Cruelty

The Art of Cruelty A Reckoning Maggie Nelson W.W. Norton: 304 pp., $24.95 From a movie billboard in her Los Angeles neighborhood to the Italian Futurists, Maggie Nelson swings her lively gaze across a century's worth of art and culture in "The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning. " The starting point for this study of violence and art is Antonin Artaud, the French playwright behind the "theatre of cruelty" who wrote that cruelty in art "signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.

NEW YORK - If there's one thing Gabriel Byrne has learned in recent years, it's the importance of a comfortable chair. After a marathon 106 episodes as psychologist Paul Weston on the HBO drama "In Treatment," Byrne stars in "Vikings," History's first full-length scripted series, as Earl Haraldson, a Norse chieftain with a flowing salt-and-pepper mane (all his own, thank you very much) and a taste for cruelty. Despite the considerable differences between the shows - one set almost entirely in a shrink's office in brownstone Brooklyn, the other in 8th century Scandinavia - they both left Byrne, well, uncomfortable.

Thank you for printing "There Should Be No Room for Cruelty to Livestock" (Commentary, June 8). It seems that it would be obvious even to people who eat meat that animals should be given at least enough room in cages to turn around or lie down. Natalie Field Rolling Hills Estates

Re “ There's tough, and then there's Wyoming tough ,” Feb. 25 Such bravado in the headline doesn't excuse animal cruelty. Wyoming resident Mike Gerber, explaining his family's actions against a dog they saw as a predator, told a local newspaper that “I wish it never happened.” He said: “The decisions being made were made fast. Maybe if they would've been thought through more clearly, we would've done things differently.” Laying blame on “fast decisions” does not excuse torture and abusive animal cruelty against a dog. Lauralea Saddick Claremont More letters to the editor ...  

I read the interesting response of Fox Entertainment President Peter Ligouri to questions about the cruelty of the "American Idol" judges to contestants where he noted that "it's part of the show" and "viewers know what the show is about" ["Questions for the Man at Fox," by Martin Miller, Jan. 22]. Well, this viewer thought "American Idol" was about giving young talent their big chance to shine in front of a large audience. However, the show has evolved into calculated, deliberate exposure of pathetic publicity-seekers who should have been eliminated but instead are trotted out to be humiliated.

" . . . A rider grabs a small running bull by its tail and attempts to flip the animal over. Points are assigned for various maneuvers and the type of fall inflicted on the bull. . . ." Such went the wording of the article on "Charro--Thrills of South-of-the-Border Rodeo Come to San Diego" (April 14). I immediately thought of the injuries and fright of a bull pulled by its tail to flip it over. I was sickened. The Times did a disservice to its more civilized readers by depicting as "sport" and "entertainment" such primitive and barbaric acts of cruelty on terrified animals.

The letter from Darcy Sinise was heartbreaking. My heart goes out to her and her fiance at the tragic loss of their magnificent animal. Unfortunately, this is yet another incident of growing animal cruelty and human ignorance and stupidity. There is no excuse for it. To lose an animal that is so greatly loved is no different than losing a child. There are no words to ease the pain. I experienced a similar act of this low mentality last month when someone drove by and shot my cat in his own back yard.

Re "French gag on ban of foie gras in California," Aug. 11 The ban on foie gras in California is a bit comical and so very American in its hypocrisy. Yes, ducks and geese are force-fed grain to grow their livers, but foie gras is not an everyday American food. It is expensive and uncommon. I challenge the people who worked so hard to ban foie gras in California to visit the beef, chicken, pork, egg and milk "factories" in our state. Perhaps these activists should put their energy toward banning the incredibly inhumane treatment of these animals, which are consumed daily by most Americans.

I understand the frustration of people who witness this abuse, and Sarno is correct that the true facts need to be presented before any lynch mob can take their position. However, most of us are becoming more and more aware of the connection between animal abuse and human abuse. The FBI's Behavioral Science Unit trains students on the behavior of violent criminals, looking for particularly vicious or unusual behavior like animal mutilations. The unit offers its assistance to local law enforcement agencies.

A Pasadena woman awaits trial on charges of cruelty to animals after authorities seized 119 chickens, 17 ducks, eight rabbits and two turkeys kept in crowded, unclean cages from her home, according to a Humane Society official. Ann Miller of northwest Pasadena was arrested Jan. 19 for probation violations following her conviction in February, 1992, on eight counts of cruelty to animals in Municipal Court, said Steve McNall, executive director of the Pasadena Humane Society.

Things promise to get ruff Sunday as Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl IX" goes snout-to-helmet with the Super Bowl for ratings gold. Last year the show, which pits pound puppies against one another in a dangerously cute game of faux football using chew toys, set records for the basic cable outlet, with 8.7 million total viewers during the 12 hours it aired. True, that's nowhere near the more than 100 million viewers the Super Bowl tackles each year, but for a day when most television channels throw in the towel and admit defeat, it's pretty good.

"The Optimists" is a simple film, as much family memoir as documentary. But the story it tells is as significant as it is little known: how the people of Bulgaria rose up in 1943 and saved the country's Jews from deportation to the death camps of World War II. Completed several years ago, "The Optimists" (named after a jazz band of the period with Jewish members) is playing in Los Angeles now because of an exhibition at UCLA's Hillel Center titled "Bulgaria and the Holocaust: The Fragility of Goodness.

This post has been updated. A week before Thanksgiving, an animal advocacy group is accusing Butterball of abusing and neglecting turkeys at some of its facilities. The activist group Mercy For Animals said an undercover investigation into several Butterball operations in North Carolina found evidence of cruelty and neglect. Hidden camera footage (warning: may be disturbing) shows turkeys being thrown and dragged by their wings and necks, kicked on the ground and with open sores.

The Yellow Birds A Novel Kevin Powers Little Brown: 230 pp., $24.99 Pvt. John Bartle, the narrator of Kevin Powers' sorrowful war novel "The Yellow Birds," is a man of reason caught between the uncontrolled emotions of two men. The first is his sergeant, a severe gunslinger and molder of warriors named Sterling. Sgt. Sterling's discipline and his rage against the enemy are keeping his squad of men alive as they patrol an eerie, death-filled Iraqi landscape. Pvt. Bartle loves and hates him for this.

An Idaho dairy farm linked to Burger King, In-N-Out and other food companies has been accused by an animal rights group of “some of the most abusive treatment of animals” it had ever seen. Undercover video footage (warning: images may be disturbing) provided by Mercy For Animals shows employees at Bettencourt Dairies, which has more than 60,000 cows, stomping on and beating cattle, twisting their tails and using a tractor to drag one animal by its chained neck. The Murtaugh, Idaho, dairy works with cheese producers and suppliers, which in turn have deals with fast-food chains.

In-N-Out, McDonald's Corp., Jack in the Box, Burger King and other chains quickly cut ties with Central Valley Meat Co. this week after undercover footage from an animal welfare group showed cows at the California slaughterhouse seemingly tortured and otherwise mistreated. McDonald's said the percentage of its meat that came from the Central Valley slaughterhouse was in “the low single digits.” "Upon learning about USDA's decision to suspend CVM, we took immediate action and suspended supply from this facility, pending further investigation,” the hamburger giant said in a statement.

Federal officials shuttered a Central California slaughterhouse after they concluded that cattle had been subjected to inhumane treatment but said Tuesday they had seen nothing to indicate that the company had compromised the safety of the public's food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily closed Hanford-based Central Valley Meat Co. after reviewing video footage from the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing, which said it had captured images of torture and intentional cruelty to cows.

HUNTINGTON LAKE, Calif. - Comanche has one pale blue eye, one deep brown and a prancing gait that has cowboy Morgan Austin suspecting this mystery horse once paraded around an arena. Until two weeks ago, Comanche wouldn't let anyone in the saddle. It took Morgan, 17, two months of talking to him "real quiet-like," slipping on a saddle blanket, then the saddle, before he could hoist his own lanky frame onto the brown-and-white quarter horse. Now, on a day when the sky is pale with heat and ragged breaths of wind kick up thick, sticky dust, Comanche and Morgan lead the way down a boulder-strewn Sierra trail.