Anyhow, it may still be a bit before I resume regular blogging; I’ve got a ton of work to catch up on, a website to finish, and a yard in need of some major help (still, mad props to the Mr. for all the (to-me) paralyzing tasks he tackled during my absence!). If looking at other people’s vacation photos is your thing (sicko!), mine should be up on Flickr and Facebook within the week. I’m also posting new (albeit moderate and noncontroversial) content on the PPP blog, so if you’re missing me, that’s where I’ll be.

Later, gators.

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Starting tomorrow and through September 20th, I’ll be on vacation and offline. Presumably, anyhow; I’ll be visiting my family in New York, and until I arrive, I’ve no idea what my internet/computer access and schedule will look like. I think it’s one of those situations where either I’ll be super-busy and hardly around at all, or extremely bored and using the extra time to tackle a backlog of work. Either way, expect spotty comment moderation, slow or no replies to email, and a near-total lack of blog posts during this time.

On the bright side –

[because, let's face it, I need something shiny to look forward to as I sit here, teetering on the edge of an abyss that is a stress-filled two weeks spent at my childhood home, with neither Shane nor the dog-kids to act as a buffer between me and my lovable and supportive-yet-impossibly frustrating family / reluctant panic attack]

- I’ll be back in time for the fourth annual Vegan MoFo! Which, come to find out, is scheduled for November instead of October this year, but hey, that’s even better! ’twill give me a little extra time to prepare.

Also, please send some good vibes Kaylee’s way, mkay? (Not that I believe in that stuff, mind you, but it’s the thought that counts!) She’s been nauseous and gassy and feeling like ass since Saturday. So far, we’ve paid two veterinarians $550 to assure us that she’s basically okay, but I still worry, especially since I’m leaving tomorrow. I keep joking to Shane that he’d better not break any of the dogs while I’m gone, or else I’ll never leave the house ever again…but actually I’m more serious than not.

These photos, by the by, are of the Great Autumnal Sun Pursuit, the 2010 kickoff of which was Saturday. Every fall, I schlep the dog beds around the house, following the sun’s rays as the day progresses. All five of the dogs like to chase the sun, but Kaylee and O-Ren are the most tenacious contestants. My little baby had better feel better soon, lest she let Mr. Golden Sun outrun her. Cue: sad marshmallow.

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.
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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?!)

“Rescued egg laying hens: A group of rescued egg laying hens, malnourished and suffering from feather loss, are pictured here shortly after being rescued from battery cages and brought to Farm Sanctuary.” CC image via Farm Sanctuary on Flickr.
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Speaking of “pet” food, if this isn’t a good enough reason to switch your dog-kids (and possibly your cat-kids, too) to a vegan diet, I don’t know what is. I get no small amount of shit from omni’s about the “questionable healthfulness” of feeding my dog-kids vegetarian and/or vegan foods – and yet, these are the ingredients of “nutritionally balanced” commercial, meat-based dog and cat foods: hens so used and abused that they’re likened to refuse by the egg and “meat” industries! So yeah, save your faux concern, people; I’m not interested, really.

In regards to vegan dog food, I figured that since I’ve been featuring more and more recipes for homemade food on these here pages, I ought to offer some background info and caveats. Possibly you noticed a new page link appear in the sidebar last week; the Dog Food Disclaimer includes details on how and what I feed my dog-kids, as well as a list of food and non-food items to avoid. It’s a work in progress, so if you see a need for any additions or corrections, leave me a comment, please!

Finally, I’ve a link for you. Two, actually. Yesterday, Deb and I both wrote about art-as-activism over at Animal Rights & AntiOppression. Deb shared with us the artwork of Ashley Watson, a self-described “vegan-feminist-animal rights” artist and proud member of the women’s studies set. Inspired by the work of Carol Adams, her art attempts to draw our attention back to the absent referent – the once-living animal who was enslaved, tortured, killed, dismembered, processed and repackaged in order to bring us our thrice-daily servings of “meat”stuffs. According to Deb, Ashley’s vegan/feminist art is “being installed at Rutgers University for a feminist art program there” – so if you’re in the area, spread the word and stop by and show Ashley(‘s installation) some love. (Details here.)

Deb’s post reminded to to watch a video short I’d bookmarked the night before. In ‘The Chicken Coup,’ artist/musician Nathan Meltz uses dreary, monochromatic animation in order to capture the mechanized, impersonal nature of industrialized egg production.

This piece hit me hard, possibly because I just finished reading the chapter on “laying hens” in Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs. Meltz manages to capture the desperation of a would-be mother whose maternal instinct has been manipulated and perverted by human greed and callousness. No, not just perverted, but turned inwards and used as a weapon against her. (Read more about Nathan Meltz at AR&AO.)

Of course, it’s worth noting that factory farms aren’t the actual enemy here; rather, the property ownership of living beings and the domination of animals and nature is to blame. “Small,” “sustainable,” “family” farms are only better in (slight) degree – if that, and with ever-decreasing frequency. (Hence all the scare quotes.)

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* Based on an (in)famous, oft-repeated quote from PETA president Ingrid Newkirk: “When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” I hope it goes without saying, but this in no way shape or form signals my support of Newkirk et al.

** Pages 80-81. References have been removed for aesthetics, but can be provided upon request.

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Tagged: animals animal rights vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism video intersections intersectionality animals and women prison school education poverty gender chickens book karen davis prisoned chickens, poisoned eggs eggs meat farming farmed animals factory farming laying hens broiler chickens feminist feminism misogyny race racism classism quote excerpt dogs cats pet pet food dog food cat food vegan dogs site admin animal companion companion animal flickr photos

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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Tagged: animals animal rights the internets site admin blogs blogging intersectionality quick links antioppression vegan

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?

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.

A…day-glo monster fish? Honestly, I’ve no idea what he’s supposed to be:

A turkey-monster!:

Or Monsanto’s latest genetic creation; take your pick.

A miniature goat unicorn!:

What is it with unicorn horns, people?

The anatomy of Capelobo, complete with sexy bits:

Conjoined imp skeletons:

Actually, that would look mighty fine hanging in my living room, right next to the gas mask prints I’ve been wanting. Morbid, me?

A very artsy Abominable Snowman, bringing the rodent(s) home for Mrs. Snow(wo)man and little Sally and Abominable Snowman, Jr.:

And, of course, BIGFOOT!, i.e., Harry!

OH NOES! LOOK OUT SHANE, HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

Um, sorry. All this silliness carries me away. Yes, I am a nerd. Good times, tho.

All joking aside, there’s one exhibit that didn’t quite fit. Possibly you could call the Thylacine a cryptid in 2009, but once upon a time, they were alive and real. Thylacines existed – until we drove the species to extinction.

Explains Wiki,

The Thylacine was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger (because of its striped back), the Tasmanian Wolf, and colloquially the Tassie (or Tazzy) Tiger or simply the Tiger. Native to continental Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century. It was the last extant member of its genus, Thylacinus, although several related species have been found in the fossil record dating back to the early Miocene.

The Thylacine became extinct on the Australian mainland thousands of years before European settlement of the continent, but it survived on the island state of Tasmania along with several other endemic species, including the Tasmanian Devil. Intensive hunting encouraged by bounties is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributory factors may have been disease, the introduction of dogs, and human encroachment into its habitat. Despite its official classification as extinct, sightings are still reported, though none proven.

Image via Wiki and is part of the public domain.

Source: Photograph by E.J. Keller, from the Smithsonian Institution archives.

The Thylacine is likely to have become extinct in mainland Australia about 2,000 years ago, and possibly earlier in New Guinea. The extinction is attributed to competition from indigenous humans and invasive dingoes. However, doubts exist over the impact of the dingo since the two species would not have been in direct competition with one another as the dingo hunts primarily during the day, whereas it is thought that the Thylacine hunted mostly at night. [...]

Although the Thylacine had been extinct for around 2,000 years on the Australian mainland by the time the first European settlers arrived, it survived into the 1930s on the island state of Tasmania. At the time of the first settlement, the heaviest distributions were in the northeast, northwest and north-midland regions of the state. They were rarely sighted during this time but slowly began to be credited with numerous attacks on sheep. This led to the establishment of bounty schemes in an attempt to control their numbers. The Van Diemen’s Land Company introduced bounties on the Thylacine from as early as 1830, and between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head for dead adult Thylacines and ten shillings for pups. In all they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more Thylacines were killed than were claimed for. Its extinction is popularly attributed to these relentless efforts by farmers and bounty hunters. However, it is likely that multiple factors led to its decline and eventual extinction, including competition with wild dogs introduced by European settlers, erosion of its habitat, the concurrent extinction of prey species, and a distemper-like disease that also affected many captive specimens at the time. Whatever the reason, the animal had become extremely rare in the wild by the late 1920s. Despite the fact that the Thylacine was believed by many to be responsible for attacking on sheep, several efforts were made to save the species from extinction. Records of the Wilsons Promontory management committee dating to 1908 included recommendations for Thylacines to be reintroduced to several suitable locations on the Victorian mainland. In 1928, the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna had recommended a reserve to protect any remaining Thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pieman area of western Tasmania.

In 1930 Wilf Batty, a farmer, killed the last known wild Thylacine in Mawbanna, in the northeast of the state. The animal, believed to have been a male, had been seen around Baty’s house for several weeks.

Image via Wiki and is part of the public domain.

Caption: “This 1921 photo by Henry Burrell of a Thylacine with a chicken was widely distributed and may have helped secure the animal’s reputation as a poultry thief. In fact the image is cropped to hide the fenced run and housing, and analysis by one researcher has concluded that this Thylacine is a mounted specimen, posed for the camera.”

Image via Wiki and is part of the public domain.

Description: “This iconic image of a bagged thylacine featuring Mr. Weaver in a studio portrait is repeatedly published yet it is not attributed. It may have been taken by Victor Prout who sojourned briefly in Tasmania in the late 1860s but is known and praised for his excellent panoramas of Sydney Harbour by contemporary photohistorians.”

Finally comes the portion of the Wiki entry that I excerpted in my explanation of the Karma banner, as it ties in directly with the Thylacine exhibit I saw:

The last captive Thylacine, later referred to as “Benjamin” (although its sex has never been confirmed) was captured in 1933 and sent to the Hobart Zoo where it lived for three years. [...] This Thylacine died on 7 September 1936. It is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. This Thylacine features in the last known motion picture footage of a living specimen: 62 seconds of black-and-white footage showing it pacing backwards and forwards in its enclosure in a clip taken in 1933 by naturalist David Fleay. National Threatened Species Day has been held annually since 1996 on 7 September in Australia, to commemorate the death of the last officially recorded Thylacine. [...]

The Thylacine held the status of endangered species until 1986. International standards state that any animal for which no specimens have been recorded for 50 years is to be declared extinct. Since no definitive proof of the Thylacine’s existence had been found since “Benjamin” died in 1936, it met that official criterion and was declared officially extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Thylacine sculpture pictured in the Karma banner sat on a table, not far from a projection screen. There playing, on a never ending loop, were the 62 seconds of Benjamin’s life immortalized on film.

It’s difficult for me to convey the melancholia exuded by this one exhibit. Photos of the display appear depressing enough, but they only capture a fraction of the emotions I remember feeling, at once mesmerized and appalled by the images on the screen. It was…heartbreaking, in a word. A painfully stark contrast to the frivolity and lightheartedness of the other pieces in the exhibit.

Even the display’s placement was depressing – the Thylacine artifacts were sequestered in corner, sad and lonely. Appearing at an art museum, probably this was intentional, meant to emphasize Benjamin’s desolate existence – and the tragic fate of her species.

I watched the film reel a dozen times, possibly more. Imprisoned in a small cage, Benjamin paced back and forth,

back and forth,

back and forth.

Pacing out of – what? Depression? Boredom? Anger? Frustration? Heartache? Loneliness? Most likely, all of these and more.

One of the last of her kind, she died in this prison, the victim of human cruelty and neglect.

And sheer, naked prejudice. Thinking of what befell the Thylacines, I’m reminded of the current plight of wolves in the United States, who are demonized for “stealing” and eating the animals whom humans have destined for their own dinner tables. Wolves need to kill and eat animals; it’s a matter of survival. Humans – at least, these particular humans – do not. The hypocrisy and hatred is stunning.

Unfortunately, President Obama shows little interest in halting the genocide.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare cryptids cryptozoology Thylacine Tasmanian Tiger Benjamin wildlife speciesism hunting extinction wolves kansas city kcmo missouri kansas Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale KCAI Kansas City Art Institute Artspace pseudoscience defenders of wildlife art art exhibit museum flickr photos photo blogging

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.

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.