The sport of death
Feb. 15th, 2006 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockThe ever eloquent James Wolcott chimes in with a different perspective on the Cheney "hunting" accident:
Andrew Sullivan quotes an eloquent chastisement from Matthew Scully, author of Dominion: The Power of Men, the Suffering of Animals, and a Call to Mercy, regarding the callous disregard demonstrated by Vice President Cheney.
"Birds are not skeet. They are living creatures, 'the fowl of the air,' and it is unkind and dishonorable to treat them this way. The sportsman shoots in jest, to paraphrase a saying, but the creature dies in earnest."
I saw a creature die in earnest earlier this afternoon on CNN. Rick Sanchez was filing a report on hunting protocol and safety, tramping through the woods with a pair of experienced hunters. At the end of the segment one of the hunters shot a quail, which fell from the air and landed in the grass, its wings thrashing. An animal died so that the segment could make its point. And it made me realize or re-realize that I don't have any respect even for "responsible" hunting, because the deaths it causes are still wanton and unnecessary, even if the carnage is less promiscuous than that of the canned hunts favored by Cheney, Scalia, and similar Davy Crocketts on male-bonding expeditions.
[...]
Rich guys pretending to be Jeremiah Johnson is one of the many fascimile editions of rawhide authenticity being successfully peddled in the media with no one willing to stop and say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on animals should be a source of sin and shame, and that the decent thing to do would be to break Cheney's shotgun in two before anyone or anything else is harmed by his buffoonery.
It's easy to lose sight of this point when one is busy chorteling over the inanity of the incident. I've been rather guilty of that over the past few days myself. I too have never seen the appeal in the violent death of another living creature, and frankly labeling this activity a "sport" is borderline offensive as far as I'm concerned. It's as much a sport as stomping on ants is, destroying life because you're bigger, stronger, better armed, and in the end, because you can.
Andrew Sullivan quotes an eloquent chastisement from Matthew Scully, author of Dominion: The Power of Men, the Suffering of Animals, and a Call to Mercy, regarding the callous disregard demonstrated by Vice President Cheney.
"Birds are not skeet. They are living creatures, 'the fowl of the air,' and it is unkind and dishonorable to treat them this way. The sportsman shoots in jest, to paraphrase a saying, but the creature dies in earnest."
I saw a creature die in earnest earlier this afternoon on CNN. Rick Sanchez was filing a report on hunting protocol and safety, tramping through the woods with a pair of experienced hunters. At the end of the segment one of the hunters shot a quail, which fell from the air and landed in the grass, its wings thrashing. An animal died so that the segment could make its point. And it made me realize or re-realize that I don't have any respect even for "responsible" hunting, because the deaths it causes are still wanton and unnecessary, even if the carnage is less promiscuous than that of the canned hunts favored by Cheney, Scalia, and similar Davy Crocketts on male-bonding expeditions.
[...]
Rich guys pretending to be Jeremiah Johnson is one of the many fascimile editions of rawhide authenticity being successfully peddled in the media with no one willing to stop and say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on animals should be a source of sin and shame, and that the decent thing to do would be to break Cheney's shotgun in two before anyone or anything else is harmed by his buffoonery.
It's easy to lose sight of this point when one is busy chorteling over the inanity of the incident. I've been rather guilty of that over the past few days myself. I too have never seen the appeal in the violent death of another living creature, and frankly labeling this activity a "sport" is borderline offensive as far as I'm concerned. It's as much a sport as stomping on ants is, destroying life because you're bigger, stronger, better armed, and in the end, because you can.
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Date: 2006-02-15 10:41 pm (UTC)