By Steve Hindi - SHARK -
news@sharkonline.org
The Kane County (Illinois) Fair rodeo was held yesterday
(7/20/02), in spite of our efforts to stop it following our bust of the
rodeo stock contractor (Big Hat Rodeo Company) three nights earlier for
shocking animals in chutes.
But there were certain light moments to be found amongst
the animal abuse and boredom, and rodeos are, except for the cruelty,
boring enough to nearly kill a person with active brain cells.
The Kane County Fair Association, while not having the
ethics to cancel the rodeo, is just smart enough to realize what a
public relations mess they are in, and they know that Big Hat Rodeo
owner Rudy Calzavara is the guy who put them in that mess.
So they apparently required Rudy to hold his hands up
just prior to each bull leaving the chute, to make certain that his prod
fetish was under wraps for the day!
Now you have to take a moment to picture this. Rudy
Calzavara is probably somewhere between sixty-five and seventy-five
years old. This is certainly a time when a man wants to be shown some
respect and to display dignity, if he ever will. But then, we are
talking about rodeo people here.
So Rudy boy stood at the bucking chutes like some kind
of circus freak, with his hands high in the air, as each bull left the
chute. I wish each of you could have been there to see it - especially
you rodeo lurkers! It was about as low as I have seen any rodeo stooge
taken, at least to this point.
Although there was a significant number of security
personnel and police officers keeping lookout for video cameras and
still cameras with telephoto lenses, we have both video footage and
close-up still pictures. Sorry Rudy boy, we intend to save your day of
disgrace for posterity.
Those of you who aren't on our snail mail list should
join, as we will include pictures of Rudy boy with his hands up in our
next newsletter. I'm going to get one enlarged and framed.
All this has brought us to decide that Rudy deserves a
fitting title, and I feel we have chosen properly. So now and forever
more, Big Hat Rodeo Company owner Rudy Calzavara shall be known as, "The
Clod with the Prod."
On the serious side, the Kane County Fair rodeo left a
bull hobbling on three legs. We don't know what the nature of the injury
is, or what will happen to the victim.
There also was insufficient shade for the animals in
spite of 90+ degree heat, and some animals had no access to water in
either of the two shows we attended. We shall file appropriate
complaints against the rodeo with the Illinois Department of Agriculture
on Monday.
It has been one hot summer for the Rodeo Mafia, and I'm
not talking about the weather. And it's going to get a lot hotter.
Tomorrow, I'll try to post some newspaper articles on this and other
recent rodeos.
As a parting laugh, know that the message board for the
Friends of Rodeo (FOR) website is still down since we made some truthful
posts to it regarding rodeos, and neither FOR president Linda Burdick
nor any other representative of the rodeo apologist organization has
replied to my debate challenges.
Go on to The Unpaid
Circus Worker
Return to 21 July 2002 Issue
Return to Newsletters
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