The Washington Post has an article that essentially equates circus animals with child abuse and includes this neo-puritan, arse-backwards quote from a pediatrician who has lost sight of where science ends and moralising begins:
"To see a bear ride a bicycle, it is ridicule. You're really just laughing at that bear," said Mel Levine, a renowned pediatrician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has written numerous books about child behavior and the way children learn. "So the question is: What's the message you're giving to kids when you take them to the circus and they laugh at animals? I think to laugh at animals is to devalue them."
The only answer to this is to quote Macaulay:
The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
Dr. Mel Levine has just been sued this week for sexually molesting seven young boys. See article in the Boston Globe:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/05/medic_accused_of_abuse_ends_practice/
"Article not found" according to the webpage, but if it winds up true, let me be the first to shout from hill to dale: EPIC FAIL!
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