Most Popular
-
Pentecostal Preacher Sherman Allen Turns Out to Be Reverend Spanky
The Fort Worth preacher is accused of beating, threatening and assaulting women for more than 20 years
-
Obama and Me
It was the year 2000, and I was a young, hungry reporter in Chicago with a young, hungry state legislator on my speed dial
-
Texas' Peyote Hunters Struggle to Find a Vanishing, Holy Crop
Harvesting peyote is legal for only three people, and all of them live in Texas
-
-
Why is Hillary Neglecting Delegate-Rich Dallas County?
While Obama has events going on throughout the city, Clinton is nowhere to be found
-
Obama and Me (63)
It was the year 2000, and I was a young, hungry reporter in Chicago with a young, hungry state legislator on my speed dial
-
Melodica Festival Self-Indulgent, But Still Positive for Dallas (51)
If a festival happens in Exposition Park and only the built-in crowd shows, does it make a sound?
-
Ole Oops (58)
Popular prosperity preacher sues ABC and Trinity Foundation
-
Pentecostal Preacher Sherman Allen Turns Out to Be Reverend Spanky (21)
The Fort Worth preacher is accused of beating, threatening and assaulting women for more than 20 years
-
Why is Hillary Neglecting Delegate-Rich Dallas County? (18)
While Obama has events going on throughout the city, Clinton is nowhere to be found
-
Pentecostal Preacher Sherman Allen Turns Out to Be Reverend Spanky
The Fort Worth preacher is accused of beating, threatening and assaulting women for more than 20 years
-
Obama and Me
It was the year 2000, and I was a young, hungry reporter in Chicago with a young, hungry state legislator on my speed dial
-
Texas' Peyote Hunters Struggle to Find a Vanishing, Holy Crop
Harvesting peyote is legal for only three people, and all of them live in Texas
-
-
Why is Hillary Neglecting Delegate-Rich Dallas County?
While Obama has events going on throughout the city, Clinton is nowhere to be found
-
Lynn Flint Shaw's "Inner Circle"
03:35PM 03/11/08 -
Tom Pauken Never Saw It Coming
02:50PM 03/11/08 -
Racists Wear the Darnedest Tees
02:13PM 03/11/08 -
Sloppyworld Closes
12:23AM 03/12/08 -
Something's Afoot At The Old Tower Records Spot On Lemmon
04:42PM 03/11/08 -
To Vampire Weekend Or Not To Vampire Weekend?
11:54AM 03/11/08
What we are writing about
- $30,000 millionaires
- Avi Adelman
- basketball
- Bob Dylan
- carcinogens
- Carol Reed
- cheap lunch
- Dallas Cowboys
- DART
- Deep Ellum
- Dirk Nowitzki
- douchebags
- DVD releases
- I'm Not There
- illegal immigration
- levees
- Meryl Streep
- Muslims
- Nintendo Wii
- Oak Cliff
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
- railroad tie plant
- referendum
- Somerville
- The Ticket
- Todd Haynes
- toll road
- Tony Romo
- Trinity River project
- Victory Park
Recent Articles By Jesse Hyde
-
Black-Tie Art
-
Family Members Blame Dallas' VA Hospital for the Suicides of Two Veterans
-
Still an Aryan Blood Brother
Two murders and two life sentences won't alter one convict's allegiance to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas
-
Plano Cops Make Bitter Divorce Even Worse
-
For Love, Aryan Brotherhood Killer Confesses
The prison gang member and killer stands ready to clear his wife for his crimes
National Features
-
Houston Press
"It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"
For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.
By Chris Vogel -
SF Weekly
The Candidate
Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
By Matt Smith -
The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum -
Village Voice
Project Runaway
What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto
Danny Reid is no fan of cockfighting.
So when the local marketing executive and animal rights advocate heard that Amazon.com sells cockfighting books, magazines and videos, he decided to do something about it. He wrote an e-mail to Amazon and then he posted his anti-cockfighting rant on every local blog he had access to. Reid's message: If Amazon didn't stop selling cockfighting material, he would stop being an Amazon customer. He wants his friends to do the same.
The Humane Society of the United States has been trying to get Amazon to stop selling cockfighting and dogfighting material for years. In fact, they have filed a lawsuit against Amazon, arguing that the federal Animal Welfare Act prohibits any person from "knowingly use[ing] the mail service of the U.S. Postal Service or any interstate instrumentality for purposes of promoting or in any other manner furthering an animal fighting venture."
Two of the cockfighting magazines Amazon sells, Gamecock and Feathered Warrior, are full of ads for fighting birds and cockfighting paraphernalia, the Humane Society says, and are thus in violation of federal law.
"Amazon.com needs to follow the law," says John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Humane Society. "This is not an issue about what is controversial, but rather about what is legal and illegal. It is illegal to use the United States Postal Service to facilitate illegal animal fights. Yet Amazon.com sells cockfighting magazines that contain advertisements for illegal activity. Since those are shipped through the post office, they are violating the law." (The HSUS has also filed suit against the U.S. Postal Service for shipping the magazines.)
To date, Amazon, which has more than $8 billion in annual sales, has refused to stop selling the magazines. Reid doesn't understand why.
"I can't figure it out," he says. "How big could the market be?"
(According to the Humane Society, in 2006 Gamecock ranked at number 501 and Feathered Warrior at 2,016 of the 17,000 magazines Amazon.com sold that year).
After Reid wrote to Amazon, he says he got the following e-mail response from Eric Layne of Amazon.com's executive customer relations: "Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to choose his or her own reading material or entertainment.
"Therefore, Amazon.com continues to provide a wide variety of products and does not engage in censorship, regardless of our own individual tastes and beliefs."
But for Reid, this misses the point. It isn't about censorship, he says, or what's legal and illegal. It's about making choices.
"Amazon has chosen not to sell porn. I don't see why they couldn't make the same decision about cockfighting and dogfighting magazines. Maybe it just comes down to pit bulls and roosters aren't human enough for the world to care."









What a hypocritical jackass to try to enforce his morality on everyone who uses Amazon. He's worse than the religious right. At least you don't see them trying to force Amazon to stop selling all non-Christian literature.
While he's at it, he might as well try to make Amazon sell only vegan cookbooks. And he must be oblivious to the fact that not everyone who reads those books and magazines necessarily supports cockfighting. I imagine law enforcement and journalists opposed to the sport might find such literature useful.
Comment by muffin man fan — March 14, 2007 @ 04:24PM
Thanks so much for writing this article! I had no idea this was going on, but it inspired me to write my own letter to Amazon. I'm switching my business to BN.com or eBay or whatever it takes to avoid using Amazon until they stop trafficing in animal abuse.
Comment by Holly Morgan — March 15, 2007 @ 09:55AM
I've been trying to post in response to the article and the first comment, but I think it's too long or something because I keep getting an error message. So, "muffin man fan" (and anyone else), if you'd like a bit extra clarification from me, feel free to visit my blog at http://ancient-chinese-secret.blogspot.com/.
Thanks!
Comment by Danny Reid — March 15, 2007 @ 07:40PM