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A Stolen Puppy In Paris, The Ugly Face Of Animal Rights Ideologues

A Stolen Puppy In Paris, The Ugly Face Of Animal Rights Ideologues
Massimo Gramellini

There's a video circulating on the Internet that stunned me stone cold. You see a group of animal rights activists literally tearing a homeless man's puppy from his arms. You can see the poor guy trying in vain to free himself from the leader of the activist group, while the frightened little pup squeals and scurries before being scooped up and whisked away by the commando of righteous bandits. A chilling sequence, an abduction in the center of Paris, captured on the smartphone of an onlooker.

On their Facebook page, the kidnappers (I don't know what else I could call them) boast a vision with Nazi echoes: "We took the dog away from a Roma beggar. The police didn't act, we did." It would be useless to seek in their triumphal dispatch any sign of embarrassment for having interfered in the destiny of two living creatures just minding their own business. The kidnappers even renamed their prey "Vegan," which — in the face of the reality that canines are carnivores — says much about the readiness to impose one's vision on others.

Needless to say, I hope the French authorities pursue the case. Love without humanity is only a projection of a frigid mind — an ideology, which like all ideologies, produces crimes disguised as acts of goodwill.

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Society

Mapping The Patriarchy: Where Nine Out Of 10 Streets Are Named After Men

The Mapping Diversity platform examined maps of 30 cities across 17 European countries, finding that women are severely underrepresented in the group of those who name streets and squares. The one (unsurprising) exception: The Virgin Mary.

Photo of Via della Madonna dei Monti in Rome, Italy.

Via della Madonna dei Monti in Rome, Italy.

Eugenia Nicolosi

ROME — The culture at the root of violence and discrimination against women is not taught in school, but is perpetuated day after day in the world around us: from commercial to cultural products, from advertising to toys. Even the public spaces we pass through every day, for example, are almost exclusively dedicated to men: war heroes, composers, scientists and poets are everywhere, a constant reminder of the value society gives them.

For the past few years, the study of urban planning has been intertwined with that of feminist toponymy — the study of the importance of names, and how and why we name things.

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