Bullshit and Bullhooks
Today is my Grandfather's 90th birthday! It's very exciting, we're having a family reunion to celebrate, including his 92 year old sister, Aunt Sweet.
We had a nice little party with all sorts of albums and memorabilia. Different family members took turns telling stories and bsing at the microphone. Lots of fun.
IF YOU'RE AN ANGRY ANIMAL LOVER READ THE LAST PARAGRAPH FIRST
(to hopefully avoid premature 'you hate animal' rants)
Across the street from the main party there was a circus too. I was pretty interested and wanted to go over there to see if I could find out about a good mime or tumbling school. Maybe network or something, I don't really know.
The rest of this is mostly true, putting it in this Format makes for a more interesting Story.
I didn't get to do any of that because I showed up at about the same time as an animal rights group. The first bunch of them were pretty nice and I was fine with them. They all carried picket signs about the elephants and one had a video monitor. Provocative t-shirts and etcetera, pretty pleasant people actually.
I found someone to point me toward the clowns and acrobats, the elephant trainer, so I wandered his way. Unfortuantly I got there at the same time as their more active activist. She wanted to educate the flock of youngish children about the abuses and horrors of all animal trainers ever everywhere.
So after she made her first opening pitch in a demeaning way about how that dirty man there "beats those poor elephants with that big stick all day and it's got a hook on it like a knife and isn't it cool that he hurts animals for fun" (by the way, the trainer had to round up for his act about then and used HAND SIGNALS), I asked her some questions.
"So, just so I know where your coming from, 'cause I want to know how to look at all this, do you have any experience in animal training?" No, but. "Are you a psychologist or teacher?" No, but. "Are you a veterinary proffessional?" No, but. "Are you a vet tech?" No, but. "Have you ever worked at a zoo?" No, but. "Do you work on a ranch?" No, but. "Is there any current litigation with this circus?" No, but.
Now, I was Genuinely hoping she would answer yes to one of these so I could give slightly more weight to her words. Finally, I got a yes. She volunteers part time at an abuse rescue facility. With all those no's, and protest rallies and abuse for a yes, her accusations started to seem pretty biased.
One of the people she was proselytizing to asked me the same type question, "Are you trainer?" "No 'mam. I have no experience. I have several friends who work at zoos, my best friend in highschool did exotic animal rehabilitation, and I hang out with vet techs every week." "So they no hurt animal?" "I Don't Know. It's more likely at a small circus like this, but still uncommon and there's no evidence either way. I just wanted to find out what sort of background and information she had so I would know how to think about what she's saying."
Argument ensues with active activist, complete with hidden camera man moving in close to catch audio (they hid him four cars down to try and catch a showdown between trainer and activist, thanks for the heads up passive activists). After about a half hour she's calmed down enough to see, hey wait, he really does JUST WANT FREAKING INFORMATION without the political BS.
Unfortuately, we both had to head out before I could rant about how the reason I was more forward than usual was because I was pissed they were focusing on the elephants without any evidence. The only reason they chose that subject was because it's in the news right now and the bullhook controversy is attention getting.
If they wanted to help animals they would have looked for evidence of abuse First, seen that the elephants were under PERFECT FREAKING CARE and made a fuss over the CAMELS suffering NEGLECT. Except that isn't interesting enough to hold a crowd to preach at. So they picked elephants instead.
We had a nice little party with all sorts of albums and memorabilia. Different family members took turns telling stories and bsing at the microphone. Lots of fun.
IF YOU'RE AN ANGRY ANIMAL LOVER READ THE LAST PARAGRAPH FIRST
(to hopefully avoid premature 'you hate animal' rants)
Across the street from the main party there was a circus too. I was pretty interested and wanted to go over there to see if I could find out about a good mime or tumbling school. Maybe network or something, I don't really know.
The rest of this is mostly true, putting it in this Format makes for a more interesting Story.
I didn't get to do any of that because I showed up at about the same time as an animal rights group. The first bunch of them were pretty nice and I was fine with them. They all carried picket signs about the elephants and one had a video monitor. Provocative t-shirts and etcetera, pretty pleasant people actually.
I found someone to point me toward the clowns and acrobats, the elephant trainer, so I wandered his way. Unfortuantly I got there at the same time as their more active activist. She wanted to educate the flock of youngish children about the abuses and horrors of all animal trainers ever everywhere.
So after she made her first opening pitch in a demeaning way about how that dirty man there "beats those poor elephants with that big stick all day and it's got a hook on it like a knife and isn't it cool that he hurts animals for fun" (by the way, the trainer had to round up for his act about then and used HAND SIGNALS), I asked her some questions.
"So, just so I know where your coming from, 'cause I want to know how to look at all this, do you have any experience in animal training?" No, but. "Are you a psychologist or teacher?" No, but. "Are you a veterinary proffessional?" No, but. "Are you a vet tech?" No, but. "Have you ever worked at a zoo?" No, but. "Do you work on a ranch?" No, but. "Is there any current litigation with this circus?" No, but.
Now, I was Genuinely hoping she would answer yes to one of these so I could give slightly more weight to her words. Finally, I got a yes. She volunteers part time at an abuse rescue facility. With all those no's, and protest rallies and abuse for a yes, her accusations started to seem pretty biased.
One of the people she was proselytizing to asked me the same type question, "Are you trainer?" "No 'mam. I have no experience. I have several friends who work at zoos, my best friend in highschool did exotic animal rehabilitation, and I hang out with vet techs every week." "So they no hurt animal?" "I Don't Know. It's more likely at a small circus like this, but still uncommon and there's no evidence either way. I just wanted to find out what sort of background and information she had so I would know how to think about what she's saying."
Argument ensues with active activist, complete with hidden camera man moving in close to catch audio (they hid him four cars down to try and catch a showdown between trainer and activist, thanks for the heads up passive activists). After about a half hour she's calmed down enough to see, hey wait, he really does JUST WANT FREAKING INFORMATION without the political BS.
Unfortuately, we both had to head out before I could rant about how the reason I was more forward than usual was because I was pissed they were focusing on the elephants without any evidence. The only reason they chose that subject was because it's in the news right now and the bullhook controversy is attention getting.
If they wanted to help animals they would have looked for evidence of abuse First, seen that the elephants were under PERFECT FREAKING CARE and made a fuss over the CAMELS suffering NEGLECT. Except that isn't interesting enough to hold a crowd to preach at. So they picked elephants instead.