James Herriot and the Desire for Home
by Jonathon Van MarenJames Herriot’s values had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with gratitude. Continue Reading »
Kosher Slaughter and the Dignity of All Creatures
by Rafi EisThe E.U. is concerned with minimizing pain, but in the process allows the human character to become indifferent to the loss of animal life. Continue Reading »
Penguin Dysphoria
by Fr. George W. RutlerA four-month-old Gentoo chick at London's Sea Life Aquarium will be the world's first “genderless” penguin. Continue Reading »
“Speciesism” Opens the Door to Bigotry
by Wesley J. SmithThose who throw out accusations of “speciesism” seek to subvert human exceptionalism. Their framework should be rejected as a prescription for tyranny every time it is proposed. Continue Reading »
Violent Lessons
by Matthew SchmitzChildren are not exposed to enough violence. Yes, I know the grim statistics, how a child who enters middle school has already witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other violent acts on TV. As he and his friends enter adolescence, they take up first-person shooter video games. In college, he becomes . . . . Continue Reading »
Animal Rights Would Ban Pets
by Wesley J. SmithThe ultimate goal of animal rights is not to improve our treatment of animals, but to end all animal domestication. Continue Reading »
Away With the Animals
by John MurdockWayne Pacelle’s rather rudderless quest to make the world safe for animals seems to be taking us to a world without any livestock at all. Continue Reading »
Teleology in the Digital Age
by Jordan ZajacWe appeal to other animals to help us arrive at self-understanding in these perplexing times. But we struggle to understand non-humans in a productive way. Therefore we cannot ultimately understand ourselves. Continue Reading »
Edenic Recollections
by Russell E. SaltzmanMy oldest son once spent a summer on staff at a Scout reservation. Underneath his tent platform lived a family of skunks. They would amble by, mama and her kits (baby skunks are kits, as baby goats are kids), with nary a hint of animosity and rarely a spark of curiosity. Who knows how many summers . . . . Continue Reading »
The Beastly Paradox
by Francesca Aran MurphyBlaise Pascal spoke of the contradiction in every human heart. Man is an animal at once godlike and depraved. It is not that our dreams are great and our behavior base, but that our dreams are simultaneously wonderful and vile. Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in our treatment of other . . . . Continue Reading »
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