In her 1948 short story, "The Lottery," about the annual selection of a sacrificial victim in a small American town, Shirley Jackson makes a powerful statement about humanity’s tendency to cling blindly to meaningless rituals and participate in pointless violence. In my many years as an animal advocate, I’ve heard many excuses for our use and abuse of animals, but I’m often taken aback by the one that concludes that certain practices are justifiable because they’re embedded in the "culture" and sanctified by "tradition," as if that’s all the reason we need to justify our behavior. After all, one culture's "traditions" are another cultures "taboos."