The Walter and Mcbean Galleries in San Francisco Puts on Exhibit Glorifying Animal Abuse : Don’t Trust Me Portrays Animals Being Killed by a Hammer

Don’t Trust Me Portrays Six Animals—A Sheep, A Horse, an Ox, A Pig, A Goat, and A Doe—Being Struck And Killed By A Hammer

Normally I don’t do postings on actions. However, this is such a horrible exhibit that this warrants your attention.

As stated below, “Don’t Trust Me portrays six animals—a sheep, a horse, an ox, a pig, a goat, and a doe—being struck and killed by a hammer.”

The absolutely disgusting images can be views at: http://www.waltermcbean.com/current.shtml

After viewing, PLEASE EMAIL exhibitions@sfai.edu and let them know that their insistence on glorifying egregious and obvious abuse and killing is selfish and sick. I’m still baffled how killing can serve as art. Perhaps this works for a sadist, but for art lovers, all this does is portray the lowest of human behavior. You can also call the gallery at 415-749-4563.

More can be found below:

Article:

Are Animal Snuff Films Art?

Posted: 26 Mar 2008 07:42 AM CDT

The Walter and McBean Galleries in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco are currently exhibiting an installation by Adel Abdessemed called "Don't Trust Me," which they apparently believe warrant support of the San Francisco Art Institute.

From the press release:

Don’t Trust Me portrays six animals—a sheep, a horse, an ox, a pig, a goat, and a doe—being struck and killed by a hammer. Each killing occurs so quickly that it’s difficult to determine definitively what has happened. Do these incidents represent slaughter or sacrifice? What are their social, cultural, moral, and political implications? Or are such questions now verging on irrelevance, as if something else altogether were taking place (or about to), something wholly other, unforeseen, unexpected?

If you can stomach it, read the rest of absurd press release--particularly the end:

SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs—a component of which is the Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series—are supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, and the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Additional funding for the Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series has been provided by Bob and Betty Klausner. Additional support for Adel Abdessemed’s exhibition, as well as for his Visiting Artists and Scholars lecture, has been provided by the Cultural Services of the French Consulate in San Francisco.

If you have any contacts at the above, please make use of them and express your disgust, outrage, and sadness.

You can call the gallery at 415-749-4563 and leave an articulate message of protest (and few people I know are able to do that without getting enraged, so perhaps a different medium is better), or you can e-mail them at exhibitions@sfai.edu. Of course, ask that the exhibit be removed immediately and that the galleries refrain from supporting such barbaric work in the future.

I have nothing else to say, other than this is one of those moments when I am ashamed to call myself an artist and a human being. If the videos were of our institutional uses of animals, there might be a lesson to be learned. The only lesson I learn here is just how low some people will plunge to garner attention, and just how ridiculous some PR people can be in their attempts to spin the depraved into the honorable.

Group Calls for Johns Hopkins University Medical School to Join Majority of Medical Schools and End Live Animal Labs: Calls for End to Live Pig Labs

As the article points out below, “…Hopkins will be the lone holdout among medical schools in U.S. News & World Report's annual Top 20 ranking….Overall, just 10 of the nation's 126 M.D.-granting medical schools use live animals during surgical rotations, according to the physicians' group.”

This by itself proves that live animal labs aren’t necessary in medical training. If it was, the majority of schools would use them. Yet, they don’t. As stated below, "The ethical argument is that you should not use sentient creatures to our purposes unnecessarily," said Dr. John J. Pippin, a Dallas cardiologist affiliated with group. "The reasons to use live animals, whatever they were, are no longer valid."

Article:

Medical use of live pigs criticized

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pigs27mar27,1,3004653.story

A physicians' group takes aim at Johns Hopkins University for using the animals to train its surgical students.

By Jonathan Bor, The Baltimore Sun

March 27, 2008

BALTIMORE -- Taking aim at one of the last bastions of live-animal training for medical students, a physicians' group that champions animal rights renewed its call Wednesday for Johns Hopkins University to stop using live pigs to teach operating-room techniques.

Calling the practice inhumane and unnecessary, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine noted that Hopkins is one of just two top-tier medical schools still convening live-animal labs.

"The ethical argument is that you should not use sentient creatures to our purposes unnecessarily," said Dr. John J. Pippin, a Dallas cardiologist affiliated with group. "The reasons to use live animals, whatever they were, are no longer valid."

With Case Western University's decision to hold its last live-pig labs this semester, Hopkins will be the lone holdout among medical schools in U.S. News & World Report's annual Top 20 ranking.

Overall, just 10 of the nation's 126 M.D.-granting medical schools use live animals during surgical rotations, according to the physicians' group. A larger number of teaching hospitals use animals to train postgraduate surgical residents, and animals are widely used to test medical devices and surgical techniques.

Hopkins said it had no plans to end the use of live pigs, despite a flood of e-mails from animal rights activists and an editorial in the undergraduate student newspaper.

Group Being Sued for Exposing Chinese Company that Uses Tiger Bones in Winemaking

The group being sued is The International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Of course, it’s by another abusing Chinese company who cares little for any other species. They of course deny the use of tiger bones. Yet, I’m not sure if they are just too slow to realize this, but they actually admit to using the bones of a Mammal in the wine. Even though it isn’t of a Tiger, it still is of a mammal – an African lion. “The main ingredients of the ‘animal bone medicated wine’ produced by [Guilen Xiongsen] are rice wine, papayas and African lion bones…”

So, they do admit to using bones in the wine.


For a crash course on the inherent cruelty of the Chinese culture, including video proof, see http://geari.blogspot.com/2006/03/crash-course-in-unbelievable-cruelty.html
Article:

Lions and tigers and … bone wine?

http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=4848&type=UTTM

BEN MOOK

Daily Record Assistant Business Editor

March 27, 2008 6:54 PM

Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications LLC was ordered Thursday to turn over footage from one of its Animal Planet shows about the use of tiger bones in winemaking to help bolster the defense of an animal rights group being sued in China.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare asked the U.S. District Court for Maryland, in Greenbelt, on Tuesday to compel Discovery Communications to turn over footage from an episode of its Wildlife Crime Scene show. A federal judge signed off on the subpoena and gave the company until April 25 to turn over the footage and describe where and how it was obtained.

The footage will be used in a civil lawsuit filed against the animal rights group on Oct. 11, 2007. The Guilin Xiongsen Bear & Tiger Mountain Villa Entertainment Center filed the lawsuit against the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in the Beijing High People’s Court. The company claims the animal rights group impugned its reputation through a web article claiming a wine it makes uses tiger skeletons as the primary raw material.

The show in question is a six-part series called Crime Scene Wild, hosted by Steven Gastler, which features undercover investigating along with DNA and forensic science to expose illegal animal trading. The episode being subpoenaed is the final episode that includes a look at the Bear & Tiger Mountain Villa and the making of bone fortified wine. The Crime Scene Wild episode has not aired, and is not slated to air, in the U.S. It has however, been aired in the Animal Planet’s Asian and Australian markets.

Guilin Xiongsen runs a tiger farm, villa, restaurant and winemaking operation at Bear & Tiger Mountain. According to a June 22, 2007, report in the Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald, there were “1,300 captive bred-tigers including 43 frozen carcasses of animals that have died of natural causes” at the site.

The company has vigorously denied an article on IFAW’s Web site that claimed that at any given time the winemaker had “400 tiger skeletons immersed in the entire wine cellar.” And, that “you can see an intact tiger skeleton by randomly looking into a wine tank.”

“The Xiongsen Brand Medicated Wine manufactured and sold by it is produced with animal bones such as aged African lion bones in the Bear & Tiger Mountain Villa upon approval of the [Chinese] State Forestry Administration and Forestry Bureau of the Guangzi Zhuang Autonomous Region,” the complaint in Beijing court reads.

Guilin Xiongsen also disputes the group’s account that tiger meat was served in the villa’s restaurant under the name “king’s meat.” The use of rhinoceros horn and tiger bones has been prohibited by Chinese law since 1993.

“In a word, the plaintiff has never engaged in any tiger bone trade, or prepared tiger meat into various dishes, or produced and sold the so-called ‘tiger-bone medicated wine,’” the company said in the lawsuit. “The main ingredients of the ‘animal bone medicated wine’ produced by [Guilen Xiongsen] are rice wine, papayas and African lion bones, and do not include any ‘tiger bone’ ingredients at all.”

Colorado Bill that would Increase Regulations on Confined Animals Raised for Pork and Veal (Pigs and Baby Cows) Moves Forward

Nice to see at least the start of a bill like this. Of course, it doesn’t go far enough, but it definitely sends a message and will educate people to the absolute hell that gestating pigs and of course, veal calves go through.

For proof as to the cruelty of veal (abused baby cows) including video proof see http://www.noveal.org

Here is a summary of the bill found in the writing below: “Senate Bill 201, sponsored by District 6 Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, would prohibit the confinement of gestating sows or calves raised for veal in a way that does not allow the animal to stand up, lie down and turn around without touching the enclosure’s sides.”

Article:

Farm animal confinement bill moves forward

http://www.journal-advocate.com/articles/2008/
03/19/news/local_news/local2.txt

Bill would cause suspension of initiative petition drive on issue

By K.C. Mason

Journal-Advocate Capitol correspondent

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 1:04 PM MDT

DENVER — Under threat of a petition drive for a ballot question, Colorado lawmakers and state Agriculture Commissioner John Stulp are moving forward with a bill to increase regulations on confined animals that are raised for pork and veal.

Senate Bill 201, sponsored by District 6 Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, would prohibit the confinement of gestating sows or calves raised for veal in a way that does not allow the animal to stand up, lie down and turn around without touching the enclosure’s sides.

“My concern is to avert a ballot initiative, which I feel this does,” Stulp said during testimony last week before the Senate Agriculture Committee. “This recognizes the need ... to address future husbandry issues and hopefully get out ahead of the curve.”

Unlike the potential ballot measure, the bill does not include regulation of caged egg-laying hens.

Stulp said the bill also deals with confinement of milk calves, even though Colorado as yet has no veal production facilities. He said veal producers have expressed interest in moving to the state at the invitation of dairy farmers.

“The dairy industry has been involved in some of the discussions around how we will treat veal calves if that industry does come to Colorado,” Stulp said.

The committee, which Isgar chairs, unanimously approved the bill for full Senate debate.

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, whose eastern Colorado district contains several hog farms, said he reluctantly voted for the bill, despite what he called “the interference of a bunch on animal rights do-gooders.”

“I don’t like using the power of government to force people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise be doing,” said Brophy, who is a wheat and vegetable farmer. “I would have preferred to let the marketplace dictate how we produce things in this country and not government.”

The head of a national animal rights group said that as long as the bill moves forward without amendment, a petition drive for a ballot issue will be held in abeyance.

“We proceeded with the ballot initiative as a place holder in case negotiations went off the track” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Washington D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States.

HSUS recently received approval of a ballot title — Farm Animal Confinement — which clears the way to begin gathering petition signatures. Pacelle said a petition drive would remain on hold unless something happens to kill the bill.

While the legislation covers only pregnant sows and milk calves raised for veal, the ballot initiative also would prohibit confinement of egg-laying hens in battery cages.

“We certainly want to ban these inhumane battery cages that won’t allow birds to extend their wings,” Pacelle said. “We consider that a piece of unfinished business, but we will wait to see what happens with this (new regulation) first.”

Pacelle, noting his group was behind two successful ballot issues that banned bear baiting and steel-jawed leg-hold traps in Colorado, said he is confident a ballot issue on confined animals would pass.

“Colorado has a great tradition of Coloradans fighting to protect animals from these inhuman practices,” he said.

Brophy asked Stulp if horses could be next on the humane society’s list, given that legislation is being considered in Congress “that severely limits the ability of horse producers to deal with their animals.”

Brophy said rural residents already deal with unwanted cats and dogs being dumped on farms and ranches, and predicted horses similarly could be abandoned if their owners cannot find a way to get rid of them.

Stulp said his department is seeing an increase in horse rescues, adding that “the whole unwanted horse issue is something that we must address as a society.” He said SB 201 contains a process that would bring stakeholders together to fund solutions to such problems.

“People have big hearts to take care of these animals but may not have the financial resources to take care of them,” Stulp said.

The biggest impact of the bill will be on Colorado’s swine industry, which the Colorado Livestock Association’s Web site touts as the 15th largest in the nation.

“The swine industry will have an opportunity over a 10-year time frame to develop their criteria and standards for implementing the regulations,” Stulp said. “This bill will put into state statute a process that industry supports.”

Paul McCartney Speaks on what Caused his Move to Vegetarianism and Cruelty-Free Lifestyle: Fishing

This is a great short article. Interestingly, this is one of the first realizations I had before moving into the cruelty free lifestyle. I literally had the exact same realization under the same circumstances. This realization is usually what it takes for one to make the move.

Article:

McCartney hooked vegetarianism on fishing trip

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080312/wl_uk_afp/entertainmentbritainmccartney

29 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - Pop legend Paul McCartney turned vegetarian after going on a fishing trip, he reveals in a new celebrity campaign for an animal rights group launched on Wednesday.

The former Beatle, 65, poses next to the words: "I Am Paul McCartney, And I Am A Vegetarian" in the advert for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).

"Many years ago, I was fishing, and as I was reeling in the poor fish, I realised, 'I am killing him -- all for the passing pleasure it brings me'," he said.

"Something inside me clicked. I realised as I watched him fight for breath that his life was as important to him as mine is to me."

Sir Paul, who is pictured wearing a trilby and a T-shirt with the words "Eat No" over a picture of a cow, said he believed if the world rejected meat it could bring an end to famine.

His late wife, Linda, who died of cancer in 1998, launched a line of vegetarian food in Britain.

Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, former "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson and Hollywood actress Alicia Silverstone are among other celebrities posing for the vegetarianism campaign.

Wyoming Makes Dog-Fighting a Felony

Incredible move. To make it a felony really says a lot, especially in a state like Wyoming.

Article:

Wyoming Becomes 50th State to Criminalize Dogfighting

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335390,00.html

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

WASHINGTON — With enactment of Wyoming's new law making dog-fighting a felony, all 50 states now have criminalized the bloodsport, a move that the Humane Society of the United States ushers in as a new era for man's best friend.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed the legislation Tuesday to up the penalty for participating in dog fighting from a misdemeanor to a felony. Wyoming followed Idaho, whose governor signed similar legislation last week.

With the case of jailed former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick shedding light on the practice, Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle is calling it a new era for dogs and a moment for Americans to savor.


"This is a real reason to celebrate — a landmark moment in the struggle to rid our nation of this hideously cruel activity that destroys so many innocent animals and is so corrosive to the ideals of a decent and civil society," Pacelle said.

Dog fighting involves more than 250,00 dogs each year and is a criminal enterprising involving as many as 140,000 human participants, HSUS says.

The Humane Society argues that cruelty to animals is an indicator of socially maladapted individuals, and cites a Chicago Police Department study that showed 65 percent of people charged with animal abuse crimes were also charged with violent crimes against people.


HSUS has also repeatedly asked the Pentagon to investigate alleged cases of animal cruelty by soldiers in Iraq, suggesting that any soldiers involved in animal cruelty could be suffering psychological trauma from the war zone.

On Monday, Pacelle repeated his request to the Defense Department to insert an explicit prohibition and punishment for cruelty to animals within the Universal Code of Military Justice, citing an Internet video that allegedly showed a U.S. Marine in Iraq tossing a puppy off a cliff.

Kashmir Area of India Begins Poisoning Stray Dogs: Plan to Kill 100,000

Sad once again to see a state or political entity rely on killing to solve a problem. And to use such a painful method to do it.

Article:

Indian Kashmir to poison 100,000 stray dogs in attempt to halt rabies

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indian-kashmir-to-poison-100000-stray-dogs-in-attempt-to-halt-rabies-792780.html

Independent.co.uk Web

By Hilal Ahmed in Srinagar
Friday, 7 March 2008


Authorities in Indian Kashmir have begun poisoning stray dogs in an anti-rabies programme that aims to kill 100,000 dogs in the region's main city.

Animal rights activists vowed to go to court in an attempt to stop the slaughter planned in Srinagar, saying it is an illegal and cruel solution to a problem that could be better addressed with other methods.

Riyaz Ahmad, the city's health officer, said: "These dogs have become a big nuisance and they are threatening humans. We have placed orders for the poison and then we will launch a large-scale drive."

Dr Ahmad said some 500 dogs had been killed so far and that the target was to exterminate all the city's strays –estimated at more than 100,000.

While the drive has been touted as an anti-rabies initiative, Dr Ahmad acknowledged that with only two deaths from 1,341 dog bites reported in Srinagar last year, it was more about appeasing a public that seems overwhelmingly to support the plan.

Shabir Ahmad, a construction worker in the city, said: "They should have done it earlier; these dogs have made our lives hell."

Animal rights activists said they would try to stop the killings. "We are going to file a suit against the municipal corporation if they go ahead with this, because this poisoning drive will be against the prevention of cruelty act," said Javaid Iqbal Shah, the deputy head of the Srinagar Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals. He said the poison used, strychnine, was particularly cruel. "It cripples the nervous system and then chokes the animal," he said. "It is not a good sight to see these animals die by the roadside."

Mr Shah has urged the city to carry out a sterilisation programme instead but acknowledged that his organisation had only managed to sterilise 400 dogs in the past two years.

India accounts for more than 60 per cent of the estimated 35,000 annual global rabies deaths, according to the World Health organisation, and stray dogs are often blamed.