Farm Animals
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.
The Agony in Your Pillow and Jacket: Time to Ditch the Down
Published November 03, 2009 @ 06:52AM PT
We've talked about leather on this blog (e.g., here and here). We've talked about wool (e.g., here and here). We've talked about fur. But we haven't talked about one of the other animal products few people give much thought to: down, the soft feathers that start out on geese and ducks -- who need them -- but end up in humans' pillows, comforters, and jackets, but only after we force much suffering on the birds, who are ultimately destined for violent slaughter.
Despite the fact that down and its victims do not generally get as much attention as other animal products and animal victims, animal activists have been stepping up and standing up for these birds noticeably recently. First, Ari Solomon wrote an excellent piece titled "Down with the Truth" at Huffington Post in late September, after listening to a Food for Thought podcast on the topic (which I'm afraid I haven't heard), and last week, my friend and animal advocate Marie from Texas shared a video on Facebook I'd never seen before -- showing the live-plucking. The latter is what reminded me that down still needs to be addressed in this space (thanks, Marie).
World Vegan Day and Remembering Where We Started
Published November 02, 2009 @ 07:14AM PT
Yesterday was World Vegan Day, and a lot of people took the opportunity to tell their vegan stories, to tell readers, friends, and family what led them to become vegan. I'm going to do that someday, maybe even soon, but today, I'm going to tell you about who I was and how I grew up instead.
I grew up in central-southern Illinois, in a small town surrounded by farms. My grandparents and parents ran and/or grew up on farms. My maternal grandfather is a hunter; so are some uncles and cousins on both sides of my family. My grandparents used to take me fishing every once in a while when I was a kid, and I loved those outings; at the time, it seemed something peaceful and sweet between grandparents and granddaughter, not something any of us considered a violent activity. And I didn't start thinking about what actually happens at the back of the building that greets you at the edge of town when you come in from the west until the last five or so years. For years, I've known it vaguely as the place where some people go to buy meat; it took much longer for me to register that live animals were coming in the back before packaged pieces of animals were going out the front.
Are Vegans Responsible for More Deaths in the Fields? No Way
Published October 31, 2009 @ 09:08AM PT
The comment threads around here have been home to a lot of arguments over the last year, and a few discussions have a habit of resurfacing from time to time. One of these typically starts with a defender of animal-eating accusing vegans of being responsible for more animals' deaths than animal-eaters because of the animals who die as a result of raising and harvesting crops. The person making the argument assumes that people who eat plant-based diets must be responsible for more deaths in the fields than those who eat animal-based diets full of flesh, dairy, and eggs, failing to acknowledge, of course, the enormous amounts of plant foods that must be raised and fed to the animals people kill to eat -- more than must be raised for direct consumption by vegans. As has been discussed in those comment threads each time, the logic fails. And recently, Animal Visuals gave animal advocates a great new tool to answer this weak but common argument. Continue after the jump to view the powerful graph settling the debate.
That "Hog" Over the Fire Is a Baby Piglet
Published October 26, 2009 @ 06:29AM PT
Many people assume, without ever really thinking about it, that the animals they're eating were killed as adults. But just like most of our assumptions about nonhuman animals -- from their capacities for thought and emotion and the bonds they build to how they live, suffer, and die on farms, in slaughterhouses, in labs, and elsewhere -- this assumption too is wrong. Not long ago, I shared a video with you, of Glenn Gaetz from Liberation BC pointing out that "We Eat Babies." And he was telling the truth.
But we don't use language that reflects this. And one example that always gets to me is the word "hog." It's the word we often use when we talk about "hog farms" and "hog farmers," and even as I used the word in a post recently, I was uncomfortable with doing it.
