The Spicy Cauldron

hocus, pocus & abracadabra: stirring up trouble for good

Pair_of_Icelandic_Sheep

June 19, 2013
by Andrew S. Hinkinson
0 comments

Dumb animals not so dumb after all

Livestock has always been said to be stupid because it makes it easier for those who kill and those who eat sheep, chickens, pigs, goats, cows to do it to a ‘dumb animal’ than it is to one they consider intelligent and complex. I don’t eat meat at all because I’ve long believed a majority of species predated upon my man to be misrepresented for convenience (as well as shortening our lifespan when we eat them).

I would be interested in learning how those societies, in which animals like dogs and cats are eaten, view those we in the West bless with the sanctified labels of pet, companion and family member to protect them from our barbarism (albeit not always successfully, as charities like the RSPCA could confirm). I’ve long noted the ridicule we get when we choose to apply those labels to other animals: keeping chickens as pets is eccentric and weird, for example. Except it isn’t. They make more sense than running after a dog picking up its shit with a plastic bag and then binning it. Not only are eggs a good food for us, a chicken’s crap makes great compost to grow vegetables in. But it is a transgression for some, an unacceptable departure from the ancient consensus, to take a livestock animal and give it shelter from harm as a pet.

Of course we dehumanise each other—sometimes entire groups—based on perceived intelligence or stupidity, class, gender, religion, race, sexuality or disability. People have been burned at the stake and suffocated in gas chambers; we find new ways of blowing each other up and torturing the ‘enemy’ who is always ‘the other’.

We are experts at fooling and lying to ourselves en masse, moreover wanting to believe lies if the truths they bury are unpalatable and require change were we to accept them. This is only proving our great undoing in the 21st Century because we have developed technology, ever since the Industrial Revolution began, to greatly assist us in our pathologically destructive ways to move closer to a goal that is undoubtedly unconscious but absolute and certain: our own extinction. And we’re taking everything else with us, it would seem.

The dinosaurs didn’t wipe themselves out. An asteroid did the deed. Who needs a space rock for mass genocide, though, when you have people walking the Earth? Yet dinosaurs in books and movies are always lumbering, dumb hunks of flesh with brains we are told were no bigger than walnuts. We know, with the absolute certainty of skewed perspective, that we are the ultimate expression of evolution and all that came before us was stupid, is stupid and deserves to be dead, eaten, press-ganged into servitude or petted.

As the dominant life-form on the planet, we abuse all life: each other, animals and, as we have long known, trees which we as a species seem to absolutely despise and can’t wait to clear away to build more things made out of concrete and glass. I am generalising, for sure. Given that it is a human trait to do so, I make no apologies for it. If we can tar all chickens as silly, all sheep as suicidal, all cows as brainless, then it is perfectly acceptable to extrapolate from history and ever-worsening global circumstances that humanity, as a species, is really quite remarkably stupid. Because, with a great many exceptions down the ages, it is, by and large, true.

This does not mean, as some would argue, that those of us who say such things hate humanity. I love being human and alive. We all have great potential but whether we can achieve a harmonious co-existence with everything around us, well, I am indeed a pessimist on that score. I rather suspect the approach of the end won’t have us all suddenly repenting and learning to love; instead, people will take up arms and hack each other to bits in blind panic. But hope? We can always hope. Some of us even pray—something no animal does. With us in charge, you’d think they might want to.  Or maybe prayer, as opposed to reality-changing action, is one of our most stupid ideas. It is certainly one of our oldest, whatever your views on it.

 Dumb animals not so dumb after all
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June 19, 2013
by Andrew S. Hinkinson
0 comments

CHICKENS AS PETS: please buy, don’t pirate

standard ebook cover newname 381x500 CHICKENS AS PETS: please buy, dont piratePlease be advised a man by the name of Steve Perry is offering pirated copies of a number of chicken ebooks via Facebook. The page he set up to do this has already vanished, perhaps because of Facebook getting involved but the site generally can’t be relied upon to tackle criminal abuses.

I am now told he is offering the CHICKENS AS PETS ebook, although when we banned him from the book’s Facebook group and page, he was not including the book in his list.

I am not angry. Piracy is a fact of life in this digital age. It was always going to happen eventually, sooner or later. It is often said by pirates, though, that they are all about freedom and yet it is the poorer content producers who suffer the devastating loss of income while the richer content producers barely feel a financial hit.

In what way is an illegal distribution system that impacts most heavily on the lowest-paid artists and writers somehow noble, just and socially responsible?

I do not make a lot of money from CHICKENS AS PETS. It took me three months to write and design the iPad edition, another month’s work to produce the Kindle/ebook editions and six weeks to then produce the paperback. Most months I earn less from my labours as a writer than I would get on state benefits.

I put in several hours of work every day, all year round, offering people support in the CHICKENS AS PETS social network communities, for which I receive no pay at all. That isn’t in any way a complaint. The least anyone can do is buy my book, which is not expensive, as a thank you. But I don’t demand it of them. I do, however, demand that if people want to read the book, they must buy it and support me as a writer or I go under financially, simply put. I cannot live on fresh air and being appreciated.

Just because a book is a bestseller does not mean I have a JK Rowling bank balance. A book can be a bestseller if it sells only a thousand copies a year. Do the math.

To pirate any creative work is to rob artists and writers but to pirate books that are not mainstream, are not bought by people in their millions, is to rob people who are not rich and the loss of even one book purchase is damaging. People who do this are not helping authors or the communities they write their works for. If even works aimed at relatively small demographics, like the global chicken-keeping community, which even when taken as a whole is made up of less people than the number who bought, say, Fifty Shades of Grey, are pirated, writing books for such communities becomes untenable.

The ebook is £2.99 for goodness’ sake. The iPad edition and paperback £5.99. A packet of cigarettes costs more!

As soon as someone is able to provide me with proof in the form of one of his posts that he is indeed illegally distributing free copies of my own book, I will be straight onto the police to report him for stealing my work. As is, I have already added my own complaint to Facebook along with others who are affected.

Please do not accept stolen goods, which is what pirated ebooks are. Thank you. Meanwhile, I would love the opportunity to grab three months of this man’s wages, for whatever job he does, out of his hand. See how he likes it. I am sure he would approve. Wouldn’t he?

 CHICKENS AS PETS: please buy, dont pirate

June 19, 2013
by Andrew S. Hinkinson
0 comments

Why is Saatchi still employed by the Evening Standard?

Why is this fan of strangulation as an emphatic ‘gesture’ still writing for the Evening Standard?

Why, because he is rich and powerful, of course. You can do almost anything when you are rich and powerful. Other men would be charged; Saatchi gets a caution to spare his protracted shaming through the legal system in the hope that this story will be forgotten by the next time his wife appears on the telly. Hopefully without bruises on her neck.

Nigella should walk, take the kids with her and slice a fair amount off Saatchi’s money pile in the divorce. She might not. Relationships and people are complicated, our choices always our own irrespective of what others think.

And why has the article linked to has been categorised under ‘art and design’ by The Guardian? Yes, we know about Saatchi’s love of pickled sheep but this is a story about domestic abuse—not art. If a writer committed murder, would news of it be published in the literary section? Could a shoplifting scientist expect his crime to be reported alongside news of breakthroughs in fighting cancer?