A n i m a l W r i t e s ©
sm
The official ANIMAL
RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Established 1997
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Issue # 12/07/03
Publisher ~ Susan
Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Journalists ~ Greg Lawson -
ParkStRanger@aol.com
~ Michelle Rivera - MichelleRivera1@aol.com
~ Dr. Steve Best -
sbest1@elp.rr.com
THE ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ Humane Care?
2 ~ Drawing New Lines: Activism & Human-Animal Boundaries by
David Cantor
3 ~ Holiday Nut Roast - recipe
4 ~ Pro-Vivisection Group "Counters Humane Education"
5 ~ Job Opportunity
6 ~ Website of Note
7 ~ 'Twas The Night Before Christmas In The Mills of Missouri by
Robin Pressnall
8 ~ Memorable Quote
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~1~
Humane Care?
By Dantonio482@aol.com
Whenever
I pass the neighborhood pet store, I try not to see the puppies who will be sold to anyone who buys them. I
know some puppies will be fortunate enough to be sold to loving people but
others will be bought by people who have no concept of the inherent value of
animals. They will be sold to people with preconceived notions of what a well
bred and perfect dog should be; and they will wind up in a shelter, or destroyed
by a private vet, if they fail to meet expectations. Pet stores never fail to
remind me of several young dogs who were destroyed because their
"owners" (my neighbors) were dissatisfied with them, and so replaced
them with a "better dog" within days. So it's easier for me to look
away.
But this weekend I was struck by a big sign in the pet store window. It read:
"THESE PUPPIES COME ONLY FROM LOVING, CONSCIENTIOUS BREEDERS."
Really?
We may be tempted to congratulate ourselves for our effort against puppy mills
for it seems to have made its mark on selling dogs, but what that sign doesn't
say is that each of these puppies is seriously at risk when sold to an open
public. It is only by luck that they will find a loving home.
Certainly, no one can rightfully claim to love these animals when they sell
them as a commodity and expose them to this risk. No one can truly claim they
love dogs if they continue to manufacture them while millions are dying in
shelters. Big signs and tangential measures are like putting a bandage on a
splinter. In reality, it doesn't work.
Yet similar advertising is being used to sell meat with a label that reads:
"Certified Humane Raised & Handled". Like the sign in the pet
store window, it will appeal to people who are concerned with factory farming
but who aren't willing to give much thought to whether this project is
realistic. At best it will reduce the
suffering of the comparatively few animals raised and slaughtered on
participating farms; but if the project reaches the main meat industry as
planned, it is unrealistic to believe any such effort could address billions of
farm animals.
Factory farms exist not only because agribusiness has taken over family farms,
but because billions of meat and dairy consumers require that farm animals
outnumber humans by at least 3 to 1. It is impossible to enforce either humane
laws or standards nationwide when billions of animals are assembly lined. That
is the reality.
In addition, as presented on CBS News, this project will pay the USDA to check
if participating farms adhere to their standards.
CBS
News | The 'Humane' Seal Of Approval | May 23, 2003 04:51:02
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/23/national/main555241.shtml
That's right, the same USDA which has ignored the suffering of circus elephants and
which claims it cannot control Class B dealers who sell stolen dogs to
research.
http://nopuppymillscom.readyhosting.com/dognappers.htm
Yes, the same USDA which Dateline found negligent in governing
puppy mill dealers.
The Animal Trust
http://www.theanimaltrust.org/actionforanimals.asp
The same USDA, forever loyal to industry, that lets meat
contaminated with ecoli, salmonella, campylobactyr and even deadly listeria
pass inspection.
The Meat Recall Sham
http://www.vegan.com/issues/1999/jan99/recalls.htm
The reliability of the USDA checking or enforcing standards hardly
seems promising.
And like the sign in the pet store window, this label ignores the bigger
question, i.e., What is humane about killing healthy animals, no matter how
they are handled? We know that natural predators and some human populations
depend on eating other animals in order to survive, and we understand they have
no choice. Even so, because predation will always benefit the predator at the
ultimate expense to the prey, the first moral consideration is how this benefit
compares to the personal cost of the prey's life.
While we always favor less suffering than more, there was a time when animal
life was not taken for granted. We've lost touch with our hunter-gatherer
ancestry, our cultures which killed to survive but which did not disregard the
animal's personal interest in living. So great was the respect for animals that
some cultures found spiritual ways to apologize to the animals for harming
them.
Now in our affluent societies, we are not bound by the same necessities of
survival and it is too easy to disconnect from the animals that become food. We
may falsely take for granted that animals exist for our benefit but truly no species
exists solely for another. Each species has its own innate protections because
each exists for itself. If we choose to eat meat and animal products, it should
at least be an honest choice.
I find it disappointing that some animal welfare organizations are endorsing
companion animal breeding and so called humane killing. If the fundamental
rights of animals are to be recognized, we need an honest and central focus,
rather than tangential measures which make it easier to exploit them. These
only put a bandage on splinters that need to be removed.
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~2~
Drawing New Lines: Activism and
Human-Animal Boundaries
By David Cantor - Djcgside@aol.com
Editor of PSYETA News
Executive Director of Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
www.RPAforAll.org
My late father, an attorney who occasionally did civil-liberties
legal work on a volunteer basis, told how one of his Harvard law professors
said, "Your rights end where my nose begins."
Precisely where one person's rights end and another's nose begins is the
subject of millions of printed pages. So is the question of where humanity
should understand its rights to end and other species' noses to begin.
Writer, lecturer, and therapist Anne Katherine's book Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin (1991) is about boundaries
among human beings. But to illustrate the basic principle, Katherine includes
this at the beginning of her book:
"Each living organism is separated
from every other organism by a physical barrier. Amoebae, orange trees, frogs,
leopards, bacteria, tulips, turtles, salmon - all have physical limits that
delineate them as unique from other organisms. If the breach is severe enough
or if the invading organism is toxic or hostile, the host organism can die. An
intact physical boundary preserves life. …
Boundaries bring order to our lives. As we learn to strengthen our boundaries
we gain a clearer sense of ourselves and our relationship to others. Boundaries
empower us to determine how we'll be treated by others. With good boundaries,
we can have the wonderful assurance that comes from knowing we can and will
protect ourselves from the ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of
others."
Animal advocacy is essentially a call for our species to pull back from its
violations of other species' boundaries, to give nonhuman animals that
protection "from the ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of
others."
In peer relationships, humans exercise choice in the setting of boundaries - we
say "yes" or "no" to a topic of conversation, a wrestling
match, a financial transaction, a sexual encounter. Unequal human relationships
can be detrimental to those with less power. The more powerful can set
boundaries unilaterally as when a parent beats or ignores a child.
Our species - with its large recent increases in population, affluence,
technological impact, and occupied or exploited land, water, and air - sets the
boundaries in its relationships to other species. Though we do not exercise
total control over the vast animal world, we determine whether, when, where,
and how billions of domestic animals will reproduce, how and how long they will
live, how they will die, and what forms of suffering they will endure. Our acts
and omissions mean life or death for free-roaming animals and many experiences
in between, often including their species' extinction.
Our violations of other animals' boundaries are coming back to bite us, just as
if someone whose boundaries we violated were seeking revenge - often
paradoxically as the exploitation paradigm maintains that our species benefits
by violating animals' boundaries. Animal-product consumption brings
"diseases of affluence" epidemics. Factory farming leads to
reductions in the quality of life due to stenches and water contamination. As
toxic chemical use promotes large monoculture crops to feed to factory-farmed
animals, water and soil quality are degraded.
Suburban sprawl that drives out many free-roaming animals by fragmenting forest
and enlarging human habitat increases edge lands with their abundant deer-food
supplies, driving complaints about "too many deer" and slaughters
that often follow. Too much fuel use, including the automobile dependency
sprawl entails, brings the melting of icecaps, which causes polar bears to go
hungry when their weight is no longer supported beside the holes where they
seize prey; this will wreak havoc on many human lives as well.
Perhaps our species will learn to respect the natural boundaries between us and
nonhuman animals for the animals' sake. If animal suffering, needless animal
deaths, and species extinctions are insufficient reason to give the animals a
break, perhaps the species that so adores itself while dismissing the rest will
consider animals' boundaries in order to save itself.
<><><><><>
From PSYETA News, the newsletter of
Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Fall 2003 (Volume 23)
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~3~
Holiday Nut Roast
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2003
Mix together:
2 pounds of firm tofu, mashed well
2 cups of coarsely chopped walnuts (sunflower seeds, pecans, or other nuts may
be substituted)
Then thoroughly blend in:
1/4 cup of soy sauce
2 teaspoons of thyme leaves
1 teaspoon of basil leaves
2 tablespoons of dried parsley (or 1/2 cup of fresh parsley)
1 finely chopped onion
1 cup of breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
(seasonings may be altered to suit preference; for example, a teaspoon of sage
may be added, or you may add more garlic)
Finally, add:
1 cup of dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
Mix all ingredients well. Turn into oiled pan(s) and form into an inch-thick
loaf. Rub the top of the loaf with a very thin coating of olive or other
vegetable oil. Cover the pan(s) with foil, and bake for one hour at 350
degrees. Take the foil off and cook about 10 minutes longer, until the top of
the loaf is browned.
The loaf tastes best when crispy.
Serve with applesauce, apple butter, or cranberry sauce.
Good with vegetarian gravy and cornbread dressing.
(You can adapt any traditional recipe by simply substituting vegetable broth or
water for the customary meat broth.)
<><><><><>
Merritt Clifton
Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE
P.O. Box 960
Clinton, WA 98236
Telephone: 360-579-2505
Fax: 360-579-2575
E-mail: anmlpepl@whidbey.com
Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org
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~4~
Pro-Vivisection Group “Counters Humane Education”
From In Defense of Animals - alerts@idausa.org
Ohio Scientific Education & Research Association (OSERA), an
affiliate of the pro-vivisection network, States United for Biomedical
Research, has developed a curriculum to “counter humane education.” Humane
education encourages students to make humane choices and to think critically
about how our actions affect others of all species. OSERA is focused on
perpetuating dissection in schools, even though students using computer-based
dissection programs get the same or higher test scores than those using
animals.
New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) and the Chimpanzee and Human
Communication Institute (CHCI) have a terrific curriculum introducing students
to critical thinking about the use of animals in science. It boldly challenges
the assumptions behind animal experimentation. The “Next of Kin Curriculum” is
now available for grades 2-5 and grades 6-9.
What you can do:
Write to Ohio’s Board of Education president Jennifer Sheets at Ohio Department
of Education Building, 25 S. Front St., 7th Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43215-4183.
Remind the Board that education must be fair and unbiased and insist that “Next
Of Kin” accompany any and all OSERA lesson plans.
Ask your school or your child’s school to implement a dissection choice policy.
Contact NEAVS for a FREE dissection choice starter kit.
Donate copies of the “Next of Kin Curriculum” to your local elementary and/or
middle school. Visit
http://www.neavs.org/programs/nextofkin/index.htm
to order.
Contact NEAVS for your FREE copy of From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse, a
resource for dissection alternatives.
Contact NEAVS at info@neavs.org
or 617-523-6020.
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~5~
Job Opportunity
Help Stop Animal Cruelty In New York
The League of Humane Voters is hiring people for our outreach staff to tell New
York about the state's first and only Political Action Committee for Animal
Rights. Stop making money for CEOs you'll never meet. Come make money for
yourself and an organization working to ban rodeos, circuses, and forms of
hunting and trapping in New York State!
Earn between $250-500 a week!
Full and Part Time Available
Long and Short Term Available
Please e-mail Melissa at lohvthatvegan@netscape.net
for more info and check out our website at http://www.lohv-usa.org.
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~6~
Website of Note
A new educational website about veganism has just been set up!
www.VegInfo.org
It serves as a resource to aspiring vegans and vegetarians as well
as those who are already aware of the issues. There is an "ask a veg
question" section which allows anyone to ask a question and have a
response posted through the website and in an email.
The site also has a great veg starter kit!!
The site will soon offer a veg restaurant guide that will allow individuals to
get an individual email to alert them about veg friendly restaurants in their
area.
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~7~
`Twas the Night Before Christmas,
in the Mills of Missouri
By Robin Pressnall - Pup3@aol.com
Small Paws Rescue
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the mills,
not a puppy was stirring, it was strangely quite still.
While back at the pole, Santa readied the sleigh,
to pick up these mill dogs, it was such a long way!
The reindeer were dressing all quick in a hurry
They were headed for RESCUE, and straight for MISSOURI!
On Dasher, on Dancer, on Comet and Cupid.
Those pups go to Pet Shops! We know! We're not stupid!
As his sleigh did approach, the mill gates opened wide,
Santa called to them all, and they all jumped inside!
On Poodles, on Bichons, on Golden Retrievers!
Grab up the babies, we save those for grievers!
On Westies, on Lhasas, on cute Weenie Boogers,
On Shih Tzus and Scotties, they're all sweet as sugar!
On Schnauzers, and Maltese, on Wire Haired Fox Terriers!
We've got room for ALL, the more now, the merrier!
And the sleigh just grew bigger as they all made more room,
These pups lives were changing! No more gloom and doom!
While out on the lawns there arose such a clatter
The millers ran out to see what was the matter.
When they found their "stock" gone, how the millers did sob,
while a Voice from above boomed, "GO GET A REAL JOB!"
As it seemed it could not get much better than this,
I started to wake, did I dream all of this???
There was no red sleigh, no reindeer with wings.
I guess it was sadly, just one of those things,
That you dream and you dream, till one day 'twill be.
That glorious day, when the mills are history!
And I think as we tell them, and tell them again,
Soon it will be that we all know that when,
One buys from a pet shop, there are pups you don't see.
The Mama and Daddy, who are longing to be
loved by a family, and scratched on their heads.
Not sleeping on wire, that are now called their beds.
One day it will be, oh how great that will feel!
We won't mill our puppies like paper and steel!
And I heard it exclaimed as I woke up that night,
We won't stand for this, we'll stand up and fight!
With each breath we do have and each word we do say,
we'll tell about the mills, till that glorious day,
when the mills are all outlawed, and all over Missouri,
The occupation of milling, will be but a memory.
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~8~
Memorable Quote
"You can easily judge the character of others
by how they treat those who
can do nothing for them, or to them."
~ Malcolm Forbes, 1919-1990
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Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights
Online=-
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