———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Save the Manatee Club – action [at] savethemanatee.org
Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Subject: Save Three Sisters Springs for Manatees!

Save Three Sisters Springs for Manatees!

Show your support for city’s grant application

Three Sisters Springs is a complex of three spring areas that help feed Kings Bay, the headwaters of Crystal River in Citrus County, Florida. These beautiful springs are one of the most important natural warm-water refuges for endangered manatees in the state of Florida and a haven for birds, fish, plants, and other wildlife.

The city of Crystal River is applying for a Florida Communities Trust grant of up to $6.6 million to buy the Three Sisters property and the Florida Department of Community Affairs needs to receive letters by May 7th to show public support for the purchase.

The current owners plan to develop the 57 acres of land adjacent to Three Sisters Springs to create multi-family residences and remove spring water to be bottled. However, these same owners have also stated that they would be willing to sell the property for the right price.

Get more information about Three Sisters Springs.

Watch a video highlighting the beauty of Three Sisters Springs.

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Hunting is not “fun” or “enjoyable“, nor is it a “sport”;

If hunting was just about honing your shooting skills – challenging yourself, your aim, steadiness and sight – and hitting a target (stationary or not), then you could shoot at non-sentient targets – pieces of paper, bottles, clay discs.

If hunting was just about the joy of tracking, finding and surprising an animal in its natural habitat, you could shoot your targets with a camera.

But it’s not, so you don’t.

Hunting is about asserting your power over the less powerful, about dominating “others”, about getting your rocks off through sadism, in a legally and culturally sanctioned way.

It’s about taking your lack of power out on creatures less powerful than yourself. What better way to relax at the end of a long workweek than to gun down unsuspecting woodland creatures, all the while pushing thoughts of the abuses inflicted on you by the evil megatheocorporatocracy to the back of your mind.

Hunting isn’t about “having a good time”; it’s about exerting control when you might otherwise have none (or less so) at the expense of others. It’s about lashing out at those with less voice than your own, much like so many forms of human-on-human violence that we abhor today.

But Hillary, you’re right when you say that hunting is “part of culture…part of a way of life.”

Spousal abuse, child abuse, hate crimes against racial, ethnic, and sexual/gender minorities; all used to be “part of [our] culture…part of [the American] way of life”, yet time has proven(or perhaps more accurately, is proving) them barbaric, inhumane, unacceptable.

Like these, hunting will one day be seen as the patriarchal pathology it is.

That is all.

(Crossposted on.)

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Tagged: hunting hillary clinton 2008 elections guns parallel oppressions the patriarchy animals animal rights animal welfare

vegan chocolate…drool

Good thing my mother doesn’t read my blog, otherwise she’d find out that she’s getting some yummy vegan peanut butter-filled chocolates for Mother’s Day. She loves Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but you know, they’re tainted by the suffering of dairy cows. So instead of spending my money on useless baubles and knickknacks she’ll never use, or on non-vegan foods that run contrary to my own personal ethics, I’m going to spring for some gourmet vegan candy. Not only can I sleep easy, knowing that my Mother’s Day gift is helping to support an ethical company, but my gift will also go a long way towards showing my mother how good vegan foods can be.

Of course, you need not limit this idea to Mother’s Day. A vegan food item, given to a non-vegan friend or family member, can help counteract the stereotype that all vegan food is made of broccoli or granola and tastes like dirt. It can be anything: chocolate, candy, baked goods, jerky, ice cream. If the commercial items are too pricey for your budget, make your own dessert and hand deliver it! (I found a mouthwatering vegan peanut butter cup recipe on vegfamily.com – maybe a certain libertarian douchebag would like this make this for my birthday, hmmm?)

PETA is even giving away a vegan chocolate assortment for Mother’s Day – you can enter the drawing here.

Some of my favorite vegan companies are listed in the sidebar, under “Veg*n Vendors (Online)”. If you’ve got a link you’d like to see up there, leave it in the comments!

(Photo: Valentine’s Day gift box from Rose City Chocolatier – thnx, Shane!)

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Tagged: everyday activism vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism chocolate mother’s day shopping gifts sweets

OK, so the weather isn’t quite as nice as I’d hoped…no landfill reclamation today. Here be your links.

Action Alerts

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA): Federal: Protect Nonhuman Primates–Support the Captive Primate Safety Act
The Captive Primate Safety Act would bar interstate commerce of nonhuman primates for the pet trade, including monkeys, apes, marmosets and lemurs. This vital legislation would protect the public and captive primates from the dangers that result when these exotic animals are sold as pets.

Audubon: 200,000 Acres of Mississippi River Wetlands at Risk [Yazoo Pumps project]
The Army Corps of Engineers wants to spend $220 million of your tax dollars on a project that could drain and damage up to 200,000 acres of wetlands in the heart of the Mississippi River flyway—an area that contains some of the richest natural resources in the nation.

Audubon: Stop Federal Government from Building Misguided and Damaging Border Wall
Join thousands of Audubon supporters across the country in the fight to protect the fragile environment along the U.S./Mexico border, including the Sabal Palm Audubon Center & Sanctuary.

Born Free USA/Animal Protection Institute (API): Help Us Hold Zoos Accountable
With our Zoo Check Campaign, you can help us track abuses and substandard conditions suffered by animals in zoos, aquariums, circuses, or other places that exhibits animals.

Born Free USA/Animal Protection Institute (API): Colorado Residents: Tell Colorado Wildlife Commission Prairie Dogs Aren’t Pop Cans
Sign the petition to end prairie dog shooting in Colorado

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Friday Activist Vlogging = Friday Veggie Vlogging, but with extra awesome inclusiveness. In addition to animal-friendly musak, I’ll be posting feminist, green, pro-GLBT, anti-racist, -sizeist and -ageist, and otherwise librul/progressive songs. Hopefully in multiples every Friday.

Fridays through Sundays are also awfully mofo busy for me, so this should be much easier than trying to cram in a substantial post or a link roundup. Again, we’ll see how long this lasts. And if you don’t hear from me again ’till Sunday, it’s because I’m busy doing first time homeowner stuff, like cleaning up the junk pile the old owners left in the back of the property. (There’s literally a kitchen sink back there, no lying.)

Suggestions? Send ‘em to me! Dog knows I could use ‘em.

This week’s entry is inspired by the site Stuff White People Like and, more specifically, Elaine’s series of posts on their posts on veganism, dog-love and other so-called white yuppie concerns. Because, like, only privileged white people can be bothered to exercise compassion through their food choices.

Like, um, this guy:

Who’s “kickin’ it” to a song by…dead prez, “a critically acclaimed underground hip-hop duo…they are largely known for their hard-hitting style combined with Socialist and pan-Africanist lyrics, focusing on revolution, institutional racism, critical pedagogy, police, capitalism, education in the United States, prison systems, religion, activism against governmental repression, and corporate control over the media, especially hip-hop record labels.” [Via Wiki]

Oh, and a vegetarian lifestyle, borne from the silly idea that “oppression is oppression.”

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Oh yays! The lovely Kara from Lantern Books sent me two ARCs (Advance Reading Copies), and I’m psyched about them both: Strategic Action for Animals by Melanie Joy and Social Creatures: A Human and Animal Studies Reader, edited by Clif Flynn.

Strategic Action looks as first glance as though it will make a nice supplement to Striking at the Roots, and Social Creatures is an anthology of essays on anthrozoology. So, yays all around!

Lantern Books has a pretty interesting selection of new releases, not all of which deal with animal advocacy issues. For example, there’s a book on male aggression (Boys Will Be Boys) and another about the Columbine school shootings (No Easy Answers). So, go check ‘em out. As of last month, they’re also on Library Thing – so if you’re an Early Reviewer (and, um wtf wouldn’t you be, you silly bird?), maybe you’ll be able to snag a Lantern book via LT. Last go-round they offered up 15 copies of Aftershock, with 321 members requesting a copy…not too shabby!

I also treated myself to a few early birthday presents – a subscription to Veg News (The two-year subscription comes with a free tote, which is friggin massive. I should be able to cram an entire Whole Foods trip into it. Well, almost. All that Purely Decadent ice cream might put me over the top.), and three more books: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (I was reading a library copy, but I ran out of renewals!), The Caged Virgin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary, another anthology of essays.

Oh mans, I love book piles. Maybe a little too much.

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Tagged: books shout out lantern books strategic action for animals social creatures activism animals animal rights animal welfare animal activism animal advocacy anthrozoology flickr photos

Action Alerts

Center for Biological Diversity: Help Protect Polar Bears
After months of illegal delays (and two lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity and its allies to end them) the Bush administration has announced it will decide by June 30, 2008 whether to formally list the polar bear as an Endangered Species. A positive decision will immediately protect polar bears while setting the stage for protecting their habitat and developing a long-term recovery program. A negative decision will consign them to extinction.

Earthjustice: At Last: A Chance for Real Action on Global Warming
On Earth Day 2008, the House of Representatives was presented with a plan for real action on global warming. Chairman Henry Waxman, Chairman Ed Markey, and Representative Jay Inslee introduced their Principles for Global Warming Legislation, a roadmap to produce a comprehensive program for the U.S. to reduce global warming emissions.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Stop State Secrets Privilege Abuse!
The state secrets privilege has been misused by the White House to hide evidence of its wrongdoing, and even to try to dismiss important lawsuits, with a unilateral claim that “state secrets” are endangered. The doctrine was adopted by the Supreme Court in the McCarthy era, and was originally meant to be used only in exceptional circumstances. However, since 2001, the Bush Administration has repeatedly abused the privilege in attempts to cover up potentially embarrassing or illegal activities.

In Defense of Animals (IDA): Tell Congress to end invasive research on chimpanzees
The Great Ape Protection Act (H.R.5852) is an important new bill in the House of Representatives that aims to end invasive biomedical research and testing on chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories. Please Take Action to ask your federal Representative to support and co-sponsor the Great Ape Protection Act.

In Defense of Animals (IDA): Urge your legislators to co-sponsor the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act
The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S.311) is a bill that would end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption, and prohibit the export of horses for slaughter in other countries. The bill has been introduced several times in recent years, and if it does not pass during this legislative session, we will have to start from scratch yet again.

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle – kinshipcircle [at] accessus.net
Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 7:53 PM
Subject: ACT/ Horses Face Eradication In Nevada

KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY – PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST AS WRITTEN

4/22/08: Horses Face Eradication In Nevada

EMAIL kinshipcircle [at] accessus.net FOR WORD DOC OF A FORMATTED LETTER.
Easily modify letter and copy/paste it into an email or print out to fax or mail.

LEFT: Wild horses graze outside Virginia City on July 6, 2004.
Photo by Cathleen Allison/Special to Review-Journal

www.lvrj.com/news/17543794.html

RIGHT: www.best-horse-photos.com/Wild-Horses.html

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: In Defense of Animals – takeaction [at] idausa.org
Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 9:49 PM
Subject: World Week for Animals in Laboratories is Here!

World Week for Animals in Laboratories is Here!

Call-In Days: Urge NIH to End Cruel Animal Experiments

Many people find this hard to believe, but the U.S. government continues to sink millions of dollars each year into funding cruel and outdated experiments on animals to test the effects of nicotine and tobacco. Please join IDA during this week’s observance of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) to call attention to this outrage and speak out in opposition.

IDA’s Up in Smoke campaign highlights the futility and inhumanity of nicotine experiments on newborn and pregnant animals. These are some examples:

– Since 1992, Elliot Spindel at Oregon Health and Science University delivers steady doses of nicotine to pregnant monkeys through pumps implanted into their backs. The babies are cut out of their mothers’ wombs in order to dissect their lungs.

– At Texas A&M University, Ursula Winzer-Serhan forces baby rats to consume nicotine mixed with baby formula at the equivalent of three packs of cigarettes a day. After about a week of being fed nicotine, the babies’ heads are cut off and their brains are dissected.

– Researcher Kent Pinkerton at University of California, Davis, subjects pregnant rhesus monkeys to smoking chambers where they are forced to inhale cigarette smoke for six hours each day, five days a week. When the infants are ten weeks old, they are killed by lethal injection and their lungs are dissected for analysis.

Over the past five years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given at least $16.5 million to this category of research. This appalling figure does not reflect the total cost of all nicotine research on animals, but only that which focuses on nicotine’s effect on fetal and newborn development.

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Action Alerts

DawnWatch: NY Times and International Herald Tribune on in vitro meat 4/21/08
The International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Monday, April 21, both have stories about in vitro meat.

DawnWatch: Newsweek tells us that Botox safety animal tests were inaccurate 4/21/08 edition
“A New Reason To Frown; Does Botox get into the brain? Troubling research contradicts earlier findings about the treatment.”

Defenders of Wildlife: Help End A Bear Poaching Plague
Representatives Raul Grijalva (AZ) and John Campbell (CA) have introduced legislation that will help bears by banning the trade in gallbladders at the federal level. The Bear Protection Act will end a patchwork of state laws that create an enforcement nightmare and allows the illegal killing of bears to continue.

Ecological Internet / Forests.org: For Earth Day, Protest Home Depot’s Complicity in Destruction of Patagonian Wilderness by Proposed Chilean Dams
Patagonia’s wild rivers to be dammed, destroying ancient temperate forests, for 50 years of electricity; please let supposedly environmentally responsible Home Depot know they should not be doing business with the project’s primary Chilean advocate.

National Wildlife Federation (NWF): Support the “No Child Left Inside Act”
Are America’s children environmentally literate? Today’s overscheduled kids are increasingly “plugged in” to electronic devices and media, while at the same time unplugged from the fundamental and formative experience of nature in their own neighborhood. Their senses–including, sadly, their sense of wonder–are bombarded, overwhelmed and ultimately diminished.

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