mad mags’s Reviews > Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering > Status Update

Finished just in time - I am literally down to the last page in my notebook! Review coming soon.

Carol Adams: "Hierarchies feed oppression because it allows for valuation: those at the top are more valued than those at the bottom. Oppressors like hierarchies that keep animals at the bottom because then you can do to humans what you do to animals if you say that the humans are like the animals. So it feeds oppression to have animal objectification."

Mylan Engel, Jr.: "Once one stops eating animals, one frees oneself psychologically to acknowledge that animals have interests that should be respected, because one is no longer guilty of violating those interests [three+ times a day]. This is one situation where animal liberation is human liberation." Or in Kafka's words, "Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore."

Carol Adams: "Change is hard, but not changing is just as hard."

"...the rape rack is the crucible on which all who consume meat or dairy products must weigh their collective conscience, the place where we must surely agree that society's use of animals has exceeded any reasonable measure of sanity. How can we possible reconcile a world where a device like this not only survives, but is legitimized as a standard business practice?"

Chapter 10 - Secret Abuse: Sexual Assault on Animals. I do not want to live on this planet anymore.

Really interesting discussion of Thanksgiving as compulsory, nationalistic mass animal sacrifice (in which 45 million sentient beings are killed & consumed).

Cirque du Soleil is freaking amazing. Way better than watching terrified animals perform stupid human tricks.

On zoos, captive breeding programs ("conservation") & surplus animals: "The Copenhagen Zoo, for example, kills 20 to 30 healthy animals every year - including gazelles, hippos, and even chimpanzees."

"According to a 2012 investigation by The New York Times, an average of 24 horses pass away on US racetracks *every week*."