Let me give you enough rope to hang yourself with.

Okay - I wasn't going to post today because I am heading off for a week's vacation during which I may or may not post, depending on whether or not I see examples of "cow-gnitive dissonance."

But this morning I woke up to this article, and I HAD to post about it. As a Canadian, my news is filled at the moment with reports from two big events - the Toronto Pan Am games, and the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede is a long-standing Alberta rodeo tradition which often involves Canadian politicians showing up in funny hats:

Well, the big news today is that American cattle roper "Tuf Cooper" (hee) has been disqualified from the rodeo because he "aggressively" whipped his horse during his event because it was slow out of the gate. The position of the Calgary stampede is that "using a rope as punishment or correction is unacceptable under the Stampede’s animal care protocols."

Well, that's good news, I guess. Except… isn't it a bit strange that this is the position the Stampede takes because a man used a rope in a negative way on his horse in THIS EVENT: 

Now, I want to be clear that neither of the men pictured above are Tuf Cooper. Let me just check and see…

Oh. Nope. Here's Tuf. It's awful.

CBC quotes Cooper's defence, via his agent: 

"Tuf would never harm any animal let alone his own horses. Tuf treats his horses like royalty and their health and well-being are top priority … All rodeo athletes have respect for the animals involved in the sport and would never intentionally harm them."

Yep. That picture shows that he's giving that calf total respect, y'all.

The disqualification has been covered by the CBC and the Toronto Star , but neither make reference to the  obvious cognitive dissonance here. BOO.

To make your day better, here's a picture of a calf not being chased and bound:

This little Piggy had roast beef… and this little Piggy was symbolic of cognitive dissonance.

This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy had roast beef
And this little piggy had none.
And this little piggy said "wee, wee, wee, wee," 
All the way home. 

You can make the argument that many nursery rhymes are just catchy forms of psychological child abuse. It's not that hard. Think about the poor blind mice who have their tails chopped off by the farmer's wife, Jack and Jill who suffer traumatic head injuries, or the children who "all fall down" because they have caught the plague.

Even when I was a little kid, I found the "roast beef" line weird. Now, I have NEVER liked roast beef. Even when I was eating animals, I didn't like eating cows.  Except for hamburgers.  Which, I admit, is pretty trashy.  It's like the way I like Britney Spears more than I like Mariah Carey. I know Mariah Carey is a much better singer and therefore a better product. Don't care. Team Britney.

But what is really off-putting about that line is that, even though pigs are notorious for being omnivores who CAN eat almost anything, roast beef is a really… prepared product. It is impossible to imagine roast beef without also imagining the pig sitting down to a table complete with cutlery, napkins, a glass of wine, etc. It's just… weird. Check out this illustration of the song, which features a particularly realistic - and gross - depiction of the roast beef:

Okay, so we can all see that this is strange, right? (Also, this pig really comes off as a total d-bag for not offering sad little piggy behind him something to eat. Look at that smug face.)  Well, get ready, folks - because this is even stranger.

Today's photo comes courtesy of "The Best Little Pork Shoppe" in Shakespeare, Ontario. 

 I CANNOT drive by this place without feeling totally freaked out by these lane posts (there is a second one on the other side of the driveway.)  Ostensibly, they are there to provide light: that's what the pig is holding up in his hoof.  Of course, we have the ever-present personification (why oh why would people want to make animals look MORE human in order to entice other people to eat those animals?!?), but it's the clothing and the posing that I can't get past. First of all, this pig is a CHEF - presumably selecting and preparing members of his own species for human consumption.  Look at the grill spatula in his front pocket!

And just as disturbing is this pose.  Either I am a total perv or this pig is downright flirting with me. It's the hand on the hip, the chin over the shoulder… the slight smile that says "Hey honey… want me to cannibalize some of my own species for your enjoyment? C'mon… you know you want to." Come to think of it, I really should have gone behind the statue to take a picture of its ass end. I mean, doesn't it look like it's some kind of sexist centrefold where the model wears just an apron barely covering her boobs and vagina?

Wait. Wait. WAIT.

Please tell me that this isn't some kind of oblique reference to "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas."

Ew.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Okay, that's enough cow-gnitive dissonance for one post. Let's try to shake off this horror and look instead at a picture of what a real pig looks like.

Today's picture is a little different, because I actually know where this pig lives! This is Esther The Wonder Pig - the media sensation who was bought to be a "teacup" house pet and who grew to be over 600 pounds. Rather than rejecting her, her wonderful owners overcame their own cognitive dissonance, became vegan, and opened a sanctuary for Esther and other farmed animals. You can read Esther's full story here and become her Facebook friend here. Come to think of it, why not just donate to Esther and the other animals at the "Happily Ever Esther" Sanctuary here?

This little piggy has a good life.

Mother's Milk

This is a bit of a diversion from cultural images as representations of cognitive dissonance, but I thought it was worth a mention.

I saw "Mad Max: Fury Road." And it was GLORIOUS. Crazy, exhausting, plot holes as big as my head… but SO GREAT. So much action. So much car chase! So much flames from guitars! So much everything!  (Note: small spoiler follows)

Anyhoo, I was totally blown away by the brief, very disturbing, but incredibly on-point depiction of "mother's milk" in the film.  In Immortan Joe's cruel dictatorship, enslaved women are forcibly impregnated then, after they give birth, the women are hooked up to "milking machines" while they cradle their dead children. Presumably the children have starved because the milk is given to the ruling class to consume, and the women are forced to continue to cradle them in order to keep up their milk production.

It is horrifying. And it is not that different than how we get milk from cows. The cows are forcibly impregnated, allowed to feed their calves for, at most, a few days, so that the calves can gain vital nutrients, and then the calves are forcibly removed so that the cows can be milked. This will continue until the milk dries up, and then the cows are impregnated again. The calves then become part of the veal production industry.  A lot of people don't eat veal on principle: but there would be no veal industry if there were no dairy industry.

Interestingly, a lot of bloggers have taken great care to point out that Joe's intended sex slaves (rescued by Furiosa) are gorgeous, and the milk-producers are "obese." I get it - of course Joe wants the most beautiful women available as his wives/sex slaves and to bear his children. But it's kind of more than that - the milk-producers are obese because they have recently given birth, and have spent the days after their birth immobile, attached to milking machines.  Joe has created the "unattractive milkers" in the same way that he has forced his intended "brides to wear only sheer muslin under their chastity belts.

Anyway - good job, Mad Max. I don't know if your movie made anybody else think about diary production, but your take on it is RIGHT ON.

Now, to brighten your day, here is what a real baby cow looks like when it gets to stay with its mom and not become veal. This is also what a female cow looks like who is not hooked up to a milking machine.

Chicks, man.

Wow - life has run away with me and I have been woefully late in updating the blog. BUT:

This is a photo that I took in February in Toronto.

It was a lovely day in the city; there were big, fluffy snowflakes falling all day long. Everything was pretty and picturesque until I stumbled upon this lovely example of cow-gnitive dissonance.

I don't know if "Chester Fried Chicken" is a Canadian or American company - I seem to recall seeing more of them in my youth than I do now. KFC is everywhere in Canada, and we also have a chain called "Mary Brown's Fried Chicken" up here.

What I find fascinating about this campaign is the apparent link between the chain's name and it's logo. KFC, for example, still features pictures of Colonel Sanders (who was, by the way, really a retired Colonel. Also, he got his famous white suits made… where?  TORONTO!) and Mary Brown's Chicken features a picture of a pretty lady. These chains feature the pictures of the people who (presumably) are COOKING your chicken.

Note: Of course, this is not the case. Your chicken is being cooked by any number of people who are likely underpaid for their hard work and I could go on and on about that for DAYS.

But good old "Chester Fried" features a picture of the chicken itself, looking downright happy to be eaten. Once again (and I sense that this is going to be a pretty constant theme on this blog) we have personification. He's clearly southern: look at his jaunty cowboy hat! Look at the sassy bandana! (Um.. are we really meant to think that this chicken is herding cattle as his day job before he is killed and fried?) Most of all, look at his simultaneously relaxed and encouraging pose! One hand is behind his head, and the other gesturing up at the name of the restaurant, as if to say "Hey! You know what would hit the spot after a long day of herding cattle? Gettin' killed and fried up good! C'mon in, y'all! YEEE-HAWWWWW!" 

Weird, right? I'm not the only one who thinks that this is weird, right?

Let's get back to what matters, and appreciate what chickens really look like: 

Holy Chuck!

Holy Chuck is right!  What the Chuck is this?

This sign is the reason I started this blog. I used to walk past this sign every day on my way to work in Toronto - but I didn't think anything of it until I stopped eating animals.

There is so much WTF all over this thing that I don't even know where to start. Whether it's the cow on its hind legs (personification), the presentation of his own head on a platter in the manner of a waiter or butler (butlerfication) or the head itself being replace by a fully loaded cheeseburger (burgification) - this sign is bananas.

Also - I get that "Holy Chuck" is simply a play on "Holy Fuck," but the fact that the decapitated, smiling head has a halo over it is STRONGLY implying that people who eat here are going to go to hell. Or some kind of cow hell, at least. That is LITERALLY the only reason I can think of that this poor butler-cow would be smiling at this very moment.

I thought for a moment about trying to find a picture of a real decapitated cow in order to prove the cognitive dissonance that I am talking about here, but then I figured, hey; if you're here reading this blog it's because you a) know me or b) have googled yourself down into some kind of vegan, animal rights rabbit hole, and you might not want to look at such a horrifying image because that's not what you came here for. I know you're picking up what I'm putting down in this blog. Instead, let's look at a picture of what a cow really looks like, to remind us why the chucked-up sign above is full of chit.

Co(w)gnitive Dissonance

Here's the thing.

When you stop eating animals, you become much more aware of the world around you. You have a heightened sensitivity to images of animals that you see.  This can apply to cute kitten videos on Youtube, to horrific images of animal cruelty posted by animal rights groups online, or to photos of your friends' pets.  You feel closer to all animals because you don't eat the ones that your society says it's okay to eat (one day we might get to the great horse debate.  France says Yay! Canada says Neigh! Did you see what I did there? Neigh!)

One of the things that I have become most sensitive to were the images of animals that are used to sell animal products, PARTICULARLY food made out of animals.  The cognitive dissonance here is stunning.  How did I not notice it before? If we consume animals because we are supposedly blissfully ignorant about the suffering that they live to before meeting an untimely end, how is this marketing method not only possible, but profitable? Even more weirdly, animals in these ads are often personified. How does seeing a personified animal on a restaurant sign or bacon package want to make us eat that animal? Even more importantly, why does seeing the animal not make us question the ethical choice of eating it?

I dunno.  I'm not a psychologist. I'm just an English teacher trying to live a vegan life and (full disclosure here) not always being successful. I'm still learning. But WOW does this not make sense to me. And that's what we call cognitive dissonance.

So, here's my little blog about it. Maybe no one will ever see it. But maybe somebody will, and they will think twice about eating that little piggy. Because the ads SHOULD be reminding us that these are living, sentient beings who should not have to suffer because "Bacon, Yum!"

If you read this blog, thanks a lot. You've already made my day. :)