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Cow Shot At State Fair Was Not A Nutcase
Edited to add: There will be a protest at 11:30 am today (Wednesday) at the main gate of Cal Expo in Sacramento, CA. Media will be present. The demo is to protest live births at the state fair. If you can attend, please do so.
Every year at county and state fairs, farmers drag heavily pregnant mothers, stick them in small cages in full view of the public and wait for them to give birth.
Yesterday in California, at the site of the state fair, a pregnant Holstein cow became frightened and bolted. The fair was not open to the public at the time.
Instead of backing off and letting the obviously stressed animal calm down, police decided to hop in a large SUV and drive after her. When that brilliant technique failed, it was decided the cow should be killed. UC Davis officials busted out a tranquilizer gun but apparently no one knew how to use it. So police shot her several times in the side. Yes. The side. Police discharged lethal weapons at a pregnant mother’s stomach.
Both the cow and her unborn calf died.
Life with Jake: Musings on “Less Adoptable” Animals
Jake with a bike stripe
In most ways, living with a deaf cat is no different than a hearing cat. They play, they talk, they purr, they watch birds out the window, they climb, they knock plants off the windowsill…and yet, there are differences.
Jake doesn’t hear me. I can’t reassure him verbally, or talk back to him the way I do with my other cats. Verbal communication with Jake goes only one way – from him out to the world. And he does communicate verbally, more so than my other cats, which I admit has been something of a surprise. His vocalizations are almost always contextually correct. The “I see a bird/squirrel” sound, the “I’m causing trouble and I bet you want to come check it out” sound, and many others. Sometimes I am 100% certain that he understands that his vocalizations will get our attention, that he understands on some level that we hear him.
Read more…
It happened last week. And it is surreal. I shared this video via AR&AO’s Facebook page last night, but I want to make sure those who aren’t on Facebook see it too. I hope you will pass it along to your fellow animal advocates as well. It’s short. It’s non-graphic. It provides important information and raises such important questions. Please watch.*
Addressing these issues can be difficult; we all know how hard it can be to voice your dissent and push for change when you realize a group or movement is going in a direction you can’t support — or to cut ties when change clearly isn’t going to come — especially if you feel emotional or personal ties to the group(s), especially if you feel affection and respect for individuals in the group. But if our loyalty is to our fellow animals, we have no choice but to ask the questions: What are we, as animal rights advocates, supporting? What are we willing to continue supporting? What seeds do we want to plant? For what are we laying the groundwork? And what troublesome, hypocritical strategies for raising support and money do we not want to be a part of? Are larger numbers of animal rights advocates finally ready to say “Enough!” and switch gears (and reexamine support and alliances)? Read more…
What to Do When You See an Injured Animal from Your Car
Turtle-crossing photo by Flickr user jvree
A few days ago, Mark Hawthorne wrote a post on a topic that gets me riled up — the act of (knowingly) hitting an animal with a car and then driving on or of passing an animal clearly suffering on the side of the road. I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, Mark did the loving, compassionate thing and also provided a list of tips for the rest of us, on what to do when we come across an injured animal and what to always have on hand in our vehicles:
Lemon Ginger Cheesecakes via Sweetly Raw and Vegan Guinea Pig
Blueberry Avocado Salsa from Manifest Vegan
Raw Lemon (or Lime) Ginger Cheesecakes (left) from Sweetly Raw (original) and Vegan Guinea Pig (variation)
Smoky Joes from Vegan Planet
Fat-Free Spicy Black Bean Burgers from Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes
Sushi Salad from Innocent Primate Vegan Blog
Thai Mushroom Soup from Vegan Dad
Banana Pecan Rice Pudding Pie from Dreena’s Vegan Recipes
French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Glaze from Domestic Vegan
Raw Cashew and Olive Pate from Naked Eats
Blackberry Cobbler from Manifest Vegan
Veggie and Basil-Garlic Hummus Wrap from Sweet On Veg
Chocolate Blueberry Cake from FatFree Vegan Kitchen
Animal Rights Is (Still) a Mainstream Movement
"Cage-free" hen rescued by Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary
I published this a year ago Thursday at The Previous Blog. And when Karen Davis spoke once again last night at AR2010 about the wrongness of our apologizing for our stances, compassion, and advocacy, I thought of this post. It was well received a year ago, and I’ve already been needing to slowly republish or archive my past more substantive posts in this space, so this feels like a fitting time to present it again. I expect that some parts will now take on new meaning for readers who caught the post the first time around, given what continued unfolding fairly obviously in the months that followed its publication and given my eventual move from there to here — indeed, there are parts that are painful to read now – but the core message is still valid, independent of what was unfolding in my personal experiences at the time.
—
During a recent conversation about, among other things, the hesitance of some organizations or movements to be associated with animal rights, it was remarked that surely I must recognize how “radical” and “extreme” my cause is. The person who made the remark is a friend and colleague who, although not completely on board with animal rights yet, gets it more than most and is sincerely respectful of both the movement and me, and he said it not in a critical or snide way, but casually, as a matter of fact and with the expectation that I would readily agree. But I didn’t. I paused. And I realized that in recent months, I’ve been doing a disservice to my own cause–and to the animals–by not more openly challenging people when they speak about the movement in such terms, by feeling like I have to accept, and work within the confines of, how others perceive animal rights. But I don’t have to, and I shouldn’t. We don’t have to; we shouldn’t.
A Note on the Google Ads
I just want to quickly let our pals out there know that I/we didn’t realize Google ads were appearing on some posts until sometime in the last couple months (when we’re logged into WordPress, we ourselves don’t see them). These aren’t ours; though I’ve kept forgetting to check into it, I assume this has something to do with my not yet hosting this site myself (that is, we’re using WordPress.com, not WordPress.org). So if you’ve seen ads on posts that annoy you or that promote groups or ideas or products don’t seem like the sort we would support, know that (1) we didn’t put the ads there, and (2) we usually don’t see them either. They’ll go away down the line, when I’ve had the time to do some planned revamping and relaunching of the site, including a switch to hosting the site ourselves.
AR&AO in DC
Coming at you via iPhone from an airplane traffic jam on the tarmac of Ronald Reagan National Airport…
I’m in D.C. this weekend for the AR conference (arconference.org), as is Deb (well, Deb’s always here; she lives here). And I may or may not get some actual posts out while I’m here. But I’ll be trying to keep up tweets at least (veganwordnerd)–as may Deb (debiguity)? Watch the #AR2010 hashtag for tweets from other attendees as well. Looks like we may be sharing the tag with another group tweeting its annual report, but I trust you to be able to figure it out. :) [Edit: I should note that I don't know how many people actually will be tweeting or whether they'll be using the arbitrarily chosen hashtag, but you should be able to catch at least a few of us, including vegangrrl Daniela.]
Vegan Hood TV
I came upon the site Afrikan Raw Vegan Talk last week, which is the first awesome thing I have to share today. Take, for example, this extract from the post “I Am an African Vegan”:
I’m a Nigerian vegan. We exist. We can come out. All that pastureland chewed off by browsers, we could feed so many more Africans with what we could grow on it than what is fed by the brutally slaughtered animals. Spare their lives. Make Africa the garden that can feed ourselves and the world. Not by giving Nigerian land to white Zimbabwean farmers and displacing black folk all over again. Not by bulldozing the rainforests, nor flooding the Delta with blood and oil.
Maybe African vegans are too sophisticated, too futuristic, too iconoclastic for this world right now. But we are coming out. We exist. We are dedicated. We know about racism and speciesism and sexism and patriarchy and neocolonialism. We know how awesome eating stacks of fresh veggies and fruits makes us look and feel, preventing disease, preventing the African dictator-/ corrupt official-gut. Africans not addicted to meat, nor to rage and anger. Africans loving their own selves, their land, their bodies, their families, the collective Afrikan.
And then from the coolness there, I also learned about Vegan Hood TV. The Precision Afrikan says this of it: “I’ve been checking out VeganHood TV on Youtube for the past couple weeks. They are excellent. Black vegan men in Brooklyn. Showcasing the realness and teaching the family. These are the sort of cats I’ve got to collabo with once I move to BK later this year. They should win awards based on their theme song alone, I love it.”
Lavender Pancakes from Vegan Guinea Pig
It’s a rushed, itty-bitty Friday Food, but ooohhhh, it’s a good one – one that, you see, even warrants multiple exclamation points in the title.
Truffled Cashew Cheese from Dreena’s Vegan Recipes
Lavender Pancakes (left) from Vegan Guinea Pig
Berry Rhubarb Crisp from Domestic Vegan
African Sweet Potato-Peanut Stew from Holy Cow!
Whole Wheat Waffles with Strawberry-Orange Zest-Ginger Jumble from Voracious Vegan
Animal Rights 2010 and Creature Quotes
From the never-ending list of things I kept/keep meaning to write about but never did/do…
1. The Animal Rights 2010 National Conference starts next week in D.C. and runs Thursday the 15th through Monday the 20th. I’ll be there from start to finish. If you missed my awkward ramblings as one of the speakers in the Promoting on the Internet session last year, and you’re going to be in D.C., here’s your chance to get in on the “count how many times she nervously laughs” action; I’ll be on the same panel this year. And Vegetarian Summerfest is happening this week in Pennsylvania. I can’t be there. But lots of folks I’d love to see are going to be there. So if you’re going, don’t rub it in, but do hug a bunch of people for me, mkay?
2. Creature Quotes: Animal advocate SBH Clay has been toiling over this impressive labor of love for the last several months, at least. And now (we hope!) she can finally relax and be proud of her effort. Creature Quotes is a beautiful collection, in concept, words, and imagery, full of quotations and excerpts short and long from animal advocates spanning centuries. Check it out. Mary wrote about it over at Animal Person as well. (I should disclose, I suppose, that there are several pages of extracts from my posts, as well as contributions from other AR&AO bloggers, but that’s not why I’m linking to it; it’s just a great project.)
Humane Myth, already a vital Web resource for animal rights (and brought to us courtesy of the Tribe of Heart team responsible for Peaceable Kingdom and The Witness), recently launched a new section titled “Advanced Advocacy.” Featured is a video built around a talk James LaVeck gave at last year’s Summerfest, “Seasons of the Heart,” and its message for activists is important. Beyond exploring the new section in general, particularly if you haven’t previously read the information and perspectives included there, please set aside the 45 minutes to watch the video. So much of what James covers hits directly home for me (in painful and positive ways both), and I know many others will experience a similar reaction. But even if you can’t directly relate to everything discussed, there is something in this presentation for all activists. And I’ve been eager for folks to see this — and start talking about it — since I viewed it a few months ago.
I don’t want to say much about the talk’s focus before giving you a chance to view (or listen to) it yourself. But I will say that I know many of us have had and are still having, sometimes privately, conversations Read more…
Horse being exploited in Illinois parade; Flickr photo by Tom Adamson (http://flic.kr/p/Nsves)
Horses being forced to pull a buggy in a small-town Iowa parade became frightened today and bolted into the crowd. At least one person has already died, and a couple dozen more were seriously injured, most of them hospitalized, it seems.
You can read the New York Times article here. But I’ll give away the conclusion in advance because it’s the mind-boggler that’s leading me to post this:
Chief Roling said this was the first time he could recall any sort of chaos like this at the parade. As for next year’s event, he said there was no way he could think of avoiding another mishap of this nature.
“This is just something that happens that we can’t prevent,” he said. “It wouldn’t be any different from an accelerator sticking on a car and running through the crowd.”
Uhhhh, really? You can’t think of any way to prevent this from happening again? You know, like not putting horses through this stress and danger ever again? Like putting both compassion and respect for the horses and the safety of your community ahead of entertainment? Read more…
Freedom
Though I myself have something I want to say here soon about “freedom” and the related rhetoric used by those opposing animal rights, I don’t have time for writing anything substantive this weekend or maybe any of this coming week, but on this day, I will at least share another’s post with you again:
There’s a “rant about freedom” over at Vegina looking at the various ways so many are not free in this country and the ways many of our so-called freedoms impact others around the world. And of course, our fellow animals who happen to be nonhuman are our greatest victims; they are the ones to whom we deny freedom in the most abhorrent, systematic, and grand-scale of ways. Read the “rant” here.
You Want This “American” Job? Take It
You may see (or have seen) the direct link to this ColorLines/RaceWire post already if you “like” us on Facebook, but in case you’re not yet connected with us there, check out this quick summary of an ingenious effort by the United Farm Workers to draw attention to the plight of crop workers — and to the ridiculousness of some of the most popular anti-immigrant rhetoric.
(Also, you may be interested in checking out the post on ColorLines’ new direction; you’ve seen me link to RaceWire posts here before, but any such posts will be “ColorLines” posts now as the RaceWire blog is retired and ColorLines shifts and expands.)
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
