FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE--
The Chicken Must Come First

A reader is not amused

We received the following thoughtful letter from reader --now former-reader-- Willa Bandler:

I am absolutely horrified at your feature "Which Came First -- The Chicken or the Egg?" [published in AIR 9:4].

For the sake of entertainment, you subjected a living being to suffering which is apparently beyond your comprehension. Are chickens as intelligent as humans? Probably not (though it may be counted as "intelligent" that chickens, and other animals, do not inflict mindless cruelty on other species...), but you'd better believe they suffer. For more than two full days, by your account, the chicken was confined in a crate without food or water, without enough room to move, and was subjected to what I can only imagine was not the gentlest of handling (ever watched postal workers move boxes?). How would you enjoy spending two days in a "humanely ventilated" box the size of a coffin?

I am unsubscribing, and plan to advise everyone I know who reads your publication to do the same. You are intelligent people, and I wouldn't have thought it'd be beyond you to see that it's wrong to make others suffer for your pleasure.

--Willa Bandler

 

Investigator Bandler then sent us a second, more detailed note, expanding on this topic:

I am in no way kidding.

The fact that you would even joke about such a thing is abhorrent and reflects the cultural perception we have that it's okay for animals to suffer so we can be fed, clothed, and entertained. There are plenty of ways you could have phrased this parody (if such it is) which would not have encouraged your readers to take animal life cheaply. You could, for instance, have claimed to use a rubber chicken for this "experiment"; alternatively, you could have made explicit that THIS IS A JOKE, NOT SOMETHING WE'D ACTUALLY CONDONE TRYING!

It seems to me that the suffering of animals in labs, factory "farms", etc, is gruesome enough, without people like you promoting the idea that it's okay and therefore shouldn't be stopped. If you would like more information about animal suffering at the hands of scientists, farmers, etc, please take a look at www.peta.org or any of their related sites.

--Willa Bandler

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: We present without comment the beginning of a September 10, 2003 Associated Press report. The complete report can be read at this link, and alternate versions at this link and this link and this link.

Shipping clerk ships himself to his parents

DALLAS - Charles D. McKinley had himself shipped from New York to Dallas in an airline cargo crate, astonishing his parents - and a deliveryman - when he popped out of the box at their home....

 

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