Poor Barkie

She lives behind walls. Does she ever leave the compound? Does she ever see her own kind or does she only hear them passing or from afar? During the day she is mostly quiet but when night comes she begins barking at the dark. They are inside and oblivious ... eating and socializing. Do they ever glance down at her through the window? Are they are all deaf, even the children, or is her voice and her life nothing to them, no more than background movement like wind in the trees or passing cars ... something to be ignored?

About 20:00 hours she starts barking in her oddly deep voice. By 22:00 she is barking in earnest. Every night without exception she looks into the hedge wall, which is about 14 feet or 4 meters high, and barkbarkbarkbarkbarks then, still barking, walks to the other side of the compound and barkbarkbarkbarkbarks into the hedge wall there then back barkbarkbarkbarkbarking and forth barkbarkbarkbarkbarking, sometimes stopping to barkbarkbarkbarkbark in the middle facing our bedroom window, barkbarkbarkbarkbark...barkbarkbarkbarkbarking back and forth barkbarkbark...barkbarkbarking...barely pausing until at least 02:00 hours and then gradually barkbarkbark slows bark bark down bark ... bark until early dawn.

I don't hate her. I feel very sorry for her. It's her indifferent humans I resent. She is prisoner of their selfishness ... their twisted sense of what ... security, prestige, paranoia? He conducts some kind of isolation therapy in his pool in the summer. People come. He gives them an inflatable wet suit complete with isolation head gear and a breathing apparatus then, as they float on their backs in the middle of his pool, he stands beside them probably crooning some kind of relaxation meditation but, at night, his freaked out, lonely, desperate little dog barkbarkbarks and he offers no comfort at all. He's an asshole and his wife is an asshole and their children will likely grow up to be heartless assholes just like them.

When I complain to my Portuguese friends they just laugh. "Ah Portugal. This is just that way it is." Fuck that. It's animal abuse. It's anti-social. It's fucking stupid. When we first got here I thought I'd never sleep again. Now even I sleep but, for me, it will never be "ah Portugal". I don't see animals as tools and food. I respect them as sentient beings, non-human persons as so many do today. My friends tell me I can report the noise that, if enough people complain, perhaps the town will do something about it. I haven't done that yet but this story is not over.

Summer solistice 2019

In the southern hemisphere this is the shortest day of the year, the longest night, the pause, the time of in-going and renewal, the beginning of winter. Here in the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the dance, the lingering and going about. Wherever you are, whatever species you encounter as you go along your way today, be kind.

Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice is also the beginning of the 10 day Yulin dog meat "festival" during which thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, blow-torched, skinned, and boiled alive for a 10 day drunken "feast".

Please help shut down the Yulin!

Sign the HSI petition and pass the link around. Thank you.

Rest in peace, Sudan. I am so sorry.

Sudan, the last northern white rhino has died. His death leaves only two females of his subspecies alive in the world, his daughter and granddaughter and they are too inbred to conceive.

RIP Sudan :-(

Poachers and the black market animal horn trade is responsible for this pending extinction. And why? Because there is still a market for rhino horn on the bullshit folk or traditional Asian "medicine" market. Horns are believed to give a sexually impaired man big stiffies. It's a lie. Traditional "medicine" so-called doctors and herbalists add Viagra to the mix and sell the compound to fools and now the northern white rhino has paid the ultimate price. For this same reason, elephants are in line to go extinct as well as all the other horned animals in the world.

I just can not comprehend why we have not yet internationally stopped this criminal, immoral, unethical, cruel, deceptive trade. Oh, that's right! Unscrupulous shit-heel politicians are making money on it. The situation has reached such a critical juncture I seriously entertain the idea that idea that dealers and poachers should be sentenced to death and buyers should receive massive fines and serious jail time. Oh, and maybe give shit-heel politicians some or all of the penalties too. There's an idea.

Last moments of Sudan's life

Rest in peace, Sudan. Words cannot convey how sorry I am for what my species as done to yours.

Wild Elephants salutes the men who rescued their baby elephant from a ditch

Squirrels, squirrels squirrels

Today is the Big Day

Squirrel Appreciation Day!

Of course, it's best not to feed wildlife but I'm sure that if you toss a few peanuts to a squirrel, she wouldn't mind. In any case, remember they were here before us so at least let them pass in peace.

More squirrels, squirrels, squirrels!

Five days until National Squirrel Appreciation Day

Remember to pick up some UNSALTED peanuts at the store. National Squirrel Appreciation  Day is on Sunday.

Freedom, sweet freedom!

These animals are tasting freedom for the first time pic.twitter.com/zd1yfQh9kz

— The Dodo (@dodo) May 21, 2017

Getty and the goats

The first time I stood before Van Gough's "Irises", I cried. As far as I am concerned, it is the jewel of the Getty. And I cried again yesterday. I don't know why. I don't cry easily. I tear up over animal videos on YouTube and am outraged when children are drawn into the gruesome atrocities we adults spool and strut but, beyond that, I am dried eyed. Fool's tale. But this painting makes me cry.




"Irises" is part of the Getty's permanent collection but currently the museum is temporarily hosting a very disturbing exhibit by photographer Graciela Iturbide and good for them. Otherwise, they are merely caretakers of a lovely, very expensive archive of safe antiquities.




One section, titled "The Goat's Dance", I found not just provocative but heartbreaking. It put me in such a very dark place. I am in Los Angeles with M. Lee and his mother and at this point, they had the good sense to go their own way. We decided to meet in an hour and a half and I sat in front of the photos and wrote for a while. Sometimes, it's the only thing left to do.








After the Getty, we stopped by New Dvaraka, the Krishna temple on Watseka Ave. I lived there years ago, and at the temple's original location on La Cienega Blvd. It is so strange going back. We were there for the 4:40 darsan with the dieties, (viewing). I bought a new pair of kartals (cymbals) then we went across town for falafel, which turned out to be too rich.






So tomorrow in our little excursion de culture , off to Santee Alley, Chinatown, the LACMA, Rodeo Drive, followed by a drive through in Beverly Hills.

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Fur farm hell

Click here




Barbaric Trade

In the summer of 2005, investigators from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) traveled to an animal market in Guangzhou in Southern China and reported that:

"Dogs and cats crammed were in tiny wire-mesh cages, and were visibly exhausted. Many had been on the road for days with no food or water. Some were so lethargic they could barely move. Others were aggressive and fought constantly, having been driven insane from confinement and exposure. They were covered in gaping wounds. Many animals slowly perished in their cages; other dead bodies were piled on top of the cages. Some of the animals still had collars, a sign that they were once someone's beloved companions.

As many as 8,000 dogs and cats were loaded onto each truck in crowded cages stacked one on top of another. One by one, the cages were tossed from the top of the truck to the ground 10 feet below, often shattering the legs of the animals inside. The animals were lifted out with long metal tongs and thrown over a seven-foot fence to be killed and skinned. They were bludgeoned, hanged, boiled or bled to death, and strangled with wire nooses. Many were still alive while their skins were peeled away.

The fur stripped from these poor animals is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from another species and exported to other countries to be sold in retail stores worldwide.




In the photo on the right Rick Swain is holding the pelt of a skinned cat, Heather Mills McCartney is holding a coat made from 31 brown cats and Rick Wakeman is holding a rug made from 4 golden retriever dogs. At the conference, Struan Stevenson MEP also showed a coat made from 42 alsatian puppies.

78 animals had to suffer a cruel, vicious death to make 4 garments ....... Please help put an end to this barbaric trade.

Watch the footage on Peta TV

Hell on China Fur Farms
Chinese Dog and Cat Markets
Cruelty to Cats and Dogshttp://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/http://www.furisdead.com/feat-dogcatfur.asp

China's official response
In November 2005, a spokesman for the Chinese Ambassador in London told BBC News,

"Though cats and dogs are not endangered, we do not encourage the ill treatment of cats and dogs . . . But, anyway, the fur trade mostly feeds markets in the US and Europe. This fur is not consumed in China. So the Americans and Europeans should accept the blame… We have no plans to clamp down on this internally that I am aware of - it is for the US and Europeans to take their own action. They should boycott fur as a fashion material."

The Chinese government's unwillingness to stop animal abuse makes them as guilty of these horrendous crimes as the people committing them. Please write a letter to the Chinese ambassador in your country and protest China's apathy and total lack of compassion for the needless suffering of innocent animals. In the US write:

His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador of the People's Republic of China
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008

202-328-2574
202-328-2582 (fax)
chinaembassy_us@fmprc.gov.cn
Also sign the online petition
to the Chinese Embassy in the US.

Get informed. Join ban on the entire fur trade. They are deplorable relics of a savage past. Life is life. No animal should suffer living or dying in those conditions. Boycott those who support the fur trade.

Other petitions against fur traders:
EU Commissioner, Markos Kyprianou
Burlington Coat Factory
A petition to ban seal hunting in Canada

Report on the global fur industry (in German and Italian)

Information on petitions in other countries


Now that you've worked so hard signing petitions and writing letters, relax and have some fun kicking the Fur Ho's ass!

Animals in Katrina's wake

Hurricane Katrina left countless animals abandoned and starving on the streets. They need help too. Please write congress and the senate and insist that federal rescue operations include them. Also ask that animal welfare organizations be allowed into the area to do their work.

Contact
Congressional representatives
Senators

Donate
Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund
North Shore Animal League of America

International Fund for Animal Welfare
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

PETA and PETCO agreement

Rat Woman, Hagwar and Buug
Invisible Theatre

Good news. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc. announced an agreement today that will advance animal welfare across the country. PETA will end its campaign against the national pet food and supply retailer and PETCO will end the sale of large birds in its stores. As there really is no such thing as a "cage bird", this is encouraging. PETCO also agreed to make some changes to benefit rats and mice, including separating the animals by gender to prevent breeding. A lot of these mice end up as live food for pet snakes. Ugh. I don't respect people who do that. Anyway, now the mice will have a bit better life along the way. That counts for something.

Body screen TV protest

Bound to a wheelchair and repeatedly crossing the road in front of a local KFC, a protester in a giant chicken costume led a protest today against KFC suppliers’ abusive treatment of chickens. People passed out leaflets and held signs that proclaimed, "KFC Tortures Chickens." One man wore a body screen TV showing shocking undercover video footage of chickens in factory farms and slaughterhouses.

What is done to chickens would be illegal if it were done to dogs, cats, cows, or pigs. However, chickens are excluded from the only federal law that protects farmed animals, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. An undercover investigation at a Moorefield, W.Va., slaughterhouse that supplies chickens to KFC revealed that workers were kicking, throwing, and stomping on live birds. Recently, PETA released the findings of an undercover investigation of a slaughterhouse operated by KFC'’s number one supplier, Tyson Foods, and found that workers were ripping conscious chicken's heads off, slaughter machinery was systematically mutilating chickens, and thousands of birds were being scalded to death after entering the defeathering tank while they were still conscious.

For more information, please visit KentuckyFriedCruelty.com.

Bush names trophy hunter to direct US Fish and Wildlilfe Service

Bush recently named Matthew J. Hogan, a big game trophy hunter and Safari Club lobbyist, to protect our nation's fish and wildlife. Lovely. The fox is guarding the hen house. No surprise, of course. Bush is all about maximum exploitation. What a fuck.

Animal Rights Day

Sorry for the graphic nature of the photos. I know they're disturbing. It has taken me a long time to be able to face them myself. I don't generally force them on people like this but I'm posting them today in conjunction with Animal Rights Day to underscore the seriousness of the problem. Tomorrow, things will be back to normal (whatever that is.)

Today is International Animal Rights Day. Light a candle or two. Write a letter. Do something nice for a friend. Read the declaration then, please, sign it. 





Slaughterhouses are also torture chambers. Here's an excerpt of a slaughterhouse employee published by the Washington Post:

"The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.

They blink. They make noises, he said softly. The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. They die, said Moreno, piece by piece..."

International Day for Animal Rights

Friday, December 10th, is the 7th annual International Animal Rights Day (IARD). People all over the world will be gathering in candlelight vigils calling for the recognition of the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights. Count me in. I'm lighting a candle or three in my little room.

UDAR excerpt:
"Ultimately, the rights of animals threaten the freedom of some human beings to use them as they see fit, or to further their own particular ends. The arguments against the rights of animals withstand neither logical nor ethical scrutiny because they are the rearguard action of a defeated, specious philosophy.

The rights of human beings have been won at the expense of the privileges of the rich and the powerful, and in the face of their resistance. The source of resistance to this emancipation of animals is not reason or justice, but a false notion of human self-interest."

So? A candle. Big whoop. What difference can it possible make? But, in spite of this mocking inner voice, I'm doing it anyway, joining in spirit with others who believe that in an ethical and humane society animals need and deserve rights as well.

UDAR excerpt:
"Science, as much as experience, teaches us that it is no longer possible to assume that animals are mere machines, or bundles of instinct and reflex: they may flourish in freedom or languish under oppression just as we do. We may no longer seek refuge in ignorance."

"There will come a day when such men as myself will view the slaughter of innocent creatures as horrible a crime as the murder of his fellow man. Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and
its beauty". ~ Albert Einstein