Artist starves dog to death for "art," and he's been invited to do it again

That has really upset me, that little dog reminded me of my beloved little dog who died four years ago, only he went thin through illness. Heartless bastards!
 
Just want to say that in those photographs, the dog has dignity.

I think that the more people that know about this the better. I will sign the petition. Where are the animal extremists when you need them though?
 
He should have cared for it over those several days, let it have human contact/love, food and brought it back to a healthy state. Maybe even have someone adopt it. That would be art.

I signed it.
 
It's f***ed up is what it is. But if you raise concerns then the ultra liberals will defend the exhibit claiming that it's art and is protected under the 1st.
 
It's f***ed up is what it is. But if you raise concerns then the ultra liberals will defend the exhibit claiming that it's art and is protected under the 1st.

Do you think it is that simple? You're creating this imaginary group of people, "the ultra liberals", and then imagining a defense they will believe in, that really has nothing to do with the first amendment.

When I say "imaginary group", I'm not saying that there is no such person as can be classified an "ultra liberal" by some standard. It's quite possible that we would be able to agree that "person" is (of identity) "ultra liberal", and quite possible that a majority vote here might agree on this also.

But when you start talking about "the ultra liberals" or "the Catholics" or "the Americans", to name three, I am saying that it's going to be impossible to make a list of qualifications that any number of people fit into.

I don't really use terms like "ultra liberal" or "ultra conservative", so I can't speak for myself, and I can't really speak for you, but allow me to try, to make the point. I believe that some people that would qualify as "ultra liberal", or at least "liberal" in your book, would not only not think this was protected by the first amendment, but would think that the proper response to this "art" is violence against the artist.

It's certainly not covered by the first amendment since it happened in Costa Rica, but that's beside the point. If it were in the US it would be illegal because you can't just do anything and call it "art" and that makes it legal. Some artists do create art that is meant to cause controversy, and they do invoke the first amendment, sometimes in ways that I feel is undeserving, but then, you have to take the good with the bad.

My whole point is that you can't use this pretty much universally condemned action by this artist to discredit this group that, again, don't exist in any real way, and that have nothing to do with it.

It's like if you compared the meat industry to the Nazis. Isn't it?
 
Do you think it is that simple? You're creating this imaginary group of people, "the ultra liberals", and then imagining a defense they will believe in, that really has nothing to do with the first amendment.

When I say "imaginary group", I'm not saying that there is no such person as can be classified an "ultra liberal" by some standard. It's quite possible that we would be able to agree that "person" is (of identity) "ultra liberal", and quite possible that a majority vote here might agree on this also.

But when you start talking about "the ultra liberals" or "the Catholics" or "the Americans", to name three, I am saying that it's going to be impossible to make a list of qualifications that any number of people fit into.

I don't really use terms like "ultra liberal" or "ultra conservative", so I can't speak for myself, and I can't really speak for you, but allow me to try, to make the point. I believe that some people that would qualify as "ultra liberal", or at least "liberal" in your book, would not only not think this was protected by the first amendment, but would think that the proper response to this "art" is violence against the artist.

It's certainly not covered by the first amendment since it happened in Costa Rica, but that's beside the point. If it were in the US it would be illegal because you can't just do anything and call it "art" and that makes it legal. Some artists do create art that is meant to cause controversy, and they do invoke the first amendment, sometimes in ways that I feel is undeserving, but then, you have to take the good with the bad.

My whole point is that you can't use this pretty much universally condemned action by this artist to discredit this group that, again, don't exist in any real way, and that have nothing to do with it.

It's like if you compared the meat industry to the Nazis. Isn't it?

I never advocated violence against the so called "artist." However I invoked that the super left would invoke the first amendment because they have in the past with other so called exhibits that are just as shocking and disturbing.

I cite the exhibit in the Brooklyn Museum of Art about ten years ago where an artist displayed a painting of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung. That is art? That is offensive. I am sick and tired of a the double standard that exists.

If I take a copy of the Koran and adorn it with dog feces that will not be considered "art" and it will be reviewed as a candidate for being a "hate crime" here in NY.

An artist can depict the crucifixion in urine. However it is inappropriate to put a swastika over a picture of hacidic jews as that is considered inflammatory and also reviewed as a hate crime.

Point is certain depictions or attacks against certain groups seem to be covered under first amendment symbolic expression rights while other depictions of other groups are not.

If a black man attacks a white man it is a crime. If a white man attacks a black man, Al Sharpton puts on a fresh suit and has a march calling for that person's head.

You want a specific example. Don Imus lost his job for Nappy Headed Ho. No one blinked an eye as Star mentioned words like "whitey" and mocked stereotypes and generalizations of whites on his program here on Hot 97 in NY. That was classified as satire. Read about his views on how and why he presents whites the way he does here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troi_Torain. He was only released after calling for the sexual molestation of a rival DJ's four year old daughter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_97#DJ_Envy_and_DJ_Star_feud

Society seems to pick and choose which groups of people are protected and which are not because of the uber-liberal-sensitive-to-past-events-movement.

Point is there are some things no matter what you try and explain to me that should not be protected under first amendment rights. I look forward to the day that we are completely past political correctness that we can revise some of the trends in prosecutionatory interpretation of laws concerning first amendment privilege that we see today. If pissing on the Koran is not protected neither should pissing on Jesus. If pissing on Jesus IS protected then I should be allowed to piss on the Koran. You cannot have it both ways.
 
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I never advocated violence against the so called "artist." However I invoked that the super left would invoke the first amendment because they have in the past with other so called exhibits that are just as shocking and disturbing.

I cite the exhibit in the Brooklyn Museum of Art about ten years ago where an artist displayed a painting of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung. That is art? That is offensive. I am sick and tired of a the double standard that exists.

If I take a copy of the Koran and adorn it with dog feces that will not be considered "art" and it will be reviewed as a candidate for being a "hate crime" here in NY.

An artist can depict the crucifixion in urine. However it is inappropriate to put a swastika over a picture of hacidic jews as that is considered inflammatory and also reviewed as a hate crime.

Point is certain depictions or attacks against certain groups seem to be covered under first amendment symbolic expression rights while other depictions of other groups are not.

If a black man attacks a white man it is a crime. If a white man attacks a black man, Al Sharpton puts on a fresh suit and has a march calling for that person's head.

You want a specific example. Don Imus lost his job for Nappy Headed Ho. No one blinked an eye as Star mentioned words like "whitey" and mocked stereotypes and generalizations of whites on his program here on Hot 97 in NY. That was classified as satire. Read about his views on how and why he presents whites the way he does here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troi_Torain. He was only released after calling for the sexual molestation of a rival DJ's four year old daughter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_97#DJ_Envy_and_DJ_Star_feud

Society seems to pick and choose which groups of people are protected and which are not because of the uber-liberal-sensitive-to-past-events-movement.

Point is there are some things no matter what you try and explain to me that should not be protected under first amendment rights. I look forward to the day that we are completely past political correctness that we can revise some of the trends in prosecutionatory interpretation of laws concerning first amendment privilege that we see today. If pissing on the Koran is not protected neither should pissing on Jesus. If pissing on Jesus IS protected then I should be allowed to piss on the Koran. You cannot have it both ways.

I realize that you didn't advocate violence. My point was that you are talking about "ultra liberals" as if that is a definable group of people that would all agree on this issue.

I'm not a math whiz, but maybe that's the best way to talk about the point. Words mislead, that's my point. If you go around talking about "ultra liberals" you are labeling a set of people. Once you start to look at this set though, it's made up of smaller subsets that are going to have contradictory viewpoints.

Let's say that enough of your "ultra liberals" believe that Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" is art that should be protected by the first amendment, that we can call it 100%. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that:

100% of ultra liberals believe that "Piss Christ" is art, and is protected by the first amendment.
Now, some percentage of these people are going to believe that the "art" in question here, the starving dog, is also protected by the first amendment.
Some other percentage is going to believe that animals have rights, and that it is not protected by the first amendment.

So we're not able to make true statements using general terms. That's my whole point.


Personally, I place Andres Serrano in a different category than the guy that did the elephant dung art. That's probably not important but since we're talking about it, one of them, in my opinion is an artist and the other just wants to piss people off. Sometimes the lines blur.

Don Imus made his remark in a different context than this other person you refer to, but instead of complicating things by discussing what blacks might say about whites, let's talk about what blacks say about blacks.

Why is it accepted that a person like Snoop Dogg can make remarks repeatedly about blacks, that if someone like Don Imus makes them, it's an outrage?

First of all, I think that Don Imus was wrong, as he admitted, and his remarks did seem racist. But when people like Snoop Doog or others use racist language there's some awfully faulty justification about "reclaiming" words like "n*****". If Don Imus had said "n*****"... words fail. It would have been a complete hysterical meltdown. Maybe you think it was anyway, but I think you'll agree it would have been worse. His language came across as an attempt at humor, a spontaneous remark that probably revealed his inner feelings, but that I don't think was mean spirited, and meant no harm.

Still, as far as people like Snoop Dogg are concerned, I'm not for censorship, and I even listen to some of this music occasionally. I just don't take it as seriously as I might if rap hadn't turned into such a mess, in my opinion.

I want to say a little more about the elephant dung guy. He came after the blow up about the Andres Serrano work. It could almost be looked at as a comment on that, and as such, begrudgingly, you might consider the possibility that it really is protected speech. But more important is that, if works like Serrano's weren't given an automatic bonanza of free publicity by the attempts at censorship, that work might never have existed. I think it was a cheap ploy, but it was made "important" by the fact that it was controversial.

It's sort of like how you should ignore trolls. Some of the people in public life, or attempting to be in public life, should be ignored. I suppose you could actually believe that a photograph of a crucifix with an effect that turns out to be achieved by its being suspended in urine, might be the same as "pissing on Jesus". I don't think so. You could read about the artist and his other works and he actually is doing something artistic. If not for the title you wouldn't know what was happening in that photo.

But I'm not going to try to change your mind on that. This is obviously an informal place to trade views, and we shouldn't have to work on our posts as if we were writing a paper, but your general statement about what you imagine ultra liberal's views would be on this doesn't ring true, and I tried to explain why it is in fact, not true.
 
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I realize that you didn't advocate violence. My point was that you are talking about "ultra liberals" as if that is a definable group of people that would all agree on this issue.

I'm not a math whiz, but maybe that's the best way to talk about the point. Words mislead, that's my point. If you go around talking about "ultra liberals" you are labeling a set of people. Once you start to look at this set though, it's made up of smaller subsets that are going to have contradictory viewpoints.

Let's say that enough of your "ultra liberals" believe that Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" is art that should be protected by the first amendment, that we can call it 100%. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that:

100% of ultra liberals believe that "Piss Christ" is art, and is protected by the first amendment.
Now, some percentage of these people are going to believe that the "art" in question here, the starving dog, is also protected by the first amendment.
Some other percentage is going to believe that animals have rights, and that it is not protected by the first amendment.

So we're not able to make true statements using general terms. That's my whole point.


Personally, I place Andres Serrano in a different category than the guy that did the elephant dung art. That's probably not important but since we're talking about it, one of them, in my opinion is an artist and the other just wants to piss people off. Sometimes the lines blur.

Don Imus made his remark in a different context than this other person you refer to, but instead of complicating things by discussing what blacks might say about whites, let's talk about what blacks say about blacks.

Why is it accepted that a person like Snoop Dogg can make remarks repeatedly about blacks, that if someone like Don Imus makes them, it's an outrage?

First of all, I think that Don Imus was wrong, as he admitted, and his remarks did seem racist. But when people like Snoop Doog or others use racist language there's some awfully faulty justification about "reclaiming" words like "n*****". If Don Imus had said "n*****"... words fail. It would have been a complete hysterical meltdown. Maybe you think it was anyway, but I think you'll agree it would have been worse. His language came across as an attempt at humor, a spontaneous remark that probably revealed his inner feelings, but that I don't think was mean spirited, and meant no harm.

Still, as far as people like Snoop Dogg are concerned, I'm not for censorship, and I even listen to some of this music occasionally. I just don't take it as seriously as I might if rap hadn't turned into such a mess, in my opinion.

I want to say a little more about the elephant dung guy. He came after the blow up about the Andres Serrano work. It could almost be looked at as a comment on that, and as such, begrudgingly, you might consider the possibility that it really is protected speech. But more important is that, if works like Serrano's weren't given an automatic bonanza of free publicity by the attempts at censorship, that work might never have existed. I think it was a cheap ploy, but it was made "important" by the fact that it was controversial.

It's sort of like how you should ignore trolls. Some of the people in public life, or attempting to be in public life, should be ignored. I suppose you could actually believe that a photograph of a crucifix with an effect that turns out to be achieved by its being suspended in urine, might be the same as "pissing on Jesus". I don't think so. You could read about the artist and his other works and he actually is doing something artistic. If not for the title you wouldn't know what was happening in that photo.

But I'm not going to try to change your mind on that. This is obviously an informal place to trade views, and we shouldn't have to work on our posts as if we were writing a paper, but your general statement about what you imagine ultra liberal's views would be on this doesn't ring true, and I tried to explain why it is in fact, not true.

My post was more centered on what is considered protection under the first classified as symbolic speech.

I know that you never charged me with advocating violence but there are some that do not follow the whole thread or skim through it and would have assumed that I had based upon your comment.

I wish you were in the NY area to hear what DJ Star was saying over the years. I do not have sources for it other than listening to it. You know that I have an affinity for hip-hop music so please take my word as for what I would listen to. Star would make derogatory comments akin to and in the same tone as Imus did. The only difference was that when Imus was called on it, Star had already been fired not for comments about whites but for calling on the molestation of a four year old.

Snoop using the word "n*****" is not relatable to Imus in so much that Star's comments were. Star was a black man making derogatory comments about whites in inflammatory tones.

Don't even get me started on Fat Nicky of Howard Beach. I do not know if you are familiar with that case though.
 
Power 105 DJ Star fired for racist and violent threats

I missed the point about this person not realizing that they had been fired. The recourse here has nothing to do with free speech. We value property more than speech and the people that own Power 105 own the slice of the airwaves that this person was heard on. They have the right to fire an employee, and it sounds like they should have done it sooner. This person has the right to say what they want, but just not on the air, unless they can find some company that wishes to play the controversy game.

Same thing with Don Imus. He can say what he wants to, but if he does it on air he risks being fired and I don't see that as a blow to his first amendment rights.

There's another side to that, though. As companies merge less viewpoints are available, and it's not so much the problem that a person my lose the right to speak, but that the public may lose the right to hear other views, and may come to forget the possibility of other viewpoints.

In a gallery, an artist can express themselves, and the government should not interfere, but people may protest. They have freedom of speech, too.

The difference with the man that let the dog starve is that, if it happened here, he would be breaking laws not protected by the first amendment, and again, some very leftist people might call it free speech, but a lot of very leftist people would believe the dog was cruelly killed. The point is that you can't blame this on the "ultra left".
 
I take it you don't watch the news, then?

I don't, anymore. :tears:

I stopped watching televised news years ago.

This is a bit of a Stalinist thing: "a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

These days of endless war, torture, genocide, ethnic clensing, religious fanaticism, etc. have nearly done me in as far as being able to react to insanity and cruelty. Humans and beasts are slowly dying and being killed in the most senseless ways imaginable every moment. To be aware of it is almost unbearable.

This case, however, really stuns me with the spectacular slowness of it - it is a new kind of decadence. Normally when animals are tortured for pleasure there is an adrenaline rush and a lot of action and/or wagering, as in sport; or we have circuses, where they perform "cute" tricks and wear funny clothes.

This, this is the most focused, pointless, slow, evil expression of human apathy I've seen in ages, and it's done in the name of Art. Art, which is supposed to lift us up and take us out of ourselves, and sensitize us to pain, and become more fully human, is being completely perverted, and we are being asked to not only contemplate, but participate in an act of such senselessnes that we are corrupted. :tears: :tears: :mad: :tears:

On a happier note - It's good to see Elbert Hubbard's name around - I have his volume on Hypatia and Erasmus, two of my heroes.
 
If my life had taken a different path....and i was an animal extremist I'd happily treat the artist with violence.

Cruelty to animals in my mind is worse than cruelty to humans.Simply because if a person cannot show empathy and compassion for a creature so wholly dependent on human kindness what treatment could they inflict on humans?Worse probably.

I hope he gets assasinated or at least if there is a hell he goes there when he shuffles off.
 
This, this is the most focused, pointless, slow, evil expression of human apathy I've seen in ages, and it's done in the name of Art. Art, which is supposed to lift us up and take us out of ourselves, and sensitize us to pain, and become more fully human, is being completely perverted, and we are being asked to not only contemplate, but participate in an act of such senselessnes that we are corrupted. :tears: :tears: :mad: :tears:

I've just seen so many cases of humans doing something like this to other humans that it doesn't suprise me that it's happened to a dog, an animal that many people consider trivial, althought it doesn't sicken me any less.

Irony, much? :confused: You've basically just said you're pro-death penalty. How humane.

People contradict themselves sometimes, it happens. No one's perfect.
 
The people who went to the exhibit and did nothing share the blame IMO

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
 
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