Kids & Animals & TV

A

Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
One explanation for part of our problems with game management and hunting:

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/he...rtoon_critters_to_pretend_animals_in_zoos.php

"CHILDREN ARE being left disappointed after visiting the zoo because the animals there aren't "real" enough.

Children have long applied human characteristics to animals, but the all-singing, all-dancing antics of cartoon characters in films such as Happy Feet, Finding Nemo and Madagascar have pushed the personification of animals to a new level.

Now research into zoos and their visitors has found that children are even claiming that some animals are in fact "pretend" because they aren't behaving the way the children expect."
 
Yep. Kids are raised to think all problems can be solved in 30 minutes with a laugh track, or if really serious, in 90 minutes with a good soundtrack.
Nature is not singing, dancing cute cuddly bears, pengiuns and little children. Nature is teeth and claws, blood and violent death. Pretending otherwise is to volunteer to be next.
 
It is pretty sad what these TV shows and movies are doing to the minds of children. I also blame the parents for letting them watch too much of this garbage.

People are so out of touch with nature, it is really sick when you think about it. They have taken all the conveniences for granted, the food always comes from someplace they never see. Even farming, when they see how that works in real life they rarely want to stick around for that.

TV and movies are stunting their sense of reality. Seen it happen to full grown adults, too.

Nature is not singing, dancing cute cuddly bears, pengiuns and little children. Nature is teeth and claws, blood and violent death. Pretending otherwise is to volunteer to be next.
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Couldnt have said it better.
 
Happy Feet was the biggest bunch of leftwing BS I've seen in a while. A guy loaned it to me and I watched it with the kids. My oldest, then 7, asked "why do the people want the penguins to starve?" I replied "Would you rather a bunch of penguins starve or us?"

I thought Madagascar was funny because the cute fuzzy herbivores are all upset about a lion eating them, but they aren't too worried about the lion and the penguins eating fish. There should be sequel to it from the viewpoint of the fish.

At least I don't recall "Nemo" having a political agenda, but it might have and I just forgot.

Don't forget "Over the Hedge" and "The Land Before Time". In "Over the Hedge" the bear is shown as evil while the raccoon and the rest of the cute, fuzzy little critters are the good guys. In "The Land Before Time" series the meat eaters are all evil and stupid while the herbivores are loving and peaceful. Nothing like overpopulation and the resulting disease and starvation to bother them.

BTW my kids know that they are carnivores. They also know that there are some carnivores out there that think of them as meat.

Here is the proper answer to the influence of silly movies on kids (sorry, I have to brag):

My oldest with his first turkey last year at age 6.
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His first deer last year at 6.
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His turkey this year at 8.
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His mule deer this year.
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My second son with his first turkey this year at 6.
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My 4 year old son wants to know when he will be big enough to go hunting.

My almost 2 year old daughter loves to see and pet the deer and turkey we bring in. She says "That's Daddy's deer. That's brother's turkey."
 
Bitmap - Nice photos!!

My two-year-old girl can correctly identify a deer versus an elk. I taught her to respond to the question "what is a deer?" or "what is an elk" with "Mmm...Mmm...good!" My guys know that meat comes from animals - and it doesn't matter if the meat is a hamburger from the golden arches, or some venison that I prepared.

Now if I could just convince my wife...:o
 
Along these same lines, I listen to local radio program called 'Forward Into The Past', a one-hour Saturday evening show. The host plays songs along a theme and one recent show involved music in which humans were given animal characteristics and animals were attributed human characteristics. The host is a well traveled and well read mystery man who goes by the moniker 'Radio Daddy' and he lamented during this animals and humans show, sadly, that most modern Americans didn't understand that which the rest of the world did; those singing and dancing animals were food, not fun.

My wife and I have no children nor will we ever but we make it a point to show her nieces and nephew and my brother's boys all we can of the outdoors and nature as it really is; raw and untamed, no laugh track, bites, stings and blood, too.

Art, great post!
 
Aw, from time to time some doofus makes some stupid comment that leads me to my soapbox about Modern Man:

Meat comes cut and wrapped from the grocery; don't need those smelly feedlots.

Milk comes in a plastic jug; don't need dairies.

Water comes from the faucet; don't need to use eminent domain to create a reservoir project.

That funny handle on the white porcelain thingummy in the bathroom makes magic; don't need sewer plants.

Lighting happens because of that switch on the wall. Don't need to build power plants.

Ya mean those oil wells and gas wells make it possible to have cell phones and computers and garbage bags and package wrapping? Huh? Really?

Back to my regularly scheduled morning coffee.
 
Re:arteatman

A few years back I was listening to a local radio talk show. The ongoing debate was about meat eating versus veganism. The hosts were on the sensible side, that of us meat eating folks. Most of the callers agreed with them. However, occasionally a vegan caller would chime in. As usual, they were kooky.

There was one caller though that made a good point. This woman that called the show was a hardcore vegan. As this woman and the show hosts were debating the issue, she said that she respected hunters.

The reason she respected hunters is that they kill what they eat. They get the blood on their hands and therefore realize that eating flesh requires the extinguishing of life. Folks that only eat meat packaged and prepared by others are like folks that hire hitmen to do the dirty work. They are just as evil but don't have the guts to do it themselves.

While I disagreed with her stand on not eating meat. I respected her statement about hunters.
 
The reason she respected hunters is that they kill what they eat. They get the blood on their hands and therefore realize that eating flesh requires the extinguishing of life. Folks that only eat meat packaged and prepared by others are like folks that hire hitmen to do the dirty work.
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That's it exactly.

A while back I told a friend of mine I was going turkey hunting, and would he like to come along one day. He said No and criticized me for trying to shoot "poor defenseless turkeys".

I asked him what he ate for Thanksgiving.

He changed the subject.

:rolleyes:
 
1. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegan or vegetatarian. In fact, a case can be made that it's a much healthier diet overall, and for health reasons alone should be considered as an option. I myself have considered doing this, and may still yet. But right now, I enjoy eating meat just too much to give it up!

2. There's also nothing wrong with taking a pure moral stance against those who eat meat, regardless of how derived (hunting or the supermarket), based on an "it's just wrong to kill animals and keep them in pens to raise them for food" argument. I don't agree with that, but I cannot say that either stance is morally superior or inferior. This is *PROVIDED THAT* the person making the argument "walks the walk" - meaning that they themselves don't eat any kind of meat - not fish, turkey, chicken, anything, not hunted, not farm-raised. And no milk or cheese or other dairy products whatsoever, because that comes from captive cows (or goats).

3. What we all have a big problem with is the hypocrites like 44 capnball just described, who themselves eat meat, but somehow think that it's morally wrong to hunt animals. That's absurd, frankly. If anything, the opposite is true. The animals that the hypocrite is eating, which he/she got from the market, were kept in captivity their entire lives, very often in terrible, cramped conditions - this is arguably cruelty in many circumstances. Contrast this to the hunter, who harvests an animal that has lived and roamed free among god and nature it's entire life until it is killed. It's had a good life, free from captivity, cruelty, and being pumped full of antibiotics and steroids.

And on that latter subject, a good argument can be made for the heightened health aspect of eating fresh free-range meat without additional chemicals & preservatives, over store-bought meat which had that treatment, went through a rendering plant with unknown cleanliness procedures, and sat in a truck or train and then on a shelf with people poking at for many days it before it's bought and taken home.

Bitmap, great pics; thanks!
 
"There's also nothing wrong with taking a pure moral stance against those who eat meat..."

I disagree for several reasons.

The primary one is that we're omnivores. We CAN eat meat, so Billy Bob Biology apparently meant for us to eat some meat. From what I read, there are certain trace elements in meat that aren't available in veggies or fruits. But I'm no physiologist.

From other reading about people who winter in the Arctic, the fat in meat is an absolute must, as a source of certain nutrients. A purely veggie diet would be insufficient to make it through the Dark Time. I'm thinking more about the trappers here, and not the Inuits.

I've never asked, but I'd be curious to know how many vegans make it with absolutely ZERO supplemental store-bought vitamins or minerals.

Insofar as any sort of "exploitation" of animals: That, to me, is a made-up deal having nothing to do with anything. The only morality I can recognize here is that whatever food animals are kept, they are properly fed and watered and have adequate exercise for proper health until it's time for killing them.

(I understand the economics of feed lots and fowl-factories, etc., but that doesn't mean I wholeheartedly approve. But it's a societal necessity if you're gonna meet the demands of tens of millions of city dwellers.)

Last, the vast majority of arguments for veganism over eating meat are emotional. The health arguments are specious. It's all an "I feel..." deal.

Argument based on such things as how much water it takes to grow grain for feeding cattle? That's an issue of how to provide food, not an issue of the morality of one's food.

Art
 
My good friend Ed often chided me during the years, yes, years, that I ate a vegan diet. I did so and experimented with a variety of different diet and exercise programs, to stabilize a condition I had similar to diverticulitis. Here are some of Ed's common arguments:

"C'mon, we're supposed to eat animals. They are made of meat!"

"A vegan lifestyle is cruel. I hunt what I eat and it can avoid me or run away. That carrot is stuck in the ground, defenseless!"

I've conquered my illness, or, it just subsided. Either way, let's Kill It and Grill It!
 
Folks that only eat meat packaged and prepared by others are like folks that hire hitmen to do the dirty work. They are just as evil but don't have the guts to do it themselves.
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Very well thought out and very well said.

IMO, this sort of reasoning also applies to people who state that they don't feel it's right to take a life in self-defense but are willing to call armed persons to their aid knowing that those they summon may have to do, on their behalf, something that they decry.

I don't mind folks who have made the self-assessment that they couldn't bring themselves to use deadly force in self-defense--that's ok with me and I think that level of introspection and realism is healthy. But those who state that it's actually wrong to use deadly force and yet admit they would call the police (who may have to use deadly force) if someone were breaking into their home are the worst kind of hypocrites and no better than someone who would hire a contract killer.
 
So do these vegans and anti-hunting "moralists" really expect me to believe that they use NOTHING to control insects (and mammals for that matter) in the crops they eat?

Or is it somehow moral to kill insects to keep them away from the crops but immoral to kill larger animals to eat?

Of course none of them would allow any medical procedure to be performed on them that had been tested on animals. None of the so-called moralists would use any drug that had been tested on animals. None of them would ever wear leather belts or shoes or gloves.

Far better for animals to starve than someone should kill and eat one.

Be a vegan if you want, but don't try to use that to claim some moral high ground.
 
You can pretty much tell what any animal including humans has evolved to eat by looking at it's teeth and digestive system. We fall right in the middle, no hypodermic fangs but not a mouth full of flat grinders and four stomachs either. The debate with anyone over weather we should eat meat should end on that point. Not only that but we started our big human brain development about the same time as our carnivore tendancies because they went hand in hand. Bigger brains made better hunters and more protein and fat in the diet helped those brains to develope. We became intelligent because we started eating meat. Trying to explain that concept to a vegan will further prove the theory.
 
My son, age 4 at the time went to go watch happy feet. They left early, said it was boring...(PRAISE GOD!!!) My son loves to hunt, he knows where his dinner comes from, and likes to hunt...He also knows that cows are what's for dinner, and the ones at the ranch will one day be on his plate...That's reality...Sucks being at the top of the food chain huh???:D
 
using TV as a babysitter is tantamount to child neglect.

Anybody remember "The Slime" by Frank Zappa?

WildimtheslimeoozingoutofyourtvsetAlaska ™
 
I have some friends who are vegetarians in that they won't eat commercially produced meat. They don't have a problem with meat that "had a chance to get away". (hunted meat)
In my opinion, those who will eat commercially produced meat, but refuse to eat "free range" or "hunted" meat are hypocrites.

I love animals. They're delicious!
 
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