doors as if trying to escape. After a while, some would give up and lie down, while others again took up their futile action. I saw the pen where pigs are fattened up for slaughter – essentially concrete cells, each holding about a dozen pigs. In one pen, there was a pig missing an ear. Another had a rupture the size of a grapefruit protruding from his stomach. A dead pig was constantly nudged and licked by others. The stench in these places is overwhelming. At the larger farms I visited in North Carolina, there were thousands of pigs housed in sheds. Dead pigs had been left inthe pens with the living; other pigs had been tossed in the aisles – barely alive, unable to reach food or water.

• “Historically, man has expanded the reach of his ethical calculations as ignorance and want have receded, first beyond family and tribe, later beyond religion, race, and nation. To bring other species more fully into the range of these decisions may seem unthinkable to moderate opinion now. One day, decades or centuries hence, it may seem no more than “civilized” behaviour requires.”

The Economist

“What Humans Owe to Animals”

8/19/95

*Anyway, although vegetarians and vegans may seem like a perpetual thorn in meat-eaters’ sides, we still love you. And by that, I mean that we won’t eat you for dinner.

For the First Time

Shout out to all you

flesh-eaters, soon to be retreaters : ) … on

NML R-a-d-i-o

We veggies are just wondering when you’re going to blossom into glorious herbivores and join us in the dawn of a new era.

For the first time in your lives, your lives could be your own…

Bite Back

Animal Abusers Say the Darndest Things

(From Bite Back Magazine #14)

“If they get wet and can’t get dry, they’ll die.”

- Randy Pippin, operator of the Aldergrove Fur Farm; 6000 mink were released from cages at the farm on August 24, 2008.

(Mink are semi-aquatic mammals with water-repellent fur. )

“Releasing animals which are bred in captivity and are used to being pampered, fed, and cared for, it’s the same thing as taking people of Manhattan apartments and putting them out in the boondocks to try to survive. It’s the exact same thing.”

-Eeva Ylipeltom reacting to an October raid at the fur farm her and her husband operate in Astoria, Oregon.

“The animal rights agenda is being played out by people who have shaved off their beards and bought a smart suit and are saying the same thing as before but in another coded language. They are the original architects of the lunatics in balaclavas but they are delivering the message in a sinister and subtle manner. It’s very dangerous.”

- Simon Hart, chief executive of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance, delivering his theory that groups like The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are hiding something.

“They’re challenging, in that you have individuals taking credit anonymously.”

- Laura Eimiller of the FBI’s Los Angeles office would like ALF activists to start using their full names.

Liberation is cruel.

You Mustn’t Beat Them!

Shocking Propaganda Released

from Child Soldier Camp

(AKA Adventure Box coloring contest)

4 the Luv of God

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

This one goes out to all those who are losin’ their minds living in the flesh-eating world!

on NML Radio…adio…adio…adio…

The New Red

What is the government governing?

This next video features Will Potter from Green Is the New Red, a site that exposes how governments are using the concept of terror to alienate the public from animal rights (and environmental) activism.

*The following info from Green Is the New Red introduces what the site is about:

What is the “Green Scare

www.greenisthenewred.com focuses on how fear of “terrorism” is being exploited to push a political and corporate agenda. Specifically, I focus on how animal rights and environmental advocates are being branded “eco-terrorists” in what many are calling the Green Scare.

Top of the Terrorism List

“The No. 1 domestic terrorism threat,” says John Lewis, a top FBI official, “is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement.” The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms. Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. They have never even injured anyone. In fact, the only act of attempted murder in the history of the U.S. animal rights movement was coordinated by corporate provocateurs. Yet the FBI ranks these activists as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.

Defining the Green Scare

This disproportionate, heavy-handed government crackdown on the animal rights and environmental movements, and the reckless use of the word “terrorism,” is often called the Green Scare. Much like the Red Scare and the communist witch hunts of the 40s and 50s, the Green Scare is using one word—this time, it’s “terrorist”—to push a political agenda, instill fear, and chill dissent. And much like the Red Scare, the Green Scare is operating on three levels: legal, legislative, and what we’ll call extra-legal, or scare-mongering.

So Why is This Happening?

(A Leaked State Department presentation about activists.)

The government and corporations haven’t tried to hide the fact that this is all meant to protect corporate profits. The Department of Homeland Security, in a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warned: “Attacks against corporations by animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists are costly to the targeted company and, over time, can undermine confidence in the economy.”

And in a leaked Power Point presentation given by the State Department to corporations, we learn: “Although incidents related to terrorism are most likely to make the front-page news, animal rights extremism is what’s most likely to affect your day-to-day business operations.”

Underground activists like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front directly threaten corporate profits by doing things like burning bulldozers or sabotaging animal research equipment. But they’re not the only ones.

The entire animal rights and environmental movements, perhaps more than any other social movements, directly threaten corporate profits. They do it every day. Every time activists encourage people to go vegan, every time they encourage people to stop driving, every time they encourage people to consume fewer resources and live simply. Those boycotts are permanent, and these industries know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare,can be seen as a culture war – a war of values.

What Effect Has This Had?

The point of all this, according to the government, is to crack down on underground activists. But underground activists already know what they’re doing is illegal, and it hasn’t stopped them. In fact, it may have added fuel to the fire. For instance, the same day the SHAC 7 were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website that posted news of both legal and illegal actions, underground activists rescued animals from a vivisection lab and named them Jake, Lauren, Kevin, Andy, Josh, and Darius, after the defendants.

What Now?

So if outlandish prison sentences and “eco-terrorism” rhetoric aren’t deterring crimes or solving crimes, what’s the point?

Fear. It’s all about fear. The point is to protect corporate profits by instilling fear in the mainstream animal rights and environmental movements—and every other social movement paying attention—and make people think twice about using their First Amendment rights.

Industry groups say “this is just the starting gun” for the Green Scare. But this could be the starting gun for activists as well. I’ve talked with hundreds of activists around the country over the years. There’s a lot of fear, but there’s also a lot of rage. And that’s a very good thing.

Because today’s repression may mimic many of the tactics of the Red Scare, but today’s response cannot. It’s not enough to cowardly distance ourselves from anyone branded a communist, I mean, terrorist. Naming names and making loyalty oaths didn’t protect activists then, and it won’t protect activists now.

The only way activists, and the First Amendment, are going to get through this is by coming out and confronting it head-on. That means reaching out to mainstream Americans and telling them that labeling activists as terrorists wastes valuable anti-terrorism resources and is an insult to everyone who died in the twin towers. That means reaching out to other activists and saying loud and clear that these activists are just the canaries in the mine.

Together, we can stop they cycle of history repeating itself.

Can’t Look Back

Hi Hotnesses… New activists in the animal rights movement, longtime savage warriors, closet compassionists, and veg-curious dawnofanewera readers … don’t look back on your quests.
~the possibilities are endless.

Notha one cominatcha from NML radio.

Keep It Locked.

Cowtown Bullies Cows

The Truth About the Calgary Stampede

As a native Calgarian, the Stampede has plagued me for years, and has been the defining element that has separated me from my place of birth.

We all know that Calgary is nicknamed “Cowtown”, but we use this name lightly as a sort of “yeah, we’re hicks” retort, when the truth is that our association to cows is despicable.

For decades we have raised these sentient beings – who have a relationship with their young (or would, if we would allow them to), who experience love and fear, and who are gentle herbivores – only to consume them and spectate their torture.

We have branded them, lasooed them, raped them, hooked their udders into machines around the clock to suck the milk they intend for their young from their bodies, we have confined them to small, dark boxes from birth never to see their mothers or the light of day, we have thrown them to the ground, cinched their rib cages until they begin to panic, loaded them into crowded vehicles for days on end with no food or water, shovelling them one after the other to their deaths as they tremble in fear smelling each other’s blood. We have hung them upside down by one leg and slashed their bodies so their innards fall out (many experiencing this without proper stunning), and we have done all this without the blink of an eye.

Calgarians love burgers and the rodeo – yeehaw.

“The system” has removed many of these practices from the public eye. And the stuff we do see – the rodeo – is like a Disney movie in its objectification of animals.

My first memory of the rodeo was being bored and restless, the lady in front of me yelling at me for kicking her chair, as the elastic band from my cowboy hat dug into my skin. As a child, I always hated jeans because they reminded me of the rodeo. True fact. I refused to wear them and still don’t own a pair (!)

Later I would sit through the chuckwagon races only for the reward of getting to go on rides afterwards. And when I had a job that required me to take ESL students to the rodeo to experience Calgary’s “culture”, I remember feeling extremly uncomfortable about the task, not knowing the extent to which it was wrong, but simply feeling that it did not mesh well with my, at the time, vegetarian lifestyle.

The single reason I will never move back to Calgary is that the pinnacle of the year for the city is the Stampede and I do not relate.

Though its collective colon is jam packed full of red meat, this city is starving for an identity.

Get a new personality, Calgary! The time has come.

Peter Fricker: CBC shouldn’t celebrate inauthentic and inhumane Calgary Stampede

(An article by Peter Fricker)

Late last year, Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, sparked a nationwide controversy when it refused to broadcast the famous Crufts dog show because of animal welfare concerns. Crufts is a hugely popular national icon, attracting several million viewers. Yet the BBC, which had televised the show for 42 years, ended its contract and gave up its exclusive rights to broadcast the program.

The reason for the corporation’s decision was one of its own television documentaries, which revealed that pedigree dogs are plagued by genetic disease due to decades of inbreeding for shows like Crufts. The result is widespread suffering among genetically damaged dogs.

Faced with the facts, the BBC decided it could not support an event that compromised the welfare of animals. Though welcomed by animal advocacy groups and much of the public, the decision cost the corporation one of its most popular programs.

Here in Canada, our national public broadcaster is taking a different approach to a controversial cultural icon. Last year, the CBC signed a three-year contract with the Calgary Stampede to broadcast the rodeo, declaring: “The Calgary Stampede is a wonderful, entertaining and authentic Canadian tradition that has special meaning for millions across the country.” During the 2008 Stampede, the CBC ran 90 hours of rodeo coverage “Celebrating Canada’s Western Heritage”.

In fact, the Stampede has almost nothing “authentic” about it and has little to do with western heritage. Its founder, Guy Weadick, was an American vaudeville and Wild West show performer. He dreamt up the chuckwagon race for the Stampede in 1923. Real cowboys did not race chuckwagons. Nor did they ride bulls (why would they?) or wrestle steers. Steer-wrestling was created in the 1930s by yet another American Wild West show entertainer. Most other events are distortions of ranching practices—no one ever timed a cowboy’s work and handed out huge sums of money for being the fastest.

The truth is that the Stampede has always been falsely promoted as western heritage—first by vaudevillian showmen, then by marketing executives, and now by the CBC. The Calgary Stampede as western heritage is not just a myth. It’s a lie.

But what does it matter? So what if the Stampede is just sensational entertainment masquerading as the history of the Old West. Where’s the harm?

The harm lies in rodeo’s brutalization of animals for the sake of human amusement. Virtually every animal welfare organization in Canada opposes rodeo, including the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies and the Humane Society of Canada. So do the SPCAs of Britain, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The very agencies empowered to protect animals from cruelty have determined that rodeo is inhumane. Unlike the CBC, they don’t think rodeo is “wonderful”.

Yet, Canadian SPCAs are almost powerless to protect rodeo animals. Canadian law in effect exempts the treatment of farm animals from most cruelty provisions, even when they are used for mere entertainment.

So legally little can be done to stop the inhumane treatment of rodeo animals. Only an informed public debate could generate the shift in public opinion necessary to challenge rodeo.

It is a debate the CBC might have started if, like the BBC, it had examined its corporate conscience and questioned the morality of rodeo and its claims on our heritage. Instead, it became a public relations agency for the Stampede.

The CBC defended its promotion of the Stampede in a letter to the Vancouver Humane Society, arguing that it is “popular with millions of Canadians”. But popularity is not a measure of morality.

In 1906, a New York zoo put an African tribesman on public display. A crowd of 40,000 people lined up to see him. A New York Times editorial dismissed protests against the exhibition: “We do not quite understand all the emotion which others are expressing in the matter….It is absurd to make moan over the imagined humiliation and degradation Benga is suffering.”

Sensational events, from medieval bull-baiting to19th-century freak shows, have always drawn crowds. Public executions used to be popular—the last one in the United States took place in 1936, attended by 20,000 people.

What does change, over time, are public attitudes on morality—but only when they are informed by cultural institutions willing to scrutinize and confront the societal norms of the day.

Like the New York Times’ blasé response in 1906 to putting a human being in a zoo, the CBC has chosen to act as a creature of its time, without the courage, imagination, or critical thinking to challenge the status quo.

Peter Fricker is the projects and communications director for the Vancouver Humane Society.