You crouch at your owner’s feet, the wonderfully pungent, slightly bitter scent of coffee washing your mouth every time you open it. You long for when you can taste the drink. Suddenly, your owner puts the cup down on the small table next to the porch swing. Excitement crashes down on top of you, and you jump to your feet with an enthusiastic bark. Rearing up on your hind legs, you shove the cup of coffee with your nose. With a crash, the cup falls from the table, shattering into pieces on the ground. The scream your owner emits is unbearably high. Ears ringing, you drop back down onto all fours. You can tell that your owner isn’t happy. Your tail drops to between your legs, and you back away, shaking your head. But before you can run, you feel your owner’s iron grip on your hind legs. Your stomach lurches as she lifts you, and you writhe and struggle in the air. Then suddenly the porch is whirling around you, and the ground is getting closer and closer… Wham! Pain explodes across your side, and you go limp. Black spots dance at the edge of your vision, beckoning you into darkness. But your owner isn’t done yet. She grabs you again, and hurls you across the porch, towards the door. CRASH!! You slam helplessly into the wall, and as you slide to the ground, your world is swallowed by blackness. Right now, you’re probably asking yourself, WHY?!?! Why does this have to happen?! Well, it doesn’t. If animal abuse was only considered a violent crime, maybe that heartless owner would never have thrown that dog across the porch. Maybe she would never have given that dog serious-car-crash- style injuries. When people abuse animals, they don’t realize that animal abuse is related to other forms of abuse, or that animals are living things. The only thing that comes to mind is: Oh, the punishment is so mild, I can get away with it. This is why animal abuse needs to be considered a violent crime. You have no idea how close animal abuse is to abusing humans. Humans technically are animals, after all. Almost all of the places where human abuse is present, so is animal abuse. For example, studies show that 88% of places where child abuse is documented, so is animal abuse. Another, more recent study reveals that just about 83% of women entering domestic abuse shelters claim that the people who abuse them also have been abusing the family pet. Do the math, and you get this: the unreluctant human abuser is 5 times more likely to abuse animals than a non-abuser. What would happen if all the animals in the world suddenly turned on us? We would suddenly become the subject of almost all the abuse in the world, and we would know exactly how undoubtedly horrible the animals feel. If you think, and use your imagination, you might think that animals are better than us. After all, they don’t go around abusing other animals, do they? But even if they don’t, we assume that animal abuse is nothing like human abuse, even though it is. This is why we need to change animal abuse to a violent crime! When people abuse animals, they often forget that animals, no matter what kind, are living, thinking, beings. One video explained how some zoo owners went as far as forcing elephants to do things underwater like standing on their head, doing flips of all kinds, and dancing, all against their nature, like the elephants were just toys to force to do tricks. If they forced the elephants to stay underwater for too long, they would have drowned! That is clearly a violent crime already, without classification. As all pet owners know, animals are highly capable of learning, thinking and acting independently. If you own a pet, there’s something you should know. All pets, over time and with the right treatment, can be the most loyal, most loving companion ever. And, under law, animals are still considered property. Who here thinks animals are no better or closer to being human than a table, chair, lamp, etc.? Well, they are, and if you think so too, you’re unquestionably right. All animals can be harmed both physically and psychologically by the same types of abuse as humans, whereas is you whip, beat, kick, throw, or do anything to a table or chair that would hurt you or an animal, the object wouldn’t react except for maybe getting wrecked by the force of the “abuse.” On the other hand, an animal would be terribly hurt, because it’s a living thing. Animal abuse should be documented as a violent crime because, as of now, its punishment is very low-level. For example, a NJ woman who starved her dog, stuffed him into a trash bag, and threw the full bag into the garbage disposal to rot, only received a $2,000 fine and 18 months of probation. Another example is a dairy farm in Idaho, where the people owning the cows kicked, beat, and even stomped on their dairy cows. And guess what? All they owed was $500. Now, imagine that you were that dog, or those cows. When you were finally free, wouldn’t you want a very serious punishment to be placed on the shoulders of your abuser? You obviously would, but then your abuser is punished with practically nothing! Then they can go right back to abusing you, because now they know how low the punishment will be. That would be unquestionably horrible. A violent crime is a type of crime in which the punishments are much higher. It would definitely be easier to manage if animal abuse was just changed to a violent crime. That is why the level of punishment for animal abuse should be raised. As much as animal abuse should be considered a violent crime, there are some valid points against it. For example, one of the strongest
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: April 20, 2019
“One Horse”. Photograph by Lara Katz, 14, Weston, CT. Published April 2018. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Good morning! Do you ever wonder what former Stone Soup contributors are up to these days? We do! There are a lot of former contributors, after all—we’ve been publishing since 1973! We wanted to find a way to spotlight some of the amazing people who were published in Stone Soup and went on to do all sorts of cool things. So, starting this month, we’ll post short interviews with former contributors to the blog. First up, we have Catherine Winings. Catherine’s illustrations were published in our November/December 2009 issue, alongside the story “The Balance” by Kia Okuma. Stone Soup: What are you doing now? Catherine Winings: I am currently living and working in Chicago. I received a BFA about two years ago from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I focused in printmaking, painting/drawing, and visual communications. I discovered etching in my first printmaking class and have been working in that medium ever since. I began working as an intern at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative (CPC) three years ago, and I still work there, helping to manage the studio. While at CPC, I also began printing editions and artist’s proofs of etchings for the artist Tony Fitzpatrick and occasionally other artists. When I have time, I work in the CPC studio on my own etchings and other prints. Additionally, I have been working on a project for the Art Institute of Chicago museum creating replica armor. My role in the project is to paint a resist (a type of painting technique) onto the armor in an intricate pattern that is later etched into the metal using copper sulfate. I also work at a framing shop SS: What did Stone Soup mean to you? CW: If I remember correctly, I only ever submitted one illustration to Stone Soup because I was near the end of the age limit at the time. It was pretty exciting to me to have my drawing published. I have always spent a lot of time drawing and reading, so it came naturally for me to be interested in illustration. I also had an art teacher, Susanne Dassel, who went to the Rhode Island School of Design for illustration and was always supportive of my narrative-based drawing. Being paid for my illustration gave the whole e xperience a feeling of professionalism and reinforced the idea that I had something to offer through drawing. I think the envelope I received from Stone Soup is still taped to either my wall or the side of my bookcase in my childhood bedroom. Even though I have moved in a slightly different direction since then, I am still interested in illustration and feel that the kind of imagery that I currently use in my printmaking is closely tied to SS: Do you have any advice for current readers, writers, and artists who contribute to Stone Soup? CW: My advice would be to value your own work and invest in it. I have often been very self-conscious about the things that I make or at times have felt out of place, but I think it is very important to believe in your own creative impulses and then to put in the effort to back it up. Even if the work you’ve done isn’t obvious to other people, you can feel confident knowing what you’ve put into it. Rather than just pushing yourself as hard as you can, I think it is more important to take the time to figure out what you want to do, care about what you do, and make productive decisions. Thank you so much to Catherine! We’re so excited to hear from other contributors. Know any that you think should be featured? Have them email me at sarah@stonesoup.com. Happy weekend! Focus on poetry for National Poetry Month! To celebrate National Poetry month, we are offering a discount on the wonderful Stone Soup Book of Poetry, a collection of 120 poems published in Stone Soup between 1988 and 2011. Pick up print copies at 25% off, and eBook editions at half price in the Stone Soup Online Store, throughout April 2019. And, for more poetry ideas, don’t forget to visit the Academy of American Poets’ website–especially, check our their Dear Poet initiative. Just click on the logo: Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. There’s been lots of news about outer space lately—did you see the picture of the black hole? Well, this week Ishayyu writes about galaxies for the blog: “A spiral galaxy looks like an octopus, with its ‘arms’ swinging around. We live on one of the outer part of an ‘arm’ in the Milky Way.” Read more here. Plus, Elijah reviews the website Reddit, where he gets news: “With so much content available to us, what is the best way to browse the internet and find the information that we care about? The answer is Reddit, an online social media and news sharing application as well as the best way to find content over the internet.” What do you think? Do you agree with Elijah, or do you still prefer to read a newspaper or watch the news? Share a comment on his post if you have any thoughts on the subject. From Stone Soup, April 2018 lonely boy By Gilbert Huang, 9 Shanghai, China Who am I, am I just a lonely boy? When I am lonely I feel wild. Does nobody want me? Or do I have to stay here forever? Well, I will be crashed by a car? What shall I do. I need a real life! I am very far to become a normal boy. Read more reflective poetry at our website, Stonesoup.com. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos
The newspaper, something that nowadays seems to be a memory of the past. The internet was found as a better alternative for finding information. With so much content available to us, what is the best way to browse the internet and find the information that we care about? The answer is Reddit, an online social media and news sharing application as well as the best way to find content over the internet. Reddit is everything that the newspaper isn’t: timely, interactive, personalized, and absorbing. To be put simply, Reddit is a constantly updating list of all the most pertinent information to you. Clicking on to Reddit for the first time you will be met with what is called the front page of the internet. The front page is made up of a wall of links and text posted by other Reddit users called Redditors. The algorithms that are in place are more complicated than I can fully explain here, but a mathematical system is used to make sure everything in your feed is likely to be worth your time. The basic filter on Reddit comes from the ability to upvote and downvote posts that you see. The only posts that make it to the top have a high ratio upvotes to downvotes, meaning that it is confirmed that people generally find this post worth your time. One of the defining factors of Reddit to me is just how intuitive sifting through the infinite content is. Reddit is divided up into communities called subreddits which all work as independent versions of the front page but are specifically centered around a certain topic. As of January 2018, 1.2 million subreddits exist ranging anywhere from r/funny to r/sanfrancisco to r/communism. If you have an interest the chances that a subreddit exists for you, and if you have something new you have the ability to start your own subreddit. Once you are active on enough subs the front page becomes your own with posts being personalized towards you based off of your interests. Pulling up Google and typing “news” into the search bar doesn’t really cut it anymore because of how much you’ll be exposed to and how many things you actually care about. Why would anyone settle with the compromise of just flipping on a news channel when there are so many better alternatives that offer a much more valuable service? Reddit provides the best answer for how to browse the internet and get the content you need in a timely, personalized, interactive, and participatory matter. Once you start using Reddit and get used to it you’ll wonder how you ever interneted without it.
