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Aug. 18th, 2007 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionDisposable Animals: Ending the Tragedy of Throwaway Pets - Craig Brestrup. Brestrup, the head of a Washington State animal shelter, writes here about why he feels that shelters that euthanize pets contribute to a societal attitude that animals, like so much else today, are disposable & can & should be discarded on a whim. If people know that kill shelters never turn an animal away, he argues, they will feel able to get rid of their pets whenever they want, for whatever reason. It's a stance that has earned him, & other no-kill shelters, some enmity in the animal advocate world. Those who support euthanasia for the surplus of homeless animals state that they are saving them from unspecified & certain "fates worse than death." He debunks this myth. He also believes that instead of providing ready euthanasia, shelters ought to focus aggressively on getting more animals adopted (I think only something like 15% of pets come from shelters? That's awful) & on educating people to spay & neuter their animals, & to be more committed when they bring one into their home. He realizes that this would cause a short-term increase in the number of animals on the street, but in the long run feels that this strategy would be more effective. This discussion covers a third of the book; the rest talks about other ways in which our relationship w/animals is ruled by a humans-first & consumption-oriented mentality (hunting, animal testing, etc.). I agree w/most of what he says, especially re: euthanasia, but unfortunately the text was a bit dry.
Best New Paranormal Romance - Edited by Paula Guran. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, as Guran explains in her introduction. These stories are not "paranormal romance" as romance readers understand the term (ie. there's no happy ending, sometimes a couple isn't the exclusive focus of the story, etc.). These are more like fantasy stories that have @ least one romantic relationship in them. When I was @ WisCon, buying this book & the sequel, I was told that the second volume got retitled Best Romantic Fantasy b/c the romance folks screamed after the first one came out. Anyway, the stories in here are, for the most part, gorgeous & interesting (not b/c they aren't traditional paranormal romance, btw). This is one of the strongest anthologies I've read lately. I particularly loved Delia Sherman's "Walpurgis Afternoon," Claudia O'Keefe's "A Maze of Trees" (really intriguing & sad!), & Heather Shaw's "Single White Farmhouse" (in which buildings get lusty, search online for love, & go on dates!).
Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life - Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, D.V.M, Esq. I was eager to get this book b/c Lisa Pierson, of catinfo.org, blurbed it--so I knew that it would be pro-raw feeding. And it was--how refreshing! Especially for a woman that used to work for Hills, makers of Science Diet. Hodgkins does a good job of explaining why kibble is never a species-appropriate diet for a cat, & in fact can contribute to many problems, such as obesity & diabetes. She also is cognizant of the dangers posed by over-vaccinating pets; however, I thought her praise of topical parasite products (like Revolution) was odd--they're really toxic stuff! Anyway, v. much recommended to cat guardians.
Day Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko. The sequel to Night Watch, this book is told from the perspective of the Dark Ones in the Day Watch. Unsurprisingly, the Dark Ones prove sympathetic characters, perhaps not that different from their colleagues in the Night Watch or ourselves. Actually, it's the lower echelons of both Watches of which I speak, here--even more so than in the first book, here they are shown to be pawns of their bosses & to be considered basically cannon fodder. I loved the first half, w/Alisa Donnikova, a young witch in the Day Watch who falls in love w/someone in the Night Watch. That's not as tritely Shakespeare as it sounds, or maybe it is, but that doesn't matter. Anyway, I hope the freakin' library gets the third book in soon!
In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships - James Serpell. Serpell demonstrates how keeping pets, & showing emotional attachment to animals, has been reviled as weak or unclean or just bad throughout history, & that this mindset continues today, despite the record number of people who have pets. Often having pets in itself (never mind what level of attention or money is lavished on them) is criticized as being a bourgeois Western phenomenon, but even in impoverished societies, & in tribal societies throughout history, people have kept pets. He also talks about how societies pick & choose which animals they see as friendly & loveable, & which they distance themselves from emotionally in order to slaughter & eat them (the most dire examples of this being factory farming, of course). Wolves & bison also bore the brunt of the white colonial hatred & disdain for the Native Americans, & were fiercely decimated by the white man. The wolf, especially, was turned into this ravaging, evil beast that is nothing like what a real wolf's personality is like. Near the end of the book he also discusses how hunter-gatherer societies, while still killing animals, showed them respect in ways that modern farming often doesn't, with regard to their own livestock. The rise of agricultural societies, he argues, led to an increase in violence, because once you have a farm & your own territory you have to defend it. He also details how many groups, like the Romans or certain European royals, saw cruelty to animals as a way to demonstrate their own power & prestige, & took this to nauseating extremes. Oh--perhaps the most horrifying example in the whole book, to me, was that Descartes argued that animals were basically soulless automata, & some of his followers would beat dogs & say that any squeaks or cries they heard were just the "noise of a little spring that had been touched." Ugh! This book was a little dry in parts, but not too dry; sometimes Serpell's narrative voice was a little cheesy or pompous. But otherwise, this book was well worth reading.
Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships - Edited by Emily Bernard. I wanted to read this after reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oyceter's review of it. There are some powerful pieces in here, but also some that left me cold (like Pam Houston's, which I felt was really creepy & exotifying). I liked the ones, like David Mura's, which talked about the price one pays, in terms of friends lost, when you come to your racial identity & "come out" to your friends as racialized--meaning that you call them out on white privilege, you talk about racial issues, you don't hide that you have a different perspective b/c you're not white. I thought some of the essays by white people tended more towards the "I never really noticed our difference, we were just really good friends"-sort of tone. Which is exactly what essays like Mura's rail against. The collection ends w/Suheir Hammad's poem "Some of My Best Friends," which got me teary-eyed by the final stanza:
I would recommend this collection especially to white folks trying to navigate interracial friendships in good faith--but focus more on Mura and less on Houston!
Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter - Elizabeth Hess. A fast, sad read--not as wrenching as One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter, probably because it wasn't quite as graphic. I think everyone who wants to buy a pet from a pet store should be forced to read the chapter where Hess goes on a raid to a puppy mill. Some of the dogs, crammed into wire cages stacked in rows, are stuck to each other b/c of feces that drips down from the cages above. Their fur is dreadlocked from the dirt & neglect, & Hess suspects the group of dogs kept in the basement may never have seen daylight. These are the sources of the cute puppies & kittens in pet stores, folks. Do you want to support this? I disagree w/her position on euthanasia & no-kill shelters; after having read Disposable Animals, I think shelters ought to get much more aggressive about spay/neuter programs, helping adopters w/behavioral problems w/their new animals, & moving out of the euthanasia business. Oh, & of course we need to nail the puppy mill industry's coffin shut. A tall order, but I felt like she was v. dismissive of no-kill shelters (in ways that Disposable Animals predicted she would be). Also, she says in the final chapter that adopting two cats is always better b/c cats are happiest w/company. Ha! How did she spend all that time volunteering in the shelter she profiled & still have that myth in her head? Also, she paints all animal rights advocates w/the PETA brush, saying that they don't believe in pets. We all know by now that PETA is fucked-up & not representative of most folks, like myself, who believe in animal rights. I mean, sheesh: if nothing else, adopting a shelter animal in a world where domesticated animals like cats & dogs way outnumber the possible homes for them, instead of letting them be euthanized or live a dangerous, brief life on the street, is a pro-animal act.
Shadow Cats: Tales from New York City's Animal Underground - Janet Jensen. Another quick animal read; this feral cat narrative was much better than An Unlikely Cat Lady, b/c even though Jensen makes mistakes in her handling of feral cats near her apartment, she never expresses the same snideness or hatred towards any of them that Nina Malkin does. I also liked how Jensen's tale paralleled the growth of feral cat TNR (trap-neuter-return) groups in NYC. The book is oddly structured, tho'--like it was originally a series of essays that were stuck together w/o reading for continuity or other stuff like that. She might introduce a cat in one chapter, & then start talking about it again in another chapter as if we hadn't just spent 10 previous pages learning all about it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book.
Best New Paranormal Romance - Edited by Paula Guran. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, as Guran explains in her introduction. These stories are not "paranormal romance" as romance readers understand the term (ie. there's no happy ending, sometimes a couple isn't the exclusive focus of the story, etc.). These are more like fantasy stories that have @ least one romantic relationship in them. When I was @ WisCon, buying this book & the sequel, I was told that the second volume got retitled Best Romantic Fantasy b/c the romance folks screamed after the first one came out. Anyway, the stories in here are, for the most part, gorgeous & interesting (not b/c they aren't traditional paranormal romance, btw). This is one of the strongest anthologies I've read lately. I particularly loved Delia Sherman's "Walpurgis Afternoon," Claudia O'Keefe's "A Maze of Trees" (really intriguing & sad!), & Heather Shaw's "Single White Farmhouse" (in which buildings get lusty, search online for love, & go on dates!).
Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life - Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, D.V.M, Esq. I was eager to get this book b/c Lisa Pierson, of catinfo.org, blurbed it--so I knew that it would be pro-raw feeding. And it was--how refreshing! Especially for a woman that used to work for Hills, makers of Science Diet. Hodgkins does a good job of explaining why kibble is never a species-appropriate diet for a cat, & in fact can contribute to many problems, such as obesity & diabetes. She also is cognizant of the dangers posed by over-vaccinating pets; however, I thought her praise of topical parasite products (like Revolution) was odd--they're really toxic stuff! Anyway, v. much recommended to cat guardians.
Day Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko. The sequel to Night Watch, this book is told from the perspective of the Dark Ones in the Day Watch. Unsurprisingly, the Dark Ones prove sympathetic characters, perhaps not that different from their colleagues in the Night Watch or ourselves. Actually, it's the lower echelons of both Watches of which I speak, here--even more so than in the first book, here they are shown to be pawns of their bosses & to be considered basically cannon fodder. I loved the first half, w/Alisa Donnikova, a young witch in the Day Watch who falls in love w/someone in the Night Watch. That's not as tritely Shakespeare as it sounds, or maybe it is, but that doesn't matter. Anyway, I hope the freakin' library gets the third book in soon!
In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships - James Serpell. Serpell demonstrates how keeping pets, & showing emotional attachment to animals, has been reviled as weak or unclean or just bad throughout history, & that this mindset continues today, despite the record number of people who have pets. Often having pets in itself (never mind what level of attention or money is lavished on them) is criticized as being a bourgeois Western phenomenon, but even in impoverished societies, & in tribal societies throughout history, people have kept pets. He also talks about how societies pick & choose which animals they see as friendly & loveable, & which they distance themselves from emotionally in order to slaughter & eat them (the most dire examples of this being factory farming, of course). Wolves & bison also bore the brunt of the white colonial hatred & disdain for the Native Americans, & were fiercely decimated by the white man. The wolf, especially, was turned into this ravaging, evil beast that is nothing like what a real wolf's personality is like. Near the end of the book he also discusses how hunter-gatherer societies, while still killing animals, showed them respect in ways that modern farming often doesn't, with regard to their own livestock. The rise of agricultural societies, he argues, led to an increase in violence, because once you have a farm & your own territory you have to defend it. He also details how many groups, like the Romans or certain European royals, saw cruelty to animals as a way to demonstrate their own power & prestige, & took this to nauseating extremes. Oh--perhaps the most horrifying example in the whole book, to me, was that Descartes argued that animals were basically soulless automata, & some of his followers would beat dogs & say that any squeaks or cries they heard were just the "noise of a little spring that had been touched." Ugh! This book was a little dry in parts, but not too dry; sometimes Serpell's narrative voice was a little cheesy or pompous. But otherwise, this book was well worth reading.
Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships - Edited by Emily Bernard. I wanted to read this after reading
oyceter's review of it. There are some powerful pieces in here, but also some that left me cold (like Pam Houston's, which I felt was really creepy & exotifying). I liked the ones, like David Mura's, which talked about the price one pays, in terms of friends lost, when you come to your racial identity & "come out" to your friends as racialized--meaning that you call them out on white privilege, you talk about racial issues, you don't hide that you have a different perspective b/c you're not white. I thought some of the essays by white people tended more towards the "I never really noticed our difference, we were just really good friends"-sort of tone. Which is exactly what essays like Mura's rail against. The collection ends w/Suheir Hammad's poem "Some of My Best Friends," which got me teary-eyed by the final stanza: these are my people
and we are chosen
family eating darkness
hiccuping light little
by little by light
by little by light
together
I would recommend this collection especially to white folks trying to navigate interracial friendships in good faith--but focus more on Mura and less on Houston!
Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter - Elizabeth Hess. A fast, sad read--not as wrenching as One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter, probably because it wasn't quite as graphic. I think everyone who wants to buy a pet from a pet store should be forced to read the chapter where Hess goes on a raid to a puppy mill. Some of the dogs, crammed into wire cages stacked in rows, are stuck to each other b/c of feces that drips down from the cages above. Their fur is dreadlocked from the dirt & neglect, & Hess suspects the group of dogs kept in the basement may never have seen daylight. These are the sources of the cute puppies & kittens in pet stores, folks. Do you want to support this? I disagree w/her position on euthanasia & no-kill shelters; after having read Disposable Animals, I think shelters ought to get much more aggressive about spay/neuter programs, helping adopters w/behavioral problems w/their new animals, & moving out of the euthanasia business. Oh, & of course we need to nail the puppy mill industry's coffin shut. A tall order, but I felt like she was v. dismissive of no-kill shelters (in ways that Disposable Animals predicted she would be). Also, she says in the final chapter that adopting two cats is always better b/c cats are happiest w/company. Ha! How did she spend all that time volunteering in the shelter she profiled & still have that myth in her head? Also, she paints all animal rights advocates w/the PETA brush, saying that they don't believe in pets. We all know by now that PETA is fucked-up & not representative of most folks, like myself, who believe in animal rights. I mean, sheesh: if nothing else, adopting a shelter animal in a world where domesticated animals like cats & dogs way outnumber the possible homes for them, instead of letting them be euthanized or live a dangerous, brief life on the street, is a pro-animal act.
Shadow Cats: Tales from New York City's Animal Underground - Janet Jensen. Another quick animal read; this feral cat narrative was much better than An Unlikely Cat Lady, b/c even though Jensen makes mistakes in her handling of feral cats near her apartment, she never expresses the same snideness or hatred towards any of them that Nina Malkin does. I also liked how Jensen's tale paralleled the growth of feral cat TNR (trap-neuter-return) groups in NYC. The book is oddly structured, tho'--like it was originally a series of essays that were stuck together w/o reading for continuity or other stuff like that. She might introduce a cat in one chapter, & then start talking about it again in another chapter as if we hadn't just spent 10 previous pages learning all about it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 10:46 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy it, whenever you get it.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 10:47 pm (UTC)And yeah, Pam Houston was the one! She was also the one who went traveling all over the world & loved talking to POCs in their native lands, but realized she didn't have any POC friends @ home. Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 02:59 pm (UTC)I'm concentrating on human-animal relationships on Sirkka Turkka's poetry in my studies and that book sounds very interesting. I must look if I can order it somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 10:48 pm (UTC)