I read the Snopes article. It's hard to believe. There ARE pictures of a dog. The dog looks terrible. The dog is tied up in a corner. There is a picture of people in a doorway looking at it. There is another picture of people in the background of the dog. So, even if Snopes says it's not what it seems there SEEMS to me to be some f*cked up sh*t happening. I absolutely do not believe that part that says that the dog was on display to look like he was starving but behind the scenes he was otherwise cared for. That is just horsesh*t.

Snopes didn't really get to the bottom of it. I guess the guy is from Costa Rica where they have laws against this sort of thing but because he did this in Honduras where there are no laws it's all fine and okay.

Ugh. Disgusting.

I live in Tucson. There is a HUGE problem with stray dogs. I can't imagine taking one off the streets and watching it die publicly is going to help save the dogs still running loose. Takes a twisted, deranged brain to come up with something like that.

I just saw a follow up on Wayne Pacelle's page today. He's the Prez of the Humane Society. He's also vegan. I like his blog. It doesn't add too much to the already lengthly discussion but, here is what he said:

hsus.typepad.com/wayne/200...g-art.html

"During the last month, I've received a torrent of email about Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas featuring a starving street dog as “art” in a Nicaraguan gallery. According to accounts we've received, Vargas picked up the poor creature and displayed him in the gallery—attempting to make the point that such an animal on the street would go unnoticed, but in a gallery setting would be a spectacle. A local animal welfare group says the dog escaped after a day in the gallery.

Vargas's supposition about the shock value of his exhibit was prophetic. But even more so than he could have imagined, or bargained for. The image of the plaintive dog, presumably left to languish and suffer in the presence of gallery visitors and Vargas himself, was too much to fathom for many people who learned about it on the Internet. There was a spontaneous outburst of online petitions and condemnations of the supposed artist—a not uncommon phenomenon in the Internet age when shocking information goes viral.

Two observations. First, this circumstance underscores that there must be some limits in artistic expression, even if they are self-imposed by the artists themselves. Free expression is itself a moral imperative, but it is not absolute. It's one thing to document cruelty, but another matter to play a part in it, to exploit the suffering of other creatures, and to fail to provide any social context for it. Art and other cultural forms can be powerful media for promoting awareness of animal suffering and abuse, and for celebrating animals as creatures who deserve our admiration and respect, but this was not one of those cases. Obviously, if Vargas had taken photographs of starving street animals and called attention to the problem, then his art or documentary would not have provoked any calumny.

This controversy comes on the heels of a similar debate that erupted last month over an exhibit at the San Francisco Art Institute by the Paris artist Adel Abdessemed titled "Don't Trust Me." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "the show included a series of video loops of animals being bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer in front of a brick wall. The animals killed included a pig, goat, deer, ox, horse and sheep." An outcry ensued, and the Art Institute pulled the exhibit, and rightly so.

My other reaction is that we should rechannel our anguish and anger about Vargas and direct our energy to combat street dog problems in the developing world. Vargas is probably no more than a struggling artist, and we need not waste our time with further denunciations. But let's focus our energy on fighting the street dog problem and working to develop programs and infrastructure that can bring some relief to these creatures. This is a massive problem in the developing world, affecting hundreds of millions of animals, and our global affiliate Humane Society International has a Street Animal Welfare program to develop humane care, spay and neuter, and vaccination programs. Please do get involved with HSI. Get on our email list and get plugged in to our many international activities to help street dogs, to fight factory farming, and to stem the wildlife trade.

We cannot turn our gaze from this terrible problem throughout the world. And when we do focus on the problem, we must turn our anger into action, and select the right targets. Let's pivot from Vargas and focus on the ongoing cruelty, rather than seek retribution."

I had no problem reading it, but then again I am a gaming geek. It is a trifle annoying though. At least it's not 1337$p33k, that would be really obnoxious.