By Kate Lawrence
(reblogged from A Practical Peacemaker Ponders)
The following is a letter I sent to Denver’s Washington Park Profile in response to their front-page article on keeping backyard chickens:
I’m glad your July article on backyard chickens included the downside. Given the practical issues of daily care, humane concerns, and health consequences of eating eggs, is this something the city of Denver should be encouraging?
Billboard at Colorado and Evans
By Kate Lawrence
(reblogged from A Practical Peacemaker Ponders)
At a major intersection in my Denver neighborhood, this large billboard shows a deer and a hunter in an embrace. The caption has the deer saying “Thanks hunter, for making sure my home isn’t turned into a mall.” Really?
The billboard is part of an extensive advertising campaign by The Wildlife Council here in Colorado to convince the public that hunters and anglers care about preserving wildlife. Then why are they systematically killing them by hunting and fishing? If you cared about a group of animals, would you want to kill them? Especially since you are not starving and have no need to eat their flesh? Continue reading
PETA urges the militants to grow crops, not cows
How much longer are we going to have to put up with the cowboys who have barged onto the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, armed to the teeth and making demands? The situation is both comic and frightening, and it is easy to lose sight of the basic problem, which is livestock agriculture. What we need to do now is to act compassionately and vigorously to protect the wildlife refuge itself. Let’s make the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge an actual wildlife refuge. This means enforcing the principle of law, but going further. We need to change the law and get the cattle out of Malheur completely. Continue reading
This photo by Mike Hudak dramatically shows the impact of cattle ranching on the American West
Many people are now discussing the situation in rural Oregon, where a group of armed militants have taken over the headquarters of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The militants are supporting unlimited access of cattle ranchers to public lands and are apparently willing to use force. In an age where people snapping pictures of factory farms are accused of being “animal rights terrorists,” it is going to be interesting to see how the government will react to what seems to be the genuine article — actual terrorists with actual guns.
The End of Captivity? A Primate’s Reflections on Zoos, Conservation, and Christian Ethics. Tripp York. Cascade Books, 2015. 135 pages.
The End of Captivity? is a short, open-ended Christian meditation on humans and their effects on wild animals. The book is both challenging and infuriating at the same time. It is challenging because it asks us to question the basic logic that puts animals in zoos. But it is sometimes infuriating because, as the author points out, human dominion over the planet is so complete that there isn’t very much space around for wild animals. Where, exactly, can we send them? Continue reading
The Rabbit Advocacy Network, the House Rabbit Society, and SaveABunny, released a statement on Tuesday (September 15) saying that they were “thrilled to announce the end of rabbit meat sales at Whole Foods Market.” A House Rabbit Society member, who was also a long-time Whole Foods shareholder, traveled 800 miles to attend the annual Whole Foods Market Shareholders Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, and made a plea to the Whole Foods leadership team on behalf of the rabbits. Continue reading
The Modern Savage: Our Unthinking Decision to Eat Animals, by James McWilliams. Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.
Industrialized animal agriculture is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Society is slowly but increasingly becoming aware of the cruel, unnatural, and environmentally harmful aspects of factory farms. But what is going to replace it?
Well-known food intellectuals such as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Joel Salatin, and Jonathan Safran Foer have advocated returning to localized, more traditional ways of raising animals. Encouraged by some environmentalists and even some animal welfare supporters, nonindustrial animal agriculture has grown tremendously in the past decade. Continue reading
I will be giving a talk on “Animals in Earliest Christianity” to the Animal Rights Academy in Toronto this Tuesday. Alas, I will not be there physically, but I’ll Skype in via computer, and I understand that the conversation can go in both directions and we’ll have questions and answers.
The talk will be at University College, 15 Kings College Circle, room 256, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from 7 pm until 9 pm EST on Tuesday, February 3. There is a Facebook page for the event here.
The talk is free, so if you’re in the area, I hope you can make it and we can talk about such questions as: what was the attitude of the earliest Christians towards animals? Was Jesus, or anyone else, a vegetarian? Is animal rights compatible with Christianity? And perhaps the most puzzling question of all, should we care?
UPDATE March 24, 2016: I just found out that the talk has been uploaded to YouTube. The bad news is, the video and audio are seriously out of synch. So maybe you could listen to it as long as you don’t pay too much attention to the video portion. Otherwise the video and audio are both of pretty good quality. If anyone knows how to fix the synchronization problem, let me know. In the meantime, though, here’s the link.
Norm Phelps died on December 31, 2014. An activist in the promotion of vegetarianism, veganism, and compassion for animals in spiritual traditions, he authored numerous books and articles.
He followed both the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the Unitarian Universalist tradition — neither of which, he noted, is exclusive. But he was raised as a Baptist and a Methodist and wrote about Christianity and animals as well. Continue reading
lauren Ornelas with Nicholas at Animal Place (the lower-case “l” in lauren’s first name is the way she spells her name)
Well-known vegan and social justice activist lauren Ornelas was arrested for leafleting during a peaceful protest against the sale of rabbit meat on Sunday, November 16, in Sebastopol, California. Then, a week later (i. e. yesterday), there was another protest, with three protesters briefly entering Whole Foods, but this time no arrests were made.
That’s right: Ornelas was arrested for leafleting. Continue reading
What does "respect" mean?
The recently-concluded Denver event “Hoofin It” (August 17-20th) featured a different hoofed animal each day at different restaurants for customers to eat. The meat is from “responsibly raised hoofed animals,” and it was a benefit for the Colorado Food Guild, and tickets were not cheap: $60 for dinner for one person. The theme of the event was “respect your dinner.”
Had this been just another event of the “happy meat” people, vegans would have greeted this news with yawns and the ritualistic rolling of the eyes. But this event had an unexpected feature; the key sponsor was The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Continue reading
The “Day of Action” on August 17 to protest Whole Foods’ decision to sell rabbit meat is quickly gathering force. VegNews Daily has an article, “Campaign Targeting Whole Foods: Stop Selling Rabbit Meat”; and Animals 24-7 asks, “Are skinned and dismembered rabbits ‘Whole Foods’?” We’ll be at Whole Foods in Boulder, 2905 S. Pearl St. from 12:30 pm – 2 pm, with the Denver Vegans (among numerous other local groups). If you want to make your own sign, there are instructions and signs to download here. Come on down! Or, if you can’t make it, sign the online petition here.
UPDATE August 28: PETA has now joined the protest against the sale of rabbit meat by Whole Foods.
FURTHER UPDATE: in September 2015 Whole Foods announced they would stop selling rabbit meat. Continue reading
UPDATE September 16, 2015: Whole Foods announces that it will STOP selling rabbit meat. Yay!
Whole Foods is now selling rabbit meat in some of their northern California stores. The House Rabbit Society has issued an outraged response and called for a boycott of Whole Foods, together with a sample letter.
Whole Foods countered by saying that “Americans have a long history of enjoying rabbit,” citing a Los Angeles Times article. Whole Foods continues by assuring everyone that the rabbits which are eaten have been treated in accordance with their “high animal welfare standards.” Evidently treating them well and killing them are compatible in Whole Foods’ ideology. Continue reading
The Global Guide To Animal Protection. Edited by Andrew Linzey. University of Illinois Press, 2013.
Andrew Linzey, tireless campaigner for animals, advocate of Christian vegetarianism, and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, has edited a marvelous book about animals worldwide. The Global Guide to Animal Protection is an encyclopedia of animal issues that is truly global — and we’re not just talking about on land, but in the sea as well. If you live with a dog, or have been to a PETA demonstration, or try your hand at preparing vegan meals, or have written letters opposing “Sea World,” or have joined a vegetarian group, then this book will likely tell you quite a bit in connection with any or all of the areas of concern to which you have just barely been exposed. Continue reading
Carl Anders Skriver (1903 – 1983)
Dr. Carl Anders Skriver has been a leading figure in the vegetarian movement during the last 60 plus years. Born on December 8, 1903 – 110 years ago – his view of the world changed forever at the age of 17 after reading texts on the teachings of Gautama Buddha. As a consequence he was no longer able to contemplate the killing and eating of animals. He studied classical Indology for his doctorate in philosophy (The Idea of Creation in Vedic Literature).
On encouragement of his Buddhist friend Hans Much, Professor of Medicine, he then studied theology. Another challenge was posed by the question: Was the love of Buddha greater, and much more inclusive, than the compassion of Jesus? Continue reading