LETTERS [Sep. 1998]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

Horses & dogs
Both reviewer Robin Duxbury
and the author of the book Horse, Follow
Closely should have explained that Native
Americans used dogs much as they later
came to use horses. The dogs were treated
with much the same respect and consideration
that Native Americans extended
toward humans. The fact that certain
tribes sacrificed and ate dogs on special
occasions seems paradoxical, but it was a
manifestation and expression of the value
they attached to dogs: a statement to a
guest that “the only thing more valuable
to me than this dog is your friendship.”
The horse culture evolved from
the dog culture. For example, travois
were used with dogs at least 4,000 years
ago, according to analysis of archaeological
finds in northern Saskatchewan. A
good source of detailed information is
The Horse and the Dog in Hidatsa
Culture, by Gilbert L. Wilson. The original
edition was published in 1924 by the
American Museum of Natural History.
––Tim White
Grand Marais, Minnesota

Peace
As a pacifist and conscientious
objector to military murder since 1957,
and a vegetarian since September 1972, I
strongly support what you are saying and
doing, even though my own primary
focus is human rights and nonviolent
social change. I do wish there were more
coalescence between the human rights
and animal rights communities.
––Peter L. Gardiner
Laramie, Wyoming

Meat
It was sad but educational to
find out from ANIMAL PEOPLE that I
was not the only child who reacted badly
to the news that meat comes from killing
animals. I was deeply traumatized by
being taught, weekly, in Sunday School,
that God wanted the hominids in the
Garden of Eden and the Biblical prophets
to sacrifice animals.
It is vicious to teach these
things to children who are captives of
religious instruction. It trains children to
grow up believing that animals are lesser
beings, fit to be exploited.
––Shaynie Aero
Mesa, Arizona

Great resource
I think of you often. You are a
great resource to animals and those interested
in their welfare. I still have all of
the copies you have published, and it is
amazing how often I refer back to one of
your articles which remains the best on
the subject. Keep up the good work!
––Roland Eastwood
Fort Myers, Florida

Eastwood, an ANIMAL PEOPLE
charter subscriber, is retired presi –
dent of the Fort Myers SPCA.

Prison vs. service
Peggy Larson, DVM, advocated
in your July/August edition that
mandated counseling not replace jail time
for convicted animal abusers. Certainly
how society deals with animal abuse
should reflect the gravity of the crime,
but the trend in recent years toward
wholesale imprisonment and the development
of a “prison-industrial complex”
make it imperative that we rethink the
whole idea of imprisonment. If alternative
sentences such as community service are
substantial enough, they should constitute
a deterrent as effective as prison.
Prison may be necessary in
cases of violent crime, such as animal
abuse, when there is reason to suppose
that the offender is incorrigible, but
where the immediate safety of community
or creatures is not the issue, using
prison instead of extended community
service as a deterent and punishment may
actually increase societal violence.
––Walter Miale
Green World Institute
Frelighsburg, Quebec
4 – ANI MAL PEOPLE, September 1998

Carroll Soo-Hoo
Your obituary of my late husband
Carroll Soo-Hoo unfortunately
included some errors. Although classed
as 1A while working at the Mare Island
Naval Shipyard during World War II,
Carroll was not drafted due to his value
there to the war effort. During his 28-year
tenure at Mare Island, he donated 10
years of his wages to the purchase of animals
for the San Francisco Zoo, making
up pairs in some cases so that animals
were not solitary. I never taught at
Galileo High School, and Carroll did not
stop donating animals to the zoo when he
married me. We donated our wonderful
male orangutan Denny, also known as
Rusty, to the zoo as my special gift to be
a mate for their female, Josephine.
I am sorry that you did not mention
his keeping company with the gorillas
every weekend for seven years. At the
time, people were terribly afraid of gorillas.
Carroll helped to change that.
––Violet Soo-Hoo
San Francisco, California

Dog-eating
On July 20, the World Journal,
the largest overseas Chinese newspaper,
reported from Beijing that according to a
July 20 Central Television broadcast
some unnamed “Chinese specialists” now
“encourage mass production of St.
Bernard dogs as a meat product,” since
they have large litters of fast-growing
pups and may produce two litters a year.
The St. Bernard is famous for
heroism and providing loving companionship.
St. Bernard rescue work has been
documented back to 1750. One St.
Bernard, Barry, saved at least 40 human
lives on a rugged Swiss mountain pass.
Please demand that the Chinese
government ban selling dogs as meat.
Letters may be addressed to Ambassador
Li Zhao Xing, Embassy, People’s
Republic of China, 2300 Connecticut
Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008; fax
202-328-2582.
––Meera Carreras
Santa Fe, New Mexico

ANIMAL PEOPLE r e c e i v e d
three different translations of the World
Journal article from various sources, all
of which agreed on the basics.
South Korea, where dogs are
also eaten, was alarmed in early August
when the head of a vaccine testing labo –
ratory and a meat wholesaler were
charged with selling as many as 5,000
potentially diseased dog carcasses to dog
meat soup restaurants.

Mina Sharpe
God bless Mina Sharpe! The
barbarity in Taiwan is unbelievable! I am
rather disappointed in PETA, the
Humane Society of the U.S., and the
World Society for the Protection of
Animals [for promoting high-volume
shelter killing in Taiwan instead of underwriting
spay/neuter].
––Virginia Gillas
Hermitage, Missouri

AHA board shuffle
The resignation of five American
Humane Association board members including
myself, reported in your July/August editorial,
was not a result of “fundamental differences in
defining the role and function of effective
board members” as claimed by AHA secretary
and executive director Bob Hart. Our resigations
resulted solely from a serious lack of confidence
in Hart’s leadership, accountability,
and job performance. Of grave concern was
the steady departure of professional staff,
board members, and the alienation of loyal
friends of AHA during his tenure. Among
them were six persons in senior staff positions
when Hart was hired, four persons hired into
senior staff positions by Hart who since have
left, and seven board members in all.
As to your inquiry into the backgrounds
and affiliations of new board members
Steven C. Crosby, David Grannis, and Shirley
Jones, I applaud you. As a member of the
nominating committee that selected these nominees,
I can assure you that there was a successful
effort by some on that committee to not
fully inform the committee, as a whole, as to
the qualifications of the proposed nominees.
This is not to say they are not qualified, but
without adequate information, some of us
were unable to reach such an opinion.
Consequently Harold Dates, Tia Roddy, and
myself abstained from voting.
The three new board members were
not replacements, as you suggest. They filled
already existing vacancies on the board.
––Charles M. Granoski Jr.
Tacoma, Washington

Turnover at AHA under Bob Hart
appears to ANIMAL PEOPLE quite normal,
occuring mainly for routine cause. We remain
concerned, however, that new board member
Jones also represents the National Dairy
Council, which has long fought protection of
farm animals under humane laws, and that
new board member Crosby was formerly a vice
president of the Los Angeles office of BursonMarstellar,
a $200-million-a-year global pub –
lic relations firm whose clients have included
at least five dictatorships with atrocious
records on human rights and animal protec –
tion, 36 firms instrumental in forming the wise
use movement, and the PMU and fur trades.
We are even more concerned that
neither AHA nor Jones nor Crosby has
answered our questions about their values and
allegiences.