Animal Writings

I'm pleased to take part in SuperWeed's Carnival Against Vivisection, organized by pattrice jones. I haven't written about vivisection in a while. Lately I've focused mostly on vegan diets and animal agriculture, perhaps because people can make direct decisions about their food consumption every day. But as pattrice cautions, we cannot forget about animals wasting away in cages in laboratories across the world, infected with diseases, denied any semblance of a normal life, and subjected to invasive procedures that are frightening and acutely stressful for them.

As with many of my other posts, my participation will be in the form of a series of several posts. The series is divided into these parts:

• Tragically unnecessary animal experiments at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and Oregon State University (OSU)


• A modest proposal for the National Institutes of Health


• Practical steps your neighbors and co-workers might willingly take to reduce the number of animals harmed and killed in laboratories

We may as well jump right in to see the ugliness of vivisection, the senseless suffering and violence inflicted on animals in the name of science. This page from In Defense of Animals (IDA) describes how a researcher at OHSU surgically injects nicotine into pregnant monkeys and steals the unborn babies from their mothers' wombs to dissect their lungs. Yes — it should make you wince.

Some mothers in the experiment are "allowed" to keep their babies for a short time. IDA's Matt Rossell, who worked undercover at OHSU as a primate caretaker, and who gave an impactful video presentation of lab animal abuse and suffering and the AR2008 conference, describes the reaction of monkeys whose babies were forcefully taken from them by lab workers:


Grabbing terrified babies from the arms of their mothers, making the mothers scream in horror...There is something just gut-wrenchingly wrong with that. But it's business as normal in the vivisection industry.

Notice also, in the above account, the empathy among the monkeys—all powerless to stop the human from pulling a baby away from his/her mother. Monkeys and rats have both scored better than humans in some empathy tests. And in several species now, I've seen firsthand that members of the group will come to the defense of one individual who's attacked, especially if the victim is a baby. (Even the older members, who have trouble walking, may try as best they can to come to the aid of the victim.) What does an animal have to do, speak English in order to not be treated as a throwaway tool? Really, it comes down in large part to "might makes right" that ultimately drives our decision to dominate animals. Abraham Lincoln was more on the mark when he said "right makes might", but lately I'm starting to think that, if history is any guide, more often than not might makes wrong when it is humans who have the might.

Back to this experiment...We have known for years, beyond reasonable doubt, from clinical evidence, that smoking is harmful to fetuses. In fact, misleading animal experiments delayed our reaching this life-saving conclusion. The biggest challenge now is getting young women not to smoke. From an ethical, scientific, fiscal, and human health perspective, these continued nicotine experiments are a disgrace, and an indictment of our biomedical research system.

I have to wonder...Apart from the sheer brutality and invasiveness, day in and day out, which perhaps numbs researchers to the suffering of all the caged animals in their midst, do the people who do these things—who come up with these outrageous proposals and conduct these blatantly unscientific and/or superfluous projects—actually believe that they're helping humans, and that they're using tax dollars earmarked for health research wisely? I have my doubts—which makes the hell they put animals through even more inexcusable.

And the people that fund them...what are they thinking? Or are they thinking?

Then there are the committees that, in theory, are supposed to filter out proposals for animal experiments that are redundant, or that can be done with cell cultures, computer modeling, human volunteers (including patients who have naturally acquired the condition being studied)—any method that does not require the use of animals. Forget it. As IDA explains:


The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports that


I suppose the most die-hard, anti-animal rights, pro-vivisectionist might point out—as a patheticaly weak defense—that at least OHSU in this instance is ostensibly finding out information about a deadly substance. Which leads me to my next topic, the "gay sheep" experiments at OHSU and OSU, which I will explore in some detail starting in the next post.

Labels: animal experiments, In Defense of Animals, nicotine experiments, Oregon Health Sciences University, Oregon State University, pattrice jones, primates, SuperWeed, vivisection

From everything I can tell, Paul Cortez is an innocent, honest, decent, and moral individual who has been incarcerated for nearly a thousand days due to a deeply compromised legal system and a shameless media that is blinded by greed.

I would urge all readers to visit the link above; it is compelling. It has detailed information about the entire case, including Paul's total cooperation with the police, his shockingly incompetent and/or indifferent lawyers, and the frenzy of media attacks on his character, as though each tabloid was competing for the most sensationalist slander.

While in jail, Paul became vegan. Although he himself is unjustly imprisoned and has had many of his basic freedoms stripped from him, he has been able to see past the injustice inflicted upon him and has committed to do his best not to inflict injustices upon any other sentient being. As he is wrongly behind bars, so are billions of animals whose legs, wings, and hearts yearn to be free—to run, fly, and swim as nature intended for them. I cannot help but think of the powerful poem, Sympathy, in which author Paul Laurence Dunbar, the son of slaves, connects the pain of the caged bird with the pain of the enslaved human. Indeed, we are all connected, and we all suffer when severely confined and our deepest desires are denied.

You can help Paul by clicking here.


Let us work for a world in which all of us are free to sing, and dance, and enjoy life, and pursue happiness, and spread peace.

Labels: Paul Cortez

Here's the distillation of Aaron's Wissner's talk at AR2008, as I remember it:

1. You buy some mahogany moulding at Home Depot. There are a lot of Home Depot stores. There are 20 within a 50 mile radius of my house. According to their web site, they've opened 33 new stores in the last six months. So if there's not a Home Depot near you, there will be one soon.


2. Home Depot imports the wood from Brazil, perhaps through one or more third party importers / wholesalers.


3. The importers pay ranchers in Brazil for the wood.


4. There's a lot of money in cutting down trees in Brazil. But not everyone is happy about destroying the rain forest. Some people mount protests, and try to influence public opinion and policies to restrict cutting down the forest, and to prevent the gross inequities between wealthy ranchers and poor peasants. I'm leaving out many details here.


5. Some of the ranchers and/or other profiteers from cutting down trees in the rainforest hire murderers and kill Dorothy Stang, who fought on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised, and for a fair, sustainable economy. According to this web site, Ms. Stang's killer said he was hired by a rancher, and that he and a partner were offerred $25,000 to kill Stang. The web site also states that "ranchers...have killed over 750 farmers in the past 30 years," and that since Stang's murder in 2005 another 30 farmers have been murdered by ranchers.

So a seemingly innocuous purchase ends up contributing to greed, environmental destruction, slave labor, corruption, and murder.


Granted, it's not that every time 50 bucks flows out of your hand, someone gets murdered. But there are some lessons that one can infer from Aaron's presentation of the above scenario and his subsequent comments at his talk.

• Once the money flows out of your hands, you have almost no control over it. Yes, you might buy fair trade coffee at the locally-owned coffee shop. But where will the owner and/or the employees spend that money? Will they gas up at Exxon? Buy a shirt in a discount store that was made in a sweatshop? Buy a muffin at Starbucks that contains eggs from hens suffering horribly in battery cages?


• Since, in so many sectors of the economy, a relatively small number of huge multinational corporations control a majority of the market, chances are good that your money will eventually find its way to these powerful entities, where it may be used in ways that violate your sense of decency and right and wrong. We could call this the trickle-up effect. For example, a handful of companies control over half the meat industry. They rely on horrific factory farms and large taxpayer subsidies to sell cheap meat and cheese (and contribute to this country's epidemic levels of obesity, heart disease, and cancer); they emit enormous amounts of pollution into the water and ground (and are the root cause of salmonella and e coli outbreaks); through their coziness with Congress they have managed to exempt most farmed animals from any kind of federal laws that would even partially protect the animals' well-being.

So what can we do?


The first thing that comes to mind is spending less money. However, this option is not too feasible for many people, such as the unemployed and those living on social security. The individual running a cat, dog, or rabbit rescue, feeding and paying for veterinary care for animals that others abandoned or rejected, strenuously trying to find homes for those animals, doesn't really want to hear "spend less." If you've got kids, well, you know that's a huge long-term financial commitment. And the average Joe or Jane likes to go out to eat every now and then, and maybe take in a movie—not to mention go on a vacation sometimes. All that stuff costs money. At least in our current economy.

Furthermore, some spending is really an investment to ultimately save money: new furnace filters, energy-efficient windows and appliances, health insurance, and so forth. The money spent on other items, such as vitamin pills, physical exams, alarm systems, electrical generators, and new tires, may be justified in terms of its ability to improve health, safety, or peace of mind.

So there are limitations to the "spend less" option. Nonetheless, for most of us, there may be more ways than we realize to reduce our spending, because we've become so conditioned to spending, and very likely haven't given much thought to many of the alternatives.

The freegan philosophy challenges the spend / throw away / buy something bigger and better culture, and adherents to freeganism walk their talk. This page lays out many freegan practices. Granted, not everybody is going to dumpster-dive or hitchhike, but I bet there are at least a couple of ideas on that page that are definite possibilites for every reader. For example, I've been using Freecycle for the past two years; it's a great system and I highly recommend it.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Kiplinger organization, which is all about investments, business, economic reports, and so forth. And yet...check out this page. It's basically white-collar freegangelism. In its context, it's practically subversive. Actually, Kiplinger has some great ideas for spending less money.

As you probably know (or could easily find out), the web is filled with sites on how to save money. I think some are quite good. For instance, there's GasBuddy.com, which helps you find the cheapest gas in your area and offers tips on how to use less gas.


OK, so we spend less money. But if our income is the same as ever, what do we do with the money we're not spending?

If you put it in the bank, then the bank, in effect, spends it for you, through their investments. Depending on the type of account you have, the bank will invest your money in government securities, Government-Sponsored Enterprises such as Freddie Mac, corporate bonds, or other investment instruments. Basically, when your money's in the bank, you're helping to fund the government or corporations.

You could invest the money in an IRA, or in the stock market. I'm all for IRAs but you're still spending money, and, assuming you're putting your IRA money in mutual funds like most people do, you're turning over spending decisions to the fund managers. Granted, you have a choice of which funds in which to invest. So maybe you feel more comfortable investing in a "socially responsible" fund. Now, the investment company's definition of "socially responsible" may be different than your definition of "socially responsible", and in this "socially responsible" fund you may be investing in companies such as Johnson and Johnson and pharmaceutical companies. Great, you're investing in companies that perform horrid animal tests and advertise drugs every five minutes on TV. Still, at least there are some criteria that companies in "socially responsible" funds have to meet.

You might also want to choose a "green" fund. Again, the same basic caveats apply.

You may want to invest in a "small cap" fund that invests in smaller businesses. Not tiny businesses like the flower shop on the corner but businesses that are big enough to be publicly traded but aren't anywhere near the size of a Wal-Mart or Lockheed-Martin. You may feel that, on average, a bunch of smaller companies does less damage than a cabal of huge powerful ones. I think there's some logic in that. The wealth and influence is more spread out. Plus, I think the business executives who are most power-hungry, ruthless, and domineering tend to grow their companies more than the modest small business owner. But you still might be unwittingly investing in companies that engage in offshore oil drilling, animal cloning, sweat shops, you name it. Many smaller companies do business with the big behemoths, anyway.

You could invest in particular companies. That gives you a lot more control than putting your money in a mutual fund. But most people don't have the time or know-how to do this.

So when you park you money in a checking account, a CD, a mutual fund, government or corporate bonds, or the stock market, you are still, in effect spending money. Granted, most of us need to do this with some of our money so that we will not be destitute when we retire.

So is there no way out, other than socking your money under the mattress and hoping for good health and no accidents, and for kindhearted people to take care of you when you're old or sick or unable to earn money?

As Aaron points out, once that money leaves our hands, we have very little control over how it is used. But at least we can perhaps delay its inappropiate use by supporting ethical businesses as best we can. If I buy a product at an all-vegan store, chances are better than average that the owners and employees of the store will, in turn, spend that money ethically, and so forth.

Sometimes it costs more to buy products and services from ethical companies, because they're not doing things like using sweatshop labor or cutting environmental corners to reduce costs. On the other hand, an ethical business is not likely to try to gouge or gratuitously "up-sell" customers or pay outlandish salaries to its directors.

Another partial solution is to eat a healthy diet, and to generally take care of yourself. Sickness can be expensive. Granted, you can still be ill or injured due to genetics or bad luck, but you can control your diet and usually make time to do some physical activity each day, and both of those aspects of your life are major determinants of your long-term health.

One way to spend less money—directly, or indirectly through investments—is to make less money. Of course this isn't an option for everyone. But for those not scraping by...

How many of you are in a job you don't really like but it pays well? It's easy to get caught in the rut...You must make more this year than you did last year. You start eyeing things you'd like to buy: a new guitar, or tattoo sleeve, or purse, or outfit, or extra bathroom, or second home. There's a bit of a rush when you get a raise. Maybe you're putting in a lot of overtime to meet deadlines. Maybe you tell yourself, "As soon as I've reached a certain financial comfort level, maybe I'll cut back on my hours, maybe work at a less taxing job, do some more reading, exercise more, maybe travel. Maybe I'll start hiking again, or learn to play guitar." Then you get back to your laptop, even though it's 9pm...you've got a meeting tomorrow morning to prepare for...

What I'm finding with my friends who said this in their 30s and who are now in their 50s is that the mythical "financial comfort level" that is supposed to allow them to get off the merry-go-round and enjoy life a little more never happens. It keeps getting delayed, or re-defined ("Well, we just took out a second mortgage, so maybe after we get that paid off." "As soon as this project at work is done...") Or they're offered a new position at work with a 15 percent raise—can't turn that down.

If you really want a lifestyle change, you just have to do it. Two years ago I took a big pay cut to work at a job I love, and which is more in line with my ethics. My wife and I have had to make some adjustments. We eat out much less. I scan the sale papers and, all other things equal, I buy the store brand instead of the name brand. I'm scrupulous about eating leftovers and using every last drop of everything. And so on. Lots of little day-to-day things have changed.

Granted, it's generally much easier to make this switch if you're not the only breadwinner in the household, and I realize I'm fortunate in that my wife has a decent job (although her company is downsizing and moving jobs halfway across the country, so we'll see how that goes...). But there are a lot of people in this situation. I have to say, every time I learn about an individual or family who decided they could take the cut in pay in return for having more time and peace of mind, they are undeniably happy about their decision and have no regrets.

Another great time to make the decision to favor quality of life over maximum earnings is when you're young, just starting out in your career, relatively free of obligations (except perhaps for student loans), and not yet used to a certain material comfort level.

Again, I want to reiterate that I realize this option is not suitable for everyone.

But if you are at all contemplating doing something you really love, even at a cut in pay, or have been telling yourself "I really need to find a better job" but are so busy you don't even have time to get your resume together, let alone go on interviews...let me close with this:

How many of you have ever had a conversation roughly like this...

One spouse or partner to the other: Remember when we used to have picnics in the back yard? We'd make sandwiches—sometimes just peanut butter and jelly—and you and I and the kids and Baxter (the family dog) would find a nice spot in the grass, and we'd lay out a blanket...We'd be eating our sandwiches, and Baxter would be eating his dog food—al fresco—and then we'd give him our plates to lick. We'd look up at the sky and say what the clouds reminded us of. If a bird or a plane flew overhead, we'd make up stories about it. Then afterward we'd play fetch with Baxter, and then we'd all walk down to the schoolyard. Sometimes the kids would fly kites...Baxter would run around...those were great days. Man, I miss them.

How long has it been since we did that? How many years? These days it seems like we're both working so much that all we can do on the weekends is catch up on chores—and sleep. It's funny, we had less money then, and just a tiny house that we rented, and a lot less stuff, but we did so much more.

You may find that if you take that job that pays less but is much closer to home, or is much lower pressure, or is more in line with your ethics...even if you make less money, you'll adjust, and you can have those days back again. You'll have fewer material goods but will have gained some things that money can't buy.

And with less stress, you'll probably be healthier, and as a consequence you may end up saving so much money that you'll come out financially ahead, too.

---

Next: A special announcement.

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, environment, Freecycle, freegan, jobs, money, spending less, work

At the AR2008 conference, Aaron Wissner gave an eye-opening talk about the power of money, and how little control you and I have over how that power is exerted. The name of the talk--I think I have this right--was "Being Vegan Is Not Enough." A provocative but refreshingly honest title, considering the talk was presented to an audience of mostly vegans.

When one becomes vegan, and for a while afterward, there may be a tendency to think "OK, I get it now. I'm doing my best to end oppression and make the world peaceful." Wrong. Going vegan is a huge step, and and I think everyone who can do it should do it, and if that happened we would significantly reduce the amount of exploitation and human-caused suffering in the world, but it is not the end-all and be-all.

For instance, where did your purse or backpack come from? Was it made with sweatshop labor? Do you drive fast; do you ever crank up the AC when you don't need to? Are you buying food from mega-corporations that are putting the squeeze on family farmers? How much garbage do you generate?

I'm not trying to get down on anyone, or pretend that I'm any better at this stuff than anyone else. About a year and a half ago I went onto one of those sites that tells you your environmental footprint. I thought I would do great—My wife and I are both vegan, I work from home, I had recently bought a Prius (after my other car died), we have no kids, we live in a pretty small house, I do a lot of cooking...I was ready for a slam-dunk.

Well, my score was not that great. We live in a small house, but there's only two of us. Although I cook a lot, I use way too many packaged goods and convenience products. We don't have any ceiling fans. We could compost a lot more. At the time our furnace was some energy-inefficient relic from about 1970. And so on. It was sobering.

I did the test one more time, figuring in our cat, and we did even worse.

Anyway, that and some other experiences got me to thinking about my total contribution to environmental degradation, global warming, exploitation, and other bad, undesirable things. I've made some changes since then, but I know I still can do much more.

Fast forward to Aaron's talk, in which he illustrated how merely spending money—at least in our current society—may be detrimental to our planet's health and contribute to exploitation, violence, and depletion of resources. In the next post, I'll explain the thrust of the talk, in a nutshell, and share some thoughts that it triggered.

But first, let me point you to Aaron's blog: Value System: Peak Oil, Gas Prices, and The Future. It is filled with interesting ideas, and I like how it unfolds over time to reflect the author's evolution and coalescence of thinking. Of particular relevance to this post are Aaron's entries from May 22 and August 13 of this year, in which he expounds on some points that were in his AR conference talk.

More to follow...

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, environment, money

The organizers (FARM) of the animal rights conference this year decided to have a plenary session featuring speakers who were not animal rights activists but who were active, knowledgeable, and experienced in related movements. In my judgment, this was an inspired idea and turned out to be a great success. I learned a lot from hearing activists whose main issue was not animal rights but whose concerns, strategies, and goals overlapped with mine and—as far as I could gather—those of most of the attendees at the conference.

I found all of the outside-the-movement talks to be quite interesting. The one that was most novel and intriguing to me explained how spending money, on average, in our current Western society, eventually contributes to a host of significant problems and injustices, most notably the destruction of valuable resources and exploitation of living beings—human and nonhuman.

Before getting into more of the details of that presentation, I wanted to lead in with a post about an interesting article I read in Harper's Magazine entitled Our Phony Economy, by Jonathan Rowe.

OK, let's break it down.


That our primary measure of the health of the country is how much money we spend, regardless of why we spend it or what we spend it on, seems rather inane when you think about it.


First, let me apply Mr. Rowe's methods back on him. When he implies that the money spent on pets is wasteful, or perhaps frivolous, is he talking about someone paying thousands of dollars for the latest "designer breed" dog? Or is he talking about spending $75 to adopt a lovable mutt from a shelter and give him a great home? Is he talking about movie stars buying jewel-encrusted collars for their pets, or is he talking about middle-class families buying decent cat trees so their cats can engage in this essential cat activity each day? Is he talking about buying an outdoor hutch so a rabbit will be forced to endure a hellish life of loneliness, boredom, and confinement, or is he talking about purchasing good quality timothy hay so a beloved house rabbit can eat the most important food for her digestive system?

Being involved with shelters and rescue groups, seeing dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals abandoned, neglected, and horribly abused, and being cognizant of the three to four million shelter animals put down every year due to lack of homes, I think spending money to save an animal's life or to give him a good life is money well spent. Note that in the U.S. we have around 170 million pets, not including fish. If the total amount of money spent on them each year is $41 billion, that works out to about $235 a year per pet, which is not even close to what it costs to properly care for a dog, cat, or rabbit.

Aside from this one major criticism, I think Mr. Rowe is right on target. Oil spill in an ecologically sensitive area that costs billions to clean up? Woo-hoo—the GDP is up! It's insane.


Mr. Rowe very articulately brings up some sobering and vitally important points.

Our money- and capitalism-based economy operates within a larger system that ultimately controls our fate—at least in a physical sense. It is sheer folly, and/or denial, to pretend that the GDP is a closed system that can operate independently of the Earth and nature. We can rape, pillage, and plunder nature, but as ecologist Paul Ehrlich says, "nature always bats last." Nature has the final say. We can keep washing away topsoil in the Gulf of Mexico, we can degrade lush diverse prairies into chemically-dependent monocultures, we can destroy woodland forests for grazing and turn them into semi-deserts, we can kill off species and coral reefs and create huge "dead zones" in the oceans, we can keep usurping land used by all the nonhuman species on the planet and we can continue to increase our population exponentially—but not forever. And not without considerable, or tragic cost.

Alternatively, we could inject some humility into our policies and our culture. We could realize that we're animals, not gods. We can't control everything, neither should we want to. We can respect other species, as well as members of our own species who are not exactly like us. We can learn the truly satisfying rewards of self-sacrifice on behalf of others, and of appreciating the simple things in life, such as birds singing and being kind and gracious. These, I hold, are what we really all want in our heart of hearts; these are our most profound wishes when on our deathbeds, and when in deep reflection. Things cannot take the place of brightness of spirit and connection with the Earth. Yet our society—our economy—relentlessly pushes things as the source of happiness. And the purveyors of things often push their material goods by shamefully capitalizing on people's emotions. Marketing campaigns unabashedly exploit people's vanity, fears, and need for self-esteem.

[For the record, I'm not a total capitalism basher. Nothing in the basic rules of capitalism specifies that companies need to constantly grow, or to grow at all. Capitalism says nothing about lying, cheating, stealing, and exploiting to increase profits. As many critics have asserted, however, the basic competitive nature of capitalism may inspire if not reward greed. But so do many other economic systems. The privately-owned corner hardware store a mile from my house is capitalism. It's not perfect, but it is a far cry from Tyson, Dow Chemical, and Exxon-Mobil. It has a dose of humility. But the consumer-intensive, growth-obsessed capitalism that runs much of the world, and has such a powerful influence over government, is ruinous. It will run us into the ground unless it is restrained, and in my opinion, restraint will be a function not so much of legislation (though that is important) but of cumulative individual changes in mindset and behavior. Yes, the system is flawed, but ultimately the system is the product of individuals. Each affects and is affected by the other. But we have the most control over our own actions, so that seems like a good place to start. May I suggest step one? Go vegan—that has far-reaching implications.]

So our fixation with spending is not merely crazy or bizarre. It has elements of meanness, oppression, exploitation, predation, duplicity, lying, and contempt for living beings and of the earth—anything that stands in the way of making a buck.

My hope is that deep inside, we know there is a better way. We know there is something wrong, something off, something missing from our current materialistic, GDP-oriented, sweatshop- and factory farm-dependent, bulldozer-dotted, "not safe for drinking or swimming," Monsanto bovine growth hormone and Roundup-controlling, "this used to be open fields but now it's strip malls," obesity / diabetes / heart disease / breast cancer epidemic, "billions served" (and billions killed) society.

Most of the people I know sense this and will make minor tweaks around the edges. But they're stuck. Almost no one wants to be the first one to really challenge the system. They need to keep their jobs, they've got mortgages to pay and kids to send to college. They don't want to be the troublemaker—and even whistleblowers can get put in jail or ostracized, and good Samaritans can be sued or libeled.

Mr. Rowe's article is good. It outlines structural and attitudinal problems that have set in, but need to be fixed. But it's not enough. Eventually, to bring about change, people have to take action. They have to "be the change," as Gandhi counseled.

The rest of Mr. Rowe's article is very informative and thoughtful, and, I hope, provocative.

This, I think, leaves us at a good place to segue into the next post.

One more thought! I love Mr. Rowe's last paragraph that I quote, where he talks about family activities. I'll bet that paragraph strikes a chord with almost any parent, and maybe almost anyone. Because -- I think pretty much all of us have an inkling that though it may be generous to spend lavishly on our families and loved ones, the most precious and deeply appreciated gift we can give is our time. And our devotion. Our hearts. Listening to someone's problems, being sympathetic, cheering others up, playing a game of catch or cheering as our kids play piano in their recital or jump through the hop-scotch game they drew on the sidewalk...I don't have to tell anyone that these are the activities that forge strong relationships, build confident and loving children, and create lasting memories. We all know that.

And yet, the government, the TV, the radio, newspapers, magazines, the Net, billboards, our cell phones, practically every square inch of matter on earth it seems like is telling us to buy, spend, buy, spend... And most of us give in, maybe without even realizing how much we do it. And some of us amass crippling credit card debt, or are forced to foreclose on our houses. Others of us work so much overtime, to buy stuff, that we miss our kids, spouses, and partners growing up; we miss out on living.

Mr. Rowe puts forth a very reasonable proposal, which I hope, and suspect, hits home: Resist that temptation to get the extra buck and to buy the new improved thing. Buy less, do more. Take that walk. Watch the animals outside, who live quite full lives without spending money. Volunteer at the library or the soup kitchen or the wildlife rescue league. Appreciate the value of things you can't buy.

Okay, now I think we are (or at least I am!) ready to move on...

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, economy, money

About two years ago, my wife was driving my father-in-law from the doctor to his managed care home. He was deep in the throes of Alzheimer's; he would be dead within a year. She had to make a stop at home that would take about ten minutes, so she brought him in. He sat on the couch.

His vocabulary had shrunk to dozens of words. He didn't know who I was. He looked confused. He had, in many ways, reverted back to a small child. A few years before, he would engagingly tell stories and throw in lots of wry jokes. He was a master at the crossword puzzle. He was the one who could invent a creative fix when our furnace or air conditioner broke; sometimes he explained it to me step-by-step over the phone, as though he had a mental map of the machinery and our house in his head.

But now his brain wasn't working; it was deteriorating. He couldn't understand a clock. He no longer knew how to use a phone.

Mike, our cat, came over to the couch to say hello. My father-in-law held out his hand and started petting him. He knew exactly what to do: front to back, gentle pressure, staying away from sensitive areas. Mike purred.

My father-in-law had forgotten many things, but he didn't forget how to be kind to animals.

Labels: cats, interspecies friendship

Before heading out to the third day of the animal rights conference yesterday, I gazed out the kitchen window, to see the nature in my back yard. It was late morning...

There's a squirrel with a walnut in his mouth, searching for a good spot in which to eat it. He seems to know that he has a real prize, which will soon be very tasty.

Birds are at the feeder and on the ground—a pleasant flutter of busy-ness.

Two doves are taking a siesta. They've chosen a sunny part of the yard that has a natural bedding of pine needles and leaves, as they spread their wings and soak up the sunshine.

We can engage in all kinds of sophisticated philosophical reasoning about animal sentience and animal rights, and that's all well and good. But sometimes it's a good idea to turn that off. To experience rather than analyze. Just watch the animals. Let empathy happen. Feel the goodness of nature and imagine the possibilites of a kind and harmonious world.

I've written quite a bit about achieving the Peaceable Kingdom. But as I watch my feathered and furred friends doing their things and living their lives on this summer day, I think I prefer the phrase "peaceable community," to reflect that we are all connected, and to acknowledge that each of us can extend kindness to others regardless of species. Our commonalities, shared histories, and ultimate original source tie us together.

Mr. Squirrel found a good spot, on the ledge of the big planter for the butterfly bush. He's going to town, enthusiastically eating his walnut, enjoying life. I'm blessed to be able to view the animals being themselves. There's something deeply comforting in watching that, knowing I'm a part of all that.

Labels: birds, nature, peaceable community, squirrels

From The Rabbit: "Poster Child" for Animal Rights:


As kids, many of us grew up with stuffed rabbits, and with Peter Rabbit and Bugs Bunny. As we grew up, our lives were enriched by such characters as the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" And of course, there's the classic Harvey, Jimmy Stewart's invisible rabbit companion (although he tells people that Harvey's actually a Pika, a cousin of the rabbit.) Sadly, we treat toy rabbits and fictional rabbits far better than we do real rabbits.

RabbitWise's advocacy pages contain a wealth of articles and links about the plight of rabbits and how to help them.

Here's one simple thing you can do to prevent yourself from unwittingly contributing to rabbit cruelty and exploitation:

Don't buy cat toys made with rabbit fur. Look for labels on the toy that say 100% synthetic materials or that list out all the materials. Although if the toy comes from China, I'm not sure I would trust the label. It's already been documented that garments with materials from China that were advertised as faux fur have sometimes contained real fur.

If the toy has no label, be skeptical. If the fur feels soft, assume it's from a rabbit. But coarser fur could also be from a rabbit. Express your concerns to a store manager. Note that store employees may have no idea if the fur came from animals. Or they could be misinformed.

You may think, and/or salespeople may tell you, that cats "love" to play with real fur toys. Guess what—cats also often love to play with scrunched-up "sealed for your protection" wrappers from salad dressing bottles. You can provide your cat with a wonderful, stimulating, fun, diverse playing environment without resorting to cruelty. How you play with your cat is more important than the toys you have. But of course there are hundreds of innovative, quality cat toys made without fur.


Friends of Rabbits is a local rabbit rescue group with volunteers who are highly dedicated and knowledgeable about companion rabbit issues.

Here's one well-meant and incorrect assertion we hear a lot: "I'd love to adopt a rabbit but my cat would never tolerate such a thing." Well, you'd be surprised. Like just about everyone in rabbit rescue, I know lots of homes with both cats and rabbits, and they co-exist amazingly well. Our cat was re-homed to us mostly because he was aggressive to other cats. But there have been no incidents with him and our companion rabbit.

Not that you should just carelessly add a rabbit to a household that has a cat, or vice versa. You should introduce the animals slowly, under controlled conditions, and use positive and negative reinforcement—gentle only, of course. You should also confine the rabbit in a room that is inaccessible to the cat(s) when there are no responsible adult humans around.

I point out this oft-stated objection to rabbit adoption in hope that people will realize that you certainly can have rabbits and cats in the same home. The more potential adopters who know this, the better our chances for placing homeless rabbits into able, willing, and loving homes.

While I'm on the subject...rabbits and dogs often get along just fine, and sometimes are best buddies. Not every dog is a suitable candidate for rabbit housemate. As you might expect, breed and temperament are major factors. But again, please don't rule out rabbit adoption just because you have a dog.

Friends of Rabbits volunteers can tell you lots more about cat-rabbit and dog-rabbit integration, as well as how to "bunny-proof" those parts of your home in which a rabbit will inhabit, how to feed a rabbit for optimum health and vitality, how to choose a qualified veterinarian (the average dog and cat vet will not have the special training and experience necessary to treat and diagnose rabbits), and much more.


I'll be helping out at both the RabbitWise and Friends of Rabbits tables Friday through Sunday during the 2008 Animal Rights National Conference. Come by and say hello if you'll be at the conference. Remember, it doesn't cost anything to visit the exhibit hall.

You can spot the RabbitWise tables table pretty easily: The volunters will be wearing bunny ears. (Well, most of them will...) And here are a couple bonus reasons to stop by the Friends of Rabbits table: 1) We'll be selling jewelry that's made by one of the group's volunteers. It's one of the ways we raise funds. The jewelry is excellent quality. Yes, of course, we have some bunny-themed pieces. 2) We have a scrapbook of adopted bunnies on beds and couches, cavorting, and just being cute. It's a nice respite between hearing about the ungodly ways in which animals throughout the world are mistreated. It's nice to see some success stories.


Let me also put in a plug for two other local groups that will be sharing a booth at the conference: Pet Store Cruelty and Cats Rule! Feline Rescue. I've got to wrap up the post, so I'll go into detail another time. But these are both great groups. Check out the adopted animals display at the table. Again, some good news.

But there's lots more to do.

To create a society that treats animals with love and respect instead of as mere property is a formidable task. Transforming society is never easy. Those who profit from the status quo, from exploiting animals, resist giving up any of their unjust privileges. But on the other hand, I think people ultimately want to do good, and to lead a moral life, and it feels good to do what's right. We have to get to the point where animals are respected as individuals with profound interests that deserve to be legally protected, and where cruelty to animals—including killing for pleasure or convenience—is shunned, and is abolished as much as possible— certainly at an institutional level. It's a long struggle, but with magnificent rewards for both animals and humans at the end. How wonderful it will be to live in a world in which animals need not fear us, and in which people have no desire to harm animals, and furthermore put that compassion into action in their everyday lives. In this post are some of the people and organizations that are helping to get us there.

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, Cats Rule, Friends of Rabbits, petstorecruelty.org, rabbits, RabbitWise

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Eric Prescott, author of ananimalfriendlylife.com, founder and director of the Boston Vegan Association, and tireless animal rights advocate. Eric, my wife Maureen, and I had a delicious dinner at Java Green. Then Eric and I enjoyed some stimulating conversation about animal welfare, animal rights, abolitionism, morality, religion—nothing heavy. :) Seriously, though we don't agree on everything—heck, part of being vegan at this point in time is being an individual and thinking independently—I am deeply appreciative of his unwavering commttiment to bringing justice and peace to animals—and the world at large—and I am impressed by his well-thought out strategy and activism. The animals are fortunate to have his articulate, impassioned, and knowledgeable voice speaking on their their behalf. It's been my privilege to get to know him better.

Eric will be speaking as well moderating panel discussions at the AR2008 conference starting tonight.

Labels: ananimalfriendlylife.com, Boston Vegan Association, Eric Prescott

Time permitting, the next few posts will be thoughts, observations, and/or reports related to the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) Animal Rights 2008 Conference. If you can fit it into your schedule and budget, I highly recommend attending, even if you're neither vegan nor active in animal advocacy. You'll hear inspiring speakers, meet a variety of fascinating people, learn an abundance of new things, and probably walk away energized with ideas if not life-changing goals.

Note that you can visit the exhibit hall for free.

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008

[Updated 8/14/2008, 9:45 am]

This next section takes a close look at how consumption of animal protein, and dairy products in particular, has a negative effect on bone health. T. Colin Campbell, PhD, explains this phenomenon very well in The China Study; he also points out how those mega-calcium pills may be worsening rather than reducing your risk of osteoporosis [emphasis mine]:


More to follow...

Labels: animal protein, bone health, calcium, China Study, dairy, osteoporosis, protein, The China Study

From the Washington Post:


Don't switch to chicken. That has its own considerable health problems, and you may end up increasing your contribution to animal suffering ten-fold, since chickens are so much smaller than cows and are virtually unprotected from pain and suffering during transport and slaughter. Try veggie ground beef, veggie sausage, and veggie burgers. We'll cover homemade veggie burgers right after the posts on dairy.

As you reduce your meat intake, you also reduce the chances of E. coli and salmonella outbreaks, because as these two essays -- Angry Doctors Use 1,000 Tomatoes To Spell Out Salmonella Source For FDA: "It’s The Meat, Stupid!" and Why We’ve Got Salmonella In Our Tomatoes -- show, the prime source of these pathogens, which can contaminate fruits and vegetables, is animal agriculture.

Labels: beef, beef recall, E. coli, food safety, ground beef, meat recall, Morningstar Farms, recall, salmonella, steak strips, veggie ground beef, Whole Foods