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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: January/February 2007
Books
The Case Against Bullfighting
by Michael A. Ogorzaly
Author House (1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403), 2006
248 pages, paperback. $14.95.
Michael Ogorzaly, who died at age 58 on
October 14, 2006, suffered a broken neck as a college student, when a
car in which he was a passenger was involved in an accident. Confined
to a wheelchair thereafter, Ogorzaly completed his education and went
on to teach Spanish and Latin American history at Chicago State University.
When Bulls Cry was his second book, addressing a topic which had become
one of his focal concerns.
De-romanticising the bullfight spectacle
with a dose of anguishing realism in chapter one, Ogorzaly goes into the
history behind it. Chapter two discusses the geneology of bullfighting,
revealing that the present day corrida, which originated in the 18th century,
has very little connection with Spanish tradition.
Chapter three reveals the little-known
counter-tradition of conscientious Spaniards seeking for centuries to
abolish killing of bulls for sport--a movement which has recently gained
force, bringing the passage of anti-bullfighting legislation in Catalan
state and more than 20 individual cities. Polls have for more than 20
years shown that the majority of Spaniards favor banning bullfighting.
Chapter four describes how bullfights
remain popular in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, but are in decline
in Peru. Portuguese bullfights, often mis-described as "bloodless,"
are particularly brutal because while the bull is not killed in the ring,
he does have banderillas (banner-festooned daggers) stuck in him, and
the injured bull, destined for the slaughterhouse, sometimes suffers for
days before being put to death. This makes a mockery of the 1928 law that
forbade killing bulls in the ring to try to reduce the animals' suffering.
In later chapters, Ogorzaly relates how
artists, authors and the cinema have sanitized bullfighting and romanticized
the matador. Ogorzaly is especially scornful of Ernest Hemingway, whose
1932 volume Death in the Afternoon is still widely believed to be the
most authoritative book on Spanish bullfighting written in the English
language.
"Hemingway found the sight of a horse
tripping over its own entrails 'comic,'" Ogorzaly writes. "It
is too bad that the old reprobate could not have had an out-of-the-body
experience and seen himself on that fateful day in 1961 after he had put
a shotgun to his face and pulled the trigger. He might have laughed his
head off, or at least what he had left of it." But the evil that
men do lives on. Running with the bulls en route to the ring in Pamplona,
a little-known local tradition when Hemingway wrote about it in The Sun
Also Rises (1926), now attracts thousands of participants from around
the world, and similar events are now held in many other nations.
The prevalence of bullfighting in the
Spanish-speaking world, where most people are devout Catholics, is also
an indictment of the failure of the Roman Catholic Church to enforce anti-bullfighting
statements and edicts issued from the Vatican many times since 1567, when
Pope Pious V in the bull De salute gregis dominici forbade bullfighting
as an entertainment more proper of demons than humans. Pious V excommunicated
emperors, kings and cardinals who would not ban bullfights, and clerics
who attended bullfights, and excluded bullfighters from Christian burial.
Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Gasparri in 1920 wrote that, "The
Church maintains His Holiness Pious V's condemnation of such bloody, shameful
shows," Monsignor Mario Canciani reiterated the Vatican position
in 1989, and Vatican theologian Marie Hendrickx reiterated it yet again
in 2000 in the semi-official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
Ogorzaly describes how churches, convents
and other Catholic institutions continue to defy the Vatican by actually
sponsoring bullfights as fundraising events.
Actively trying to stop bullfighting has
been left to dedicated activists. Ogorzaly devotes an entire chapter to
the work done by fellow Chicagoan Steve Hindi of SHARK, whose videography
is the best documentation yet of the cruelty involved in both bullfighting
and its close U.S. cousin, rodeo.
Ogorzaly describes how bullfighting is lucrative enough to buy survival
in France, where over 80% of the population oppose bullfighting, and in
Mexico, where a 1998 poll showed that 87% of Mexicans are opposed to bullfighting.
France, Mexico, Portugal, and Colombia all have organizations working
to stop bullfighting, but even with majority support, they still lack
the clout to close the corridas.
Bullfighting is not uniquely a disease
of the Spanish culture. Similar ritualistic bull-killing is practiced
in parts of Asia and Africa, including at the Zulu "First Fruits"
festival’ where at the end of each year a bull is hideously tortured
to death by young Zulu males.
Just as defenders of Spanish bullfighting
dismiss criticism of the corrida as unpatriotic and an attack on Spanish
culture’ so any criticism of the Zulu ritual is denounced as racist
and an attack on Zulu culture. Just as the Vatican fails to follow up
the 1567 prohibition of bullfighting with actual excommunications, so
the National Council of the SPCA in South Africa fails to press cruelty
charges against the Zulus.
Rejecting cultural pretexts for such sadistic
exercises, Ogorzaly condemns those who argue that bullfighting can be
considered an art form. All the glittering sequined costumes and colourful
pageantry cannot disguise the sleazy reality: if this is an art form,
it can only be pornography.
--Chris Mercer
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
South Africa
Altruistic Armadillos, Zenlike Zebras: A Menagerie of 100 Favorite Animals
by Jeffrey Mousaieff Masson
Ballantine Books (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2006
429 pages, hardcover. $ 27.95.
This is a collection of 100 short essays,
each about a different animal. Beyond describing the appearance and habits
of the subject animals, psychologist turned author Jeffrey Mousiaieff
Masson wants to know what kind of "person" each animal is.
Seeking personality in animals is a challenge,
requring much research, but Masson has proved equal to it.
For instance, Masson relates how Australian
magpie researcher Gisela Kaplan has discovered that magpies play-fight
with human friends just like a playful puppy, pretending to be angry.
During these play-fights they roll over and expose their bellies to express
submission, just as dogs do.
Badgers have shown human-like rituals
around death. Masson describes how one badger sow who lost her mate made
a mournful sound that brought a male out from another sett. Together they
dragged the dead body to a warren, buried it, and then separated.
Masson also reveals surprising aspects
of biology. Jellyfish, for example, like butterflies and caterpillars,
go through two completely different stages of life: the free swimming
bell-like shape that we all recognize, and a phase as a polyp attached
to a stem. The venom of some species can be lethal to humans. And they
are not all blind, as one might suppose. Six sets of four eyes provide
the box jellyfish with superb vision.
These and other surprising scientific
truths leap out of the pages at every turn, showing how little we really
know about the other life forms who inhabit our planet (other than how
to kill and eat them).
Anticipating from the title that we would
be reading about fluffy animals such as the panda bear, we found, to our
delight, that Masson covers an eclectic mix of creatures, from the charismatic--such
as gorillas, lions, and elephants--to the common--including chickens,
sheep, and cows--the obscure-- including pearl oysters and glow worms--and
even the mythical, represented by the yeti.
Since our experience is with African wildlife,
we looked critically at the chapters on lions and meerkats. We found no
glaring errors. Masson correctly describes male African lions as lazy,
but he might be faulted for leaving the impression that they are useless
except for reproduction. Masson might have noted how essential large males
are to protecting lion prides from competition from other large predators.
For instance, lionesses can be terrorized by spotted hyena clans, in the
absence of large males who are able to kill them.
--Chris Mercer & Beverley Pervan
Firehorse
by Diane Lee Wilson
Margaret K. McElderry Books (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2006. 325 pages, paperback. $16.95.
Researching the Great Boston Fire of 1872,
Firehorse author Diane Lee Wilson discovered the diary of a 14-year-old
girl who had lived in Boston at the time. The book is woven around that
girl's hopes and dreams.
The Great Fire broke out after a horse
flu epidemic that spread across North America had immobilized Boston's
fire horses. Firefighting equipment had to be pulled by volunteers on
foot. This is often cited as the leading reason why the fire got out of
control, but the city commission which later investigated the fire found
that fire crews' response times were delayed by only minutes.
Wilson portrays the courage of the firemen,
and their horses, as they battled the many fires that were a much more
frequent part of life in the era of kerosene lamps, coal-burning stoves,
and flammable wooden roofs which were common on most buildings.
The 1872 fire was by far the most disastrous
of several great fires that Boston suffered. It destroyed more than 65
acres of the most valuable business property of the city, burning out
at least a thousand businesses, including almost 300 in wholesale dry
goods.
Against this incendiary background is
the story of a headstrong young woman, Rachel, whose love of horses and
need for emancipation brings on confrontation with her bigoted father.
A local newspaper editor, he believes that a woman's place is in the home.
Wilson highlights a time when women could
not vote, could not own property, and a retired Harvard medical professor
even published a book warning that women who strived for higher levels
of learning risked the atrophy of their reproductive organs. --Beverley
Pervan
<www.cannedlion.co.za>
We Thank You, God, For These: Blessings & Prayers for Family Pets
by Anthony F. Chiffolo & Rayner
W. Hesse, Jr.
Paulist Press (997 Macarthur Blvd., Mahwah, NJ 07430), 2006. $16.95, paperback.
204 pages.
When Anthony Chiffolo and Rayner Hesse
first tried to market their idea of producing a book of prayers, stories,
poems, and quotes about deceased pets, rejection was disheartening. One
response began "Once we stopped laughing, we were able to send you
this letter."
Yet the book is is a gold mine of useful
material, including scriptural references and even a complete memorial
service for a loved animal. Not overly maudlin and sentimental, it is
uplifting in providing solace for humans who grieve for their animal companions.
The number and variety of relevant quotations included reveals how normal
it is to grieve for a favorite animal.
Grieving is shown as an expression of
faith: "For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same;
as one dies so does the other. They all have the same breath, and humans
have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place;
all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the
human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward into
the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:19 to 22.)
This book is a must read for clergy who
want to preach against violence to animals, and offers consolation to
bereaved animal lovers.
--Chris Mercer
Please Don't Eat The Animals: All the Reasons You Need to Be a Vegetarian
by Jennifer Horsman & Jaimie
Flowers
Quill Driver Books (1254 Commerce Way, Sanger, CA 93657), 2006. 128 pages,
paperback. $12.95.
Jennifer Horsman and Jaimie Flowers have
combined to produce an excellent summary of the arguments in favour of
vegetarianism. With well-researched statistics and up-to-date scientific
information, Horsman and Flowers deal concisely with the four pillars
of vegetarianism, namely health, environment, animal welfare and philosophy/religion.
This would be the perfect booklet to hand to the ubiquitous sceptic who
asks "Why are you a vegetarian?" No reasonable, open-minded
reader could fail to discover hundreds of good reasons why he/she should
become vegetarian. It is a pocket battleship of debating material to throw
at those who assert than eating meat is an inalienable right.
It is pleasing to see the authors include
a section on the religious aspects of meat-eating. The scriptures of all
major religions teach that cruelty to animals should be avoided. That
cruel methods of meat production are not merely unethical, but actually
sinful, has resonance within Christianty, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and
Buddhism.
--Chris Mercer & Beverley Pervan
Just A Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty & Ourselves
by Arnold Arluke
Temple University Press (1601 N. Broad St., Philadelphia,
PA 19122), 2006. 221 pages, paperback. $22.95.
Arnold Arluke in Brute Force: Policing
Animal Cruelty (2004) studied the sociology of humane investigators.
Just A Dog summarizes that work, then comparably examines the
sociology of juveniles who commit cruelty, animal hoarders, shelter workers,
and the marketers who use cruelty cases to raise funds and reinforce the
stature of humane societies. Veterans of humane work will find few if
any surprises in Arluke's often plodding analysis, but the less experienced
may find the 35 pages about marketing and fundraising an invaluable introduction
to the art of balancing public expectations--and especially donor expectations--with
reality.
Unfortunately, after painstakingly studying everything else he discusses, Arluke concludes with a chapter of broadly generalized fulminations about "the media" which include no survey data and no perspectives from within journalism, tends to blame reporters for the often muddled attitudes of sources and subjects, fails to distinguish reporters from opinion columnists (who often lack formal journalistic training), and gives no recognition to the widely differing roles, standards, and practices of print, broadcast, and electronic media. --Merritt Clifton