¡Viva la Vegolución!

"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall." —Che Guevara

Here's a bit of good news for animals and animal lovers alike. Che Guevara's granddaughter Lydia Guevara, herself a vegetarian, posed in New York the other day for PETA's first campaign promoting vegetarianism in South America. It will be launched first in Argentina, where Che Guevara was born, and then internationally. The poster will debut in October in magazines and posters. My 19-year-old grandson loved the Che tshirt we brought back for him from Guatemala last fall. Think he'll like a Lydia poster for his birthday this fall?

BANNED - Veggie Love

Too hot for Superbowl!

Heh heh. GO PETA!


I've been a veggie for years and highly recommend it.


It's way healthier, although I did have my cheesy puff phase. But if the PETA video offends your moral, aesthetic, or intellectual sensibilities, or you are outraged because they are exploiting women by pandering to stupid, sexist pigs remember that glamourless guys like Pythagoras, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Van Gogh, and Albert Einstein were also vegetarians. I don't know about Cartman.

Have a heart?

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that is the essence of inhumanity." ~George Bernard Shaw

The Humane Society posted some undercover footage from a slaughterhouse in California. Even meat eaters should be outraged and ashamed by this. Any conscious, feeling being would be.

A day in the life
(Warning: graphic undercover footage)

What you can do

(Please do it)

animals cows vegetarianism

Meat-guzzler

(I received these excerpts from DawnWatch, an animal advocacy media site.)
Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
by Mark Bittman for the NYT

"A sea change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.

It’s meat.

"The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

"Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."

Bittman also explains how factory farms contributes to global warming:

"Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word 'raising' when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

"To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days."

The article covers the impact of our meat eating on world hunger:

"Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States."

He also tells us that in meat production the use "of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people." And he notes the many other health problems caused by high meat consumption, such as "heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes." All this while, "It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources."

He discusses environmentalism and animal welfare:
"Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure 'lagoons' pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)"

And he writes:
"Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?"

The whole article is superb. I urge you to read it at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html

Those unfamiliar with "the horrors of raising meat in confinement" check out the photo galleries at www.FactoryFarming.com

#29

magpie and i
we are alone on opposite
sides of the glass today
then she flies away

From the feet up

M. Lee and I had our first foot massages today (Kathy's treat) and are we hooked! Being our resident expert researcher, M. Lee picked the place but, as he likes to keep his sources to himself, you didn't hear that he read about it at Yelp.com from me.




That little tidbit is definitely off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush. But Yelp is a user driven site so what the hey? Give it a whirl.



Los Angeles proper has a new Chinatown located where Little Italy used to be. That's where we had lunch yesterday, but the real new Chinatown is a few miles east of LA in San Gabriel, which has become a massive Asian ethno-burb. Incidentally, East West Magazine calls it the foot-massage capital of the country. That's where we ended up going. We started with Dim Sum at 261 Mission, then went to CCM Health Inc. I have nothing to compare them to but when Kathy's in China she gets a foot massage every day. She rated them as one of the best.



In spite of having a horribly dry corporate sounding name, CCM turned out to be a tiny, homey hole in the wall with the ambient charm of a psyche's parlor but instead of crystal balls and tarot cards it is stuffed with big easy chairs and has a couple of corners curtained off for full body massage. Foot massages used to run about $70 an hour but are now so popular that competition is up and prices down. Ours were $15 an hour plus tip. We're planning to return again on Monday, which is our last day in LA and the Do Over - Pick Up Day. We all agree that a foot massage needs to be on the top of the list.



So. Now I'm a reviewer of foot massage parlors. Lovely. I never know where the words are going to take me. I am definitely not in charge here. For a while I was enjoying fitting the words to the page, like a crossword puzzle, not paying attention to what's filling the spaces as much as making sure they fit.



I'm kind of disgusted. No offense to reviewers. They get paid for writing the damn things. I'm just doing it because tapping away at a keyboard calms me. But at this point I'm like a poor rat in a cage tapping the pellet bar long after the pellets are gone. Sad.

But Los Angeles continues to be a fun city to visit.

We might as well be in a foreign country.

For most people in the world it is in a foreign country.

Hollywood,

City of Dreams.

Tomorrow we're going to Venice beach and I don't know where else. Our favorite place to eat so far is RFD, a little place on La Cienega that serves delicious organic vegan cuisine.

Every day is packed with fun. I can't stand it anymore.

I feel completely out of sorts without a little angst to ground me.

[next]

Happy Tofurkey Day!

I'm in Oregon for the holiday, sitting on a nice, enclosed sun porch typing this. Not bad. I spent yesterday with my grandkids. They are with the other side of the family today. I'm fine with that. I hate holiday hubbub. I'll see them again tomorrow anyway. This afternoon M. Lee and I are having a nice vegetarian meal with parents and my oldest son, so it's all good. I hope, wherever you are and whatever you are doing, your day is also serene. But, if this year is your turn to have one of those memorably shitty holidays, I've had my share, try applying my magic POOF-Holiday-Be-Gone formula: It's not Thanksgiving. It's Thursday. (works on any holiday or occasion)

Marvel Meal, a winter delight

As Thanksgiving and winter are upon us it's time to whip up that first batch of Marvel Meal for the birds, so here's the recipe. It's tasty, nutritious and, best of all, vegetarian. It doesn't get any better than that. Just be sure the birds have access to water when you give them Marvel Meal or anything containing peanut butter. Birds have small throats and have been known to choke to death on peanut butter.

Louie's Stamp of Approval

Marvel Meal

Mix together:

1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or plain but NOT SALTED*)
1 cup vegetable shortening (like Crisco)
4 cups cornmeal (yellow is higher in vitamin A)
1 cup white flour
It makes a soft dough that you can put in a suet log or basket.
Store in the refrigerator or freezer.

~ from ornithologist John Terres

*SALT IS VERY BAD FOR BIRDS. IT CAN KILL THEM SO BE SURE TO USE UNSALTED PEANUTBUTTER.

Stop slaughter of America's wild horses

Today's the day!

Homestretch for Horses

With the U.S. House of Representatives set to vote on a permanent horse slaughter ban, animal advocates and lawmakers rally to keep American horses off the menu. more

• Video: Be part of the national rally to ban horse slaughter.

• Take Action: Join the charge, and call today.

Call your Representative today.
The vote is tomorrow!

If you need a script here's the one I used. It's the one provided by the Humane Society. Do it. It only takes a couple of minutes. Swamp 'em!


"I am a constituent and I am calling to ask that my Representative please protect American horses from slaughter and support H.R. 503, the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. I also urge my Representative to oppose any amendments to H.R. 503. I am very concerned about American horses and I don't want them slaughtered."



If you'd like to read more there's a lot links on the subject here: Lexidiem: Barbaro Burgers Legal after Thursday?






H.R. 503 wild horses

Fatty Leland's moving day

When Mr. Lee checked in the kitchen this morning, there was (not so) Fatty Leland looking up at him. The Smart Mouse trap worked the first night. I bought it through the PETA website (search for "humane mouse trap). That is one big easy green door! As it turned out, Fatty Leland wasn't fat at all or afraid. He was tiny and curious. And cute. I have to admit it did briefly occur to me that perhaps it would be nice to keep him as a pet but only for a moment. So, though there may still be a fat Fatty Leland around somewhere, the news of the day is that Fatty Leland has joined the other Lelands out at the willow grove.

Whenever I take new mice to the river they scatter in a second, the only exception being one little fellow who jumped head first into the tiny water cup inside the trap. He butted it 3 or 4 times before realizing what the problem was. Fatty Leland on the other hand did not instantly flee when I opened the trap "Door of Freedom". He ambled out and explored his new world, after all ... mouse genius.

I always bring a pile of goodies when I leave off new mice, a little send-off feast. I suppose by now, given how many trips I've made, the Lelands must think I do a mouse Meals on Wheels.

If you watch carefully you can follow Fatty Leland at the end hopping away through the grass.

Mouse moving day

There's a mouse in the house, in fact several. They are in the garage and beginning to get into things so today I bought a humane live trap and filled it with goodies. There's all the makings for a get down mouse party; cheese, a little cup of peanut butter and a tiny bowl of water to wash it all down with. It's time for them to go.









I got the Tin Cat. I wish it were a little bigger but it will be okay for a short stay. Also, it's a bummer that it's still so cold out. I hope they do alright out in the wild. It's a hawk eat mouse world. I'd rather not do this at all. I've got nothing against mice. The way I see it, they have as much right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the rest of us on this planet. I just prefer they enjoy themselves somewhere else.

I've only used a mouse trap once before, a long time ago, when I was in the Krsna Movement. I was living in a cabin on the farm commune in West Virginia. It was a very funky building with foam insulation. Sane people blow the foam inside the walls but here the brahmachari's, under order of the evil, crippled tyrant who ran the place, sprayed the insulation directly on the walls (to save time). It was a polyurethane cave. The walls were motley, bubbly, crusty and yellow from wood smoke. I moved into a tiny room already occupied by a mouse who crunched on the foam all night. I couldn't sleep so eventually, against my better judgment, I set a conventional trap and in the morning there was a tiny, little nose under the spring. I felt absolutely horrible. The Tin Cat, while probably not a fun place to find yourself, is at least something both the mouse and I can live with.

A giant blast of sun beams

Benjamin Zephaniah. I love this guy! When asked what he would eat if he was in a desert with no food in sight except a cow, he said: "I'd find out what the cow was eating and join it."

He's a Brit who prefers to simply call to himself an oral poet but with him that covers a lot of ground. All I can say is please treat yourself to one of his videos.

I just discovered him while reading an article on vegetarian ethics. He became vegetarian at the age of 11 and vegan at 13: "I was disgusted by the taste and texture, and the thought of having flesh and blood against my teeth," he said. "Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay."

His words explode like the acorn.




vegetarian rap poetry music entertainment

Fur Free

Veggie doggie delights

Vegetarian dog food is showing up in more doggie bowls these days but, for people who prefer home cooking, I just came across a wonderful collection of canine vegetarian recipes posted by Veronica Nochel. Some of these dishes sound so tasty you might want to make a little extra for the cook. Martha Stewart has given up wearing fur but she's way behind Veronica when it comes to this.

Do you have a crock pot? Here's an easy one, Veggie "Beef " Stew. And for that lazy summer afternoon yard party, consider adding a canine vegetarian barbecue with canine corn bread to the menu. On a chilly day, the same corn bread goes really well with a nice warm bowl of Chihuahua Chili. A great improvement over chili of chihuahua.

Yummy for Dogs offers Pupcakes for birthdays and Fido (carob) Fudge for those decadent evenings and Peanut Butter Power Bites for ski days and for any old day, Pizza for the Pupperonis or Hummus for Hounds with Pomeranian Potato Chips. And certainly no menu would be complete without Doggie Dreamsicles, which sounds like a real bowl licker.

This site has a lot of recipes you can print out for free but you can also buy the Yummy for Dogs: A Cook Book for Canines. Veronica donates all the royalty profits from the sale of her book to animal rescue and advocacy organizations. I'd say that's a pretty good deal, especially when you consider the plight of the poor dogs locked up and suffering in the laboratories of unscrupulous pet food companies like Iams. If all this is just too much, I understand, but at least boycott Iams. When it comes to animal welfare, they are scoundrels.

Help stop Canada's massive seal slaughter

Use your buying power to tell the Canadian government
end the seal hunt!

In March Canadian fishermen will descend on the homes of the Canadian seals and bludgeon their newborns to death. Even though most Canadians oppose the commercial seal hunt, their government and seafood industry continue to support the slaughter. More than 317,000 seals were slaughtered in the 2005 seal hunt. A staggering 98.5% of the seals killed were three months old or younger, some of them skinned while still conscious and able to feel pain. This barbarism needs to be stopped. Not convinced? Watch the slideshow.

Speak up for them because they can't speak for themselves.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts so get busy:
*Sign the petition.
*Download the Humane Society's pocket guide to boycotting Canadian seafood.
*Boycott Canadian seafood. See the restaurants, chefs and companies that have already joined the boycott.
*Buy seal stamps, tshirt or sweatshirt.
*Help spread the word. Download images of the slaughter for your website, postcard, stationary etc.
*Tell a friend.

Happy New Year

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dog. Why not go give your dog a hug and a treat?

Life at the end of a chain

I'm not the world's number one country music fan but
Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn
bring a tear to my eye with this video.
All too often helpless animals die at the end of a chain.

Recipes for a winter's day

Lots of action at the Bird Park today. It's been snowing and the birds are hitting the feeders hard. Even the pigeons are mining the snow for bits of fallen sunflower seeds. I put peanuts out a while ago and a group of magpies instantly appeared and carried them off. There was a one I'd never seen before, a fellow who's left leg is a stump ending just where the foot would be. He's plump though and did alright at the suet cage. I've seen magpies raid other magpie stashes as soon as they fly off but, until this morning, never saw one come back and dig a peanut out of an old hiding place. That caused a stir. He got chased like Little Jack Horner with a plum on his nose. The sun is out now and everyone is gone for the moment. But they'll be back. Oh yes. They'll be back.

I buy suet for the birds and always feel bad about it. I'm vegetarian and hate supporting the meat industry, but it's hard entirely avoiding its byproducts. I've stopped using leather bags but I still wear leather shoes. And I buy dog and cat treats although I stick to the fish flavors. I eat fish myself so what can I say? But buying those little packages of slaughterhouse suet really bothers me; each one chuck full of murrrrrder. I wince whenever I plop one into the basket.

However, I just found a recipe for vegetarian suet credited to ornithologist John Terres. I read that birds love it and it's cheaper than commercial blocks. Wonderful. I'm always looking for ways to be cruelty free.

PLEASE NOTE: Birds have tiny, little throats and have been know to choke to death on peanut butter. While Marvel Meal is a safe recipe, especially designed for them, it's always a good idea when feeding it to make water available as well. ALSO NEVER GIVE BIRDS SALTED FOOD. IT'S VERY BAD FOR THEM.



Marvel Meal

Mix together:
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or plain  but USE ONLY UNSALTED PEANUT BUTTER.)
1 cup vegetable shortening (cruelty free)
4 cups cornmeal (yellow is higher in vitamin A)
1 cup white flour
It makes a soft dough that you can put in a suet log or basket.
Store in the refrigerator or freezer.

~ by ornithologist John Terres

Marvel Meal has the full blessing of Louie, Guardian of the Bird Park.

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!

International Animal Rights Day

To live is so startling
it leaves little time
for anything else.
-- Emily Dickinson


Ethics and society.

December 10th, is International Animal Rights Day. Light a candle. Write a letter. Make a donation. Sign this petition. Give your pet an extra pat.

McDonald's scalds chickens alive to make their McNuggets. Labs and schools dissect animals while they are still alive and fully conscious. Unimaginably cruel tests that are redundant, unnecessary or merely padding for an institution's research budget continue to be performed on animals around the clock. If you don't believe in this, sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights . Contrary to public assumptions, vivisectionists are not strictly regulated. The reality is that in the lab virtually anything goes, and animal researchers are a law unto themselves. For example, New York's Columbia University is guilty of committing grotesque abuses to animals in their laboratories including routinely performing invasive surgeries and leaving the helpless, suffering animals to die in their cages without any painkillers.

In labs worldwide, animals are cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that
because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. This is beyond barbaric.

Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are still unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation is not only preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year. read more