Screaming Beagles

In his condemnation of the tactics of some British animal activists, Wesley J. Smith neglects to mention why these people are protesting some animal testing companies and their suppliers ("Wall Street Goes Wobbly," Oct. 17). Here is a sample of what he didn't explain: At Huntingdon Laboratories in Cambridgeshire, England, beagles were videotaped screaming as two technicians forced them to simulate intercourse with each other while one jabbed the dogs with a needle. At the Royal College of Surgeons a baby monkey was found with the word "crap" tattooed onto his forehead. One of the top animal experimenters in Britain had his license suspended by the Home Office when an animal rights activist secretly filmed him leaving a rabbit to burn under a surgical lamp while he chatted with another researcher.

Can Smith explain how this behavior can be called science, how it helps us find cures for disease, and how he can possibly defend it?

Kathy Guillermo
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Norfolk, VA

Wesley J. Smith responds: Such incidents of animal abuse have nothing to do with legitimate medical research and should be prosecuted. (Note that the undercover animal rights activist was apparently more interested in getting pictures than saving the burning bunny.) But isolated violations of animal cruelty laws do not justify lawless vigilantism. SHAC and other animal liberationist thugs (who operate in the United States as well as the U.K.) are not merely "protesting some animal testing companies and their suppliers." Tertiary targeting is terrorism. It victimizes innocent people who work for banks, insurers, and other companies, and whose peaceable lives are criminally disrupted by threats, vandalism, and harassment.

PETA's response to my article demonstrates that the organization is not at all bothered by lawlessness in the cause of animal liberation, proving my concluding point that the animal rights movement is losing the right to call itself peaceable.

Vermeer-Licking Good

I was appalled and shocked that David Gelernter would pander to painter Robert Natkin, who has "licked Vermeer, taken on the establishment, and won" ("Passion in Abstract," Oct. 10).

Gelernter is a marvelous, imaginative writer, and I almost fell for his hyperbole, until I saw the painting he was supposed to be describing. "Ascension" is just more of the same old meaningless blobs of paint filling up the lonely rooms of art galleries around the country. There must be thousands of ways to rearrange lots of paint on large canvasses, but it takes a truly stretched imagination to see in the picture the "beauties" Gelernter describes. "Licked Vermeer," come now!

June Anderson
Lewisburg, WV

GOP Agenda: DeLayed?

How can Fred Barnes describe the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act as evidence of Tom Delay's "success," as he does in "After the Hammer, a Blunt Force" (Oct. 10)?

Although the act was advertised as "conservative," it is not. The conservative goal of requiring debtors to be more responsible for their actions is substantially diluted by employing modern, if not liberal, mechanisms to achieve those goals. For instance, the legislation will expand the Department of Justice's responsibilities, bureaucracy, and budget, and it requires many debtors to complete a complex, and therefore expensive, financial analysis. The analysis, however, is open to significant manipulation, and it makes the system more of an expensive "game."

As an attorney with 25 years experience practicing bankruptcy law, Isee the legislation as a smorgasbord of special interest desires. While it is ironic that it is now necessary to label special interest legislation as "conservative" in order to enact it, all is not lost. The legal fees associated with filing bankruptcy are expected to double if not triple. Now that is success!

James Rigby
Seattle, WA

Ribbons Unworn

The Scrapbook item "Fruit Salad Inflation" (Oct. 10) rightly decries the over-awarding of medals and ribbons in the military. This is true of all branches, though to a lesser extent of the Marines, and can only serve to cheapen the value of the decorations. The examples provided of Gen. Eisenhower and Adm. Nimitz, however, are in error. Both men were highly decorated officers and rated many more than three ribbons but no doubt chose to wear their most senior, personal awards.

Cpl. Raphael Balsam, USMC
Camp Pendleton, CA