Festival of Cruelty 5

Every so often, we feel the urge to leave the snug confines of the Center for the Analysis of Suicide Food and enter the wider world of the animal haters. It is there, in the realm of those with no need to salve their consciences, that we find the real sick stuff. We return with a head full of unease and discomfiting reports. (Catch up by reviewing these previous installments of the Festival of Cruelty: 1, 2, 3, 4.) And now, number 5.

Turkey Testicle Festival: It's not only bulls who experience excruciating pain when castrated without anesthesia! Turkeys hate it, too!

Just take a look at this tom, his hands clutching his bereft crotch, his face contorted in agony, his head erupting with tears the size of jellyfish. They are the physical manifestations of his anguish, thoughtfully supplied by the illustrator to remind us how hilarious the situation is.

The website of this Byron, Illinois, institution is replete with the usual testicle-related puns we've come to expect from testicle festival organizers.

It all adds up to a contemptible good time!






East Texas Smoker Company: A pig emerges from his hellish, smoke-filled barbecue for one final breath of sweet life.

He gasps. He wonders at God's hatred for him. He spits out the Apple of Death so that he might offer a final word, to imprint upon the wind some trace, some echo of his existence. And then, after lingering in a twilight of misery, he dies.

Remember, it is not enough that he should die for us. He must suffer for us, too. For only in that way do we feel our own superiority. Our lives grow as his is diminished.

We don't understand it either, but that's how it works. Apparently.




Bulladelah: What better advertisement for a meat purveyor than a giant window painting of an enormous steer rendered impotent in the face of his imminent death?

This New South Wales establishment pulls out all the stops with their depiction of a throat-slitter wielding a knife of Crocodile Dundee proportions.

The steer, pinned to the ground by the standard two-point confinement system, can do nothing but look on in mute resignation. But the man! Though his arms and legs work their magic against nearly 600 years of perspective in art, Sleeveless Joe is pumped full of purpose. His aim is all too clear: to stick that critter (or whatever they call critters in Australia) and bleed him dry.

And, yes, that's what this god-forsaken deli wants on their window.





The Great International Chicken Wing Society: This might not be the first amputee chicken we've featured, but it is the most heartless.

That they let her survive, wingless, to live out her days in the shadow of their sin against her…

Oh, the disgust in her eye!

A maimed bird, an accusing glance, a life destroyed.

Who thought this logo was a good idea?


Bunsen Burners Bar-B-Que: Science in service of animal cruelty, as it should be!

The scientist, freed from the tyranny of discovery and invention, is at last permitted to use his equipment—his flasks, his tubes, his flame—for the One True Good!

And now he can see the animal inside the gigantic glass bulb, as it squirms and writhes, seethes and panics. Which, naturally, really works up the old appetite!

(Thanks to Dr. Christine for the Bulladelah image and referral.)