If you ever doubt that our world is conditioned to use animals – as food, as prey, as slaves, as laboratory subjects, as clothing -- just try to buy a belt that’s not made of leather these days. It’s hard to impossible. Woven leather, padded leather, studded and variously crafted leather; thick and thin leather belts, ad nauseam.
Somewhere back behind all the other belts, if you’re lucky, you may find a web belt -- and if your luck holds, it may not have leather trim. Handbags and shoes are all about leather, but belts?! Yes, those too. (See post for April 17, 2010: “Fur . . . & Skin”) In a related vein, it’s hard to find a breakfast menu that’s not replete with “meat.” Or a wait staffer who doesn’t ask, “What kind of meat would you like with that?”
And on top of all this comes the Trenton Times’ misleadingly named “Outdoors” column, all about hunting and fishing for those who “harvest” from nature the creatures who have often been provided for their “sporting” pleasure. Not to mention their hunting and fishing license fees.
The latest “Outdoors” opus is just that at 36 1/2 column inches long – talk about news values! In this seemingly unedited piece of writing, J. B. Kasper “reports” happily on how environmentalists’ efforts to ban the use of lead in ammunition and fishing tackle have been defeated once again.
It is almost funny to read the counter arguments put up by reps of hunters and fishermen. Almost.
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