Farm Animals
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Compassionate Giving Does Not Involve Cruelty to Goats
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What Kind of a Person Eats Katie the Lamb?
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Inflatable, Creative Pro-Turkey Activism
Beheading Chickens Is OK, but Beheading Cats Is "Over the Top"
Published November 18, 2009 @ 06:31AM PT
One dog, one cat, three chickens -- all were found beheaded in Philadelphia late last week. The AP's brief account of the discovery mentioned only the dog and cat in its intro, the chickens coming up only a few sentences later as having been found "along with" the more important victims. But it's not just the media establishing who the important victims were. The director of investigations for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals noted that animal sacrifices often increase around this time of year because of religious holidays, but he didn't stop there.
Most sacrifices involve goats or chickens, he noted, and here's the kicker, courtesy of the Philadelphia Daily News:
Undercover at the Pig Farm: This Is Where "Bacon" Comes From
Published November 17, 2009 @ 07:34AM PT
Yesterday, Mercy for Animals gave Fox News the exclusive on its latest undercover investigation -- at a standard pig farm. And Fox News put it right in its Web site's top story spot, hopefully catching the attention of many people. The video is certainly disturbing, heartbreaking, horrifying; Fox wouldn't even air portions of it. Indeed, knowing what I was going to see (and hear), I couldn't make myself watch it until today, which I felt I had to do before asking readers to watch.
If you haven't seen footage from previous investigations (or, for that matter, even if you have), and you're still eating animals, you owe it to the animals and yourself to watch the video, included at the end of this post. There's no excuse for not educating yourself on what exactly it is you're involved in and paying for.
I won't repeat all that you can read about the investigation at MFA's site for it, but I will comment on one objection to how animal advocates often present these investigations and touch on something the Discerning Brute has just discussed as well in this context: people's (or at the very least, Americans') bizarre obsession with bacon in recent years.
Willful Slow Food Ignorance and the Pain Animals Feel
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:59AM PT
You know what bothers me? When a person or movement purports to be presenting an argument based in honesty and logic, to be coming from an objective place, concerned with fact and evidence -- but then conveniently pretends that any evidence that doesn't support or reinforce what he selfishly feels and wants even exists.
My respect for the Slow Food organization hit a low this weekend when I read Friday's editorial in the Huffington Post by its president Josh Viertel, in response to Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals. There is much in the essay I find bizarre and self-serving -- including, for example, Viertel's seeming pride in holding back lambs from their mothers and participating in the slaughter and his ludicrous insistence that "everyone's values are different, but the truth is anyone's values will do," as long as people live their values; it seems someone needs to explain to Mr. Viertel what we would be obligated to tolerate and support if this were true. Perhaps he's familiar, for example, with the values of violent racists, sexists, and homophobes and the ways they consistently "apply" their values in their lives? But the following extract was why I felt compelled to respond:
Helping Donald the Crippled Rooster and Harvest Home Sanctuary
Published November 12, 2009 @ 03:02PM PT
It seems that once every couple months, I learn about another growing or small animal sanctuary that I previously didn't know existed. And this is always a lovely surprise. This time, it's the Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary in California, which I learned about via Marji of Animal Place Sanctuary (and of the Animal Place blog).
One of Harvest Home's residents (you can meet the others here) needs surgery. His name is Donald. He hatched into a first grade classroom as a project -- and he emerged from his egg with deformed legs. When Harvest Home first met him, "one of his legs was splayed at a 90 degree angle, while the other leg was supported with curled toes." He was only four months old, yet "his daily routine was a struggle. A struggle to reach food and water. A struggle to stay clean. A struggle to move without thrashing around." So Donald needs surgery, expensive surgery.
Sanctuaries, especially new, small, or not-well-known sanctuaries, are not awash in money. But that doesn't change how much the animals for whom they care need and deserve help and the best medical care possible. If you'd like to help this growing sanctuary -- if you'd like to help raise the funds that will allow Donald to get his surgery -- you can donate here. I know that there are far more individual animals in dire need of help than I could document here -- than scores of us could document here -- even if every hour of the day were devoted to that task. But it's good to acknowledge them, and help them, as individuals whenever we can. Best of luck, Donald.
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Photo courtesy of Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary
Protesting for Minks in Utah
Published November 12, 2009 @ 06:44AM PT
Thanks go to my friends at Food Fight! Grocery in Portland for the reminder on this one.
Morgan, Utah, is home to 15 active mink fur farms -- which makes it more entrenched in the abhorrent practice than any other U.S. community. And on Saturday, November 28, animal rights activists hope to make it the site of a major protest too: "For the first time, the animal rights movement will bring all the tears and rage for the millions killed every year for fur to the belly of the beast: Morgan, Utah. This convergence will climax in a one-mile march through the heart of this fur farm capital, past two of Morgan’s mink farms."
But Morgan County wants to put a damper on any protests; in the last couple months, it made some bold moves. First, it passed an ordinance prohibiting protesters from demonstrating within 1,000 feet of fur farms and the residences on them. Salt Lake animal advocate Colleen Hatfield had this to say in response:
The Underestimated Compassion and Understanding of Children
Published November 10, 2009 @ 07:35AM PT
A smart, sweet three-year-old and her dad made my morning today and inspired this post. Before or after you read this one, you must do yourself the favor of reading Ryan's post from last night over at The Veg Blog. Because his three-year-old daughter? She's going to do beautiful, compassionate things in this world. Hell, she's already doing them. I won't give away Ryan's whole post. I'll just say that his little one is a lovely example of what we're capable of as people, what this world's children are capable of in particular, when we can get past everything that's been ingrained in us -- or so much better, when it's never ingrained in us in the first place.
Back in May, when I wrote about Ruby Roth's gorgeous new children's book That's Why We Don't Eat Animals, I included the following paragraph:
Jonathan Safran Foer and Eating and Killing Animals
Published November 09, 2009 @ 08:16AM PT
I haven't read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals yet. I don't know when I will, given lack of time, but I have seen a head-spinning number of reviews of and reactions to it lately. I get the impression, from these reviews and reactions, that there will be aspects of the book that will frustrate me, but I can also appreciate that he is telling mainstream America far more than most of them have read or heard before about who rather than what is on their plates and that he has done it in a way that is getting a lot of people thinking and talking. And though I've not read it myself, I've found other animal advocates' reactions to the book and Foer's approach interesting and worth considering, and I've read and watched some of his interviews.
For example, in a recent Facebook note, Josh Hooten of Herbivore posted a thoughtful response to the attention Foer's book is getting and the discussing it's sparking, in the mainstream and within the the vegan animal rights movement. And a SuperVegan post that is thoughtful and worth reading itself republished Josh's post in full.
