0h, New Stuff

12 posts & picts on this topic – presented all in one day – much work):

A lot of blogs are about change. That is good.

Because the older people often have not listened to the younger people- with blogs they can read about newer viewpoints without losing face in the eyes of those who seem to expect them to already know everything.

Yes, your parents and grandparent can learn things from you. But they might find it hard to listen to you, because they are use to being the one doing the explaining, not the asking.

And blogs let the younger listen to the older – without losing face by having to ask for more information, when they have reached an age where they want to be seen as people who can figure it all out without being told anything.

Blogs let us exchange information without letting on that we don’t know it all.

For the humble, blogs let them read other points of view – never mind the generational thing, and all that stuff about saving face, image, and staying in a role you didn’t really didn’t plan on getting stuck in anyway.

When generations can’t talk & listen, when there is no way for them to share ideas, or if other ideas keep people apart, then we end up with a generation gap. Not good.

Today there is an article on the build up of a generation gap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/movies/18scot.html

I have my own thoughts on generation gaps, (which are really just when people can’t grow with the times, or when changes are being made that aren’t packaged for everybody).

I share them with you, in posts below this message.

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1 Gen Gap

The CHANGE in Reproductive Morals.

Parent of the 1950s, probably feel that they had BETTER morals than the current era, but what they had was DIFFERENT morals.

In the 1950s, pre-marital sex was considered immoral. Keeping a bay born out of wedlock was shameful. But treating animals very badly was fine.

Parents of the 1950s might have looked at puppy mills (if they had had them back then) and said “So what, they are just dogs.”

So long as the puppies were healthy, how the parent dogs were treated didn’t matter.

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Piggy went 2 market

These piglets are happier in the straw, than they would be on concrete.
Factory farming on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_factory

photo source:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piglets_USDA.jpg

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2 Gen Gap

In the 1960s there was a generation gap – a time when younger people felt differently than the older people. A lot of people were hurt by this.

Parents felt they had lost their relationship with their children. Older people looked back to how things were between them and their parents and said “Yeah, there were a few issues between me and my parents – but nothing like this!”

Young adults and teenagers felt that they could not relate to their parents. The younger Americans had a different culture than the culture their parents had.

The parents of the younger crowd were people whose ideas and beliefs were shaped by WW2, and having come out of the big Depression (time of economic collapse).

The parents had learned to value hard work, dependability, sobriety (prohibition had made even wine & beer illegal), church, chastity, and putting out a good image of themselves.

The parents also respected money, sometimes to the point of being ashamed of not making enough money, and when they started to earn more, they still felt poor – the poorness was in themselves, not their wallet, so no amount of money could make them feel financially comfortable.

The 1950s saw parents obsessed with “keeping up with the Jones”. Meaning that the parents felt the need to exhibit their wealth, or at least their lack of poverty. Mad magazine made a lot of jokes about this.

The younger adults and teenagers, felt there was more to life than a job and trying to impress the neighbors.

There was a pop question going around about the time I started dating: “Which would you rather have: A meal that taste good, served in a little cafe, or A flavorless meal, served in a very fancy restaurant?”

To some people dining is all about the tastefulness of the setting, to to other people dining is all about the taste of the food.

The younger crowd valued creativity, self exploration, fun, personal freedom, and the right to do almost anything they pleased. They had pre-marital sex, didn’t marry when they got pregnant, and did not put the baby up for adoption – they failed to hide the pregnancy, and by carrying a baby around, openly admitted to having had premarital sex.

And some of them used recreational drugs. Parents were shocked.

It looks like there is somewhat of a generation gap again. It is a widespread, international change in Europe and America. I am told it is more advanced in some parts of Europe than in the US.

But it’s NOT about sex or drugs, those revolutions of culture have already been done (in America).

It’s about Animal Rights. That animals have rights too. The right to some freedoms.

The right to live free, or if kept captive, then the right to be treated as an employee of the group that is using them.

Chickens are the employees of egg factories. How well does the factory treat it’s Avian employees?

Dairy cattle are the employees of the milk industry, and the younger and middle aged generations really want to know (like the commercial says) if the cows are content with their lives.

Beef cattle are the employees of the meat industry. Yes, it’s not a job with retirement benefits, but are the cattle happy (or at least “contented” like the cows in the dairy commercial)?

Send a dog into space and it dies? She was your employee. I’m told their actually is a statue to honor dead space dogs, and that a puppy of a space dog was a gift from Russia to President Kennedy.

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Hen Workers?

My Hens are Workers?

Wikipedia on battery cages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_cage

photo source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Animal_Abuse_Battery_Cage_02.jpg

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3 Gen Gap

Puppy Mills – what’s all the fuss about?

The young adults of the 1960s hippy era were generally softer towards pets – but part of the hippy movement including going back to nature, and having your own little farm – which meant raising animals from their birth and then slaughtering them when they matured, and then eating them.

The parents (from the 1950s era), did NOT want to go back to the farm. Not because they cared about animals, but because it was so unsophisticated, so bumpkin, so rural.

There was also, at this same time, among the hippies, a vegetarian movement – which shocked some adults, because “Why would people not eat meat?”

It is NOT that some of the hippies thought up or imported vegetarianism, it is more of a flux between what was very rare to what was, “not unheard of”. I did have a relative who was a vegetarian – and that was starting back in the 1930s.

Today, while there are more vegetarians, the big push is in treating animals better, and in recognising the bond that people have with their pets.

There still are unsolved consumer issues with how puppies are produced, marketed, sold, and controlled. There are issues with monopolising an industry and the brute force needed to do so, as well as the slyness often involved in sells.

There are also issues where the use of pets, influences of the consumer, without the consumer being aware of it – like deliberately breeding dogs to have health problems or temperament problems, and selling puppies with “a string attached” (a return to sender clause) and then selling the returned pet for research.

The whole issue of animals being used in painful experiments, or kept cruelly, really separates the young crowd from their grandparents era, but it not wholly one way, there are always people who are cruel, like young guys who make their dogs fight, and there are always lots of older people who love their pets, but still a trend can be seen.

In the 1950s, parents and teacher sometimes spoke well of using animals for experiments simply because that helped “progress” – never mind that that progress produces cancer causing chemicals, and toxic chemical waste, progress itself was some people’s holy grail.

The 1960s saw many hippies against using animals for research, but that was sometimes in keeping with the ideal of returning to a simpler life, not always just for the animals themselves.

Like the 1950s, the 1960s still had a thing against “Dr. Frankensteins”, who people feared were taking society to a bad end, making chemical & toxic pollution, and waste products that were not contained.

Big industry laughed at the idea that toxic waste would hurt people. Big industry mostly won – but time has shown the environmentalists were right.

Of course, there always have been some people who cared about the animals. But today, if you read between the lines, you can see the difference between people under 30 and people over 65.
Americans who were adults during the wars of WW2, Korea, or Vietnam, tend to have been raised with a harder attitude towards animals – most of them have softened and changed with the times.

But the people who are still doing what they have always done, using animals for fun and profit, are sometimes really baffled by the animal rights movement.

To them, it is some weird idea that comes out of left field somewhere.

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Yorkie Pens

Instead of having dogs raised like this, wouldn’t it be better for normal people in normal homes to each have a few fertile pets?

Like how it use to be before raising pets became an industry, instead of pets coming from other people’s pets?

When an industry doesn’t keep quality up, the industry often tumbles.

And for people under thirty, and those still young at heart, or kind of heart:

Those Yorkies are the owner’s employees, she should treat them better, and laws should either require better conditions and have inspections in summer AND WINTER, or each person should not be allowed more than a few unfixed pets.

Lets NOT allow a few big puppy mills to dominate pet breeding in our area – or yours.

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4 Gen Gap

The people in the animal rights movement sometimes do not seem to understand which issues they could win on and which issues are not ripe yet.

For example: hunting. It is not possible to stop deer hunting, the deer multiply too quickly, and would slowly starve in the winter, if not shot in the fall. And rodents and rabbits multiply even quicker. Deer, rabbits, and gophers eat our vegetables and our cereals. We would starve if they weren’t killed.

You can’t say “stop hunting” unless you have a better plan for population control of the animals that would destroy our crops.

On the use of pets for research, the time is ripe for explaining more humane methods, but not for ending the medical torture of animals, because enough alternatives have not yet been thought up.

But improvements in how experimental animal are handled and housed are do-able. Improved conditions for laboratory animals are good for PR.

And the scientist themselves are less emotionally damaged by negative thoughts about what they are doing, if they can clearly see that the animals live well between applications.

It is easier for both the scientists and the public,to justify medical experiments if they know that the lab animals are kept humanely and where the animals have freedoms and pleasures – like a social life with others of their kind, and an environment to explore and enjoy.

This is more easily done with dogs like beagles who can live in packs, than with dogs that can’t get along well with each other. (Similar to a problem that dog breeders, and pet dog owners have.)

Where possible & practical, if the people who are involved with experimenting on animals, can see that the animals have plenty of kind handling by humans so that when the experiment is over, the animal can go on to a new life as pets, then the scientist and lab workers, can feel less bad, and more humane, about themselves, and how they believe the public sees them.

Many Animal Rights people might not feel that this Animal Welfare compromise goes far enough, but Rome was not made in a day, and all big issues are done one step at a time. As each improvement is made, costs and effects observed, and new ideas thought about & commented on, then another step in the right direction is taken.

I love animals, but I understand people & industry well enough to know that you can’t just paint a picture of an ideal situation, and tell other people or industry to “Make the world like this”.

You have to think up an improvement, get it used, then think up yet another improvement.You lead industry towards a better goal, one step at a time.

On the issues of pets and the industries and organization that produce and structure them, the time is right. Not always because of the pets themselves (pets have no legal voice in courts) but because of side issues which affect people, and our future.

Yes, SOMETIMES an admission that it is not good that animals suffer, can be gotten from people who use animals, but they want to hear alternatives – useful ideas for improvements, not just “You want to shut me down?”.

The hard part that some people have with being against pets suffering, is that it is a slippery slope. Is a dog that much more alive than a cow? Is a cat really entitled to more than a sheep or goat? Is a Yorkie more worthy of being free of pain than a rat?

Progress to end suffering must really work on the whole concept of animals as beings with feelings.

I think the animal rights people have done themselves a great disservice by not looking into the many areas where laws and regulations (and the great lack thereof) contribute to the suffering of people.

For example: breeding & selling diseased and deformed puppies. The animal rights people harp on the suffering of the puppies, but they ignore the issue of the suffering of the consumers (the people who bought the puppy).

Yes, the AR care about the suffering of the puppies, but the law doesn’t recognise animals rights.

The puppies could get better treatment, if the Animal Rights people would just step in and help the consumer, because, does it really matter WHY the puppy is treated better, so long as he is treated better?

The law recognises the consumer. There are real problems between the public and the dog industries. And I think that the animal rights people, and the animal welfare people, should be happy to help the public.

Let’s progress intelligently and without hatred or anger.

Hatred wont win you anything you want to have – unless you like prison.

Don’t hate the ignorant, or those who can’t understand animals the way we do, help educate them, and help our laws move forward, one step at a time.

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Mama!

Is this where your puppy really came from?

The bigger image shows it better: – note that these dogs are just one pen in a line of adjoining pens – see another pen on the right side?
photo source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Puppy_mill_01.JPG

This is a puppy mill.

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5 Gen Gap

Animal Rights are becoming more & more popular, it is a cultural movement. It has spread from Europe to America.

But their have always been some people, even way back in time, who have been for Animal Rights or Animal Welfare.

Each era has it’s own way to help animals.

Readers of the book “Black Beauty” remember the cause to end the use of the bearing rein – a strap of leather that made the horse keep his head up so he would look happy and not over-burdened.

As I understand it:
When a horse pulls a heavy load, it is often helpful to the horse, to be able to get his head & neck down towards the ground, to change the center of gravity in this body, so he can more efficiently use his weight to help him pull.

But when the horse does this, then people watching the horse pulling the wagon, will say “Look at that man, he over-loads his poor horse”.

People cheat. By strapping the horse’s head up, the horse doesn’t appear to be over-burdened.

Also, you can look at a healthy, well fed, happy horse, and see his sparkle in his step, the twinkle in his eyes, the aliveness in his actions and how he stands.

People cheat. It is easier to strap the horses head up into the angle used by healthy, happy horses, than to rest, feed, worm, shoe, and shelter a horse so that he really is happy & healthy.

The bearing rein made the horse appear to be a better cared for animal, it made the carriage appear more valuable like:

“I can afford a to have enough horses that they share the work, and I can afford to feed them grain, not just grass”.

But it made it all the worse for the poor horse, who was still was over-worked, and now had to work while holding his head & neck un-naturally for the type of heavy hauling he was doing.

Have you ever seen dog shows where the exhibitors put the thin choke chain right under the dog’s head, and then trot the dog around while pulling the dog’s head upward by the choke chain so the dog trots with his head held un-naturally high?

I have seen it. Not occasionally, but so often, that I would call it the norm for dog shows that I have been to.

Like the abuse of carriage horses stopped when horses weren’t used for transportation muscle, the abuse of show dogs is best stopped by ending dog shows.

One of the real issues with dog shows is not what happens in the ring, it is with what happens to the losers, and the breeding of puppies for a competitive sport, but their sale as pets.

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