AR-News: (NC) Creative Loafing -- one helluva animal rights article

[MEATSTINKS at aol.com]

http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/newsstand/2004-04-07/news_cotton.html

  RELATED INFO. 

 








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The Blotter
BY J.E. BLACKLAW 


Use this address for linking.
 
Stick to your own skin 
Fur hunters deserve a gruesome death 
BY QUINN COTTON 
I'm convinced that there is divine retribution after all. A recent news 
article reported that African ape hunters are being infected by a virus related to 
AIDS as a result of their "hunting and butchering of primates." The viral 
strain is called "simian foamy virus," and I hope anyone who would murder and chop 
up our ape brethren foams burning green at the mouth -- at the very least. 
These people actually deserve to die a gruesome death, which might happen since 
supposedly we humans brought AIDS upon ourselves through the "cross-species 
transmission" of a monkey virus. I've always suspected it started with lonely 
guys out in the bush screwing ass-flashing chimps who probably didn't look half 
bad after enough jungle hooch, but it sounds like butchering ape hunters 
getting elbow-deep in their victims' blood could have done the trick this time 
around. 
This foaming-virus thing got me thinking about other punishments for crimes 
against the natural world, such as hideous consequences for the wearing of 
animals' skins. Those are their skins, people -- You have your own! All those 
photos of hag Martha Stewart in a knotted mink scarf got me imagining the scarf 
slowly tightening around her sour, scraggly neck. (Her fatal misstep, BTW, was 
mouthing off at a Vassar College grad in the form of that Faneuil fellow. You 
don't treat us VC alums like scum and get away with it.) Maybe some scourge 
could strike people clothed in fur so they'd snap and snarl uncontrollably just 
like whatever animal they're wearing -- or sprout claws, and fur on their faces 
around little beady eyes. Perhaps they could be haunted by the screams 
emitted by the poor beasts whose skins they wear as they were being bludgeoned to 
death. 
My conviction that animals shouldn't have to die just so humans can parade 
around in their pelts goes back to my childhood, way before I was aware of any 
PETA propaganda. It originally came about because of my grandmother, an 
insatiable Fur Queen in the mode of Cruella de Ville. Nothing made Nana feel more 
like da bomb than wearing something fashioned out of somebody else's hide. She 
was the kind of predator who would have sported her best friend's skin if she 
thought it would help her look glamorous. I can still see her twirling in a 
circle, showing off the latest mink coat that replaced the not- that-old mink 
coat. Every couple of years a litter of minks had to be murdered just so my 
grandmother could have yet another fuzzy blonde tent to flaunt. The satin "Furs by 
Vanity" label sewn into the last one should have read, "Furs for Vanity." At 
first, I was drawn to the beauty and softness of these substitute skins Nana 
draped herself in, having no idea how they came to be on her body instead of on 
the animals they were created to cover. What changed all that was when she 
explained to me that her shiny black Persian lamb stole had such tight little 
curls because it was made from newborn lambs who had to be killed for their fleece 
since it was too close to their skin to be sheared off like sheep's wool. 
Blithely heartless Nana announced this to the young me as if it were simply 
something to be stored away for future fur reference, while meanwhile my mind 
reeled with visions of frolicking baby lambs like you see on Easter decorations, 
mixed with the bleeding, throat-cut lambs used to illustrate the Christ-as-Lamb 
angle of the Easter story. Apparently Christ died so my grandmother could have 
a sharp stole! 
That was it for me and wearing fur. I knew right then there was something 
downright nauseating about it. Oh, but fur's so warm, you say! Even when I was 
freezing in college in one of the nation's dank iceboxes, upstate New York, I 
refused my mother's offer of her full-length beaver coat, making do instead with 
a polo jacket and a whole lot of substances to help me forget the penetrating 
cold. One day while eating at the now-defunct Catherine's restaurant on 
Providence Rd., I complimented a woman across the aisle on her incredibly 
soft-looking dress. She thanked me proudly, explaining it was made from unborn calf. 
The image I got of the cruelty involved in obtaining that piece of hide made me 
lose my appetite. Let's just say I doubt they waited for a natural 
miscarriage. 
Fashion reports claim fur is popular now because women once again have no 
qualms about wearing it. If stripping the skins off other creatures' babies 
doesn't bother people, then why not go all out? Maybe the market should expand into 
children's skin, because you know how soft that is! And hey, it could be an 
efficient way to use all those AIDS orphans.







 



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