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from: Alexander Star
to: Jim Holt

Animal-Lover Killers

Posted Wednesday, May 8, 2002, at 6:17 PM ET

Who are these people?

Dear Jim,

I'm not sure that I'd pay to see the Stones, but I am tempted by the new 750-page biography of Neil Young, even if it does drag on for even longer than Side 2 of On the Beach. It's intriguing to learn from the reviews that the women in Young's family were named Rassy, Toots, and Snooky, and that Young wrote on his college application that he wished to be a "scientific farmer in Ontario." Did you notice that the two most newly notorious criminals in the world are both ardent pastoralists? The Midwestern man suspected of being the pipe-bomber is the 21-year-old veteran of a grunge band known as Apathy, which once put out a record called Sacks of People. Borrowing as much from Thoreau as the Unabomber, he writes: "I often wonder why so many people spend their whole lives consuming what is fed to them, without knowing if they are consuming anything at all." (With somewhat less lucidity, he also explains that "I'm dismissing a few individuals from reality, to change all of you for the better, surely you can understand my logic.")

And there's the man arrested for killing Pym Fortuyn, who turns out to be an animal rights activist. He appears to pride himself on his lack of sentimentality about the subject. On a Web site he observes that "many animal protectors act from the assumption that 'nature is good', but every dark side of humans can also be found in nature." He adds: "I just act rationally, I don't have to be an animal friend to protect animals."

I've been struck by how many philosophers who pride themselves on acting rationally are strong advocates of animal rights; have you found this to be so? In any case, I spent some time in South Africa this January, and I was startled by how much attention was given there to the mistreatment of animals. It's on the front page of the papers almost every day. A family loses their Rottweiler on holiday. A boy is arrested for celebrating the New Year by placing a firecracker in the mouth of his dog. A man is charged with raping his horse. In response, he sues his accuser for defamation. And now I read in today's Daily Mail and Guardian that a 17-year-old "seabird killer" has just been sentenced to six months in jail for the "violent slaughter of nine penguins, two pelicans, and two gannets in an East London aquarium."

Last night, I went to see A Grin Without a Cat, which is a three-hour film about Castro, Che, and the rise and fall of the New Left. I believe the readers of the Fray would greatly appreciate it. In addition to displaying Valery Giscard d'Estaing's proto-Clintonian campaign performances on the accordion ("I play the wrong notes in music so as not to play the wrong notes in politics"), the film records the most persuasive political slogan I've ever heard: "Vote Red; it will always fade in time." There's also a lot of footage of striking workers at a Citroen plant in 1968, many of whom are playing pingpong. I looked for you.

Fraternally,
Alex

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Alexander Star
to: Jim Holt

Animal-Lover Killers

Posted Wednesday, May 8, 2002, at 6:17 PM ET
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Jim Holt writes the "Egghead" column for Slate. He also writes for The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. Alexander Star is a writer who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. This fall, he will begin editing the "Ideas" section of the Boston Globe.
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