Month: March 2013
I didn’t realize BARBARIANS live in North Carolina!
It appears certain U.S. Legislators won’t be satisfied until wolves in America are a thing of the past once again . An article entitled “Hatch, fellow senators petition to end gray wolves’ protected status” in ksl news, Utah, begins:
Led by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, 72 senators and representatives formally asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Monday to delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act. The request in a letter sent to the agency argues that the gray wolf is no longer an endangered species and that uncontrolled gray wolf population growth is a threat to other indigenous wildlife as well as the hunting and ranching industries.
It’s almost laughable that Senator Hatch and his cronies expect us to believe they suddenly care so much about “indigenous wildlife” since—if allowed to hatch—Orrin Hatch’s half-baked, half-witted plan to delist wolves would effectively seal the fate of one the…
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“Meat, Lies & Videotape (A Deeply Flawed TED Talk)” – Robert Goodland, Free From Harm
Allan Savory’s TED talk (Source: Free From Harm)
Excerpt:
Climate change is transboundary, meaning it doesn’t respect borders. So wherever livestock might be raised under Mr. Savory’s approach, they would surely be vulnerable to disruptive climate events. Such events caused large-scale livestock die-offs in 2009 in every region of the world, including
And
However, while Mr. Savory himself cautions that most livestock today are produced unsustainably, meat promoters can be seen spinning Mr. Savory’s claims as if they apply equally to factory-farmed meat. Yet it’s no new trick to promote factory farmed meat as grass-fed. A grassland producer has himself noted that most marketing of “grass-fed” beef is a hoax.Beef marketed this way commands a 200-300% price premium — so the incentive for producers to cheat is overwhelming, as evidenced in one videotape after another.
You can read the full Article at: Free From Harm.org
James Cromwell Won’t Face Criminal Charges Over UW Protest ~ PETA
Update: Good news! We love James Cromwell even more than we already did because of hiswillingness to face arrest to help bring attention to cruel brain experiments on cats at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and now we love that local prosecutors have declined to bring criminal disorderly conduct charges against him—as well as against the PETA staff member who was arrested with him—for pointing out that the experiments are unethical and must be stopped. The pair have instead been cited for noncriminal county ordinance violations—similar to a traffic ticket.
The USDA’s documentation confirms that pain was inflicted on cats—including Double Trouble—who suffered from chronic life-threatening infections after having holes drilled into their skulls and metal coils implanted in their eyes and being constantly starved to force them to obey commands. Please join James Cromwell today in urging the
Please Help! Ask the University of Wisconsin to STOP Torturing & Starving Cats!
UW-MADISON’S HISTORY OF ABUSING CATS
Unfortunately, UW-Madison‘s abusive treatment of Double Trouble was not an anomaly. Nearly every cat who has been subjected to this experiment has suffered from chronic infections as a result of the traumatic head and eye wounds that experimenters inflict upon them. To make matters worse, the cats imprisoned in this laboratory are coerced to cooperate in experiments by starving them of food for up to six days at a time. A U.S. Department of Agriculture report prompted by a PETA complaint found that there was a “pattern of recurring infections” at this laboratory and that some cats had such serious health complications that they had to be euthanized. One cat, NJ, had to have her eye cut out because of an incurable infection caused by the metal coil implanted in her eye.
Here are the disturbing stories of cats who were tormented in this experiment during the same time period as Double Trouble, some of whom have been imprisoned there fore more than a decade: continue reading…
PHOTO SOURCE: PETA
How you can help:
Please use the form below to contact the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents. Urge the board members to use their authority to halt these cruel experiments immediately.
Please send polite comments to (copy and paste entire block of email addresses into the SEND field on your email):
Feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.
Subject: Stop Cruel Experiments on Cats at UW-Madison!
Letter: I was dismayed to learn that the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) is still tormenting cats in cruel and useless “sound localization” experiments. Cats used in these experiments have steel coils implanted in their eyes, holes drilled into their skulls, and electrodes implanted in their brains. Sometimes, they even have their ears cut off or are intentionally deafened by having a toxic chemical applied to their inner ear. They are then deprived of food for several days in order to coerce them to look in the direction of sounds during experimental sessions in which their heads are immobilized by a bolt screwed to their skulls.
Nearly every cat who has been subjected to this experiment has suffered from chronic bacterial infections as a result of the traumatic head and eye wounds inflicted on them. Because experimenters chronically starve these cats for days at a time, their immune systems are weakened. A former UW veterinarian who worked in this laboratory has stated that this makes their infections even more severe and even more difficult for the cats to stave off.
Internal UW documents and photographs obtained by PETA show that one cat subjected to this experiment, an orange tabby cat named Double Trouble, woke up while experimenters were cutting into her head. Like other cats used in these experiments, Double Trouble developed debilitating infections and became lethargic and depressed. She started to twitch and suffered paralysis in half her face. After UW faculty deemed the experiment a failure, Double Trouble was killed and decapitated so that her brain could be examined.
The experiment with Double Trouble has never been published, and similar studies on other cats are rarely cited and have never been identified as contributing to advancements in improving human hearing. Yet these cruel and sloppy experiments persist at UW. As someone who has authority over the activities of all UW campuses and an obligation to ensure that only worthwhile and ethical research projects are pursued, you are in a position to end this cruel project. I urge you to intervene and stop these experiments immediately. SOURCE
“If you want to be labeled a terrorist these days, all you have to do is show enough concern for animals that you are willing to be a watchdog.” ~ Robert Grillo, Free From Harm
Anxieties Rising in Meat Industry as Animal Activism’s Perceived Threat Looms Large
By Robert Grillo | March 25, 2013 |Free From Harm
The 2013 annual stakeholder’s meeting for the Animal Agriculture Alliance in May is entitled “Activists at the Door: Protecting Animals, Farms, Food & Consumer Confidence.” The expansive animal rights section of the AAA website features a subsection entitled “Agriculture is Outnumbered, Outfunded by Animal Activists.” It’s becoming increasingly clear that the perceived threat of activism to the agricultural industry and its key lobby group, AAA, is factoring heavily into their concerns.
The opening statement to the animal rights section of the AAA website sets the distorted tone with the following absurd misrepresentation of animal activism: “Radical activist organizations are leading the fight to grant animals the same legal rights as humans.” To suggest that the animal movement seeks to grant animals human rights to vote, to gay marriage, to abortion and to equal housing opportunities is no accident. It is a deliberate, underhanded smear tactic that shady politicians use to turn public sentiment against their opponents. The AAA sees their nemesis as a force to be defeated.
Keep reading. It gets even more interesting. Below this statement is a flowchart (AAA calls their “Activist Map”), displaying all of the major animal activism groups and how they …
PLEASE HELP THE WOLVES. EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS, YOU MUST HAVE SOME SEMBLANCE OF COMPASSION FOR THESE BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS WHO DESERVE TO C0-EXIST WITH US.
The BORGare coming for wolves. The Hive Collective is mobilizing its wolf hating troops to pressure the USFWS to delist wolves across the US. The take-over of America’s wolves is being led by the usual suspects: Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Sen. John Barasso (R-WY). A letter sent to Dan Ashe, USFWS Director, on March 22, 2013, implored him to remove wolves from the Endangered Species List ACROSS THE LOWER 48. 72 members of Congress signed off on it, mainly House Republicans with a smattering of Senate Republicans and a few Democrats thrown in.
Wolves reside in just nine states: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and sometimes California (with OR7 drifting in and out) and have been harassed, tortured, brutalized and hunted in the last four years, since the Spring of 2009 when our newly elected President Obama and his rancher Interior…
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Further developments on my “Cake Day” (birthday)
Today is my cake day (birthday) as previously posted. One of my co-workers ordered vegan cupcakes from a local bakery to celebrate. While we were all standing around stuffing our faces with refined sugar and flour, one of my (younger) co-workers asked me if I had any plans to celebrate. I told him that my Ex and my buddy Wheeza are coming over on Saturday and we are planning to have a Carol Burnett Night. [He looked confused] I told him that not too long ago, I had purchased from Time Life the Collector’s Edition Carol Burnett Box Set and seeing as we were all born in the ’60s (and grew up on Carol Burnett) we are going to eat, drink and watch Carol Burnett re-runs.
Do you want to know what he said next?
WHO IS CAROL BURNETT?
Now I feel OLD!
😦
Today is my cake day!
🙂
Why Everyone Should Be Angry About Factory Farming ~ Anajali Sareen, Huff-Po
Often times I am asked, why vegan? This is a tricky question because most people don’t want to know about the dark side of agriculture, especially Big Aggra. Most people don’t want to hear about the systemic abuse of cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys. More often than not, if I even hint about this topic, I get the hand followed by, “I don’t want know?” Not wanting to completely scare people off, I’ll down shift into the health benefits of a vegan diet. It would seem, more people care about the health benefits than the the fact they would be sparing lives that is to say, the lives of animals.
I work in an office and find it incredibly amusing when someone will bring in doughnuts from some artisan shop located in one of our urban-artsy, slightly left-of-center-neighborhoods and my office mates will throw up their arms in protest complaining about the evils of doughnuts. Really? Let me get this straight, you’ll eat so-called “organic free-range” egg (when nothing could be further from the truth) from an abused hen. You’ll eat veal, which is an abused, neglected, male dairy calf (and byproduct of the dairy industry). You will eat hamburger which is ground-up “spent” dairy cows but you won’t eat a doughnut? I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, “Organic” “Free-Range” “Grass-Fed” DOES NOT MEAN THESE ANIMALS LIVED A HAPPY LIFE BEFORE BEING SENT TO SLAUGHTER! Do your own research. There are many many sources that reveal this labeling is nothing more than that, labeling to dupe you the unsuspecting all trusting consumer into believing the milk you are drinking came from a happy cow, who frolicked in the California sun when in reality, that animal never set foot outside (except for when it was sent to slaughter) and was never allowed to bond or raise her young which is stolen from her so you can pour milk or cream in your coffee, milk on your cereal, eat cheese, yogurt and lastly, ice cream.
My feeling is simply this: EAT THE DOUGHNUT. You clearly do not care about your health if you’re consuming dairy, organic or otherwise, bacon, eggs, chicken and ground up cows. All of these animals are exploited, and none of them lived a good life before being slaughtered.
People say they don’t want to know or care. Well you know what, you should know and you should care because vegan or not, you’re eating this stuff and you’re feeding it to your kids. If you think the Ag-Gag laws are nothing more than a means to shut up us crazy “terrorist” animal rights activists, think again. Those laws will prevent ANYONE from looking under the hood. It also means, the inmates will be running the asylum, you know, self-regulating? Do you want the factory farm industry to self-regulate? Really? Fine. Go ahead, turn a deaf ear to the Ag-Gag laws and when and if you, your child or someone closed to you becomes sick from *e-Coli, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.
If you don’t believe me, check out this article by Anajali Sareen of Huff-Po. Perhaps she can convince why you should care.
Here is an excerpt:
One thing we should all be able to agree upon, however, is that factory farming isn’t good for anyone. Large-scale, industrialized animal agriculture is bad for the animals, bad for us and bad for the environment. It wreaks havoc upon worker wellness and human health and is inefficient from a world hunger perspective.
The animal agriculture industry is attempting to push bills across the nation that would make it harder for citizens to see what takes place inside factory farms. Once we’re no longer able to see inside these farms, it will be that much more difficult to change our broken system.
With our food system the way it currently is, there are many reasons to be angry about industrialized animal agriculture.
If you eating animals with nary a care for how they lived (and died) then clearly you do. not. care. So like I said, eat the doughnut and don’t forget to chase it with a glass of milk.
Rant over.
😐
-GAL 2013
“Aushwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re ONLY animals.” ~Theodor W. Adorno
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*Whole Foods sold fish so toxic in mercury that one customer’s blood levels had to be reported to the Center for Disease Control. (17) Whole Foods didn’t start identifying potentially mercury-laden fish in its California stores until the government forced them to do so. Even then, a quarter of Whole Foods stores failed to display proper signage as required by law. (18)
In 2008, five people had to be hospitalized after eating E.coli-contaminated beef from Whole Foods. The beef was sold even after it was supposed to have been recalled. (22) Others were sickened by bad milk from Whole Foods, resulting in “hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses…. One victim, a twenty-eight year old mother, will likely require a kidney transplant.”SOURCE
I’m About Sick of Control Freaks
What the hell’s going on with state lawmakers and wildlife agencies lately? With just a cursory glance at the headlines this morning I counted at least a half dozen cases of puffed-up politicians overstepping their bounds by offering up some non-human species to appease the bloodlust of a few of their freakiest constituents.
Headlines like “State lawmaker wants open season on woodchucks,” about Wisconsin state representative, Andre Jacque (R-De Pere), who is pedaling a bill that would remove woodchucks from Wisconsin’s protected species list and allow people to kill an unlimited number of them during a season that would run nearly year-round. Jacque said woodchucks are abundant and a “nuisance.”
Though newspaper journalists are, as a rule, impartial, the article’s reporter couldn’t help but see the disturbing trend going on across the dairy state:
Deer, bears, wolves, mourning doves, even wild pigs – if it walks, crawls or…
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Here’s my quarterly (or monthly…or daily…) reminder to stop using unsustainable palm oil. Palm oil demand leads to the 4 Ds — deforestation, destruction (of habitat), death (of critically endangered species, like the orangutan), and displacement (of indigenous human forest inhabitants), not to mention an absolutely insane increase of global warming gases into the atmosphere (these forests are carbon sinks).
Here’s a potent graphic I found from somebody who posted it in protest (a man after my own heart) on palmoil.com’s Facebook page (a pro-palm oil site, if you can believe that) that gives some info on how to avoid it. (Not sure who to credit for this graphic but it’s certainly due him/her.)
(I swear, this heartbreaking photo of what was once probably a majestic, intelligent and proud orang — and what its Indonesian home has now become — is enough to make me hate mankind forever.)
But remember: if you boycott companies that use unsustainable palm oil you…
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Whole Foods is Lying to Us!
Here is an excerpt to an article I read by Michael Blue Jay that I discovered when I read this post by gettingonmysoapbox.
(7) Refusal to carry only turtle-safe shrimp. When Earth Island Institute asked Whole Foods to carry only shrimp caught in nets certified to protect endangered sea turtles, Whole Foods flatly refused. (1)
(8) Selling “organic” food that possibly isn’t. Much of WF’s private-label frozen fruits and vegetables come from China, where organics are completely unregulated. This means no government (theirs or ours) checks to make sure that the farms are actually using organic methods. It’s a huge leap of faith to think that suppliers on the other side of the world are truly supplying organics when they know that know one is checking up on them, especially when China has had such a long list of manufacturing controversies about contaminated products. To top it off, Whole Foods uses the “USDA Organic” seal even though the USDA isn’t actually verifying that the food is really organic, and they use product names like “California Blend”, when the California Blend was really made in China. (21) And even for domestic food, Whole Foods has been caught selling produce as organic that is anything but. (25)
(9) Selling dangerous food. You might think that with a company that champions healthy eating, anything in their store would be safe to eat. You’d be wrong. Whole Foods sold fish so toxic in mercury that one customer’s blood levels had to be reported to the Center for Disease Control. (17) Whole Foods didn’t start identifying potentially mercury-laden fish in its California stores until the government forced them to do so. Even then, a quarter of Whole Foods stores failed to display proper signage as required by law. (18)
In 2008, five people had to be hospitalized after eating E.coli-contaminated beef from Whole Foods. The beef was sold even after it was supposed to have been recalled. (22) Others were sickened by bad milk from Whole Foods, resulting in “hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses…. One victim, a twenty-eight year old mother, will likely require a kidney transplant.” (23)
And when Whole Foods opened its store in Napa, it got an “F” on the county’s health inspection. (24)
CHAD
No wonder Elephants are in danger of becoming extinct in OUR LIFETIME!
Over a two-day period a week ago, heavily armed poachers on horseback slaughtered 89 elephants near Tikem on the southwest border of Chad and Cameroon. At least 30 of the animals were pregnant. Among the victims were 12 calves.
Believed to number as many as 50, the poachers are now believed to be heading to an area closer to the border of Cameroon where upwards of 800 elephants remain unprotected.
There are no reports of arrests. The massacre comes on the heels of a recent slaughter of elephants in Cameroon, which left 28 elephants dead.
The killings may have been seen as offering some sort of relief to local farmers who are unable to protect their crops and livelihoods randomly being damaged by elephant herds simply looking for food.
The ivory will most likely be illegally exported to Thailand or China, where it is used to make jewelry, figurines, and…
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Wolves Getting Booted Back to the Brink
When an activist friend asked me to write an overview of the wolf situation, my first thought was: “What a daunting and extremely depressing task that would be.” But having followed the wolves’ story since long before their reintroduction to Yellowstone and the Idaho wilderness, I suppose it’s only natural that I take this on. After all, I’ve covered the issue many times in articles, on my blog, and I devoted two chapters of my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, to the plight of wolves.
At the time I wrote the book’s chapter, “From the Brink of Oblivion and Back Again,” wolves were still federally protected and their removal from the Endangered Species List was just someone’s bad idea that had yet to see its dark day—I never quite realized just how apt that title would soon be. Until recently I remained hopeful that…
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Enlisting your help because I need a new name for my blog.
Recently I was chatting with Hannah at Gypsy Roller’s Veggie Kitchen about changing the name of my blog. What prompted the discussion is she had posted about changing the name of hers. At the time she started her blog, she was living in an RV she so eloquently named: The Gypsy Roller, while her house was under construction. Now that she and her family have moved out of the RV she felt it was time to retire the name seeing as she wouldn’t be *cooking* and *dispatching* from the Gypsy Roller. Which makes total sense. Although, secretly I did love the name: Dispatches from the Gypsy Roller. It sounded soooooooooooo, I dunno, Janis Joplin-ish.
😉
The reason Hannah’s post resonated is because like her blog name, my blog and its name was born from a purpose that has since grown and changed. The original intent or purpose of my blog was to talk about living green and reducing one’s carbon footprint. However, over the course of almost 1 1/2 years, my blog has morphed and now I prefer to focus my attention on an issue I am quite passionate about (almost too much so) and that is: animal rights, animal exploitation — exposing the egregious abuse that is taking place on factory farms, back yard butchers, research labs, fur breeders, puppy mills and so on… Why? Well, since becoming a vegan, I have learned about the dark side of animal exploitation and now that my eyes are open, I can no longer close them or turn my back on what is happening to animals at the hands of very cruel and heartless humans. I can no longer recline back into my velvety world of ignorant bliss. I know what is happening. I don’t like it and dammit, I am going to do something about it, even if it kills me. I would be incomplete as a woman, a human (!) if I turned my back on the plight of animals.
Despite my desire to change my name, I have been unable to come up with anything that truly reflects my cause. I’d like to keep GiRRL (which originally stood for: Grow it, Reuse, Recycle & Love our Earth) but perhaps change the spelling to Girl.
I still care about the earth; however, my focus is the impact that Factory Farming et al. is having on our planet versus other environmental issues.
I’d also like to incorporate any or all of the following words in my title: Animal; Humane; Voice; Compassion…something (!) in the title. And yet, sadly, no matter what I scribble on paper, nothing seems to work or flow.
[sigh]
😦
I prefer to not burden people by asking for help; however, today I finally decided I needed to move past that fear and open this up to my few but loyal followers.
If you follow my blog and are reading this, do you have any suggestions for a new name for my blog that would enable me to keep “Girl” in the first part of the title
Or dare I say it: do you think I should just retire this blog and create a shiny new blog with a shiny new name?
Thoughts?
Anyone?
Hello?
I promise full credit will be given.
Thanks and smooches.
🙂
AGRICULTURAL PORNO…
This is a well written post about how Big Aggra is trying to prevent animal rights activist from exposing the truth behind the egregious abuse happening behind the walls of factory farms – every – single – day. If every state enacts the Ag-gag laws, we animal rights activists will be considered “Terrorists!” Imagine?
Words have seductive power.
And there are very few things more seductive than the dirty talk of what historian and writer James McWilliams calls “agricultural pornography.” Words whispered in just the right way, “the idyllic image of farm animals roaming a verdant pasture”—an image promoted by every purveyor of meat products in the U.S.—”can make otherwise enlightened consumers melt, thereby forgetting the cold truth that an owned farm animal is an abused animal.”
”Cage-free” and “family farm”
does not mean hens are treated humanely. They may still have their beaks cut off in a practice called “debeaking,” because it cuts down on the amount of injuries when they fight each other. They may still be given antibiotics. When they are too old to lay eggs at a profitable rate, they are slaughtered for cheap meat.
The “platforms” at Black Eagle Farm—that advertises itself as a “traditional family farm” and “animal…
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Girl for Animal Liberation 
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