Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Vegan Soy Nog Ice Cream

Inspired by this Egg Nog Ice Cream recipe at VegWeb.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 cup soy milk (divided into 1/4 and 3/4 servings)
3 cups soy nog (I used Silk)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons brown sugar

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Caution: Spoilers ahead.

The second-to-last episode of CSI in 2009 featured a particularly animal-friendly plot line. I say “particularly” rather than “surprisingly” because CSI has a longstanding track record of treating animals and animal advocacy issues with a modicum of respect – a practice which stands in sharp contrast to similar crime shows like Law & Order. (See, for example, Veg*nism & Pop Culture: But does Costa Rica have an extradition treaty? and Veg*nism & Pop Culture: Sara Sidle: From CSI to Terra-ist.)

Season 10, Episode 9 (Appendicitement) saw the CSI team investigating not one, but two separate murders, both of which occurred on the premises of a BBQ joint. Since IMDB has a decent writeup of the episode, I’ll let them take it away:

There are two twisty tales in Vegas tonight. Strike that, one in Vegas and one outside.

The first tale concerns lab tech Henry. Greg, Nick, and Hodges literally kidnap Henry on his birthday to take him to this great barbecue place up the road apiece called Harry’s Hog Hideout.* On the way there a crazy lady runs them off the road and the car rolls. Fortunately, none of them is seriously injured but Nick’s car is out of commission. With no cell service, they decide to walk the last little bit to Harry’s but, unfortunately, when they arrive they discover it’s been closed for seven months due to a Hepatitis outbreak. They decide to poke around and see if there’s a working phone inside.

Instead they find a dead body, a man with a raccoon attached to his face.

While Henry, disgruntled about his crummy birthday, hangs with the dead guy Hodges and Greg poke around outside. They figure out that the guy lured the raccoon to a nearby barrel and tried to kill him by filling the barrel with ethylene gas and blowing him up. The explosion threw the raccoon and the guy through the window of Harry’s. So it was an accident.

Meanwhile, Nick looks for a phone and it’s not working. He returns to the scene just as another guy shows up and pulls a gun on Henry. They make it clear that they’re cops and the guy, Slick explains that the dead guy was Gomez the cook at Harry’s, who was generally a good guy.

(Emphasis and asterisks mine, of course.)

Initially – and in breaking with the show’s usual treatment of such cases – the CSI investigators exhibit disappointingly little concern for the dead raccoon. Personally, I am lacking in sympathy for people who inadvertently blow themselves up while trying to lure a sentient being into a trap, only to torch him alive. Killing “nuisance” animals – especially when there are humane, catch-and-release options available – is bad enough; plotting to light them on fire while still alive and fully conscious is downright sadistic. Unfortunately, the CSI team doesn’t voice any of these thoughts – that is, until much later in the show.

Once the plot unfolds and the bodies are transported back to the lab, coroner David Phillips expresses grief at the raccoon’s demise. I can’t recall what exactly was said (nor did I think to save the episode on my DVR so that I might type up a transcript – doh!), but I believe that David muttered something about the human getting what he deserved and referred to the raccoon as an innocent bystander.

In other words, all is well in the Las Vegas crime lab!

Alas, we still have one body to account for…

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Update, 2/8/10: These lovely ladies are now shaking their meaty bits on Suicide Food!

Update, 1/7/10: In the comments, Cara pointed out that the cow isn’t in leaning on a bar counter as I first thought, but into a car window. She is indeed a prostitute – a “street walker,” if you will – picking up a john (that would be us, the viewer!). In this context, I think it likely that all three “food” animals are dressed as prostitutes from different decades: the ’80s, the ’50s, and the ’20s, maybe?

Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse.

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To date, all of the advertisements involving “sexy meat” that I’ve dissected have depicted, literally, “meat” – i.e., dead meat. While this conflation of sex with death and violence is incredibly disturbing, the advertisers’ motives for doing so are obvious: clearly, they want us to think not of the living, sentient beings these corpses used to be, but of the delicious, succulent foodstuffs that they have been processed into. Objectified, the animals are things to be bought, sold and consumed. Worse still, they are absent referents – invisible, erased beings whom we aren’t meant to consider at all.

In this context, I’m not sure whether these advertisements for Martini Bitter are more or less disturbing than those for Rachachuros and McCormick seasonings or the DIY tutorial for making bikini-clad turkeys.

Each image depicts a living “food” animal dressed to look like an “easy” woman.

From top to bottom, we have:

“Beef”: In a smoky, hazy (read: seedy) bar or night club, a cow leans suggestively on the counter, as if to order a drink or “pick up” the man standing next to her – that is, the man behind the camera (hello, male gaze!). Her hoofs – which, somewhat suggestively, resemble the tips of two penises* – are crossed loosely at the wrists (ankles?). She’s white, with a full head of flowing white hair. However, the lighting in the bar casts a soft pink hue on her fur.

We know that the cow is a “she” because her body has all the trappings of femininity: she wears a tight blue dress, complete with cleavage and plunging neckline (instead of multiple udders, the cow has been enhanced with two D-cups!); her outfit is accessorized with multiple necklaces and bracelets; and she carries a pink purse slung over one shoulder. (In fact, her garish pink purse doesn’t quite obscure the subtle curve of her ass; you can spot it, hiding in the shadows – if you dare!) The cow wears makeup, too: a hint of pink eyeshadow and lipstick. Sadly, the makeup might be the most tasteful aspect of this “artwork”!

All in all, the “beef” ad has a very ’80s feel about it. Possibly the cow is just a “loose,” liberated women, looking for a one-night stand; or perhaps she’s a (*ahem*) “working girl.” Either way, the viewer is meant to understand that she (*gasp*) enjoys sex – and quite a bit of it, at that.

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Vegan Gourmet v. Teese: Who shall emerge victorious?

Spoiler: Each shall live to melt another day!

Originally, I’d intended this as a side-by-side comparison of Teese and Vegan Gourmet vegan mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, à la the Sweet & Sara v. Dandies showdown. Yes, I had it all planned out: I ordered exactly enough tubes of Teese to make a few batches of cheddary mac & cheese, with an extra tube of mozzarella and cheddar left over to cover a homemade pizza each. The fridge was stocked to nearly-overflowing with brick upon glorious brick of Vegan Gourmet. (Nom!) Unfortunately, we tried so many different mac & cheese recipes – and over such a lengthy period of time – that it quickly became impossible to keep track of the many cheese/recipe variations. (Seriously, I’ve been at this since early summer!)

So while I don’t come bearing a chart or pro/con breakdown of each brand and flavor of vegan cheese, I can say that I prefer Vegan Gourmet to Teese. Teese is a little salty for my taste, and since it’s not available locally, it’s a tad more expensive than Vegan Gourmet, especially when you factor in shipping costs. Of course, I’m not judging either brand against its dairy-based counterpart, since I’ve never been able to eat the stuff. (Something for which I’m quite thankful now; it’s rather easy to “give up” non-vegan products when you never formed taste for/addiction to them to begin with!) My husband – who is not allergic to milk and found cow’s milk cheese the hardest foodstuff to relinquish upon going vegan – nominally prefers Teese to Vegan Gourmet. Take from that what you will.

In terms of cooking with Teese versus Vegan Gourmet, I think the two are tied for convenience, meltability, etc. Both seem to have their own “sweet spot” for achieving maximum gooeyness. For example, when sprinkled atop mini pita bread pizzas, Vegan Gourmet melts best when cooked at 450 degrees F for about 15 minutes. But, um, that’s in the Garbato-Brady oven; my sister has had slightly less luck at these settings. Likewise, the reason we tried so many mac & cheese recipes is because the cheese sauce congealed at different rates, depending not just on the brand, but also how and when the cheese was mixed with the soy milk, margarine and macaroni. So no matter which brand you favor, there’s no small amount of experimentation and guesswork that goes into cooking with vegan cheese. But hey, it’s totally worth it, dontchathink?

Anyhow, after months of laborious taste-testing, the Mr. and I finally came up with our perfect mac & cheese recipe. Again, grain of salt; mac & cheese is a highly personal and intimate subject, particularly in the vegan community, so perhaps you’ll try this dish only to discover that it tastes like dreck. But hey, that’s how I feel about mac & cheese dishes centered around nutritional yeast, and many fellow vegans swear by these recipes. To each her own.

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Since I’m a grumpy, grinchy atheist, the husband (also an atheist, though not as grumpy and grinchy as yours truly) and I celebrate as different kind of winter holiday. Based on the teachings of her Noodleleyness, FSMas is all about pasta and pirates. Which goes a long way towards explaining the cards below.

We’ve been sending out custom holiday cards 2002. For the first few years, we included every animal companion in the photo; easy when you’ve one cat and one dog, right? Once we added Peedee to the family, Ozzy got bumped from the card; and, with the adoption of Kaylee and Jayne, group shots became an impossibility. So we’ve been rotating ever since. (So sad!)

While every dog-kid got his or her due in 2009, Ralphie & Rennie took center stage: they were our cover-doggies, complete with a fierce “Booty & The Beast” theme. I’ll let y’all figure out who is supposed to be “Booty” and who is “The Beast.”

Ignore the glaring age disparity, mkay? Normally I don’t like pairing a young little lassie with a much older gent – seeing as how it’s a reflection of our sexist societal norms – but there’s, like, zero chemistry between the two oldest dogs, Kaylee and Ralphie. Seriously, I could not get the two to sit next to one another for more than 30 seconds at a time. And yes, I might have bucked the hetero trend with a same-sex pairing, but I thought that might have come off as homophobic and/or mockingly emasculating, given the theme. (Yes, holidays are political for me; what of it?)

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Oh, how the writers at The Colbert Report continue to warm my heathen vegan feminist cockles! (Dear mystery vegetarian/vegan on Stephen’s staff: Call me, mkay?)

Tuesday’s episode of The Colbert Report featured this hilarious send-up of Glenn Beck & Co.’s recent gold investment advertising-slash-infomercial media blitz. While the entire six-minute segment is amusing, gold obviously isn’t our primary focus here; no, the trenchant-as-hell bit starts at 4:15:
 

 
For those who aren’t card-carrying members of The Colbert Nation, allow me to set the bit up for you. “Prescott Financial” is a spinoff of “Prescott Pharmaceuticals,” a spoof company that “sponsors” a long-running segment on TCR, “Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen Colbert, DFA.” In “Cheating Death,” Stephen reports on actual medical stories, which are then used to promote medical breakthrough products offered by Prescott Pharmaceuticals. Ridiculously fake medical breakthrough products, with equally ridiculous and fake side effects, that is.

Likewise, in this fake ad from Prescott Financial, spokesperson John Slattery recommends investing in gold as a safeguard against the coming apocalypse. While gold’s appeal may be “elemental” (A! U!), even this most precious metal’s value is limited. For example, you can’t eat gold. Thus, Slattery recommends rounding out your portfolio with women and sheep as well as gold doubloons and bricks.

Here’s a transcript of the “commercial,” for those who can’t view the video. (But if you can, you must!)

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Mary Elizabeth Williams @ Salon: Will shower for sausages; She’ll “shake her bits” to whet your appetite

In which Burger King tries to one-up its previous misogynist campaigns (can I interest anyone in a blog job burger?) by covering a naked woman in the dismembered corpses and fried secretions of tortured and murdered animals and making her wiggle her (and the animals’) bits in service of the male gaze. Cue: “morning spank routine.” Barf, gargle, repeat.

Tracy Clark-Flory @ Salon: Berlusconi is a boob; The prime minister sells sex for political gain, but many Italians aren’t buying it

While dissecting Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi’s entrepreneurial endeavors – which largely involve selling women’s sexuality on his television stations – Clark-Flory mentions this gem of a tv stunt:

[T]he popular video “Il Corpo delle Donne,” which translates as “The Body of Women,” compiles some of the most shameless moments of T’n'A from Berlusconi’s stations and state television. The most egregious example: A woman is shown suspended from the ceiling in skimpy underwear next to a literal piece of meat clad in a matching pair of panties; it’s awfully reminiscent of that infamous meat-grinder Hustler cover.

After 20 minutes spent perusing boob/burger pimp BK’s website, I’m kind of glad I don’t have a video clip to illustrate this piece. Oy.

Stephanie @ Animal Rights: Breaking Unjust Laws: Clarence Darrow and Inherit the Wind and (especially) Breaking Unjust Laws: AETA, Fugitive Slave Acts, and Oppression Connections

Using the 1960 film Inherit the Wind as a jumping-off point, Stephanie briefly discusses a few similarities between the animal rights and U.S. anti-slavery movements. Or rather, similarities in how each movement was (is) countered by corporate powers, with no small amount of help from the government. (Hint: the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is to abolitionism as _____ is to the animal liberation movement?)

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So probably this is day-old news to many of y’all, but yesterday Stephanie Ernst stepped down as the Animal Rights blogger at change.org. While her progressive-before-its-time voice will be missed in that very mainstream space, the shiny part is that she’s already up and blogging at a new venue. And she’s kindly asked me to join her!

Along with Deb of Invisible Voices, Animal Person Mary Martin, and Animal Place’s Marji Beach (who also blogs for Animal Place and at For the Pits), I’ll be a regular contributor to Stephanie’s new project, Animal Rights & AntiOppression. Tag line: Challenging oppression and injustice, against nonhuman animals, humans, and earth — one vegan, environmentalist, feminist, social-justice-loving, all-around-progressive post at a time.

Already, there are a number of wonderful pieces up, so I invite you to hop on over to challengeoppression.com, have a look-see, and share your thoughts. If you’d like to stay up-to-date on future plans and new features, Stephanie has set up a mailing list on Yahoo, as well as a Facebook fan page.

Of course, I’ll still continue to blog here as well, so don’t go getting all teary-eyed or anything. (I kid, I kid.) I’ve got a number of posts in the works – so many that I’m getting a little anxious just thinking about all that writing I’ll probably never get around to. So before I work myself into an anxiety attack, go check out the new digs. More to follow, I’m sure.

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When I opened this email from 350.org, I couldn’t help but snicker – after which, I inevitably felt a little guilty. (Hey, I’ve got lady bits; I’ve been indoctrinated into a sea of guilt, whether deserved or not.) Then, still feeling a pang of guilt, I snickered some more. You see, their hearts are (kinda sorta) in the right place; their tummies, not so much.

Apologies again for bombarding you with email, but we’re in the final stretch here at Copenhagen and I hope you can join us in doing two unusual things.

“Unsual”? Well, I’m up for most anything. Do tell!

They’re unusual things for us to ask, but this is an unusual moment. In a certain sense the Copenhagen conference is going better than we dared hope. The small nations of the world have really been quite remarkable this week–their calls for strong climate action have completely changed the tone of these negotiations. They have stood up to immense pressure from the big powers, and they continue to rally behind the banner that all of you have raised for them. These nations are still trying to insert “350 language” into the treaty text, at least as a symbolic aspiration for the future. This would be a remarkable acknowledgment of physical reality, and give us a good base to keep moving on.

But not all is well in Copenhagen. We’re not going to get the agreement that we need (current negotiations put us on track to hit a devastating 770ppm by century’s end) and this movement will need to fight on in the years ahead.

But right now, while the Copenhagen climate talks are still unfolding, we need one final push.

Yes, yes!? Quit with the teasing and spill the organic, fair trade, sustainably harvested beans already!

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Update, 12/27/10: The bingo cards now have their own page, y’all! View all four cards (and counting) on one page, complete with plain-text versions and links to debunkings and refutations.

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Naturally, I couldn’t single out speciesist feminists without also going after their sexist counterparts, i.e., anti-feminist vegetarians; that just wouldn’t be fair!

(And vegans! I used “vegetarian” throughout the card only because this is the larger of the two groups, numerically speaking. Vegans can be and oftentimes are just as sexist as vegetarians, so feel free to generalize this card for use on vegans, too.)

Besides, these groups are two sides of the same coin – the main difference being whom they dehumanize, objectify and exploit.

Of course, as with Speciesist Feminist Bingo, you can also use any one of the many Anti-Feminist Bingo cards on your sexist vegetarian friends/acquaintances/trolls. But if it’s an animal rights-themed challenge you want, Anti-Feminist Vegetarian Bingo it is.

To those who cannot view the image: make the jump for a plain-text version of the card. Links to debunkings and refutations forthcoming.* (As are additional cards and series. Racist Vegetarian Bingo, anyone?)

If you’re a vegan or vegetarian – or, heck, even an omnivore – and find yourself perpetuating any of the injustices on these here cards, for the love of dog, stop!

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Update, 12/27/10: The bingo cards now have their own page, y’all! View all four cards (and counting) on one page, complete with plain-text versions and links to debunkings and refutations.

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Hey, now. You didn’t think I could skewer defensive omnivores without specifically targeting the speciesist feminist set, did you? You did!? Hmph. Guess that just goes to show how little you know me.

Of course, you can certainly whip out your Defensive Omnivore Bingo cards when playing with omnivore feminists; most likely, they’re just as apt to try those silly excuses on you as are anti-feminist or feminist-ignorant omnivores. But if you’re hankering for a challenge, Speciesist Feminist Bingo is a nice change of pace, I think.

As with Defensive Omnivore Bingo, I’m already halfway through a second card, so if you’ve got any suggestions, drop ‘em in the comments. Nor have I linked to any resources in the plain-text version of the card – though I do think it would be fun to make a running series of posts out of debunking the statements, one square at a time.* We shall see.

Again, click on the photo to embiggen in Flickr.

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Update, 12/27/10: The bingo cards now have their own page, y’all! View all four cards (and counting) on one page, complete with plain-text versions and links to debunkings and refutations.

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After transcribing Brian VanderVeen’s Defensive Omnivore Bingo last week, I decided to try my hand at creating my own version. Since there’s no limit to the inanities thrown at vegans by omnivores, it didn’t take me long to fill up one card and get started on a second. Behold, Defensive Omnivore Bingo II! (Click through to Flickr for a larger version.) Keep an eye out for additional cards in the future; this shit is addictive!

Below the fold, I’ve included a plain-text version of the card for those who can’t view images. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to find and link to debukings and refutations of each defensive statement and mythconception; if you have a good resource, feel free to link to it in the comments! *

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Since I received a copy of The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book for review, I’ve slowly been working my way through the recipes. I say “slowly” because I only cook meals for the dogs once every 5-7 days. There may be five of ‘em, but when you combine their weights, they only equal 2 or 3 medium- or large-sized dogs (or “real dogs,” as I jokingly call them).

Anyhow, I spent a good 1 1/2 hours in the kitchen last night; writing on Twitter, I noted that my mother did this damn near every night for nearly 20 years – how she lasted so long is beyond me. 16 hours later, and I’m still beat.

Why so intensive, you ask? The recipe – a canine Shepherd’s Pie dish – called for both low-salt, onion-free gravy and low-salt, onion-free vegetable broth, neither of which are staples easily found in the grocery store. I had to make each from scratch, so essentially I cooked three dishes last night. Add to this the fact that low-sodium, onion-free recipes are scarce, and – well, you can see where I’m going with this!

Since precious few vegans seem to be making their dog-kids gravy and veggie broth and/or sharing this culinary wisdom with the rest of the internets, I figured I’d record and share these recipes with y’all. The gravy is pretty straightforward; basically I adapted this recipe from eHow to make it low(er)-sodium and onion-free. It’s gravy, plain and simple, and is great for people and dogs alike.

The vegetable broth, on the other hand, was a little more complicated. Most of the DIY veggie broth recipes I found involve slow-cooking copious amounts of veggies, after which you strain the veggies from the broth, resulting in actual broth. What you’re supposed to do with the sad, soggy veggies, I know not. What I do know, however, is that I had neither the time nor the veggies to go this route. Instead, I relied upon spices and seasonings for the bulk of the flavor, and added in a few (non-disposable) veggies for extra flavor. In other words, my vegetable broth isn’t a broth, really, but more of a soup. Naturally, if you’re making a recipe that doesn’t involve chunks of veggies, this soup-broth won’t really work for you. But if you’re just going to mix a veggie broth with additional veggies (such as with the Barking Barley and Wheat Surprise I shared a few weeks back), look no further than my Low-Sodium, Onion-Free Vegetable Broth / Soup Stock!

Low-Sodium, Onion-Free Gravy

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic OR 1 tablespoon garlic powder (optional)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons nutritional yeast
2-4 tablespoons Braggs Liquid Aminos OR 2-4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

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Last month, I wrote about a series of videos in which Compassionate Cook Colleen Patrick-Goudreau examines the intersecting threads of human and animal exploitation. Specifically, we looked at four segments in the series: Female Exploitation; Maternal Instincts; Inherent Violence; and A Return to Compassion. Well, several weeks have passed, bringing with them three new videos to discuss!

In Domesticating Animals: From Reverence to Ownership, Patrick-Goudreau points to the agricultural revolution – in which humans transitioned from a foraging to farming lifestyle – as the beginning of the end of our harmonious relationship with nature and other animals. With the domestication of plants, nonhuman animals and land came human ownership of these “things”; living beings became property to be hoarded, protected and defended. This rush to affluence – to gather and own as much as possible – also triggered conflict between humans, including the human exploitation of other humans.

Patrick-Goudreau emphasizes the deleterious effects of reducing animals to property – essentially, commodities to be bought and sold – throughout this short video. Historically, marginalized groups of humans – women, people of color, those belonging to lower socioeconomic classes – have also been treated as the property of more privileged humans. I’m especially interested in how closely these two phenomenon are linked; did they occur almost simultaneously? Did the fall of women come close on the heels of the devaluation of nonhuman animals? Are humans doomed as long as we continue to exploit nonhuman animals?

I think y’all know my answer to these questions: No one is free while others are oppressed.

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Update, 12/27/10: The bingo cards now have their own page, y’all! View all four cards (and counting) on one page, complete with plain-text versions and links to debunkings and refutations.

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Update, 7/23/10: The original Defensive Omnivore Bingo card is receiving a ton of link love from around the internets, which is great. But. The rest of my collection is getting jealous! (Sad panda face.)

Please also check out those cards I created myself, including: Defensive Omnivore Bingo 2; Speciesist Feminist Bingo; and Anti-Feminist Vegetarian Bingo.

You can also view them all in a big group, via either the “Bingo!” category on easyVegan.info or my Bingo! set on Flickr.

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The Defensive Omnivore Bingo card has been making the ’rounds for a few weeks now, but naturally I’m just getting around to posting it. As far as I can tell, it originated with History’s Greatest Monster, who seems to be hosting the largest version of the card.

[Updated, 12/10/09: As per Shannon (thanks, Shannon!), Brian VanderVeen (aka Hoveringdog) is indeed the "evil genius" behind Defensive Omnivore Bingo.]

In case you’re not familiar with the geeky awesomeness of “[Fill in the blank] Bingo,” it works much like traditional bingo: players must fill in five spots across (up/down, left/right or diagonally) for a win, but instead of numbers, the cheeky faux bingo games utilize common stupid layperson commentary on a given subject (usually an anti-oppression movement, e.g., feminism, LGBT rights, anti-racism, etc.). I rarely ever see bloggers and their readers play, say, “Anti-Feminist Bingo” per se; rather, the fun’s in making and sharing the delightfully snarky cards. Who says vegans/feminists/progressives/etc. don’t have a sense of humor, hmmm?

The Defensive Omnivore Bingo card is specific to diet and ethics; if you’re so inclined, you can just as easily create a version for other vegan issues, such as speciesism, “pet” ownership, fur, and the like. (I’ve seen some remarkably focused bingo games, such as Fantasy and Science Fiction Bingo, No Racism in Fiction Edition.)

After the jump, I’ve included a text version of the card, for those who can’t view the image. Inspired by similar anti-oppression cards I found online, I’ve also included links to retorts for and debunkings of each insult and/or mythconception.

Feel free to share your favorite defensive omnivore clichés in the comments!

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The Vegan Ideal: Our Bodies and Lives

In a series of posts, Ida dissects and rejects the cissexual “colonization” of transsexual bodies and experiences. While transphobia and cissexism are primarily linked with physical violence and systemic discrimination, discounting and silencing the voices of transsexuals – often in favor of cissexuals’ own mis-/un-informed theories and assumptions – is problematic as well. Unfortunately, transphobia and cissexism are all-too common in a number of “progressive” circles – including animal rights and vegan communities. Here, Ida takes vegetarian-ecofeminists to task for their transphobic attitudes.

This isn’t exactly light reading, but I encourage y’all to read each piece anyhow, and with an open mind. If you find transsexuality a difficult concept to grasp, consider this: given your position of not-knowing (read: ignorance), isn’t it best, then, to trust the thoughts, experiences and feelings of those most intimately affected by transsexuality – i.e., transsexuals themselves – and to place their voices in a position of primacy?

Part 1: Our Bodies and Lives: Transsexual Knowledge and Resistance;
Part 2: Our Bodies and Lives: Transphobic Trauma, Transsexual Healing; and
Part 3: Our Bodies and Lives: Questioning Cissexual Politics.

Steven @ L.O.V.E.: Toward vegan language and

Stephanie @ Animal Rights: Not It and That and What — She and He and Who and Whom

The importance of language – including word choice, pronoun usage, framing, writing in the active vs. the passive voice, etc., etc., etc. – is a subject we haven’t discussed nearly enough on this blog. Fear not; a review of An Introduction to Carnism – in which language assumes a starring role – is forthcoming, and once I’m able to return to Animal Equality: Language and Liberation (a year after beginning it, perhaps? oy!), I expect that you won’t be able to shut me up with the language “policing.”

Until then, Steven outlines four reasons why animal advocates should – must! – concern ourselves with language. Also check out Stephanie’s piece on pronoun choice and objectification.

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I originally wrote this commentary as part of my latest intersectionality link roundup, but the stupid is so painful that it quickly morphed into a full-blown post. Head on over to Salon and skim through Roger Thomas’s interview of Julie Powell (yes, she of Julie & Julia fame) for the backstory, as I haven’t included any excerpts here. It’s pretty clear to which statements I’m responding, anyhow.

Also, while Powell refers only to vegetarians and “meat” consumption in the interview, I’ve taken the liberty of extending her slurs to vegans as well. Clearly, you and I know that the two are not interchangeable, but seeing as the mainstream media usually treats them as such, *shrug*.

Salon: Becoming a piece of meat; Julie Powell’s racy follow-up to “Julie and Julia” — and why she’s fine turning into the new poster child for S/M

Dear Roger Thomas and/or Julie Powell:

1) BDSM and “rough sex” are not even remotely comparable to the exploitation and butchery of nonhuman animals. The former are consensual acts; the latter, not.

A better comparison is that of rape to “meat” production (and consumption): in each case, the oppressor dehumanizes and objectifies his (or her; women don’t typically rape other humans, but they do engage in, support and defend the exploitation of nonhuman animals) victim, treating her as a “thing” to be (ab)used and discarded at will, rather than the sentient individual that she is. To rape a woman is to treat her like “a piece of meat” – and nonhuman animals are no more and no less “meat”-like than human animals.

Of course, nonhuman animals are also literally raped as a matter of course in most (if not all) animal exploitation industries, especially animal agriculture. Usually this rape serves a “practical” purpose, i.e., in order to forcible impregnate female animals (or to obtain the sperm of males); other times, sexual violence is used as a means of control or punishment. Whatever its purpose, these violations are no less violating when visited upon the bodies of cows, pigs and chickens.

[For just several examples of “purposeless” sexual violations, see: PETA’s Iowa Sow Farm/Hormel Supplier Investigation, 2008; PETA’s Butterball Investigation, 2006; and PETA’s Belcross Farms Investigation, North Carolina, 1998-1999.

While undercover investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses are easy to come by, Googling for specific examples of rape and sexual assault is a depressing and difficult task: the rape and sexual assault of nonhuman animals is rarely referred to as rape and sexual assault. In general, this can be attributed to the attitude (quite pervasive among non-veg/an feminists, in my experience) that nonhuman animals, being the “unthinking,” “unfeeling” “brutes” that they are, cannot be sexually violated; that is, they don’t know enough to perceive sexual violations as such, and thus are not traumatized by rape and sexual abuse. Additionally, many forms of sexual violence are fundamental to the system; without the forced impregnation (and resulting birth) of sows, hens, ewes, nannies, heifers, mares, bitches, etc., our systems of animal exploitation would crumble. Here, the routineness of the violations renders them invisible and unnamed.

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Because I’ve been a terribly neglectful blogger as of late – and because this isn’t likely to change any time soon, or at least not this week – I have an extracurricular activity for y’all. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is this:

How Do You Help Animals?

We’re all able to help animals…

But we don’t need to be a full-time activist or have a rare talent to do so. Every day activities that we do at home or work can go a long way in making a difference for animals in need or educating others about animal suffering.

[The American Anti-Vivisection Society] AAVS hopes to inspire all of our readers by publishing the many ways our members and supporters help animals in every day life. For example, do you: bake delicious vegan treats for your carnivorous co-workers? Use your sewing talents to help keep animals in shelters warm? Volunteer your accounting skills for a grassroots group? Offer fresh veggies grown in your garden to give sanctuary animals a tasty treat? Photograph animals in shelters to help them find homes? Donate gently used animal rights literature and publications to your local library? Or maybe you help animals in another creative way.

If so, please submit your story in 250 words or less, along with your name and complete contact information, to aavs [at] aavs.org by Monday, December 14, 2009.*

*By submitting your story, you grant the American Anti-Vivisection Society permission to use your name and written submission, in whole or in part, in the AV Magazine or any other AAVS publication, print or electronic.

The photo at the top of this piece is from the lovely and talented Ari Moore, who – along with her partner, the equally lovely and talented Shira Golding, and in collaboration with The Dacha Project and Shaleshock Citizens Action Alliance – produced a “short environmental zombie thriller” called Frac Attack: Dawn of the Watershed in order to protest natural gas drilling in Ithaca, New York. (How’s that for a run-on sentence, hmmm?) Total awesomeness, though team shirari makes me feel like some kind of slacker. You can learn more about the project on the film’s website or Facebook fan page.

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