The Onion reports:
 

In related news,

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For reals. The ACLU completely stabbed the animal advocacy community in the throat when it failed to take a stand against the AETA. Even now, 2 1/2 years later, a search of the ACLU’s website turns up one pithy reference to AETA – this despite the government’s use of AETA, as feared, to prosecute First Amendment activities. Like, WTF, ACLU?

Luckily, the BORDC has had our backs from the beginning, and since the persecution of the AETA 4, CCR has become increasingly vocal in its opposition to AETA as well (as evidenced by their latest action alert, which I’ve included below).

So, seriously, who needs the ACLU when you’ve got the BORDC and the CCR? Yawn. ACLU, I’m so over you.

If you’ve got any extra money to throw around and would like to make a donation to a civil liberties group, please consider supporting our real allies, namely, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Center for Constitutional Rights – as well as the Civil Liberties Defense Center, which is listed as an ally on abolishtheaeta.org – and/or drop them a note to let them know you appreciate their solidarity.

Further recommended reading/agitating:

Green is the New Red

Coalition to Abolish the AETA

Support the AETA 4

The Good Time Bill

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SHARK is still tugging at Coke’s pull-tab, as the megacorp continues to insist that it “will not sponsor events or attractions that feature animals unless the event organizers have policies and procedures in place to support the humane treatment of animals” – this, while sponsoring rodeos.

Here’s SHARK’s latest alert; you can read previous alerts here.

———————–

Dear Friends,

I want to make this real easy for you to find because I want you to call Coke again, Coke’s number is: 800-438-2653.

William McMullen, a dedicated activist in Michigan, has learned that rodeo sponsor Coca-Cola now has a special “Alert” on its “Frequently Asked Questions” section of its website. This means Coke is getting a lot of complaints about the rodeo issue.

Here’s the link that will allow you to see this for yourself: Coca-Cola’s Alert

Here is Coke’s latest statement:

‘Does The Coca-Cola Company sponsor rodeos?’

“Coca-Cola cares about the welfare of animals and supports their proper treatment. That is why the Company and our U.S. bottling partners will not sponsor events or attractions that feature animals unless the event organizers have policies and procedures in place to support the humane treatment of animals and provide ready access to quality veterinary care to protect the animals’ health and safety.”

This statement is a damnable lie, and the company knows it. It is both unbelievable and repulsive this corrupt company is going to such lengths to outright lie to its own customers. Coke sponsors numerous cruel rodeos across the country that maim and kill animals. SHARK has been proving for 16 years that rodeo humane rules are a farce, and that rodeo animals are regularly injured and killed. Even the rodeo industry admits this by refusing to release animal injury and death reports.

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…and I’m trying to clean out my inbox asap, so I can go spend the rest of the day playing with my furkids (who are stuck in the house on what is a gorgeous Midwestern day, as I plug away on my laptop out on the patio, because they cornered a rather large snake in the backyard, showing NO FEAR – even though the lil’est dog weighs in at a mere 13 pounds…but I digress).

Anyhow, I’ve been holding on to an old DDB newsletter for forever now, waiting for the perfect opportunity to blog their tips for “Having Fun With Your Dog!” (You might remember that I posted something similar on Valentine’s Day.) Well, the “perfect opportunity” has to to arrive, so eff it. Excuses, who needs ‘em?

Having Fun With Your Dog!

There is nothing that brings us pleasure like watching our dogs enjoy themselves. Have fun with your pooch and remember, a happy guardian has a happy dog…so don’t forget to pamper yourself like you would your best friend!

Play with your Pooch!

* Bark! Ok, your dog probably won’t be fooled by your sorry attempt to imitate, but he may be intrigued.

* Hide the Treat Game. Hide a treat in a clever spot and see how long it takes for your dog to find it.

* Mail Dog- Attach a note to your dog and have him deliver to a family member…”Go find Daddy!”

* Read with your dog. Nothing is more relaxing than cuddling with your best friend and a good book. Curl up with a dog book, like Puddles on the Floor, or Every Rescue Dog Has A Tale. Stroke your dog as you read for a great stress reliever for both of you. *These are great books and your purchase helps dogs needing rescue.

Now go show your non-human animal friends some love, and give ‘em extra smooches from Aunt Kelly.

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Action Alerts: Animal & Environmental Advocacy

American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS): No Profit For Pain: Deny License Renewals for AWA Violators

American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS): Help Outlaw Random Source Class B Dealers!

American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS): Great Ape Protection Act Reintroduced!

American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS): Ask Clinique to Join the Leaping Bunny Program

Animal Welfare Institute (AWI): Please Contact Your Legislators to Enlist Their Support on Several Animal Protection Bills! – The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (S. 850), The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (H.R. 503/S. 727), The Restore Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act (H.R. 1018)

Center for Biological Diversity: Tell EPA: Deploy the Clean Air Act Now to Fight Climate Change

Corporate Accountability International: CEO James Skinner: McDonald’s must stop siting near schools

DawnWatch: NY Times covers Vick’s release and work with HSUS 5/22/09

Defenders of Wildlife: Will Your Representative Help Sea Otters?

Ecological Internet / The Rainforest Portal: Resource Boom in Peru’s Amazon Threatens Indigenous Peoples’ Livelihoods and Their Rainforest Homes

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American Bird Conservancy kicks its May BirdWire off with the following ominous blurb:

ABC Video Highlights Damage to Birds from Trap, Neuter, Release Programs

American Bird Conservancy has produced a new, short video “Trap, Neuter, and Release: Bad for Cats, Disaster for Birds.” Each year, feral and free-roaming cats kill hundreds of millions of our nation’s birds, putting additional pressure on the populations of many species that are in decline.

Trap, Neuter, and Release (TNR) programs catch feral cats, neuter them, and then release them back to their colonies, which are subsequently maintained by volunteers. In theory, cat colonies managed under TNR will diminish over time through attrition, and eventually disappear. In practice this is not the case.

View the video here.

(If you have difficulty viewing the high-definition version, please click here.)

Here’s the video, along with its description on You Tube:

Each year free-roaming and feral cats kill hundreds of million of birds in the United States. One controversial solution to deal with the feral cat problem is trap, neuter and release. However, evidence is growing that this method is not eliminating the cat colonies or the predation of birds and other wildlife. There are other problems created by feral cats as well including threats to human health, and public nuisance issues. For more information see American Bird Conservancy’s website at www.abcbirds.org

(If you can’t view the video, you can read more about ABC’s speciesist views vis-à-vis free-roaming cats here.)

Though I’m not sufficiently educated on the issue to offer a counter to ABC’s assertions* (except to say that the birds with which ABC is so concerned have no greater right to life than their predators, the domestic and feral cats; but the guardians of domestic cats should most definitely keep them indoors, both for their own safety, and that of wildlife), I have to wonder whether ABC also advocates a vegetarian or vegan diet for Westerners. After all, meat consumption is a major contributor to climate change – which in turn is “the greatest threat to birds and other wildlife in human history.” (So says the Audubon Society, another organization that, inexplicably, engages in omni indulgence, if not outright apologism.) Most likely, ABC stands to save more birds by persuading their fellow Americans to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet – or even just eating less of the stuff.

And yet.

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

And also, I’d love to hear Laura “Trap, Neuter and Find a Home” Reynold’s** ideas for rehoming all these feral cats when 1) most are not properly socialized to live indoors, with humans (they’re essentially wild animals, hello!); and 2) while between six and eight million cats and dogs enter U.S. shelters every year, only half leave alive. Seriously, what a stupid, uninformed thing to say.

One final thought: humans constitute a massive threat to wildlife. Unrivaled, perhaps. Remember, we’re the cause of climate change, “the greatest threat to birds and other wildlife in human history.”

….

* Luckily, the HSUS and Alley Cat Allies are. For a rebuttal of ABC’s video, start with their websites.

** Of the Tropical Audubon Society; quoted from an interview in ABC’s video.

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Last week, the Mr. and I popped into the newest Price Chopper store, situated conveniently in Liberty, MO, i.e., the nearest mid-sized town (yeah, we live way out in the sticks). It also just so happens to be the first Price Chopper with a natural foods department – cool but surprising, given its rather rural location. Anyhow, one of the endcaps sported a massive display of granola goodness – all of it absurdly expensive, natch – and I’ve been craving granola ever since.

So I hopped on the interwebs – can you even remember what life was like before the invention of the tubes? – in search of diy granola recipes. Which I found in spades. Also discovered: recipes for diy granola bars, which I hadn’t even considered! It’s been eons since I’ve tasted a store-bought granola bar; most contain honey or some such taboo, animal-derived ingredient, and those that don’t are (broken record!) absurdly expensive. Okay, well, maybe not “absurdly”; perhaps “unreasonably” is more like it.

Anyhow, once the possibility of homemade granola bars hit my radar, plans for homemade granola hit the back burner. Seeing as all the (mostly non-vegan, but easily veganized) recipes were slightly different, I combined the ingredients and instructions of several to make (drumroll please!) – Chewy Chocolate Marshmallow Granola Bars!

I used some of my newly-purchased Sweet & Sara vegan marshmallows in the recipe -

- a risky move, since I wasn’t sure it’d work out – but the gamble totally paid off.

These granola bars are absolute chewy gooey yummy oat-y vegan goodness. WIN.

And the sweets from Sweet & Sara – not bad either. (The understatement of the week.) I had hoped to offer a review soon, preferably as part of a side-by-side taste test with Chicago Soydairy’s Dandies, but alas! – The latter are completely unavailable at the moment.

*pout*hint*wink*

In any case, I bring you…

Chewy Chocolate Marshmallow Granola Bars

(Adapted from ‘Make your own Granola Bars‘ at food.families.com.)

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I’ve decided to start a new feature (yet another!) on easyVegan.info. In “Intersectionality ‘Round the Interwebs,” I’ll highlight blog posts and news items that examine the various ways in which speciesism parallels or intersects with the oppression of marginalized human groups. In a word, intersectionality.

Previously, I was linking to these stories in my weekly weekend activist posts, but since they’re easily overlooked in a sea of links, I’d rather give ‘em their own home. Deconstructing the patriarchy is hefty shit, yo!

So let’s get started, posthaste:

Stephanie @ Animal Rights @ Change .org: Pregnancy at Slaughter: What Happens to the Calves?, Part 1 and Part 2

Over the past few months, I’ve spent some time examining how modern animal agriculture subjects female animals to especially brutal and prolonged exploitation, turning their reproductive systems against them. Their children suffer greatly, too; the daughters of “dairy cows” are enslaved in the same conditions as their mothers, while brothers and sons, an otherwise worthless by-product of milk production, become “veal” calves; females born to “laying hens” become egg machines as well, eventually replacing their “spent” mothers, while males are simply disposed of in garbage bags and wood chippers; and so on and so forth.

In “Pregnancy at Slaughter: What Happens to the Calves?,” Stephanie turns her attention to the fate of newborn calves and late-term fetuses at the stockyard, where their mothers are faced with imminent slaughter. As she explains, some fetal calves die with – inside – their mothers, while others are harvested for use in “science.”

If you eat “meat,” drink milk, or wear leather, you’re complicit in this species-, sex- and age-based atrocity.

Stephanie @ Animal Rights @ Change .org: Women, Girls, and the So-Called Achievement of Killing

Following up on an earlier criticism of Feministing for celebrating a woman bullfighter as a feminist hero, Stephanie laments the pseudo-feminist news coverage of Teressa Groenewald-Hagerman, a 39-year-old Kansan whose major “accomplishment” is being the “first woman in the world to shoot an elephant dead with a bow and arrow.”

As Stephanie and others have noted, Groenewald-Hagerman’s slaughter of an elephant – someone’s father, brother, son, partner, friend – is no more a feminist victory than Aileen Wuornos’s unprecedented killing spree.

Elaine at Vegan Soapbox also weighs in:

Teressa was “inspired” to kill an elephant after a male friend said “women could never draw such a heavy bow.” But archery is NOT necessarily a hunting sport. My grandmother was an archer and she did NOT kill. She shot targets, not animals.

In order to prove the male “friend” wrong, Teressa needed only to show strength and skill, not a barbaric blood-lust.

Indeed. Sex-based discrimination in athletics (or any field dominated by men, for that matter) is a pervasive problem; the solution, however, does not lie in the slaughter of even more marginalized beings.

Vegetarian Star: Dan Matthews: Get Obamas Naked, Madonna Is Middle Aged Witch

PETA’s Dan Matthews on Madonna:

I was a fan of Madonna in the 1980s but she became this middle-aged witch who thought her style should be defined by wearing fur coats and eating foie gras. We had a long argument over her glamorising bullfighting in her music videos.

While I agree that many of Madonna’s actions are reprehensible, let’s not pretend that 1a) “witch” isn’t a G-rated euphemism for “bitch”; 1b) “bitch,” when used as an insult, isn’t misogynist; and 2a) “witch” isn’t also a sex-based slur, inasmuch as one never hears a man so insulted (e.g., “You warlock!”); 2b) “witch” isn’t also ageist and lookist, inasmuch as (bad) “witches” are conceptualized as old, wrinkled, ugly, scraggly, disagreeable, hideous creatures.

Alternatives one might employ instead of “witch”: killer, butcher, murderer, social carcinogen, Madge the Bunny Slayer. Lose the -ism in favor of creativity – you get the idea.

And also: fuck you, Dan Matthews.

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While poking around the youtubes for some vegan cooking tutorials (I’ve been craving homemade granola lately), I stumbled upon this heartwarming video. Aired on a local CBS affiliate (?) last Mother’s Day, the segment highlights Lilly, a lab mix who, abandoned and pregnant, made her way to the Burlington, Iowa Human Society. Her six pups were adopted; she, sadly, was not. Sadly but luckily, as the Humane Society soon took in a litter of orphaned kittens, all in need of a mother’s love – and milk. Enter Lilly, who nursed the felines and even rescued one lil’ guy from drowning in her water bowl.

The reporters also point out that Lilly’s isn’t an unusual case; in domesticity and the wild, non-human animals of many species step in to care for the young of other species, some who might normally be their rivals: “For most mothers, it’s just what they do. An instinct so deeply wired into them, that often, all they know is to love and care for life.”

A little cheesy and oversimplified, sure – and, in humans, this sort of essentialism can lead to gender stereotyping and misogyny – but, in many animals, human and non, those sentimental cliches about “a mother’s love” ring true. And the fact of the matter is, when you consume eggs or milk or “meat” (as I’m sure the oooh-ing and ahhh-ing reporters do), you’re exploiting a mother’s love, perverting and severing a relationship so vital to individual and species survival, that many mothers would die protecting their children, need be.

It’s what they do.

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In between gardening and sundry bits of yard work, the Mr. and I have been busy-busy-busy churning out fresh, diy vegan ice cream with our shiny new ice cream machine. While A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise has proven a source of endless inspiration, I also picked up copies of Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop and Vice Cream, by Jeff Rogers.

While I can’t wait to try out some of these yummy-looking recipes (The Vegan Scoop is so gorgeous, the book itself looks edible), I’m afraid I’ll need to empty the freezer first!

Exhibit #1: The multiple batches of Strawberry Very Chocolate Soy Ice Cream I made this week. (Hey, I had to finish off the chocolate soy milk so it wouldn’t spoil. *shrug*)

Using this recipe for Strawberry Very Chocolate Soy Ice Cream at VegWeb as a guide, we started by making a batch of Chocolate Tofu Soy Ice Cream. This is the first time I’ve used silken tofu in an ice cream recipe – the recipes at AVICP call for arrowroot as a thickening agent – and the result was surprisingly delish. I was worried that the tofu might affect the texture of the ice cream once fully frozen, but not so much. Given the extra protein tofu brings to the plate, I’d like to adapt this basic formula to make additional flavors in the future. Plus, many of the items used in this recipe are shelf-stable (tofu, soy milk; vs. the soy creamer found in similar recipes), which is a huge plus for those who only make it to the natural food store (or just the store) on a semi-weekly basis.

A few days later, I made a batch of Strawberry Very Chocolate Soy Ice Cream (pictured above, topped with chocolate sprinkles and heaped on top of even more fresh strawberries) – as written, frozen berries and all. I’d be hard pressed to name which batch I like better – they’re both really scrumptious (though I’ve yet to produce a batch that rivals a pint of Purely Decadent). Only problem I ran into was that the recipe was too large to fit in my 1 1/2 quart ice cream machine, so I had to split the “batter” (what to call unfrozen ice cream?) in half, and process it on two consecutive days. Minus the berries, the recipe *just fit*.

You can view VegWeb’s Strawberry Very Chocolate Soy Ice Cream recipe here; below is my tweaked, super-chocolaty version.

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