Saturday, June 21, 2008

Andy Warhol Visits Leisa-land


NG writes of sweet and sour cat. I will go to my grave remembering a 60 minutes segment--probably 20 years ago. The segment was on how China feeds her 3 billion or so mouths (or whatever the number was).

I still vividly see the image of monkeys, cats and dogs in cages at the market. (In fact, I had a blog post on that). One of my colleagues many years ago went to China. There are no stray dogs.

We could probably cure our trade deficit with China if we were to ship to them our unwanted cats and dogs for their consumption. At least they eat these animals and do not abuse them or toss them out. The marginal utility of an unwanted animal in China is a full belly for a person--and no life of misery for the animal. In our own country, an unwanted animal is cast out and left to fend for themselves. We still have full bellies, but the lot for the animal is not so good as my weekly Saturday drives remind me. So sweet and sour cat is much better than abused and abandoned cat in Leisa-land.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your statement "at least they do not abuse the animals they eat" is totally incorrect. The terror, cruelty inflicted upon the animals held in cages, on so-called farms wherein dogs are "produced" void of compassion, the brutal methods of killing/murdering, skinning, bleeding the animal as he/she cries out for mercy. Look into the eyes of these helpless dogs, caged, tied, beaten to death - always searching the eyes of these monsters in China who torment, kill and eat "Man's Best Friend". Disgusting, vile treatment of animals, especially dogs, is rampant in China, and other Asian countries. Unforgettable, yes - Unforgivable, in my opinion.

Leisa♠ said...

What you describe pertains to most puppy mills in the US. I would also assert--and I know of what I speak given my animal rescue efforts--that similar "disgusting, vile treatment of animals" is pretty rampant here in the US as well. Given that I've never been to Asia, I will happily stand corrected on my statement. Have you witnessed this first hand or are you merely responding to the mental image of a caged cat/dog awaiting consumption?

However, I would reassert the truth of my own statement of the same sort of thing happening in the US--not only to man's best friend but to our farm production animals who even despite their eventual end, deserve a little compassion in the time between birth and their serving as our sustenance.

There really is no real difference among a dog, cow, pig or cat--a suffering consciousness (animal, bird, human, reptile, etc) is just that suffering. Not a good thing to inflict and certainly a good thing to prevent when we can.