There’s a story about a goat in the NYT today. Here’s the punchline:
He is now awaiting a prosthesis, a very rare indulgence for a farm animal.
He is, yes, the goat. An animal rights activist who had bone cancer as a child and lost part of her leg found this rescued goat, housed in an animal sanctuary after a the slaughterhouse accident that left him legless, and arranged a prosthesis for him, too.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying anything mean about people with cancer.
But.
There are few things that seem more absurd to me at the moment than this story–both the facts of it, and the printing of it. I’m living in a country where goats are raised because they’re the cheapest meat, and where prostheses for human beings are still hard enough to find and fund that, nearly fifteen years after the end of the war, some people who need them don’t have them.
Sometimes I feel very, very far away from my “native land.”
i hear ya sistah. morally absurd in when you see the big picture. kinda like a hole in the side of a cow.
KIDDING! (wel, kinda).
HA! Okay, okay, you may have a point…
Remember, that in the United states, it was animal rights legislation that brought about the first child abuse laws. If I remember correctly, advocates had tried for years to protect children through the courts, and finally some bright person said, ‘hey we have laws against animal abuse(see Black Beauty), lets model those. So a significan time later- what was good for the goose, was good for the ..boys and girls.
Wow, now that is an excellent point. And something I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know. But I’m a history buff, so this is a good new topic to dig into… Thanks, Diana!