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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