So I’ve decided to scrap the easyVegan Weekend Activist – or, at the very least, shelve it for awhile. Gradually it started to suck up more and more of my time, to the point where I was spending at least as much time compiling links as I was writing actual content each week. Plus, I never really was sure how many readers made use of it. When I look back at which posts receive the most traffic, the longer essays and/or pieces on intersectionality almost always come out on top – and, since it’s more enjoyable for me, I think I’d rather concentrate my efforts on these topics for now.

Perhaps I’ll revisit and revise the link roundup in 2010 – cull my email subscriptions so that the only newsletters that make their way to my inbox are from genuinely pro-animal organizations, as opposed to much of the welfare crap I was posting (with caveats!) previously. I’m feeling rather burned out on the triage work, and extremely frustrated with a majority of animal and environmental advocacy groups. (Talk about stating the obvious, huh?) Or maybe I’ll draw up a link roundup using bitly, so I can see how many readers actually utilize the action alerts. Until then, feel free to sign up to receive email alerts from any of these human/animal/enviro advocacy groups.

As for the frequency of posting, I hope to pick up the pace in coming weeks. Normally an already-anxious/depressive personality type, the change in time and season has hit me especially hard this year. Even with my trusty sun lamp, I can feel the rain clouds sucking the energy out of me. Come 5PM sunset, I’m ready for dinner and bed. (Lethargy, I has it!) But I’m all caught up on the year-long backlog of paperwork I had to tackle for work, so I should be able to squeeze in some more blogging. I’m also hard at work on another project, which I’ll be ready to unveil in a few weeks. (Until then, if you’d like a hint….)

So anyway, that’s where I’m at. And you?

“Candied” Chai Pears

Ingredients

5 cups water
5 tea bags, in a Chai tea flavor
10+ fresh, ripe pears
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Cloves
Brown sugar

Directions

1. Bring five cups of water to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat.

2. Place your tea bags in the hot (but no longer boiling) water and let steep for approximately 30 minutes.

3. Peel, core and quarter your pears. Use at least 10, but if you’ve got extra room in your baking pan, use it! Fill to the brim with pears, especially if you’ve got oodles of fresh pears, like moi.

4. Remove the tea bags from the (now warm) water. Add the Chai tea to the pears.

5. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to taste.

6. Bake, uncovered, at 275 degrees for two hours (or 350 degrees for one hour). When the pears are sufficiently soft for your palate, open the oven door and allow the pears to cook until the tea has evaporated. If you’d like your pears with a little Chai tea, skip this step.

7. Enjoy warm – but don’t let your furry friends have a taste, no matter how much they beg, whine and connive.

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: recipe recipes vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism pears cinnamon cloves brown sugar baked tea chai chai tea nutmeg candied pears caffeine dog canine rat terrier my furbabies o-ren lol lolz flickr photos pet companion animal

Today marks two years of blogging at easyVegan.info! Veg*n champagne, anyone?

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Tagged: blogiversary lol lolz lol cat

While you’re out there soaking up the sun and Boca Burgers, remember:

On Memorial Day we’ll hear about men who gave their lives for their country, but many lives were not given, they were taken, and taken stupidly and carelessly. And there has been great public piety about those men and their “sacrifice” on the part of politicians who blithely sacrificed them.

Enjoy your three-day weekend.

Wur n Piece lolz after teh jump:

(Crossposted.)

Previous editions:
Not-So-Random Friday Activist Music: Meat & Murder
Friday Activist Musak: Cursing the two-party system
Friday Activist Vlogging: Teh wimmins of cuntry (and clams, too!)
Friday Activist Vlogging: Stuff Honkies Heart
Friday Veggie Vlogging: What’s Your Cut?
Friday Veggie Vlogging (Zoop!)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”3fer” ed.)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”My Retro Boyfriend” ed.)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”You are what you eat” ed.)

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Tagged: friday veggie vlogging friday activist vlogging youtube memorial day support the troops war war on terra protest songs I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag Country Joe McDonald Edwin Starr Anarchy in the UK Sex Pistols lolz lol cats lol dogs

And since these are both somewhat depressing choices, some loldogz after the jump. Smile, it be Friday, yo!

Previous editions:
Friday Activist Musak: Cursing the two-party system
Friday Activist Vlogging: Teh wimmins of cuntry (and clams, too!)
Friday Activist Vlogging: Stuff Honkies Heart
Friday Veggie Vlogging: What’s Your Cut?
Friday Veggie Vlogging (Zoop!)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”3fer” ed.)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”My Retro Boyfriend” ed.)
Friday Veggie Vlogging (”You are what you eat” ed.)

(Crossposted.)

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Tagged: friday veggie vlogging friday activist vlogging youtube Morrissey yje smiths meat is murder tori amos me and a gun rape misogyny speciesism lol lolz

Not that such a sign would have prevented NOPD from murdering Jax, but I do recommend that all animal guardians post something similar on their premises. The ASPCA offers free “in case of emergency, rescue my pet” stickers, and they’re readily available elsewhere for a small fee. (It’s probably a good idea to post one at every entrance to your home.) And if you leave your animals outdoors in a fenced area, a “beware of dog” or “do not open gate” sign is a good idea, too. We got ours from signswithanattitude.com, and have one posted on each set of gate doors.

Not that these babies will fuck anyone up…more likely they’ll make a mad dash for freedom and chase a bird right down the street. The hawks are circling for Rennie, methinks.

(Crossposted from.)

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Tagged: lol lolz my furbabies dachshund wiener dog rat terrier Jack Russell terrier Ralphie Peedee O-Ren Kaylee Jayne signs signage dog canine pet companion animal

All in all, the whole experience was not as fun as I’d hoped. I’d had grandiose visions of spending a weekend catching up on Netflix movies, reading a book or two, and just generally milking the sympathy. Not so much. And the caffeine withdrawal (there was a 36 hour stretch where I couldn’t eat *at all*) sure didn’t help matters.

Aside from the four gaping holes in my mouth, I’m good. Good enough to make some lolz, anyways. Here’s a Kaylee series, after she had six teeth removed last March. Her old “owners” sucked ass, but the only thing we can do about that now is love on her and laugh about it as best we can. And edumakate others. So, take your animals to the vet, people, otherwise this is what happens.

Such a sweet face, even with those crazy teefs!

(Crossposted from.)

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Tagged: my furbabies lol lolz loldog kaylee rat terrier jack russell terrier teeth dental dental surgery your featherhead dental extractions dentist neglect flickr photos

After 15 years (15 years! that’s, like, half my life!) of pissing and moaning, I’m finally getting my wisdom teeth yanked out tomorrow. I have no idea how long I’ll be out of commission, but Monday sounds about right. Of course, I’m probably just being a big whiny tittybaby.

Either way, I’ll see ya when I see ya.

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Tagged: your featherhead dentists lol lolz lolcat site admin

awwwwwwwz, lookit teh dawgy, iz sooooo cuuuute!

The Cuteness. Must. Fight. It.

Ahem.

As silly as LOLDoggeh is, he (she?) comes bearing an important message today: think outside the box, veg*ns!

In this vein, tonight’s Everyday Activism tip is a fun one that I picked up from Mark Hawthorne’s Striking at the Roots. It’s so simple and so cute that I was really quite surprised that I’d never thought of it.

Here’s Mark:

Many activists create a special signature at the end of their emails, appended automatically each time they hit the send button, asking readers to take a specific action for animals or including a link to a video.

Thanks to email, digital media has the ability to go viral. Viral marketing is word of mouth for the twenty-first century, but rather than telling one person at a time, you can spread the word (or photo or video or Web link) to thousands of people, all over the world. The emails with the most viral potential are those you can’t wait to share with your friends – the “you’ve got to see this” email that can take on a life of its own. [...]

You can create your own viral email with an animal-rights angle. Site like www.cuteoverload.com feature countless images and video clips of animals. Pick any of them [...] and blast it out with a brief note explaining that this is just one example of the sentience of animals, and direct readers to a link with more information.”

People love the fuzzy wuzzies, and that goes double for fuzzy wuzzies spouting lolspeak. Sites such as Cute Overload not only post pics of super-cute animals, they also often encourage readers to pay the cuteness forward. Many have a built-in email function, wherein readers can email the pic to their friends, along with a brief message. So find a cute photo, attach a relevant animal rights message or link, and get viral! This can be anything: a link to a news story, fact sheet, video, or website; a personal message; an eloquent animal rights quote – you get the idea. If you’ve got extra time to burn, search around for a photo with an explicitly animal rights message – you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

For example, I posted this photo a few weeks back (the lolz, we needs ‘em):

It’s just crying out for a link to www.torturedbytyson.com or www.goveg.com/ui_chickens.asp, dontcha think?

If you’d like to give it a try, here are some of my daily fixes:

icanhascheezburger.com

ihasahotdog.com

www.stuffonmycat.com

www.cuteoverload.com

lolcats.com is another popular one, but they don’t seem to have an email option (oh noes!). www.macrocats.com, on the other paw, allows for email but doesn’t have a field for personal messages.

Got a favorite site? Share your lolz in the comments!

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts everyday activism viral viral email email cute lol lolz lolcats loldogs mark hawthorne striking at the roots armchair activism cute overload activism

moar humorous pics

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Tagged: lol lolz chicken meat human vegan vegetarian