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Jen Ruff
Washington, DC
Recent Activity
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Jen commented on the article |Three cheers for Eric and Peace 'o Pie! I'm planning a spring road trip to Boston so we can eat there (finally!).
Don't forget the Sticky Fingers Bakery in Korea either - how cool is that!?
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Jen commented on the article |Almost anyone who has ever met a Pittie will tell you they are, like most dogs, sweet as pie and love attention and affection. As we speak, mine is stretched out next to me on the couch, a furry pillow combined with our other foster puppy, a four month old Lab/Mastiff/Pit mix, who she plays with every day - never hurting, always using just as much force as he can tolerate. Each Pit I have met working with rescues has been nothing but happy to see me and say hello. They don't get called "wiggle butts" for nothing.
Sometimes the people in our apartment building will eye her askance when we meet in the building's common areas. Some people draw their hands, packages, children away from her. When people do this, I go out of my way to say hello to them and to engender a pleasant conversation, usually starting with "Hi! How are you - this is Milly, would you like to pet her? She would love it!"
Even those unfortunate dogs who are used for fighting are almost never aggressive towards humans. When they are killed, they are almost always killed because they are aggressive towards other dogs.
It's rare for the news to report an attack by a Doxie or a Yorkie, a Chihuahua or a Cocker Spaniel. If I could guess why, I'd say it's because these dogs, being small, are less likely to kill. They also just don't make the same sensational news, even though these "breeds" of dog are technically more likely to bite humans.
I'm a little obsessed by this topic at the moment. Philadelphia is overrun by homeless/shelter pits, but we're trying to overcome. Check out this web site for more fun Pit facts: http://www.bulladelphia.org/
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Jen commented on the article |Uh, "adversarial potential on campuses"? College is all about conflicting viewpoints, my "friend". That's why they offer classes on things like white privilege, feminism, political theory and more. And why they allow and even promote having organizations for everything from Republicans to Wiccans and back again. The day colleges start promoting themselves by claiming to offer less adversarial potential is a sad day for the world.
I took a class on bioethics my second semester in college that required me to think about the morality of using non-human animals in science experiments, and low and behold, I have not yet killed anyone. I have advocated stringently against animal testing on campus, gone to bat to rescue lab rats, gotten to know vivisectors, taken neurobiology classes and discovered I loved them, and startled more than a couple people with my depth of knowledge on these subjects and my ability to see both sides of the situation - all because I took advantage of that darn adversarial potential. I now believe everyone getting a degree in the sciences should be required to take one ethics course specifically geared towards their discipline, because the number of vivisectors I meet who have never given the ethics of the situation or even of "humane treatment" a second through astounds me.
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Jen commented on the article |It's ridiculous, but to one turkey, it's the difference between life and death, so can we really say we wish it never again occurred?
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Jen commented on the article |@David, that's like saying instead of saying "black" I MUST say "African American" or it's disrespectful. Or, for an easier example, it's like saying I can't say "Lab" but must say "Labrador Retriever". I understand that some people think that APBT makes people think "better" things, but that's just upholding the prejudice aimed at ANY dog who looks like what people conceive a "pit bull" to be.
I don't give a rats ass (metaphorically) if the dog is a "purebred" or a mix or half raccoon. "Pit Bull", "American Pit Bull Terrier", these are names for categories WE made up. They don't tell us anything about the dog, other than his general body type - which is how people identify these dogs, sadly. So I'm going to continue to advocated for "Pit Bulls", "Pibbles", "APBTs" and "American Pit Bull Terriers" (and yes, I realize ABPT is an acronym) and mixes/mutts because I don't care what we call them or what ridiculous money grubbing organization sanctions them. I don't love or care about the breed because breed is a stupid made up category. I love and care about the dogs because they are individuals. Because people in our society think "in breed" I continue to use the word and the category words, but I loathe doing so and can't wait to stop.
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Jen commented on the article |
Argh. That was me. Why can't that man logout!?
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Jen commented on the article |James, your statement is not supported by any factual evidence, while Stephaine's certainly is. Look at the research on serial killers, or individuals labeled as "sociopaths" - one of the many "signals and signs" looked for by mental health professionals is the torturing and killing of non-human animals. And OF COURSE it's easier to kill a fellow human animal when you're carrying a gun (lethal weapon), because if you're not carrying a gun (or other weapon), well, you're going to have to get inventive or go find one, adding another step to the process. That's plain common sense.
Also, did you mean vets as in veterinarians or vets as in veterans? Because I can see both those groups having something contrary to say about this. For now I'll just address veterans though, because I think that's what you meant. Veterans groups have been saying that killing does not desensitize individuals to future killing as a sort of protection for returned soldiers. However, did you know that the army has soldiers use LIVE pigs for target practice? Ostensibly to practice fixing their wounds, but there's another element in there, and that's desensitizing soldiers to shooting live beings.
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Jen commented on the article |And WHY does being "agnostic" on the nature of animal pain indicate it's okay to continue to possibly inflict it? It's Pascal's wager; we should probably err on the side of caution and try our best NOT to inflict pain, because if we discover that all along no pain was being cause, no harm was done, but if we discover that eating animals does indeed cause a great amount of suffering (like most people admit that it must) then we have done a vast amount of harm.
One need not understand the "nature of pain" to see that it exists in non-human animals.
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Jen commented on the article |
Perhaps Mr. Viertel does not believe in science and medicine, because most of what we know about how pain operates on the body and brain was gleaned by studying animals. Non-human animals. If they don't feel pain, why test our theories about pain on them? How would that help us discover the "pain pathways" in the brain? Or how analgesic drugs work to prevent pain? Why would federal research guidelines indicate that lab animals are to be given analgesics whenever possible, to prevent "unnecessary pain", if it weren't a pretty damn cold hard fact that non-humans animals do indeed feel pain.
Being an "agnostic" on animal pain is like being an "agnostic" on whether or not the polio vaccine works. Sure, people out there exist, but their opinions are generally considered invalid.
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Jen commented on the article |Chelle,
Two things come to mind when I read your comment. The first is a question. Assuming that the animal being exploited is human, say, in a concentration camp, would you still argue that activists have no right to interfere with a legal operation directly? If not, you are begging the question.
The second point questions an assumption you are making, and that is that the "public" is a rational organism (or those who compose the "public" are rational). This assumption is certainly controversial; indeed, history shows us that calm reasoning doesn't produce change, force does. And given that we are dealing in suffering and death on a massive scale, perhaps force in some form is ethically justified?
