For Shame Calgary Herald. For Shame.

Damnit.  And right in my backyard.

The Calgary Herald wrote what can only be termed an advertorial on horse meat.  And then of course wouldn’t allow anyone to comment on it, like they do their other stories.  Sad really.  I hate it when mainstream media write what are basically opinion pieces that are thinly veiled advertisements for the pro-slaughter activists.

Link:  Calgary Herald

The writer is Robert Frankel, who sadly has the same name as a Hall of Fame racehorse trainer.  What are the odds?

Here’s the article in full, with my comments to each point as per usual.

What horse meat scandal? Toronto deli owner doesn’t eat any other kind of meat

First off, I take extreme offense to the title!!!  I’m shocked actually.  WHAT SCANDAL?  How about the scandal that people took the time to read labels and were not eating what they thought!?!?  How absolutely ignorant of you to title your article like this.  People should be outraged at you for this very asinine title alone.  How about you go and pick up some food for your kids or grandkids, and feed them something unknowingly?  Fuck.

TORONTO – Horse meat found lurking in beef products in Europe has some meat eaters worried about what’s on their dinner plate, but not Filomena Lorusso — she knows it’s all horse, of course.

Yeah, she knows because she put it there.  She made a choice.  Unlike the folks in Europe who didn’t have a choice?  What about them?  Your ignorant tongue-in-cheek intro to this article (not to mention the title) takes a very serious issue and turns it into a joke.  Shame on you!

Lorusso, the owner of Toronto deli Cavallino Carne Equina and Groceries, feels so strongly about horse meat, it’s not just the only type of meat she sells, it’s the only kind of meat she eats.

“We do not serve beef, I do not eat beef,” she says. “I eat only horse meat.”

Ah.  How nice of you to have a choice.

Lorusso’s customers are mainly of French, Italian and Russian backgrounds, she says, but she has seen all types of people purchase horse meat.

“Any way you eat beef, we eat horse,” she says. “Sandwiches? Yes. Barbecue? Yes. Every way.”

Shamez Amlani, owner of La Palette on Queen Street in Toronto, says horse meat is not as popular here as it is in France, where he lived for several years, but it is delicious.

“It tastes like beef — a little sweeter, and more tender,” he says. “Don’t cook it beyond medium rare.”

La Palette serves horse tenderloin in two ways on their menu. Both options are $35, the most expensive entrees on the menu (along with the bouillabaisse) but Amlani says their horse meat is flavourful, lean, and definitely popular.

Please note here folks, it’s not going to feed the poor and hungry… so keep that in mind for those who like to whine about that.

“We want to serve European food and so when I found a source in Quebec that had nice horse tenderloin, we jumped on it,” he says.

All European food is not based on horse meat.  The fact so many people were up in arms about the horse meat being in their food should tell you that!

Well, It’s Been a While…

Yes, I’ve been away for quite a while.  Sorry about that.  It’s been a tough year or so for me, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

I’ve still been active in the horse rescue / information arena, and have been watching this latest newsfest about the “scandal” of horse meat showing up in products labelled as beef overseas.  I’ve been thinking all along that this is probably the BEST thing to have happened to the horse slaughter industry in a LONG time (from an anti-slaughter activists POV).   The reason for this thinking is varied on my part.  On the one hand, I really believe that a solid 75% of the general population (those who don’t own or are not involved in the horse industry) have NO idea about horse slaughter at all.  I’ll recount going to a doctor for a procedure and that doctor had NO idea horses were slaughtered at all in Canada!  This was a smart, educated woman, and because she wasn’t an ‘insider’ she had no clue.  She was utterly shocked when she found out how many horses were slaughtered annually, and where that “meat” ended up.

I’ve also talked to many folks who are not horse owners or involved in the industry who have NO clue that 130+k or so horses are slaughtered for meat in Canada annually.  I can’t blame them; I had no idea myself until I started searching online for my first horse years ago!  I’d always loved horses, but had been on the periphery of the horse-world.

Beyond the fact that I believed this issue would make more non-horsey people aware of the slaughter industry, I thought (believed) many people reading about this scandal would really be offended that there are folks out there shopping in their local grocery, believing the labels as to what they were eating – yet they were being fooled!  I mean really, how offensive is it that people take the time to read labels, to ensure they’re getting the best nutritive value for their buck, and they’re NOT eating what the label says they’re eating.

Really, what if people found out the meat was actually DOG or something???

Unfortunately, I think if it WAS dog there would be more of an outcry.  That saddens me.  I see comments on news pages, and while the majority of them seem to be of the “WTF?” variety and honestly offended for the exact reasons I noted above, there ARE some seemingly average blokes commenting in the vein of “what’s the problem here?”

And then, what really pissed me off, what prompted me to come ‘out of hiding’ so to speak, today was seeing an article in the Edmonton Journal about the slaughter industry in Canada.

David Van Leeuwen, owner of Ben’s Meat & Deli sells smoked horse meat from his store (from the Edmonton Journal)

I have to say I was bothered with the implication that “more Canadians were willing to try horse meat in the wake of the “scandal”???  Here’s my take on this article:

A Tangled Web…

This is a story that I actually had to draw a flowchart to keep track of… so bear with me here.

There are several key players, not the least of which are a well-known criminal and the OSPCA.  There’s also a rescue involved… go figure.

AND there are some horses that desperately need saving!

Player Number One

Richard “Butch” Clare

If you don’t know who he is, you’re obviously not from Ontario.  This is a well-known man who not only owns a cattle slaughter house / feed lot (Aylmer Meat Packers Inc.) – but he’s made a good living at transporting horses to slaughter.  Ah Butch, you’re already my favorite character.  My favorite part of Butch’s story is that he has plead guilty to, and been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for, improper acts.  What improper acts?  Oh, you know… slaughtering cattle not fit for human consumption and putting it out in the market for us ‘humans’ to eat.  You see, the cattle he ‘slaughtered’ were already dead.  They showed UP dead.  The only animal that should have been eating that cow was a dog (not that I think that’s ok either).  He lost his (slaughterhouse) license FIVE times in 12 years!  That didn’t stop him from slaughtering cattle for human consumption though!  Oh no, not Butch!

Interesting Ad for the United Horse Killers

Just thought I’d pass it along…

As always, click on the image to view a larger size.  On this one, you can even hover over the ad and when your mouse pointer turns to a magnifying glass, click it again to enlarge again.  Click “back” to return here.

Really, it’s good.

I’m in Love

With a man.

Yep, you heard it here first.

Click on the link.  Ignore the commercial.  Listen to the Investigative Reporter.  I love him.

http://www.8newsnow.com/category/28259/8-news-now-video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6009322

 

Hometown Heroes Leave Carcasses in their Wake

Single German Woman with Three Kids Seeks White American Criminal

According to one source, that’s pretty-much how Christiane met Jimmy.  After they met online, they married and she moved herself and her three children to Georgia to be with her ex-con of a husband.

Christiane posted on Facebook on Jan 30th 2011:

“Jimmy Judd about this time exactly one year ago we met for the first time at Atlanta Airport after dating virtually on FB for a couple of weeks!  This first date changed our complete life…I am thankful for having you in our boys and my life. Baby, I love you with all my heart and I am so proud of what we have accomplished! You are my Redneck Hero! ;0)”

I especially love how after chatting on Facebook then meeting briefly, she calls her children “our boys”.  Two months later she packed up her kids and moved to Georgia.

One Survivor

Ontario Farm Faces $720,000 in Animal Cruelty Charges

Interestingly, I can not find mention of this story, well, anywhere.  The only place I found it was in the “Farmers Forum” which is, according to them, “Eastern Ontario’s and east-central Ontario’s leading farm newspaper”.  Article is posted below.  I find it very slanted, and quite inflammatory.  Of course, I’ve seen this attitude before with the (horse) pro-slaughter activists.  ‘Be careful farmers, it’s a slippery slope… if they ban horse slaughter it’ll end up killing the cattle industry… if they enforce humane laws it’ll kill the cattle industry… they’re all animal rights activists… blah… blah… blah‘.

I will, as usual, be breaking into the “article” to add my own two cents.  I can do that, because it’s my blog.  :)

Article

Shocker: investigators can ignore codes of conduct and make up their own rules

By Ian Cumming

CHESTERVILLE — Last December, an unidentified caller to the Ontario Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) fretted about a dozen bred, healthy Holstein heifers standing outside a Chesterville-area farm. The heifers had free-choice baleage, later tested at 20 per cent protein, free-choice water, shelter beside the dairy barn and a nearby grove of trees. The temperature on the day was minus four degrees Celsius. It was a pleasant day for cows. It turned out to be one of the worst days in the lives of David and Marilyn Robinson, who owned the farm.

Ok.  First off, the slant in the article is evident by the very first sentence.  “fretted about a dozen bred, healthy Holstein…”  That bothers me.  Secondly, I would have to guess someone has a grudge against the Robinsons.  Why else would anyone call if it was only -4 degrees Celsius?  Especially if they had shelter?  And were in good weight?  I mean, most people wouldn’t even notice if there was enough water or food as they drove by!  But… the cattle weren’t in good weight.

At Least He Starved His OWN Horses More than the Boarders Horses?

Jason Ashley, from Ludowici, Georgia, Briarwood Stables off of Stafford Dairy Road, starved 18 horses at his unlicensed “training and boarding” facility.

Jason Ashley

Jason apparently owned a few of the horses, and those were the most neglected.  They were a body score of 1-2.  The rest of the horses, the boarders horses, were slightly better, at maybe a 2-3.

Jason Ashley, the stable operator and owner of the three horses in the worst shape…

Oh, did I mention Jason is apparently on parole for something?

Same Old, Same Old.

Ok.  Here we go again…  Skinny horse and the same old excuses.

Oh, but it's OLD.

The tired excuse “my horse is old”.  Have we not learned that old horses don’t need to be SKINNY?  Read the article below, and my comments, any you will see what I think.

The Soulless

Just imagine… you’re sitting there, minding your own business when your heart suddenly just stops.  What is going on in your body and mind?  Your body within a second is struggling to get oxygen to all its parts, but the blood is not moving.  You still, for seconds or minutes, have some control over your actual body, but not really over your mind.  Your mind is screaming at a million miles an hour.  I can’t breathe!!!  I’m suffocating!!!  Help me!!!!!!!!!!!  As the panic sets in, within seconds, you no longer have control over your body, because the panic has control.  You lash out, knock things over, stumble around, clutching your chest, and falling to the ground.  Your legs and arms are still flailing about as your mind is screaming out in pain and anguish because the lack of oxygen is killing it.

Slowly the synapses stop firing.  Your muscles are twitching.  Your consciousness is fading.

And while all of that takes less time to happen than it would take a fairly fast typist to type this… you can imagine the utter terror a person goes through during the 20 seconds to a minute+ before loss of consciousness.

Now, imagine if you had the power to stop someone’s heart, and watch them go through what I just described.

What kind of a person does it take to intentionally do that, to kill someone in that way?  And to do it over and over again?

Poor Babies