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| Things are looking up for a once doomed cattle family |
http://www.nj.com/warrenreporter/index.ssf/2013/03/the_jersey_five_warren_county.html
'The Jersey Five': Warren County cows facing slaughter find home in Vermont
By Todd Petty / The Warren Reporter
on March 14, 2013 at 12:56 PM
FRELINGHUYSEN — Five pet cows that were facing slaughter earlier this year recently found a home in Vermont.
The owners, an elderly couple living in Frelinghuysen who could not afford to take care of the animals, originally planned to have the cattle slaughtered in January, but granted The Barnyard Sanctuary time to find them a home.
More than two months later, the VINE Sanctuary, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide a “haven for animals who have escaped or been rescued from the meat, dairy and egg industries or other hurtful circumstances” based in Springfield, Vt., is now the home of the cows formerly named Athena, Duke, Big Baby, Frick and Frack. The cows are now referred to as “The Jersey Five” on the VINE Sanctuary Facebook page.
The process was long, and many deals fell through before finding the right home, said Tamala Lester, president and founding director of The Barnyard Sanctuary. A lot of people approached Lester hoping to get the cows for slaughter, she said.
The animals were delivered in three trips in a trailer that was driven from New York to Frelinghuysen to Vermont, Lester said.
“It’s hard to find people who will take cows and it’s hard to find people who will take cows for the right reason.”
The VINE Sanctuary also took 27 hens and four roosters from the same family in Frelinghuysen, said Miriam Jones, co-founder of the sanctuary.
I'm sorry but Miriam Jones and the VINE farm are forever associated with the circus they created around the oxen last year. They're a group of ignorant, pretentious, zealots who give normal people who want to stand up for animal rights a bad name.
ReplyDeleteThey're cows, eat them or milk them. Either way they're cows.
ReplyDeleteGoogle, Miriam Jones.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it every fool with a trust fund that can't hold a job ends up here? How long before she enters politics joining the legion of dysfunctional, underachievers in Montpelier forcing their misguided value system on us?
Leave. Just leave, now.
Hey, the Machinist-- it might interest you to know that Vermont was a Very Special Area for the Pentagon-- I believe the term they used was "set-aside."
ReplyDeleteVermont was meant to be the place the "good people" would flee to when WWIII turned the rest of America into radioactive ash. I don't know if that's still the case today.
But as Miriam Jones has shown, there are people who have their eyes on this state as being their personal refuge. And I say, let's make it worth their while.
Let's drive up the cost of permitting McMansions so high that when Rich Tarrant tells Mitt Rmoney that he has built another house in Vermont, Rmoney will exclaim, "You can afford to live in Vermont???" And when Senator Leahy walks down E Street, lobbyists will say to one another, "He lives in Vermont!" And when you're filling your RV tank in Kansas, somebody will notice your license plate and ask, "How can you afford to live in Vermont?" and you just sort of shrug modestly and say, "Oh, trust fund, I guess."
And the wealthy-- but only those who are driven to flaunt it-- will pound at the gates, demanding to be let in, pouring one, two and even three percent (gasp!) of their worth into the state coffers for that address in Athens or Avery's Gore.
And with their money, we'll offer what no other state dares dream of-- the best health care system, the best school system, the best roads and bridges and the best educated and well-off workforce in the nation.
Then we can watch the businesses flood in.
Which will be quite a different way of attracting them from the present one, in which our towns prostitute themselves.
@chuck 9:35am.... ummmm, what???
DeleteIn short, 1:52: When people like Miriam Jones (inherited wealth) want to live their fantasies out in Vermont, make them pay for the privilege!
DeleteIt really helps to have read Thorsten Veblen's book, "Conspicuous Consumption," written as the ghastly excesses of the Gilded Age were at their height. In fine, the robber barons knew that they put their pants on one leg at a time, like every other man, so they proved themselves socially superior by constructing an elaborate system of judging worth by material display. To see how far they would go, visit the almost unlivable Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate in Asheville, NC. No, the Vanderbilts did not have 400 kids who needed bedrooms, but Cornelius wanted to show the world he was no longer the owner of half a dozen ferryboats waiting for a war (in his case, the Civil War) to become a military contractor and Robber Baron extraordinaire.
Now, Vermont is a plum worth the taking for these people, and they're getting it on the cheap. If we make it super- expensive for them to get in, they will have something their immediate inferiors (people earning only, say, $1.5 million a year) can't get-- in effect, their own Biltmore. And then they will have shown themselves to be at the very pinnacle of People Who Put Their Pants On One Leg At A Time.
Veblen said that desire is insatiable for the conspicuous consumer, and the few who secure at great cost their McMansion in Vermont will go on to more acquisitions (a friend of a friend bought her husband a DC-3 (about $500,000) for a birthday present and in the same letter announcing it said they were likely to move out of Vermont if the civil union bill passed. They didn't). But that needn't bother us.
We concentrate on making it so unaffordable for them to live in Vermont that they LUST for it, and thank us profusely when we let them in.
And then we use the money to make the quality of life in Vermont the best of any state in the Union. We're close now, but this can put us over the top.
As I said, right now, we see Vermont towns debase themselves to attract any sort of industry, but what we should have is an infrastructure so attractive that they beg us to let them open up shop. It's time we stop acting like prostitutes. No reason we can't be as exclusive as Monte Carlo or Lichtenstein and have it benefit all of us.
By the way, after the stranger gets the reply at the Nebraska gas pump from The Machinist, his next question will be, "Could I have your autograph?"
re: Chuck 9:20pm... you say "When people like Miriam Jones (inherited wealth) want to live their fantasies out in Vermont, make them pay for the privilege!" , that has to be the most socialist statement I've ever read on these boards. What you're really saying is that people who make more than YOU have to pay extra for living. That way of thinking is so sad not to mention dangerous for a free society. Living as one chooses is not a "privilege" it's a "right", please familiarize yourself with the constitution.
DeleteChuck ,
ReplyDeleteWhen you moved here did you bring your wealth ?
I know you didn't.
You were a long haired dreamy eyed person when you first moved here who wasn't nearly as wise as you think you are now, however then you still had brains enough to be quiet.
Long-haired????? Dreamy-eyed??? Well, boy, you sure have me pegged. You probably know about that tattoo on my left buttock, too.
DeleteChuck, keep your weak, uncalloused hands out of others' pockets. And while you're at it, get some therapy for that chronic case of envy and jealousy that you seem to have.
ReplyDeleteSo, how do you propose to make and keep Vermont the best state in the nation, or do you simply not want to live in a really nice town in a really nice state, the envy of all?
DeleteOne rather gets the impression that your plan would be to drive out all the undesirables, e.g., Gypsies, Jews and other non-Aryan and genetically flawed untermenschen, but I hope you have a more positive vision to share here.
Chuck,Where did you get the idea that the person who mentioned your physical issues said anything about gypsies,Jews etc..?
DeleteIt sounds to me that YOU think all the folks that YOU mentioned are undesirables.
OUCH.
Perhaps you want to restate what you really meant to say?
Normally you have some interesting things you comment on even though I may or may not agree with them .
However your statement above is quite harsh and I really expected more from you
I have lost respect for you.
9:07-- I was just giving 7:42 a reason to impart to all of us his positive suggestions for improving the quality of life in Springfield and in Vermont. Some commenters here are blushing violets who need a little extra push to bring out their generous and creative side.
DeleteIt's like H. Allen Smith said of reporters: "They know that if they want to get the real dirt, they have to accuse the guy they're interviewing of doing something really vile, and then he'll make himself look better by telling them what he really did."
So far, 7:42 hasn't responded.... And how do you know that 7:42 and 11:14 are the same person?
Chuck, Sounds like people are calling you out.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Jones is living her life, using her sense of right and wrong. As a vegan, she is hurting no people or animals. If we all held ourselves to the basic principal of leaving every person and place, better than when we found it, think the world would improve?
ReplyDeletei think if people learned to mind their own business the world would be much better.
ReplyDelete