I have birthed (mutated? summoned forth? kidnapped and trained?) my very own super-shiny-awesome vegan pop culture blog.

Behold: POP! goes The Vegan.

I know, I know, I need another blog like I need more cow flesh in my chili, but I just couldn’t help it. For reals! After a few months of contemplation, and a few more spent trolling the internets, I realized that POP! might actually fill a (gasp!) void. As if such a thing exists, you scoff. But wait, stay with me here.

Aside from a few green/vegetarian celebrity gossip sites (will. not. link.), I have yet to find a single blog or website that dissects pop culture – film, television, music, literature, theater, advertisements, you name it – from a strictly vegan perspective. Not a few vegan bloggers feature the occasional movie review and the like (myself included), but I don’t know of anyone who focuses solely on popular culture criticism. And so POP! goes The Vegan. was born. (My quirky comical punctuation, you will assimilate it.)

Though the archives consist solely of posts previously published in these here pages, I began adding some original content this week. Probably I’ll continue to crosspost those pieces of which I’m particularly proud – but pleasepleaseplease bookmark POP! so that you don’t miss anything. (Hmmm, that sounded more like begging than I’d intended for it to.)

So far this week, I’ve blogged about Bones, Lost (no Season Six spoilers, please! lalalalala I can’t hear you!), the Temple Grandin biopic premiering on HBO this weekend, and the Anthony Weiner interview on last night’s The Daily Show. (See? You are totes missing out!)

If you’d like to contribute the odd guest post or two, check out the submissions page. I can only watch so many television shows at once, so a few kickass vegan sidekicks are sorely needed.

In the future, I also hope to add a database of links to film, television, music, literature and theater reviews (written from an animal rights point of view, natch), so keep an eye out for that as well. (Just waiting for the Mr. to finish up on the back end. Errr, wait, you know what I mean.)

Ka-pow!, for now.

“Mother hen”: Resting in the grass, a mother hen carries/camouflages four+ chicks under her wings. CC image via topinambour on Flickr.
——————————

Along with The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book, the Book Publishing Company sent me a copy of Karen Davis’s Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs, which I’ve had my eye on for some time now. (The book is now in its second edition; you can download the first ed. for free as a .pdf file here, via United Poultry Concerns.) With five out of six chapters down, I’m not yet ready to offer a review, but I will say that it’s excellent – a must read, and a difficult one, at that. Not difficult intellectually, but emotionally: battery and broiler farms are the Seventh Circle of Dante’s Inferno come to life. You will need to read this book from the bottom of a dog pile – soft fur and warm bellies were the only things to keep me from breaking down in tears some nights. The scale and depth of suffering is simply unfathomable.

Anyhow, whether intentionally or not, Davis writes quite a bit about issues of intersectionality in Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs. The gendered nature of egg production is an obvious topic, but the shared suffering does not stop there. For example, Davis explains what becomes of “spent” laying hens – that is, hens whose bodies are (prematurely, tragically, needlessly) depleted of calcium and other nutrients, such that they’re no longer capable of laying eggs. Their fate is a gruesome one, however, it’s only one link in a long chain of abominations:

At slaughter, spent laying hens are a mass of broken bones, abscesses oozing yellow fluids, bright red bruises, internal hemorrhaging, and malignant tumors. They’ve lost 40 percent or more of their feathers, and because they are economically “worthless,” they sit in transport cages in all weathers at the slaughterhouse “until all other birds are dealt with – up to 12 hours.” The slaughtered birds are shredded into products that hide the true state of their flesh and their lives: chicken soups, pies, and nuggets, commercial mink and pet food, livestock and poultry feed, and school lunches and other institutionalized food service and government purchase programs designed by the egg industry and the Department of Agriculture to dump dead laying hens onto consumers in diced up form. **

In order to mask the abuses inflicted upon the bodies and psyches of egg-laying hens, the industry dismembers – nay, grinds – them into unrecognizable bits. These bits are then fed to the most vulnerable among us: enslaved and exploited nonhuman animals, including the dead hens’ kin; “pets,” including dogs and cats; children who attend public schools, particularly those who rely on the school lunch system; “institutionalized food service and government purchase programs,” such as those that “feed” incarcerated men and women; and working-class and impoverished Americans, whose only access to food may come in the form of fast food joints. One injustice fuels the next, with no end in sight. (Sigh. Where’s that dog pile?!)

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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?

Those of you who do your blog reading the old-fashioned way – i.e., by actually visiting said blogs (how November 2008!) – have probably been admiring easyVegan’s new look for a few days now. (If you’re reading this on MySpace or through Bloglines, Google Reader or the like, you’re missing out!) Throughout June and into July, I was hard at work on a series of new banner graphics for the site. I finished them a few weeks ago, but Shane only got around to adding them to the site on Monday. (In his defense, they required some programming magic to properly work their mojo.)

So far, there are 77 images, set to display randomly and rotate every 90 minutes. The majority are work safe, but if you happen to draw a swear word or naughty image, there’s a handy-dandy “Reload Banner” button located in the sidebar, right above the search box. Don’t say I never did anything for ya.

You can find out more about each image, as well as the motivation behind the project, on the Banner Credits page. Not to rehash what I wrote over there, but I was tired of the blog’s old look and name; the old banner image was so plain! I wasn’t keen on the idea of up and moving the site, though, so I figured a face lift was in order. Spiff things up, you know? I didn’t change a whole lot – just the banner, really, and I also simplified the background image so the site wouldn’t look overly cluttered and busy – but I love the result. The new banners, which are primarily comprised of photos and artwork I already enjoyed, are so shiny and pretty! I’ve already cycled through a few clicks of the “Reload” button, just to see what would pop up. Ahem.

Karma, in particular, has an interesting back story. The animal depicted on the banner is a Thylacine – a Tasmanian Tiger. Or rather, it’s a picture of a sculpture of a Thylacine. The sculpture is (was?) part of a traveling exhibit called Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale, which Shane and I saw at the Kansas City Art Institute’s Artspace in December 2006. Cryptozoology is the study of cryptids; a cryptid being an animal thought – but not proven – to exist. You know, like mermaids, Bigfoot, Yeti, etc.

Cryptozoology is more Shane’s kind of thing. (Not that he believes in unicorns; rather, he enjoys myths and legends, and is fascinated by people who do champion the existence of Sasquatch.) But I love animals and museums, so when he suggested that we check out the exhibit, I was totally down with it.

Most of the exhibits were really quite amusing – very X-Files-ish.

For the conspiracy theorists, the door to the Department of Cryptozoology at the Federal Wildlife Commission:

Some sort of ridiculously adorable unicorn-doggy hybrid:

ZOMG, WANT! She’s probably not vegan, though.

(more…)

Just a quick heads up: We may or may not have a problem with comments on easyVegan. About a month ago, there was a sudden drop off in comments, including spam and trackbacks; whereas I’d been getting hundreds or even thousands of spam comments a week, now I receive maybe ten. Same with my other blogs, as well as those belonging to my husband. Speaking of my geekier half, he’s trying to resolve the issue – assuming there even is an issue – but no luck so far.

Anyhow, if you left a comment but it never showed up, drop me a line at easyvegan [at] gmail.com. Or, if it’s not terribly bothersome, please leave comment on this post so that I know you’re out there and my tubes aren’t broken. Just a quick Hey! will suffice.

If you’ve never commented here before, Wordpress holds your comment in a moderation queue, an inconvenience necessitated by the aforementioned spam that I’m loathe to do away with. As long as your comment complies with my comment policy, I will approve it. If it doesn’t but you amuse me, I’ll approve it anyway. I usually approve comments within a few hours, but keep in mind I live in the U.S. Central time zone, and need my zzzzzs.

 
Just a quick note to let y’all know why I’ve been absent from the blog for a few days, and probably will be for a few more.

Saturday the Mr. and I spent the day thinning out the juniper saplings behind our house, before they sprout into big Mr. and Mrs. Juniper Trees (and we have to pay the pros to chainsaw ‘em down), and – well, it never even occurred to me that I might be allergic to the damn things, even though possibility should have at least crossed my mind, seeing as my skin is allergic to everything. So I broke out in a massive red, blistery rash on Sunday, and have been hopped up (down, rather) on Benadryl and Melatonin ever since. Only, even with enough downers in my system to knock out my 200-pound husband for a night, I can’t sleep but four hours without waking up with a horrid case of the itchies. I’d say about 30% of my body is covered in what I can only describe as a weird mix of poison ivy rashes, road burns and chemical burns, no lie. Google for pics of “poison ivy rash,” and maybe the worst picture you find will remotely resemble what I currently look like. Maybe.

I finally sucked it up and went to see my local RN today, and I’m happy to report that that lovely bitch is Not. Fucking. Around. She gave me a shot of steroids in my hiney, and put me on a 12-day course of oral prednisone, and prescribed a huge tube (with refills!) of topical steroids, and gave me a 5-day scrip for hardcore rx antihistamines, the kind used to treat anxiety and induce sleep. Considering the many contact dermatitis rashes I’ve suffered over the past ten years, I’m no stranger to any of this, but…no doctor has ever given me both a shot of steroids and an oral course. Dog bless that sweet, sweet woman.

Until I get back, I leave you with this Adam Sandler song from The Wedding Singer, which I’ve been playing on a mental loop whilst drifting in and out of consciousness all week. Only, substitute “Mother Nature, poison ivy and juniper trees” for “Linda.”

Photo via CowBoyGirlBeth

Regular readers may have noticed that the easyvegan blogroll is much, much shorter than it used to be. Don’t fret, I haven’t deleted anything!

After months of begging, the Mr. finally created for me a customized WP plug-in that selects and displays ten random links in each blogroll category; the display is updated every time you refresh your browser (and/or kill the cache). If you’d like to view all the links in any one category, simply click on that category’s heading – it’s a link now, yo! – and it’ll take you to a dedicated page that displays all the links in that category, in alphabetical order. (None of these are permalinks – not yet, anyhow – as Shane is also working on generating more intuitive URLs for each page.)

With a fixed blogroll display, I no longer have to worry about a bloated, out-of-control sidebar, and can add links till the dogs come home. If you’d like me to add a specific blog, website, organization, etc., drop me a line at easyvegan [at] gmail.com – or in the comments – and I’d be happy to oblige. Similarly, if your link is present in the blogroll, but you think I’ve mis-categorized it, let me know. Reports of broken links are also appreciated, but the Mr.’s next project is to write a script to auto-check for those.

Re: your attempt to denigrate my ethics by implying that I care about non-human animals to the exclusion of human animals – YOU FAIL.

And also, please to read a blog’s comment policy before trolling, mkay?

As per said comment policy, yes, you are banned, so don’t bother. That is, unless you’d like to share with everyone the steps you’re taking to end the genocide in Darfur.

{{hugs}}

Kelly

After months of cajoling, the Mr. finally convinced me to join Facebook and Twitter. Both of them! In one morning! Oh, the horras.

My shoulders are going to be tensed up all afternoon. New things, I do not like them. Unless they come in small, furry packages, of course.