Contradiction

These days, in one moment I am brought to tears by the unexpected kindness of a stranger, and the next moment I want to weep and scream at the cold indifference of people to the suffering of animals caused by their very own actions

Environmentalism

Environmentalism doesn't make sense and doesn't work unless you take the wellbeing of all animals into account. What are we protecting the environment for? Just human beings? This is meaningless. Human beings do pretty well in the city. How successful have environmental efforts been? Largely unsuccessful, because trying to protect some environment out there that in the long future will eventually help our children is too abstract. But if remember that this out-there environment is right now the home to billions of animals who want to live and fight to live, and live with grace and beauty, then you realise how important environmentalism is right now. If we took the lives of animals seriously we would never be in the situation we are in now at all.

Footage of humane gassing of pig

This is considered a "humane" death: video

Eggs exposed

CTV on undercover egg investigation or here

Native Americans are not one tribe with one diet

Essay on vegetarianism and traditional native American tribes

Humane farming and killing is Orweillian Newspeak

Fabulous letter against "humane" farming.

Ingrid Newkirk in Toronto

I'm sad I was too tired and busy to listen to Ingrid Newkirk while she was in Toronto, but fortunately an excellent recording was made of it. Whatever you may think about some of PETA's more offensive advertising campaigns, she is an inspiring speaker and it seems clear to me that she works tirelessly to help animals as much as possible.

Travelling art

Stuffed animals to slaughter

Love this

Gretchen's poetry is truly moving and will bring a tear to your eye. Read here

The best news ever

Why?

Why does it matter who is the victim of suffering and violence? Does it matter if that individual has a different nationality, age, gender, religion or species from you? Isn't violence, violence and suffering, suffering?  It is the ability to experience suffering that matters. Violence cannot exist without a sentient victim.

Charlotte's Web - what's behind the story?

link

Beings not objects

Does it make sense to keep whales and dolphins in aquariums.

I would say 'no' always. No animals should be captured from the wild and kept in captivity. I was surprised to see such a pro-animal article in National Geographic. Check it out: link

Fish have feelings too

A great article on Peter Singer arguing for equal consideration of interests for fish and questioning the ethic of fishing.   As usual the comments provide perfect illustrations of speciesism where the mere idea of considering their interests is considered ridiculous, worthy of ridicule.  link

Indigenous peoples and animal rights

It is often said that animal rights or veganism is an elitist white ethic that does not apply, is not suitable or not shared by (all) other cultures. I have largely believed this to be false since most Hindus and Sikhs practice vegetarianism.  Further, Ethopians eat a mostly vegetarian diet for religious reasons, some Buddhists are vegetarian and I'm sure we would find other cultures who might vegetarian or view animals favourably if we cared to look.  Further, individuals of all cultures can and do develop an affection and belief that animals are not here for us to exploit, abuse and kill. We are not static in our identities and cultures.

For this reason, I loved this interview with Margaret Robinson, from the Mi'kmaq tribe in Canada who explains her perspective on veganism and its relationship to her traditional culture. Link

Modern day hero

This Australian man with a troubling past perfectly summarises the sentiments of the animal rights movement in a compelling manner.

For activists

I just watched this series of videos from Tribe of Heart co-founder James LaVeck. I found it very helpful and interesting. I thought you might find it helpful too.

 Part 1: The journey of awakening conscience (7.5 min)

 Part 2: Dealing with toxic ideas and toxic organizations (14.5 min)

 Part 3: From passive nonviolence to spiritual transcendence (7.5 min)

 Part 4: Aligning our lives with our values(15.5 min)

Quotes

Misanthropic Quotes

“We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the devil in human form. ”-William Ralph Inge

“Man is an almost hopelessly conceited animal, this pygmy! He thinks that not only the earth with all that it contains was created for his benefit, but also the sky, the sun, and indeed, the whole universe, as far as he has any knowledge of it, were designed for his purposes and welfare.”- Ernest Bell

“I am ashamed of the race of beings to which I belong. It is so cruel and bigoted, so hypocritical, so soulless and insane. I would rather be an insect … a bee or a butterfly … and float in dim dreams among the wild-flowers of summer than be a man and feel the horrible and ghastly wrongs and sufferings of this wretched world.” – Professor J. Howard Moore

Positive Quotes

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
- Howard Zinn

BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill 2010

The cover up: link

It's sad to think what all that toxic waste has done to the poor animals in the ocean - not just from a human perspective, but from their perspective.

Anti-biotic resistant bacteria in meat

link - We've known about it long enough. When are we going to look this problem in the face and take action. The best action is to stop eating meat!

Drug development - pieces of the puzzle

1) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research

 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html

2) Must try harder
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483509a.html

It seems scientists are admitting that a lot of basic research on animals (preclinical studies) does not lead to benefits in clinical trials on humans (especially for cancer).  Many causes are suggested, lack of reproducibility, bad stats, publication bias, etc.  Only a few comments were made about the appropriateness of animal models.

From 1 above:
"Certainly, the limitations of preclinical tools such as inadequate cancer-cell-line and mouse models" (original source: Francia, G. & Kerbel, R. S. Nature Biotechnol. 28, 561–562 (2010)). Note that animals are labelled as tools.


A commentator said: "The claims presented here are pretty outlandish. Particularly relevant to "Hematology and Oncology" we now know that mice housed under different conditions with different microflora can have vastly different outcomes in any model, not just cancer."

the science of the paleodiet

link

Short and sweet

Advert for veganism

Sounds of slaughter and death

Pig slaughter
Bells 1
Bells 2
Bells 3
Bells 4
More Bells

food wastage

link

Intersectionality of oppression at slaughterhouses

link

Animals have multitudes of abilities and capacities

Animals have multitudes of abilities and capacities that we are too arrogant and stupid to see. link

Catholic Priest speaks on behalf of animals

I hate this! Animals used as robots

link

Venture capatilists investing in plant-based meat or meat alternatives!

link

Animal rights book club!

link

Found a couple of events

Industry sponsored life sciences expo on May 23: link. Would be interesting (and disturbing) to see them deal with the topics of research materials, i.e. animals.  Would like to encourage U of T animal rights club students to go since it is free. 

A conference on environmental activism on 23 March: link. An opportunity for animal rights activists to form relationships with environmental activists and pick up some tips.

Veg diets for health and environment

link

Largest chicken rescue

Documentary

The science of junk food

A must read: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Two more fascinating articles

Animal Rights in China

Do-Nothing Farming

Great food articles

Are dietary recommendations for the use of fish oils sustainable?

Vegetarian Diets and the Incidence of Cancer in a Low-risk Population

I can't wait to see this!

Ghosts In The Machine
THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE - THEATRICAL TRAILER from THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE on Vimeo.

Animal experimentation

I'm reading "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer and finding it an extremely compelling read. He writes very clearly and his arguments are very accessible for an ordinary person like myself. I haven't read much about animal experimentation so have found his chapters on the topic utterly devastating. The horrors, the innumerable torture and cruelties that we have devised to administer to countless millions of animals in the name of science and human well being astonishing. Most of these studies are clearly pointless, poor science, loaded with contradiction, irrelevant and repetitive. Peter Singer seems to say that things are better for animals, but I wonder. I think more experiments are being done on mice and rats than ever. It's truly horrible.

Carnism

Drowning

A response to cultural practices

Yes culture does matter as it shapes what is perceived as normal.So acts that we would believe are amoral are completely acceptable to them. However, we cannot deny that the animals who were slaughtered were seriously harmed and wronged, however, well-intentioned (and ethically) the people may be. In many parts of Africa humans, even children and albinos, are still sacrificed for medicine and good fortune! Surely we should not condone this, even if people much better after a child has been killed on their behalf.

That being said, it's very hard to understand and change a culture from the outside.  Also, it's quite hypocritical for westerners to focus so much on the abuse of animals by other cultures while ignoring our own practices of animal "raising", slaughter and eating which are so wide-spread. We all have a moral blindness to our own unethical actions which are "nomal". I think we would do better tackling this first, because it's easier to understand and because it's less hypocritical.

Not to say that we should keep silent on other atrocities, but we must be humble and acknowledge our own flaws and lack of understanding of others cultures and circumstances.  We need to acknowledge that cultural practices likke this are linked to other important issues such has migration, social injustice, science education, and religious beliefs. Each one of these things needs to be addressed before the practice of ritual slaughter can be effectivel dealt with.

Some interesting things I found today

Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics

Dr. Andrew Knight who has done many cool things and published a book on animal experimentation.

Testing

View March in a larger map

Animal consciousness

I'm copying and pasting some fascinating quotes here from UPC founder, Karen Davis' review of "Experiencing Animal Minds: An Anthology of Human-Animal Encounters." Edited by Julie Smith and Robert Mitchel (2012).

"Privileging human verbal language as the signifier for the “superior” human brain over Voice, kinesthetic empathy, and countless other forms of expression has more to do with prejudice than with an open-minded interest in the world’s teeming varieties of life."

"Biological situation of brains within and as constituents of bodies which are themselves environmentally situated and interactive with their surroundings integrates with all of the evidence we have of evolutionary continuity among animal species and a reasoned belief that other animals’ minds are not mere precursors of human ways of knowing but parallel ways of being mentally active and alive in the world."

"A problematic fact is that we can never fully apprehend another’s experience, whether that other is human or nonhuman, with or without verbal language. As much as we may be able to suffer and rejoice vicariously with others, we cannot know for sure whether our sense of their inner experience reproduces their experience."

"A sorrowful echo of the mournful cries of the nearly extinct whooping cranes, evoked by Dillard-Wright in his essay, drifts through Experiencing Animal Minds – the animals’ captivity, our bigotry, their imminent extinction, our indifference, the fact that we require animals to prove their worthiness to be cherished and respected instead of being tortured, degraded, ridiculed, incarcerated, punished and extinguished because they are not us, and because we can get away with it."

"'Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells, nor have their strengths, their skills, their swiftness, the beauty of their flights. We discover the remarkable intelligence of the whale, the wolf, the elephant – it does not save them, nor does our awareness of the complexity of their lives. It matters not, it seems, whether they nurse their young or brood patiently on eggs. If they eat meat, we decry their viciousness; if they eat grasses and seeds, we dismiss them as weak. We know that they care for their young and teach them, that they play and grieve, that they have memories and a sense of the future for which they sometimes plan. We know about their habits, their migrations, that they have a sense of home, of finding, seeking, returning to home. We know that when they face death, they fear it. We know all these things and it has not saved them from us.'"
Joy Williams wrote poignantly in “The Inhumanity of the Animal People,” in Harper’s Magazine, August 1997

Gary Steiner: “stop trying to recreate animals in our own image and begin to let animal beings be the beings they truly are.” 

"Jessica Ullrich argues in “Minding the Animal in Contemporary Art” that we need to recognize 'that animal experiences are not just pale imitations of our own.'"

"David Dillard-Wright implores us to see that “what counts about the crane is its unique mindedness – not the crane’s ability to measure up to an invented and artificial anthropocentric yardstick of intelligence.” A broader theory of mind, he says, 'will value the crane’s intelligence per se and not only by comparison to human capabilities.'"

Toronto Pig Save bears witness at - 20 C

Whistle blowing

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/whistleblower-suppression_b_2559769.html

Just some thoughts

It seems that there is some contradictory evidence out there on what is the best diet and whether a plant-based diet is the panacea it claims to be.  To me it seems that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that vegan diets can be very healthy and lead to a long life and healthy weight. Look at the 7th Day Adventists, for example, who live much longer than other Californians.  I'm not that convinced that it should be super-low fat though, as nuts and avocados seem to provide many benefits.

In the end I'm not that worried about it though. If I can live a relatively healthy life without killing and maiming animals I'm all for it.  I do believe the environmental arguments against raising animals are strong too.  Of course growing crops can be and is mostly very harmful to the environment, but meeting high demands of meat consumption requires the redirection of human food to animals. It requires that "unproductive" lands be given up to pastures that could be used for conservation.  It uses more fossil fuels, water, etc.  I think that plant-based agriculture must be improved so that we don't use so many toxins and perhaps we can reduce monocultures, but animal agriculture only makes the problem worse and increases inefficiencies.  I'm also a big fan of using human manure as fertilizer.

Ultimately though, it comes down to the animals. Even if it were even healthier to eat animals than not too, and even if it were possible to have sustainable animal agriculture, which I doubt, it would still be wrong to confine, mutilate, separate families and kill sentient beings who suffer, and who can also enjoy life and long to live.  This is by far our strongest argument as vegans. We must never lose sight of the animals themselves, as the other arguments are subject to much debate and perhaps there is still too much conflicting evidence, making it easy for people to be swung either way.

The animals though! They want to live just like us! They fight death and pain just like us! They have only one life and then it's over, just like this. We cannot take their lives and sufferings with so little regard anymore. It is tragic and completely unjust.  As I write this I think of our little family dog, Grubby, who had to be put to sleep yesterday due to very poor health. How heartbroken we are. We valued him and his life, as he did too. It's hard to imagine life without him. And to think of all the billions of land animals, and even more sea creatures that killed each year in horrible ways. It makes me want to weep!

The Onion does it again

Humanely raised beef!