On behalf of Jojo...

Jojo is pictured on the left (sorry for the quality of the photo, I haven't had a good picture taking session with him yet). He is colored with the markings of the sort of bunny that is called Dutch. If you take the time to read the article I've linked to, you will discover that those markings were developed by folks living in England who fiddled around with "breeding" rabbits. He belongs to a popular grouping...you can even purchase items to wear or carry that advertise your liking for "Dutch" rabbits.

I'm reluctant to use the term "breed". I find it sort of offensive....in a number of ways. For one, it reminds us of our own arrogance...who in hell are we to be playing with the reproductive behaviors and pardners of someone else?

Use of the word "breed" is also used to obscure the individuality of each of the beings that are tagged with the term. Cliches like the notion that pit bulls are aggressive, they're "bred" for it (Petey, the dog with the ring around the eye on the old our gang movies, was a pit bull...real scarey huh?). In truth, it is a stupifying term. It may seduce you into thinking you know more than you do.

You know as much about an animal when you are told their "breed" as you do when you are told that a human animal is Finnish or Korean.  You may have some information about their external appearance (no guarantee necessarily) but except for that it is up to you to become familiar with the particular personalities, dispositions, likes, dislikes, etc of the individual in question. Stereotypes abound...but if you think you actually know anything about the Finnish human or the Korean without knowing them...guess what....you're probably wrong.

Moving on from the breed rant (smile) brings me back to Jojo, which is where I started. He's not a baby, nor is he an oldster...he's probably anywhere from a year to three years old...and that's a guess. He's really needy right now, any human he sees is vamped mercilessly by his standing up and stretching toward them. He wants attention, petting on the head, holding...needy, needy. He's also un-neutered. He's been with us for a couple of weeks, is feeling better and safer so now he also gifts the Heartland director with a urine spray when he sees her (he thinks she's cute).

On behalf of Jojo, I want to protest this:

What you see are lesions and the absence of hair covering the lower part of his body most likely because of urine scald. Jojo was forced to sit in urine for long, long periods. We're talking days, weeks, months. All because....well....because somebody failed to properly care for him.

By the way, I blocked out Jojo's "privates" because I didn't know if he would object to my showing them to others or not. He probably wouldn't care...but better to err on the side of caution.

In the lower picture you can see Jojo's tail. He still has a bit of hair on the end of it so that it looks a little like a poodle dog tail after one of those strange haircuts some of them are subjected to.

Jojo now appears to be on the mend. His "dehaired" areas are not nearly as red and raw looking as are in the photos and evidence of fuzz can be seen on much of the bare skin. Maybe all his hair will grow back. Maybe.

Jojo, right now, has a lap rabbit disposition. He really really really likes being held and petted. We can speculate that he was isolated and lonely, we know he was neglected...severely....but beyond that...we'll probably never know his history. Jojo doesn't speak English...

But I do...and I can object, I can protest...on his behalf. And I do. We human animals have no business being in control of other animals, none...but when we arrogate the power to ourselves to be so...then with that power goes the obligation to provide a safe, clean, rich and comfortable environment for them...one that meets all their needs. Jojo didn't have that...and I object and protest about this failure...on his behalf.

For a really good post about our arrogance and its impact on other animals you can read this offering over at the Vine Sanctuary News.

Living as an ethical vegan is the only way of behaving that I know of that approaches honoring and respecting the rights of Jojo, and all other sentient beings, to the life to which they are entitled. If you aren't doing that...why not?  Really....why not? If you are...then thank you...both from me and (I think I can speak for him) from Jojo.

Art can be uplifting...

John Banovich is an artist, a painter. Here's an example of his work:

Colors...John Banovich

All of the images you will see in this post are from the 2012 Prix de West show which is held annually in Oklahoma City. John Banovich usually has some pieces there and ever since I discovered his work and his philosophy I've enjoyed both. He set up a foundation to promote and assist in conserving wild places and animals.

He writes: "Art can move, reveal, and inspire us to seek a deeper understanding of the world around us. It can paint a face on an issue, cause, region, or species."

One of our annual rituals is to attend the Prix de West art show and wander through the various pieces and experience reactions to the works presented. Invariably delight will occur, sometimes awe...sometimes disgust. It is always a provoking and mostly enjoyable journey and this year was no exception.

My wife is an artist, a skilled and excellent one. I have a painting of a buffalo that she did for me that hangs where it is often the last thing I see at night before I go to sleep. I love that painting. I can't create art like that...artists with talent do art and that excludes me.

What's art? One of my takes on what it is that it is one of the very very few things human animals do that brings a good thing to the world. Some visual works of art, some music...created by humans is simply exquisite...almost (not quite though) as beautiful as the planet Earth and the beings that live there.  And...the fact is many of the other animals do seem to enjoy and may even be moved by some of our music.

Art and some medicine and healing activities are about the only things that human animals are able to do that has brought a unique positive contribution to our world, at least it seems so to me. We've pretty much managed to distort any of our other abilities and behaviors and "creations" into nightmare destructo insanities that put anything, except maybe the aftermath of a severe virus, to shame. 

Because I actually like to think good things about human animals I always look forward to this annual art show...there are almost always some excellent and fun and enjoyable and powerful works there...and this year was no exception. My 2012 favorite:

Sioux...Dan Ostermiller

This sculpture is about 5 feet tall, almost 3 feet wide and deep...it is massive and absolutely demands that you smile. I don't often crave artworks...but if I had an extra $50,000 and all the other animals and the planet were safe and protected...I would have taken that bear representation home with me in a moment. It is a treat. My next most favorite piece looks as if it were living, glimmering liquid.

Ripple...Ross Matteson

The duck and the water are made from black Belgian marble. They looked as if you could stick your finger into them...like they were some shimmering liquid with form. Stunning.

Those two pieces were worth the trip and the cost and the time. Everything else was simply a bonus...and there were many other enjoyable works from the artists. These for instance:

Gladness

First is a painting of a couple of beautiful foxes, much of what made this painting so powerful was the way the artist used the paint to depict light...it almost glowed.

El Pollo Loco

The rooster was a treat. Proud, brave and defiant...he was created by the same artist that did the bear sculpture.

Wild Iris

This painting of the iris was very evocative and eye-catching. The detailed renderings of the trees, branches and flowers were excellent and beautiful.







You can use this link to browse through photos of most of the whole art show. Just remember though that the photos in no way, shape or form convey the power or excellence of these works. You must be in the room with them to get the full effect...some are almost living and breathing. If you live in central Oklahoma go in person...if you live elsewhere find some venues where you can go experience some art. What little respect I have for our species is immeasurably bolstered by some of our artworks. Somehow, good and true art nourishes and enhances those who experience it.

Nourishing and enhancing (or at least not harming) our planet and all life requires that we live an ethical vegan lifestyle...but you already knew that.

Transforming...

that's the only word I can think of that comes close to capturing my experience over the past couple of years. It has been that long that I've been volunteering on a regular basis out at Heartland Rabbit Rescue. I still am unable to verbalize how I've been transformed or even why...but I know something has shifted irrevocably within me and some (if not most) of it has to do with being around these remarkable beings so regularly.

How could anyone not be affected? Certainly not me. To the left you see a baby recently rescued...she was about 4 months old when she came in and she begs for attention much like a puppy. When she spots a human she stands up asking to be picked up and fussed over. She was running the streets and someone took her and called Heartland.

But she is only one of dozens and dozens of abandoned and neglected and abused bunnies that live at the rescue. I've been lucky enough to come to know each and every one that live in the south warren (right now 78 bunnies I think). That's a lot of personalities, that's a lot of different rabbits to get to know. I've never ever known that many non-human animals all at once in my whole life. Some I am smitten with, others I strongly like...there are none that I dislike. If I were to become very familiar with 78 human animals all at once the outcome would be quite different. To know so many rabbits all at the same time is one hell of an experience. They are amazing individuals. And I don't know nearly them as well as I want to, I don't know them nearly as well as does Jeanne Patterson, the founder and director of Heartland...she's is with them many more hours a day than I am and has been surrounded by rabbits for many many years. I'm in awe of her knowledge about bunnies.

To the right is Cutie (again) and Simon and Dustin. Simon and Dustin are old hands at the rescue. Simon is pictured while he is running loose on the warren grounds...Cutie and Dustin are confined in outside enclosures so they can have some playtime. The confining is necessary because bunnies are very prone (especially when young) to engage in dominance activities (they fight) and separation in necessary to prevent injuries. Were it safely possible...we would let them all run free.

It is a phenomenal thing see all these guys and gals almost everyday.

We're able to get 20 to 25 of them outside each day for a couple of hours early in the morning...that's the only time the temperature is low enough for them to be out...now that the blistering days of summer are setting in here in central Oklahoma. Bunnies can't sweat hence temperatures over 80 degrees Fahrenheit begin to be risky for them. They dig and binky and play when they first go out then as it warms up many will dig out an area and lay in the cool dirt.

 Here's Pippin, about whom I wrote back in August, napping in an area he scooped out so he could be next to the cool earth.

The level of play and running and jumping and nosing around is fairly closely tied to the age of the bunny. Just like human animals...if you go to a first grade playground you're going to see very different behavior than if you go to some park area where a bunch of 50 or 60 year old human animals are hanging out. The outdoors is enjoyed by everyone of all ages...they just act differently while doing the enjoying.

I guess that's a big part of the transform. It has become an indisputable fact to me as a result of my interaction with these bunnies that they are as different from one another as human animals are different from one another. Each one is a unique individual who shares some similarities with the other rabbits, just as we humans share similarities yet at the same time they differ each from the other...just as human animals do. They are as complex and as sensitive and as emotional and as intelligent as human animals...they just show these phenomena differently than human animals do. And, just like us, they vary one from the other on the range of sensitivity, emotionality, intelligence that they possess and those features vary in strength and precision depending on how the bunny is feeling and what situation the bunny is in...just like human animals. Some are elegant and graceful, others are sort of clumsy and galumphing, some are acrobatic, some aren't.

They tend to be full of beans and boisterousness and play when very young, when they're adolescents they can be real jerks and are prone to stir up trouble, once they reach adulthood they tend to be calmer and more mellow but still full of energy...(and some are feistier than others) as they enter their later years they may get grumpy and cranky and quirky. They may get arthritis, they may like to doze...their senior years are so much like humans that if you dressed them up in a human suit you probably wouldn't notice much difference at all. Except the rabbit would probably be more appreciative of dinnertime...they do tend to enjoy their food. And they don't talk much...although they do have a rather wide range of grumps, honks and growls (or a scream in an emergency) they can trot out...and some talk much more than others.

Their interests differ from us...because...well because they are rabbits. They have a different evolutionary history than we do...they've traveled a different path...learned different things...developed different skills and strengths. But...where they are identical is that they are children of this planet...just like we are. They have feelings, they think, they feel joy, they feel attachment, they feel fear, they feel hunger, thirst, heat, cold, illness, sleepiness...and on and on and on. They love their children, sometimes they love their brothers and sisters and parents...sometimes not. Some have a good sense of humor and like to tease and be teased...others do not.

Howard

Howard for instance...the big galooty white fellow I wrote about in an earlier post has as mellow and fun a personality as you could ask for. He often likes to be chased...he will put on the most excellent head-fakes and high-jumps you could ask for and then he stops and watches you to make sure you are still participating in the game.

And then there is Brett, who has a disposition that is so amazingly sweet and friendly. He patiently will let a human hold him and if you sit down near him he will climb up in your lap and put his hands on your chest asking you to pet him. He also likes to tease Marshall and Russell...two sort of macho acting bunnies that live at the warren. 

And what I'm now certain of is if I had the opportunity and time to get to know 70 dogs or bats or weasels or pigs or cows or horses or wombats or sparrows or or or...I would find exactly what I have found with the rabbits. Each one is different from the others, each one is an individual.  Each one is unique....and yet...we're all the same in that we're all just trying to get by, the best way we know how.

In the end, it is the emotional universe we inhabit that matters most to us. We tend to seek that which increases our good feelings and tend to avoid that which prompts unpleasant feelings. In this respect (and many others)...a rabbit is me and I am a rabbit. We each are children of Mother Earth. We each were valued enough by her to bring us into being.

Ingrid Newkirk is supposed to have said:  "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". There are lots of other feelings that are common to all of us...probably all feelings....whatever I can feel...any living being with a central nervous system can feel. Time for us human animals to step off of our self presented pedestals and realize that all of us...all living beings are in this living stuff together...and no one is any more equal or better than anyone else.

Well, except for the bunnies that are called Dutch. Many of the Dutch bunnies (who originate from England...go figure) I have met seem to be pretty impressed with themselves.

Here's Griffin, he's Dutch...and I must admit he's quite an impressive fellow. He may well be better than all of us...but he isn't an a**hole about it...that's better than many human animals do when they get bitten with the superiority virus.

Living as an ethical vegan is the only way I know of that honors the lives of my brothers and sisters, the rabbits, the gophers, the birds, the kangaroos...all the many sorts of children that Mother Earth chose and living as an ethical vegan also honors Mother Earth's power to choose the children she wants. She's much more wise than I am...and wiser than you too...I betcha!

An eloquent vegan...

That's certainly an accurate description of Phillip Wollen. You can click on his name and go to the home page of an organization he started called the Kindness Trust, there you can learn more about him and his work on behalf of animals and on behalf of the planet.

Better yet, take a few minutes and listen to him speak.




Below is the transcript of his talk. If you don't have time or don't want to listen you can read his remarks. But you really ought to listen...the Aussie accent is great. The link will take you to the page where the complete article about the debate he was participating in can be read.

On behalf of St James Ethics Centre, the Wheeler Centre,
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, The Age
The City of Melbourne and the ABC
All of whom have worked together to make this event possible
I would like to welcome
Philip Wollen
((Applause))

King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asks the blind Earl of Gloucester “How do you see the world?”
And the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly”.
Shouldn’t we all?
Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages. Vile ignoble gulags of despair.
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before.
In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.
Their cries were the cries of my father.
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals.
And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.
Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.
CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock.
Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.
Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.
We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus.
It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.
The world has changed.
10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www was a stuck keyboard, Cloud was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was a baby burp, Skype was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.
Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.
There are over 600 million vegetarians in the world.
That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!!
Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous huntin’, shootin’, killin’ cartels who believe that violence is the answer – when it shouldn’t even be a question.
Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.
Medicare has already bankrupted the US. They will need $8 trillion invested in Treasury bills just to pay the interest. It has precisely zero!!
They could shut every school, army, navy, air force, and Marines, the FBI and CIA – and they still won’t be able to pay for it.
Cornell and Harvard say’s that the optimum amount of meat for a healthy diet is precisely ZERO.
Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it.
Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.
It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.
1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever.
If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed them. We only have one. And she is dying.
Greenhouse gas from livestock is 50% more than transport . . . . . planes, trains, trucks, cars, and ships.
Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?
The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.
We are facing the perfect storm.
If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into the Bronze Age.
But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry.
The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it.
George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.
This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. This cruel industry will end because we run out of excuses.
Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth.
And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so much money they wouldn’t even bother counting it.
Governments will love us. New industries would emerge and flourish. Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would disappear.
Hell “We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”
So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:
1. Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
2. I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.
Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.
The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice.
Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. And there is unimaginable terror in those ghastly Guantanamos.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we wouldn’t need this debate.
I believe another world is possible.
On a quiet night, I can hear her breathing.
Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers.
Please vote tonight for those who have no voice.
Thank you.

 I especially liked the line: "Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror."

It is heartening to run across a passionate and excellent advocate for ethical veganism. Thank you Mr. Wollen. (And thanks to Christine...who was impressed enough by the speech that she made a point of letting me know about it.)

Attending a human funeral...

is one of the activities that occurs more frequently as we human animals get older. More people that we know or used to know are dying from age related conditions. That's if we're lucky enough to have adequate nutrition, shelter, medical care and live where violence or other factors do not serve to reduce our life span.

I attended one such human funeral this past Monday. The link will take you to a brief obituary if you're interested in knowing about the person who died. She was one of the children in a family that lived near us all during my childhood.  She was considerably older than me and her siblings were also older. But I do remember her and do remember her fondly. She was always pleasant and nice to me and so was all of her family. So I didn't resist the obligation I felt to attend the funeral both to mark her death and as a gesture of respect and support to her surviving family. And...I have an older sister who wanted to attend and she asked me to drive her there. So going to the funeral (and I do not much like funerals) was a task that accomplished a number of things all at once...and I like to be able to do things that way when possible.

Culturally dictated activities like funerals are things that we all do. Here in this part of the country most occur in some religious building or other. This one took place in a Methodist Church. I vaguely remember from a long-ago Anthropology class that the one near universal constant seen in the human animal death ceremony, regardless of the culture, is that there is some sort of procession symbolically representing the journey from life to death. Most funerals here involve some sort of "procession" from the place of the funeral service to the place of burial. On this occasion I only attended the doings called the "funeral service".

One of the reasons I have a distaste for funerals (beside the obvious one of not generally enjoying death) is that most of them occur in a church. And I have some antipathy toward most of the brands of organized religions that I'm familiar with, particularly the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity...probably because that's the sort of stuff I'm most acquainted with. I just haven't had much of a chance to get offended by other religions.

Suffice it to say I'm not too impressed with the behavior of human animals in general but when we get into some sort of "religious" mode (especially "Christian" or "Islamic")...well...we tend to suck. At least that's my take on it. And please note...I'm not trying to degrade or offend...and I'm not talking about spirituality...which a lot of us tend to confuse with religion. They aren't the same thing. (All in all, I probably lean toward spiritual notions akin to Animism more than anything else.)

Well, one of my more dreaded experiences came to pass at this funeral. The pastor running the event made it much more into some sort of proselytizing event instead of an honoring of the dead person. Which happens way too often...I guess they figure if they have a captive audience they should push their product. Anyway...when he finally got to the rather brief part where he talked about the woman who had died...he related a story that just irritated and saddened me terribly. It still disgusts and saddens me.

The story was that this woman was kind and helpful and competent and accomplished...and one of the accomplishments he talked about was that she was a "big game hunter". He told some story about her shooting and killing a deer and behaving toward the men in her camping group as if it was no big deal...anyone could do it.

Many in the audience laughed as this story of her murdering an innocent and harmless animal was told. I was staring and the floor and struggling not to jump up and ask all those laughing why was murder a funny thing. Why was the death of an innocent being and occasion of humor? Especially at a ceremony marking a death! What kind of religion encourages killing, laughs about killing. She murdered somebody...that's an occasion for shame and sorrow...not laughter. But...I didn't jump up...and part of me still wonders if I didn't betray that dead deer. I guess in a way I did and I feel bad about that. I diminished myself by not confronting the vicious speciesism that was exhibited by that story and by that laughter.

Even looking back...I would still not jump up and confront the ugliness. I wouldn't interfere in whatever processes were going on in the family and friends. The meeting was about honoring a human female who died. But the ugliness and callousness and obliviousness shown by that story will forever mark my memory of that meeting. I will remember my shock at such a story being told and my dismay and sorrow that laughter and smiles greeted the telling. I often wonder if our species isn't fubar.

Here's what I'm going to do. I plan to write that preacher and voice my dismay and sadness that he's so oblivious to innocence and grace and beauty and horror that he tried to build up one living beings existence by presenting her as a murderer. I'm going to ask him if talking about the death of an innocent being honors the killer. I am going to do that. And...I will make a donation to our local wildlife rescue in honor of that long dead deer. And I will always be stained and diminished in some measure because I sat and heard the laughter and did not openly object. And I am diminished and stained because so many human animals think killing is humorous.

Speciesism hurts and diminishes everyone it touches and it permeates this culture. And it is ugly. And ten years ago that story would have only discomforted me, it wouldn't have mortified and offended and outraged me. So I have changed and if I can change...so can others.

 I imagined attending a funeral two-hundred years in the past, and hearing some story supposedly honoring the dead human that involved their killing of an innocent slave or Native American...and I imagined hearing the laughter. And I despair...but I do realize that change from two-hundred years ago has happened and so I can also hope. I know who Donald Watson is, I live as an ethical vegan. So can other human animals. We must.

The Face of War.

The Face of War is the title of a book by Martha Gellhorn. I became interested in her writing because of a movie on HBO called Hemingway and Gellhorn. She was briefly married to the author Ernest Hemingway and apparently dumped him because he was too bossy for her. She was a war correspondent and covered war beginning in 1936 with the Spanish Civil War through the horrors sanctioned and supported by President Reagan against the citizens of the small countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s.

The movie wasn't all that great but two things were intriguing about it. The first was that the characters were inserted into actual news footage of the various wars being reported on...and done so in a very skilled and realistic way. It is creepy how well they were able to make it look like the movie characters were actually in the scenes depicted in the newsreel footages. Very disconcerting and spooky.

The second intriguing thing was Martha Gellhorn. I liked her character enough to want to read some of her writing and The Face of War just happens to be a book my local library has. The book is just superlative. It offers an eyewitness look (by the same person) at multiple wars occurring over a period of 50 years or so. I plan to obtain my own copy of the book just a soon as possible...I can think of no better writing chronicling the violence and destructiveness humans visit upon each other and on the planet than this collection of eyewitness reports.

She received the news that Germany had surrendered in 1945 while at the Dachau concentration camp. She wrote:

 "...Dachau seemed to me the most suitable place in Europe to hear the news of victory. For surely this war was made to abolish Dachau, and all the other places like Dachau, and everything that Dachau stood for, and to abolish it forever."

Her writings begin with the Spanish Civil War. Her feelings about this conflict are much the same as mine...that anyone who helped the Republican side (the democratically elected government of Spain) was someone helping all of us. That England and the United States did nothing to help these folks was a mark of shame. There's a good chance the horrors of WWII might have been avoided if the democracies had stood together against the fascists...in Spain. But they didn't.

This isn't a book about veganism...but it is in a strange way. For instance at the end of the book she writes:

"I hold to the relay race theory of history: progress in human affairs depends on accepting, generation after generation, the individual duty to oppose the evils of the time. The evils of the time change but are never in short supply and would go unchallenged unless there were conscientious people to say: not if I can help it."

Well, the fact that our fellow animals aren't recognized as the owners of their own lives is one of the evils of our time...and it is our duty...if we wish to progress...to oppose that evil...to challenge that evil....to worry and harass that evil and to refuse to participate in that evil. In that respect Martha Gellhorn and I see things very much the same. She closes the book with a statement that I absolutely and totally agree with:

"There has to be a better way to run the world and we better see that we get it."

Read the book, you'll get a rare longitudinal eyewitness look at some of the stupidities and brutalities of humans toward other humans and toward our planet that is rare and unique. You'll also get acquainted (to some extent anyway) with a remarkable human woman...someone that I believe would have understood the justice of and the necessity for the vegan way of life.

The heart asks...

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The privilege to die.

Emily Dickinson wrote this poem and it has always haunted me. Anymore I can't read the poem without thinking of the millions of chickens crammed into battery cages...who...when young had hearts that asked this world for pleasure. Instead they spent short miserable lives with no anodynes to alleviate their suffering...all because we humans wanted money or a taste.

Each cow, each pig, each chicken, each sheep, each goat, each dog, each cat, each rabbit, each being that is a child of this earth...each one was born with a heart that first asked for pleasure...and billions...billions of them quickly wished for anodynes that weren't granted. I have no doubt so very very many were relieved to have the escape of death visit them.

We have no right to deny young hearts the pleasure of the world...we have no right to deny any heart such pleasure.

We have no right and yet we deny them and hurt them for selfish reasons and we provide them with no anodynes and then we kill them. We diminish and degrade ourselves. Never wonder if there are monsters...there are...shamefully and sadly...there are. And they are not rare...they are not few in number...those who choose to not behave monstrously are the few. Sadly and shamefully.

Who has time for justice?

"In Memory Of Rosa Robota, Estusia Wajcblum, Ala Gertner, Regina Safirztain and Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, who all died from different manifestations of the same disease."

Thus is written the dedication of a novel titled "The Street Sweeper" by Elliot Perlman. One of the main characters in the novel is a psychologist who travels to Germany in 1946 to interview survivors of the Holocaust. This psychologist, after hearing a woman tell her story of having to abandon her infant daughter in a futile attempt to save the child's life, asks himself: "Who will sit in judgement over all this?"

Close to the end of the novel, a female physician faces a situation wherein she is called upon to intervene on behalf of a fired hospital cleaning worker.

"...what a tremendous injustice it was for him to be accused of theft and fired because of it. She worked at the hospital but not in Human Resources. She had her own life. She had her own problems. Who had time for this kind of thing?

She asked herself this and then wondered what she meant by "this kind of thing."  She concluded a few seconds later that what she had really meant was "justice" of some kind. So what she had, in fact, asked herself was "who had time for justice?" and  the fact that she had articulated this question, even if only privately to herself, jolted her. She caught a vague, elongated momentary glimpse of herself walking past a reflecting surface and, not wanting to be the sort of person who asked her self that question, ..." p.596-597

 I'm not going to 'review' the novel...there are a number of adequate ones available on the web. Instead I want to write about the bitter and tragic fact that in a very well written novel such as this...in a novel that addresses beautifully the disease that kills (racism) noted in the dedication quoted above...this novel is blind...utterly...to speciesism (which also kills).

One of the more sympathetic characters in the novel is an African American man who is kind and gentle and sensitive, helpful to a fatherless boy, and who also 'works' as a "splitter" in a slaughterhouse...he spends his working life murdering or dismembering pigs.

And yet...and yet...this is a sensitive and powerful and well-written novel about the horrors and damage and suffering and deaths that accompany the ugliness of racism...but the novelist and the characters are oblivious to their perpetuation of the same behaviors and attitudes that so scarred and injured and diminished their lives. How can this be?

I know the novelist did not set out to write a novel about racism and injustice and human blindness and human casualness toward perpetrating or supporting horror that exemplified the very thing he was attempting to explore and highlight in the book...but he did. His work is tainted and diminished so terribly much by his own blindness...by his (and thereby his characters) own inability to perceive that speciesism is simply another manifestation of that terrible 'disease'.

I found reading the novel to be so disorienting...for instance in one part a mother and daughter are discussing the Upton Sinclair novel "The Jungle" and on the following page are talking about the ugliness and wrongness of using the "Nword" when referring to African Americans. With never a hint that the pigs and cows and sheep murdered by the slaughterhouses referenced in Sinclair's novel are murdered for exactly the same reasons that slavery once was legal...for exactly the same reasons that the Germans built the gas-chambers, for exactly the same reason that using the "Nword" is ugly and wrong.

They were (and are) enslaved and murdered because they are considered to be "inferior", unworthy of serious consideration...or dog and cats and rabbits are murdered because no one wants to care for them...or for "sport". It is the same...the same old story of devaluing those who are "different", of denying the worth of those not the same...your life is forfeit to the group in power if you don't fit their criteria of worthiness.

And Elliot Perlman has written an excellent treatment of racism directed toward African Americans and Jews. And Elliot Perlman casually and apparently with absolute obliviousness supports and reifies and normalizes at places in his book the same ugliness, the same 'disease', when directed toward those who happen to not look like a human animal. Without a thought or a word or a tear for their anguish, for their terror, for their lives. How sad, how very sad.

"Who will sit in judgement over all this?"

Please don't be someone who doesn't have time for justice...ethical veganism is the only way of living that supports justice for those who don't happen be human animals...and...while you're at it...live a just life toward your fellow human animals too.

A day for Honoring all Human UnMothers.....

On my behalf and on behalf of all sentient beings I want to thank and honor all of you human animal females who have avoided becoming mothers. Thank you Thank you and Thank you! You have chosen to not participate in or contribute to the ongoing and accelerating destruction of most of the current habitat and environment of the planet Earth.

The human overpopulation of the planet is destroying other species and the environmental conditions necessary to support Earth's species at an astonishing rate. The single most significant thing any human animal can do to reduce their negative impact on the ecosystem is to not reproduce. While not disrespecting those who have children...the real heroes who deserve acknowledgement are those brave women who have had the courage to remain childless.

When scientists talk about overpopulation, they are usually referring to a population exceeding its biological carrying capacity which is defined as "the maximum number of animals that a specific habitat or area can support without causing deterioration or degradation of that habitat.” 

 Look at the bottom left corner of the graph, it is estimated that the human population of the planet exceeded 1 billion in 1804. In general, thought suggests that a human population of around 500 million (in other words, a population of humans half of the 1804 population) is a "sustainable" number of people. If you want to poke around, there is an abundance of information available...

What is important to remember is that every additional human animal on the planet means two things for our fellow Earthlings:

A. Less space and food (natural habitat) for other animals.
B. More animals killed for food by humans.

The direction of the number of human animals needs (for the sake of the planet, for our fellow Earthlings and for ourselves) to be decreasing, not increasing. We could make the number decrease by killing (and we are amazingly good at that) or by death from disease or starvation or whatever....or we could make the number decrease by not adding to it and letting death due to age begin to bring the number down. Obviously the least violent and painful way to make our numbers drop is to quit having so many children.

So...thanks is due to those courageous and heroic human females (inadvertently or not) who have had the generosity and vision to help all living beings by being UnMothers.  Your planet thanks you, your fellow Earthlings thank you...especially all mothers who aren't human animals, and I thank you. You are appreciated and valued and treasured.

Your not having children means you voted to have more tigers living in the wild instead of another McDonalds hamburger joint.

You voted to preserve, not to destroy. You voted for the future, not for the now. This is caring, this is concern, this is love...this is true "mothering". Be impressed with yourselves, you should be...we all should be. Thank you!!!   (Repost from May 7, 2011)

Joie de vivre!

The french phrase, which means pleasure or joy in living or life is one that comes to mind every time I think about or see Howard. The photo below shows Howard doing one of the things he seems to enjoy totally...running. He moves pell-mell wherever he goes....

and he seems to always be going somewhere. Except when he's not...then he might be looking to see where he wants to go next.

I've been wanting to write about Howard for a long time but words about him come with difficulty. He came to us after having been dumped in a parking lot (in a cardboard box). He was picked up by the local municipal animal shelter and his execution time was approaching...that's the penalty in Oklahoma if you're a bunny without a home. Death. He was thrown away. The best estimate of his age is that he is between 2 and 4 years old...likely he is on the young side of that range...he seems to have grown a little since he came to us and his energy level certainly is that of a kid.

Howard is what is known as a "New Zealand White". Now, first of all these guys don't have a damn thing to do with New Zealand...the "breed" was developed in Mexico...supposedly in 1916. The "big whites" (that's what I like to call them) were "bred" for their "fur" and for "meat" and for "use" by laboratories. I'm enclosing words that are repulsive and euphemistic in quotation marks because they obscure the horrific reality that these bunnies were manipulated by humans for profit...absolutely and totally ignoring the rights and needs of these beings. But...that's a rant for a different time.

Howard came to Heartland because the Director made the space for him (even though we didn't have it...Heartland is chronically over capacity) to save his life. When he first was given a chance to run around it didn't look good for him. He was very shaky and had a difficult time staying upright...his balance was very poor and he evinced ongoing tremors. It was apparent he had some sort of neurological or motoric problems and we were very concerned about him. But...he was a poster child for the word exuberant. He would run and fall and immediately spring back up and keep on going. If he was still (which was not very often) and tried to scratch or wash his face...he would often fall over...but it sure didn't seem to bother him. There was no way to watch Howard without breaking into a big smile.

The pinkish skin and reddish tint of his eyes are typical in his "breed" because there is a strong element of albinism in these sort of bunny folk...albinism makes it easier to test cosmetics and chemicals in their eyes and on their skin...the damage done can be more easily seen and the tissue is more sensitive. What a bunch of creeps we human animals are...disgusting. Howard though, is anything but disgusting...he is a special special being.

Over time, and he's been with us for around a year now, his shakiness and wobbling has diminished considerably. He still tremors and falls sometimes but not much and not very often anymore. He's too busy...and busy is the perfect word for this fellow when he has a crack at running around the rescue property. He is either going full speed or he is lounging somewhere resting as hard as he runs. Or...he's looking for women...Howard is a lover and a runner and nobody knows which he prefers...both are primary considerations for him. He is adept at climbing out of enclosures, breaking into enclosures and generally going where he isn't supposed to go. All these things he does with gusto and joy and (I secretly think) a big bunny smile...

 Now, due to the hugeness of his personality, he has been tagged with some interesting names by the bunny slaves at Heartland. Mr. Wobbles is one name that is applied to him sometimes but the name that causes the most laughter and pleasure is that of Mr. Naughtytrousers...because it so aptly describes him and because that name is so unusual sounding to us in America. The name was borrowed from a bunny who resides at Big Ears Animal Sanctuary in northern Tasmania. The folks who operate the sanctuary recently took on 300 rabbits rescued from a "meat farm" and I can only marvel at their energy and excellence in attempting such a huge undertaking. A big thanks to them and a big Hooray for them!

Howard is unusual in some other ways...in addition to his large helping of personality and lebensfreude...he is a rag doll bunny.  He hardly ever flinches or tenses up if he is picked up by a human...he usually just relaxes. Totally. Which is not often seen in bunny folk. He enjoys being petted and groomed and will even allow...with absolutely no indication of discomfort...grooming of and even pulling gently on his tail. Most rabbits get rather excited or irritated if any sort of touching on their tail goes on...not Mr. Naughtytrousers...he calmly and majestically endures and enjoys any and all sorts of petting or grooming. He's a treasure and a wonder. And some human discarded him like an empty tin can...

But Howard doesn't hold a grudge...he just runs and runs or sometimes he digs.

And when it all becomes too much and too tiring and there's a convenient human around...Howard just lays back and naps. When he's in that state he's much like those little dolls that were played with by little girls many years ago...you know those that had the eyelids that closed when you put them on their back...that's Howard. Pick him up and lay him on his back in your arms and his eyelids slowly close...and poof...he's gone off to napland.

It is getting to spend time around phenoms like Howard that helps keep me going. Howard possesses a restorative spirit and is as generous with it as it is possible to be. Thank you Howard...thank you, thank you.

Support your local animal rescues, support anyplace that might provide a safe and forever home to wonderful beings like Howard. We need all the Howard spirit in the world that we can get.

Ethical veganism is a way of living that embodies and expresses respect and caring for all living beings (including ourselves) and for Mother Earth.  Sadly, any other way of living implements destruction and death and suffering and horror...inevitably and inexorably. So...knock it off if you haven't already.

Letter to the editor...

I was poking around on the United Poultry Concerns website and came across some information about a letter to the editor of the New York Times Magazine concerning a challenge they were having that encouraged people to write an essay about why it is ethical to eat meat. The 'contest' has resulted in six selected entries and a "winner" will be announced soon.

Now the letter itself is rather good but to me the most remarkable part of the letter is the number of and the credentials of those signing the letter. Philosophy professor John Sanbonmatsu of Worcester Polytechnic Institute wrote the letter and I am going to insert a copy of it. Read it and then take a look at those who signed on to it.

April 1, 2012
Editor, The New York Times Magazine
Dear Editor,

We are a diverse group of scholars, researchers, and artists from such disciplines as philosophy, women's studies, sociology, law, political theory, psychology, and literary studies, writing to take sharp issue with the Magazine's decision to run a "Defending Your Dinner" contest.

Do ethical vegetarians, a growing but still quite small percentage of the population, pose such a "threat" to the meat and dairy industries that the Times Magazine must now invite its millions of readers to shout them down? Is the point of this contest really to open up honest debate about the meat industry, or is the point, rather, to close it down?

We find it disturbing that the Magazine would organize such a one-sided contest, and moreover that Ariel Kaminer should introduce it with such frivolity. "Ethically speaking, vegetables get all the glory," Kaminer writes, caricaturing vegans as members of a "hard-core inner circle" who have "dominated the discussion." With her very breeziness ("Bon appetit!"), Kaminer seems intent on trivializing the warrant for ethical veganism. A more serious-minded critic would have given at least cursory attention to the empirical basis of the position, namely, the known facts about animal cognition and the unspeakable suffering that farmed animals endure so that they can end up as meat on our plates.

First, there has been an explosion of scientific research in recent decades showing beyond any doubt that many other species besides our own are emotionally and cognitively complex. Farmed animals are capable of a wide range of feelings and experiences, including empathy and the ability to intuit the interior states of others. The evidence suggests that they experience violence and trauma to their bodies as agonizingly as we do.

Second, most people are now aware of the horrific cruelty and violence that goes on behind the locked doors of the meat industry. Billions of cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, geese, ducks, and aquaculture fish suffer each year in abominable conditions, then are brutally slaughtered, many of them while they are still fully or partially conscious. Such so-called factory farming accounts for 99% of the meat consumed in our society. The mass slaughter of oceanic fish, meanwhile, is so catastrophic to marine life that even the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia (the academic arm of the Canadian fishing industry) has frankly compared today's commercial fishing campaigns to "wars of extermination."

These and other facts have led a majority of contemporary moral philosophers who have studied the question to conclude that killing animals in order to eat them is not a morally defensible human interest, certainly not in a society such as ours, where vegan alternatives are widely available.

Even on purely prudential grounds, i.e. human self-interest, meat finds no rational justification. Numerous studies have shown meat-based diets to be associated with myriad negative health outcomes, including higher risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer (to name but two). Meanwhile, animal agriculture has proven to be an ecological and public health catastrophe, poisoning human water supplies, destroying vast tracts of the rainforests of Latin America, causing soil erosion, and creating dangerous new pathogens like Avian Flu and Mad Cow Disease. Animal agriculture is also one of the leading sources of global warming gas emissions.
Given these and many other facts demonstrating the nightmarish consequences of the meat industry for humans and nonhumans alike, why has the Magazine invited its readers to defend that industry, their essays to be judged chiefly by proponents of "humane" meat eating?

Kaminer implies that she has assembled the most judicious and meat-averse line-up of judges, a "murderer's row" that will be hard to persuade of the case for eating meat. But is that true? Michael Pollan promotes Joel Salatin and other organic meat producers. Mark Bittman publishes meat recipes. Peter Singer has consistently defended, in principle, the killing of nonhuman beings for human purposes (provided that it be done "painlessly"). Jonathan Safran Foer, in his otherwise admirable book "Eating Animals," defends small animal farms and backs away from open advocacy of vegetarianism. Only Andrew Light seems to hold a position that finds no ethical justification for meat eating.

So the contest's overt bias ("Tell Us Why It's Ethical to Eat Meat") is compounded by its pretense with respect to the judging. Kaminer might instead have tapped any of dozens if not hundreds of prominent scholars, writers, critics, and well-informed activists who unequivocally oppose meat production for ethical reasons. The fact that she did not tells us everything we need to know about how seriously Kaminer takes the "ethical" issues at stake in this debate.

Kaminer's lack of balance reveals itself further in her having stocked her bench solely with men, when there are so many prominent feminist theorists and writers available to provide a critique of our society's masculine penchant for organized violence against vulnerable populations, whether against women and girls, foreign peoples, or other species.

There is an important debate to be had about the ethics of killing and eating animals. But this is not the way to have it. Honest ethical inquiry begins with the question, "How should we live?" or "What should I or we do about 'X'?" It does not begin with a predetermined conclusion, then work backwards for justification. To throw down a rhetorical gauntlet--"Defend X as a practice"-- is not to open up an ethical conversation; it is to build closure into the inquiry, and to stack the deck from the outset.

Signed*,
Karla Armbruster, Ph.D., Professor of English, Webster University
Anurima Banerji, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA
George Bates, DVM, Associate Professor of Veterinary Medical Technology at Wilson College
Kimberly Benston, Ph.D., Francis B. Gummere Professor of English, Haverford College
Susan Benston, M.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing, Haverford College
Chris Bobel, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Carl Boggs, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, National University
G.A. Bradshaw, Ph.D., Director of the Kerulos Center & President of the Trans-Species Institute
Thomas Brody, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Matthew Calarco, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fullerton
Jodey Castricano, Ph.D., Associate Professor Critical Studies, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus)
Elizabeth Cherry, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Manhattanville College
Sue Coe, Artist (represented by Galerie St. Etienne, New York City)
Susana Cook, Playwright (New York City)
Ellen F. Crain, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
William Crain, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, The City College of New York
Karen Davis, Ph.D., President of United Poultry Concerns
Maneesha Deckha, LL.M., Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria (Canada)
Margo De Mello, Ph.D., Lecturer, Central New Mexico Community College
Josephine Donovan, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of English, University of Maine
George Eastman, Ed.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Berklee College of Music
Stephen F. Eisenman, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, Northwestern University
Barbara Epstein, Ph.D., Professor, History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz
Amy Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, University of Windsor (UK)
Gary L. Francione, J.D., Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University Law School-Newark
Carol Gigliotti, Ph.D., Faculty, Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
Elizabeth A. Gordon, M.F.A., Instructor of English, Fitchburg State University
Roger Gottlieb, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Michelle Graham, M.A., Lecturer, Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing, Emerson College
Kathy Hessler, J.D., LL.M., Clinical Professor & Director, Animal Law Clinic, Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School
Laura Janara, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Victoria Johnson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri
Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Joseph J. Lynch, Ph.D., Professor, Philosophy Department, California Polytechnic State University
John T. Maher, Adjunct Professor of Animal Law, Touro Law Center
Bill Martin, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University
Atsuko Matsuoka, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Social Work, York University (Canada)
Timothy M. McDonald, M.F.A., Assistant Professor of Art, Framingham State University
Jennifer McWeeny, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, John Carroll University
James McWilliams, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History, Texas State University
Helena Pedersen, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University (Sweden)
Steven Rayshick, Ph.D., Professor of English and Humanities, Quinsigamond Community College
Carrie Rohman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English, Lafayette College
John Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Kira Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, College of Staten Island
Michael Selig, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Emerson College
Jonathan Singer, Doctoral Student, DePaul University
John Sorenson, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Brock University (Canada)
H. Peter Steeves, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University
Gary Steiner, Ph.D., John Howard Harris Professor of Philosophy, Bucknell University
Marcus Stern, M.F.A., Lecturer in Dramatic Arts, Harvard University
Deborah Tanzer, Ph.D., Psychologist and Author
Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Gender and Women's Studies, and Political Science, Hollins University
Gray Tuttle, Ph.D., Leila Hadley Luce Assistant Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies, Columbia University
Richard Twine, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Lancaster University (UK)
Zipporah Weisberg, Doctoral Candidate, Programme in Social and Political Thought, York University (Canada)
Tony Weis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario (Canada)
Richard York, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, Director of Graduate Studies for Sociology, University of Oregon

I was very pleasantly surprised at the support for the content of the letter. Wow. Pretty good.

There is no defense for harming other living beings who aren't trying to harm you...period. You don't even need an essay to understand that....and the only way to not harm others is to live your life as an ethical vegan.

Meet the beaver...

Exquisite...

Wildcare is gearing up for one of the two times during the year that the public is invited to tour the facilites. In the spring they host their annual Babyshower and allow folks to become familiar with their operations, focusing on their springtime busyness of saving baby animals that are injured or orphaned (or kidnapped...lots of babies thought abandoned really aren't...but well meaning humans try to 'rescue' them anyway...unless there's imminent danger to the baby don't move them until talking to a wildlife care operation).

Yesterday I was there helping with sprucing up the place in preparation for the Baby Shower scheduled from 2 to 5pm on April 28th of this year. Rondi (the director) came strolling out holding the little one pictured above. She (or he...I didn't pay attention to which sex the baby is afflicted by) is melt you into a puddle gorgeous. There are really no words to describe the impact she has...you might be able to see her on a video here. I say 'might' because I'm unsure of how well linking to facebook videos works out. If you can't get there with the link you can go to WildcareOklahoma on facebook and see the video which was posted on April 16th, 2012.

If you are in the vicinity of Norman Oklahoma I would urge you to go out and attend the Wildcare Baby Shower, the human animals do a great job and the other animals are even niftier.

When I was looking at the baby beaver I was thinking...how...how can we harm such beautiful beings...how? I can't wrap my mind around it. It is mind boggling how absolutely exquisite and beautiful babies are...and we murder them by the billions.

We recently released some baby cottontails out at Heartland...you can see one of them in the pic below (thanks to Christina at Rabid Tidbits for the photo...more pics of them over at her blog).

Baby Cottontail (maybe 'Dirty Harry').

We gave them some play time outside prior to release, to get them familiar with running around and such....and when playtime was over....herding 4 baby cotties into a crate is an interesting bit of work. One of them in particular ended up being called "Dirty Harry" in honor of the fact that if you placed your hand in his/her path in an attempt to guide her/him s(he) simply would give you a good smack with her/his hands (front paws). Each of the little ones were (and are) a wonderful delight and so amazingly beautiful...beyond description. And yet...

And yet...every year we murder 9 or 10 billion babies and youngsters (and some adult) animals either for unhealthy food or for fun?...every year some 12 or 13 million human animals in the U.S. go out with guns and bows and traps and probably bazookas (if they could get their hands on one) and kill and kill and kill and call it "sport" and call it "recreation" and call it "fun" and call it "conservation". And every year the rest of us (except those living as ethical vegans) pay somebody to inflict suffering and misery and death...out of the range of our sight, smell or hearing preferably.

We need a keeper. Somebody needs to grab us by the back of our necks, give us a shake and tell us to straighten up....and then kick us in the caboose if we don't do it. If you don't want to live like you need a keeper, live as an ethical vegan...please.

Also...do come on out to Wildcare's Baby Shower...I'll be there somewhere helping park cars or guarding the baby deer or whatever they need me to do. :-)

Apologies...

Dear Animals,

We’re sorry we hurt you.
We’re sorry we torture you.
We’re sorry we burn you for fun.
We’re sorry we poke you.
We’re sorry we prod you.
We’re sorry we subject you to a lifetime of pain so we can eat you.
We’re sorry we kick you just to feel better about ourselves.
We’re sorry we rip the skin off your bones while you’re still alive.
We’re sorry we sell you in pet shops and then abandon you when we’ve had enough.
We’re sorry we leave you in garbage cans.
We’re sorry we shove hormones down your throat.
We’re sorry we steal your babies from you.
We’re sorry we throw you off of bridges.
We’re sorry we chain you up all day and all night.
We’re sorry we drown you.
We’re sorry we force you to do unnatural tricks for our entertainment.
We’re sorry we forget to feed you or give you water.
We’re sorry our disgruntled slaughterhouse workers take out all their aggressions on you.
We’re sorry we force you to fight each other.
We’re sorry we force you to fight us.
We’re sorry we use you for transportation.
We’re sorry we sacrifice your life so we can have another leather couch, car seat, belt or pair of shoes.
We’re sorry we make you scream in pain and then put a picture of a smiling chicken on the box.
We’re sorry we make you feel like you are part of the family and then forget about you when the baby comes.
We’re sorry we drag you behind our cars.
We’re sorry we keep you in dark, crowded, horrid living conditions.
We’re sorry we force feed you to make you fatter.
We’re sorry we burn your front paws in order to make you stand on two feet so our children can laugh.
We’re sorry we sexually abuse you for our fetishes.
We’re sorry we trap you.
We’re sorry we hunt you.
We’re sorry our shelters still use inhumane methods of killing you.
We’re sorry we subject you to a lifetime of terrorizing experiments so we can have yet another shampoo.
We’re sorry we don’t report our neighbors who are mistreating you to the authorities.
We’re sorry we poison you in the middle of the night.
We’re sorry we humiliate you.
We’re sorry we keep you alone indoors all day long and then get too lazy to take you for walks.
We’re sorry we choke you and suffocate you.
We’re sorry we yell at you.
We’re sorry we leave you out in the cold rain and in the hot sun.
We’re sorry we forget you in boiling hot cars with no open windows.
We’re sorry we intimidate you so we can feel powerful.
We’re sorry we dump you when you’re old and sick.
We’re sorry we sacrifice you for our beliefs and religions.
We’re sorry we starve you as a form of “art”.
We’re sorry we expose you to explosions and gunshots so we can film another movie.
We’re sorry we trap you in zoos so we can watch you suffer.
We’re sorry we treat you like objects that can be exploited for our own selfish purposes.
And most of all: We’re sorry we don’t recognize you for the amazing, intelligent, glorious, magnificent creatures that you are.

Sincerely,

We human animals (source: Melissa Vegan MacDonald)

Obviously, not enough of us are regretful...or we would stop making the planet we share with our fellow animals into a grotesque horror show. The only way to stop this is for we human animals to quit lending support to the despicable notion that living beings are property and to live as ethical vegans.

A year with a house bunny...

Hard to believe, but Nessie Rae has been living here since February of 2011. On the other hand it sort of seems like she has been here always. For those of you that live with rabbits, you know how it is...if you don't live with rabbits...it really isn't describable. She is her own being with her unique set of needs, wants, fears, joys, perceptions and abilities. We are still learning about her and will continue to do so.

Nessie sleeping hard.

The previous photo was taken two months or so after she arrived, her trust level had reached a security rating that allowed her to sprawl out in the living room and visit dreamland with all her might.

Bobby Ray and Nessie practice their sleeping skills.

Above she is engaging in a sleep 'duet' with Bobby Ray. She has been partial to him since arriving but he remains rather cautious around her. Some of his caution, I think, occurs because of her habit of moving toward him very quickly. Fast movement bothers him and cat body language and rabbit body language are different enough that he generally is rather tentative around her.

This final photo below was taken during the only snow we had this year, it fell in February and was not very heavy. Nessie moseyed out, made a small circle to investigate and decided that was enough for her and came back in the house. Being an arctic bunny is not to her taste.

She came, she saw snow, she went back inside.

I don't have any grand insights from living with her this past year. The most significant thing I have noticed is that a rabbit is, compared to a cat or a dog, a quiet being. If a rabbit makes a loud noise they are either terrified or they are furious. Nessie doesn't cry out if she is hungry...she might nudge you with her nose or sit and stare at you but being quiet is her usual way of being. Not that a bunny doesn't make different sounds, it is just that they are subtle compared to the sounds of a cat or dog. You have to pay attention to hear the happy honking she does when she plays chase. You have to listen carefully to hear the humm/grunt she does when she is interested in something...but...you don't have to worry about hearing her growling if she is hacked off...nope...no worry about missing that.

This general quietness means that a human has to focus and concentrate and attend to her in a persistent and consistent manner to enter into much of her world....at least that is how Nessie operates. Different rabbits, like different dogs or different cats or different humans, have different styles. Some are boisterous and wild, some are quiet and calm. Nessie tends toward the calm and quiet...but....she has a major temper and doesn't flinch at letting you know when she is displeased. Having a bunny give you the squinty stink-eye is sort of intimidating, having a bunny rip out with a full loud growl when lunging toward you is startling and scary. Nope, she is not a shrinking violet...just a fairly quiet one. And we are honored (pretty much) that this quiet one graces us with her presence. :-)

Rabbits have, partially due to their quietness, come to occupy a curious position in the hodgepodge repository that passes for our collective minds. Many, if not most, people think they know something about rabbits and about caring for rabbits and about rabbit personalities. They might know they hop, they might know they have long ears and they might know they are pleasing to the eye and that they eat plants...but that's about it for most of us. I'm including myself in this collective indictment here. We're, most of us, guilty of that dangerous practice of having a tiny bit of knowledge (e.g. bunnies hop) and confusing that with "knowing about". Few things have been more damaging to rabbits and their position as "pets" than this superficial knowledge being confused for adequate understanding.

This is not the place for a "Rabbits for Dummies" screed, if you want to begin your own education about these beings you might start here. An extended attempt to interpret the lagomorph language can be seen at RabbitSpeak.

You will be way ahead of most of us if you'll simply be aware of the truth that just as soon as you think you "know" about rabbits...then you've exposed your ignorance. Rabbits, like all other sentient beings, are beautiful, smart, complex and worthy of respect and knowing. And knowing one bunny only means you know that bunny...each bunny being...like each human being...is an individual and is unique. But knowing takes time, interest, effort and the slow discovery that the quest for comprehension and understanding is probably unending.

Additional writings along with photos of Nessie can be found here, here, here and here.

Do remember, honoring all living beings (including rabbits) means living as an ethical vegan.