Bull in a china shop...

When fables, proverbs, and idioms come to life, it is a sign of an animal revolution in the making... they warned us these days would come:

"The animal escaped from an auction market next to GB Antiques Centre in Lancaster, Lancashire, on Monday and barged its way into the shop, which was packed with 200 people.

Police had to shoot the animal in order to save customers and stock - china and all. It was herded to an area of the centre and blocked in using two antique organs before a police marksman opened fire. A woman was treated in hospital for a bruised shoulder after the incident. 'Hundreds of items will have been destroyed, at a cost running into thousands of pounds,' Mr Blackburn said."

Really, the owner could have invited the bull for tea. Where is his hospitality? Is it reserved for humans alone, and only for select humans...not very hospitable then is it? The absurd idea of inviting the bull for tea once it is in the china shop is a figure for saying: what does the animal want and why don't we think of its desire, which is to say, why can we not be hospitable. Here think of Derrida on hospitality:

it [hospitality] already broaches an important question, that of the anthropological dimension of hospitality or the right to hospitality: what can be said of, indeed can one speak of, hospitality toward the non-human, the divine, for example, or the animal or vegetable; does one owe hospitality, and is that the right word when it is a question of welcoming – or being made welcome by – the other or the stranger as god, animal or plant?”