According to the Reliable Source at the Washington Post:
Generation Y finally has its own Jane Fonda, and it is Hayden Panettiere… The bubbly 18-year-old starlet is kickin’ it ’70s style, snagging an arrest warrant for her face-off with Japanese dolphin hunters and raising the roof at a “Save the Whales Again!” rally yesterday in Dupont Circle…
But she really lit up when asked about the incident last fall when she and five other surfboard-riding activists disrupted a Japanese dolphin kill. “It was like ‘Mission: Impossible’! We had masks on… The water was so red with blood… This baby dolphin popped its head up and looked at me…”
No fear of a Fonda-like backlash? “We’re saving magnificent animals. I don’t think anyone objects to that. I don’t trust people who don’t love animals.”
Do you think our favorite lilliputian animal-lover brought her purse? You know, the big leather one she’s selling? Guess animals aren’t worth saving unless they’re “magnificent,” huh?
P.S. It turns out Hayden was wearing a “Save the Whales” sweatshirt and… Ugg boots. (Hint: They’re not made of plants.)
There is one big difference - whales are endangered, cows are far from it.
I guess she kind of nullifies that the second she keeps going on about how much she loves the animals.
Some animals are more equal than others…
I guess I would put the importance of an animal that is endangered and critical to the ecosystems of the oceans, that are being hunted for a populace that doesn’t even want to eat them that much, slightly above cows. If that makes me a hypocrite, oh well.
If you truly love animals, how scarce or plentiful they are shouldn’t matter. Besides, perhaps we’d raise fewer cattle if there wasn’t such a demand for cow leather. Ms. Panettiere has inspired me to buy a whaleskin handbag.
Actually, if you really love animals, numbers DO matter. A balanced ecosystem is much more important than lots of any one type of animal. Do you want more wolves or coyotes because animals matter? No, because it would lead to an upset ecosystem, and according to your own logic, so do the wolves’ or coyotes’ prey, like rabbits.
I’m not saying that cows matter less than whales, only that having more of any given animal is not always right. Humans do a lot of unnecessary mucking about with ecosystems, and the point is we need to stop it and make a positive imprint on our environment.
The two major differences with cows are (1) the cow is frequently in a segregated, isolated ecosystem of a “farm,” and (2) a cow is going to be milked and/or eventually killed for meat. I make no positive argument for either point in terms of its VALUE (good or bad, conditions under which cows are kept, etc.). That’s a gray area at BEST. But it is a fact that cows are going to be killed, and we might as well use leather that’s coming out of that process.
People frequently tout Native Americans for their ability to use every part of a killed animal, and I agree that was a great thing. I’m trying to compare this situation to that, but remember, dead buffalo skin was also used as leather.
another hollywood wingnut, oh well, someone should tell her whales and dolphins are mammals. just so she knows, shes lucky the japanese didn’t harpoon her.
Firsties, you guys are just picking on her.
This is an old joke about why Peta sprays blood on old ladies in fur coats, and not Hell’s Angels.
Secondies, we feed and pen cows, not whales. Cows in India would be fine without people, but the varieties of cow Europeans hold dear are like the silk moth–if we stopped farming them, they’d all die. They have no natural state. The survival has been bred out of them. If you love animals, ceasing their commercial use doesn’t always guarantee a better life or continued survival–if we stopped making paper out of trees most forests would be converted to soybeans.
Lastlies, ethical questions are not as simple or as stupid as you make them out to be.
Leather comes from cows, scotch tape comes from a company that won’t put mustard seed in their rubber cement because of the money they’d lose when kids quit huffing it, Movies come from studio executives who never read books or see plays who think the masses are stupid and use that assumption to adulterate every creative project they can buy and shred in committee.
We’re consumers, and if you hold our values up to where our money goes, most of us support people and things we don’t love. What else is new?
Hayden who? And why do I care what she thinks?
Which breed of whales were being hunted in this instance?
The reason I ask is because not all whales are on the endangered list.
Gosh, I eat steak and wear leather boots. Guess it’s cool, then, if I have some dogfights and kill some kittens, right?
Are you wearing them at a Save the Doggies and Kitties rally? And do you derive income from their manufacture and sale?
Big deal, a hollywood spoiled brat gets attention for something she knows will be hailed by her peers and media as courageous. She should show some real compassion and bravery by standing against a true holocaust: abortion.
That any sane reasonable society would even pay attention to this twit, shows how screwed up things are out there.
So I guess Deciever’s point is that if we can’t save them all we shouldn’t bother saving any of them. Way to go. [If that was my point, that's what I would have said. -- SS]
I don’t mind moralizing to celebrities when they deserve it but this is just moving the goal posts to make yourself feel superior.
Liberal guilt.
I agree with DT. Too much of one living thing throws the ecosystem off balance. Homo sapiens need their population controled out of all the living things.
Our numbers are too many and we’re all hypocrites…
Please pass the filet of humpback in veal-cheetah-tiger sauce.
They’re hunting every damn whale they can get their nets on. They say it’s for ’scientific research’, but somehow when they’re doing their ’scientific research’ they keep the meat at such a high quality it can be sold in markets to a populace who isn’t that crazy about it. Basically they are killing a seriously endangered to keep a dying industry alive. I can support that cause, and I own a leather bag.
[Do you sell leather bags? -- SS]
No, but if a designer came up to me and said “You know what Cassandra, you’re an awesome girl, here’s an unlimited budget, go fuckin’ crazy and design the best bag ever”, you’d better believe I’d be selling leather bags.
[And saving the whales! --SS]
I agree with the argumentation, and even though I guess she is trying to promote her celebrity by doing something good, it is all to easy to see trough her “efforts”. Fact of the matter is that a lot of the whaling that Japan does is not warranted; however, some whale species consume so much fish as part of their diet, that if not controlled, would deplete fish species, which in itself is a serious problem. Her efforts are childish, and a pure publicity stunt.. by the way what is she famous for - apart from her leather goods?
Oh give me a break…if I eat beef then I don’t care about ANY animals ??
For crying out loud people, stop being SO righteous, for most of you its an ACT anyway!!
I can eat meat and still love and want to save animals.
Even then, it doesn’t mean I’m going to kick a cow or not get pissed off if they are treated poorly, like that rat-hole that was mean to them and mistreated cows and now has a beef recall !!! I want to kick that guys butt.
Get a grip, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing (and it never will be)
If most people saw what an animal went through they would have a heart and try to stop it from happening and quit doing what caused it to begin with. Have a heart people. Animals have them too. They are always going to be hunted I understand this. But I also agree that it should be done quick and painless no torture or gore. And an endangered animal is even more uncalled for. There has to be a middle ground I agree.
first of all i think that we should all be trying to help out and everyone who is giving haden crap saying that she is like ‘just doing this so that everyone thinks shes so great’ is like stupid. cuz at least she is doing something to help out ps her purse wus really cute lol
well the difference between whales/dolphins and cows is that well, the cows are going to be eaten anyway. why waste the skin, right?
I agree with Jewels. Let’s start with her. (will anyone read something thats this old?)
If someone is representing herself as an animal lover, then that means all animals. Do your research, and get the truth about slaughterhouses and chicken pens. If you saw the blatantly cruel way these animals were being treated, you would think twice about consuming meat. Meat is in a nice packaged presentation at the market and we are blind to how it actually gets there. Hayden and others are appalled by the killing of dolphins because we see the actual slaughter. They are cute and have been publicized as emotional creatures and our heartstrings have been pulled to save the dolphins, while other animals are ignored and continued to be slaughtered for fashion and food. But did you know that we consume more meat than man in the Paleolithic era? Do we need to consume this much meat? Do we need to have leather shoes and bags? People that do are living in the dark. Wake up people!!