Temple Grandin

Anyone else bothered by the new HBO special on Temple Grandin?

On the one hand, I feel like I should watch it just to know what it is everyone is talking about (I have a sinking feeling that a lot of lawyer colleagues will be asking me about it over the coming weeks just as a matter of making pre-court conversation...)

On the other, I can't much think about Grandin's work in the livestock industry without just getting really annoyed. Not that I'm against humane treatment of animals as a general matter, mind you. Nor have I ever much subscribed to the Francione camp of enacting-humane-laws-can-be-more-counterproductive-than-good.

But (at least to me), Grandin is different. Her "work" resonated at such a voluminous scale that I can't help but truly feel that her - in my view - completed warped ideas about animals and slaughter really helped anyone... that is, other than the large-scale operators save face in the public arena or (more likely) assuage their nagging cognitive dissonance the public never sees.

I think her "vision" about how to keep animals calm(er) before killing them is no better or different than giving a condemned prisoner a cigaretter before a firing squad blows his brains out. I understand why the livestock industry lauds her. It is, I suppose, equally understandable - but nonetheless very disappointing - that HBO has also chosen to try to wring profit from her unusual perspective on suffering.