Nope. The primary purpose is to cause the bulls to lose blood, so they’ll be significantly weakened by the time the matador comes out.
Except that, when read that way, all that it means is that someone, somewhere, who holds an anti-running-of-the-bulls stance is a hypocrite. Or that a bunch of people have anti-running-of-the-bulls stances. It fails as an argument, though, since it entirely ignores the arguments that have been presented. If it wasn’t meant to address anyone here, why put it here?
Personally, I can’t see it as anything other than a specific indictment against people here, now, who are arguing against the running of the bulls. However, I’m willing to allow as how that’s not what was meant. I wasn’t being snide when I asked Sparc to clarify.
Taran, instead of acting like a LP that has gotten stuck in a rut; read my posts after the one you just quoted. If that doesn’t help you to see my point try this:
San Fermin is not about cruelty to animals primarily.
The running of the bulls is maybe however doubtfully cruel to the bulls involved.
The thread is supposedly about San Fermin and the running of the bulls!
So far, save a few posts it has however morphed into a debate about the inherent cruelty to animals unvolved in bullfighting and mostly fails blatantly at any kind of even remotely intelligent analysis or critique of San Fermin and the running of the bulls.
Fine, we are in the Pit - so are you suggesting that therefore we should just rant freely and neither read, nor comprehend. nor think? I that case I don’t understand your repeating your case against me ad nauseam, since it doesn’t matter. If, however you do not subscribe to that opinion; stop being an absolute moron and try to read once again what I actually posted.
Which is such a highly offensive statement that it beggars.
Go ahead and show me the legal tally that makes the US more humane than the EU. I couldn’t do the opposite for what it’s worth. Then again I would never go out on such a limb as to propose that I could.
For fucks sake pld, what happened? You get served barbed wire for breakfast or something, or did those freaky aliens come down and steal your brain?
Sparc
Which part is offensive? That these laws exist in the United States (which they, in fact, do)? Or that they probably wouldn’t pass muster in Spain (or Italy, or other countries where Catholicism is more deeply entrenched historically)? If you’re somehow offended by either of those concepts, then “thin-skinned” would hardly be sufficient to describe you.
I didn’t make any claim that the United States was more humane, so your asking for a “legal tally” is just you pissing in the wind, I’m afraid. I double-dog dare you to demonstrate that I did make such a claim. If you can’t, then as soon as you get that apology from Brutus in GD, you can pass it on to me.
My claim, which doubtless you would have understood were you talking with the people in the goddamned thread instead of the Scarecrow, is that neither Catholics nor other religious people get to do every little thing they want in the U.S., because some laws, neutral in intent and applicable to the general public, prohibit certain things. Ergo, a law prohibing such an event as the bull-running, or a bullfight, in the United States, would be perfectly fine even if it ruined a “major Catholic holiday,” since it would apply to everyone.
BTW before anyone even gets started. pld brought up the US and I countered with EU, that is not a straw man. I can explain that to you if you like, but right now I am tired and going to bed.
Sparc
OK so I ain’t going to bed.
What’s offensive? The fact hat your post fucking downright implies that there would be a lack of regulation against harmful and cruel behavior in these parts of the world.
Take the running of the bulls on a legal test across the various state laws over yonder and I’d be surprised if you didn’t find some places where it would be legal.
You’re still arguing cruelty to animals while accusing me of building straw men, when in fact I am the one who wants to argue San Fermin.
As I said, I don’t know what your deal is today, but something bitter seems to have snuck into your morning beverage.
Now I AM going to bed.
Sparc
Which I’ve already said is precisely the case. Quite a lot of people, as a matter of fact. Me included to some extent, since I personally draw lines on animal cruelty based in part on personal values of “cute and cuddly” versus “nasty and stinky.” See, I’m pretty much okay with bullfights, but I unreservedly oppose dog fighting. Am I a hypocrite? Maybe, though I can certainly point to what I feel are some valid distinctions between the two activities. On the other hand, the primary reason I oppose dog fighting is that I like dogs. Bulls? Don’t really care.
Similarly, there are unquestionably many people who oppose bullfighting who don’t give a rat’s ass about any number of objectively comparable cultural practices that amount to animal torture. And to those people, Sparc’s comments are unquestionably on-target.
Boy oh boy, Sparc, you are just determined to read stuff into my posts that I ain’t saying. Please demonstrate exactly, word-for-word, where I claimed that there would be a general “lack of regulation against harmful and cruel behavior in these parts of the world.” Not an absence of one law which specifically would affect San Fermin, but a general lack of cruelty regulations. Please, please, I beg of you, kind sirrah, show me where I made this claim.*
*Hint: I didn’t. For patently obvious reasons. Just because you’re inferring doesn’t mean I’m implying. It means your US v. EU sensitivity meter goes to 11.
My goodness, you people get all worked up over nothing. Can’t we all get along?
I have no appreciation of baseball. It does nothing for me and I have no clue what people may see in it but it obviously does something for a lot of people. Now imagine we discover baseball had some characteristic that makes it impossible to play without doing something we consider very immoral (e.g. the ball can only be made from the scrotum of a member of congress and has to be removed from him alive while he suffers terribly). For me to say the only object of the game is to see the scrotum of a representative thrown around is to entirely miss the game. OTOH, even if there is something to the game, I can object that the price to be paid is too high and it should not be done but that does not detract from the central object of the game.
I am not about to defend bullfighting the way it is done because the cost in animal suffering is too high. But the people who say the object of the bullfight is to torture the bull, just haven’t a clue. The object of the bullfight is to do whatever they do in the best way and the suffering of the bull is an inevitable price. I might agree it is a price which should not be paid but those who say it is the only object of the game are displaying huge amounts of ignorance. I have never been to a bullfight but having seen a few clips and photos I can tell there is a lot more than torturing an animal. If you grow up in that culture there is probably a lot of beauty to be seen. The problem is outsiders do not see any beauty and only see the gore. Again: I agree the beauty may not be worth the price in gore, but do not say there is only gore because it just shows your ignorance.
I am sure the Roman gladiator fights could be quite a spectacle if you are not squeamish. There was art and technique to be appreciated but today we are not willing to pay that price. Bullfighting will probably go the same way but people who condemn it as just animal torture really need to read a bit more.
this page and the following explain in simple terms what the whole thing is about. The photos in this page and many others in that site, tell me there’s something more to bullfighting than torturing an animal, although I may not get it just like I don’t get baseball.
Finally, people who say they root for the bullfighters to get hurt are sick. You may not like what they do but to put the life of an animal above the life of a human being is very sick and very immoral.
And I repeat: the OP was about the running of the bulls which has zero cruelty. It is an opportunity for people (like that 19 year old woman from Kansas) to prove their manhood or their stupidity, depending on your point of view.
I disagree. The matador has placed himself in a mano toro contest of physical prowess. I see nothing wrong with cheering for one side or the other in that contest. And I like underdogs.
a “mano toro”? I’ll have to look that up. At any rate, I still think it is immoral. I may disagree with a person but I will never wish them death as a result of what they do (unless their death prevents more human deaths). You are cheapening human life which is much worse than bullfighting. I may dislike boxing but I would never wish death to a boxer and the fact that “he brought it upon himself” is no excuse. Once you put human life ranking below other ends you are justifying anything, including terrorism and genocide. Human life should be at the very top of the scale. It is not ok to wish death to any person no matter how much you dislike what he does. Even in the case of human life: it is not OK for those who are anti-death penalty to wish death to those who support or implement it. I may be 100% against the death penalty because it is barbaric etc etc, but i would never justify killing those who support it or implement it.
[second hijack]
Um… actually IIRC they aren’t… some specific NA tribe was exempted in that particular regards, and the Florida courts overturned the part of the animal cruelty laws that directly impinged upon Santeria sacrifice. Ain’t pluralism grand?
[/second hijack]
And I’m sure Sparc was not intending to convey this impression but lest anyone be confused: it’s not that the bullfight/bull run is part of the religious exercise, but that the whole of the week-long San Fermín festival in Pamplona (definitely not a second-rate backwater) is a centuries-old religious-cum-folk-culture festival, and the bull run/fights is one of many events, NOT “THE” sole or main purpose of the festival – just the one popularized by Papa Hemingway. There’s tons about Pamplona, Navarra, Euskadi, and Spain, and their people and cultures, that one can enjoy w/o having to bother with the whole taurine violence industry.
The bull run, of course, is to be best appreciated from a high balcony, with a glass of wine in one hand and a señorita on your side, while some clueless Gringo, Brit or Aussie is hurled into the air past you…
Myself, I sometimes run across a bullfight (or a "This Week in Bullfighting"kind of show) on the satellite TVE channel. Most of the time they’re… well, they’re embarassing to tell the truth. Mostly it’s clear Señor Toro would rather be elsewhere, bound balls or no bound balls (no shit!), and in any case it’s slooow and sitting through an entire afternoon of it would end up pissing me off. (BTW, cockfights don’t do jack for me either. Two stupid birds maiming each other. Whee. All that expensive breeding and grooming for death in 30 seconds, truly the Game of Gentlemen :rolleyes: )
As for those who would, rather than roll your eyes, heap your most vicious crimes-against-humanity-grade condemnation upon cultures that practice bloodsport, I can respect that POV. Though it does pain me to know to see people heap so much visceral invective upon other folk – including indirectly many in my homeland, where cockfighting is legal (sigh there goes any hope of Opal showing up around here 
) – and hold the other side of the issue “not worth a flying turd” hearing about, I can understand the strength of feeling based upon a person’s core values.
A person’s core values, sirs, ladies. Not “the” core values of the fucking universe. We can’t prove those cultures are immoral barbarians as a fact, we can just make a judgement based on what we believe is right and wrong.
And BTW I believe it is just plain wrong and a cheap attempt at emotional provocation to attempt to parallel backward cultural practices of animal exploitation with human slavery, gladiatoral combat or even, pld, Female Genital Mutilation. Nowhere near in my scale of values. Indeed even close to insulting on my scale. But YMMV.
I agree. However, no one in the thread is doing that, and I do think that anything written in a thread is implicitly addressed to the participants. But that’s enough on that subject, I think.
As to San Fremin, it’s my understanding that the bulls used in the running are killed in a bullfight later that day. Thus, it’s not possible to separate the two issues; the running of the bulls leads to the bullfighting. I’m not familiar enough with the festival to know whether the two can be separated, but they’re not now, so I’m opposed.
“a mano toro”
bull by hand???
minty, I believe you have fallen for a common misconception: “mano a mano” means hand-to-hand, not man-to-man.
AND in the time it took me to post, sailorhas come in with two EXCELLENT posts, which I applaud.
(Though I do have this wicked urge to wear a Chicago Bulls hat if I’m ever at a corrida.)
>> it’s not possible to separate the two issues; the running of the bulls leads to the bullfighting
Is that so? You cannot imagine a bull running if it is not going to a bullfight. Um, ok, whatever.
The OP is " Pampalona celebrates summer with the running of the fucking idiots", which I interpret to mean “people who run with the bulls are fucking idiots”. I would like to see some reasonable support for that because I do not see how it follows any more than “people who do stuff I dislike are fucking idiots”
Sorry, sailor. That should have been mano a toro. So much for being semi-witty.
I will. There’s a long list of people I’d like to see dead. I actually let out a small cheer when I heard the news that Nixon was dead–and I was at a drunken Young Republicans meeting at the time. And while I don’t actively wish harm on the matador, I do cheer (quietly) for the bull.
Taran, I believe you are corrrect that at least some of the bulls in the run through the streets are later used in the day’s bullfights–which is yet another reason why the bullfight issue is clearly relevant to the running issue.
God damn it, the next person who twists my fucking posts to mean something I did not say . . .
I did not “parallel” FGM and bullfighting or bull-running. I stated that “it’s part of their culture” is not a sufficient reason by itself to defend Practice X, since the same argument could be used to defend practices that are evidently odious. Christ on a crutch. The point was that “cultural importance” on its own isn’t going to cut it – you have to have more reasons than that.
Nowhere did I claim that FGM was similar to/the same as/analogous to/the cultural equivalent of bullfighting. Some of you are going to have to put up or shut up on these alleged claims of mine eventually, or stop putting words in my mouth.
JRDElirious: A face-to-face confrontation or competitive struggle. Besides, “hand to bull” makes a certain amount of sense anyway. Furthermore, Native American tribes are not exempted from peyote laws–see the Supreme Court’s opinion in Department of Something or Other v. Smith (or maybe it was the other way around–I’m feeling lazy about Findlaw right now). And it was the U.S. Supreme Court, not Florida, that decided the Santeria folks could sacrifice chickens to their hearts’ content. That’s the Church of the Lukumi Abalu Bai case (spelling undoubtedly messed up 'cause, like I said, I’m feeling lazy about Findlaw right now).
I remember the Makah’s whale hunt in Washington. People were riled because they were using lances, which cause the whale significant pain. However, the Makah had been whaling for centuries before the ban, and it could be argued that it was a cultural tradition to hunt with lances.
To those who are comparing US laws to Spanish laws, I must reiterate what was said above. The only way for the Spanish laws to change is if the SPANISH want them changed.
Peta is media-savy and obviously managed to do what they set out to do: create debate.
I have worked in the media for 17 years now. Maybe I’m a bit cynical, but whenever ‘news’ is generated because of the effort of a pressure group, I tend to be vary. Why did Peta single out the running of bulls? Why did they protest by running around naked? To create a media event of course. They won’t change the minds of the Pamplonans one little bit. Hard though it may seem, there is quite a bit of debate around animal cruelty and soul searching going on in Spain. A lot of Spanish people I know, say that it used to be the practise of the very Catholic society that Spain was, to think that animals had no soul. Therefore, cruelty to animals was in fact not cruelty. I’m too lazy to check if this was official from the Church, but that the Spanish think it was, shows how heavily ingrained this was on the Spanish.
Opal, I most surely wasn’t targeting you, but I can see how my comments about vegans might upset you. I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.
pld you said:
To me, that’s brushing off sparc’s attempt to argue the bull running/fighting in a wider sense.
To make this clear: I oppose to Peta’s way of turning it into a media circus instead of trying to do something serious about the whole issue. Admittedly, they might do what’s right, in the sense that it’s started a debate. However if the debate turns into people just chiming in a 'ewww, I think it’s a very shallow debate. It didn’t make the Spanish news to a large extent, and I understand that: If a bunch of Germans showed up in Oregon to protest what’s being done at rodeos, the local rodeo fans would say: “Get the fuck out of here, you fucking nazis. This is a free country.”