Close Encounter of the Turtle Kind

See my undoctored photo & video proof of intelligent life!

“I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”

– From Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, by Dr. Seuss


Today I went to one of my favorite San Francisco writing places: a semi-private nature-nook in Golden Gate Park partially obscured by trees overlooking South Lake. It’s one of those special spots in the city where I can usually find some small semblance of solitude — only this time, a Red-eared slider, measuring about seven inches from nose to tail, had already claimed it as his* own. He was resting stock-still on the moist earth about 20 feet from the water’s edge, apparently just chilling out by the bench. I’d have expected a turtle to scamper away when I came along, but he just stood his ground even as I sat down.

At first he had his back to me, facing the lake, and retracted his head and limbs into his shell at my slightest movement. But after a few minutes, he suddenly turned himself around and stared straight at me for a good long stretch of time. Though I commonly spy wild turtles while hiking in the park, none had ever explicitly acknowledged my existence before, so I wondered what was up. Was he sick, and seeking my assistance? Or maybe someone had been feeding turtles here so that they’d become tame, and he was expecting a treat from me? Perhaps he was merely curious and wanted to study the bizarre biped in his midst, or aggressively drive me away from his territory?

The turtle’s behavior reminded me of my cats, Zelda and Jasmine, who sometimes perch on tabletops right in front of me about arm’s length away and stare hypnotically into my eyes with an oblique expression as though they’re trying to psychically beam some divine feline secret directly into my mind: but what? I just affectionately stroke their soft pliable ears and scratch under their fuzzy chins — but of course did not try this with the slider, cute as he was, wishing to respect his personal space and knowing that the bite of these particular snapping turtles is powerful enough to sever fingers. Yet I had the distinct impression that he was signaling me, as one conscious being to another. I was unable to comprehend whatever message he might have been trying to convey, however, being woefully ignorant of his obscure reptilian language.

Anyway, given this turtle’s unusually stationary stance (and the Chia-like plants growing on the front half of his shell), I was concerned that he might be ailing, so I eventually called San Francisco Animal Care and Control on my cell phone for advice. A very friendly officer assured me that it’s not uncommon for turtles to sprout foliage, and that he probably just wanted to sun himself (even though we were in the shade). As to why he hadn’t retreated upon my approach, the officer explained that the turtle would probably return to his watery habitat once I departed.

“Red” and I hung out there together for over two hours, until I opted to resume my hike through the park. But first I decided to test the ACC officer’s theory by only pretending to leave, hiding behind some nearby bushes along the footpath in wait. Sure enough, my temporary companion soon sauntered back toward the lake, as you can see in my (obviously) unedited minute-long video documentary chronicling his epic journey:



* Judging from the long fore-claws and thick tail, I believe this particular turtle was a male.

Hitler Farted!

Der Führer’s meat-powered flatulence disorder — and part-time vegetarian curative

Though modern historical scholarship has conclusively proven that Adolph Hitler was not actually a vegetarian*, many people even today still persist in believing that he was. Actually, Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels first started spreading this strategic misinformation more than 75 years ago to cloak the chancellor in an otherworldly aura simply so he’d be seen as Germany’s saintly savior. But, like most myths, this one does actually contain at least a tiny grain of truth — only in this case it’s a pretty humiliating back-story (or behind-story) that the Third Reich’s arch-villainous architects kept carefully hidden from the outside world.

In reality, Herr Hitler periodically practiced vegetarianism to combat the “excessive flatulence” from which he chronically suffered. The Führer’s ongoing gastric struggles have been corroborated by many reliably authenticated sources, including his own personal physician, Dr. Theo Morell, who wrote in his journal that he once witnessed Hitler endure a bout of “colossal flatulence…on a scale I have seldom encountered before.” In his groundbreaking book Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, author Charles Patterson wrote that Hitler found “fewer stains in his underwear” when he reduced his meat consumption, and “became convinced that eating vegetables improved the odor of his flatulence.” However, Hitler biographers attest that he certainly didn’t stick with vegetarianism, and in fact was a bona fide glutton for ham, liver, sausage, and (his favorite) stuffed squab.

A friend and creative collaborator of mine from college once explained to me his “cosmic anchor” theory of comedy, which basically propounds that farting is the most primordial form of humor (because the anus is like a second mouth that “speaks” behind our backs and beyond our control, like some mutant strain of rectal Tourette Syndrome). Just think of the hysterical irony, in this particular instance, of a flatulent fascist dictator who can’t seem to stop “talking out of his ass,” as it were. I can just see Hitler at a sprawling public rally delivering a raging rant accusing the Jews of being foul and disgusting animals, banging his fist on the podium and Seig Heiling the rabid crowd — and during a dramatic pause in his spittle-flecked harangue, blasting a massive bugler out the back of his beige jodhpurs that is picked up by the custom Neumann CMV3 condenser microphone and broadcast over loudspeakers to the entire crowd and live radio audiences throughout occupied Europe! Actually, Hitler liked keeping vicious attack dogs around for his amusement (meaning he enjoyed brutally beating them into submission), so in this and other scenarios, he probably would have blamed them for his own embarrassing bumburps!

Despite all these fun-poking antics aimed at smelly old man Hitler for his congenital gas-passing ailment, I do feel it’s worth exploring whether he was onto something…maybe our bodily emissions can be better managed (to smooth social interactions and slow climate change) through improved dietary habits. While there seems to be no real consensus about whether a vegan diet produces less toxic wind than eating meat, dairy and/or eggs, here are a few claims (provided with a general disclaimer about not actually knowing their scientific merits) that I’ve gathered on the subject:

• According to one article published in 1913 (which Hitler himself must have surely read), “The longer the feces are retained in the intestine, the longer the bacteria act upon them, thus causing fermentation and decomposition…A plentiful meat diet also favors the formation of gases (because) the digestive fluids are not able to fully digest it.” Of course, those prone to flatulence are advised to avoid foods that leave “residual matter” in their wake, such as cabbage and beans (the proverbial “musical fruit”).

• A Q&A in the online magazine VegFamily suggests that sticking to a healthy vegan diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, organic whole grains, and lots of water produces relatively little flatulence. Echoing the claims made in the article cited above, respondents assert that (just like meat) processed vegan “junk food” takes longer to digest than natural foods, and therefore results in greater amounts of gas.

• The lifestyle website AskMen.com declares that “Vegetarians might fart as often as meat-eaters, but their ‘serenades’ do not smell as much because vegetables produce less hydrogen sulfide. The more sulfur rich the foods you eat, the more your farts will stink because bacteria will generate sulfides and mercaptans as they break down the nutrients.” Their preventative advice includes steering clear of fumigant foods such as cauliflower, taking Bean-O supplements, and ingesting herbal essences like chamomile, peppermint, sage, and marjoram.

* While Hitler openly praised vegetarianism (mainly because he idolized the classical composer Richard Wagner), the National Socialist Party legally outlawed independent vegetarian societies throughout the Fatherland and their expanding empire, forcing these groups to either join the centralized Nazi Living Reform Movement or disband. So, while vegetarianism itself wasn’t strictly criminalized under fascism, all autonomous organizations were, specifically meaning they could no longer choose their own socio-political positions or espouse non-violent philosophies. Nevertheless, in bold defiance of the totalitarian state, courageous vegetarians continued to hold clandestine meetings that were unaffiliated with official government institutions, routinely risking enslavement and probable extermination in concentration camps.

Witness to Suicide at Powell and Market

Onlookers laugh and cheer as a man jumps to his death – and we wonder why more people aren’t vegan?!

I was there today when a man killed himself before a live audience of bystanding spectators in San Francisco.

I was biking down Market Street when I saw a massive crowd gathered near the Powell Street cable car turnaround. They were frantically yelling, a combination of anxious cries and excited cheers, as though watching the climax of an intense sports match. I figured it must be a fistfight, but I was wrong…because the shouting then rose to a sudden cacophony punctuated by a dense fleshy thump.

I had never heard a sound like that in my life, and wondered what the hell it could be. Traffic had stopped, people were rushing across Market, and police & ambulances were screeching in, so I crossed the street to find out, and saw, right on the north side of the Powell BART station fence, a handful of cops standing over a shirtless man lying face-down in a bloody pool on the sidewalk. People were pointing up at the window ledge of the third-floor apartment above the “Forever 21” store he’d just jumped from, and holding cameras in the air snapping pictures of the corpse.

This nightmarish scenario was disturbing enough, but far worse was overhearing numerous young people actually laughing and saying things like “Oh shit! Did you see that?!” and “That was so cool!” One twenty-something woman nearby even loudly bragged to her friend on a cell phone that “I was yelling ‘Jump! Jump!’ And then he jumped!”

We may well wonder what caused 32-year-old Dylan Yount to take his own life. I don’t know his reasons, but maybe it had something to do with being sick and tired of living in a world where shit like this happens?

Call me naïve or out of touch, but I was actually shocked that some people’s response to seeing a fellow human violently end his tortured existence was about the same as if they’d just watched a YouTube video of a guy getting repeatedly kicked in the balls.

It’s existentially insane that, in this day and age, supposedly civilized folks consume actual, real-life atrocity as a form of entertainment while it's actually happening. The fact that these grotesque inhuman deformities actually felt comfortable broadcasting their repugnant monstrosity to everyone within earshot makes my heart ache. But what makes it so much worse is that they actually felt compelled to publicly proclaim the deadness of their souls.

Significantly, all of those I personally observed deriding Dylan's death were young adults ranging from their late-teens to mid-twenties. It's not really a generational thing though: callous, casual cruelty rears its ugly head in every century, whether it's the Roman Coliseum, Jack the Ripper or Kitty Genovese. I just expect better in 21st century San Francisco. Regardless of place or time, those who laughed as Dylan died clearly have no manners, no shame, no decency, and perhaps no capacity for compassion.

And I really can’t help but wonder, what in the world made them that way? Did they suffer horrific, unspeakable physical abuse and psychological torture as children? Or are they just unbelievable assholes? Either way, what's their excuse? And does their vile brutality and lack of empathy indicate that, ultimately, humankind has no future?

The Killing Joke

Years ago, when I was newly vegan, I spent many a Friday night with other activists on the sidewalk outside of the Metreon multiplex in downtown San Francisco handing out “Why Vegan?” booklets while showing “Meet Your Meat” and other factory farming videos on a battery-powered TV/VCR. Most people would walk by without acknowledging my offer of a booklet and deliberately avoid looking at the TV images. Some would stop and watch for awhile, and maybe take a leaflet, or even cry and thank us for being there, putting a little money in our donation jar.

And a few – always young men – would make a big show of laughing out loud as animals were slaughtered onscreen. Similarly, when I co-hosted “Vegan TV” on the SF community access station, we’d sometimes get calls from Beavis and Butthead types calling us faggots, pussies or whatever because we refused to eat meat.

In those days, such things rarely phased me, because I had an explanation. I figured these young guys joked about animal cruelty and those who repudiated it because admitting to anyone (especially their male peers) that they had feelings about anything (or anyone) left them vulnerable to ridicule, rejection and being branded “gay” – so laughing at others’ pain was their way of acting tough.

Hey, I was involuntarily subjected to junior high school too, and remember what a powerful force peer pressure was at that age, and how often I conformed to others’ rigid and distorted definitions of manhood simply because I lacked a strong self-identity and the courage to be myself. So, armed with this analysis, I deduced that the boys’ humorous reaction to slaughter footage was both a result of nervous laughter and a way for them to impress their friends. It seemed rather pathetic, but understandable: because in a way I’d been in their shoes before.

But now, after years of practicing animal rights advocacy and discovering denial firmly entrenched in every stratum of society, I no longer find such simplistic explanations of casual cruelty satisfactory. Mainly because even most so-called “mature adults” never really grow up when it comes to fundamentally respecting non-human species. Many don't even respect fellow human beings.

Even as I write, and even as you read, somewhere in the world animals are being tortured for people’s amusement in circuses, rodeos, horse races, game reserves, dog fighting rings, and other “entertainments” that by all rights should have been abolished along with human slavery long ago. But there's also still human slavery, war, starvation, terrorism, and torture going on this minute as well. There are millions of poor, homeless children right here in prosperous America. In one way at least, my experience today only served to reinforce my grave doubts about the true nature of our species — that humankind, as a whole, is stubbornly numb to the sufferings of others, whether or not we are directly responsible for their misery.

Then again, in my despair, there’s a whole other side to this story that I’ve neglected to tell. That is, of the hundreds of people who today saw a man fall to his doom, most did not laugh or cheer: they cried openly in the arms of loved ones, or sought emotional solace from a stranger, or stood silently awestruck alone contemplating the inconceivable. If not so distressed by the relative minority whose heartless behavior I found so nauseating, I might have stuck around awhile longer to grieve with those whose humanity seemingly remained intact, and perhaps found my faith in people restored. Instead, numbed to the core of my being, I rode on, and decided hours later to share my thoughts here in this public journal.

I guess it just goes to show that every life experience presents both challenges to and opportunities for growth, and what we choose to make of them is often largely up to us. Meaning, in the course of our Earthly journey, we always need to beware of mistaking one small aspect of reality for the whole truth.

If you are feeling suicidal, please call a suicide hotline and get the help you need!

Act Now to Protect Great Apes

Tell Congress: Pass bill to ban invasive primate experimentation

"It's about the money. There's big bucks in this research, especially chimp research. We're talking millions. Millions of dollars."

– Narriman Fakier, former employee of New Iberia Research Center turned whistleblower


In March of last year, ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight, and Good Morning America shows aired disturbing video footage captured by an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which depicts the severe abuse of primates at New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana, where new medical and pharmaceutical treatments designed for humans are tested on more than 6,000 monkeys and chimpanzees. The exposé documents what the HSUS investigator saw during his nine-month stint posing as a lab tech, using hidden cameras to bring Big Science's dirty little secret to light: that researchers routinely violate basic animal welfare laws, and only suffer consequences when the public demands justice.

The United States is one among only four nations in the world where research on chimpanzees is still legal. Meanwhile, countries like Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK have banned invasive experiments on all great apes (i.e., chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos — and homo sapiens) because the immorality inherent in such studies cannot be ethically justified on the basis of saving human lives. Seriously, torturing and killing our closest biological cousins is not the only (or even best) way to understand our own medical maladies, and yet it continues, funded by our taxes: why?

One reason is that animal research is extremely profitable. Between 2000 and 2009, the National Institutes of Health, a Federal agency, granted NIRC more than $17 million in public funds to conduct research on chimpanzees — money they used to viciously persecute primates, both within and beyond the law and often for decades on end. In this case, the government took appropriate action against NIRC, with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack ordering an investigation of their operations and pledging to punish anyone found guilty of violating the Animal Welfare Act. But while NIRC is one of the nation's larger primate research centers, it's trespasses still only represent the relatively small tip of vivisection's animal cruelty iceberg — what remains buried beneath the depths of deception is perhaps even worse, and even during the best of economic times, the U.S. government clearly wouldn't have the means to police every facility all the time.

Emptying the Cages

Thankfully, inspired by HSUS's repulsive revelations, Congress is now considering a pragmatic and compassionate solution: the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). This bipartisan bill would phase out invasive research on great apes, ban the breeding of these primates for experimentation, and permanently retire hundreds of chimpanzees to sanctuaries where they would be lovingly cared for instead of callously exploited for profit. Passage of this bill would greatly accelerate our country's ethical evolution towards respect for other life forms and advance our moral standing among nations, but there is still one extremely powerful force standing in the way of our potential progress: the numerous medical research institutions that would lose hundreds of millions in revenue if H.R. 1326 becomes law.

The highly-influential Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is just one of the many scientific associations that cunningly cultivates an oh-so-purely-altruistic image, but is terrified of having their inalienable American "right" to torment animals for a living restricted in any way. Recently, this illustrious organization bombarded its members with a "Call to Action" urging them to tell their Federal Representatives to oppose the Great Ape Protection Act because "(it) would inhibit medical advances and researchers' pursuit of new vaccines and treatments to prevent disease" (hepatitis C in particular). In their sample letter to members of Congress, SfN even pretends to give a crap about non-human species by emphasizing the "number of protections in place to ensure the welfare and well-being of these animals" — conspicuously ignoring the fact that existing laws are not being obeyed or enforced, as the video evidence from inside New Iberia and other primate research labs makes so painfully clear.

While SfN boasts a membership of more than 40,000 scientists and physicians, only a miniscule minority of these are actively engaged in primate research. So why, then, did they disseminate this action alert to their entire constituency? Certainly, they fear no longer having great apes to sacrifice on the altar of empirical knowledge, but they're even more afraid of being drawn inexorably down the slippery slope. That is, if the government outlaws invasive primate experimentation today, what horrors will tomorrow bring — rights of personhood for genetically-engineered lab rats?!

Sadly, SfN officials and other dogmatists of domination are mentally enslaved by the antediluvian ideology that all of Earth's millions of species exist merely to serve human needs — an historically corrupt doctrine in which animals' interests are dismissed as utterly irrelevant. Fortunately, their outmoded attitude is not shared by the majority of society: an online survey being conducted by WashingtonWatch.com, for instance, currently indicates that nearly two-thirds of respondents support the Great Ape Protection Act. Nevertheless, it’s not We the People who will ultimately decide whether to pass this bill, but our democratically-elected Representatives in Washington, D.C.—and animal research institutions' pockets are obviously deep enough to peddle political influence. So please, make sure your Representative knows where you stand on this issue.





Use HSUS's "Humane Alert" to call and email your Federal Representative urging him or her to co-sponsor and vote YES on the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). Then check out the other ways you can help primates, and forward the alert to your family and friends around the country.

Living On Burrowed Time

Help stop the impending eviction of Antioch's owls

When I worked at the University of California, Davis (circa 1998-99), burrowing owls occupied underground nests around my workplace, the Carlson Health Sciences Library, which lies on the relatively remote outskirts of the UC system's largest campus. I loved watching them peek their little heads up through holes in the earth, and would stand awed as they unselfconsciously stared back at me with an intensely palpable awareness and fierce dignity. So, because burrowing owls are such an integral part of my personal natural history (not to mention the Dead Milkmen's timeless post-punk epic "Stuart"), I feel a strong emotional connection with these downy-feathered cutie-pies — and a commensurate outrage that government agents paid with our tax dollars to protect wildlife are continually bending over for business interests that don't give a flying hoot about owls.

This time, an established community of these unique birds is slated for expulsion from their habitat in the East Bay town of Antioch, California because the state's Dept. of Fish & Game is allowing real estate prospector Kiper Homes to proceed with construction of the Blue Ridge housing development. Workers have already started placing one-way eviction doors (that allow residents to leave but not return) over many of the burrows' tunnel openings, a job that by law must be completed by next month (before the owls' breeding season begins). Then Kiper will complete the foreclosure by caving the den in so the birds can't come back, and exterminators will proceed with gassing the remaining ground squirrels to death as a mere formality.

It is estimated that there are probably fewer than 10,000 burrowing owl breeding pairs left in the U.S., and yet 11 members of this native species are being forced out of their habitat in the middle of winter just before they are about to reproduce. Perhaps, being unable to quickly find safe, secure and suitable shelter, some or all will die from exposure to the winter elements or predation. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has officially identified burrowing owls as a "candidate species" for either “threatened” or “endangered” status, and California considers them a "Species of Special Concern" under the state's Endangered Species Act because their population has declined by about 50 percent in the last 10-15 years. The number one jeopardizer of their existence: real estate development.

People vs. Owls

Surely the anthropocentric will protest, “Hey, they're just owls — and people need places to live more than they do!” But why do we have to build on land already occupied by members of a species whose numbers are rapidly dwindling? There are over 300 million humans in the U.S., and only a few thousand burrowing owls: is spreading suburban sprawl really such a boon to our society that it justifies risking the irreversible eradication of a species?

And yes, all kinds of creatures are summarily displaced and killed whenever houses and neighborhoods are built, and even we animal activists take this so much for granted that it usually passes without mention — until the animal under the bulldozer is both adorable and potentially threatened or endangered. In this case, for instance, we may feel bad for the owls, but (if we really think about it) even worse for the squirrels. So, in the long view, we need to radically reinvent construction practices to minimize our destructive impact on the environment and those already living in it.

Realistically, anyplace we build will be home to some form of fauna or flora, and animal and environmental advocates can't save them all. So we have to start somewhere, and it makes pragmatic sense to focus first on the most ecologically vulnerable. Then again, these are not actually separate issues, because by stopping the development of this particular housing complex (and others like it in the future), we can save both the owls and the squirrels.

• Local grassroots group Friends of East Bay Owls encourages concerned citizens to write letters (based on provided samples) to California Attorney General Jerry Brown, Fish & Game Director John McCammon, and state senators asking them to revise current owl eviction policies. They are also looking for volunteers to help install artificial burrows at Antioch's Prewett Ranch Family Park on Saturday, January 23rd.

• Urban wildlife rehabilitation center Wild Care Bay Area, meanwhile, is urging people to contact the Antioch City Council — as well as Ed Hobaugh, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Kiper Development, Inc., at (925) 648-8888 ext. 13 or ehobaugh@kiperinc.com. Their alert includes a sample letter tailored for City Council members, but only talking points for Mr. Hobaugh emphasizing the fact that Kiper never performed an Environmental Impact Report for the proposed housing site. If you do speak with Mr. Hobaugh, I suggest that you kindly ask him to explain why he thinks his company's profits are more important than the fate of the burrowing owl community. I'd do it myself, but I just moved cross-country last week back to the Bay Area, and the stress of displacement would leave me more susceptible to losing my cool when he says, in so many words, that it's just business.

“The Simpsons” – Top 10 Animal-Friendly Episodes

A best-of list spanning two-plus decades of humane humor

Encompassing 21 seasons and 450 episodes, “The Simpsons” is the longest-running sitcom in television history, and this January 10th, Fox will culminate its year-long celebration of the classic cartoon's 20th anniversary with a documentary special by Super Size Me director and star Morgan Spurlock. Diehard fans already know that “The Simpsons” pioneered a subversive style of animal rights comedy never before seen on the small screen. So, at the dawn of a new decade deluged with Top 10 lists, I decided to pay this prime-time program homage by showcasing the 10 best animal-centric “Simpsons” episodes (so far, in chronological order).

1. Episode 1: “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” – In the series premiere, Homer loses the family's Christmas money betting at the dog track, but then brings home the best present ever — a rescued racing greyhound named Santa's Little Helper. Laugh Line (Homer to Bart, who wants to adopt the abandoned dog his father bet on): “But he's a loser. He's pathetic! He's...a Simpson.”

2. Episode 29: “Bart's Dog Gets an F” – The family's misbehaving canine attends obedience school, where Bart refuses to implement the draconian instructor's pain-based training methods. Laugh Line (Bart): “Now...Sit! I said, Sit! Um, take a walk. Sniff that other dog's butt. See? He does exactly what I tell him.”

3. Episode 43: “Lisa's Pony” – Homer finally grants his 8-year-old daughter's wish for a pony, but she relinquishes her beloved horse after learning that dad must work nights to pay for expensive stabling. Laugh Line (Homer): “Marge, with today's gasoline prices, we can't afford not to buy a pony!”

4. Episode 54: “Dog of Death” – After Santa's Little Helper runs away from home, infamously villainous billionaire tyrant Mr. Burns plucks him from the pound and turns him into a vicious attack hound — but his love for Bart ultimately overcomes his killer conditioning. Laugh Line (Ben Caseyesque veterinarian): “I love animals. I spend my life saving them, and they can't thank me. Well, the parrots can.”

5. Episode 79: “Whacking Day” – Each May, the town of Springfield observes a traditional holiday that entails beating snakes to a pulp with clubs, but Bart and Lisa are able to save the serpents' lives with the help of soul crooner Barry White's earth-shaking basso profundo. Laugh Line (“Whacking Day” song sung by children's choir): “Oh Whacking Day, oh Whacking Day! Our hallowed snake-skull cracking day! We'll break their backs, gouge out their eyes; their evil hearts we'll pulverize! Oh Whacking Day, oh Whacking Day! May God bestow His grace on thee!”

6. Episode 98: “Bart Gets an Elephant” – Bart wins a real live pachyderm from a radio call-in show, but “Stampy” proves a neighborhood hazard, so Bart and Lisa must persuade Homer to send his colossal pal to a sanctuary instead of selling him to an ivory dealer. Laugh Line (Homer): “Lisa, a guy who's got lots of ivory is less likely to hurt Stampy than a guy whose ivory supplies are low.”

7. Episode 133: “Lisa the Vegetarian” – Lisa gives up eating meat, but almost cracks under constant ridicule at home and school — until a pep talk by Paul and Linda McCartney puts her back on the righteous path. Laugh Line (“Actor” Troy McClure, in an “educational” filmstrip): “Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If that cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!”

8. Episode 249: “Treehouse of Horror XI” – In a Free Willy parody, Lisa emancipates a captive bottlenose dolphin named Snorky from an exploitive marine park — but the deposed “King of the Dolphins” then enslaves humanity for banishing his kind to the sea eons ago. Laugh Line (Snorky): “They made me do tricks like a common seal!”

9. Episode 252: “Lisa the Tree Hugger” – Trying to win the affections of über-activist Jessie Grass, Lisa (channelling Julia Butterfly) refuses to disembark from an ancient redwood until it is spared from logging. Laugh Line (Jessie): “I'm a level-five vegan — I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.”

10. Episode 417: “Apocalypse Cow” – Bart joins 4H to drive cool combine harvesters, but winds up having to save the calf he raised from butchery — with a cow-costumed Homer nearly being killed in a fully-automated slaughterhouse. Laugh Line (Bart): “Sorry, Lis, I can't be a vegetarian — I love the taste of death!”

Hope you enjoy these amazingly amusing episodes — and learn more about “The Simpsons” at thesimpsons.com!

Minestrone Is Murder?

Maybe so — but carnivores still kill many more plants than vegans do

Day after day, meat eaters try to discredit ethical veganism with an astonishing array of pseudo-philosophical protests, but the recurring assertion that “Plants have feelings, too” is particularly vexing — mainly because it’s so transparently insincere. Think about it: Why are meat eaters so remarkably resistant to recognizing the horrific suffering of “food” animals, yet simultaneously eager to anthropomorphize faceless fruits and vegetables that utterly lack the brains, central nervous systems, and sense organs (like eyes and ears) generally associated with sentience? When carnivores insist that plants’ feelings matter, it seems to me that they disingenuously want to appear genuinely concerned about hurting innocent herbs, when in fact the sneaky subtext peeking out from underneath the edge of this compassionate facade is a self-serving accusation that we vegans are as guilty of murder as the most unrepentant flesh-obsessed gourmand.

The latest example of this perennially weed-like phenomenon sprouted up yesterday in Natalie Angier’s New York Times article “Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too” — a title which insinuates, baselessly, that plants’ faculty for feeling somehow negates the moral authenticity at the core of animal rights. Now, please understand, I am by no means criticizing Angier for promoting the hypothesis that all living organisms are imbued with some form of consciousness: actually, I find the eminent behavioral botanist’s quotation touting plants’ capacity for “sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals” quite compelling. What I do object to, strenuously, is that any carnivore (much less a mainstream science journalist) would have the unmitigated chutzpah to charge that it’s hypocritical for us vegans to shout “meat is murder” while allegedly committing mass herbicide — especially because meat eaters kill so many more plants than we do in the course of daily dining!

Need proof? Then check out these stunning statistics:

• To yield a single pound of edible meat, a chicken must consume about 2 pounds of grain*, a pig must consume about 4 pounds, and a cow must consume 10 to 16 pounds. So, every time someone eats meat, they kill 2 to 16 times as many plants than they would by eating vegan.

• Slaughtering approximately 65 billion animals worldwide for meat each year requires that one-third of humanity’s grain harvest be fed to livestock. This calculation accounts for 80% of U.S. corn crops and about 99% of U.S.-produced soy meal, but not the vast fields of grass and other naturally-growing plants upon which free-range cows, sheep and goats graze.

• According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production occupies 70% of all the land used for agricultural purposes, and nearly one-third of the Earth’s entire landmass. This boundless terrain was once unspoiled habitat for billions of native plants and animals who were either displaced or eradicated — some to the point of extinction. The beef industry, for instance, is the driving force behind the destruction of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, one of the planet’s most diversity-dense regions, with nearly 80% of deforested land being used for ranching.

Strictly speaking, it’s impossible for us to physically survive without consuming other living entities — just as billions of microbial creatures subsist on the proteins in our bodies. But contrary to the misleading myths of popular belief, veganism isn’t about achieving perfection, purity or sainthood (or, for that matter, smugly proving our superiority or political correctness). Rather, the point is to consciously make pragmatic lifestyle choices that significantly reduce the amount of pain, agony and death suffered by others as a result of our privileged existence, and persuade people to do the same in the name of non-violence.

So, the next time some smart-ass carnivore tries to excuse their lethal fauna-filled diet by feigning sympathy for faultless flora, just look them right in the eye and tell them straight out: If you really, truly care about the plight of exploited plant beings, then go vegan now!


* I originally cited a website claiming (inaccurately, it seems) that the grain-to-meat conversion ratio for chickens is 6:1. Tip of the hat to Erik Marcus for pointing out the error.

Nightmare of the Nurse Mare Foals

Thoroughbred horseracing's invisible victims

For decades, the thoroughbred racehorse industry has practiced a shockingly cruel breeding method that activists have only recently brought to light. The result of this compulsory procreative procedure are nurse mare foals — the unwanted offspring of female horses used as nursing surrogates for thoroughbred ponies. Every year, tens of thousands of these horses are killed or orphaned simply because they are useless to a multi-million dollar enterprise that thrives on equine exploitation.

Here's how it works: in order to get thoroughbred mares to produce as many potential racehorse champions as possible, breeders push their biological limits to extremes by forcing them to reproduce once a year. Maximizing productivity requires breeders to have the mares reimpregnated right after giving birth, which precludes them from nursing their own babies. The newborns are therefore taken away from their mothers within days of delivery, and nursed by surrogate mares (of “inferior” breeds) who have just given birth to their own offspring — the “by-products” of this process known as nurse mare foals.

Permanently separating thoroughbred babies from their mothers is tragic enough, but most nurse mare foals face a far worse fate than either racehorses or surrogates. While some are killed soon after being born or starved to death, others are sold (as young as one day old) to the tanning industry, which slaughters them and turns their skin into handbags, belts, and other high-grade leather products. The lucky ones are rescued by horse advocacy groups, which, just like the tanners, must pay the going rate of $200 to $400 apiece — and then spend several hundred more dollars feeding and raising each horse for months before they are ready for adoption.

Rescuers nourish nurse mare foals by bottle-feeding them milk replacer, which could theoretically be used to feed thoroughbred foals as well, thus eliminating this exceedingly inhumane breeding practice altogether. There are two main reasons that they don't do this: formula is expensive, and horse breeders maintain that thoroughbreds need to drink real (albeit surrogate) mother's milk from the source to achieve peak athletic performance. Plus, the larger nurse mare farms (concentrated in New York, Kentucky and Tennessee) produce 50 to 100 foals a year, and it is more operationally efficient to make the surrogate mothers do all the work rather than paying human caretakers to feed the foals by hand.

Another possible solution to the problem of unwanted foals is a new domperidone-based drug protocol that induces non-pregnant mares who have given birth before to lactate. Though chemically manipulating horses' hormones poses ethical dilemmas in the context of animal rights philosophy, in practical terms it would prevent tens of thousands of unwanted foals from being born into a life of suffering and untimely death. It could also dramatically reduce the number of surrogate nurse mares by enabling thoroughbreds who are too old for breeding to nurse foals.

There are many ways to help relieve the suffering of nurse mares and their orphaned foals, from urging elected legislators to pass humane laws to financially supporting horse advocacy organizations or adopting a rescued foal. Learn more about how to take action at lastchancecorral.org.

Preposterous: The Presidential Turkey Pardon

The perverse absurdity of a reverse animal sacrifice

Every Thanksgiving, at a White House ceremony punctuated by much media fanfare, the President of the United States symbolically “pardons” a single turkey — just one day before he joins the rest of America in devouring 45 million others. Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln started the custom one Thanksgiving day in the 1860s by sparing his son Tad’s “pet” turkey from the axe, but the pardon only became an official American tradition in the late 1980s when George H.W. Bush* occupied the Oval Office. Lincoln’s gesture of historical kindness has since evolved into a bizarre ritual in which the country lightheartedly hails saving the life of one turkey in order to displace the unconscious collective guilt for killing millions more.

This year, the farce of this reverse animal sacrifice reached new heights of ridiculousness with White House videographer Arun Chaudhary’s YouTube video parody preview. In this short spoof (of what exactly, I’m not sure), 2009’s chosen turkey (named Courage) “does the slow walk right through the gates outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, past ‘Pebble Beach’ where reporters do stand-up television shots, through the West Wing and Oval Office into the Rose Garden.” So rather than solemnly acknowledging all the millions of birds who are summarily slaughtered for this bloated holiday buffet, we treat their deaths like a big joke — ha ha, industrialized mass murder is just so inherently hilarious, right?!

In an attempt to further salve society’s buried remorse for all the many tons of bird blood spilled throughout November at friendly neighborhood abattoirs, Courage gets to live out the rest of his natural days at Disneyland. But animal advocacy organization Farm Sanctuary** says the “Frontierland” exhibit of this Southern California theme park is not the “The Happiest Place on Earth” for turkeys, and that courage and his alternate*** should be moved to one of their shelters for safekeeping. In a press release, the group charged that “The Walt Disney Company…has shown that it lacks the ability to provide (adequate) care” because they feed the birds “a high-calorie, high-fat diet formulated for rapid weight gain, a likely cause of (their) premature deaths.” The way we treat our “rescued” Thanksgiving turkeys is a representation of what this holiday means to us, and begs a necessary question: Is dying young from obesity-related causes at the world’s most corporatized amusement park really the kind of freedom our pilgrim forebears had in mind when they shared their first harvest meal with the local natives?

A Real “Indian” Pre-Thanksgiving

Just yesterday, the Obamas held their first official state dinner at the White House honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a vegetarian world leader. While (contrary to media reports) not all the food served was strictly vegetarian****, the menu showed some small awareness on the President’s part that meat doesn’t have to be the centerpiece of a fulfilling meal — or our diets. And yet, come tomorrow, he and the rest of the First Family will be digesting a customary turkey flesh feast, so I guess Obama really didn’t learn all that much from Mr. Singh’s ethical example.

Now, I’m just an average guy, nothing particularly special or extraordinary about me (for instance, I haven’t won a Nobel Peace Prize). Even so, I’ll be non-violently “pardoning” a turkey for real this Thanksgiving***** by not eating one — just the same way I’ve been pardoning turkeys every day of my life for the last 14½ years. Meanwhile, President Obama (like other U.S. Commander in Chiefs before him) is making a public show of offering amnesty to one turkey while simultaneously ordering another to be killed for his table — a behavioral contradiction that seems rather shallow and hypocritical. I mean, it’s not like either of these turkeys deserved to die, and yet one is given the full celebrity treatment while the other is condemned like a convicted criminal on Death Row, forever nameless, along with millions of his kind.

The penitentiary metaphor is perfectly apt here, for turkeys are indeed incarcerated for their entire lives on factory farms, helplessly awaiting execution in their dark, dirty prisons — despite the fact that they have committed no crimes (unless being born a member of their particular avian species can be considered a punishable offense). Ironically, humankind has complicitly committed unspeakably unnatural atrocities against turkeys for generations in government-certified factory farms and slaughterhouses. But we wouldn’t want to bring any of that up, because it might ruin someone’s appetite for slow-roasted wings, breasts and “drumsticks”!

Turkeys are affectionate, intelligent animals who deserve compassion, not torture. They are innocent victims who love life and deserve to live as much as anyone else. In that sense, a supposed “pardon” granted by our nation’s leader to a single turkey appears not as an act of mercy, but rather a disingenuous attempt to officially sanctify senseless slaughter in the name of commercialized gluttony.


* I originally wrote that John F. Kennedy was the first President to pardon a turkey for Thanksgiving, but later found out that Bush Sr. was the first to officially perform the pardoning ceremony, a custom which all subsequent Presidents have followed.
** In the interest of full disclosure, Farm Sanctuary was my employer from 2008-2009.
*** A Vice Turkey has also been appointed to take command should Courage for some reason be rendered unable to perform the duties associated with his post.
**** Along with a wide selection of both vegetarian and vegan options, the executive chefs prepared Green Curry Prawns for guests.
***** For the first time in many a year, I’ll be the sole vegetarian dining with an extended family of committed carnivores.

Go Figure! The Mathematics of Dietary Death

Computing the cost of plant vs. flesh food production in animals’ lives

Anyone who’s been vegan for any length of time has heard the dizzying array of specious arguments for why people are supposedly meant to eat meat, dairy and eggs. These reasons range from the nutritional (“we need animal protein to live”) to the Biblical (“God gave humanity dominion over all the Earth’s creatures”) to the ethical. Yep, that’s right: some omnivores have the cajones to claim that vegans are responsible for killing more animals than flesh eaters!

Oregon State University professor of animal science Steven Davis, for one, contends that people who eat beef from cattle fed on grazing pasture spare more animals’ lives than vegans because of all the death supposedly caused by harvesting crops. While Davis’ research has appeared in such prestigious periodicals as TIME magazine and the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, apparently no one bothered to peer-review or fact-check his methodology before publication. That is, a new analysis of the professor’s claim reveals that (surprise, surprise!) his numbers don’t quite add up.

Artist and graphic designer Mark Middleton recently calculated the true impact of food production on two categories of animals: domestic species specifically slaughtered for human consumption, and wild species killed as a consequence of agricultural harvesting. What’s more, he translated his findings into an easy-to-read graph* that enables comparison of how different diets (i.e., plant vs. flesh foods) impact animals’ lives — both by the numbers and as an interactive (filterable) visual representation of these otherwise abstract values:



Extrapolating from this diagram, we find that:

• Eating chicken flesh takes about 100 times the number of animals’ lives as eating the equivalent caloric content of vegetables.

• Subsisting on only grains for an entire year would likely cost fewer than two animals (e.g., field mice) their lives.

• Contrary to Davis’ central assertion, the number of wild animals who die as a result of beef production is much greater than occurs in the harvesting of all plant food varieties combined.

Middleton arrived at his revised conclusion by incorporating into his formula some criticisms of Davis’ work by researchers Gaverick Matheny and Andy Larney which, upon even cursory consideration, seem so basic that it’s amazing they even had to bring them up. I mean, it doesn’t take a mathematician to know that we can feed more people per acre by using land to raise crops rather than cattle, as Matheny opined, or to understand Larner’s contention that counting animals killed by predators (in addition to, say, chemical pesticides and mechanical threshers) skews the end results. So Middleton’s new presentation begs an obvious question: why did Davis’ claims go so completely unchallenged by the mainstream media and the scientific establishment when he made them?

Opinion makers’ unquestioning acceptance and promotion of Professor Davis’ flawed theory says more about meat eaters’ desperate psychological need to justify their violent destructiveness than anything else: apparently, people want to continue eating animal flesh so badly that they will even unconsciously create and cite conspicuously inaccurate data to make the case that omnivores are ethically superior to vegans. Once again, we vegans have the truth on our side, but there remain some lingering doubts about its persuasive value, because people basically believe what they want to believe. If history is any guide, many omnivores will continue to invent and propagate ways of salving their guilt by convincing themselves that meat is not murder but mercy — no matter how much incontrovertible evidence we vegans present to the contrary.

Related AnimalRightings:

- My 8-page VegNews magazine feature article “The Road to Vegetopia: (Re)Imagining the Future of Food” (illustrated by Mark Middleton)

- My blog post about Middleton’s “Virtual Battery Cage”

* For interested techies, Middleton built this interactive graphic in Adobe Flash using a data visualization library called Flare. Click here for a full explanation of the analysis and mathematical proofs.

Mystery Corpse: Extraterrestrial Visitor or Balding Sloth?

Four teens insist they killed unidentified creature in self-defense

OK, this is weird…


…but rest assured that scientists will (probably) soon have a logical explanation for the bizarre pinkish carcass recently recovered in Cerro Azul, Panama. British hoax debunker Dr. Darren Naish makes a convincing case that the so-called “Blue Hill Monster” is nothing more exotic than a native three-toed sloth of the Bradypus species that had somehow lost most of its fur coat. However, if DNA tests do by chance fail to conclusively ID the victim as a known denizen of this planet, the FBI should send any top-secret real-life equivalent of Fringe Division they may have south of the border pronto in search of a crashed spaceship.

Whatever biologists eventually determine this creature to be, the pertinent part of the story from an animal rights perspective is that the teens (four males, aged 14 to 16) claim it was living when they saw it come out of a cave, and they killed it simply because it was crawling in their direction. Of course, the adolescents assumed that being approached meant they were about to be attacked, so they threw rocks at their alleged assailant until it was stone cold dead. Then they dumped the body in a nearby creek, returning only days later to photograph the remains and alert the authorities.

Now, I don’t feel it’s my place to pass judgment against these kids: if their account of events is true (which some doubt), it’s easy to imagine them being freaked out by the shocking reality of something they had never seen before, so their violent reaction may well have been borne from a visceral terror of the utterly unknown. Which would mean that the encounter triggered their autonomic “fight or flight” response, causing them to reflexively weaponize whatever objects lay most conveniently close at hand. Yet this only serves to illuminate an unsettlingly dark aspect of human nature: faced with a unique lifeform they did not understand, the boys savagely destroyed it in the most primitive possible manner instead of pausing to assess the actual threat level — an alarming outcome that intimates implications for everything from race relations and war to our wanton destruction of the environment, and ultimately our species’ prospects for avoiding self-imposed extinction.

That the creature bears a disturbing resemblance to many of the humanoid aliens commonly depicted in our movies and mythology invests the murder with an even more universal theme. I mean, the iconic blockbuster E.T: The Extraterrestrial wouldn’t have been nearly so endearing (or popular) if young Elliot had just repeatedly pummeled the nighttime stowaway in his family’s shed to death with that baseball, right? With the thought-provoking District 9 currently straining the veracity of Steven Spielberg’s more hopeful fairy tales in multiplexes worldwide, let this unfortunate incident be a lesson to any intelligent beings out there cruising the cosmos who may be thinking about a visit to Earth: “We come in peace” is probably not going to cut it down here!

The Tender Trap: A Loathsome Lobster Tale

(or, Why some foodies make me boiling mad)

“I don’t think you realize who you’re dealing with here. You might have me in the tank for now, but just wait ’til I get these f---ing rubber bands off.”

– Freddy the Lobster, from an op-ed in The Onion

Most omnivores wouldn’t know an absent referent if it were staring them in the face (which it is, in fact, every time they eat meat), but I expect a heightened awareness from fellow writers, who I believe are socially obligated to deeply consider the ethical implications of their words. I was therefore struck once again by people’s seemingly limitless capacity for insensitivity and death-dealing denial when I read today’s “Bitten” blog in the New York Times entitled “Boiling the Lobster,” in which author Emily Weinstein recounts her first attempt to cook live crustaceans.

According to Weinstein, she just had to send these inveterate invertebrates to Davy Jones’ Locker herself “at least once” as “a rite of passage” (into the ignominious ranks of culinary killers, one can only presume). Yet what is most disturbing about Weinstein’s insistence that she’s engaged in some sort of sacred ritual is her disingenuous attempt to make violence palatable by leapfrogging clear over the obvious objections against killing that vegans embody in their everyday actions. Here, in Weinstein’s own words, are the excuses she proffers:

“The problem was that I was actually kind of afraid of putting (the lobsters) in the boiling water. It wasn’t the thought of killing a living creature — to me no meal could be more celebratory than one that begins with a cocktail and a round of raw oysters, which are live when they’ve shucked and served. And it wasn’t a moral issue. I am a meat eater, and no matter how lovely the life of an animal was, someone, somewhere, still had the task of dropping it in the proverbial pot. What I feared was kickback — the lid blowing off, hearing the sound of lobsters screaming*, or something unimaginable, and worse.”

Yeah, that’s right, Ms. Weinstein: it’s all about you. I mean, really: who the hell cares about the murder of three insignificant lobsters — as long as you have a “celebratory” meal and get to safely confront your phobia of feeling even a tiny fraction of the terror, pain and utter annihilation of consciousness you just knowingly inflicted on several sentient beings? After all, according to your “logic” at least, torturing small animals to death is inherently therapeutic!

And by the way, the life of every creature you’ve ever eaten was indeed “lovely,” as you say — the animal equivalent of a spa vacation! The lobsters you bought, for example, likely lived in a warehouse storage tank for months before even arriving at the pound where you purchased them, crammed in with hundreds of others whose claws were banded shut to prevent them from tearing one another to shreds under the stress of severe confinement — which was just so much fun for them all, like a nonstop party! Lobsters have a strong predilection for dark places and are highly attuned to atmospheric temperature changes, so the store owners may have thoughtfully illuminated their glass aquarium and adjusted the thermostat a few degrees colder just to make the zany antics of these born entertainers even more exciting for you, the paying customer. But the fact that you yourself so graciously killed these creatures after their blissful captivity for your very own meal, instead of letting some anonymous chef do your dirty work, definitely makes up for any slights our diminutive red friends may have experienced while accommodated as preferred guests of the altruistic seafood industry.

Putting sarcasm aside for a moment, the rest of Weinstein’s post documents her flawed and failed attempts to “minimize (the lobsters’) pain” and cook them in a “humane” manner — first by unsuccessfully hypnotizing them, then freezing them — before painfully boiling them to death. Despite these precautions, at least one of the animals remained conscious during the deadly dinner preparations: when their tormentor lifted the pot’s cover, “As if shielding itself from the intrusion of light, a lobster raised up its claw,” at which point the callous cook “clapped the lid back on.” With this chilling image still freshly imprinted on the reader’s mind, Weinstein efficiently ends her account with a description of how “sweet” the lobster meat tasted, a self-congratulatory pat on the back for so courageously dispatching defenseless creatures, and a cutesy killing joke about not quite yet deserving the “go-go wellies” worn by the teenaged Rhode Island shopgirl who helpfully sold her the live lobsters.

If you find yourself existentially distressed after reading Weinstein’s mundanely-related horror story, a quick perusal of reader comments should provide sufficiently convincing proof of your minority status. Which is to say, a sizable proportion of reader responses would be most accurately categorized as macabre preparation suggestions — everything from “killing the lobster with a knife to the brain” to using “special scissors to snip off their little faces.” These people would be vilified as psychopaths for talking about kittens this way, but their recommendations are welcomed in this mainstream online forum because most people think of lobsters as things so lowly that we need not even concern ourselves with whatever form of alien sea life may lie behind those beady black eyes.

Well, if you eat lobster (and are, by some circumstantial fluke or cosmic miracle, still reading this), here are a few fascinating facts about these captivating creatures that will hopefully change your mind.

Lobster Lib

• Lobsters are members of the Phylum Arthropoda (which in the original Greek literally translates as “jointed feet”): their closest genetic cousins include crustaceans like crab, shrimp and crayfish, but they are also related to insects, spiders and scorpions. As a species, lobsters have inhabited Earth since the Jurassic period (~ 206 to 144 million years ago), meaning they are about two hundred times as old as the human race. Lobsters can live for well over 100 years when left alone, but most at some point fall victim to the U.S. fishing industry, which traps and removes about 3.5 million tons of lobsters from coastal ocean waters every year.

• Like sea turtles and some migratory birds, lobsters have a built-in magnetic compass that enables them to engage in true navigation. That is, they exhibit an extremely rare talent for orienting themselves — in total underwater darkness on the ocean floor, mind you — without accessing physical landmarks or chemical cues. Using this ability, some lobsters journey hundreds of miles to reach their spawning grounds.

• The unfounded claim that lobsters cannot feel pain has been proven false by scientific research, some of which indicates that lobsters produce opioids (the chemicals that convey painful stimuli to the brain) and have opioid receptors. It is therefore logical to conclude that they would not possess these anatomical features if they could not experience physical suffering. And, of course, the most obvious evidence that lobsters feel pain is that they wildly flail their bodies around when thrown into boiling water, and sometimes desperately try to climb out of their scalding prisons.

Would learning about lobsters’ lives have any effect on foodie bloggers who wax poetic about the succulence of their meat? Well, some gourmands already apparently experiment with ways to “humanely” kill lobsters before cooking and eating them, either to salve their own guilt or get animal rights activists off their backs. But the thing about many meat-eating foodies is that their pattern of moral disconnection applies to virtually every species of animal.

Granted, I focused on lobsters in this critique, but there are also countless examples of foodie bloggers relishing such gourmet atrocities as foie gras, milk-fed veal, lamb brains, and live baby octopus tentacles (among many, many other harvested body parts) — and then nonchalantly writing about their aesthetic adventures without bothering to even mention those who suffered and died to sate their appetites. Meanwhile, other foodie scribes cagily try to justify murdering animals by offering up the same old trivial alibis that are so obviously intended to evade any authentic ethical discussion. Seriously, flesh-eaters: arguments like “meat tastes good” and “Hitler was a vegetarian” (FYI, he most definitely was not) have absolutely no bearing on whether it is ethically acceptable for humans to inflict suffering and death on billions of animals when we don’t have to.

On a positive note…

There is a veritable cornucopia of high-quality vegan foodie blogs out there with pictures, recipes and restaurant reviews to get your mouth watering. Here are just a few (somewhat arbitrary but worthwhile) selections to start with:
- The Vegan Foodie
- Vegan Yum.Yum
- Post Punk Kitchen
- Vegan Appetite
- Vegan Eats & Treats

…and here are some random lobster-related resources for good measure:
- Watch “The Simpsons” episode in which Homer raises (and then accidentally cooks) his pet lobster Pinchy
- Listen to the B-52’s classic New Wave song “Rock Lobster”
- Read the late David Foster Wallace’s article “Consider the Lobster” from the August 2004 issue of Gourmet magazine

* Marine zoologists maintain that it is physiologically impossible for lobsters to scream, as they have neither lungs nor vocal chords: the noise that to many people sounds like screaming is actually trapped air being expelled from their shells, which expand rapidly when immersed in hot water.

Help Farmworkers, Help Farm Animals

New Yorkers: Urge your Senators to vote YES on S.2247

“The African is incapable of self-care and sinks into lunacy under the burden of freedom. It is a mercy to him to give him the guardianship and protection from mental death.”
– Former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun regarding slaves (circa 1844)

“This notion that they need to rest is completely futile. They don’t like to rest. They want to work seven days.”
– Hudson Valley Foie Gras Co-Owner Izzy Yanay regarding farmworkers (circa 2009)

It is our moral obligation as citizens of a democracy to ensure that every worker in America has the same basic rights as every other, regardless of what job they do. Yet even now in the 21st century, as the result of a 71-year-old compromise with segregationist Dixiecrats during the New Deal era, those who toil in New York State’s agricultural fields and factory farms are still denied the fundamental benefits that the rest of us take for granted. And I’m talking here about some of the most basic employment expectations, like getting at least one day of rest a week, disability insurance, collective bargaining options, and overtime pay for working extra hours.

Though California passed the first laws rectifying this disparity in the mid-1970s and most other states have since followed suit, New York still suffers the unrepentant repercussions of blatantly racist government policies more than seven decades after their codification. To redress this longstanding injustice, a broad coalition of labor advocates, student activists, religious groups, and state legislators are now unifying behind the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867/ S.2247), and after a long struggle are finally within reach of victory. I’m glad that some animal advocates have already cast their lot with the workers, but hope that the animal protection movement as a whole will join them in this fight for equal treatment under the law, because:

1) We vegans eat the New York-grown apples, grapes, potatoes, corn, cabbage, and other plant foods that farmworkers help raise and harvest, and our purchases may well be subsidizing an exploitive system that denies tens of thousands of people the guaranteed protections that we enjoy.

2) If he were alive today, trailblazing farm unionizer and fellow vegan Cesar Chávez would be leading the charge for these workers’ civil rights.

3) Of the approximately 80,000 farmworkers employed by New York State’s multi-billion agriculture industry, more than half are documented migrant workers and illegal immigrants of Latino descent who are compelled to endure terrible working conditions under threat of losing their livelihoods and being forced out of the U.S.

4) There is no ethical justification for economically discriminating against people based on ethnicity, class or nationality.

5) Achieving parity for those working in factory farms will also dramatically reduce incidences of animal abuse.

Workers are Animals, Too

There are probably some animal advocates out there who would argue that siding with people who harm animals for a living is speciesist because it prioritizes farm workers’ interests over animals’ well-being. While I acknowledge the kernel of philosophical legitimacy at the core of this claim, I would counter by pragmatically pointing out that ignoring the farmworkers’ plight helps neither them nor the animals, but rather bolsters the power of those who abuse both — the factory farm owners. Just as Nobel Prize-winning author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” In this case, the only way we can take the animals’ side is by siding with the workers against the industry that oppresses them.

Please bear with me while I explain. These laborers typically work 60 to 70 hour weeks, and yet most still live below the poverty line. Many are allowed to reside in the U.S. only temporarily via the H-2A guest worker program, which strictly prohibits them during that limited period from working for anyone besides the employer who originally hired them. Such restrictions leave these legal workers completely at farm owners’ mercy, and reluctant to petition for even the meager protections they are entitled to because reprisals could very well entail not only job loss but summary deportation.

Meanwhile, the health and safety risks most factory farm hands undergo on a daily basis are far beyond what American workers in virtually every other industry are ever exposed to. Being kicked by cows and bitten by pigs are the least of these hazards: peer-reviewed field studies indicate that an inordinate number of U.S. farmworkers are afflicted with acute and chronic respiratory diseases from constantly inhaling air that is rife with toxic gases emanating from the tons of feces and urine expelled by farm animals at a typical concentrated livestock facility. Farmworkers also suffer disproportionately from symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever, but show up to work every day without fail because their employers are not required to provide them with paid sick leave, and taking a day off without pay could mean losing one’s job altogether.

On Down the Food Chain: Victims Become Victimizers

As far as how this affects farm animals, think about it: such vulnerable employees are unlikely to report labor law violations, so they certainly aren’t going to speak up when someone breaks the state’s minimal animal welfare statutes. In fact, surveys show most farmworkers are never even informed that such laws exist. What’s most disturbing and destructive about this situation is that the frustrations caused by working excruciatingly long hours for low wages in stressful and often dangerous conditions greatly increase the probability that farmworkers will commit egregious acts of animal cruelty.

First, it’s essential to understand that the factory farm environment is intrinsically antithetical to ethical norms. Consider, for example, what workers go through every day at Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Upstate New York. Inside giant warehouses, tens of thousands of ducks are confined in body-sized stalls and force-fed excessive amounts of corn-mash for a period of 30 days before they are killed and their bloated and diseased livers harvested for a high-priced gourmet delicacy. Once the compulsory gorging cycle begins, the birds will only accept food from the same person at each meal, so workers (who must individually feed hundreds of animals each day) spend about 12 hours a day (interspersed throughout each 24-hour period), seven days a week for four full weeks shoving pneumatic tubes down ducks’ esophagi and pumping them full of food. On the 31st day, some workers get a day off, then come back to work after a 24-hour leave to start the cycle all over again.

Second, if this sounds sick to you, remember: the agriculture industry seriously maintains that these conditions are perfectly normal, healthy and “humane” for both the workers and animals. To reiterate, the description above is not an aberration but the legal and accepted norm for American foie gras production, and similarly horrific conditions are common at other factory farms. Yet, as we animal activists know all too well from viddying ultraviolent sinnys of undercover investigations showing workers kicking chickens like footballs and lethally smashing piglets’ heads against the floor, superfluously abusive incidents are also all too common behind the bloody walls of these licensed hellholes.





The New York State Assembly has already passed their version of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867), and 28 of the 32 votes we need for a majority in the Senate have been secured. It’s therefore looking pretty good, but influential agribusiness lobbies are actively pressuring lawmakers to defeat this measure, so we need to make one final push to get this bill passed. With the Senate due back from their summer recess in September, you can make a difference now by checking whether your State Senator is already a co-sponsor of S.2247. Depending on their status, contact their office and take one of the following actions:

- If they oppose: Tell your Senator that, as a constituent and a voter, you strongly believe in equal treatment under the law for farmworkers, and urge them to reconsider their position on this important issue. You may wish to mention that polls show New Yorkers overwhelmingly support expanded rights for farmworkers.

- If they are already on board: Let your Senator know that you greatly appreciate their support for this bill, and urge them to 1) persuade their colleagues who have not yet signed on that it is time for New York to stop denying farmworkers the fundamental rights they have earned and deserve, and 2) work to put this bill on the legislative agenda so the full Senate can finally vote on it.