Oh Atrios!

I love to visit Eschaton and poke my nose into the comments threads. It's like going to a big leftie carnival. But now I can't go there. Atrios has an ad about tortured chickens with a picture. As I mentioned in the previous post, torturing living creatures is horrible, and that includes chickens. Let this serve as a warning for anybody else who is equally lily-livered. Let me know when that particular picture is further down the screen.

There is a larger point to this post, I think, which is the way in which we tend to preach to the converted. Who gets all the letters about abused and tortured animals pictured on the envelopes? Answer: those kind-hearted souls who have already given money to stop animal abuse. Not the torturers. Who gets letters telling about human rights abuses and AIDS in Africa? Probably not the people committing abuses or enabling the spread of the disease, probably not even the people who are indifferent. No, the recipients are the ones who are already involved in trying to stop bad things from happening.

I understand why this happens, but it stinks, nevertheless. We should find a way to fix this, or alternatively, have the senders of these letters come around once a week to pick up the hundred pounds or so of Bad News Mail I get during the average seven days. The senders should also apologize, if not to me, then to the trees that have been transformed into unnecessary paper. I'm already giving what I can, do you hear me!

I even give to chicken-causes, so there's no need to remind me how ineffective I have been.