Animal Person

Gluten-Free Coconut Almond Cookies

By popular request, here's the recipe I tweaked from one on the back of a flour package. Veganized it, almonded it up a bit, and then made half the batter with dark chocolate chips and half with raw almond slivers.

1 cup sugar (hey, it's a holiday weekend)
1/2 cup Coconut Butter (or Earth Balance, I suppose)
1/3 cup Coconut Milk (as in milk from the carton, not the canned product. Used Regular Unsweetened. I suppose Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk would be just fine, too.)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup White Rice Flour
1/3 cup Coconut Flour
2 Tbsp Potato Starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup raw, sliced almonds
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla and almond extracts and coconut milk. Separately, mix dry ingredients (except almonds and chips). Add dry to wet. Cut batter in half (or not) and mix almonds into one half and chocolate chips into the other (or not). Bake in lightly greased mini-muffin pan for 10-12 minutes according to the original recipe, but it took 15 minutes for my oven to produce perfection.

Enjoy!

On "The Botany of Desire"

This is coming very, very late, but part of why "Food Inc." wasn't impressive for me is because I'm not the target audience. I'd already read Pollan and Schlosser and seen "The Future of Food" and "King Corn." And though The Omnivore's Dilemma definitely promotes the eating of animals if those animals were "farmed" a certain way (and locally), there's so much helpful information in it about the food supply, in general, that it's tough to tell people not to read it.

Because The Botany of Desire doesn't address animals (Pollan discusses four plants: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes), there's no way for it to promote their consumption. I read this book over a year after The Omnivore's Dilemma, despite it having been published first, and I feel strongly about recommending it because of what it teaches about culture, greed, history, and . . . plants.

From John Chapman (Johny Appleseed) not eating animals or using horses in his travels (and the fact that apples originated in the forests of Kazakhstan) to the dotcom-like frenzy over the tulip in Holland to the evolution of cannabis to convincing me to never eat french fries at a restaurant (that's the only potato product I eat when I go out, and of course I inquire about what it is fried in), Pollan does a wonderful job of making the stories of the most ordinary plants sound like exotic adventures.

And of course, the entire book is a commentary on what happens when humans decide that a plant, for whatever reason, is desirable (or perhaps, as Pollan suggests, we have been set up by the plants to desire them).

On "Wild Justice"

 "Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals," By Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, is the most recent (for me) book that debunks myths about the differences between human and nonhuman animals. And those mythical differences, of course, have historically been used to legitimize our use and treatment of our nonhuman cousins. This particular group fits in with other Bekoff books as well as those by Jonathan Balcombe and Jeffrey Masson (see here for more on some of them from April of 2008).

Bekoff and Pierce (a philosopher) are the perfect combination to write this book because whenever you're presenting the similarities of nonhuman animals to human animals, a philosophical conundrum is created for humans, who like to think that we are worlds different, and above nonhumans. But as the frequently-invoked Darwin would say, those differences are of degree, not kind.

Just to be clear, this book deals with the nonhuman animals who are most like us: social vertebrates, and specifically social mammals (and there are a handful of references to cetaceans who behave similarly). "Morality is an evolutionary adaptation to social living" (45), and the hypothesis of Bekoff and Pierce is that "greater social complexity is linked with more complex and nuanced moral behaviors" (53). Also, Bekoff and Pierce present a descriptive view, not a normative view of morality. There are no judgments. They amassed an enormous amount of data, and then "allowed the data to do the talking" (151).

I'll get to what the data said in a moment, but first a few more clarifications.

• The authors make a distinction between narrative ethology and "'animal stories' that proliferate on the Web . . . . Narrative from seasoned ethologists provides interpretation informed by their knowledge about a particular species and its behavior, and their attention to context and individual peculiarities" (37).
• Bekoff and Pierce "advocate a species-relative view of morality. Each species in which moral behavior has evolved has its unique behavioral repertoire. The same basic behavioral capacities will be present--empathy, altruism, cooperation, and perhaps a sense of fairness--but will manifest as different social norms and different behaviors. . . . Despite some shared evolutionary history, wolf morality is different from human morality and also from elephant morality and chimpanzee morality" (19).
• "The scientific investigation of morality, in humans and nonhumans alike, is in its infancy" (39).
• Regarding accusations of anthropomorphism (which arise frequently and did in Bekoff's previous book, as well) and also evolutionary continuity, which provides for symmetry in comparisons, the authors write: "It isn't that we set out looking for humanlike traits in animals and hope to find some. Rather, we set out to understand what animals are like, and use the language and concepts that come closest to describing what we see" (41).

What did Bekoff and Pierce find?

They found a "suite of behaviors" including cooperation, empathy and justice, and various intelligences that make those behaviors possible. Each behavior comprises a "cluster" of behaviors that may or may not be considered moral, and also aren't necessarily defined as you would imagine. And therein is the necessity to pay close attention to the language in the book, although that is useful only to a degree as "not all ethologists and biologists agree that cooperation among animals is really cooperation . . . . [T]hey may be acting independently and simultaneously, without any cognitive decision to work together" (64). Furthermore, "We need to be careful about language and remember that [for example] altruism has a specific meaning within biology and isn't synonymous with morality" (82).

The authors discuss the three clusters of behavior (cooperation, empathy and justice) and the kinds and degrees of intelligences necessary for them to be present, with justice being the least certain of the three. But whether of not there is wide agreement on the existence of wild justice within social mammal communities (there isn't), we do find that the cognitive, social and emotional lives of these animals are far more developed and rich than most people are willing (or educated enough to) admit.

And therein lies one question the authors pose: Now that we are delving into the lives of animals in this way and are finding that they are not beings who are completly driven by instinct, never thinking about the future or past, and incapable of acting in a way that is good for others, particularly if there is a cost to themselves, aren't we obligated to seriously "[reconsider] the uses to which we put animals in research, education, and for clothes and food, among other things" (137)?

Online Survey on Ethics and Animals

A new survey is getting the attention of many within the global animal protection community. Covering both moral and strategic issues, the "Ethics and Animals" survey will provide a snapshot of our movement as of the present moment.

Everyone is invited to participate and share their views on what's best for animals. The survey is at EthicsAndAnimals.questionpro.com, and its closing date has been extended to Monday, July 13, 2009.

For other information, such as banners and links to the survey in other languages, you may visit the blog of ethiQUEST Surveys, the survey administrator: ethiquest.wordpress.com .

The results will be first presented and discussed at the 12th International Vegan Festival, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 22-25, 2009 (more about it here). Later on, a report containing the results and relevant parts of that discussion shall be published at: ethiquest.wordpress.com.

Chime in!

On Humane Societies and Calf-Roping

 Angus directed me to a story about the Calgary Stampede (rodeo) and the Calgary and Vancouver Humane Societies which had me asking: Whose side are they on?

Here's the backstory:

• Calgary has what they call a "western culture," which essentially is their two word justification for abusing animals in the cruel and not-even-close-to fair venue of people-over-animals-who-don't-stand-a-chance.
• The Vancouver Humane Society wanted to run the calf=baby/roper=bully ad in the Calgary Sun, which decided against the idea as the abuse of animals is part of their "very proud local institution." The newspaper also claims that the advertising department thought the ad was "offensive" and that is why it wasn't run.
• The Calgary Humane Society works with the Stampede to make sure the animals are safe (and by the way that's impossible if the animals are being used in the rodeo. Safe, unharmed rodeo animals is an oxymoron).
• The Vancouver Humane Society wants to ban calf-roping. Not the rodeo. Calf-roping (which of course is a hideous practice, but so are the rest of the animal-related rodeo activities).

Do you see where the average, critical thinker might have a problem with this scenario?

• If the Vancouver Humane Society is on the side of the animals, why focus on calf-roping? I find it hard to believe that that's the only event they think is a disgusting show of injustice and "bullying."
• The Calgary Humane Society is just as bad for working with the Stampede. How can any humane society worker honestly say that they want the rodeo to continue? Why on Earth would they work with the rodeo rather than to ban it completely? (This sounds an awful lot like the previous bullet, I know.)
• I don't really believe the rationales the paper came up with for not running the ad, but that's just my opinion.
• Then again, the ad begs such a basic question (why calf-roping and not rodeo) that I don't quite understand the purpose. Will the VHS support the rodeo if calf-roping is banned? That's what the ad would make me think. Is calf-roping some kind of low-hanging fruit and just the beginning? If so, campaign to ban the rodeo, for heaven's sake! Just be honest about your goal and campaign for it!

I don't get the overwhelming feeling that anyone is on the side of the animals, here. When I look at the Humane Society of the United States' statement on rodeos, I feel much better. It's off to a promising start and includes a promising end:

The HSUS opposes rodeos as they are commonly organized, since they typically cause torment and stress to animals; expose them to pain, injury, or even death; and encourage an insensitivity to and acceptance of the inhumane treatment of animals in the name of sport. Accordingly, we oppose the use of devices such as electric prods, sharpened sticks, spurs, flank straps, and other rodeo equipment that cause animals to react violently, and we oppose bull riding, bronco riding, steer roping, calf roping, "wild horse racing," chuck wagon racing, steer tailing, and horse tripping.

However, the opposition to the use of certain devices tells me that if those devices weren't used, the rodeo would be acceptable. But the HSUS is by no means an animal-rights organization; it is an animal welfare organization. At least it sounds like it's interested in the welfare of all animals in the rodeo, while the VHS statement is ambiguous at best, and contradictory at worst.

What's the difference between the HSUS and the VHS and CHS? The "western culture" that is allowed to rule. Yes, we have pockets of it, too. And in all cases where there is something held sacred today for the simple reason that it was held sacred yesterday, the people with the voices and the dollars have to stand up and say: This is 2009 and we are better than this. There is no reason to continue to torment sentient nonhumans, and to do so for entertainment and profit is to allow the lowest part of ourselves to rule our behavior.

Societies evolve morally. Perhaps the pace of that evolution is glacial in some areas. The only way to speed up the pace is to stand your ground, not back down, and present a message that makes it clear whose side you're on.

All rodeos, everywhere, should be banned. Period.

Chipping Away at Greyhound Racing

In March of 2007 I wrote, "in a horribly-depressing vote of 198-138, New Hampshire's House voted AGAINST a bill that would shut down live racing at its three greyhound race tracks." E-mails were exchanged between yours truly and NH legislators, and though I knew the hounds would someday be free of racing, they were going to have to wait at least another year. At least.

Nearly two years later, one of the tracks closed. The Hinsdale track ceased operations in December and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

And this year, according to Tom Fahey in "Dog Racing May Be Gone Forever," the two tracks that remained "won permission to drop all racing dates. They will continue to operate as simulcast betting centers, and to host gambling events for charities."

If "won permission" sounds odd, that's because not every track wants to force live dogs to race. Not because it's wrong but because for most tracks it's not profitable. Other types of gambling are profitable, but not usually live dog racing. However, the law in most states where there is live dog racing specifically states that if there is to be gambling there must be live dog racing. So NH tracks "won permission" to drop dog racing, thereby also winning permission to be able to maintain their gambling operations.

This is not a ban on dog racing, but that does often come next.

Thanks to the folks at Grey2KUSA for their tireless efforts for greyhounds.

Finally, I'm off to Orlando to see the neurologist again. Charles looked great the first week after his surgery, and his condition has progressively deteriorated to the point where he is about 80% lame. Not 80% better--80% lame. I'll tweet (http://www.twitter.com/mary_martin)--or you can see updates over on the right column.

Wish me luck!

The Best in Vegan Education

Other than being a vegan, the most important actions you can take to help animals who are used for food are:

• Give generously to organizations that help those sentient nonhumans directly, such as Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, Maple Farm Sanctuary, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary and Eastern Shore Sanctuary.
• Encourage others to go vegan by educating them about the issues, and particularly about why we should not accept alternatives to eating animals that include eating animals (i.e., if they are "farmed" or slaughtered in a certain way).

I have always been a believer that film is the ultimate medium for thought change, and then behavior change for the average person. Of course, the precise nature of the film is crucial to its success as a vehicle for conversion, and I'm sure you've all seen and perhaps even participated in debates about Earthlings and its degree of efficacy. (As you are likely aware, very few people can actually get through the film in one sitting, plus the first third, about "pets," sends the troublesome message that puppy mills are the problem, rather than breeding in general.)

What makes Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home the best in vegan education and animal rights education is that, without getting too much into the hideous treatment of anyone, James LaVeck and Jenny Stein (a.k.a. Tribe of Heart) have managed to leave the viewer no option that includes eating animals. The film addresses the humane myth straight on, with unprecedented transparency in the discussions of animal farming, by simply letting its characters tell their personal stories. And the characters know better than anyone that animals cannot be farmed humanely, as they, for the most part, are all people who once profited from the use of animals. (Note: I have not seen the final cut but one prior, and the story remains the same, though the percentage of time devoted to each story might be different.) 

I've not had great luck veganizing anyone through books. Someone has to be very, very committed to learning and to challenging their thought processes to read a book they know is in direct contrast to the way they think. I'm not saying it cannot or does not happen (e.g., I still hear people say they went vegan after reading Peter Singer).

However, everyone wants to see a good film and even if it's challenging to the way they think, it's an under-two-hour commitment and an easier sell.

But in order to make sure that there is broad access to the film, it's got to make it to the public. And in order for that to happen, it's got to have funding. You might not be in a position to write a pamphlet or book or blog (or even interested), and even if you are you are there's no guarantee of your reach or success. But you probably can donate $10 to Tribe of Heart, though you might have to forego a couple of soy lattes.

Give generously to Tribe of Heart. To my knowledge, there is currently no opportunity like this for vegan education. This film does show some anguish in the eyes of animals, and that's always a very powerful image. But Peacable Kingdom: The Journey Home is the only feature film that shows the anguish in the eyes of people--people who were courageous enough to risk everything by admitting they were wrong and standing up for what is right. I'll never forget the eyes of the dog who had been shot and was thrown, alive, into a garbage truck as it the truck closes on him in Earthlings. But at the same time, I'll never forget the haunted eyes of Harold Brown and Cheri Ezell-Vandersluis as they speak about their lives as animal farmers.

On "Food Inc."

(Sigh.)

Here's the idea you have to get used to when it comes to Food Inc.: One message is that there's nothing wrong with eating animals, and in fact it's fantastic and thrilling and a win-win-win (people-planet-profits) when you eat animals that were "produced" by Polyface Farms. There's no remotely vegan or even vegetarian (though I'm not even sure what the latter would look like) message. We eat animals, and the CAFO system is an evil, filthy, cruel one, but it doesn't have to be that way. The moral of the story is that it's all about the way we farm animals, not that we farm them that is what needs changing.

Film is a visual medium and through direction, dialogue, editing, music and any effects, the filmmaker presents (in this case) his agenda. And though I left my notebook at home and was one of three audience members at yesterday's 12:10 pm showing and could easily have taken notes, I think I should be able to say what I need to say without exact quotes.

Everything you need to know about what director Robert Kenner wants to say about animals comes a bit more than half way through the film with what I can only describe as a giddy, ecstatic Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. The tone of the film has just changed from here's-the-terrible-state-of-affairs to look-how-some-ingenious-individuals-are-doing-it-better, and enter Salatin, grinning ear to ear, as he and his family/friends toss chickens upside down into those cones where only there heads stick out so you can yank said heads and access the attached throats to slit. Then they yank the heads, slit the throats, and de-feather and gut the chickens. And all while inspirational music is playing and a breeze is blowing across the fields on a gorgeous, sunny spring day. They grill the chickens, and trust me when I say it's all presented as a peak spiritual experience.

Now, if you can get beyond that, and if you haven't read Pollan and Schlosser and seen King Corn and The Future of Food (both of which are far more thorough on gentically-modified food, corn and Monsanto), you might actually learn something. I tweeted that according to Grist's "Should You See Food Inc.?" quiz, I got a resounding No, so I did know what I was walking into. The film wasn't made for me, so it's almost unfair of me to critique it as I have considering I don't have the same beliefs as the filmmaker or his main sources when it comes to an enormous component of what/whom he calls "food."

Here's the lesson: We have all been lied to about where our food comes from and what goes into making it and who is running the show. We have (and this is true of so many things in this country) the illusion of choice when we go grocery shopping. We are made to believe not only that the tens of thousands of products available in the store come from different companies/sources, but that they are the result of good old fashioned farming that to this day we teach our children about in their books and their toys.

In addition, our system of subsidies has made it so that it is less expensive to exist on fast food than on fruits, vegetables and grains. And then the way we eat causes diabetes. And then the medication we must pay for costs so much that we have to continue to eat fast food rather than choose to eat well because the money that could have gone to eating better has to go to the medication for the disease caused by eating poorly. That's criminal.

Luckily, we know who the criminals are who have put us in this position: the politicians who either came directly from Monsanto or the poultry farmer's association to a position of making food policy, or who are simply bought by them. Our own legislators have put us in this position because they and their friends benefit from it. They are in league, also, with the people who continue to strike fear in migrant workers by performing regular arrests (not of managers, though, but of people more easily replaced), and keeping people with no rights terrified, at tremendous physical risk, and extremely poor.

We also know that many companies with admirable business practices have been bought by colossal corporations (e.g., Tom's of Maine by Colgate, The Body Shop by L'Oreal, Kashi and Mornigstar by Kellogg) and that if voting with your dollars means anything, you need to find out who really owns the food you're buying.

If you dare, check out this small chart and these diagrams, and also please let me know if you know of any from 2008 or 2009. If there's a lesson in Food Inc., it's that you don't know what's in your food or where it came from until you read the label, and then investigate beyond the label.

On Cat Killers and Mental Competency

People in South Florida are still in an uproar over the mutilation and slaughter of 19 house cats (allegedly) by 18-year old Tyler Weinman, who was declared mentally competent and not a danger to himself or others (!). There have been inquiries as to the possible relationship between his dissection of cats in school and the 19 counts of cruelty he is being charged with. (Felony animal cruelty is the cruel killing of an animal, and he is also being charges with 19 counts of improperly disposing of an animal body.) The four counts of burglary he is being charged with carry a heftier sentence than the animal killing. Weinman had participated in cat dissection in school, and that is being discussed as a possible trigger for his behavior.

The outrage I've been seeing and hearing is typical, as we like cats. We humans have decided that, for a combination of reasons that are important to us, cats are worthy of our respect. I do find it interesting that there is a subculture we've all seen via vicious bumperstickers that attest to the existence of people who hate--and I mean hate--cats and want to see them dead or dying. I also find it interesting that I've never heard of a woman among their ranks. I don't trust people who hate cats because there's something else going on there. Cats represent something: independence. Cats are slaves to no one, at least according to their reputation, which in my experience holds true. And people who want to kill those they cannot control scare me.

I can't think of another animal so hated by humans that they have actually created an industry to publicize their hatred and their wish to hurt and kill them. We don't say we hate cows. In fact we say we love them. Grilled. We don't say we hate pigs and want to see them writhing in pain and slaughtered. Pigs definitely don't get much respect from humans, but the evil (and I can't think of a better word and I don't mean it in a religious sense) I see around cat-haters is different. There's sadism there, and that's not good.

I don't know if dissecting a cat corpse can lead to the desire to steal and mutilate 19 live cats; that seems like a stretch. If someone had it in him to kill cats and cut them open and toss out their entrails, I'm fairly certain that cutting open a dead cat isn't the reason. At some point, he was going to kill cats and cut them open. What is most surprising is that he was declared mentally competent, as mentally competent people don't go around killing cats.

Or maybe that's not so surprising.

Mentally competent people, oddly enough, go around mutilating and killing deer and ducks and cougars, though, when doing so either is in season or some governmental body has decided their numbers need trimming. And mentally competent people slice the throats of flailing cows hanging by one leg. And mentally competent people chain calves to crates. And mentally competent people shovel hundreds of day-old male chicks at a time into what is basically a giant blender to be macerated. And mentally competent people tear babies away from their mothers, as both wail in distress and agony. And mentally competent people anally electrocute mink or skin them alive.

And some mentally competent people know that all of this occurs and they still eat and wear animals.

On Compassionate Carnivores and Betrayal

Stephanie's post about "The Compassionate Hypocrite" on Saturday reminded me of what Catherine Friend and other "compassionate carnivores" are doing in addition to twisting the definition of compassionate beyond recognition. Their claim is that what has become the customary way to take sentient nonhumans from babyhood to untimely death is not humane. It's cruel. There's no "compassion" in the process. It's impersonal and hideously ugly and the animals suffer greatly.

No argument here.

However, the solution they have created, which harkens back to before industrialized agriculture, is simply to still raise animals for their flesh and secretions, and for profit, but to do it the old-fashioned way. No factory farms, no large-scale operations where animals are crammed together under a roof, never to see the light of day. No hormones, no "feed" that is unnatural for them and/or genetically modified.

I'd say no argument here if this were some kind of sanctuary situation, and the animals were in need of a loving home for the rest of their lives. But the entire purpose, which cannot be glossed over with any amount of creepy love letters, is that Friend and her ilk are being kind to the animals because they believe animals who are less stressed are tastier, and because, just like the CAFO owners, they will profit from their efforts (and perhaps more, as they charge a premium).

Yes, I do think it's better to have lived a comfortable life and then be slaughtered than to have been tortured the entire time and then be slaughtered.

But looking at it that way is allowing Friend and others to distract you from a far more important issue: none of this is necessary or justified. No one needs to eat sentient beings, so it's not as if these "farmers" are providing a valuable service to humanity. And regardless of how you treat someone when they're live and regardless of how you kill them, if you don't need to kill them and you're doing so merely to please your palate, how do you justify what you're doing? You can't (at least not in a meaningful way).

Getting people to move their focus from the final chapter of the story of the animals--and I don't mean how they died, but that they died--allows you to appear to be the good guy. It allows you to swoop in with an alternative to the disgraceful human behavior that is factory farming and provide a kindler, gentler way to partake of the flesh of others. And if those whom you're addressing are willing to drink the KoolAid you're serving, plenty of profit awaits.

But the real good guy is the one who, like Cheri and Jim and Howard and Harold says (and this is my paraphrasing of everyone): Yes, I have profited from the lives and deaths of sentient nonhumans. And now I regret that because I realize there is simply no way to raise an animal with the intent to kill that animal and call it anything but betrayal. I wouldn't do it to a dog, and I shouldn't do it to a chicken/sheep/cow/pig. It's just not right.

Betrayal, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

1. A treacherous giving up to an enemy. (Here, that enemy being Death.)

2. A violation of trust or confidence, an abandonment of something committed to one's charge.

Interesting definitions of betray include:

2. a. To be or prove false to (a trust or him who trusts one); to be disloyal to; to disappoint the hopes or expectations of.

4. a. To lead astray or into error, as a false guide; to mislead, seduce, deceive (the trustful).

There is no question about the motive here: seduce the sheep into believing you care so that they are easier to deal with and easier to lead to slaughter. At least CAFO owners don't use that kind of deceit--of their customers, the animals and themselves.

On The International and Father's Day

Someone on Twitter said The International was the best film he'd seen in years. I think it was in theaters here for all of a week, which is a good sign, as the better a film is, the shorter its tenure at the local multiplex in South Florida. But you only find out how long it's in the theater when it leaves, and by then it's too late to see it. Interesting quandary if you're playing the I'll-find-it-somewhere-next-week game.

Was it a great film, in my opinion? Not fantastic, but good. But what kept my interest was the topic, and how true it is (badly phrased--weapons sales aren't so much about controlling the war but controlling the debt). And there are loads of goofs that confused me and made me stop and rewind to determine if my eyes were wrong. Then there were the predictable twists.

And some of the dialogue was of on-the-nose variety that all screenwriting books tell you to avoid like the plague. But the dialogue I liked was of the Greek chorus-variety or even the "Confucius say . . .". My favorite lines were:

• I'm more comfortable tense.
• What you need to remember is that there's what people want to hear, what people want to believe, everything else, and then there's the truth. . . . The truth means responsibility . . . . That's why everyone dreads it.
• The difference between truth and fiction, is that fiction has to make sense.
• Character is easily kept than recovered.
• Sometimes a man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

Thanks to my dad, on Father's Day, with whom we studied film as he studied film at Columbia when we were tots, for teaching me what to look for when I see, and listen for when I hear. And also for teaching me that just because a film or an idea isn't popular, doesn't mean it isn't great.

Happy Father's Day!

On a New Level of Absurdity in the Slaughter Business

Bea sent me a link to an article in Gourmet called "Humane Slaughterhouses," by Rebecca Marx, that is absurd. And the absurdity is in the reality that the author and the featured person who kills sentient nonhumans for a living, think they're onto something. And they were, before they stopped their train of thought prior to it reaching its most important station.

Let's deconstruct:

• The heading is: "Okay, so your steak comes from a cow that lived a happy life--but how did that life end?" It's a cow who--who--lived an allegedly happy life. And I guess this is where the pro-death penalty people might have an argument. They believe you can take a life that doesn't want to be taken in a humane way, and I don't agree. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
• The voice of Temple Grandin is of course the foundation. And when that happens, you know what direction you're headed: the justification of taking the lives of sentient nonhumans to please the palates of humans.
• The second paragraph needs to be looked at sentence by sentence. "While plenty of people pay attention to the question of what it means to raise an animal humanely, far fewer stop to consider the notion—and the ostensible paradox—of humane slaughter." It's not an ostensible paradox; it's an actual paradox. But of course the success of the author in manipulating the reader depends on the reader's belief that the paradox is indeed "ostensible."
• Interestingly, the campaigns of happy meaters are acknowledged for perhaps being somewhat of a scam with the next sentence. "Words like 'pastured,' 'grass-fed,' and 'free-range' are now synonymous with quality meat; they carry a potent if symbolic meaning that has eased many a consumer’s conscience and driven many a marketing campaign." Potent if symbolic? In other words, it's a scam.
• Finally, "But the idea of how an animal meets its ultimate fate is usually ignored—until, of course, we see YouTube videos of sick cows being hauled to their deaths on bulldozers." The animal is an "it," but I wouldn't expect anything more in this type of article. And though being hauled to their death on a bulldozer is terrible, any other form of slaughter at the hands of another, on that other's timeline and terms, is nevertheless slaughter. It is murder. But by presenting that example to the reader, the author positions herself to then present an alternative that is worlds better by comparison. And perhaps that "better" will distract the reader from the undeniable fact of the unjust slaughter.
• The featured slaughterer is Bev Eggleston of EcoFriendly Foods, who says, “My perspective of what is humane is broader than how you harvest a cow. It’s how we treat humans, too. . . . To treat animals fairly, he needs to treat his workers fairly." Wait . . . harvest?
  
• Here's where the train of thinking falls short of the station: "Because of his plant’s small size (it employs 15 laborers), his unwavering conviction that 'the animal needs to be respected,' and his concern for his workers’ welfare, Eggleston’s operation is an expensive and relatively inefficient one." Seriously, folks, if you are going to respect someone, you're not going to hold them captive and kill them. What kind of definition of respect includes: I don't need to kill you but I'm going to because it will make me money?
• The chef's perspective is represented by Dan Barber, who serves Eggleston's meat. "For him, the importance of humane slaughter manifests itself in the quality of the meat." The needs of the cow aren't even mentioned. That sounds a lot more honest to me.
• At last we come to Grandin's thoughts: "Ultimately, for Grandin, 'humane' is a loaded word. 'I’d rather say low-stress, painless slaughter,' she says—ideally as stressful as a vaccination shot. The biggest obstacle, she feels, is quantity. 'Quality and quantity are two opposing goals,' Grandin says. 'But there’s a sensible balance.'" Where to begin . . . All you need to know is one word: slaughter. The rest is just noise trying to distract you from what's really going on.

For all of the verbiage that is supposed to convey legitimate care, and care that is above and beyond the norm, one thing will always be true: these people are in the business of killing sentient nonhumans for profit. They have no moral justification for taking the lives of the nonhumans other than that certain humans like the taste of their flesh but don't want to do the killing themselves. 

It's absurd that this has to be said, but respecting the needs of cows is the same thing as respecting the needs of dogs. It involves not killing them. Not eating them. And there's no way around that. Even death by vaccination shot doesn't change that.

Note to Those Wanting Promotion: Pay Attention

We bloggers often get e-mails from individuals and organizations in search of promotion. And that's fine, as we all want to spread the news of fantastic work that needs support. Case in point: AnimalEquality.

But there are two types of requests that are irksome to me:
1.    People I hear from only when they want me to promote them, and I have never asked them to promote me (I'm terrible at that) nor have they ever done it of their own accord. I should recognize their work, yet they won't recognize mine. And though it's not a colossal problem by any means, it's annoying for a moment, and with the world being the way it is, I have enough to be annoyed about.

2.    People who want me to promote them but they clearly haven't spent any meaningful time reading what I have written. They probably have a list of people whom they blast an e-mail to, changing only the field after the Dear in the letter, and they hope some of them will stick. And that's when I get e-mails like this:

Dear Mary
 
I’m Caroline and I’m one of the Supporter Services team members for Compassion in World Farming.
 
Having read your blogs I thought you might like to hear about Compassion in World Farming’s Bake with Compassion fundraising week.
 
From the 6th -10th of July we are asking everyone to get their aprons on and bake with free-range or organic eggs.

By encouraging people to bake with higher welfare eggs (as well as organic milk, butter and chocolate) vital funds will be raised to campaign against battery cages. We are hoping you might be interested in spreading word of the event to readers of your blog, or may know someone who would like to blog about this fundraising event.

Now, I'm the first one to say that when I began blogging I thought the end of the use of animals would never come, so in the meantime, welfare reforms could at least be supported. But that was back in 2006. And if Compassion in World Farming wanted to see if I knew of their campaigns and might want to support them, they could have easily Googled CIWF right at Animal Person, at which point they'd find:

• On Compassion in World Farming
• Eat More Veal? How About Be More Honest
• On Graphic Images We DON'T See
• The PeTA I Knew and Loved, Sort Of
• On Egypt's Pig Cull

When someone takes the time to write a personal e-mail and it's obvious they've interacted with me and readers or at least know what I stand for, and their cause is aligned, I'm always happy to oblige. It's not as if I have an enormous readership, and certain folks stay away because it's not in my nature to travel with any flock, but if I can make even a small contribution to someone who does great work, I'm thrilled.

Note to Compassion in World Farming: I want to see the end of farms that use sentient nonhumans. An end. Not a change in the way they do things. An end.

On Being Upset by Carnage That Comes Too Soon

It never ceases to amaze me that people will get upset about the death of an animal whose killing was their job.

This time, and thanks to a tweet from CaptainGraviton, it's "beef farmer" Jim McDougal in Scotland. In "Cows Killed by Lightning Strike," by Angie Brown of the BBC Scotland, which today was updated to "Lightning Strike Kills Bullocks," we learn that Mr. McDougal was "very upset," numb and shocked by "the carnage he saw." That carnage wasn't observed after the animals were slaughtered, but before he could get to slaughter them. The evildoer responsible for the carnage . . . was lightning.

What I don't understand is why this moment was so upsetting to Mr. McDougal. Perhaps he can no longer profit from the animals. But if he can still carve them up or have them carved up, it would seem to me that nature merely helped him do his job, no? They were going to die anyway, as that's why they were brought into this world--to be slaughtered. Why the phony concern over the death of animals?

And finally, wherever the animals were to be slaughtered and whether or not it was scheduled to be at the hand of Mr. McDougal, in that place, at that moment, would Mr. McDougal use the word "carnage" and would he be "very upset" or numbed by what he saw?

On "Home"

I watched Home earlier in the week and you can watch it on YouTube here, though a huge flat screen is definitely preferable. You get the idea at YouTube but the experience is vastly different on a great television.

Home reminded me of Winged Migration in a couple of ways: the sweeping cinematography and the score. (Important differences between Home and Winged Migration include that the latter had staged scenes, computer generated scenes, took over three years longer to shoot and had narration that was largely superfluous.) The cinematography did present a bit of a problem for me in that I often had difficulties with scale--I didn't know how wide or large things were, and though it might not necessary to know, I like to nonetheless. Also, there was something odd in the editing of Glenn Close's narration and often words would come in late and cut off, not to mention there were grammatical errors that drove me bananas.

And now that I've said all of that you might notice when you probably wouldn't have otherwise.

My husband watched the film over several days and took notes, which was most impressive. And he texted or Facebooked friends with various statistical tidbits and a recommendation to watch the film. As I've written previously, I never pushed him to go vegan, and now that he is I don't push him to do any vegan education. But he has come to that desire on his own, and has found his way of reaching people in his alien world of alpha male types, and I think that's fantastic and I certainly would never have been able to do it.

It's amazing to observe as someone learns about what we humans have done to this planet in such a short period of time, and how dire the situation really is. You can read about it all day long (or be lectured about it by your spouse), but to see it, and filmed so magnificently, is more powerful. Plus though the film isn't long (under two hours), it covers an enormous amount of ground (!), not deeply of course, but sufficiently so you get a clear picture that is impossible to deny.

On the animal front, there is definitely a message that factory farming is unsustainable, and that subsistence farming is and was preferable; there is a vague if-we-did-it-differently-it-might-be-sustainable message. But with so many other topics to cover, such as water and oil, that message that happy meat is acceptable doesn't even get any airtime.

I would like to have seen action points in the film: things the average person can do to stop our hyperspeed collision course with the annihilation of all of our planet's natural resources (and by consequence Earth's nonhuman and human inhabitants). I think that any film that presents a problem should also provide solution. But that's me.

Thumbs up, watch it, pass it around, and discuss thereafter.

On a Replacement for "Bullshit"

Here's an e-mail from a linguistics junkie for your consideration . . .

Is using the word "bullshit" un-vegan? Does it perpetuate linguistic-based speciesism? Ditto with horseshit, chickenshit, dogshit -- they're speciesist by default, if not always used in a speciesiest context.

I never associate the word with actually shit from a bull. BUT... we need new words that are cut free from exploitation. Just as people have chosen to jettison their slave names sometimes generations later, it's never too late to get the exploitation out of our words.

Also, I think it is easier than most people think to create new words. Especially if there's a need for a better word.  And everyone has their private vocabularies among their kids or friends.

I invented a word couple years ago, which quickly took root among friends: Whiffdoodle.

Here's the definition:

wiffdoodle - Also spelled "whiffdoodle." The iteration of an idea or plan (for an invention, business, civic improvement, etc.) which one knows he or she will never have the time, energy, or talent to execute. e.g., Chris: I had a high-quality wiffdoodle the other day.  Wanna hear it? Cindy: Chris, your entire life is a wiffdoodle.

In a very short time, it's become very natural to the friends of mine who use it. It works, has a Roald Dahl quality to it. And the meaning is clear.

The lesson: If you pick the right phonemes (memorable, fit with existing ways of making words, etc.), you can easily get new words into use.

So here's a whiffdoodle: A book or series of books (maybe just a wiki) of replacement words for speciesist terms -- of which there must be thousands.

For "bullshit," I'm still trying to find a substitute in my own vocabulary -- once I do, will let you know.

Any ideas? Any thoughts on the speciesism or un-veganness of "bullshit"?

On the Eating of Seafood

"We are fighting a war against fish, and we are . . . winning."

The End of the Line opens (limited release) next week. That brief trailer could be a gift in the disguise of paradoxical message about how we can still kill and eat fish, yet not be at war with them. I guess war is defined by death count.

It might be a gift because those pescetarian holdouts we all know who are convinced that for some strange reason eating animals from the sea is not as bad as eating those who live on land, might be convinced that their decision is a bit misguided.

As a way of taking the situation into your own hands and not being a part of the problem, the film's site offers you this widget:

Now, I haven't seen the film, but here's the message: There's something rotten in the state of the fishing industry. We are overfishing, over-trawling, and mutilating and slaughtering bycatch by the millions of tons (17-39 million tons/year, not including marine mammals, sea bids and some invertebrates). Oh, and this is a war we've declared and we're winning.

To then present a widget that helps you eat seafood is strange. That tells me that we're still at war, as we are going to continue to kill fish because we can and we want to. That tells me that, yeah, it's bad that our behavior can actually lead to "the end of seafood by 2048" (and notice how they don't say the end of fish), but that's because it'll lead to the end of somebody we want to eat, and we can't have that!

What about that most obvious of solutions, that requires no cognitive dissonance at all. What about the way to end the war we've waged and save the fish and the oceans is to stop the war! Stop eating fish and other sea dwellers and this problem goes away (and yes, I am over-simplifying). If you don't want to be complicit in the war, don't be complicit in the war.

You don't need a widget to do the right thing.

Go vegan.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Call for 20-year fishing ban in a third of oceans (guardian.co.uk)
• An Inconvenient Truth for Fish (telegraph.co.uk)
• World Oceans Day: Imagine a World Without Fish (greenskeptic.blogspot.com)

Deconstructing Slate's "Pepper" Series

For those who didn't read the five-part Slate series "Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science" by Daniel Engber, I recommend it for the history, but also for the misconceptions and assumptions that you might want to discuss on the Facebook discussion about the series.

Let's deconstruct:

• Part I: Where's Pepper? I addressed this one last week. Beloved family pet Dalmatian, Pepper, is stolen, and after several weeks of searching is discovered to have been experimented on at a hospital and died on the table when researchers tried to implant her with an experimental cardiac pacemaker. My fears about what the rest of the series would involve were all realized.
• Part II: Man Cuts Dog. This one gives us a look inside the mind of the vivisectionist, Daniel Engber. There's a vague sense that perhaps he cares about the dogs or thinks that what he does to them might present an ethical dilemma, but the overwhelming feeling is that it's all worth it. About cutting a dog open and stopping the flow of blood to her heart, he writes: "Remember to move quickly, as the dog can endure only a few minutes in this predicament. (You can buy some extra time by presoaking the animal in a basin of ice water.)" For Engber, who dispassionately describes procedures most of the time, the "advances" in the medical care of humans are all well worth what he and other vivisectionists do to dogs and other sentient nonhumans. He writes, "The dog remained a vital tool in biomedical research for more than 300 years and was the vehicle for a remarkable run of medical breakthroughs."
• Part III: Pepper Goes to Washington. The tiresome Hitler was a well-known vegetarian comment is included in this segment, but I found it irksome long before that. This morning, during the Facebook discussion, Engber writes (and the first sentence is reason alone to chime in):

  Bring on the PETA hotties! Actually, I didn't quit neuroscience as a result of the experiences described, but I did quit working with animals. By the end of my time as researcher, I was performing behavioral experiments on humans. But that's neither here nor there -- I'm very supportive of animal research in principle. The point of my series was to introduce some of the difficult questions that don't often get asked within science, precisely because of what Alina has so aptly described as the "climate of fear" that pervades the lab. It's one that's brought on, no doubt, by the acts of vandalism and intimidation of radical animal-rights groups, but I think it also serves to insulate the research community from any responsibility it might otherwise have to increase transparency and public engagement with the work. I'm sure we could do a much better job of ensuring the humane treatment of our laboratory animals--but at this point it's very difficult even to start the discussion.

When Slate wrote me saying I might find this series interesting, what they don't know is that we who are invested in not torturing any sentient beings don't ask the same questions Engber is asking. "How long should one animal be used in the lab before it is euthanized?" isn't really on our list of questions (he asks that in the FB discussion).

I think he also doesn't know that not all of us think that chasing down Class B dealers is as important as working to shut down animal experimentation and create more alternatives. He's right with his implication that stopping the seizing of pets and strays simply created a more efficient, effective means of commodifying and torturing dogs and cats. But there is a significant contingent who is not as enamored with the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act as he is. It "guarantees humane treatment?" Maybe on paper.

• Part IV: Brown Dogs and Red Herrings. This one addresses the decreasing number of dogs and cats being experimented on and, without mentioning it, discusses speciesism and our affection for dogs--pet dogs particularly (and especially purebreds)--which leads to our revulsion with the idea of snatching, vivisecting and killing them. Of course, "That's not to say dogs didn't have their niche in biomedicine. Medical schools, in particular, made ample use of them for education and research in surgery and cardiology." And thanks to the efforts of groups such as PCRM, that ample use isn't so ample anymore.

Engber mentions that in 1972, the USDA put into place "a special exemption for rats, mice, and birds, allowing scientists to treat them however they saw fit—in cages of any size, in experiments with any degree of pain and suffering. That exemption remains in force, despite Schwindaman's later attempts to overturn it. To this day, 95 percent of the animals used in research labs receive no federal protection whatsoever under the Animal Welfare Act." He differentiates those animals from what he calls "the cute animals" which is important and one of the few passages that I appreciated in this series. The fact that we care about--and fight for--animals based on how cute we have deemed them to be is disgraceful.

If Engber does a good job with anything, it's with pointing out the flaws in the strategies of pro-animal activists and in the outcomes of their campaigns. He concludes this segment with:

Meanwhile, rats and mice are subject to some of the most extreme and invasive experiments in biomedicine. By the early 1980s, we were spiking mouse DNA with cancer-causing genes; a few years later, we started to "knock out" specific lines of genetic code. (Scientists mapped out the entire mouse genome in 2002 and the rat genome in 2004.) We regularly subject rodents to pain, starvation, solitary confinement, and grotesque disfigurement. Whatever misery they endure is multiplied across the hundreds of millions of rats and mice used in labs every year.

The animal-welfare groups have failed in their most ambitious efforts to protect laboratory rodents. "We did and do strongly support the inclusion of rats and mice," says Cathy Liss, current president of the Animal Welfare Institute. "But the question is how can we properly address that? At this juncture, it's premature to go forward and rally support." With rodents off the table, though, it's not clear what's left for the activists to do.

• Part V: Me and My Monkey. This is where we get to see who Daniel Engber really is. He talks about "My research monkey," Clayton, and what he did to Clayton, and writes as if Clayton didn't mind at all. He was leashed, but didn't need to be, he recognized Engber and didn't want to kill him (until eight years later, which is very interesting), and he makes it sound like Clayton was having a good old time with his "2-inch titanium rod screwed into the top of his skull." He makes Clayton sound bored with his life of torment: "I remember the day he crossed his legs on the shelf of the chair and started strumming his fingernails against the wall."

Engber writes of experimenting on cats and on the "furtive language" vivisectionists use to decrease the emotional impact of what they do. "The word starving was replaced by fasting, bleeding by hemorrhaging, poison by toxicant; full-body photographs of lab animals were removed, and the pronoun it was subbed in for any use of he or she to describe them. Authors who referred to their animals by given names were instructed to use a string of letters and numbers instead."

Engber returned recently to the "monkey room" where Clayton was kept when Engber used him for research years ago and to his surprise, Clayton was still there.

If Clayton remembered me, it wasn't with fondness: He rose to all fours as I approached and grunted at me with his lips parted—an aggressive, open-mouth threat. There was little evidence of the adolescent who had cowered in the back of his cage eight years ago. As an adult, Clayton lingered near the bars, scowling. (I discovered later that he'd been separated from his old cage-mate Duper for fighting.)

I'd love to say that this was Engber's epiphany, and that he fought for Clayton's removal to a sanctuary and is now a powerful voice against the vivisection of sentient nonhumans. But that's now what happened.

Here's where we reach the point of the series:

Clayton was born in a breeding center; he grew up in metal boxes and spent his adolescence with a hole in his head and a coil around his eye. In 10 or 15 years of life, he suffered through multiple surgeries and infections and endless hours of restraint in a plastic chair. And for what? Pepper's death, at least, contributed to the development of the cardiac pacemaker—a revolutionary medical device that would prolong millions of lives. Every hour of Clayton's existence has been spent, and will continue to be spent, in the service of basic science.

"Yep, he's still going strong," my former mentor said when I returned from the monkey room. We stood outside a recording chamber, where another animal now sat in front of the monitor. Some people might not like the idea of a monkey working so long, he continued; they say it's better to use each lab animal for one experiment only or a series of related ones … but all the experiments in a given lab are at least somewhat related. "You could easily argue," he added, that the resources necessary to buy and train a new monkey would be a net minus for animal welfare. Why should we euthanize Clayton and start over? Isn't it better for science, and more humane, to use just one animal?

First of all, whether someone was born in a breeding center, under a porch or in my living room doesn't make them more or less entitled to a life free of enslavement, torture and slaughter. It does not make them more or less a "tool."

As an aside, each time I read the word "mentor," I got chills. To view someone who spends their life starving, piercing, mutilating, terrifying and killing others as a mentor is shocking. At least Engber was shocked to see Clayton. But not shocked enough.

Next, to say that the monkey is "working" is absurd and incorrect. Last I checked, work is something you consent to. You decide to do it, usually in exchange for some kind of payment you have agreed to. If not, you are volunteering. Neither of these words apply to Clayton or any other animal in a laboratory.

Finally, what Engber doesn't entertain is the notion that no animal--not one--needs to be in a laboratory and above all not one should be in a laboratory. He writes as if what he used to do--and what he defends--is morally justifiable on its face, and it's just the details that might be questionable. But the entire industry is questionable. The entire idea isn't justifiable.

Just because men did something that ended up helping people doesn't mean they should have or it was worth it. Engber is fond of listing all of the advances that came out of the vivisection of nonhumans, and my only question is: What if all of those researchers used retarded babies in their experiments? Or babies who weren't retarded? Or mute babies? Or they used blind babies for experimental blindness treatments? And what if there were plenty of cures and vaccines that came from all of that? Would you advocate for continuing to do such research just because it yielded results? Wouldn't you at some point say: That's not right--we need to stop that immediately and put our money and energy into finding alternative ways of performing medical research.

For me, and others who respect the lives of sentient nonhumans, experimenting on those nonhumans isn't right. We need to stop it immediately and put our money and energy into finding alternative ways of performing medical research.

See Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine for more on alternatives, and chime in on the Facebook discussion or e-mail Daniel Engber with your thoughts. If you want to tweet about it, use the hashtag #whpep.

"Educate, Investigate, Liberate"

You may know Jose Valle of the International Organization for the Abolition of Animal Slavery, AnimalEquality. He recently wrote me:

We are an abolitionist group and our approach is "Educate, Investigate & Liberate". We are currently doing an investigation on pig farms in Spain, including intensive and extensive/free-range farms (tho extensive ones are scarce since intensive ones are the majority in the industry). Nothing like this has ever done here and we are showing the first images of Spanish farms -we have previously done an investigation on Spanish slaughterhouses www.mataderos.info), so we want to get media & society attention about it and give them a vegan message.

People here tend to think that this kind of things only happen in other countries or that is something from the past, and showing them images of the same farms they are buying their flesh from, has a bigger impact than using images from USA or other places (the closer to their plates the better since it's harder then for them to avoid the responsability). The idea is not to focus on conditions -though they are unavoidably visible- but on exploitation itself. We don't advocate "happy meat" but veganism.

You can see some of the images from the investigation at:

http://flickr.com/gp/igualdadanimal/5Ky7p8

Let me warn you before you see them that they are very graphic and explicit.

(The images aren't yet made public and can only be seen through that specific link)

We already have many static images but we need to film some more farms on video and recover some of the best footage from a broken hard drive. So, I thought you could be interested in helping us to raise the funds. We have calculated that we need about 3.600 euros to finish the investigation and face its costs.

We have asked openly for donations already but few people are willing to help.

Thanks a lot.

There's a donate button on the homepage of AnimalEquality right at the bottom of the "Pig Farms" panel. Showing people what goes on at "free-range" farms, for me, has always been a powerful part of my vegan advocacy efforts because that's always the fall-back position of the person I'm speaking with. (As far as I'm concerned, Peaceable Kingdom can't be released soon enough.) I wholeheartedly support the mission of AnimalEquality/IgualdadAnimal.

And for those who wonder about their thoughts on PeTA, read this.

On Why I Pick on The Left . . . and Cookies

Sometimes I get comments that make me realize I wasn't clear about a fundamental point, or I assume everyone remembers other posts or has even been to Animal Person before. That hit me with a comment by Hoofenhoffer regarding "Steve Best on The Left's Ignorance of Cognitive Ethology."

Hoffenhoffer writes: "For starters, I don't really get his gripe with 'Leftists' in particular. Why are Leftists to shoulder the blame for the exploitation of animals simply because of their tardiness in arriving on the animal rights scene? Too many people are pointing fingers at the wrong folks these days."

I have the same gripe Best has with Leftists, hence my affection for this piece. And though I don't think they should "shoulder the blame," I do think that because their ethos has always been one of championing the downtrodden, the exploited and the voiceless, and pointing out how the system is set up to most benefit those few who are in power, animals would be a natural fit as a major cause for them. But they apparently don't think animals are important enough to stand up for, as they're not part of the platform of the average Leftist.

And I think they should be.

I think that it's odd, for instance, that someone so ensconced in human rights does not notice the parallel when she grabs her grilled chicken caesar salad for lunch. It smacks of compartmentalizing, or perhaps just plain denial. And Leftists are supposed to be the people who do notice where, how and why various kinds of oppression and exploitation cross paths. They're supposed to be the people who have figured out that the entire system is rigged against the weak and less wealthy. And those unable to speak for themselves.

I also liked Best's article because, though we all may have read Bekoff (and I'll write about Wild Justice soon!) and de Waal, I don't think the average person has. So while Hoofenhoffer may have found that part yawn-inducing, I think that because the writing isn't over-the-top, and because it quickly reminds us of (and dispenses with) arguments of human exceptionalism, it's a great piece for someone who is not Hoffenhoffer. For instance, I'm circulating it to some friends who are Leftists who give me the same tired reasons (excuses) for continuing to use animals.

As for cookies, well, I am at the end of week one of gluten-reduced week, and my two favorite parts were, of course, desserts. Brownie bites by Babycakes (but with date sugar and agave nectar instead of granulated sugar) . . .

And here are "Gluten-Be-Gone" Chocolate Chip cookies from Dreena Burton's "Eat, Drink & Be Vegan."

Have a great day!