Episode 38 Animal Farm

Explicit content warning

08/10/09 • -1 min

Episode 38
Animal Farm
Hello and welcome to episode 38 of Jay Wont darts podcast, where I share my favourite books, kind of like a tall white vegan Oprah.
My intros were from No Agenda episode 117 and the song Optimistic by Radiohead, its one of the many songs that refference Animal Farm, I'll play another for the outro.
George Orwell is known most for his story Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I prefer his earlier work Animal Farm. Animal Farm is a wonderful book mostly aimed at the Soviet Union and Communism, basically all the main characters are based on real life political figures such as Lenin, Karl Marx and Stalin. Other Farms represent the US and UK, and several collective flocks of animals represent social classes of people.
In the preface of a 1947 Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm he explained how escaping the communist purges in Spain taught him quote, "how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries." This motivated Orwell to expose and strongly condemn what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals.
In that preface Orwell also described what gave him the idea of setting the book on a farm
" ...I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat."
Thats a great quote that also relates to animals rights.
One night, Major, an elderly pig on Manor Farm has a strange dream, that the animals could better themselves, and live freely instead of being repressed by humans such as Mr Jones, their farmer. Jones often gets drunk and is not attentive to matters of his farm. The animals begin a revolution and rise up against their oppressor, the humans. And yet, by the end of the book we see things have not worked out so well for all the animals. I'll read part of Major's speech.
There are two main quotes best remembered from Animal Farm.
The shortest and easiest to remember is
"Four legs good, two legs bad"
Another is the original commandments given out by Major,
THE [ORIGINAL] SEVEN COMMANDMENTS:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are created equal.
The last commandment is morphed by the end of the story into
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
I love the ending of the book, the way the pigs change is amazing, I really dont want to spoil the ending for you, its reason enough for you to read this short story.
In Animal Farm, the pigs are generally treated as the most intelligent animals, and probably the sheep are the most dim witted, the sheep act as cheer leaders, mindlessly shouting slogans taught to them by the ruling politician. The pigs start off as being rule by Napoleon and Snowball, Napoleon is more concerned about himself, while Snowball thinks up grand plans to better all animals. Napoleon gathers his own secret police, who on his command drive out Snowball, I love how the secret police come into being, I never expected it, and yet its so logical. I wont spoil that surprise for you.
Napoleon takes control as a dictator, he has the other remaining pigs work for him, there are a few named pigs such as Squealer who acts as second in command, and distributes propaganda and Minimus, who writes songs singing praise of Napoleon.
One of my favourite characters is the minor figure of Moses the Raven, he only shows up a couple of times in the book, but is very important symbolically. I'll read from novelguide.com's character guide, the webpage is in my shownotes which you can see on an iPod by going to the lyrics or you could go to my blog www.jaywontdart.blogspot.com to read my full notes which have sources at the bottom.
"
Moses: Moses is perhaps Orwell's most intriguing character in Animal Farm. This raven, first described as the "especial pet" of Mr. Jones, is the only animal who doesn't work. He's also the only character who doesn't listen to Old Major's speech of rebellion.
Orwell narrates, "The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which al animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lum...

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Episode 37 First Listener Email!

Episode 37, First Listener Email!
Hello and welcome to an EXTRA special episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where for the thousand or so people who've came across my podcast, I've received one email!
I use Feed Burner for my RSS feed and stats, normally I only consider iTunes subscribers to matter, people who want to hear my every episode, you guys are my real fans, who are there for the scare good episodes, and all the terrible ones! Thank you all.
I have a little over 20 main subscribers, mostly Windows iTunes users. Some of my most popular episodes have been listened to by over 300 people, which is pretty cool considering I'm just some weirdo talking about nothing in particular!
I dont know how many of these statistics are actual dedicated listeners, but one day recently I had 19 people in America, 5 hits from the UK, 4 from Germany, 3 from little old New Zealand, 2 from Israel, 1 Australian hit, 1 from Luxembourg, 1 from Austria and another 1 from Mexico. Its pretty amazing to think my voice has been heard all around the world! I dont know how many of those hits were just looking at my feed, and maybe not even hearing a single episode, but they have came across my podcast somehow or rather.
This episode is to thank one wonderful American woman, the first person to email me! Heres the message she left me
Oh wait, that was just a lame joke, heres an actual message, from an actual listener to my podcast, all the way from the other side of the world.
A very big hello to Bea Elliot, who lives in Florida, in the U S of A. You've really made me happy Bea, thank you for contacting me, especially with such a positive message! I'd like to mention Bea's newest blog, Once Upon a Vegan, which you can find if you go to http://beaelliottvegan.blogspot.com/ , thats b.e.a, e.l.l.i.o.t.t vegan . blogspot.com, bea elliot vegan . blogspot . com . Bea is working on a podcast which I hope will be on iTunes soon, I really cant wait to hear her future episodes, I love meeting other podcasters, especially other vegan podcasters. A big thank you to Bea for having the courage to email me, and especially for recording her comment like I suggested, for me to use in this very special episode.
To all my other listeners, I think theres another 18 not counting myself, why not say hello? If you send in an audio clip of yourself, I'll play it in a future episode, its a bit like ringing into a radio station, you can tell all your friends "dudes, I was on jay wont darts podcast maaaaan!" to which they will say..."whats a podcast?".
If you like my podcast, I'd also like listeners to give me a rating on iTunes, if you go to my iTunes podcast page, just search the name of my podcast, "jay wont dart" on the iTunes store, and leave a very short review, complete with a 5 star rating! With enough reviews, shouldnt take more than one or two, I'll be better featured on iTunes, and will hopefully get more listeners!
Thank you very much for listening.
You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Jay Wont darts podcast at jaywontdart.blogspot.com
If you want to contact me, even just to say you are my second actual listener, send an email to [email protected], j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.
Have a super happy day, especially if you're names Bea Elliot of Florida.
bye!

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Episode 39 Dog Eating=Lamb Beheading=Cat Dissection

Episode 39
Dog eating = Lamb beheading = Cat dissection
Hello and welcome to Jay Wont darts podcast, where I cover shocking animal treatment worldwide, and that includes Nuclear Free, Gods Own, clean green New Zealand.
My intro was from episode 100 of No Agenda.
I'd been planing to talk about the topics of this episode for months, I've heard many stories of animal abuse that are all equally shocking, but I wanted to fit them together somehow. I've decided to do this episode now, because animal treatment has been in the New Zealand news. Just today, it was reported a Tongan man living in Auckland New Zealand had killed his dog. This has been on the mainstream news, and will be talked about for weeks to come. Also, a boys pet lamb had its head cut off, and he found it dead. This made national news. I would like to mention another shocking animal story, in America its apparently quite common to dissect cats, actual pussy cats, in high schools and universities. I cant imagine that happening in New Zealand, although its hard to imagine anyone cutting open cats.
First the New Zealand stories.
Lamb Beheaded
This story was reported on by a Taranaki newspaper, I dont know where exactly this happened, but its somewhere in Taranaki, New Zealand.
"Pet lamb beheaded in paddock
A little boy went out to cuddle his pet lamb and found somebody had cut its head off.
"Who could do such a sadistic thing?" his mother Mandy Kalin is asking.
The Dorset Horn ram lamb was about six months old and had been bottle-reared by the three children. Braith, aged 4 1/2 years, had claimed it for his own and named it Shaun (after the Wallace and Gromit character).
On Tuesday evening Braith went out with his dad Jason to feed the animals on their lifestyle block near Eltham. Shaun wasn't running about on his chain.
"Dad, why has Shaun got no head?" Braith asked. "Why isn't he moving?"
Shaun was dead and his head with its little horns was missing. They later concluded the head must have been wrapped in a towel taken from the clothesline, because there was no blood.
Nobody was home during the afternoon and Shaun had no fear of humans.
Mrs Kalin said she wanted the sick person responsible for the killing "to know that this was a little boy's pet and he made this horrible discovery himself".
"I want that person to feel bad about the terrible thing he has done.
"The kids are petrified. It's not something we can hide from them, we've had to tell them what happened. The other sheep in the paddock, which was also on a chain, wasn't touched. If the lamb had been killed for the meat while they were grazing on the roadside, I could possibly understand it, but not this."It's not something a normal, straight person would ever do."
Jason Kalin has told the police he suspects somebody with a grudge was responsible, but can't discuss the details. The police told him there have been no other such incidents in the area."
Ok, I feel this story is awful, so do most people. My point is, whats the difference between this baby sheep, and all the other sheep killed in New Zealand every day? That a little boy loved this particular sheep, and that he doesnt cry about all the other sheep in New Zealand who are slaughtered, I dont see that as a big difference. Im not heartless to the child being upset, but to me, this sheep is just one out of many who are horribly killed everyday. This was reported on in mainstream New Zealand news, we can all agree killing a pet sheep is awful. But, these same newspapers will advertise butchers, often I see ads in The Southland Times featuring the latest cheap meat at local butcheries. Theres an ad on the Golden Oldies radio station thats on at work, it has the Beef + Lamb Theme song, that Im told used to be a T Rex song, "dum dum dum we love to boogie", you know what I mean. Now whenever I hear that song, I think of meat. On this particular radio ad, the voice over guy uses a real Southern Bloke voice, he talks "kinda like this mate, a real tough southern bloke, not like those jaffas in auckland mate, nah mate, hes a REAL man who eats meat and drinks speights beer!".
The guy mentions the "bloody good meat prices, top quality, you pay, just less". Does anyone else hearing the ad notice the words "bloody" and "meat" the way I do? Its not a nice image, I dont want to buy something thats bloody, or meat. I know its just the kiwi slang, saying somethings "bloody" doesnt mean is dirty, its used like "damn", as in "damn good".
Also, how are these prices so low, how can a farmer offer cheaper meat at the same quality? Id assume the easiest way would be to care less about the animals needs, not spend so much taking care of an animal, instead reduce your costs and pass it on to the consumer.
This is why I dont agree with Animal Welfare, when the farmers are for Animal Welfare, you know its bad. When people who promote Animal Welfare eat animals themselves, its obvious it...