« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
I finally saw Amazing Grace last week and boy did it make me feel like a wimp. Sure, we all read about the abolitionists and we know what they did. At least intellectually. But watching people with a sense of urgency, so single-minded in their quest for justice, created an ambivalence about what I'm doing for my cause(s). It made me wonder (as I have for quite some time) whether I should compare myself to them.
Anyone else have a similar reaction?
There are a handful of carbon footprint calculators out there, some of which I've written about. But there's also a game that I think is a bit friendlier than the others, based on one of the calculators (the Ecological Footprint Quiz). It's called Consumer Consequences, and while you're playing it tells you how your lifestyle choices affect the planet. At the end, after you've answered questions, it tells you how many Planet Earths we'd need if everyone made the choices you've made. The factors you examine are:
Even with my relatively responsible choices, we'd still need over three Planet Earths (3.2) if everyone made the choices I make.
Imagine what would happen if I were a vegetarian rather than a vegan, drove an SUV, flew more than once or twice a year, drank a cup of coffee and a glass of wine daily, commuted 15 miles one way daily and ate out 25-50% of the time, like some people I know (wink wink, nudge nudge)?
I'll tell you what would happen. It would take 8.3 Planet Earths to sustain all the people on the planet if everyone lived like me. 8.3 Planet Earths. And that's without Hummer-drivin', meat-eatin' and suburban shopping mall-goin'.
How many Planet Earths would YOU require?
It is with utter devastation that I must report that Greyhounds in Miami-Dade are doomed. Due to the passage of Question #3, thanks to a $5 million campaign by the bloodsport industry, slot machines will be added to the tracks, thereby propping up a dying industry.
The losers, of course, are the dogs.
With this development (and one in Broward from 2005), it will be very, very difficult to work toward the abolition of Greyhound racing in South Florida. Check out "Second Time's the Charm for Miami Dade Slot Machines," by Mike Clary, who at no point mentions the effect on Greyhounds.
Did you see this Today Show segment on mercury in tuna? I bring it to you for one reason: So you you can put a face to (part of) the misinformation campaign. David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom is interviewed and of course says what you'd expect.
I'm not sure why the producers of Today thought a group that lobbies for the meat industry would be a good source for the story.
Luckily, the above Red Bull commercial has been pulled. There was all kinds of speculation about whether the man was going to rape the bird or urinate on her, but either way the message is bizarre.
What the geniuses at Red Bull have replaced this commercial with is equally odd. The first half is the same: Man walks, bird poops on him, he wipes it off and then drinks a Red Bull. But then, he takes a slingshot from his pocket, shoots a piece of cork (I think) into the bird's rectum, the bird falls onto the ground, and the man kicks her. And the tagline is: Red Bull--it stimulates the mind and body (or something like that).
What on earth is that?
Though my husband has repeatedly reminded me that I'm not Red Bull's target market and I don't drink the stuff, I don't think that means I'm not allowed to at least publicly question them. Does Red Bull pump up your sense of vengeance? Does it make you more likely to harm animals? If young people are the target market, what are they hoping those young people will associate with their product?
I'm contacting them simply to ask what they're trying to accomplish. I want to know what message they think they're sending.
We all know the nature of most commercials is spin and even blatant prevarication (those happy California cows are a great example). But what purpose do these commercials serve other than making me even less likely to ever buy a Red Bull?
In Angus Taylor's "Animal Right and Human Needs," you'll find many issues you've been confronted with (and perhaps easily dealt with, perhaps not) when you speak with the average person about animal rights.
For instance, there's "Wolves kill animals in the wild, why can't we? Especially if we don't 'waste' the animal and use as many parts as possible, right" (9)? As you know, a simple reminder that we don't need to eat animals is a good start there. As for not wanting to be wasteful, Taylor writes:
If respectful utilization of animals involves limiting hostility toward them by taking only what is required, then for most people in the world today there can be no such thing as respectful meat eating, and this applies just as much in the case of wildlife as in that of farm animals.
You can also use that to dispense with the people who say, "Like Native Americans, I hunt and bless the beast and use all of its parts." Yeah, right.
Then of course there are those who think you should be committed to removing animals from the wild to care for them. You should want to prevent their suffering and provide them with food, shelter and medical care, right? But they've missed the point (or perhaps you did not articulate it clearly). "Our duty is in the first place negative: not to intervene against their wills in the lives of others" (11).
Taylor's vital-needs rights view looks at animal rights in the context of vital human needs. It's like a guide for what to ask yourself when pondering whether it is acceptable to interfere in the life of another sentient being. The interference principle says we may interfere only when we must do so to protect ourselves from harm, or where satisfaction of our vital needs requires such interference (2).
"The environmental ethic arising from the vital-needs rights view does not aim to guarantee the well-being of animals, but to enable them to employ their natural powers in pursuit of their well-being--free, as far as reasonably possible, from direct or indirect human obstruction" (19).
You might find his view on dogs, cats and horses conflicts with yours, as he finds no reason to cease involving ourselves in their lives because they "can flourish as individuals in intimate association with human beings" (21), not to mention that because of our breeding of them, dogs might even need our companionship in order to flourish. I guess I'd wonder how much of our relationship with cats, dogs and horses is really about dominance and about what they do for us. I don't know many people (outside of all of you peaches) who adopted or bought animals so they could provide a nice life for a homeless sentient being. It's usually more like: I want a Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Check out Taylor's Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate (which is an updated edition of Magpies, Monkeys and Morals).
If you live in Miami-Dade or know anyone who does, remember today's mantra:
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Question 3 isn't actually about Greyhound racing; it's about adding slot machines to the tracks. Slot machines bring in money, thereby helping the tracks (which are dying) stay alive. And maybe even expand.
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Vote No on Question 3 if you want to end Greyhound racing.
Thank you.
Mark Bittman's "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler" in yesterday's New York Times is the sort of article that schmoozes you while winding up to bat you over the head. If your eye isn't immediately drawn to who he is (at the bottom of the page), you could almost think the article was going to go your way.
SPOILER ALERT
Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.
Let's deconstruct:
The first page of the article, though not containing anything new, is like one-stop shopping for almost all the reasons we shouldn't be eating meat (Because it isn't right for some reason didn't make the list). Bittman compares meat to oil (hence the title of the article):
The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.
Because of the increasing global demand for meat (and note that consumption in the US has steadied at 8 oz./day, but that's still twice the global average):
I'm loving Bittman at this point. He's my new best friend, providing I haven't read the part about who he is.
Then I turn to page 2, and that's when, as my husband says in an ominous tone: Depression sets in.
"What can be done?" asks Bittman. Gee, after all that about the problems of raising animals to eat, you'd think he'd say the obvious. You'd think he'd go to the cause of the problems and say: Stop growing animals for food.
But no. Instead, he writes "There's no simple answer." Meanwhile, I'm screaming, "Yes there is! Go back to all the stuff you're saying about the problems created by animal agriculture! You stop animal agriculture and your problems are solved! (And yes, I realize that wouldn't happen immediately. But it would happen.) Bittman's take on the solutions?
Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”
Then there’s technology . . . . [and also] meat produced in vitro, [and] a return to grazing beef.
As I wait in vain for some talk of ceasing the production and consumption of meat because not only don't we need to eat it, but it's destroying the planet, I get:
Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?
He finally mentions the animals, but only with in the trite: people who care about the torture of animals do so because they "love" animals, not because the torture is morally indefensible. I do agree that the world would be a better place if we fed our fellow human beings rather than cows with the grain we grow, but Bittman almost sounds too cutesy about it. In my opinion, it's disgraceful that we grow grain to feed to animals (whom we will later eat) rather than to people. I think it's our obligation to feed starving people.
And for all those people who claim that if meat were more expensive people would eat less of it:
Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, [doesn’t] believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.
“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”
If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
At that, my friends, is why we need to present every argument we've got when we're talking about going vegan. Bittman and the ubiquitous flexitarian, Michael Pollan, think the trends of consumption in America, where more people are buying more expensive, but allegedly higher quality products, will lead to a decrease in meat consumption.
No one can argue that fewer animals being created for slaughter is better than more. But what's the ethic underlying Bittman and Pollan's prediction? We're not giving up our meat. If they really thought we were experiencing an ecological crisis and a health crisis (to say nothing of the injustice of allowing people to starve to feed cows so we can eat them), I'd think they'd express some sense of urgency. They'd propose that we take a stand and fight for our planet, our health and the animals, rather than finding a way to continue to eat what we want. After all, flexitarian is really just another word for omnivore.
It might be a bad photo, but it was an awesome pie (I forgot to snap a picture when the whole thing was available). This weekend's Cooking with Guests involved vegan chili/burritos and the above pumpkin custard pie with cream cheese frosting. Our guest is not a vegan . . . yet.
Mike from way, way up north sent me David Cantor's "Beware of Politicians--and Newspapers--Talking 'Animal Rights'" as it appeared in AR-News. Without further ado . . .
A January 16, 2008, Associated Press article reported that Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama stated at a "town hall meeting" in Nevada "that he cares about animal rights very much, 'not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog.' He said he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and has been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society."
The article continued, "'I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other,' he said. 'And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals.'"
In addition to the candidate, apparently the Associated Press's editors don't know what animal rights is, misrepresent it willingly, or have a policy, like many other news venues, of identifying people as they choose to identify themselves, regardless of accuracy. If Obama knows what animal rights is, he also knows no presidential candidate can possibly be elected endorsing it and figures his audience and the news industry will accept misuse of "animal rights," such misuse already being popular. Obama's comments, though purporting to endorse animal rights, in fact do not. Every detail is either a non- or anti-animal-rights statement.
To show you endorse – and understand – animal rights, you don't say your children "want a dog" – you say you've explained to them an animal is not a thing to want. If you might consider having a dog live in your home, you show you understand animal rights by saying you'll only adopt and never purchase an animal, will adopt more than one to minimize loneliness, and will ensure that they do not reproduce. If you're a celebrity politician, because people tend to imitate the famous, you say you'll only adopt a mixed-breed dog to avoid fueling another 101 Dalmatians- or Kennedy-leopard-skin-pillbox-hat-type debacle.
You don't boast of having sponsored a horse-slaughter ban in the Illinois state Senate -- you unfurl your plan to phase out all animal slaughter and all other uses of nonhuman animals. You say your family is proud to be showing how much better humans will live when nonhumans have rights – they eat nothing from animals, use no personal-care or household products made from or tested on animals, wear nothing from animals ... acknowledging that consumer choices will not establish any rights, which must be articulated explicitly, probably as Constitutional amendments if they are to end humans' property rights in nonhuman animals and the land, water, and airspace they need. Prohibiting the slaughter of animals so many people love is not a step toward animal rights, nor does it give horses a right not to be slaughtered, let alone not to be born into slavery.
You don't boast of being endorsed by the Humane Society – it is not an animal-rights organization. It promotes animal rights' antithesis, animal welfare. If you understand and endorse animal rights, you understand many billions of animals are treated inhumanely every year in the U.S., most of them extremely inhumanely, even though all of the 300 million Americans capable of considering the matter believe it is wrong to treat an animal inhumanely – despite the Humane Society’s having pushed its non-rights, industry-friendly mission for over half-a-century and claiming 1 in 30 Americans is a member. So you realize for humane treatment of animals to become policy, not just personal choice, requires fundamental change in the way Americans live – an end to all use, ownership, domination, and seizing or driving from their natural homes of nonhuman animals – in short, meaningful, enforceable basic legal rights for all sentient beings on which secondary rights can be based. That is not what the Humane Society teaches or asks legislators to support. And no candidate or legislator supports it.
Nor do you say the president should be "mindful of the cruelty" humans inflict on other animals if you want to get across that you endorse animal rights – even though of course everyone should be mindful of that. Animal-rights advocates work to end inhumane treatment as public policy, because fighting cruelty rather than pervasive inhumane treatment is a key reason there's so much animal suffering including cruelty. Inhumane treatment in every area of human life is a root cause of cruelty. Not only does fighting cruelty do nothing toward ending inhumane treatment; it cannot possibly do so, ever. More than a century of anticruelty policy proves that. Far more animals are treated far more inhumanely than when anticruelty policy began. And because we in the United States, with the wherewithal necessary to establish humane treatment as policy, have failed to do so or even to attempt it in a big way, our country cannot serve as an example to others as it used to regarding human rights, before our government defended anti-rights practices and articulated anti-rights policies. Cruelty must be prohibited and prosecuted, of course, but that has nothing to do with establishing rights.
Obama's comment that "how we treat animals reflects how we treat each other" is not wrong as far as it goes, but it implies human beings are not animals, and it can reflect any kind of opinion about how to improve the treatment of nonhuman animals. It in no way suggests we must establish basic legal rights for all sentient beings – the animal-rights bottom line. And since ending human interference in other animals' lives is a key objective, emphasizing "treatment" suggests perpetuating the status quo in which humans own, use, and dominate others.
To promote animal rights, such a statement must be supported with details. If you are merely repeating the cliché that people who beat pet dogs are more likely to beat their spouse or child, you are not promoting animal rights. You might be if you explain that owning and exploiting nonhuman animals is the original basis of owning and exploiting human beings and that establishing and enforcing all sentient beings' basic legal right of autonomy will aid in establishing and enforcing basic human rights. Many animal-rights advocates understand that billions of human beings lack basic legal rights and that where they exist, they are too often violated with impunity. Because so many people cannot conceive of treating nonhuman animals better than humans, establishing basic legal rights of nonhumans can be expected to help establish human rights where they do not currently exist and to improve enforcement
where they exist.
Now, does endorsing the actual animal-rights agenda rather than a make-believe one sound like a way to get elected?
Because Obama's "animal rights endorsement" doesn't at all describe the animal-rights agenda and says things about animals that do not reflect that agenda, it is not surprising it doesn't explain the connection to human rights or any of the other far-reaching advantages animal rights offers to human beings – improved health, lower medical & insurance costs, healthier ecosystems, less-rapid fresh-water and topsoil loss, less burning of oil and coal, and more.
It is not a big surprise that a candidate would not know what animal rights is. The news industry never explains it and routinely misuses "animal rights." Many people confuse others by calling almost anything anyone does on behalf of animals "animal rights" – even rescuing injured ones or cruelty victims, which people have done since long before "animal rights" entered the language, even before "human rights" did.
It might help if animal advocates would not confuse animal rights with anything any candidate or elected official can endorse or support – unless the candidate or official has lost their marbles or has decided to call it quits and take up animal-rights advocacy instead of electoral and legislative politics. Animal rights is a political proposal for root change – a radical idea that cannot be accurately described as improving the treatment of animals, prohibiting cruelty to animals, helping animals, and the like. The animal-rights agenda is designed to make the world a better place for animals than reforms can. As in other areas of life, reforms cause people to think the problem is being handled so fundamental change is not necessary. Reform is not an animal-rights activity.
Woodrow Wilson, a trained historian and political scientist, wrote in his book The State, "In politics nothing radically novel may safely be attempted." He meant electoral and legislative politics. That was understood long before Wilson's time. For the foreseeable future, animal rights can only be promoted through education. That can include education of politicians as well as millions of other people, but not under the delusion that politicians can endorse animal rights anytime soon without changing careers. Dennis Kucinich is a case in point. It is wonderful that he is vegan, but he would not have been able to gain even the respectable small amount of support he did if he'd articulated an animal-rights platform.
None of this is to say politicians are "bad" people or that Obama should be deemed a lesser candidate than any other. Did the person who elicited his "endorsement" by shouting "What about animal rights?" know what animal rights is? Probably not. If she'd wanted to sink Obama with an "animal rights" cinderblock tied to his ankles, she would have said, There's a rumor circulating to the effect that you're hiding a radical animal-rights agenda that you intend to push if you are elected – is that true? If she wanted to boost his chances, she would have simply asked if he cares about animals, leaving rights out of it. Then he could do the equivalent of baby-kissing – bunny-hugging? – without reference to what in electoral politics would be a kiss of death. He reportedly did the baby-kissing thing, but for his purposes including "rights" in his answer is a mistake.
Ironically, if she thinks Obama would make a fine president and only wanted to give him an opportunity to wax caring, she provided his opponents and enemies with a weapon by phrasing her question in terms of "animal rights" and getting him to say he "cares about animal rights very much." All they have to do is repeat at every opportunity that Obama supports animal rights: no more animal experiments, no more meat, no more this, no more that. That's what animal rights is. Your rights end where my nose begins; my rights begin where your cages, slaughterhouses, rifles, stables, tethers, backhoes, syringes, kennels ... end.
My organization does not endorse candidates or otherwise take part in electoral or legislative
politics – it is an animal-rights organization; therefore, it seeks to educate, and it takes part in education politics, food politics, and other kinds, not electoral or legislative politics. If it took part in electoral politics, it would consider endorsements in the context of recognizing that virtually all big business is detrimental to nonhuman animals and to their prospects for obtaining basic legal rights. Can any candidate succeed today without big-business support or without being careful not to mobilize big-business interests against them? And can you name any big business whose financial interests are not threatened by animal rights?
See what I mean?
You have to start somewhere? People say that all the time as if it justified pretending non- or anti-animal-rights positions were animal-rights ones – or as if some connection could magically come to exist between helping animals in their current human-dominated world and remaking their world so they won't need help. It won't, so forget about it. Whatever doesn't explicitly advance animal rights ... simply doesn't.
Isn't it amazing how much power you have when you don't cede yours to others? When you realize you can work to expand the American Revolution to all sentient beings without the say-so of any politician, official, advocacy hero, or anyone else? As those who preceded you expanded it to people who'd been the property of others? What you're experiencing is the autonomy evolution prepared you for. As an animal-rights advocate, you deeply want all sentient beings to share in that experience, according to their nature. You're willing to take the necessary time. You know there are no shortcuts, and you don't accept substitutes. ´
David Cantor is founding director of Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. --www.RPAforAll.org /
www.ExpertsOfConscience.org.
Thanks to my brother-in-law, Lord Jotham, for alerting me to this nine-minute segment on CNN regarding BAD RAP, which was given ten of Vick's dogs. They are all in homes (being fostered) with other dogs and they're all child safe. Check out videos of the dogs at Dogtime; they're adorable and heartwarming. There's a lot of talk about the dogs as individuals, which I liked, and also the reality that pit bulls were once the dog of choice in the US as pets, like Labs are today.
I'm not sure whether or not it's a dig, but Tim Racer, founder of BAD RAP does say at one point, regarding the reality that the shelter system is often a death sentence: "We are a humane society" (emphasis his). We should give these dogs the opportunity and the dignity to be evaluated as individuals."
Over Thanksgiving a client of my husband's started a conversation about Michael Vick's dogs. She was appalled that they were going to Best Friends and other places to be rehabilitated and adopted out. When I asked what was so upsetting to her, she replied that "all this money" (vague, I know) "is gonna be spent on these dogs who might not be able to be rehabilitated, when it could've gone to care for animals whose chances are much better."
It was a sort of fiscal responsibility argument, I guess, but she was operating under several misconceptions, one of which was the origin of the money. It should be coming from the nearly $1 million Vick was ordered to pay in restitution for the care of the dogs (although it will probably cost more).
Here's an update on the 22 of Vick's dogs who were given to Best Friends to rehabilitate. They are now known as the Vicktory dogs (boy that was a gimme). Twenty one of dogs given to Best Friends are considered sanctuary dogs, and one was determined to be highly adoptable. The stipend awarded for their care was $388,775.
What I was most impressed with was that despite PeTA and HSUS basically dooming them to death, Best Friends always stood by the dogs as victims, with their general counsel filing a legal brief detailing assessment and rehabilitation. The judge in the case followed many points in the brief and appointed someone to represent the interest of the dogs, and that person recommended 22 be placed with Best Friends.
Next, and e-mail the story to all the football-lovin', beer-guzzlin', hot dog-eatin' guys in your life, is the story of NFL star Tony Gonzalez, The 247 lb. Vegan. With the Super Bowl around the corner (right? isn't it? Don't ask me who's playing, though), there's no better opportunity for vegan education than reminded people (or telling them for the first time), that though there are plenty of endurance athletes who are vegans, there are also football players, basketball players (Atlanta Hawks' Salim Stoudamire is one I know by name), Ultimate Fighting Champ Mac Danzig, and of course, Martina Navratilova.
Here's what was annoying:
It's fine to be a vegan, says sports nutritionist and dietician Nancy Clark, if you're willing to work at it. "It's harder to get calcium, harder to get protein, harder to get Vitamin D, harder to get iron," she says. "You have to be committed."
I don't know about you, but I run outside four times a week, mow my lawn once a week, and garden (aka, pull weeds), and I don't even think about Vitamin D. Harder to get iron? Harder to get protein? How is this woman a dietician? How difficult is it to eat plants rather than animals? But I digress.
Okay, one more annoying tidbit:
The Chiefs' team nutritionist, Mitzi Dulan, a former vegetarian athlete, did not believe that was enough. With the team's prospects and Mr. Gonzalez's legacy at stake, she persuaded the tight-end to incorporate small amounts of meat into his plant diet. Just no beef, pork or shellfish, he said; only a few servings of fish and chicken a week.
Riddle me this, Batman, what do you call a man who eats fish, chicken, fruits and vegetables? A vegan? No. An omnivore.
Well, there's always Pamela Anderson to help convince the guys . . .
In an effort to learn from others involved in the struggle for animal rights as well as other issues of social justice/injustice and nonviolence, I've always solicited comments and suggestions. Some of the most helpful have been from people not all that interested in animal rights.
Here are some of the most common reactions to Thinking Critically About Animal Rights:
I was going to write a post about terrorism (Will Potter got me going), and though I know this will be controversial, I'd rather everyone read Steve Best, Ph.D.'s essay "Defining Terrorism," which includes my favorite definition:
"Terrorism" is a word people use to refer to armed struggles they don't like. (John Burdick, Associate Professor, Syracuse University)
What are your thoughts about sabotage, intimidation and property damage? (You can e-mail me if you don't want to comment.) Are they violence? Should such force be included in our efforts? And if so, do you characterize that as counter terrorism? Do such tactics lower us to their level?
A Buddhist mentor used to say to me: If you're walking down the street and someone clobbers you over the head, do you just stand there? Do you simply move out of the way? Do you defend yourself and clobber back? What if someone were hitting your child? Would you let them get away with that? Wouldn't you fight back physically or intimidate them or do whatever you had to so they'd get the message that they're not allowed to hit your child? This of course leads right to me being a speciesist if I would fight for a child (physically) but not for animals, despite the fact that one is direct and immediate (the child is there and the animals, whom I don't even know, are elsewhere). Hmmmm. So much to think about.
I'm not advocating harming any person physically, and not because there's a law against it but because I don't think it's right unless it's immediate self-defense.
But what about property? Does violence include property in your mind (think open rescue and beyond), and should it be part of our strategy?
I posted On Nonviolence and Food on Rethos.com and for this post there were requirements and restrictions (such as few links, no third-party quotes, no asking for money for an organization, and no extreme or hard-core topics or language) because the content might be picked up by MSN (which has in the past picked up other content of mine that's full of links and quotes, so I did think the "rules" were odd). Rethos is a progressive community "uniting on solutions to social and environmental issues." There are some vegetarians and vegans around, but they appear to be the minority and I'm evidently the only person remotely interested in animal rights. I think it strange that people interested in environmental issues do not make the animal-use connection often (and are in fact hostile to it with their "sustainable animal agriculture" mantra). For that reason especially, though it seems that Rethos is having some difficulty getting off the ground, I think it's a good place to plant seeds of connection with issues that are frequently treated as though they exist in a vacuum.
I find it difficult to decouple animal rights and the environment, and I think that encouraging enviros to broaden their scope is a worthwhile venture, and the same is true for Team Social Justice, which often overlooks nonhuman animals and has deemed them unworthy of advocacy.
I believe you can comment only if you're a Rethos member, but you can always comment here or drop me a note.
Thanks to Jackie, who flies a stylin' Gulfstream 550 and who's been staying with us for a couple of weekends, for snapping the hilarious photo of our boy Charles Hobson Booger, III.
For nearly two weeks I've received a steady stream of e-mails, and probably 1,000 visits to Animal Person, directly related to my January 10 post about defeating Question 3 at the January 29 election. Because of that activity, I thought it was worthwhile to let everyone know that GREY 2K USA President, Christine Dorchak, will be in Miami for a "Mega Rally" on Saturday, January 26, from 1:30-3:00pm. Here's what you need to know:
On January 29, Miami voters will be asked to allow the county’s aging dog track, as well two other facilities, to offer Class III, Las Vegas-style slot machine gambling. The installation of slot machines at Flagler Dog Track would prop up the cruelty of dog racing for years to come. Without slot machines, the track may close!
Directions: Go to State Road 836 either from I-95 or State Road 826. Take the 37th Street exit and go south to NW 7th Street. Turn right on NW 7th Street and park in the Central Shopping Center parking lot across from the dog track.
Please RSVP today by calling Kathy and Ken Pelton at 305-663-4454. For more information about the January 29 vote, go to www.votemyfaith.org.
Finally, if you live in Miami remember to vote NO on Question 3 on January 29.
Yes, you read correctly: votemyfaith.org. This is one of those issues when you may keep some interesting company. The real issue here, for some people, is gambling expansion. I'm not saying they don't care about the dogs or banning racing, but their focus is stopping the spread of an activity that they believe harms their community. And I don't care what does the job as long as Greyhound racing ends.
Note that if Question 3 were to pass, there would be little hope of closing the tracks. This is a one-shot deal. The industry is already dying, and it will continue to die if not propped up by something else.
VOTE NO on QUESTION #3!
There's a debate about whether meat is murder or "justifiable homicide" (and prepare yourself for some mighty interesting moral acrobatics here) in and after "The Compassionate Carnivore," which Jenny alerted me to.
Let's deconstruct:
Check out the debate following the article. Not everyone is buying what Hodgkinson is selling. What's important for us is to constantly point out the hypocrisy, denial and grave misuse of language that the peddlers of all things animal cling to in the hope that people aren't paying attention or thinking for themselves.
While most of the country is in a deep freeze, this is visitor season for me, where nary a weekend goes by without at least an overnight stay by a good friend or family member. No matter who's in town, they eat vegan food when in my house, and I make that a bit easier by baking a cake of their choice and encouraging them to help.
For two weekends (the first of which a vegan was visiting so I didn't have my "salesperson" hat on) we made the Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake from Vegan with a Vengeance, and by all accounts it was amazing. (I made the icing differently this week though, with only half the confectioner's sugar, and I liked it better.) The three nonvegans who helped bake this weekend were all amazed that there were no eggs or butter in the cake, and get this . . . I was asked to bake a wedding cake (and maybe more) for a small kosher wedding in March, and to get my samples in the works so the planner could choose a cake for the out-of-town bride.
This is on the basis of one cake, a bowl of green soup I whipped up (and I mean whipped--I cooked peas, broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash and leeks in a bit of water then tossed them all in a blender to make verde goodness), and some quinoa with grilled veggies and tofu.
The bride grew up vegan and when she went to college, but both she and her vegan-chef mother went back to eating animals (I don't know the whole story), which is obviously disconcerting. The groom was never vegan. Perhaps I can help remind her of all the good a vegan diet does for the planet, the conscience, and the body.
Speaking of awesome vegan food, I received my first set of meals from The Hungry-Vegan last week. I was off to a bit of a rough start as I didn't read the site thoroughly and the fact that I would get my food two days after the food for the week was ready, as opposed to two days after I placed the order, completely bypassed me. And then when the food arrived over a week after I ordered it, the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cream Pie was thoroughly unidentifiable from being crunched by the other food and the cold packs during shipping. It was delicious, but if I had to serve it to a guest I'd have a bit of explaining to do.
Other than that it was smooth sailing. People came and went all weekend, trying a soup here, a grain or tofu dish there, and there wasn't one negative review. In fact, two people who would like to go vegan but think "it's too hard" went to the website immediately, loved what they saw, and have decided to order food for a month. There was a lot of "If I didn't have to figure out what to buy, cook and eat, I'd be a vegan." Problem solved.
I ordered the menu for one person (at a cost of $85, which includes shipping), and each item (except the desserts) served at least two people, particularly if they were eating more than one item, so keep that in mind. Calling all you lazy vegans out there, try The Hungry Vegan, if for no other reason than you know you've got backup food (you can freeze most of it) or food you wouldn't ordinarily cook (i.e., instant variety) or munchies for when you have unexpected guests. And if you think $74 (before shipping) is expensive, check out the menus, make a shopping list, and tally the damage. Then factor in the cost of your time to prepare it all. Then tell me it's expensive. I think it's a great value and a great solution for longtime vegans as well as people trying to figure out how to make it all work.
Finally, my husband's NOHARM shoes (he bought the style shown above) have been treating his feet quite well and though I'm sure he's paranoid that people realize he's not wearing Ferragamo's . . .
I think that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Of course there's the matter of: Why do you want people to think you believe cow skin is a desirable foot covering? He might be there in spirit, but in mind it's all still very new to him and I'm just happy he's making such great progress.
Tomorrow I'll probably write about an article Jenny alerted me to in yesterday's comments, subtitled "The Compassionate Carnivore," which is just about all you need to know about the content, but it (and others like it) must be read and its premises must be examined.
Thanks to Kenneth for alerting me to the fact that it is 2008 and my pamphlet said 2007, to Deb for educating me about the reality that female calves get vealed, too, and to Alex for spotting a misplaced comma and apostrophe. Here is Thinking Critically About Animal Rights redux (Download TCAAR8.pdf).
TCAAR is being translated into French, and I will let you know as soon as that version is available.
I was going to write about the food I bought from The Hungry Vegan, but that'll have to wait because there's a more urgent matter: I need to tell my friends in the UK to buy veal because it's okay to eat it now.
In "Veal Back on a Guilt-Free British Menu," by The Observer's Juliette Jowit, we learn that the former poster-child of suffering, the veal calf, has been deemed acceptable to eat, and that "There's nothing inherently cruel about veal if the calf is reared to the highest standards," according to Peter Stevenson, the chief policy officer at Compassion in World Farming.
That's a relief.
What I don't get is what's inherently humane about killing a sentient being when you don't need to. Chefs Wolfgang Puck and Jamie Oliver, whose livelihoods depend on the slaughtering of massive numbers of nonhuman animals (at least the way they set up their lives right now. They could easily become vegan chefs.), apparently cannot afford to allow their alleged sense of compassion and kindness be taken to its logical conclusion.
As you may know, when I started blogging in 2006 I probably would have agreed that veal could be back on the menu under certain circumstances. But I've since realized that I was lying to myself and others by saying that it's not right to eat animals when you don't need to, unless of course the animals were raised or killed in a certain way. But even if you don't believe in animal rights, and you really are a welfarist and concerned with compassion and kindness, I ask you:
If it's time for compassion and kindness in world farming and celebrity chefery, it should also be time for honesty. Slaughter isn't compassionate or kind, and it's up to us to help people think through that rather inconvenient truth.
There's been quite a brouhaha regarding Japanese whaling (much of which is misnamed "research"), with whalers taking (and releasing) hostages and accusations of white supremacy (of Australians against the Japanese). But as Peter Singer writes in "Harpooned by Hypocrisy" in this morning's Guardian Unlimited (yes, Peter Singer, and don't write me to tell me he's a utilitarian--I know. Try to focus on this statement that you probably agree with.): "If there were some life-or-death need that humans could meet only by killing whales, perhaps the ethical case could be countered. But everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty elsewhere. Thus, whaling is unethical." He does say perhaps an ethical case could be made.
Singer writes that whales cannot be humanely killed, but that's not the point. It's not unnecessary, inhumane killing of sentient beings that's unethical. It's killing them at all that's unethical.
Furthermore, Singer finds . . .
"one argument that is not easily dismissed. They claim that western countries are just trying to impose their cultural beliefs on the Japanese. The best response to this argument is that the wrongness of causing needless suffering to sentient beings is not culturally specific. (It is, for instance, a precept of Japanese Buddhism.)
But western nations are in a weak position to make this response, because they inflict so much unnecessary suffering on animals - through culling (the Australian slaughter of kangaroos), hunting and factory farms. The west will have little defence against the charge of cultural bias until it addresses needless animal suffering in its own back yard."
What I'd like to move toward, is a time when arguments based on culture or tradition are easily dismissed. I'd like to propose a culture filter of sorts, where you take an action and put it through the culture filter, which catches the rationale of we-do-it-today-because-we-did-it-yesterday-and-we-define-ourselves-by-that-cycle. What's left is the action. Is it ethical or not?
Let's take whaling and put it through the culture filter. What comes out is the killing of sentient beings without necessity. Who's doing the killing and what does it say about their culture or what does it mean to their culture? It doesn't matter. If you're slaughtering sentient beings and you don't need to, the action is unethical.
Let's take chickens. Part of American culture is the consuming of the flesh and secretions of certain animals whom we have deemed "food animals." We breed chickens so that we may eat their flesh and eggs. But when we filter out American culture, what we're left with is the breeding of chickens to ultimately slaughter them and eat them when we don't need to. Killing sentient beings without necessity. Just like whaling.
Unlike people who talk about the large brain or the intelligence of whales, I don't think that's the issue. We simply should be using sentient nonhumans when we don't need to (and I'm hard-pressed to find a need to use them). They have a right to their lives without our intervention, manipulation, dominance and control. Whaling, therefore, is not as different from eating animals than we like to think. Whether you're doing the dirty work yourself, or paying someone to do it for you, the end result is the same: unethical behavior.
First, thanks to Chris from Beijing for alerting me about the successful expulsion of The Ronald McDonald Report Card from Seminole County schools (here in Florida, but nowhere near me. You may recall I wrote about this issue in December). Thanks to everyone who registered their discontent or passed the story around.
Here's a statement from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
In the absence of needed government regulation to protect schoolchildren from predatory companies like McDonald’s, the burden is on parents to be vigilant about exploitative marketing aimed at children. One parent can make a difference. There is no doubt that the Seminole County ads would have continued – and violated McDonald’s pledge to stop advertising in elementary schools – had one parent not called attention to the problem. And when that parent was joined by other parents and CCFC members, one of our nation’s largest corporations was forced to back down. What we accomplished in Seminole County should put all marketers on notice: advertising has no place in our nation’s schools.
Next, I'm pleased to announce that Milton, Kenai and Chumby, three of the four juvenile green sea turtles rehabbed at the sea turtle hospital I volunteer at, were released earlier this week. They fell ill as a result of a Red Tide event north of Palm Beach County. (Red Tide is a harmful algae bloom. 47 turtles were affected, 17 of whom died immediately. We received four survivors to rehab, which basically consisted of antibiotics, a clean tank and clean food for each of them. It took several weeks for them to get back to normal. The fourth, Kona, whom we received a week after the other three, needs a bit more time before he/she can be released.)
Check out a video of the release here, and a video with more backstory here. We had a 100% success rate with the turtles and even though all I do is clean their tanks and talk to people about them, I feel like I played a tiny part in their ability to get back to the ocean quickly, making room for other turtles who are injured or ill.
The green sea turtle is endangered and is a meat-eater as a youngin', but then eats only plants as an adult.
Recent Comments