Media
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Jonathan Safran Foer and Eating and Killing Animals
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Compassionate Hockey Players and "Militant" Vegans
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Julia Child, Veal Calves, and the Movie I Won't Be Seeing
Maddow v. Berman
Published October 08, 2009 @ 04:19PM PT
I like Rachel Maddow. I do not like Rick Berman -- or his deceptive Center for Consumer Freedom or Berman/CCF's mouthpiece David Martosko (who gets a shout-out from Berman, and gets called out by Maddow, during the following interview; see the list at the end of this post for previous posts related to these shady characters). And the two videos that follow further confirmed which party I like and which I despise. The first five minutes of video 1 are of Rachel Maddow giving us an intro to Berman and some of his many front-group organizations, and the remaining five minutes feature an interview between Maddow and the creep himself. Video 2, under five minutes long, is the last half of the interview.
Berman's a bit of an evil genius, and he's been spinning and equivocating and deceiving for a long, long time. But Maddow held her own and didn't let him pull all his usual crap. Good for her. (You can also view these videos on the show's site: part 1 and part 2.)
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Previous Berman/CCF/Martosko-related posts:
Babysitters, Tofu, Sesame Street, and School Lunches
Published September 23, 2009 @ 07:03AM PT
I was a grade-school fan of the Baby-Sitters Club books. (In my defense, the books I remember most from that same time period are Island of the Blue Dolphins and Bridge to Terabithia, not Baby-Sitters Club.) I mention this here because in the series, one of the club members was a vegetarian (I think). And in at least one of these books, the word "tofu" came up. I had no idea what this was -- and continued not knowing for years. Likely because of whatever the context (or dish) was when the tofu was mentioned, I spent a decade thinking it was some kind of weird, healthy-but-disgusting casserole. I'm pretty sure I was nearing the end of college before I had a clue; I had only one truly vegetarian friend in college (whom I teased -- yeah, I was that person), but I don't recall her ever mentioning, never mind eating, tofu. And I'd graduated by the time I tried it for the first time, in some Thai takeout.
Maybe I wouldn't have been so oblivious if I'd not grown up in a rural area and in a meat-and-potatoes family and community that knew all about raising animals for slaughter but to whom even "vegetarian," let alone "vegan," was a baffling, almost blasphemous concept. But I am also absolutely convinced that much has changed in the last couple decades, that adults and kids alike are more aware of what's out there in the way of non-animal foods, not only for health reasons, but also because of growing awareness of animals, who they are, and what we do to them in the name of "food."
Glowing Dogs and the Problems with Letting Others Speak for Us
Published July 22, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
An article at Reason insists that "activists yawn[ed]" with indifference this year when it was announced that a cloned beagle litter's genetic material had been messed around with to make parts of the puppies' bodies glow when under ultraviolet light. The writer's proof that animal activists didn't care? HSUS and PETA didn't publicly object. And unfortunately, like too much of the public, the writer seems to think that HSUS, PETA, and (arguably even more oddly) ASPCA represent all animal (rights) advocates--and, apparently, that folks like Peter Singer and Matthew Scully are the chief animal rights, or "beast-friendly," philosophers. Take a look at one section of the article before we continue:
Women, Cows, Speed Bags, and Steaks: One of These Things Is Not Like the Others
Published July 13, 2009 @ 08:16AM PT
The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence wants you to know that "it's not acceptable to treat a woman like [a piece of meat]."
Look! They've even devised an ad campaign to spread the word!
The ad depicts a large chunk of "meat" - a cow (or pig?) thigh, suspended in the air, hanging upside-down by a hook thrust violently through the limb. The "meat" slab is dressed in a mini-skirt and halter top in order to denote its female gender.
What possible issue could I, a vegan feminist, take with this message?
Butchers Are Hot. Blood Is Sexy. Killing Is Hip. This Is Not Progress.
Published July 08, 2009 @ 05:40PM PT
I'm wishing I'd slept sometime in the last 36 hours because then maybe I'd have something smarter and more thoughtful to say about this than I do. But I'll still give it an exhausted (and deeply disturbed) whirl. From the New York Times article "Young Idols with Cleavers Rule the Stage":
Now there is a new kind of star on the food scene: young butchers. With their swinging scabbards, muscled forearms and constant proximity to flesh, butchers have the raw, emotional appeal of an indie band. They turn death into life, in the form of a really good skirt steak.
And it doesn’t hurt that some people find them exceptionally hot.
“Think about it. What’s sexy?” said Tia Keenan, the fromager at Casellula Cheese and Wine Café and an unabashed butcher fan. “Dangerous is sometimes sexy, and they are generally big guys with knives who are covered in blood.”
Secret Prisons and the Silencing of Dissent: Video to Watch
Published June 25, 2009 @ 02:24PM PT
Check out Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! interview with animal rights activist Andrew Stepanian, who was just recently released from the secretive Communication Management Unit (CMU) prison in Marion, Illinois (where he was held along with mostly Muslim prisoners); his attorney, Paul Hetznecker; and journalist and blogger Will Potter, of Green Is the New Red, who of course has covered this issue extensively.
As always, what Will Potter has to tell us, in addition to what Stepanian himself shares, is frightening and disturbing. And among all his excellent points, Will makes the important point about how the media has completely dropped the ball when it comes to the political use (and abuse) of "terrorism" labeling.
Video here.
See also the following:
- Daniel McGowan's "Tales from Inside the U.S. Gitmo," published recently at Huffington Post
- This earlier Democracy Now program on the CMUs (for which Will Potter was also interviewed): "'Little Guantanamo'–Secretive 'CMU' Prisons Designed to Restrict Communication of Jailed Muslims and Activists with Outside World"
- The Green Scare category of posts on this blog, which includes links to a number of Will's posts
In Defense of PETA--Yes, You Read That Right--and the Fly Response
Published June 17, 2009 @ 07:14PM PT
*6/18: See the end of this post for an update*
I am all for criticizing PETA (or any other animal rights or welfare organization) when, and as often as, the group deserves to be criticized. That's probably become clear over the last nine months. I have no allegiances. But when people manufacture reasons to complain about a group or fail to scratch beyond the surface when they make their belittling complaints, in order to figure out what it is they're actually criticizing, I get annoyed.
Everyone with a computer--from mainstream bloggers to eco bloggers to my fellow animal rights bloggers (the latter two of which I expect better from) to anti-AR Twitterers--is commenting condescendingly or with what I imagine is a lot of eye-rolling about a very short remark that someone at PETA made in reference to President Obama swatting a fly during a televised interview. The angle everyone is playing up is that PETA went charging after Obama because of the fly-swatting: PETA doesn't know how to pick its battles! PETA did something crazy again! Except none of that is true.
