Bitches be CRAAAAZY

Our female dog spazzing out with the sprinkler

No, I’m not going to talk about my nutso dog.

Instead I’m going to share my experience at the Oakland Urban Ag meeting last night. I’m not going to be nice for once and I’m definitely going to call shit out, so consider yourself warned. And for the record, I’m now allowing anonymous comments, though they are moderated so if you’re going to be shitty, I’ll read them, I may post them, I may even respond to them, but I won’t make any guarantees.

Let the crazy begin.

Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad, but the parts that were bad were REALLY bad. OK, more like REALLY entertaining with a strong dose of offensive.

The more well-known animal rights activists that we knew would be there were easy to spot because they all sat in the front row together. They were all dressed very nicely, even professionally. The main group didn’t shout anyone down and seemed rather engaging – though I personally didn’t chat with them, Kitty did have a conversation with one of them that appeared to be very civil.

On the periphery, however, things were quite different. One woman, I didn’t catch her name, was probably one of the most offensive people I’ve ever had the unfortunate circumstance to stand next to. First, she brought this poor rabbit with her. The room was packed and noisy and stressful for even me. I can’t imagine bringing an animal with me, let along a rabbit that is wired to be predated by everything. She clearly brought that poor animal to use for her own personal agenda. Flat out it shouldn’t have been there.

The rabbit was a small lop that had obviously been handled quite a bit. It was supposedly from a recent “meat” rabbit seizure in Oakland. I use the quotes because I’m not convinced it was raised for meat due to the circumstances surrounding the seizure, the breed of rabbit and also by what this woman had to say. It was so over the top and offensive that it’s hard to take her word on anything.

She had two arguments.

She said to put the words “Golden Retriever” in front of any statement we make about eating any type of animal. First off, I’m not particularly fond of Golden Retrievers and all I could think of was “that would make me vomit up a hairball that would put my cats to shame.” That said, I don’t have any issue with people eating a Golden Retriever or any other breed of dog as long as it’s humanely raised and slaughtered. I personally wouldn’t eat a dog, or a horse, or a cat, or a… because it wasn’t part of the culture I grew up in, but if someone was raised with that, knock yourself the fuck out. As long as it’s humane of course. 

Her other argument? Apparently Glen Close in Fatal Attraction boiled a pet rabbit alive. I haven’t seen the movie so forgive me. Well, this woman then goes on to say that those of us that raise rabbits for meat also boil bunnies alive. I’m going to let you sit with that for a bit.

We.
Boil.
Bunnies.
Alive.

Is this woman for real? So because of this ridiculous and incredibly offensive statement I totally rolled my eyes which then brought on another woman to start yelling at me for rolling my eyes. Wow. Just. Wow. I did get a good laugh about it later telling other rabbit raising friends though.

It wasn’t until later though that she really made me angry. She went up to a woman she didn’t even know and told her “You need to lose weight, you eat too many rabbits.”  Then when the woman said that was offensive she said “Stop harassing me or I’m going to call the cops.” Oh, she is lucky she didn’t say that to me. I probably would have decked her. Or at least said “I’ve recently lost 20 lbs because I started eating rabbits (which is true by the way).” Yeah, that’s probably what I would have done just to see the look of horror on her face.

My favorite part though was the woman with balls big enough to stand next to my monster-of-a-man husband and say “slaughtering animals makes people violent” and then when he asked her to say that again she repeated it! Good for her! But wait…he slaughters animals. If slaughtering animals made people violent shouldn’t she be scared of him becoming violent? I’m confused.

There were of course other confrontations between animal activists and other urban farmers, but those are their stories to tell.

The city did a really good job of keeping it neutral and I applaud them for that. I hope regulations that are fair for everyone are created.

One important thing I did learn though…we need to make some damn t shirts with our logo on them!

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