But not sorry about what I now can only assume was a deliberate falsification of my previous statements?
A “whoops! Didn’t mean to lie about what you said” would go a long way towards earning you a little respect. I’d still think your opinions are bullshit, but you might escape my mental “total jackass” list. Not that you care, I’m sure…
<Reviewing my post, just prior to your quoted post> Nope, no offers of gross bodily harm there.
However, you seem to have missed my point entirely. I don’t care if it was a cat, a dog, or a human. These persons show dangerous levels of sociopathy, and since we’ve got legal pretext to lock them up, let’s do so and see if we can’t get their heads bolted back on straight. I certainly don’t want people with that level of demonstrated callous malliciousness wandering loose if they can be safely and legally isolated while their major malfunction is addressed.
Don’t hand me this crap about what those worthless fucks did being “art” because it evoked strong emotions in people. The Holocaust evokes strong emotions in people, but none dare call it art! Prowrestling evokes strong emotions in people, and none dare call it art!
Personally, I think that everyone involved in this ought to be shot. (You can start at the toes first, if you’d like.) The so-called artists for producing it, their instructors for allowing them to do it, the gallery heads for not having the balls to come out and say these assholes aren’t artists and what they produced isn’t art.
Yes, I do eat meat, and no I don’t have any pets (I’m never home to take care of them or I would.), but I can see no reason to excuse these actions.
And no, I don’t think that advocating a slow and painful death for these fuckers is overreacting (although, I wouldn’t complain if they got a fast, painless one instead). Its not the fact that they killed a cute, loveable animal. Its how they did it! I know slaughterhouses aren’t entirely humane, but shit, they’re better than what that cat went through.
You know, if these fuckers wanted to make a name for themselves, they could have done all kinds of “artistic” protests in front of a slaughterhouse, that would have gotten them the publicity they wanted. Hell! One of them could have set himself on fire as a protest! 
But they didn’t, they chose the cowards way out. They didn’t even figure that if they did some kind of protest in front of a slaughter they’d get the shit beat out of them. (Which might have happened.) They chose to cruelly mutilate and torture a defenseless animal, and they must have enjoyed it!!! Because I can’t honestly believe that a true animal lover would be able to do such a thing.
Glad to see my post was taken into account… heh… But I would say in light of the posts I’ve now read, I’m glad not to be counted among your ranks. While I don’t think they should be skewered or maimed, I don’t think the reason is because “cats aren’t sentient” or they don’t matter or something like that. Truth is we have NO FUCKING CLUE what sentience is, what creates it, what creatures have it, or even whether or not its anything more than a figment of our creative minds. So to base a decision like this on whether or not the victim is sentient is like saying “Cats don’t have purple fargletusses”… Do we have purple fargletusses? Do cats? What’s a purple fargletuss? Who knows? It certainly doesn’t have any bearing on deciding if what these people did is wrong or poses a severe threat to “sentient humans” as well. As I said in my first post and tranquilis too, the problem isn’t just the act committed, but the fact that the act committed is sociopathic and these people could very easily either do it again to some more animals (the article I read said they’d done it to a number of animals previously) and is not much of a stretch to do the same thing to humans
Myrr: Whoops, sorry I lied about what you said. I made myself a mistake, as you did not (at first) advocate gross bodily harm. I input the wrong name.
But why did I gain the honor of your Stupidest Thing (etc.) award?
Tranquilis: True, you did not advocae gross bodily harm, but rather a long prison sentence (which may lead to gross bodily harm, but that’s debatable). Must have missed your post as I was typing mine on Notepad. Sorry.
Last time I checked, in the US one may not be imprisoned indefinitly to prevent a possible future crime. And it does matter that the victim was a cat.
I stand by my own sentence recommendation of 3 months (minus time served) and 1,000 hours of community service.
Advocated thus far: (And correct me if I make a mistake)
Jester: Unspecified jail time
obfusciatrist: Unspecified jail time
TubaDiva: Divine punishment (Hell)
ExTank: skinning them alive, and videotaping it. Or dropping them into the tiger cage of a zoo, and catching that on tape.
Fierra, via Anthracite: Sentenced to life, but given a hundered lashes first to flay their backs open, so they could start to feel some of what the kitty felt. And that they share their cell with a socipathic, serial killer, cannibalistic cat-lover, who has a whole collection of toothbrush shivs.
Fenris: skinning them alive, with dull razor, salting wounds
MEBuckner: dropping them into the tiger cage of a zoo, with well-fed tigers.
Kayeby: Communit service at animal shelter (Probably sarcasm, what with rolleyes)
Boscibo: Unspecified suffering
Revedge: Incarceration, unspecified length
red_dragon60: Electricuted anally
Baraqiyal: Inprisoned for more than 3 years
PunditLisa: Someone needs to take these two sadists to a quarry outside of town and beat the living shit out of them.
Sealemon88: So all I need is this “artist”, a videocamera, and a 2x4, and I can finally produce my masterpiece Pretentious Shock Art Is Shit.
Pyrrhonist: I’d serious want to:
A) Smash the bones in their arms, legs, hands, feet, pelvis, shoulder, and jaw
B) Remove their penises and testicles
C) Remove their eyes, ears, tongue, and teeth
Let him stew deaf, dumb, blind, and immobile for the rest of their lives.
SpaceGhostofArrakis: The way I see it, is we can go, get the steamin’ hot tar, pour it on top of those fuckers, add the feathers. Voila! Instant American Folk art (I wonder if the Canadians had this too).
For added, multicultural fun, we can stick a ballon filled with candy in their stomachs, and than we have a Pinata!
MLC: Skinning alive
Tranquilis: Incarcerate for really long fucking time
Myrr: Years in prison / beating
Anthracite: Unspecified torture, i.e. drawing and quartering as possibility
I mean, people, seriously! They killed a cat for crying out loud!
And I stand by that.
These fucks have demonstrated to my satisfaction that they’re sociopathic. You don’t even begin to fix that in three months. Hell, three months isn’t long enough to determine just how deep the problem goes. Until I’m sure we’re not looking at the next Dahlmer(s) in the early stages (Dahlmer, as did other sociopathic killers, started with animal torture), they oughta be kept isolated. Incarcerated. Detained. Locked the fuck away. People are always bitching about “how society failed to detect these people”, and “how the killer slipped through the cracks”. Well fine. Here we’ve got a great chance to make sure about some potential problems. Let’s make the best of it.
And because they’ve violated a very serious value, one I care about deeply: You don’t torture innocents.
Yeah! I mean… should we main/torture/incarcerate curiosity too?!
[sub]my apologies[/sub]
And once again,
THEY DIDN’T JUST KILL IT, THEY TORTURED IT TO DEATH.
If they’d shot the cat first, even clubbed it to death before starting their personal Friday the 13th movie, then I’d have a lot less of a sense of rage.
Tell me - what’s the worst pain that you’ve experienced? Been shot? Lopped a finger off with a bandsaw? Passed a kidney stone? Got a paper cut? Get out of yourself for a moment and contemplate getting skinned ALIVE, having it deliberately done to you, for no reason that you can fathom. Have some imagination, and perhaps a dose of empathy to imagine what it felt like, even to a ‘dumb’ animal.
Mythos45, you may find it disturbing that someone would choose their animal over another human being. I find it disturbing that torture doesn’t carry any particular weight with you. Talk about numb to fucking horror.
In my original post, the skinning suggestion was intended a bit more flippantly that it came across - I was trying to make a general “If that’s what these fucksticks think is art, would they like to be the subject of their own art?” statement. The baseball bat treatment would be a lot more personally satisfying, actually. But then again I’m often accused (rightly so) of wanting a place on the Karmic Enforcement Squad.
Finally, I don’t believe for a minute that these two fucks actually had anything ‘artistic’ on their mind - They did it to get off, and see how much they could shock people.
/hijack/
Yet another example to give to people who bring up the “why don’t you get this upset when people get killed” argument (the dog being thrown into traffic case).
These fucks haven’t even been arrested, and if/when they are, they will get a small fine and maybe some community service. This is why people get so upset when animals are hurt/killed. There is no punishment given to the guilty.
/end hijack/
As to the OP, no, this is not art IMO. A couple of sociopaths film their actions is not artistic in any way. By that logic, Charles Ng and Paul Bernardo are artists as well.
And before someone comes in with the “only an animal” argument, the step from torturing an animal to killing a person really isn’t that large. The mentality is practically the same.
This thread is declared dead per Godwin’s Law.
I haven’t seen such an outburst since the “Sensation” exhibit (or since Bonsai Kitten, for that matter). If you philistines didn’t get so upset over such ridiculous things, artists wouldn’t bother trying to shock you. And you philistines definitely need shocking, if you’re upset over this tape that nobody’s even SEEN.
If you want to take offense, I’ll give you plenty of reason. In a small town not far from here, a couple of kids went into the local animal shelter and used a baseball bat to obliterate about 20 cats. Not just kill, they smashed them to bits. Sentence: 3 months, suspended.
But of course, the righteous Philistine needs artists to condemn, in order to feel morally superior. So I will warn you right now, do NOT look at the following links, they contain offensive images that are in the collections of the NY Museum of Modern Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Guggenheim, etc etc.
I repeat: Do NOT look at this art:
Artist: Damien Hirst
http://free.freespeech.org/ashh/dh/littlepiggy2.jpg
http://free.freespeech.org/ashh/dh/somecomfortinstal.jpg
(Yep, those are real animals in formaldehyde)
Artist: Joel Peter Witkin
(yep, those are real dead bodies)
No matter how intellectually comfy it may be, nothing is self defining–and that includes art. Just because someone cloaks an action in a label, e.g politics, religion, art, whatever, doesn’t flashdance it past all context.
I’m most deeply repelled by the cynical, vicious, opportunistic fame-groupies who wrap their atrocities in salable form. These “artists” deliberately, coldy tortured a live creature to death to get their names noticed.
They’re contestants in the art world’s Jerry Springer show. Trouble is, the art world is infinitely stupider, vicious and BLIND than Springer could ever stage. It’s just as commerical but much more pompous and self-justifying.
This “art” is vicious, conscienceless atrocities-for-headlines and nothing more. Bread and circuses. Sorry, but this makes me actively ill on so many levels.
Veb
Why on Earth only suspended??? Shit!
No, Chas.E. If you would have posted about the event of the kids smashing the cats, you would have had a similar, if not the same, response from me and Fierra.
I vividly recall the words of the town mayor, who supported the suspended sentence, and said “what’s the big deal, didn’t everyone kill a cat once, when they were young?”
No, I do not condone the abuse of animals or the light sentences given to abusers. But I don’t condone the generalized abuse of artists over this alleged incident. I personally hope this thing is another Bonsai Kitten-style hoax and all the philistines who want to bash artists end up looking like idiots again.
I’m not even ready to concede that the horror of starving to death (over the course of days or weeks) is less severe than that of being skinned (over the course of 17 minutes), but I will say that its easy enough to pick apart the specific examples of everyday cruelty and suffering I provided, but I’m not sure those who bothered to pick apart the specifics really connected to what I was saying.
And to Missbunny in particular: while this is technically the Pit, it has largely been conducted like a GD, with the noteable exception of attacking me as an asshole for admiting that TEN years ago I torched a couple of fucking ANTS.
Its a cat. Seriously, We kill them everyday, we run them over, we let them out of open high rise apartment windows. Don’t get me wrong. As frightening as some of you may find the idea, I have three myself and I love them tremendously and pamper them like children, but at the same time, I’m aware of a level of transference thats happening in the relationship. Its anthropomorphism.
If cochroaches could make cute little doe eyes at us when they’re hungry, then we wouldn’t have entire industries build around the genocide of the whole species.
And who ever nitpicked my digesting in the stomache of a snake story, tell me you honestly believe that the average life on this earth ends with LESS that 17 minutes of horrible suffering? I got a grandma who died of cancer after years of INTENSE suffering. All said and done, I’d take the seventeen minutes I think. Lemme tell you about my friends who died of AIDS. but i think you know. Its a horrible reality to accept that most of the people around you, most of the people and animals in the world, meet painful ends. This kitten met its end (if the story is to be believed) at the hands of some seriously fucked-up guys, but I really have a hard time getting worked up about the damage done. And think that, as i said in my first point, if we are honest and look at the world of suffering that surrounds us, peculiarities of motivation aside, doesn’t stand out as a particularly news worthy.
Chris J
Jesus, what a low-life the mayor must be. “Yup, it’s all a part of Americana, folks. Baseball, apple pie, Mom, and killin’ them cats.”
Or maybe he means it is just an important rite of passage for the typical psychopathic sociopathic teen. “Little league. First kiss. First date. Learning to drive a car. Drinking beer. Torturing a cat.”
Sigh. If only we could add to the list:
“Being hunted down and punished by the Riders of the Dawn.”
I’ll probably come off looking like an immature teenager (which I’ll accept), but when I saw The Cell, that one scene where a horse gets sliced and then spread out made me think “Wow, I could never do that, but that’s amazing”. And then I take a look at that second picture and, well, somebody did it. I just wonder if that was done before or after the movie.
Interesting.
This whole incident is a perfect example of humanity’s paradoxical and sometimes contrary stance on non-homo sapien suffering. As many have mentioned, for every feline meticulously slaughtered by art students of a warped idealism, there’s two or three cows dying slow, painful deaths, sans the false, Dadaist pretense, of course, for the sake of many of our dinner tables. Staring into the slab before ourselves, we can’t possibly believe that each steak dinner comes to us courtesy of a humane and efficient death. Perhaps because of our purportedly “refined” station in the animal hierarchy, we can blink at television news reports of ongoing genocide of people with dark skin in far off lands yet hold forth with an almost disturbing vitriol at the torture of a cat. In other words, since the animal was “beneath” the “artists” and therefore completely in their control, their crime sparks an altogether different outrage (although, as even more have noted, the “uglier,” the more chitinous, the more foreign-seeming, the less mammalian, the more diminished the tone.) What they did was wrong, but butchering the butcherers accomplishes nothing more than entertaining those dark, limbic regions that inspired the cruelty we’d be ostensibly protesting.
Kaje, it was done before the movie. Tarsem, director of The Cell, cribbed his production design from the world of avant-garde art.
Chas E., I can guarantee you that I have never, ever abused or killed a cat. Ever. Nor didany of my high school friends, all those years ago when I was in high school. See, unlike some people, we aren’t sick assholes.
The level of presumption on your part, as to the mental attitudes of those who are outraged by this, is absolutely staggering. You keep using the word “Philistines” as if you’re trying to impress somebody, or have something to back that accusation up. Well, you don’t.
I’ll tell you what. You can reach the investigating officer quoted in the linked story, Det. Scott, at 416-808-1404. Give him a call and ask him if he’s seen the tape. If you don’t, I will. Let us all know what he says.
Oh, and incidentally, when Peta Tzunami and I were trying to get information for minty green’s GQ thread on this topic, she happened to call the Toronto Police Department at the same time that I sent their corporate communications department an e-mail. In that e-mail, I specifically asked if the incident in which some art students are accused of skinning and killing a cat on videotape are true, and the response was:
> Hello Leigh-Anne and Phil,
> In response to both of your e-mails, yes the incident did occur. The fax
> copy of the news release was sent out to you at the same moment that this
> e-mail was sent to us.
>
> Regards,
> Sgt. Martin Hunt
> Corporate Communications
> Toronto Police Service.
Ah, Iowa. I do miss living up there sometimes, psychotic cat-smashing teenagers nothwithstanding. The incident Chas.E describes happened about three years ago, and it happened just as he described it–a couple of asshole teenagers broke into the local animal shelter and killed a couple dozen or so cats with baseball bats.
They got very light sentences because that’s all they could receive under the law they were convicted of breaking. The prosecutor was going for a destruction-of-property sorta felony, but didn’t convince the jury that the cats were worth more than x dollars that would get them to felony level. They were, after all, stray cats, which are basically a dime a dozen, in strict economic terms. So they were convicted of a misdemeanor instead, and sentenced accordingly.
The incident made national news, and prompted the Iowa legislature to strengthen penalties for animal cruelty. I don’t remember what happened to the proposed legislation. The shelter was, happily, briefly innundated with donations and volunteers.