Animal Person

On the Economy and Greyhound Racing

Greyhound racing is slowly dying in the United States. Even in Florida, where political ties are about to increase when Tom Rooney-R (whose family owns the Pittsburgh Steelers as well as the Palm Beach Kennel Club) becomes a Congressman (person?) thanks to the ridiculous behavior of Tim Mahoney-D, who once was in the lead.

The turbulent economy has highlighted how much more costly dog racing is compared with other, more popular forms of gambling (like the ones that don't involve exploiting sentient nonhumans), and horse racing is also being hit.

• Wagering online is the ultimate cost-shaver, notwithstanding not wagering at all, which apparently isn't an option for some people.
• Fuel costs affect the industry, as the dogs are trucked around the country (Violet went from North Carolina to Oregon to South Florida, and don't think she was transported by Prius).
• Veterinarian costs must be considered (and I'm sure there's a special fee for "treatments" that are illegal--check out Dog Catcher, by Erich R. Sysak for more on that).
• Funding of adoption groups (legislation in some states requires that the tracks give to adoption groups, and of course they give to groups that aren't vocally against racing).
• Maintenance of the tracks.
• Pay for judges.
• Kenneling of the dogs.

Unfortunately for Florida dogs, it's legislation that keeps them enslaved as the real money maker, poker rooms, are only permitted at tracks that force dogs to race, for instance, 100 times per year (which often is in the form of a season, not an entire year). The poker has been tied to a dog racing requirement. This gives the breeders and trainers and owners an assurance that their industry--in Florida at least--isn't going to die anytime soon.

I'm hoping that the enormous space that is basically wasted at the tracks, in addition to all of the expenses of racing dogs, will finally take its toll on track owners who will themselves push for legislation to effectively nullify the requirement that dogs race in order to offer poker rooms.

After all, it's highly unlikely that track owners are going to sprout a conscience, but they might be forced to consider cost-saving measures. And their biggest cost (next in line after their property, of course), oddly enough, is dog racing. 

MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS-VOTE YES ON QUESTION 3!

Li'l Help With TNR?

Here's the situation: 20-30 cats, the majority of whom are black, and many of whom are tiny kittens, live in an abandoned building next to our gorgeous Community Foundation building in the downtown area of West Palm Beach, a block from the Intracoastal (the waterway between West Palm Beach and the island of Palm Beach). When you drive into the parking lot, you have to be very careful not to hit one as they're just milling about.

Upon asking, I was told that there were two failed attempts at TNR, but I'm not sure what that means and will investigate further today. Someone told me the cats are the City's responsibility (the City of West Palm Beach). I have no idea if that's true. A colleague from the documentary project is happy to do some of the work (she lives nearby and I don't), but I have no idea where to start.

Before I do the research myself (Alley Cat Allies?), I thought it best to simply ask you what I need to do. Do I need permission of any kind? Where do I get the traps? Is 20-30 cats a lot? Do I have to coordinate with the City? Should I just raise some money to pay for one of those mobile spay/neuter rigs? Nanci Alexander of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida was going to be my first call, but I just found out that for financial reasons she had to cut the program and she has donated the truck to PETA. I already called two local "humane societies" who said they don't do that work (they do, however, kill animals, as neither is a no-kill). How much does this cost? How many people do I need?

Li'l help?

On Individuals and "Low-Hanging Fruit"

Yesterday, Dan directed us to his blog post, "Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit: What is Wrong with Single Issue Campaigns?" If you're interested in the place single-issue campaigns have, and the problems they create or perpetuate, I highly recommend reading it.

With regard to Paul Watson, however, and to a lesser extent me, there is another factor in the single-issue equation: the individual. Watson describes a pivotal day for him in a Greenpeace whale campaign in 1975 . . .

 ". . . the harpoon cannon thundered and the harpoon flew over our head and slammed into the backside of one of eight magnificent Sperm whales that were fleeing for their lives. It was a female and she screamed and then suddenly the large male struck the water with his tail and tail and disappeared. We thought it would attack us but instead the whale swam underneath of us and erupted from the sea behind us and hurtled himself at the harpooner on the Soviet vessel. But the harpooner was ready for this and had already loaded an unattached harpoon into the gun. He pulled the trigger and hit the whale at point blank range in the head. The large bull screamed and fell back in the water in a spreading pool of its own hot blood. And as the whale struggled in agony on the surface, rolling and thrashing, I caught his eye and he saw me. Suddenly I saw a trail of bloody bubbles coming swiftly towards us and the whale rose up out of the sea at an angle directly beside us and was about to fall upon our small fragile inflatable boat. And I looked up into that eye, an eye the size of my fist and what I saw there changed my life forever – I saw understanding, I saw awareness. That whale knew what we were doing and with a great effort pulled himself back and sank into the sea and I saw his eye disappear below the surface and he died. He could have taken our lives but in his last moments he spared us and thus I am indebted to that whale for my life."

For some people, a single issue campaign that does indeed save lives (Watson has saved well over 1,000) often comes from an experience with an individual that results in a form of calling or obligation to seek justice for that individual and have his death not be in vain. When I moved to South Florida and discovered that I was living in the state that has enslaved by far the largest number of greyhounds, I decided to do something about that. Not on a Paul Watson scale, but in my own way.

That's not to say vegan education doesn't matter, as I can do both--simultaneously. In fact, greyhounds provide a perfect segue to veganism. Would you want your Golden to be kenneled for 20 hours a day and forced to race?  . . . How would you feel if a Golden were on the table at Thanksgiving? . . .

Some people, by accident of geography, end up surrounded by a particular form of exploitation that they cannot ignore and focus their efforts on. I think of pattrice, in the midst of all of that chicken slaughter (and her response: Eastern Shore Sanctuary & Education Center--and this isn't to say pattrice, the person, is a single issue person), and the amazing vegans up in Whitehorse (Yukon) who fight to abolish the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest (and run Sleddogwatchdog.com and the Animal Advocates Society).

At the Community Foundation building where I have meetings about the documentary I'm working on (the plight of youth who have aged out of foster care and what your community can do and what you as an individual can do to help), it has come to my attention that there's a feral cat colony in an abandoned building nearby. I've inadvertently become the spokesperson for TNR and--like I have extra time--I'm recruiting people to help implement the program. I assume that anyone who volunteers is already sympathetic to the plight of at least some nonhumans (cats), and my goal is to help them make connections between cats and chickens and cows. In my mind, like with the single issue of greyhound racing, it helps my vegan outreach because I already have an audience who has demonstrated they're thinking and they care. My odds of success, therefore, are better than if I approached a person on the street with a pamphlet. This makes perfect sense to me, and maybe it's when it's done on a large-scale level that it becomes  problem--I don't know.

What are your thoughts about single issue campaigns and whether they're useful for vegan education?

Paul Watson on Whales, Direct Action and Terrorism

Jason Miller, founding editor of Thomas Paine's Corner recently interviewed Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the result is "'Sticking it to the Man,' 21st Century Style". The interview is worth reading in its entirety. Here are the highlights (for me):

• "My main reason for leaving Greenpeace was because I was tired of protesting and seeing whales and seals die. I established the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society not as a protest organization but as an interventionist organization to specifically target illegal operations. We remain non-violent. Since I founded Sea Shepherd in 1977, we have never injured a single person, we have never been convicted of a felony crime and we have never been sued. That’s a better record than Greenpeace has."
• "[Greenpeace] is the world’s largest feel-good organization. People join Greenpeace to feel good, to believe they are a part of the solution and not the problem. Greenpeace is where liberals send their money to appease their conscience. It is an organization of posers doing stunts to grab media attention for the purpose of fund-raising." Ouch.
• "Robert Hunter and I were the first to place our bodies on the line and we succeeded in blocking the harpooner for about 20 minutes until the captain of the whaler ran down the catwalk and yelled into the harpooner’s ear and then turned to us and smiled and brought his finger across his throat. That’s when I realized that Gandhi was not going to work for us that day."
  
• "When people ask how I can risk human life to protect a whale, I cite the fact that we do not think it is unnatural or unethical to risk our lives and to kill over property like land and oil. And we accept dying and killing for ridiculous religious beliefs. I think fighting for endangered species and threatened habitats to be much nobler."
• Has Watson been accused of “terrorism?” "Many times, all the time. Yet for some strange reason I get to continue to fly on airplanes, I have no problems traveling and no warrants out for my arrest. It’s easy to call someone a terrorist. It’s a word used often these days to attack anyone someone disagrees with. Just questioning the war, or the destruction of the planet makes one a terrorist these days. I have never injured anyone. I’ve never been convicted of a crime. I’ve never been sued. I make for a pretty lousy terrorist."
• "I have been arrested many times but I’ve never been convicted of a felony nor have I ever been sued. We intervene against criminal operations and the last place criminals want to go is a courtroom."

I know that for many animal rights activists, Watson is a gray-area person because his actions are actually in the service of the law (that no one else is enforcing). Many people would call what he does "violence" (he does not) if it were in a different context, yet because of his context, it's not violence. Or it is, but it's acceptable.

Do you support the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society? Do you support Greenpeace? What are your thoughts about Watson?

On Errol Morris and Animals

I've been watching Errol Morris documentaries (/nonfiction films). On my computer, either late at night or hours before the sun rises, in the past week I've seen: "Vernon, Florida," "Standard Operating Procedure," and "Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control."

All of the films have either an obvious theme about human and nonhuman animals or a less obvious one.

• "Vernon, Florida," which is known to be a film about nothing (and trust me, it comes close), includes interviews with older men in a rural area of Florida who appear to have nothing better to do than hunt and kill animals. And then there's the man who keeps an opossum and a turtle in a box on his lawn. No light. Just keeps them in a box. He briefly takes them out and we see what terrible shape they are in.

So disturbing.

• "Standard Operating Procedure" is about the scandalous treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and how the notorious photos of the prisoners and the soldiers came to be and how they came to be the undoing of some of the people involved. However, the final message is that this headline-making episode that ended military careers, destroyed lives and landed several soldiers in jail, was nothing--nothing--compared to what else was going on and for which no one was ever tried or imprisoned. While soldiers of low rank were basically scapegoated (though they by no means were innocent), the interrogators and the CIA and the generals responsible for the routine humiliation, torture and killing of "prisoners" were never even investigated.

As for animals, here's what struck me. When shown photos or asked to recall incidents when they humiliated and harmed prisoners, all of the soldiers in some way articulate the notion that "it was fun" and no harm was done and "it's not like we killed them," as if killing them is the only horrible thing they could have done. The soldiers laugh as the prisoners are in "stress positions," naked, with women's underwear over their heads. They pile them up in pyramids, naked of course. And they play nerf football around them as they're curled up, naked and terrified, on the cold prison floor.

I'm reminded of all of the footage of slaughterhouse workers laughing as they torture animals or use them as footballs or sit on them for fun or sodomize them.

If people so quickly, so easily humiliate and harm nonhuman animals in certain situations, I'm not so sure why I was so shocked that they'd do the same to human animals.

• The human cast of "Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control" consists of: a topiary gardener, a lion "tamer," a robot scientist, and a mole rat photographer. One theme that runs across their stories is control over the nonhuman and how that control often ends. Says Morris: "[I]t shows various incarnations of the Frankenstein myth: the need to create life and at the same time control it, with the codicil that something bad's going to happen; that this attempt at control will end in some kind of disaster, some kind of failure."

Morris is famous for having his interviewees speak to the camera without interruption. And it's amazing what people say when you don't interrupt them. I wouldn't say any of these films is easy to watch, but, perhaps with the exception of "Vernon, Florida," which most people would find innocuous but which nauseated me, I recommend watching them because they do actually inform.

On "Blinders" and Animal Rights (Really)

There are two upcoming screenings in New York of "Blinders," a documentary about the horse-drawn carriage industry:

BROOKLYN, NY
October 29, 6:00 p.m.
Brooklyn Law School
250 Joralemon St.
Free and open to the public - bring photo ID

NEW YORK, NY
November 7
New York Law
57 Worth Street
New York Law or NYU Student ID required

It will also air on The Documentary Channel tomorrow evening (October 27) at 10:30 pm, and in New York , also tomorrow evening, on Channel 25 (Time Warner Cable).

As for animal rights (really), check out this feature and interview with David Cantor of Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA), which includes:

Cantor eventually became disillusioned with PETA and many organizations like Humane Society of the U.S., Fund for Animals, Friends of Animals, World Wildlife Fund, etc. He insists these organizations are wrongly labeled as “animal rights” organizations when they are actually “animal welfare” organizations. The average person would probably not recognize or care about this difference, but Cantor felt the difference was (and is) of monumental importance, so much so that in 2002 he started his own animal rights organization called Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA), Inc., which currently has about 140 members. The number is relatively small, but [Cantor] is quick to point out that the abolitionist movement of the first half of the 19th century was extremely small and was considered too radical by almost everyone in the north and south.

According to Cantor, almost all of the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of organizations working on behalf of animals are basically applying band-aids to a cancer that has to be completely ripped out. “Newspapers are always calling people ‘animal rights’ advocates when they are in fact ‘animal welfare’ advocates,” he said. “The animal rights movement is more than just about compassion. It’s about justice. As long as animals are viewed as property, there will be extreme cruelty. It is inevitable.

“Animal welfare people think if they make life expensive and difficult for puppy mill owners, for example, they will go out of business, but industries get exemptions, and laws are not enforced. As long as animals are viewed by the law as property, there will be no end to abuse. The efforts to fight cruelty are like going after twigs and branches instead of the roots. Rights are powerful; that’s why the Second Amendment has been used by gun owners to stop all rational attempts to control guns.

According to Cantor (who has no pets), despite the proliferation of what he calls animal welfare organizations in the past generation, a basic rights movement for nonhuman animals is just as lacking today as it was when the animal rights movement was declared about 30 or more years ago. “Lowering the bar by calling all kinds of things ‘animal rights’ that are not really animal rights only dooms today’s billions of animals and billions more yet to live to the double standard that only true animal rights can end …

“So much is said about animal rights — as if they already existed in the real world outside of our beliefs, plans and aspirations — that it is easy to confuse ‘saving’ animals, giving animals good homes, eating plants only, purchasing only ‘cruelty-free’ household and personal-care products, and doing other good things for animals with actually advancing their rights. So I see the primary task of the animal rights movement as educating as to what animal rights is (and is not) and moving people to help advance animal rights or to get out of the way and stop impeding animal rights and supporting human supremacy.”

If you're new to the land-grant university issue (I was before I was introduced to RPA last year), visit the "10,000 Years is Enough" page, and when you need information for your unfortunate encounters with hunters, the "This Land is Their Land" is very helpful. There are printable brochures, as well.

I think about the ramifications of not having "pets" for me. Way more time and money to be used elsewhere comes to mind! But as long as we've created the cat and dog overpopulation problem, and the greyhound racing industry, I feel obligated to help. Now, I don't think that in any way is a manifestation of a belief in animal rights--quite the contrary. But still, it feels right to me to provide a safe, loving, fun home for cats and dogs--particularly those with special needs or who are less adoptable. (I was looking for a special needs dog when I found Violet, and I adopted Emily because she was an adult and didn't have the most appealing, adorable, kitty-like personality.)

I do like that Cantor essentially says that being vegan doesn't actually advance the rights of animals. (And I'm assuming he doesn't include animal rights outreach in being vegan. Most of the vegans I know in my area don't engage anyone or talk about anything but the health and environmental benefits of veganism, so I think it's fair to say that education about animal rights is not necessarily part of veganism.)

As for Friends of Animals, I'm not sure what the issue is . . .

Finally, the statement on violence is unclear about property damage, if you're interested. It states:

"Responsible Policies for Animals opposes acts of violence, the use of threats, obscenity, or degrading or insulting language, and any other behavior that does physical harm to any human being or diminishes any human being’s dignity or humanity in the name of, or in association with, the animal rights movement."

I see some wiggle room in there, but it might be unintentional.

I'm just happy that animal rights is getting some press for what it actually is. That's so rare these days . . .

On Veggie Vision and Discrimination

Have you seen Veggie Vision? It's an Internet television station that promotes veganism! I just learned how to make Ackee Quiche (after I learned what ackee is) on the Veggie Viewer (the link is on the lower right corner) and saw Rory Freedman's top five reasons to go vegan--which focus right up front on dairy and eggs and don't exclude the environment (hallelujiah!).

I also watched some coverage of Veggie Pride in France, where an organizer of the event, Virginie, said that there's discrimination against vegans who don't eat animals because they don't want to kill animals. Vegetarians and vegans are accepted if their reason is health or the environment, but if the reason is the refusal to kill animals, they are not as easily accepted. (Please note that the reason I include vegetarians is that Virginie did, and Veggie Pride events do.)

Question: Do you experience discrimination because your choice of lifestyle comes from your desire to not kill anyone?

On the Economy and Animal "Rights"

If Proposition 2 doesn't pass in California and Question 3 doesn't pass in Massachusetts, here's why: Some people care about the welfare of animals, and that care can be expressed quite eloquently and can be very convincing. However, once you factor in fear over the economy, all bets are off.

In today's New York Times, Jesse McKinley's "A California Ballot Measure Offers Rights for Farm Animals," McKinley of course refers to Proposition 2 as an animal rights ballot measure. Meanwhile he quotes Wayne Pacelle as saying, "the least we can do is treat them with decency and give them a semblance of a life." I could make the perpetual confusion regarding welfare and rights the topic here, but I think I've reached my threshold with that for this month (much of my personal vegan outreach has focused on that recently--I suppose because of the election).

McKinley interviewed Dr. William Grant, the president of the California Veterinary Medical Association, who was surprised at how many people had expressed concern about "the fiscal impact on the state, rather than how we care about the animals. Had this been up last year, I think this would have overwhelmingly passed without any discussion."

I'd safely say that if this were 2006, Proposition 2 and Question 3 (which would ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts), would be met by voters who have a different mindset than they do today. In 2006 my property value was at its peak and the jobless rate was much lower. We didn't have day after day of record losses in the financial markets and there was an entirely different mentality about the future of this country.

Suddenly, though many people do care about animals, the prospect of someone losing a job or incurring more costs to do business will affect how they vote. It's us versus them, they think. Either we prosper or the animals get treated a bit better, but we can't have both. Meanwhile, the thought of not using animals, which is actually less expensive, isn't taken seriously as an option.

Humans are delicate, self-centered, fearful creatures with values that are subject to change based on market conditions, and there's something wrong with that.

On Tax Resistance

As I believe I've written previously, for several years I lived with a tax resistor ("TD"). TD called himself a "Re-Director of Federal Funds." It's actually what broke us up, as one day I said the following:

"Of course I want to have children! [This was 20 years ago and I was in my early twenties--cut me some slack!] But here's what I don't think I can do: Raise a child who is a raw vegan, who doesn't have/watch television, who doesn't have war toys, who doesn't wear leather, whose parents aren't married, who is homeschooled, and whose daddy's in jail, but he's there because he's a really good person. And then proceed to raise the kid myself because--as he'll know--daddy's beliefs are more important than daddy's kid."

I was experiencing TD's beliefs--and actions--as a burden on the life of a child. I wasn't that thrilled about them either, but how could I possibly do anything but support him? He was a decade older than me, far more educated than I (his advanced degrees were from a program called Media Ecology at NYU, which offers courses called "War and Media Theory" and "Decolonization and its Aftermath"), and had spent nearly a decade preceding me as an activist (the kind who parachuted into nuclear reactors), and he wasn't about to change his beliefs (nor should he) in order to maintain our relationship or have a child.

Here's my question: I know that most of you are against direct action that you consider violent. Do you have any thoughts about tax resistance? I certainly don't think it qualifies as direct action, but I could be wrong. And there's nothing violent about it.

TD was fond of saying that if I wanted to divorce myself from animal use and exploitation (or war) in a more meaningful way, I would stop allowing my tax dollars to be spent on such things by withholding them or re-directing them. (FYI-The process involves calculating how your tax bill and then, for TD, he would use those funds to, say, start a soup kitchen or fund a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, then send a copy of the money orders along with his tax return and a statement of why he was resisting. There are other ways to do it, I'm sure.)

A possible consequence of tax resistance, just like with breaking into a lab and liberating animals, is jail time (not to mention the payment of back taxes in the former instance). Does that alone make it not worth it? Are tax resistors, like those who break into labs, not helping their cause at all? After all, with penalties and interest, one could say that the tax resistor, if caught, will fund more experimentation (and partially for this reason, many resistors work hard to live below the poverty level. This way, they don't exacerbate the problem as they don't owe taxes to begin with--yet another way to approach the matter.)

I have a tough time telling a tax resistor or someone who breaks into a lab and liberates animals that what they're doing is a waste of time or is hurting my cause (as long as their intention doesn't involve harming anyone). Their conscience compels them to take a level of action that I choose not to take, and that my life is not set up for.

Perhaps that makes me one of those white, educated, elitist vegans I hear/read so much about.

On Dissidents and Their Voices

Part of the fun of having your own blog is that you can post something in a post that really should be a comment, in an attempt to get more people to read it.

First, I had no idea because there was no campaign whatsoever regarding it, that I was going to walk into my precinct and vote on a Constitutional Amendment that would define marriage, in the State of Florida, as a union between one man and one woman.

Um, no.

Next, in response to yesterday's post about my vote for Nader/Gonzalez (or more accurately, the fact that I didn't vote for Obama), I voted for Nader because he has spent his career fighting The Man. And if we are to develop a viable third party in this country, which might be the only thing that can save it, we have to start supporting it with our votes.

Rather than blathering on, allow me to refer to three articles on Dissident Voice that help explain my position.

1. A book review posted last night called "Critical Reading--The Democrats: A Critical History," which I'm putting on my list. Pham Binh reviews the book . . .

"With less than a month to go before the election and Obama’s inauguration a mere three months away, Lance Selfa’s The Democrats: A Critical History is critical reading for anyone interested in real change we can believe in i.e. not the kind Obama will bring. . . . Unlike the Republican party, the Democrats incorporate representatives of the oppressed and exploited (women, blacks, gays, unions) within the party as a subordinate component, to give them a meaningless 'seat at the table.' Doing so helps the Democrats maintain the fiction that they are the 'party of the people,' or that they’re 'friends of labor,' as opposed to the bad big business-backed Republicans. . . .

Two themes run throughout the book and form Selfa’s conclusion: 1) the Democratic Party is part of the problem, not part of the solution if you want real, meaningful change in this country and 2) change comes from grassroots movements independent of (and in opposition to) the Republican and Democratic parties. The lesser-evil strategy has been and will always be a complete disaster, allowing both parties the freedom to become more and more 'evil' as time goes on so long as they don’t become equally 'evil.'"

2.    "How Should You Vote?" by Jeremy R. Hammond. Again, partly about the lesser evil syndrome (and Florida in 2000, where I was a "spoiler" who voted for Nader) and this round's third-party darling, Ron Paul (except for that anti-choice stance that I can't get beyond). Hammond writes of how the lesser evil strategy is doomed. . .

"The truth is that the only reason a candidate like Ron Paul is “unlikely” to win an election is because people won’t vote for him. And they won’t vote for him because they think he’s unlikely to win, which of course results in the self-fulfillment of that reality.

The American people need to recognize that an alternate reality exists, and that the way to bring it about requires merely a shift in paradigm. American voters should shift their electoral strategy from seeking to put the lesser of evils into power to seeking to elect the force for the greatest good.

There are, of course, those who already adhere to this alternative framework. If there were a few more among their numbers, alternative candidates like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Ralph Nader would gain more votes. They might still lose. But does voting for a losing candidate mean one’s vote has been wasted? How much more wasted is a vote that goes towards the lesser evil? You’ve still voted for the perpetuation of evil. . . .

The only real voting strategy that can offer real hope for change is the one wherein Americans vote their conscience and cast their ballot for the candidate they think is truly the most worthy to be called by the title of President of the United States of America.

Until Americans realize this then there will indeed remain little hope for the future."

3.    Mickey Z. (need I say more?) in "Myth America: A Stand-up Tragedy" begins by speaking (this is a talk he's been giving) of what, in my experience, few mainstream Americans (read: not you, and not those who get their information from alternative media sources) talk about--or even know about (thanks to history textbook publishers, among others): September 11, 1973.

"On that date, the US government helped fund and sponsor a military coup in the South American nation of Chile. The democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, was overthrown and killed. They said he committed suicide…with a machine gun. In his place, the US propped up the dictator, General Augusto Pinochet. Not surprisingly, under Pinochet taking power, human rights violations in Chile skyrocketed."

There are bestselling books (Confessions of an Economic Hitman comes to mind), films ("The Battle of Chile" and the subsequent "The Pinochet Case") and even pop songs (I think Sting's "They Dance Alone") that refer to what the US has done in Chile (and other countries), under both Republican and Democratic administrations, but still there is either a forgiveness or an amnesia about what Democrats have done that scares me.

Mickey Z. gets right to it.

"I’m going to provide some of the many, many reasons you shouldn’t vote for McCain:

He’s raised twice as much money from Wall Street than his opponent. He voted for every Iraq war appropriation bill he faced. He refused to be photographed with San Francisco’s mayor for fear it’d be interpreted that he supported gay marriage. He voted against single payer health care. He supports the death penalty, the Israeli war machine, and the fence on the US-Mexican border. When asked if 'there’s anything that’s happened in the past 7 1/2 years that the U.S. needs to apologize for in terms of foreign policy?' he responded: 'No, I don’t believe in the U.S. apologizing.' He voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and to reauthorize the Patriot Act. He…uh-oh. Sorry, I messed up and gave you some of the many, many reasons you shouldn’t vote for Barack Obama. My bad…"

And Clinton?

"In the first three years of the Clinton-Gore regime—two of which involved a Democratic House and Senate—Clinton and his green buddy gave us fun stuff like: The passage of the salvage logging rider, the continuation of the use of methyl bromide, the weakening of the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, the lowering of grazing fees on land, the subsidizing of Florida’s sugar industry, the reversing the ban on the production and importation of PCBs, and allowing the export of Alaskan oil.

When Clinton and Gore ran for re-election in 1996, David Brower, former president of the Sierra Club, wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times called 'Why I Won’t Vote for Clinton.' In this piece, Brower declared that Clinton and Gore had 'done more harm to the environment in three years than Presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years.' That’s Bush the Elder, not Bush the Lesser.

But most important for my purposes . . .

"To me, America’s two-party system is like buying a ticket on a commercial airline. You can request a seat on the right side or you can request a seat on the left side of the plane. But it doesn’t matter as long as the pilot is in control.

Sure, voting for Barack Obama will prove once and for all that you’re more open-minded than your Republican brother-in-law but it’s time to recognize the most consistent and primary difference between Republicans and Democrats is this: they tell different lies to get elected."

A fabulous deconstruction of what it means to "support our troops" follows.

Finally,

"No matter what you call it, there is an alternative to terrorism. It’s called justice. But to seek justice, we must first recognize injustice—even if we play a direct or indirect role. To do that, we have to open our eyes and then take action. . . .

To do that, we have to remember that the few successful movements in this country’s history—civil rights, women’s suffrage, labor—prevailed in part because they utilized tactics that were outside of what was permitted at the time. . . .

Clearly, the old strategies are not working but until our tactics evolve, we remain accomplices to the perpetual global crime we call civilization. What kind of tactics? That’s up to you but, before you rule anything out, consider this: Let’s say I step out side get some air and see one of you lying on the ground. Standing above you is a large, menacing man with bad intentions and clearly, he has incapacitated you with a surprise blow. Your eyes meet mine and you indicate you need help.

I could pray. I could meditate. I could chalk it up to bad karma. I could ask you to recognize that the attacker is a human and tell him that you love him. I could blame patriarchy, the Republicans, or gangsta rap. I could ask myself: What would Jesus do? What would the Dalai Lama do? What would Oprah do? I could try to remember that excellent saying about non-violence I got from my Pilates teacher.

OR: I could stomp my foot to draw his attention downward and promptly whip out a finger jab to his eyes. When he brings hands up (too late) to protect himself, he leaves his mid-section exposed. I kick him in the balls—doubling him over—then grab him by the hair and bring his face down into a powerful knee blow. Then I’d grab the victim get the fuck out of there as fast as we can.

It’s either that or chanting. The choice is yours."

And tomorrow, it's back to the animals (and by the way Mickey Z. does refer to them and their plight).

I've Cast My Vote and I'm Proud

I voted yesterday. It took about an hour and I read "How to Save Capitalism" in Harper's as I inched closer to the door every couple of minutes. I was one of those people who didn't decide until the last minute who she was going to vote for. But it's not the way it sounds. I was one of those people who just might get into that privacy cubby, as it were, and not be able to bring myself to vote for a man who is . . . who is . . . . Well, that's not the way it sounds, either.

The fact is, I cast my vote for the people I believe understand what is really wrong with this country. I voted for the people who have been working for justice and who aren't afraid to do what is right in the face of corporate America and who in fact want to do away with corporate socialism (and corporate personhood). I voted for the people who (still) want to impeach Bush and Cheney. I voted for the people who want solar energy rather than nuclear energy. I voted for the people who want to withdraw from Iraq. Rapidly. For real.

I've said, jokingly, that if McCain wins I'd move to Switzerland. My husband, of course, reminds me of our plunging property value, not to mention nearly-worthless dollar, and the reality that we can't afford to move to Switzerland even if we wanted to. But they're onto something over yonder, and it's not all about clocks and watches. The man I voted for for President realizes that and wants us as people to have similar ability to change laws with a national vote.

The people I voted for want equal rights for gays, lesbians, women and people with disabilities. The people I voted for want to make demands of the Chinese government with regard to its genocide against the Tibetan people. I voted for the people who want two-state solution for peace in the Middle East. I voted for the people who think education is for everyone, as is healthcare, and the government should provide both to its citizens. I voted for the people who believe in a living wage.

I voted for Ralph Nader (again) and Matt Gonzalez, and I'm proud.

Contrary to popular belief, a vote for Nader/Gonzalez is a vote for Nader/Gonzalez. Even in Florida. It's not a vote for McCain/Palin.

I had no strategy. In this, what I keep hearing is possibly the most important election of my lifetime, when I live in one of the few states where the election has not been determined, I did what I was supposed to do as an American. I voted, not for the lesser of two evils, not against a candidate for President or Vice President (though that was most tempting), but for the candidates I believe in and the ideas and action they stand for.

If Barack Obama loses, it won't be because of me. It'll be because though he was different, the differences between him and McCain simply weren't compelling enough for someone who thinks it's time for more than change. It's time for revolution.

Veganism is Juvenile and is Killing Beautiful?

The bad news is that I accidentally subscribed to Utne Reader last year, and the good news is that year has come to an end.

There are two problems:

1. It comes by mail and I don't like to have paper used in my name if I can help it.
2. Each issue, if it contains content that addresses animals at all, does from an assumption of usage point of view. I don't recall any serious consideration of the interests of the nonhuman--except of course for the planet.

I've always appreciated how Utne champions just about anyone (or the planet) considered downtrodden. It raises awareness of issues that may seem small, but that affect individuals nevertheless, and individuals are important.

As long as they're human.

Or planets.

In the November/December issue, a section called (in a painful stroke of the ironic) Mindful Living, has one of those articles that makes your jaw drop and breeds certainty that you're on Candid Camera.

Let's deconstruct "Blood and Guts."

• The subtitle is "An urban farmer talks about butchering the turkey she raised." At first I was thinking that, unlike those who call themselves compassionate carnivores, at least this woman does her own dirty work. But then the chilling reality that she chooses to kill set in and left me feeling more uneasy with the farmer than with those who cannot bear to see "their" animals being slaughtered.
• The farmer, Novella Carpenter, lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland, California and has a small yard and vacant lot that is her farm. She raises turkeys and cannot tell them apart. "They all look the same."
• And here's the rub, right at the beginning: The interviewer says, "You were vegetarian at some point, a real 'meat is murder' person." Carpenter responds:

"I must have been about 16. I can't remember what it was I read, but my mom put a steak in front of me and I was like, 'I just can't do it. This is an animal!' Then I was a vegetarian for about two years in college. So all told, maybe four years Not that long."

So Carpenter begins by minimizing her past compassion for animals and making it seem like a childhood whim. She's just setting up what comes next.

• When asked about that period, she says:

"I think [my] philosophy was really juvenile. It's hoping that something doesn't have to die. It's very Babe or Charlotte's Web. But the final, logical conclusion to being a vegetarian or vegan is that farm animals will cease to exist."

Some thing. The animals are things. I didn't know you could kill things. Furthermore, the logical conclusion is that we will cease using animals for our own purposes (i.e., because we have decided we "need" them for one reason or another). Why is it juvenile to want to opt out of a system of slavery, torture and slaughter?

• Fortunately, the interviewer comes back with: "Some people have argued that a life lived for the purpose of dying is not a real life." To that, Carpenter says:

"You could say that, but you're ignoring human culture. [People] and domesticated farm animals are tied together. They're interlocked; they've coevolved. We've made [farm animals] exist, and they've helped us survive. And so for me, it's like, why don't we keep up that beautiful tradition? Part of that tradition is dying, but part of that is surviving. Those animals continue to exist because of us."

 
Ah, The Other C-Word rears its oftentimes-ugly head. Culture, which apparently shouldn't be ignored for some magical mystical reason. Meanwhile, co-evolution, which was actually just a series of choices by humans to domesticate and exploit certain nonhumans, isn't a good reason to continue the exploitation. It's an excuse, but it's not a valid reason. Yes, the "farm animals" helped us survive. But because we used them, not because they decided to give us a helping hand, breast, or leg. As for this "beautiful tradition," I'd like to hear Carpenter's definition of "ugly." Maybe NewSpeak is her native language. Here in 2008 in the US of A, I find it troublesome that the creation of sentient nonhumans for the purpose of their slaughter can be--as in "is capable of being"--defined as "beautiful."

But wait, it's not over. "Part of that tradition is dying, but part of that is surviving." I think Carpenter ought to be honest and say that "Part of that tradition is killing, and part of it is lying to yourself that you need to kill in order to survive."

Next, the insulting, "Those animals continue to exist because of us," as if they have something to thank us for. As if we're doing them a favor.

Finally, Carpenter only eats meat from animals she has killed. "A lot of my vegan and vegetarian friends have told me, 'This is the only acceptable way for you to eat meat.' I think that's true." There's a hint of the notion that her vegan and vegetarian friends approve of what she does. At least for me. And therein lies the most dangerous message of this article and others like it: That there's a way to raise and kill someone that makes it okay to do so. The fetishization of small farms, urban farms, and killing the ol' fashioned way is nothing more than rationalization for slaughter because we want to keep eating animals.

On Human and Nonhuman Circuses

The human circus that is a local election between a Republican who, among other huge corporate ties, is the political face of greyhound racing, and a Democrat who cheated on his wife has taken a bizarre turn. (You may recall that the cheating Democrat took the place of Mark Foley, a Republican disgraced for sending sexually explicit texts to pages.)

After the news broke about the affair Tim Mahoney had and that he paid off his mistress ($121,000, and it was his money and he hasn't denied it), voters were saying the affair wouldn't affect their decision on November 4. There was talk about separating what a person does at home from whether they do a good job for their constituents. When the local news polled people they said they were unmoved by the entire tawdry episode.

Fast forward 72 hours and voters have completely changed their tune. Why? Because voters will look the other way when you cheat on your wife, but they draw the line at cheating on your mistress. The reason the mistress broke off the affair with Mahoney was because he was cheating on her! No, not with his wife, but with yet another woman. Oh, and there were more women.

At first, Mahoney maintained his lead over pro-greyhound racing Rooney (his family owns a local track). But now that new details have come to the fore, Rooney has a double digit lead (26!). All because Tim Mahoney was arrogant enough, and stupid enough, to think that he wouldn't get caught and/or if he did it wouldn't matter.

Now, thanks to the behemoth ego of one man, greyhound racing will have a good friend in Congress. And there's no news worse for the dogs.

Regarding nonhuman circuses, the town of Newmarket, Ontario has proposed a law that would effectively ban animal circuses. (Just circuses, not other activities involving animals. There's a list of prohibited animals.) You can read more about the effort here, including a comment from GigglinGabby who, quite unsurprisingly as there's always one in the bunch, wants to keep the circus because it's a tradition and follows that with "It is just a circus."

But it is not just a circus, and greyhounds aren't just dogs. And sentience isn't just another trait we share with much of the nonhuman animal world.

Some Comments on Your Comments

It's always exciting when people comment and humor me on my musings that may seem off-the-wall. In addition to meditating and exercising, blogging helps my mental health tremendously. I have a mind that won't stop and I'm insanely (as in: could drive one insane) curious and see the world as a series of puzzles that I can't stop trying to solve. 

The Myers-Briggs post, for instance, came out of a theory about intuition, and also about introversion and extroversion. I don't expect vegans to be introverted or extroverted, but the combinations (such as IN) tell me something. Though I can work a room, doing so exhausts me and that's common for people who are more introverted than extroverted, but I wouldn't call myself an introvert. And as I wrote in a comment to Angus, I can go either way on Feeling/Thinking and Perceiving/Judging, and even on Introversion/Extroversion. The only trait I'm consistently not strong in (for decades) is sensing. Extraverted Sensing is my Achilles heel. It's my husband's dominant function. Hmmm.

Elaine made a good point that readers of this blog might share characteristics. And that's probably true, as like attracts like. However I do have a mix of readers that often surprises me, and I like having that mix. I don't want to surround myself, in cyberspace or anywhere else, with people who are just like me. I lived with someone who was just like me for years and to this day I insist I broke up with him because we were so much alike and he reminded me of how annoying I am without even trying.

There was also discussion with bunny and Bea about happy meat being the new dairy and Nick is annoyed, as I am perpetually, that environmentalists tend to be happy meat people. I do understand why, though, as a locavore who eats animals his neighbor raises and kills (his neighbor not having the surname Perdue or Tyson) can easily have a smaller carbon footprint than a vegan who eats Tofurkey and frozen, boxed meals all day. What irks me most is that environmentalists have such a passion for the planet, but the animals, who are sentient, don't have needs that are as pressing (like the desire to live).

Next, greentangle beat me to tomorrow's book review in The New York Times, particularly "The Carnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Shae. Shae reviews two books.

"These are not the happiest times for beef lovers. They have to tune out doctors’ warnings about saturated fat and stories of E. coli outbreaks, not to mention worries about mad cow disease. Raising and processing cattle on an industrial scale is an environmental catastrophe (among other things, the United Nations has accused the world’s livestock industry of being responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire global transportation fleet), and if it has made cheap beef democratically available to the many, it has also made a truly tasty steak harder to come by.

Such a litany of negatives may be presumed to create a sense of unease, if not a downright bad conscience, among those who take pleasure, guilty or not, in eating beef. Both Betty Fussell’s 'Raising Steaks' and Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser’s 'Beef' hold fast to the cause, but both are shadowed by an anxiety that an ancient pleasure may come to be shunned out of fear and disapproval — an anxiety that causes them to rise at times to distinctly overheated defense.

Fussell is almost too polite to tell us what her own book makes obvious: if we’re going to eat beef, we should restrict ourselves to meat raised for quality rather than quantity, in ways both humane to the animals and respectful of the environment."

From this review, it's fair to say that reading these books would not be a good use of my time. The "carnivore's" only dilemma seems to be one of sourcing: where to buy his "meat." If you think killing animals for food when you don't have to can ever be called "humane," you certainly aren't having a serious ethical dilemma.

As always, I appreciate all of you who find time to visit Animal Person, whether you comment or not.

On Media Coverage of Climate Change and Food

The vegan and animal rights communities have long been frustrated with the media's insistence on omitting or downplaying the connection between climate change and food. It's a truth so inconvenient that it wasn't included in An Inconvenient Truth.

Enter Roni Neff and her colleagues at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, who have just released a study, about this significant coverage shortage. Grist's Anna Lappe interviewed Neff (in "Where's the Beef?") and the study can be found here. The abstract includes:

CONCLUSIONS: US newspaper coverage of food systems' effects on climate change during the study period increased, but still did not reflect the increasingly solid evidence of the importance of these effects. Increased coverage may lead to responses by individuals, industry and government.

The more we needle with our blogs, our letters, our editorials, our petitions and our debates, insisting on discussing food whenever climate change is raised, the greater the attention the topic will get (if past performance is an indication of future results, unlike in the mutual fund world).

In the interview, Neff says:

"We saw that there's been a change in terms of who the news media is saying is responsible for taking action. We coded the food-related articles, asking: If you were to infer from this article who was the party to take action, who would it be? In the beginning, it was overwhelmingly individuals. By the end, it was overwhelmingly government. So that really showed a broadening of the depth of reporting on the issue, though this isn't to say there is one right way to look at an issue."

And here I was thinking all of our daily advocacy wasn't doing any good. Au contraire! The coverage is not only more frequent but also more in depth.

Before you get too excited . . .

"Q: Have you changed what you eat because of what you've learned?

"A: I have. I haven't gone totally vegetarian, although I waiver in and out of it. I don't think that it's necessary to go for extreme delineations. So I eat a lot less meat, and I don't eat red meat, I just eat chicken or turkey, sustainably produced."

Extreme delineations? That's a new one. At least she does recommend "eating less meat and dairy," and I'm glad she included dairy. Ever the middle-of-the-roader, though, she says "we really need to cut back on meat consumption, but it doesn't have to mean going vegetarian or vegan." And if the environment is your number one concern and you don't have the propensity to believe that sentient nonhumans shouldn't be killed when they don't need to be, there's not much to disagree with there.

A discussion has begun, and no one has suggested pondering the ethics of using animals for food. Be the first to point your finger at the elephant in the room! (And do you find "elephant in the room" offensive in any way? I don't, but I could be missing something.)

On 1984 and Personality Types

I've been wondering whether vegans and animal rights activists were similar in many ways as children.

1. If we all took the Myers-Briggs, for example, would there be some part that we'd have in common (let's find out--take the quiz)? I'm an INTJ.
2. Were we drawn to the same reading material as children? I wasn't a big reader as a kid, except in one area: satire. Animal Farm was a big favorite. Anything by Jonathan Swift. And of course, 1984. How about you?
3. Were you drawn to animals and/or were they drawn to you? I was always drawn to animals, some of whom would run from me. But many animals who had no business approaching me would do so (like many wild ones, and no I didn't have food in my hand at the time). Early on, I was called an "Animal Person" (hence the name of the blog).
4. Did you have "pets?" I had a kitty I named Brady, from ages 7-25.
5. Were there any "farm animals" in your life? There weren't in mine. Except the ones I ate.
6. Were your parents "Animal People?" Mine weren't.
7. Was anyone around you a vegetarian? That's a No for me.

I'd imagine that most people over 30 didn't grow up in a home that was particularly sensitive to the needs of sentient nonhumans other than those used as pets. Yet we still decided, somehow, that using animals wasn't right, and some of us knew that (whether or not the idea was completely acted upon) from a very young age.

Maybe there's a personality component that might explain part of it. Maybe not.

But as an INTJ, I'm curious to explore the questions.

On Oprah and Proposition 2

I didn't want to watch Oprah's show on Proposition 2 because it was obvious what direction it was going to go in: happy meat. But I felt obligated, as I do have a certain amount of suburban housewives in my life who, believe it or not, texted me about the show and assumed I'd tune in.

To my surprise, though I thought it would be a slam dunk for happy meat, it wasn't at all. Those who've been dealing with this for months (unlike me) will probably not find any of this surprising, but nevertheless . . .

Let's deconstruct:

• Oprah wanted to present "both sides" so viewers could "make a conscious, informed decision" about what to purchase and vote according to their values.
  • There's another side to the discussion, though. Your choice as a consumer isn't confined (!) to one animal product or another. If you don't want animals to suffer for your food, don't have them killed for you. Done. The only mention of not eating animals was by The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, who looked pained as he said he wasn't going to stop eating them. That was after he gave us every reason to stop. I think I can feel his headache from Palm Beach County (and his disconnect isn't new). Kristof says (according to Oprah): "Defining what is cruel, is of course, extraordinarily difficult." Anyone want to disagree with that one?

• At the beginning of the show and at the end, Oprah said: "How we treat the least of beings among us determines our own humanity." The least. Oprah, tell me how you really feel about sentient nonhumans.
• A new experience for me was feeling bad for Wayne Pacelle. His arguments for Proposition 2, which were appropriate and presented after horrific (yet oddly clinical) video was shown, seemed to fall on deaf ears. He was obviously frustrated by the farmers saying they weren't mistreating "their" animals and that the animals were content because, for instance, all they want is food, water, and to lie down (yes, that's what a pig farmer said when questioned about "his" sows whom he keeps in gestation crates). Pacelle said we treat the animals like commodities, like things, and he spoke of their desire to live and move. All I heard was crickets.
• Jingoism, speciesism and the economic interests of humans ruled the day. The farmers, all of whom were dramatically different in appearance and presentation from Pacelle (and one even alluded to that) are just simple folk carrying on the traditions of their families and working hard to eke out a living in these trying times. One (a factory farmer) spoke of his pride in what he does and he redefined factory farm as: a place where people are happy to go to work and treat the animals well and put the American flag on their product.
  

The message, spoken and not: It's American to give Americans a choice. And that choice has to do with the amount of suffering we cause animals. It's our right to cause them more suffering if our eggs will be cheaper. What this means is that the animals do not have an interest that you are balancing against. If you can afford products that involve less suffering, that's fine. But if you cannot, you have the right to cause as much suffering necessary to keep your food cheap.

Furthermore, and perhaps most important, was that there was no discussion about whether cage free or free range also involves cruelty and killing. The egg operation shown was originally called "cage free" and one farmer mentioned that it was really a "free range" operation. I promise you that most people came away with the message that cage free means the hens are running around, flying around, and taking dust baths all day.

The assumption was that your choice is between factory farms and farms like Old McDonald's. The farms chosen for the show sent that message. As you might imagine, there was no mention of what happens to the boy chicks. There was no mention of the sheds that replace cages. There was no mention of debeaking. No mention of tail-docking. No talk of transportation. Not a word about how the animals get pregnant. Nothing about where they're slaughtered or how. No one questioned whether animals are ours to eat.

• The real conflict is the same one that could very well quash Massachusetts' progress toward a ban on greyhound racing in next month's election: The livelihood of people versus the treatment of animals. Simply put, people's jobs are more important. That was the message, loud and clear. Julie Buckner, who is a No on Prop 2 spokesperson, said: "No one wants to see animals suffer. I don't. I don't want animals to suffer, but I don't want people to suffer." City slickers like Wayne Pacelle would put these unsophisticated, sweet folk out of business (so they say, though the people already treating animals better say that's not true).

For those for Proposition 2, this election couldn't come at a worse time, as when Americans are worried about their bank accounts, it appears that they might take on a new set of values. It's American to care about the jobs of Americans. And it's American to be able to choose how much suffering you're going to cause the least of us. I just wish the show presented the options and their consequences more thoroughly and honestly. It's disingenuous to present the issue as factory farms versus farms of Old McDonald, and though that presentation might not have been intentional, the damage is already done. Whether Oprah's audience chooses to purchase happy meat and happy eggs or not, or votes for Prop 2 or not, they definitely don't have the whole story about what's involved in animal farming no matter who's doing it.

On Why I'm Angry at Tim Mahoney

Yet another embarrassing scandal has come out of the Sunshine State, and this one affects me because it affects greyhounds.

Remember when Florida congressman Mark Foley (R) resigned after being outted (!) for sending sexually explicit text messages to pages? Shortly thereafter there was an election, and the winner was Tim Mahoney (D), whom I voted for, and who has been ahead in the polls for November's election.

"Mahoney campaigned by decrying the 'mess' in Congress and positioning himself as a straight-talking outsider 'who believes in faith, family and personal responsibility.'"

But apparently he doesn't want to keep his job because he's so narcissistic, or maybe just plain stupid, that he thought he could have an affair with a woman, give her a job, then fire her--over the phone (and that nasty conversation is now all over the television and the Internet)--and not get caught! What's going on in the minds of men who, in the third millennium, when we can save texts and phone calls and retrieve e-mails, leave trails of their bad behavior for all the world to see? What are they thinking?

I don't care that much about Tim Mahoney's bad personal decisions. But here's what I do care about: He was in the lead, and his opponent is Tom Rooney, whose family owns the Palm Beach Kennel Club (greyhound racing), which has lost several bids to expand gambling in Palm Beach County (read: expanding gambling is bad for dogs as that would seal their fate and racing would continue indefinitely). Tom Rooney actually listed the dog track as his address on his voter registration from 1998-2003. (The story isn't that simple, but it's true.)

The Rooneys also own the Pittsburgh Steelers, and their ownership of gambling interests violates the NFL's gambling policy. It appears that they are (finally) being forced to choose between the Steelers and their gambling interests. Oddly, dog racing and horse racing, which exist to gamble on, are not included in the NFL's anti-gambling rules. However, there are other types of gambling at the properties that are included, and the Rooneys must choose.

Some have said that the Rooneys have gotten preferential treatment. The rules are the rules, and the Rooneys should never have been allowed to do what they do.

"It’s an 'egregious double standard,' the source said, pointing out that no other ownership group would be permitted to be involved so heavily in gambling for even a short period of time.

Thus, some think that Dan Rooney [Tom Rooney's uncle] and the Steelers are getting special treatment from the league office, which by all appearances is giving Rooney every opportunity to solve this problem in a way that allows Rooney to still run the Steelers."

Here's why I'm angry at Tim Mahoney: Despite the reality that Palm Beach County residents, including North County-ers like yours truly, are against the expansion of gambling, and many are against forcing greyhounds to race, I fear that there will be moral outrage over Mahoney's behavior that will compromise (to say the least) his chances. Meanwhile, the same people who will be outraged are supposed to already be outraged over Rooney and what he stands for.

But now they're on equal footing: they both look bad. The question is: Who will Floridians penalize now? Whose ethics are more objectionable? If Tim Mahoney's priority was his family and his constituents, we probably wouldn't be asking this question and might be concentrating on the real issues.

Mahoney has called for a House ethics committee investigation, and House Speaker Pelosi called for an investigation, as well.

Stay tuned . . .

A Love Affair Ends . . .

For a handful of years, I have bought sweaters from Eileen Fisher. She has a variety of thin cotton sweaters that are perfect for Florida, they fit me, the company is privately-owned by Eileen Fisher and offers yoga and massage to its employees (while on the clock), and she has a socially-responsible ESOP (employee stock option plan). Oh, and she offers grants for the community, for women-owned businesses, and for women and girls. She even has a Director of Social Consciousness. I've loved the company for years.

Maybe because I wasn't paying attention.

I would purchase my sweaters at the local mall, usually at Bloomingdale's, and though I don't have a lot of clothing (my husband has the "women's closet" in our house), Eileen Fisher is the brand that takes up the largest percentage of my small closet. Recently, an Eileen Fisher store opened at the same local mall. Actually it's not so recent, it's just that I go shopping at the mall about three times a year so it was new to me. I was delighted.

Until I started shopping.

Everything I looked at was "Made in China." (I can no longer read the labels of the sweaters I currently own, so I don't know where they were made.)

The saleswomen thought they'd certainly be able to help my vegan self because their clothing is all "natural." That's as opposed to faux clothing, I guess. Natural meant non-synthetic, I think. Cotton, silk, wool and cashmere. The cashmere is called "Natural Cashmere." I'm not sure I've ever seen synthetic cashmere, but I guess it's out there somewhere. Then there's the "Earth Conscious Leather," which I thought maybe wasn't leather at all, but I was wrong. It's "processed with vegetable-based and low-impact ingredients and crafted by a family-owned factory in New York City." What is it about the breeding, raising and slaughtering of cow's is "Earth Conscious" I wonder?

The saleswomen were surprised to learn I don't wear silk or wool, as they are "natural." I responded: "So is fecal matter."

Just kidding.

I was the only one in the store so I did a mini-seminar on silk, wool, cashmere and alpaca (the new cashmere, I suppose). They clearly had no training about materials from the company, and no personal experience pondering the origin of silk and were a bit disturbed by what they heard.

I felt bad for the poor, fiftysomething women who had theretofore never considered that someone might get hurt for their clothing so I changed the subject.

"I've always heard so much about how socially-responsible this company is. But everything I've looked at so far was Made in China" (and yet is over $150, which is a bionic rip-off). "What's up with that?"

"Well that's all about to change."

What a relief, I thought. They're coming to the great US of A for their production.

"China's getting too expensive."

WHAT?

So the woman basically just told me that Eileen Fisher is moving her production to someplace cheaper than China, thereby increasing her profit margin even more, and possibly using workers who, let's say, aren't offered yoga on company time.

According to Wikipedia, which I think I've used twice before:

As of 2003, 35% of Eileen Fisher clothing was manufactured in the United States while the rest was made in China in compliance with Social Accountability International's SA8000.

I'm going to give Eileen Fisher the benefit of the doubt and assume that she's going to move her production from China to the US (I'll call/write and ask for a confirmation), as she's interested in creating jobs and helping our sorry economy. (Highly improbable, but we'll see.) When you look at the litany of animal abuses in China, not to mention all of the human ones, it's a wee bit odd to feature China in your production, no matter what organization your producers are in compliance with. If you're doing it so you can sell your product for a slim margin at Kmart or Target, that's one thing (not an acceptable thing, just a different rationalization). But when you do it and then sell a sweater for $498, I've got a big problem with that.

The greenwashing and the illusion that something really fantastic is going on is so well orchestrated that if you're not paying attention, you might feel proud to pay so much for your clothing (and yes, I'm aware you could pay a lot more). But then you realize that regardless of how Earth Conscious leather is, it's still leather. And "natural" cashmere and alpaca and silk and wool are still products of exploitation, torture and slaughter. And China is still China.

The marketing and the branding are brilliant, you can deny it.

Time to find a new sweater supplier.

The Weight Question

Yesterday, I cheekily commented that Mississippi is the Most Obese State therefore there probably aren't a lot of vegans there. And I bet that's true (compared to Portland, and the actual topic was support for vegans, and I'd bet my net worth that Portland beats Jackson, Mississippi). I have no problem with anyone going vegan (with the help of some good books or other guidance) to lose weight. Will that lead to an animal rights position for them? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not. I suppose it depends on the information they're exposed to.

meerkat has commented several times, saying that she is "fat," and that vegan doesn't equal thin. And I don't think it does, necessarily. But generally speaking, vegans are leaner than non-vegans. Exceptions abound, I'm sure. Like meerkat.

Here's my question: What is your experience?

My husband constantly says that the worst thing about going vegan is that he's "disappearing." He is six-feet tall and is 170 pounds, which, for him, is thin. He's lost over 20 pounds since going vegan over a year ago. And it doesn't help that people around him comment about how "skinny" he is.

Meanwhile, I'm 5'1" and 108 pounds, which is the same weight as when I graduated high school nearly 25 years ago. I have been vegan, vegetarian and omnivore, and I remain about 108 pounds, which is perfectly normal for my height. Heck, I even had an eating disorder (bulimia) and stayed the same weight (which isn't that uncommon, by the way). The only time I was thinner, by about five pounds, was when I ate raw food only. (If anyone tells you veganism is difficult, tell them to try raw food. It ironically calls for a lot of preparation, if you're going the gourmet way). Then there was the time I went to Haiti and came back minus 10 pounds, but that was because I kept giving my food away.

I have always exercised regularly (at least 5-days a week, probably an hour a day), which I'm sure has contributed to my fitness level. (And that hour a day doesn't buy me the same fitness level it did 10 years ago. I have to work much harder now to stay fit. I'm working against my genetics--and time.)

In my mind, there's what you eat, there's your activity level, and there's your genetics. I don't know what the ratio is and I don't think it's the same for everyone. I have a friend who calls herself a "fat skinny person." She's naturally very, very thin, eats junk food all day, and doesn't exercise. Her entire family is very thin no matter what they do. Genetics rule their weight.

There are always odd stories and exceptions to general rules, but I must say I haven't seen a study that says vegans are not, generally speaking, thinner than omnivores and vegetarians. ("[N]on-meat-eaters are on average significantly thinner than meat-eaters," says the New England Journal of Medicine. "Vegetarian populations tend to be slimmer than meat-eaters, and they experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other life-threatening conditions linked to overweight and obesity . . . . Rates of obesity in the general population are skyrocketing, while in vegetarians, obesity prevalence ranges from 0 percent to 6 percent . . . .  a low-fat vegan diet leads to weight loss of about 1 pound per week, even without additional exercise or limits on portion sizes, calories, or carbohydrates," according to a couple of studies mention in a PCRM press release.) Again, this doesn't mean that every person who eschews animal products will necessarily lose weight, or that people who are "fat" eat animals.

What's your story?