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Posts from the ‘Language’ Category

On Small Victories

Yesterday’s “Do Small Victories Affect Big Picture in Animal Rights Debate?” makes some fantastic points that are worth repeating and deconstructing. Here’s the set-up: The European Parliament endorsed a ban on seal products. A famous Ottawa restaurant removed foie gras…

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Animal Rights is Pernicious Nonsense?

In “‘Animal Rights:’ Pernicious Nonsense for Both Law & Public Policy,” Massachusetts attorney and “sportsman” Richard Latimer is on the mark with some concepts, and way off with others. However, both his perceptions and misconceptions are based on: 1) observing…

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“Is an Animal a Legal Person?

I have to take Charles for his pre-op (tomorrow’s his big day), but Bea sent a link to “Is an Animal a Legal Person?” at Opposing Views. Perhaps you’d like to be the first to comment. I’ll try to post…

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Where Does Entertainment Begin and End?

Vamsee Juluri, Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, takes me back to graduate school when he writes of the importance of the stories we tell ourselves in “Use Free Speech to Celebrate Animal Life, Not to…

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When Horses are Persons

Animal rights activists have considered sentient nonhumans as persons for quite some time. But on rare occasions, the animal-using world deigns to use the term when referring to an animal. In “Hungary’s Spirits Are Back Up, on a Horse,” the…

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Write a Book–Together

In “Is This the Future of the Digital Book?” in yesterday’s New York Times, Brad Stone reported on a couple of new developments in the publishing world. The one that caught my eye as useful for vegans and the animal…

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“How I Learned to Dislike Henry Alford”

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that had what is perhaps the most offensive couple of sentences I’ve read in a long time. The article is called “How I Learned to Love Goat Meat” (thanks, Bea),…

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On Objections to Slaughterhouses Not Sandwich Shops

I think I’m going to start a contest for the most absurd/ironic/bizarre sentence to come out of the mouth of a human each week. I’d have to narrow it down to published sentences, just to be fair; I wouldn’t want…

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On the Psychological Continuum

There is a general consensus that vegetarianism and veganism are different philosophically. And when I spoke about a continuum over a year ago as a result of a workshop with Rae Sikora, who demonstrated that there was a continuum, there…

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On “Animal Rights Conferences”

“Two Animal Rights Conferences: Will you be there?” by Drew Wilson at Care2’s animal welfare blog has yet to have any comments about rights and welfare. I don’t know how big the readership of that blog is, but it is…

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On Exploitation, OED-Style

Ian asked about the history of exploit and exploitation according to the Oxford English Dictionary a couple of days ago. I have another post in the works for today as well, but for now, here they are: I won’t get…

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Melange Monday

So many things to say today. First, check out “The Vegan Solution: An Ideal Whose Time Has Come” over at Care2. And what do you think about the word “ideal”? But more important, commenter Daniel Manahan could use some gentle…

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NYT Equine Thought Experiment

Forgot to hit “publish now” on this . . . The New York Times presents us, this morning, with “Equine Alternative” regarding the recent discovery that horses decided to allow themselves be domesticated by humans for our mutual benefit, earlier…

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Respond to unashamedly self-righteous

Sometimes thought-provoking comments get passed over because a comments section is getting crowded or digressing or it seems difficult to jump in so you don’t. One of Stephanie’s Iditarod posts has become its own little spinning world, where you’re waiting…

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Call for Papers on Human-Animal Relation

Roger sent me this, and it sounds so exciting! Maybe I’ll submit a paper about how great Peter Singer is. (I couldn’t resist.) This has Angus and Dan and Nathan all over it: Special Issue of JAC Human-Animal Relation In…

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