Wow. This is a great argument for enforcing small laws to prevent people from breaking bigger ones. Case in point – if you don’t stop people for minor traffic violations they’ll soon be eating their pets. Don’t believe me?
Buffalo News reports:
Buffalo police rescued a cat from a Cheektowaga man who apparently was planning to make a meal out of his pet because he thought it was ill-tempered, authorities said Monday.
When Ferry-Fillmore District officers pulled over a car driven by Gary L. Korkuc on Sunday night during a traffic stop, they said they heard a cat crying from inside the trunk and investigated.
What they found has left animal lovers at the SPCA Serving Erie County in shock.
The cat, according to police, was in a cage “marinating” in a mixture of crushed red peppers, chili pepper, salt and oil.
This isn’t a case where the dude kicked the pet because he had a bad day. This isn’t a case where someone lost control for a moment. The dude was MARINATING his cat.
I wonder who would win in a crazy contest, the cat marinater or the stewardess dude who freaked out and jumped out of the plane after grabbing some beers. My money’s on the cat marinater because you don’t just add chili pepper unless you’ve tasted it before and decided “you know this could use some chili peppers.” Scary thought.
August 10, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Obviously, since the cat was alive while "marinating" makes this guy some kind of a wierd kook; but in what way would it be a crime for someone to humanely slaughter and eat his own cat? After all, a cat, dog, rabit, chicken or whatever is only a chatle, a posession. Within reason, we are at liberty to consumme our own possesions, no?
John Vicente
August 10, 2010 at 5:36 pm
What makes the guy really crazy is that he was going to drink a Chardonnay with his meal. Everyone knows it's red wine with dark meat. Sheesh!
August 10, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I don't know about that. How dark is cat meat? My dear departed mother used to make a wonderful octopus stew with red wine. Obviously, a different kind of puss. Anyway, cat, like most unusual meats probaly tastes like chicken, so a nice white wine would not be amiss?
John Vicente
August 10, 2010 at 6:59 pm
It does taste like chicken. My sister assured me that her meal of fried cat in Thailand was quite tasty, even when served with a side of cockroach fried rice. I say a nice Frascati or better yet…Pouilly Fousse. mmmm.
August 10, 2010 at 7:10 pm
You can't write fiction that strange…
In an ironic element, one of the officers who rescued the cat was named Poisson which means fish…
August 10, 2010 at 7:12 pm
I dunno. Most cats I've seen didn't have a heck of a lot of meat on them, so unless "Kitty" was really well fed it wouldn't be worth anyone's trouble to have it for dinner.
Then again Cornish hens are pretty tasty but not very filling either.
August 10, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Was he making catatouille?
— Mack
August 10, 2010 at 8:40 pm
I agree. Its his cat, he can eat it if he wants to. I think marinating it alive may constitute animal cruelty though because it serves no purpose except to be mean. After all, didn't God himself say we could eat whatever we wanted?
August 10, 2010 at 8:50 pm
OMG there are a lot of sick ***** posting here. I hope all of you die slow, painful deaths.
August 10, 2010 at 10:14 pm
I read this just after reading a 1991 news story about Jeffrey Dahmer, which I got to after reading a comment at Erin Manning's blog mentioning a tortured Laotian boy running down the street in Miami (in a list of evils morally equivalent to Hiroshima) and Googling "tortured Laotian boy, Milwaukee".
So I am inclined to think that catching this man now with his marinating cat may have saved the world from another serial killer.
August 11, 2010 at 12:58 am
Anonymous @ 3:50 PM, what should we do? Grab pitchforks, torches, and clubs before taking to the streets?
Get. A. Life.
August 11, 2010 at 2:08 am
OMG there are a lot of sick ***** posting here. I hope all of you die slow, painful deaths.
Quite obviously a "white wine with red meat" sorta person…
August 11, 2010 at 9:55 am
I'm going with the ever-blasphemous taking the Lord's name in vain "OMG there are a lot of sick ***** postings here" person. (Very nice and classy on a Catholic website, mind you.)
As someone who works with animals for a living and is active in animal rescue, this is indeed far from funny after you get over the initial laugh over how bizarre the headline is. I swear reading through Drudge each morning now resembles standing in line reading a supermarket tabloid and often rivals the best tacky material a soap writer could pen.
How many of you knew that animal abuse is the first step for most convicted serial killers? Yep. After the 'high' of abusing and eventually killing animals is gone, they will then move on to humans and continue on with the abuse, torture and killing as they need to fulfill that "need for a rush or high" from dominance, control, etc. over a weaker being. Research has proven this to be very true.
Although many of you feel it's perfectly acceptable to slaughter Fluffy and serve him up for dinner, it's not. Fluffy and Fido are DOMESTIC animals. They are NOT livestock. (And no, I'm not a PETA freak.)
Animal abuse is no laughing matter in this country. I have seen things that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Animals coming into the shelter so emaciated that they cannot stand on their own. Animals held together by duct tape, literally, after surviving a few rounds of dog fighting. Animals with collars embedded INTO the skin of their necks. Animals with gasoline poured over them and various other chemicals. Animals wrapped up in duct tape, literally, to the point where their entire body is covered like a ducttape mummy. This muck isn't funny. Fluffy and Fido are domestic animals. They have a natural instinct to want to provide companionship for their human counterparts and will put up with far more muck than they actually should. They want to make us happy and to please us. That's why they'll sit there and wag their tail and purr even as we sit there and curse at them.
If your animal is annoying you this much – please try to find a decent and more loving home for it via a local animal rescue, your vet, etc. (NOT Craig's List!!!) Marinating a live cat in the trunk of your car with crushed red pepper while contemplating red or white is a sign of serious mental illness.
I think all of us need to stop and think about the situation and ask ourselves – how did we get to this point as a society where stuff like this, dog fighting, dumping animals on the side of a busy highway, leaving an animal behind helpless when you move, etc. is acceptable? It's a sign of more serious behavioral and psychological issues that NEED to be addressed. It also reaks of morality and character defects. As Christians, our priority may be to care for the humans in our lives – but I do think that God probably isn't looking too kindly on those who abuse the "lesser creatures" that He also created. They may not have souls, but they are still here for a purpose.
The other question we need to stop and ask is – why have we gotten to this point as a society where we're acting like this man – or the Jet Blue airline steward that snapped? Why are we telling folks trying to do their job to (F-bomb inserted here) off??? Why do we have to be so rude? So impatient? So unkind to others? What has made us this way? And most importantly – what can we do to turn this ship around and get back to acting in a manner that is reflecting the image of Christ in each of us???
Just a thought…
August 11, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Cats are delightful to the taste and their meat is not easy to tell from that of a rabbit.
Where I come from (Rome, Italy, a place also famous for his stray cats) it happened routinely until some years ago (and it probably still happens now and then) that fraudulent restaurant owners were arrested for serving cat meat to the clients thinking they were eating rabbit. This can go on for very long without one being caught; tells you something about the taste of the meat.
I don't condemn the man's meat tastes, but of course as cats are pets the fact that someone may eat them is repulsive to most (and to me too).
As to me I would never eat a rabbit, either…
M
August 11, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I live now in England and when I tell people that Italians routinely eat horse meat some people look at me in a very strange way. Apparently here in Blighty many people consider a horse a kind of big pet and the eating of horse's meat like eating their own dog…
M
August 11, 2010 at 2:37 pm
I find it interesting that two people have commented about the unethical nature of eating one's pet: the anonymous who didn't use a name but did use the sophmoric abbreviation "OMG" and asterisks to denote people he/she disagreed with and TragicallyUnhipMom, who gave a clear, charitable explanation why she didn't think this was funny.
In terms of rhetorical effectiveness, TragicallyUnhipMom FTW!
I'm also pretty sure that in an open air market in Bern, there were selling flayed cats. It gave me the heebie-jeebies. I wasn't thinking about what wine one would drink with that. I was thinking about how I would avoid those stalls.
Just my $.02. 🙂
August 11, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I have to say I am very surpirsed and seriously disgused with the "it's my animal and I can eat it if I want" to posts showing up here. We do make distincations in this culture (not Korea, not France, not…fill in the blank) about animals it is OK to eat. Cats (and dogs)are not on the list. Period. For a more detailed explanation, see above.
CGJ
August 12, 2010 at 4:09 am
I don't think anyone here was condoning animal torture, although I can only speak for myself. But as far as the who-can-eat-what-because-I-said-so nonsense goes, I think the term domesticated is being confused with something else. Cows are domesticated too, is what I'm getting at. I think societal taboos do have to be considered when choosing diner but my personal theory as to what really determines the acceptability of eating an animal is, "have you or any other person really loved it?".
If someone has spent the last 10 years taking loving care of an animal, wether it be a dog, cat, or lizard etc. I think more than anything else, thats what takes them off the menu. Love is plentiful but it is by no means cheap. All love comes from God and that makes love divine. So a loved pet has indirectly been touched by God in a speacial way (am I going to far here?). So in my mind a loved pet cat and the cat on the street that goes to close to a chinese restraunt are in no way the same.
Theres a line from the book The Little Prince that sums it up fairly well. "You are responsible for what you have tamed".