tagged w/ Animal Sacrifice
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Animal Acres is a lovely, inspiring farmed animal sanctuary.
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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has a black goat slaughtered at his house almost every day to ward off "evil eyes" and protect him from "black magic," a newspaper reported Wednesday.
A spokesman for the president told the Dawn newspaper the goats were slaughtered as an act of Sadaqah -- meaning "voluntary charity" in Islam whereby one gives out money or the meat of a slaughtered animal to the poor to win Allah's blessing and stave off misfortune.
"It has been an old practice of Mr Zardari to offer Sadaqah. He has been doing this for a long time," the spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the paper.
Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country where many of the well-off offer Sadaqah. Though Muslim, many people also follow certain superstitious practices.
Hundreds of goats had been sacrificed at Zardari's house since he was sworn in September 2008, the Dawn newspaper reported.
It said Zardari's detractors would see in his "new-found religiosity" a sign of nervousness in the face of growing woes.
Zardari, who rose to power after the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in late 2007, has become increasingly unpopular and faces a range of problems from Islamist militancy to a stagnant economy and political rivalry.
A Supreme Court ruling last month throwing out an amnesty for Zardari, several top aides and thousands of political activists and government figures triggered a political storm and expectation that Zardari was on his way out.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60Q48S20100127?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r3:c0.122340:b30083938:z0ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has a black goat... more
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Investigators recovered the remains of more than 500 animals after executing a search warrant Wednesday at a home in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to the city's chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The group's director of law enforcement said he believes the animals -- the majority of which were chickens -- were sacrificed as part of a Santeria religious ritual.
The animals included "dozens of sheep, goats ... every type of farm animal you can think of," the Philadelphia SPCA's law enforcement director, George Bengal, said.
The SPCA believes two sets of remains are those of small primates, possibly monkeys.
Philadelphia SPCA enforcement officers were first called to the home over the weekend to tend to two emaciated dogs. The organization said that after obtaining a search warrant, its officers found the home littered with animal remains. The officers also found an AK-47, ammunition, dozens of knives and an altar with candles, the group said.
Philadelphia police were called after that, and Wednesday's search resulted.
The dogs were dirty and malnourished. They were put in protective custody after medical evaluation and treatment, the Philadelphia SPCA said.
Bengal said that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that rituals of Santeria -- a religion similar to voodoo and originated in Cuba and Brazil -- are permitted under the Constitution. But he believes these animals may not have been sacrificed humanely. If that is the case, the home's owner could be prosecuted, he said.
"It's a gray area ... a fine line," Bengal said.
The home's owner hasn't been seen for eight months but is believed to be in Mexico, Bengal said. A woman living at the home was last seen there five days ago and is believed to still be in the Philadelphia area, Bengal said.
The only rooms of the three-bedroom home without bones were the master bedroom and the bathroom, according to Bengal.
Animal sacrifices in Santeria rituals are common in Philadelphia, but this case stands out because of the number and condition of the animals involved, Bengal said.
"This place was incredible," he said.Investigators recovered the remains of more than 500 animals after executing a search... more
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LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091124/ap_on_re_as/as_nepal_animal_sacrifice
The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering buffalo calves by hacking off their heads.
Over two days, 200,000 buffaloes, goats, chickens and pigeons will be killed as part of a blood-soaked festival held every five years to honor Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.
While cows are sacred and protected by law in Nepal, animal sacrifice has a long history in this overwhelmingly Hindu country and parts of neighboring India. The Bariyapur festival has become so big, in part, because such ceremonies have been banned in many areas in the neighboring Indian state of Bihar.
And while it is criticized by animal-rights protesters, the festival is defended as a centuries-old tradition.
Many Nepalis believe that sacrifices in Gadhimai's honor will bring them prosperity. They also believe that by eating the meat, which is taken back to their villages and consumed during feasts, they will be protected from evil.
Taranath Gautam, the top government official in the area, estimated that more than 200,000 people had come for the ceremony in Bariyapur, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Katmandu. Some brought their own animals to sacrifice.
"I am here with my mother who had promised the goddess she would sacrifice a goat. It was her wish and promise and I am glad we were able to fulfill it," said Pramod Das, a farmer from the nearby village of Sarlahi. "I believe now my mother's wishes will come true."
Animal rights groups don't have much power in Nepal, but they have staged repeated protests in recent weeks. Local news reports say some activists set up stands in towns on the way to the Bariyapur temple, offering Hindu pilgrims coconuts and other fruits to sacrifice instead of animals.
There was no sign of them Tuesday.
"We were unable to stop the animal sacrifices this year but we will continue our campaign to stop killings during this festival," said Pramada Shah of the group Animals Nepal.
The ceremony, which goes back for generations, has enormous resonance in a country where per capital income is about $25 a month, illiteracy is widespread and vast social divides have left millions working as tenant farmers for feudal landlords.
Even many educated Nepalis see value in the tradition.LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091124/ap_on_re_as/as_nepal_animal_sacrifice
The... more
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With Halloween quickly approaching, the Humane Society of West Texas is altering its adoption policy. If you go to the Humane Society's adoption center at PetSmart, you won't find any black cats there this month because they're afraid people will use them for Halloween animal sacrifices.
"DPS and police officers have literally found cats that have been gutted open and found, you know, where it looks like there has been a ritual of some sort, and so we just don't want that to happen," said the cat coordinator for the Humane Society, Judy Steinbock.
Humane Society volunteers say they've seen black cats spray painted, mummified in duct tape, shaved, burned, and worse. "I believe, from the way I understand it, every city of any size is getting more and more witchcraft type people, you know that live in the cities, and these are people that we are concerned about adopting to," said Humane Society Adoption Coordinator, Linda Cox.
The Humane Society has five black cats right now. Usually they would be on display at one of the adoption centers, but during the month of October the cats will stay with foster families. If you really want to adopt a black cat right now, you can contact Humane Society volunteers while they're at PetSmart on the weekends, but you'll go through an intense screening process. "If we have a bad feeling about a certain adoptee, we have the right to disapprove, or to turn down people that adopt, and so we do that quite a bit in the month of October," said Cox.
The Humane Society recommends if you own a black cat, to keep it indoors until after Halloween.With Halloween quickly approaching, the Humane Society of West Texas is altering its... more
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A rare and beautiful insight into this tribal ritual which also contains some scenes that may be uncomfortable for some viewers.
Viewer discretion advised.A rare and beautiful insight into this tribal ritual which also contains some scenes... more
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?Eres lo que lees?. You are what you read. The sentence, written with dog food, was displayed on the white wall of an art gallery. Close to that wall, an abandoned and diseased street dog was left tied to a rope and a wire string. An incense burner was placed nearby where, allegedly, crack and cannabis was burnt during the inauguration. Without food and water, the animal died in the gallery during the next day.
It happened in Nicaragua. It was an ?installation? by artist Guillermo Vargas, known as Habacuc.
The situation, documented with several images, received a lot of attention on the web and originated an online petition against it?s author that gathers, as I write these words, close to 50.000 signatures.
The widespread perplexity for this gesture committed in the name of art launched a fiery discussion about its limits. The question isn?t new. People have been debating what art is since Duchamp signed an urinal and entitled it ?La Fontaine?. The centennial joke seems, however, to have lost its funniness. In the society of cultural relativism the grotesque has become a new critical endeavour. From cows cut in half and conserved in monoliths of fibberglass to diamonds engraved on human skulls, contemporary art production lives hostage to the trends of time. Art has become a place for the execution of function and aesthetic gesture. All is performance.
That art has to submit to all kinds of degradation is a sad consequence of its desperation for visibility. An art acquitted of any design other than the capture of attention. Moralism cloaked as irreverence and critique.
Here is, then, Habacuc, the great moralizer. On his own words, he states that ?the important to me was the hypocrisy of the people: an animal becomes the focus of attention when I put it on a white place where people go see art, not when he?s on the street dying of hunger?. Questioned on the reason why he didn?t use a different form of expressing his message, the inhumanity is complete. ?I remember what I see? The dog is more alive now than ever because people are still talking about it?.
It doesn?t take an animal lover to understand the intellectual grotesque of the whole thing. The display of a dog?s death in the name of a useless gesture. Habacuc against the world, in his prejudiced eyes where we are all hypocrites
Intending to change the world, and change us all, famous tyrants promoted the greatest genocides in history. To Habacuc, against our hypocrisy, was left the power to kill a miserable dog of the streets of Managua. As for art, well, maybe it died a long time ago.
?Eres lo que lees?. You are what you read. The sentence, written with dog food, was... more
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Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash... more
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