My bad day

I am surrounded by the ignorant, but I usually don't have them right in my face, or at least, acting out right in my face. Today was different. In the local newspaper, a woman had written a letter in which she decried cockfighting. However, she hastened to add that--though she thought killing birds for sport was wrong--it was okay to slaughter them for food because that is why God gave them to us.

I do not share her belief about other animals being here for us to slaughter, eat, and wear. But there was a more relevant issue at stake: The cockfighting supporter she was addressing had written that he didn't understand why people get so upset about cockfighting when hundreds of thousands of chickens are slaughtered every day for food. I agree with him, which just goes to show you that everything is relative.

As abhorent as cockfighting is, what happens to factory farm chickens is much, much worse. The U.S. Congress has exempted chickens from the Humane Slaughter Act, so the treatment of chickens is even worse than the treatment of other factory farm animals (which is horrific enough). I wrote a letter to the editor explaining the the woman who was against cockfighting, if she was buying factory farm chickens (which I'm sure she is), is participating in more cruelty than even the cockfight fans. I didn't hear from the newspaper, which means my letter was not selected.

That was bad enough. But this afternoon, I took a break to have a cup of coffee at my local bookstore cafe, and was subjected to a mother and daughter--the girl looked to be about 16 and was wearing a W 04 T-shirt--sitting at a table reading aloud to each other from Ann Coulter's book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must). I wanted to walk over there and say to the mother, "How could you fill a child with such hate?" But of course I didn't because I am not rude and inapppriate like the people who worship Coulter.

I did walk by their table, though. If one of them had said "hello," I was prepared to answer "Whoa--better finish that book before you try talking to me."