Tag Archives: circuses

Medical alert on petting animals at zoos/circuses

October 8, 2015 admin

By Jennifer O’Connor

No one should underestimate the risks associated with petting zoos and hands-on animal displays, as the tragic death on Monday of a little boy in Maine shows.

The 21-month-old boy became sick with hemolytic uremic syndrome after contracting E. coli at a petting zoo.

Yes, those ag displays, tiger cub pens, pony rides and petting zoos can land you in the hospital or worse.

Multiple bacterial, viral and parasitic agents have been linked to contact with animals, including E. coli and salmonella bacteria and swine flu, West Nile and rabies viruses.

The most common victims of these outbreaks are youngsters. Hundreds of children around the country have become seriously ill after contracting E. coli at petting zoos.

Many have suffered catastrophic kidney failure, including some who required transplants.

E. coli outbreaks are as common as cotton candy and vary only in the number of people infected. A toddler was hospitalized with life-threatening kidney failure—and received dialysis and multiple blood transfusions—after she contracted E. coli at a Wisconsin fair in 2010.

North Carolina health officials documented 43 confirmed cases of E. coli and suspected at least 100 more in people who had visited a petting zoo at the 2004 state fair.

Infection can spread through direct contact with animals or simply by touching the surroundings near an animal exhibit. Hand sanitizer does nothing to prevent the spread of E. coli by inhalation, and the bacteria has been linked to sippy cups, pacifiers and even thumb-sucking.

E. coli and swine flu aren’t the only pathogens lurking at fairs and zoos. In 2010, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had to assess some 70 children suspected of having had contact with a rabid calf at a petting zoo.

The children’s petting zoo at the Toledo Zoo was closed indefinitely in 2005 after three animals tested positive for campylobacter, an infectious type of bacteria that causes gastrointestinal illness. A year earlier, a bird and a horse in the Phoenix Zoo’s petting area died of West Nile disease, even though the horse had been vaccinated.

These outbreaks are neither rare nor isolated, and safety guidelines appear to be making little difference. In a case dating back to the 1990s, at least 50 people were stricken with a particularly virulent type of salmonella after visiting a petting area at the Denver Zoo. Eight of the victims had to be hospitalized. A 5-year-old Michigan boy was hospitalized after becoming ill with a salmonella infection after visiting a petting zoo on a school field trip in 1999.

Seven other children also became infected. That same year, as many as 650 people were believed to have been exposed to rabies after having had contact with a bear cub at an Iowa petting zoo. Several had to undergo rabies vaccinations. The bear cub later died of the disease.

Is it any wonder that animals who are crammed into sweltering transport trucks and holding pens and hauled around the country are in ill health? Hiring a veterinarian to accompany them would reduce profits, so sick or injured animals often go untreated.

It’s impossible to know how many animals suffer and die on the fair circuit because exhibitors’ convoys are constantly on the move, and for the most part no one is watching. With fewer than 100 federal inspectors covering the country, it’s simply not possible to monitor exhibitors with any regularity.

But you can still enjoy a local fair without putting your children’s health at risk or supporting cruelty to animals. Simply walk on by the petting zoo, pony rides and any other displays that use animals as props.

Animal Issues

Six reasons why big cats don’t belong in circuses!

April 23, 2015 admin

We’ve poured our hearts into the elephants-don’t-belong-in-circuses crusade. Progress!

NOW IT’S TIME TO SAVE THE BIG CATS WHO SUFFER in Ringling and other traveling shows. LIONS, TIGERS, PANTHERS, COUGARS … all of these MAGNIFICENT AND MAJESTIC wild cats have captivated humankind’s imagination for millennia. Because they are so big, so beautiful, so exotic. All the more reason to let them BE FREE IN THE WILD, WHERE THEY BELONG. – Rosalie Tirella

Fom PETA.ORG:

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus made headlines when it announced that it was phasing out its cruel and dangerous elephant acts by 2018. However, many circuses, including Ringling, continue to exploit and abuse big cats, and, for those animals, there is no end in sight yet.

Here are six reasons why big cats do NOT belong in circuses:

1. In circuses, big cats are often forced to live intiny, cramped cages.

Circuses routinely cart animals from town to town in barren cages that deprive lions and tigers of opportunities to fulfill their basic needs to exercise, roam, socialize, forage, and play. Many big cats are forced to eat, drink, sleep, defecate, and urinate in the same place. The only relief that many are given from this nearly perpetual confinement is during their brief performances, when they are subjected to whippings and roaring crowds. As a result of captivity, many big cats are overweight, while others suffer psychologically. The stressful, unnatural environment can cause some to pace back and forth or even mutilate themselves.

2. Their maternal bond is broken.

In the wild, young tigers grow up with their mothers, but animals used in circuses are often separated long before they would naturally part, causing emotional distress for both mothers and cubs.

3. Their basic social and physiological needs are denied.

Tigers are naturally semi-nocturnal and love the water. In circuses, they’re carted around and forced to perform in the daytime and denied access to any kind of watering hole.

Adult tigers are solitary animals, but circuses ignore this fact and make them live in unnatural and often incompatible groups, sometimes resulting in fights and injuries.

CLICK HERE to read more!

Uncategorized

Adorable pygmy hippo dies in travelling show!

January 29, 2015 admin

Why can’t America do right by wild animals? Why so much pain, suffering and death? – R.T.

From PETA.ORG …

Written by Jennifer O’Connor | January 29, 2015

Animals continue to suffer and die while in the “care” of the notorious Carson & Barnes Circus. A hippopotamus named Katie, whom the circus had hauled around the country, was found dead. Her spine and hip bones were protruding, yet the circus had never weighed her and wasn’t tracking her body condition before she died. … CLICK HERE to read more!

InCity Voices

Why 2014 was a good year for animals

January 5, 2015 admin

Jett supports PETA!

***************

President’s message – PETA

By Ingrid Newkirk

Dear Friends,

2014 was another banner year for PETA and the animals we defend.

As described by The Saratogian’s horse-racing columnist, PETA’s first-of-its kind eyewitness investigation of horse drugging at Saratoga Race Course and Churchill Downs “exploded like a nuclear bomb in the racing community.”

In February, our mobile veterinary clinics division celebrated its 100,000th surgery.

In a major victory for baby seals—won with PETA’s help—the World Trade Organization upheld the European Union’s ban on seal fur imports, a landmark step toward protecting animals under international trade law.

The shocking footage from our wool industry exposé has been viewed 3.8 million times, and more than 65 apparel companies have begun displaying our new “PETA-Approved Vegan” logo in response to consumer demand for animal-friendly clothing!

We managed to get 18 bears who had been imprisoned in concrete pits or cells moved to beautiful sanctuaries, where they now enjoy fresh air and grass beneath their feet.

Thousands of people on three continents heard PETA’s message of compassion in person as a result of my “Naked Truth” wake-up tour. Following a speech at Harvard Law School by the PETA Foundation’s director of animal law about the cruelty of SeaWorld, the Harvard Law Record—the oldest law school newspaper in the nation—wrote: “Orca captivity is barbaric, inhuman and a gross violation of the rights of a highly intelligent and deeply feeling creature. The work of people like [the PETA Foundation’s director of animal law] makes apparent that generations to come will one day look upon such practices with eyes filled with shame and disgust.”

PETA’s strong outreach efforts among the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S.—the Latino community—reached millions. PETA Latino’s website was visited by more than 10 million people, our Spanish-language “Glass Walls” agribusiness exposé was viewed by more than 1.3 million people …

CLICK HERE to read more!

Uncategorized

Awesome Christmas news!!! … Now if only Worcester would do the right thing!

December 14, 2014 admin

Worcester can use these cities’ ordinances as blueprints for a Worcester Bullhook Ban! … Working to ban bullhooks in Worcester would make a great project for some classes in the Worcester Public Schools!

What You Can Do

From PETA.ORG … – R.T.

It’s Indisputable: Bullhooks are on the way out

Written by Jennifer O’Connor

Update: Just days after Oakland passed a law to prohibit bullhooks, Austin’s City Council voted unanimously to have its legal counsel draft a bullhook ban. The ordinance is expected to be ready and voted on in the spring. Austin is poised to join other progressive cities, including Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida, in saying no to bullhooks. The day is quickly coming when circuses such as Ringling Bros. will no longer be able to hit and hurt elephants with these barbaric weapons.

Originally published on December 9, 2014:

The Oakland, California, City Council has voted to ban bullhooks! An emergency appeal from Emmy Award winner and elephant advocate Lily Tomlin, along with the support from hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, former Oakland Raiders player David Carter, and AFI lead singer Davey Havok, helped to make it happen. It was a nail-biter that came down to the 11th hour, but PETA’s relentless push and Tomlin’s letter to City Council President Rebecca Kaplan urging her to condemn this cruel weapon resulted in a five to two winning vote.

“From one compassionate person to another, I urge you to see through the smoke screens and realize that at the heart of the issue is morality and compassion for another species,” wrote Tomlin.

Bullhooks—heavy batons with a sharp metal hook on one end—are used to beat and jab elephants. Make no mistake about it: Bullhooks are weapons.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has performed annually in Oakland, unashamedly defends the use of these devices. …

InCity Voices, Uncategorized

We’re ecstatic! Plymouth Town Representatives have voted to ban the use of wild animals in circuses!

April 9, 2014 admin Leave a comment

Victory! In Massachusetts, Plymouth Town Representatives have voted to ban the use of wild animals in circuses! ADI worked closely with local supporter Kati Carloni, who successfully used our evidence to lobby for change. http://bit.ly/1lGnyEn

Check out InCity Times’ no-exotic-animals-in-the-circus FACEBOOK PAGE! Click on the copy, beneath the elephant on THE RIGHT of this post, TO LEARN MORE!

HOORAY!!!!!! – R. T.

InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Circuses: three rings of abuse!

March 21, 2014 admin Leave a comment

From PETA.ORG

We have not given up the fight! Please educate yourself! Please keep your kids away from shows that “showcase” wild animals. Please check out our FACEBOOK PAGE on circuses (to the right – just click on the words!) to learn, connect and ACT! No more animal cruelty! – R. Tirella

Although some children dream of running away to join the circus, it is a safe bet that most animals forced to perform in circuses dream of running away from the circus. Colorful pageantry disguises the fact that animals used in circuses are captives who are forced—under threat of punishment—to perform confusing, uncomfortable, repetitious, and often painful acts. Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if more people knew about the cruel methods used to train the animals as well as the cramped confinement, unacceptable travel conditions, and poor treatment that they endure—not to mention what happens to them when they “retire.”

A Life Far Removed From Home
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus boasts that it “travels 30,000 miles for 11 months, and visits more than 140 cities in North America!”(1) Because circuses are constantly traveling from city to city, animals’ access to basic necessities such as food, water, and veterinary care is often inadequate. The animals, most of whom are quite large and naturally active, are forced to spend most of their lives in the cramped, barren cages and trailers used to transport them, where they have only enough room to stand and turn around. Most animals are allowed out of their cages only during the short periods when they must perform. Elephants are kept in leg shackles that prevent them from taking more than one step in any direction. The minimum requirements of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) are routinely ignored.

The lives of baboons, chimpanzees, and other primates used in circuses are a far cry from those of their wild relatives, who live in large, close-knit communities and travel together for miles each day across forests, savannahs, and hills. Primates are highly social, intelligent, and caring animals who suffer when deprived of companionship. Like all animals used in entertainment, primates do not perform unless they are forced to—often by inflicting beatings and imposing solitary confinement. After watching video footage of baboons in a traveling circus called “Baboon Lagoon,” Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research in Kenya, said, “[T]raining most baboons to do tricks of the sort displayed is not trivial … it is highly likely that it required considerable amounts of punishment and intimidation.”(2)

During the off-season, animals used in circuses may be housed in traveling crates or barn stalls— some are even kept in trucks. Such interminable confinement has harmful physical and psychological effects on animals. These effects are often indicated by unnatural forms of behavior such as repeated head-bobbing, swaying, and pacing.(3)

The tricks that animals are forced to perform—such as when bears balance on balls, apes ride motorcycles, and elephants stand on two legs—are physically uncomfortable and behaviorally unnatural. The whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other tools used during circus acts are reminders that the animals are being forced to perform. These “performances” teach audiences nothing about how animals behave under normal circumstances.

Beaten Into Submission
Physical punishment has always been the standard training method for animals in circuses. Animals are beaten, shocked, and whipped to make them perform—over and over again—tricks that make no sense to them. The AWA allows the use of bullhooks, whips, electrical shock prods, or other devices by circus trainers. Trainers drug some animals to make them “manageable” and surgically remove the teeth and claws of others.

Video footage shot during a PETA undercover investigation of Carson & Barnes Circus showed Carson & Barnes’ animal-care director, Tim Frisco, as he viciously attacked, yelled and cursed at, and shocked endangered Asian elephants. Frisco instructed other elephant trainers to beat the elephants with a bullhook as hard as they could and to sink the sharp metal bullhook into the animals’ flesh and twist it until they screamed in pain. The videotape also showed a handler who used a blowtorch to remove elephants’ hair as well as chained elephants and caged bears who exhibited stereotypic behaviors caused by mental distress.

Cole Bros. Circus, formerly known as “Clyde Beatty–Cole Bros. Circus,” has been cited repeatedly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for animal welfare violations. According to congressional testimony given by former Beatty-Cole elephant keeper Tom Rider, “[I]n White Plains, N.Y., when Pete did not perform her act properly, she was taken to the tent and laid down, and five trainers beat her with bullhooks.” Rider also told officials that “[a]fter my three years working with elephants in the circus, I can tell you that they live in confinement and they are beaten all the time when they don’t perform properly.”(4)

Former Ringling Bros. employees have reported that elephants are routinely abused and violently beaten with bullhooks. Archele Hundley, who was an animal trainer with Ringling Bros., says that she worked with the company for three months and quit after she allegedly saw a handler ram a bullhook into an elephant’s ear for refusing to lie down. Ringling Bros. “believes that if they can keep these animals afraid, they can keep them submissive,” Hundley said. “This is how they train their employees to handle these animals.”(5)

In 2009, PETA recorded Ringling Bros. employees for many months and in numerous U.S. states. Eight employees, including the head elephant trainer and the animal superintendent, were videotaped backstage repeatedly hitting elephants in the head, trunk, ears, and other sensitive body parts with bullhooks and other cruel training devices just before the animals would enter the arena for performances. A tiger trainer was videotaped beating tigers during dress rehearsals. Video footage from the investigation can be viewed at RinglingBeatsAnimals.com.

In lieu of a USDA hearing, Feld Entertainment, Inc. (the parent company of Ringling Bros.), agreed to pay an unprecedented $270,000 fine for violations of the AWA that allegedly occurred between June 2007 and August 2011.(6)

Animals Rebel
These intelligent captive animals sometimes snap under the pressure of constant abuse. Others make their feelings abundantly clear when they get a chance. Flora, an elephant who had been forced to perform in a circus and was later moved to the Miami Zoo, attacked and severely injured a zookeeper in front of visitors.(7) As Florida police officer Blayne Doyle—who shot 47 rounds into Janet, an elephant who ran amok with three children on her back at the Great American Circus in Palm Bay—noted, “I think these elephants are trying to tell us that zoos and circuses are not what God created them for … but we have not been listening.”(8)

What You Can Do
As more people become aware of the cruelty involved in forcing animals to perform, circuses that use animals are finding fewer places to set up their big tops. The use of animals in entertainment has already been restricted or banned in cities across the U.S. and in countries worldwide. For instance, Bolivia, Greece, Israel, Peru, and Sweden have banned the use of all animals in circuses, and Britain has prohibited the use of wild animals in traveling circuses.(9,10)

Take your family to see only animal-free circuses, such as Cirque du Soleil. PETA can provide you with literature to pass out to patrons if a circus that uses animals comes to your town. Find out about state and local animal protection laws, and report any suspected violations to authorities. Contact PETA for information on ways to get an animal-display ban passed in your area.

References
1) Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, “Circus Figures: The Numbers Behind ‘The Greatest Show on Earth,’” Feld Entertainment, Inc., 2007.
2) Robert Sapolsky, letter to PETA, June 2004.
3) Randi Hutter Epstein, “Circus Life Drives Animals Insane, Two British Rights Groups Contend,” The Associated Press, 24 Aug. 1993.
4) Tom Rider, testimony, legislative hearing on H.R. 2929, 13 June 2000.
5) Ira Kantor, “Bill Would Outlaw Hooks Used on Elephants,” The Milford Daily News 17 Oct. 2007.
6) Leigh Remizowski, “USDA Fines Ringling Bros. Circus Over Treatment of Animals,” CNN.com, 29 Nov. 2011.
7) NBC 6 News Team, “Elephant Who Attacked Handler Was Circus Star,” NBC6.net, 17 Dec. 2002.
8) Louis Sahagun, “Elephants Pose Giant Dangers,” Los Angeles Times 11 Oct. 1994.
9) Sydney Azari, “Greece Bans Animal Circuses,” Bikya Masr 10 Feb. 2012.
10) Fred Attewill, “Travelling Circuses Banned From Using Wild Animals in Shows,” Metro 1 Mar. 2012.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

We hope Worcester Mayor Joe Petty is reading the letters, reports and …

October 21, 2013 admin Leave a comment

… all the other info pertaining to wild animal acts in Worcester that’s been presented to/mailed to him and council members over the past month. The mayor and some city councilors said at a recent city council meeting they wanted to study the circus issue in depth before voting. They have received a lot of information … Here’s hoping everyone is doing their homework!

Just a thought: Worcester’s a souped-up utility-closet to lots of Boston folks – especially reporters. Maybe we could get a little respect from the brilliant folks to the east by being progresive, forward-thinking? An exotic-animal act ban might call attention to the city – in a good way. – R. Tirella

Green Island Grrrl, Hoffman, InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

Why can’t we read something like this in the T & G …

October 11, 2013 admin Leave a comment

… instead of the garbage we’ve seen on the circus? This is why we can never be great! A profound lack of brains and heart, re: circuses. – R.T.

From the LA TIMES:

No more curtain calls for elephants

Editorial

They are majestic animals, not performers. The City Council should act to protect them.

The Los Angeles City Council is poised to consider a measure that would in effect prevent elephants from performing in traveling shows and exhibitions in the city. It’s hardly unusual for the council to sound off on any issue under the sun, but in this case, the proposal before it underscores a growing appreciation for the world’s largest and most majestic land mammal. It deserves to be approved, and should prompt serious reflection on humanity’s relationship with these noble animals.

In the wilds of Asia and Africa, elephants roam miles a day, foraging for vegetation, socializing in groups, gamboling over varied topography — dirt, grass, hills, rocks — and wallowing in mud holes. Until recently, nothing about that natural existence was approximated in zoos. When they weren’t on display in cramped exhibits, they were chained in zoo barns, standing on concrete or other hard surfaces. For 8,000-to-10,000-pound creatures who spend all day on their feet and can live into their 40s, the consequence of that confinement was a painful middle age, marked by arthritis, cracked toenails and sore feet.

Zookeepers entered elephants’ enclosures and maintained control over the animals with the bullhook. With one blunt end and a sharp hook on the other, it resembles a hammer. Keepers used it to poke, prod or strike.

Since the 1990s, as zoos and veterinarians started to understand the severity of elephant foot diseases, conditions began to improve. Zoos stopped chaining their elephants at night. Exhibits got bigger and surfaces for treading got softer. The Los Angeles Zoo spent more than $40 million building a new habitat, trying to offer, in several acres, some of what elephants might find in the wild — dirt, grass, hills, logs, a waterfall— as well as features they wouldn’t find, such as a barn with heated floors.

Today at the L.A. Zoo, the bullhook has been banished and keepers practice “protected contact” with elephants, meaning that man and pachyderm rarely share the same space. This protects keepers and animals and eliminates the need for the former to threaten the latter with a sharp-edged tool. The Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits North American zoos, has instructed all of its member facilities to adopt, by 2014, the practice of keepers not sharing “unrestricted space” with elephants.

What has been slower to change is the common perception of elephants and how they interact with human civilization. That concept is tangled in a history of pachyderms depicted as brave warriors in battle, stately beasts of burden and hardy workers, hauling lumber in Asia, ferrying tourists in Thailand and carrying visitors at county fairs in the United States.

But elephants are not horses. Although some argue that they have become domestic animals, they are not domesticated in the technical sense of having been bred by humans for selective gene traits. At best (or worst), many have been tamed for human handling. But “taming” is not gentle; it requires chaining and the bullhook, and comes at the expense of an elephant’s well-being. Whether the animal is trained to entertain or to drag logs through a jungle, it is taught by force.

Using elephants to perform in circuses and give rides at county fairs may seem more benign than using them to labor in Asian logging facilities, but it relies on much of the same coercion. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has long defended its use of elephants, saying they are meticulously cared for on the road and at its conservation center in Florida. But Ringling still chains its elephants in trains to transport them and uses bullhooks to manage them, according to reports by the L.A. Department of Animal Services and a veterinarian assigned by the department to examine the animals. That’s why a City Council committee is recommending a prohibition on public elephant performances and bullhooks.

Elephants have been part of human history for thousands of years, and their image as gentle giants endures. But their interaction with humans has often been characterized by their mistreatment. With greater understanding has come new responsibility to treat elephants with the dignity they deserve and have too often been denied.

InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

End of the road for animal acts

October 10, 2013 admin Leave a comment

By Jennifer O’Connor

The trend is undeniable: The days of hauling animals around and hurting them in the name of entertainment are quickly coming to an end. Winnipeg is the latest municipality to slam the door shut on circuses using exotic animals. Mayor Sam Katz and the Winnipeg City Council made it clear that they will no longer tolerate circus cruelty.

All around the world, cities and entire countries are banning exotic-animal circus acts. Austria, Bolivia, Colombia, Greece, Paraguay and Peru have done so already, and others, including Britain and Scotland, are on the verge of doing so. Besides outright bans, many cities are saying no to the tools that circuses use to inflict pain, such as the bullhook—a heavy baton with a sharp metal hook on the end that can rip and tear elephants’ skin—and electric prods. Since circuses control animals with these cruel devices—or more accurately, attempt to control them, since so many have run amok—such prohibitions effectively keep the animals out.

Only a decade or so ago, the fabulous Cirque du Soleil was one of the few alternative circuses around. But the demand for cruelty-free entertainment has skyrocketed, and now there are more than a dozen vibrant, innovative productions touring North America that don’t exploit animals. Even consummate huckster P.T. Barnum couldn’t convince today’s informed public that beating animals and keeping them in cages and chains from birth to death is acceptable.

The empirical evidence of what life is like for animals in circuses is undeniable and readily available to the public. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, for example, paid a record $270,000 to settle multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. At least 30 elephants have died while in Ringling’s hands since 1992.

Former employees of Ringling have come forward to report egregious abuses, including forcibly removing baby elephants from their frantic mothers, tying them down by all four legs, and slamming them to the ground, surrounded by “trainers” wielding bullhooks and electric hotshots.

An undercover investigator videotaped a Carson & Barnes elephant trainer who was viciously attacking elephants with a bullhook and shocking them with electric prods. The elephants screamed in agony while recoiling from the assaults. The trainer can be heard instructing his students to sink the weapons into the elephants’ flesh and twist them until the elephants scream in pain.

Despite being ordered to pay a $7,500 penalty to settle nearly three dozen charges of violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, the Liebel Family Circus continues to drag around an elephant named Nosey, even though she is suffering from a chronic skin condition. The Piccadilly Circus was given an official warning by federal authorities about its animal-handling practices. The Kelly Miller Circus has been cited for denying adequate veterinary care to an elephant with a painful, oozing puncture wound on her ear, among other abuses.

The facts are simple and stark: Animals in circuses suffer tremendously. Every parent or grandparent who buys a ticket is contributing directly to the animals’ misery. Every child who exits a show believing that hurting animals is “fun” leaves a bit of his or her heart behind. Our elected officials should enact additional laws that put a stop to an outmoded form of “entertainment” that has no place in a civilized society.