13 posts tagged “animal rights”

Annoying link: the besmirching of someone who dares to talk animal rights

Sep 21, 2009
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This post from my personal blog is about the latest target of right-winger Glenn Beck: Cass Sunstein. Really, the post will link you to a Slate column that goes into great detail about Sunstein's supposed crimes of making logical philosophical arguments for treating animals ethically and humanely. Oh, the horror!

My advice? Bypass the crazy and read about Sunstein's work. He makes some very cogent arguments. Some I'll probably steal and repeat.

Link: My thoughts on the WSJ and rats

May 22, 2009
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Kudos to fave animal rights blogger, Stephanie Ernst, for being quoted in a WSJ article about lab rats.

I posted some thoughts about it and the links on my personal blog.

Wow: Disturbing but important law to protect animals from sexual abuse

Apr 30, 2009
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I don't have a lot to say about this post from BlogHer about a new Florida law banning bestiality. Suffice to say this ain't stuff I want to think about too much or too often.

For those of you unmoved by the plight of an animal being treated cruelly all on its own, bear this in mind: Just like veg*nism is good for the planet, and good for humans, so too is this law going to have positive ramifications for humans. That's because, just like violence and cruelty towards animals is often indicative of the same behavior towards human, so too does sexual assault against animals.

Excerpt from the above post:

Rich, a child's rights advocate, said that those who abuse animals (sexually and otherwise) are likely to do the same to kids and the National Humane Society vehemently backs that up. Fact is, sexual abuse of animals often happens concurrently with sexual assaults on people. The NHS website cites numerous studies and statistics illustrating this disturbing connection, including this one:

"Of juveniles who engage in sex with animals, 96 percent also admit to sex offenses against humans and reported more offenses against humans than other sex offenders their same age and race."
--Fleming, William M., Jory, Brian and Burton, David L. (2002). Characteristics of Juvenile Offenders Admitting to Sexual Activity with Nonhuman Animals. Society and Animals

Don't want to ruin your day, but I thought this was an eye-opening post!

Temple Grandin does not get a free pass

Jan 25, 2009
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Read with some interest (and OK, I'll be honest, disdain) this review of Temple Grandin's latest book: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.

Temple Grandin is famous for being autistic and using that condition as a jumping off point to a career in animal management. She is quite acclaimed, even by animal organizations like PETA for her work on improving conditions for food animals.

I am not so ready to laud her.I tend to agree more with Mary Martin from Animal Person who says: "There's simply no way around what Grandin has done: She has helped millions of Americans feel as if they're not causing harm by eating animals."

I mostly hate the way people, even the NY Times reporter, take her story at such face value that they repeat, without question or concrete back-up, such statements as: "Ms. Grandin’s autism gives her a special understanding of what animals, whether house cats or cattle, think, feel and — perhaps most important — desire."

Really? Who. Says. So? Answer: She does.

She also consults for some of the companies that she praises in her books for taking humane measures. I think she gets a free pass on what we would call "shilling" if anyone got up, for example, at a BlogHer Conference and talked about their customers and their awesome progress in the same way. Temple Grandin makes her money from the very industry she is commenting on. I don't think that's irrelevant.

Hey, I'm all for Grandin's many fine contentions: That slaughterhouses should have glass walls, that slaughter should be painless, that animals should be treated with respect, etc. (Although it's ridiculous to say that because some dogs don't get proper human or dog interaction, cattle intended for slaughter lead "better lives". Ever heard the old saw "Two wrongs don't make a right"?)

I'm not fine, however, with her conclusion: That if we do all of the above, s'cool. We've done our duty and done the best we can ever do. All of the above incremental steps are just that: Steps. I believe in taking steps. I've said it many times: Better to do something than nothing. Just do as many things as you can do, until you can do better. But taking such steps doesn't make it any less right or wrong, at the very core, to exploit animals to begin with. And the steps need to lead you somewhere. Her end destination is "humane slaughter". But that's a myth, and my destination would not/does not end there.

Grandin's story is fascinating, but it doesn't buy her a free pass from me on this conclusion.

Vote on my veg*n idea for the new Obama administration

Nov 8, 2008
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Change.org is asking members to come up with and vote for ideas to present to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day.

My idea: Launch an Education Program on How Going Veg=Going Green & Healthy

If you agree that most people don't make the connection between how they eat and the environment, and if you agree that folks who think of themselves as environmentally-conscious should be considering going veg, then vote for my idea!

And don't forget to check out the other ideas in the Animal Rights section.

And while you're at it? Why not post some ideas of your own?

Could we go to Obama's own transition site, Change.gov, and post our ideas too? Yes we can!

Tivo alert: Oprah does factory farming tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th

Oct 13, 2008
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I gotta call my S.O. and have him Tivo this, because while I may not be a regular Oprah viewer, I know that when she covers something it has impact.

Tomorrow, according to Vegan.com and Vegan Soapbox, Oprah is covering how we treat animals being raised for food.

Will you watch, can you? Frankly, it's hard for me. I never watched the recent videos of animals being abused at a California slaughterhouse. Why should I? I already don't eat animals, right? Why put myself through watching something I find torturous?

I don't know. But I'm going to Tivo Oprah's show tomorrow (if I can catch my S.O. and if he remembers) and I might even watch it.

Will you?

NY Times endorses California's Prop 2

Oct 10, 2008
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Vegan.com cuts to the chase here.

You can read the full NY Times editorial here.

Vote Yes on 2, even if, like me, you are unconvinced by dancing pigs.

Megan McArdle on the Santa Cruz bombing

Aug 5, 2008
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Megan McArdle is a writer for The Atlantic, who happens to be a egan. She doesn't write particularly about her veganism, except sometimes when it comes up.

And of course it has come up with the recent Santa Cuz bombings of two animal researchers properties.

I agree with 99% of what she says, but do wonder about this sentence:

"There will never be a group of animal rights extremists large and well-funded enough to actually have any effect on the medical research industry (thankfully)."

Does she mean "thankfully" no extremist group will ever get large and well-funded?

Or is she thankful no one will ever be able to affect the medical research industry?

Because I can get down with the former, and don't understand how a vegan would be so thankful about the latter.

Is it just me who finds that confusing?

For the record: This is hypocritical and wrong

Aug 3, 2008
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There were a couple of firebomb attacks on the properties of animal researchers this weekend in Santa Cruz. In one case they bombed a car, but in the other it looks like they put the bomb outside the front door of a house, causing the sleeping inhabitants to have to evacuate using a ladder from a second story window. This was a researcher and his family, including two children.

The chancellor of UC santa Cruz said, "These are odious assaults on individuals and on the principles of free inquiry by which we live."

So, for the record: I agree these are odious assaults on individuals and entirely hypocritical. I don't believe directing violence and potential harm to sentient beings is a proper way to protest violence and harm to other sentient beings.

I will say that I don't agree that vivisection embodies the "principles of free inquiry" to which the Chancellor refers. I do believe that someday we (the human species) will have utterly abandoned such tactics and feel ashamed that we ever resisted so strongly the push to find effective alternative methodologies.

But I also believe, and think that the vast majority of people who support animal rights and welfare also believe, that violent measures are completely antithetical to what we say we believe in.

In case you were wondering.

Buffy and Animal Rights? Two of my favorite things collide

Apr 10, 2008
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Anthony Head, better known perhaps as Giles form Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has published a sample letter to send the government of Costa Rica about another incident of animal cruelty posing as art. Check it out here.

His site has a whole section devoted to animal issues.

Oh, Giles, why did you and the whole Buffyverse ever leave me?

Annoying link: the besmirching of someone who dares to talk animal rights

Link: My thoughts on the WSJ and rats

Wow: Disturbing but important law to protect animals from sexual abuse

Temple Grandin does not get a free pass

Vote on my veg*n idea for the new Obama administration

Tivo alert: Oprah does factory farming tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th

NY Times endorses California's Prop 2

Megan McArdle on the Santa Cruz bombing

For the record: This is hypocritical and wrong

Buffy and Animal Rights? Two of my favorite things collide

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13 posts tagged “animal rights”

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