Danehy Is Narrow-Minded and Misguided; I Am Healthy and
Moral!
Tom Danehy resorts to name-calling in his misguided take on animal
rights (April 23). A bumper sticker reading, “Equal Rights for All
Species,” could have several interpretations; Danehy’s is the most
extreme and allows him to remain in a safe, narrow-minded state,
spewing words like “nutbird” and “dumb” to sway his audience’s
opinion.
If he had asked, the owner of the car might have told Tom that she
simply has ethical convictions that espouse a dynamic respect for all
life. Maybe she’s smart enough to know that a raccoon shouldn’t have
the right to vote; arguments made by the anti-animal-rights crowd are
often this ludicrous. The bumper sticker is simply stating that all
species have the right to exist without unnecessary harm inflicted by
others.
We should all reflect on how humans’ disrespect for animal rights
has affected our environment. Eating meat has done more to harm the
environment than driving cars, even SUVs. I’ve been vegetarian for 20
years, and I’m the healthiest person I know. I’m proud of the fact that
I don’t have to rape the environment for my own culinary tastes or
narrow-mindedness.
Matthew Roberts
Danehy Needs to Stop Sneering, Eating Meat
It has somehow become acceptable for folks like Tom Danehy to sneer
at SUV-driving, pro-animal-rights people. It was Earth Day recently,
and word is out that driving cars is bad for the environment. Tom
appears to say, “Let’s crucify those veggie heads! See how wrong they
are for having an ‘Equal Rights for All Species’ bumper sticker and
driving an SUV?”
Meat consumption plays a bigger role in greenhouse-gas emissions
than the entire transportation sector. The production and
transportation of meat and dairy is much more energy-intensive than the
production of plant-based foods. Animals, especially cattle, release
gases like methane and nitrous oxide that are up to 30 times more
damaging than carbon dioxide.
Tom is one of those people who tend to get upset when they feel they
are being told what to eat, but he has no problem pointing out the
“apparent” hypocrisy on behalf of the animal lover. Poor Tom.
Karen Roberts
Voting, Toothpick- Fish Claims Just Cloud the Animal-Rights
Discussion
I would like to answer the question Tom Danehy posed about equal
rights for all species: “What does this mean?”
You stated one thing correctly: Bumper stickers are limited by size.
Although there is insufficient room to specify which rights all species
should be granted, I would like to suggest that the person who placed
that bumper sticker on her car would be happy with the following: the
rights not to be subjected to intensive confinement, hoisted by one
rear leg while alive and slit up the middle with a chain saw, jammed in
the anus with an electrical prod, tied down in a rape cage to ensure
expedient breeding, subjected to debeaking and declawing, have probes
inserted in their cranium, and dissected and injected in a futile
effort to cure human diseases brought on solely by the consumption of
other animals—all because of a human reluctance to retrain their
taste buds. I think you knew that these were the rights to which the
bumper sticker referred.
Instead of spending your time writing columns that will ensure the
status quo, why not write one that might mobilize a positive change to
improve conditions and help stop human abuses toward other species?
Margaret (Peggy) Raisglid
And Finally, One Last Letter on Leo W. Banks, in Which He Is
Compared to Hitler
Leo W. Banks’ article represents the same superficial, nativist
narrative widely available through major media outlets (“Trashing
Arizona,” April 2). Your “alternative” weekly would be much better
served by an examination of the underlying factors that cause
immigration, rather than the effects.
This article is similar to watching speeches of Adolf Hitler and
then coming to the conclusion that funny little mustaches are the cause
of state-sponsored anti-Semitism—it exhibits an extremely limited
reasoning ability.
Furthermore, his attempt to raise the specter of Islamophobia is
unconscionable and extreme. His “evidence” that “Arabs are coming” is
flimsy at best. Finding three prayer rugs in the desert would provide a
good indication that Muslims may have passed through the area, but as
Arabs constitute only approximately 20-25 percent of Muslims worldwide,
presuming that these Muslims were Arabs makes an assertion that strains
the bounds of logic.
Sticking to verifiable facts is the basis of good journalism; using
unverified anecdotes and making assumptions in order to stir up
anti-Latino and anti-Muslim hysteria is not. Samuel Huntington and Lou
Dobbs must be very proud of their bastard child.
Peyton Deane
Corrections
In “Latin Invasion” (Chow, April 16), we wrote that a Ketel One on
the rocks at Sur Real costs $11; actually, a Ketel One martini is $11,
wherea s Ketel One on the rocks is $9.50.
Due to a production error, the caption for the April 30 Live photo
was incorrect. The picture is of The Faint, not Ladytron.
We apologize for the mistakes.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.