July 8, 2014 by Michael Lane

RAW MEAT

From Wikipedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meat_packages_in_a_Roman_supermarket.jpg. Author/User: Mattes.

Even when I was a carnivore—which was a choice, not a condition—I couldn’t stand raw meat. Raw meat has a stink, and a neon pink-red color straight out of an acid nightmare. And though the supermarket meat section is principally stocked with muscle meat, it all looks to me like organs—human organs—brains and kidneys and livers all covered in sheets of plastic and put under lights. (Two pounds of ground beef shaped just right can look like the lobes of a human brain.)

A trip to the meat section always seemed like a trip to the morgue to me.

And of course it is. It’s the refrigerated graveyard for chickens, turkeys, cows, pigs, lambs, fish, and other animals—and sometimes they leave the heads on the fish, so we can all take in the bug-eyed stare of a dead creature.

When I became a vegetarian and later a vegan I was happy to skip the meat section. The more time I was off meat the less time I could take being around it. When I would set foot in a supermarket I could easily sniff out the meat section and head in the opposite direction. Had I the choice, I would have traded those germaphobic hand wipes that they hand out at the front doors of supermarkets for a couple of barf bags, in case I had to scrape by the meat section.

I have four cats, and while it’s possible to “convert” dogs to veganism, it’s difficult if not impossible to do so with cats. Humans and dogs are omnivores. Cats are strict (“obligate”) carnivores. Though there are a scattering of people out there pushing products who claim that it’s safe and healthy turn them into vegans, I am skeptical that this is effective in practice. To say nothing about forcing a diet on an animal that is contrary to its nature.

So I have always fed them meat. Out of cans. Commercial canned food. (Dry kibble is all kinds of bad in my opinion, but I don’t have time to go into that here.)

I bought the canned food at pet stores. No meat section to circumvent.

Recently one of my cats developed a persistent health issue and veterinarian visits and antibiotics were not helping. I consulted with a homeopathic professional and she pointed to diet as the first and most important issue to address.

Her primary advice was to wean them off the commercial stuff and feed them raw or at least cook it myself.

She told me something that I had already suspected: commercial food, even the high-end/organic/grain free/“free range” (a bullshit term) stuff, is junk.

Most of the meat used in commercial pet foods is the slaughterhouse dregs—you will often read on the label in small print “not fit for human consumption.” This substandard gruel is then cooked to death to squeeze out whatever few nutrients were in it in the first place. Junk.

Cats (and dogs, for that matter) are dependent on us for their survival, since hunting for food has largely been bred out of them. That’s our fault, they had no choice in the matter. We snatched them from the wild and brought them into our homes to become our little friends. While it’s a long way from squaring things up with them, I figure the least I can do is not feed my cats the equivalent of McDonald’s every day.

So in the last month I’ve found myself trolling the meat section in the supermarkets. In fact, I’m a regular there now. I’m holding my breath against the stench and poking around all these pink cellophane-wrapped slabs of once-living things. I’m talking shop with butchers, and my desert island list of People I Do Not Want to Be Stranded With would place them just below hunters and slaughterhouse owners.

Slabs of meat jumbled in rows under bright lights—this presentation makes me feel like I’m scoping the wares at some porn newsstand (sexual meat). I look around to make sure no one I know sees me.

When I get home I have to prepare the meat. I add water to it and a small amount of organic vegetables, cook it in some cases (a couple of my cats are more likely to eat it if it’s cooked ), and then mix in a few supplements.

I puree the meat in the food processor and it’s messy. It splashes, spurts, and spatters, it dribbles thickly like pink-colored snot and sticks to counters, cupboards, my fingers, the ceiling, and hours later I’ll inevitably find some globule of raw meat hanging off me like alien larva.

I wash my hands every time I touch the meat—so many times that I often scrub them raw—and the stink has me gasping like I’m wading through a gas attack. I feel like I’m rooting around in radioactive Play-Doh.

In the beginning there was also a nagging fear. I was afraid that cooking the meat—the smell of it—would somehow awaken old carnivore “instincts” and perhaps transform me into a drooling, gibbering, meat-crazed Neanderthal. Is eating meat like an addiction that I could easily slip back into? I suspect that meat eaters think that this is exactly what would happen to a vegetarian or a vegan in a weak moment.

Nope. More like, I felt like I have made my kitchen into a slaughterhouse.

I realized that using commercial canned pet food all these years was yet another way to remove myself from the animal doomsday machine that is the meat industry. Another way to disconnect my appetite—or in this case, the animal’s appetite needs that I’m taking care of—from the pain and suffering of the dead animal on the plate.

Or in the can. The meat in canned pet food is cold, it’s cooked, it’s processed—so it looks, smells, and feels less like what it really is—dead animals. (The meat in dry kibble of course is also dead animals, and even more disconnected from reality, since it’s molded into shapes that look like children’s cereal niblets.)

That cooked pet food in the can is a neat round shape but it’s just as ugly as the raw pink stuff: the main ingredient for some commercially processed canned chicken food for dogs, for example, is baby chicks tossed into a meat grinder. They’re alive when they’re thrown in.

After only a few days on the fresh meat—mostly raw, some of it cooked—my sick cat’s health improved (though his condition hasn’t disappeared completely). It wasn’t a slight improvement, either. It was dramatic—he went from a low-energy sulker to a bouncing-off-the-walls cat more typical of his young age, and his coat became softer and shone like peacock feathers. I’ve since transitioned all of my cats off of commercial food for the most part, and they all look better.

But every time I go to work in the kitchen, mucking around in that repulsive pink slurry, I think of living, breathing, feeling, suffering animals. This is precisely how my brain is wired now: show me a piece of pork and I think of Babe. Getting shot with a nail gun.

I became a vegetarian because I woke up. I became aware that I was living a paradox: the animal lover who eats animals. I could not live with this anymore and I needed to change. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made about anything.

But now I’m living the twistier paradox of the animal lover who serves up dead animals to his cats that need the dead animals to survive.

I love my cats and I would do anything for them.

I love all animals and they deserve to be spared the brutalization, torture, and murder that lands them in neatly-stacked cans on the shelves. Or being hacked into pieces and displayed as pink porn in the butcher section.

All animals deserve to be spared these fates.

Except, apparently, the animals that are murdered to feed my cats.

Dealing with raw meat every day has allowed me to see the truth. The truth is an ungodly pink color, and it has a stench.

April 25, 2014 by Michael Lane

100 HEROES FOR ANIMALS

St. Francis of Assisi, the “patron saint” of animals. Painting by Giotto di Bondone (c.1266-1337) / Louvre, Paris, France / The Bridgeman Art Library

I have heroes that inspire me for all my passions: writing, film, baseball, among other things. Raymond Carver wrote “Cathedral,” Sam Peckinpah directed The Wild Bunch, and David Ortiz won more playoff games for the Boston Red Sox than I can count.

But none of those heroes, that I’m aware of, have actually saved lives.

My vegetarian and vegan heroes do save lives. On average, one hundred lives are saved per year by each person who makes the choice to not eat animals.

So I want to honor them by listing some of them here. These are the people that inspire me. These people remind me how important my initial decision to become a vegetarian (now a vegan) was, and how this choice goes beyond my personal beliefs and is, in fact, an act of service to my fellow animal creatures and to the world.

Most of these people have made this choice for their own personal and ethical reasons. Some have done it for their health or even the survival of the planet.

Perhaps some of these names will inspire you. Or surprise you—many of them surprised me. Some of the names will show you that vegetarianism has been around for as long as people have been eating meat—it’s not some foofy recent trend.

Gandhi. Vegetarian. Hero.

THE LIST:

If there is a “v” in parentheses next to a name then that means the person is a vegan. Some general definitions of the difference between a vegetarian and vegan:

Vegetarian: Does not eat meat, fish or poultry but they tend to consume dairy products and eggs.

Vegan: Will not eat any animal product (so no dairy or eggs) or participate in any activity that involves the exploitation of animals. Generally, the reason people choose to work toward becoming vegans is simply to do the least harm to animals (or to eat as healthy as possible).

Don’t let definitions get in the way though. Heroism isn’t accomplished by wearing some “vegan” medal, it’s for taking concrete actions that save animals. Abstaining from meat for even a day is a positive action.

This list is not meant to be comprehensive and reflects my own personal and biased awareness. They’re in no particular order other than numerical and under general categories of professions or callings. As a matter of fact, I saved the animal advocates—the people who go the extra mile for animals, besides just choosing not to eat them—for last. To me, they’re the most heroic.

ACTORS/ENTERTAINERS

1. Pamela Anderson, actress (v)

2. Linda Blair, actress (v)

James Cameron. from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JamesCameronHWOFOct20 by Angela George.

James Cameron. from Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/mlv3rxq by Angela George.

3. James Cameron, film director (v):

“I believe we are all sleepwalking over a cliff if we don’t do this.”

4. Jessica Chastain, actress (v)

5. James Cromwell, actor (v):

“I drove through the stockyards of Texas on a motorcycle. It doesn’t let you escape what surrounds you and what it smells and feels like—and what hit me was the realization that something that was alive and had feelings will suffer before a piece of it is placed on our plates.”

6. Penelope Cruz, actress

Ellen DeGeneres. from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ellen_DeGeneres_2011.jpg © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com

Ellen DeGeneres. from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ellen_DeGeneres_2011.jpg © Glenn Francis, http://www.PacificProDigital.com

7. Ellen DeGeneres, actress, comedienne, talk-show host:

“I forced myself to watch a documentary called Earthlings, and it’s inside footage of factory farms, and dairy farms, and… you just see that, and you go, I can’t participate in that… I can’t imagine that if you’re putting something in your body that’s filled with fear or anxiety or pain, that that isn’t somehow gonna be inside of you…”

8. Peter Dinklage, actor (v)

9. Ira Glass, radio producer, NPR host

(who was partly influenced to become a vegetarian by visiting animal rights advocate Karen Davis’ animal sanctuary)

10. Samuel L. Jackson, actor (v)

11. Nicole Lapin, journalist, news anchor

12. Steve Martin, comedian, actor, writer

13. Joaquin Phoenix, actor (v)

14. Brad Pitt, actor (v)

"Mr. Rogers". from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fred_Rogers.jpg

“Mr. Rogers” (public domain)

15. Fred Rogers, television personality (“Mr. Rogers”):

“That’s something I’ve noticed in my work with kids. When they first discover the connection between meat and animals, many children get very concerned about it.”

16. Alicia Silverstone, actress (v)

MUSICIANS

17. Joan Armatrading

18. Bryan Adams (v)

19. Garth Brooks (v)

20. Chuck D

21. Philip Glass, composer

22. Emmylou Harris

23. Gustav Mahler, composer

Paul McCartney. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_McCartney_black_and_white_2010.jpg by Oli Gill

Paul McCartney. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/9lg5ebd by Oli Gill

24. Paul McCartney:

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everybody would be vegetarian.”

25. Moby (v):

“If you don’t want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn’t condone such behaviour towards anyone, be they human or not.”

26. Steven Patrick Morrissey (v)

27. Russell Simmons, musician and entrepreneur (v):

“…The more I opened myself up to the idea of the full scope of exactly what non-violence translates to, the less interested I became in consuming the energy associated with the flesh of an animal that only knew suffering in his/her life and pain and terror in its death. The more I learned about factory farming and the cruelty animals raised for food must endure before they are led (or dragged) to slaughter, the more I realized that I could not, in good conscience, be a contributor to such violence…”

28. Diane Warren, songwriter, Grammy Award winner

RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL LEADERS

29. Confucius, ancient Chinese teacher, philosopher

30. Saint John de Brito, ancient Jesuit missionary and martyr

31. Gautama Buddha, spiritual teacher:

“One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite another to kill. Do not injure any being, either strong or weak, in the world.”

Thich Nhat Hanh. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thich_Nhat_Hanh_12_%28cropped%29.jpg by Duc (pixiduc)

Thich Nhat Hanh. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/k4dezr2 by Duc (pixiduc)

32. Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk, peace activist (v)

33. Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, educator, writer

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS

34. Carol J. Adams, writer, women’s rights and animal rights advocate:

“Just as feminists proclaimed that ‘rape is violence, not sex,’ vegetarians wish to name the violence of meat eating. Both groups challenge commonly used terms… Just as all rapes are forcible, all slaughter of animals for food is inhumane regardless of what it is called.”

35. Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights advocate

36. Brigid Brophy, writer, social activist (v):

“Whenever people say ‘We mustn’t be sentimental’ you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add ‘We must be realistic’ they mean they are going to make money out of it.”

Cesar Chavez. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cesar_chavez_crop2.jpg by Joel Levine and user Mangostar

37. Cesar Chavez, labor leader, civil rights activist (v):

“We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves… We know we cannot be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them – exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.”

38. Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader

39. Rosa Parks, civil rights leader and pioneer

ATHLETES/SPORTS PROFESSIONALS

40. Patrick Baboumian, strongman competitor, psychologist, and former bodybuilder (v):

“Strength should build up, not destroy. My strength needs no victims. My strength is my compassion.”

41. Ed Bauer, crossfit athlete (v):

“I stay vegan for the same reasons I went vegan in the first place, to cause the least amount of harm as possible, to animals, the planet earth, and myself, physically and spiritually.”

Surya Bonaly. from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SuryaBonaly.jpg by Uwu Langer

42. Surya Bonaly, professional figure skater

43. Timothy Bradley, professional boxer (v)

44. Robert Cheeke, bodybuilder (v)

45. Stephanie Davis, professional rock climber, writer (v)

46. Arian Foster, American professional football player (v)

47. Walter “Killer” Kowalski, professional wrestler:

“The meat industry cons people into thinking you must eat decaying rotting flesh to get your protein. Bullshit, that’s a lot of baloney. Big, healthy, strong animals get their protein from vegetarian sources…”

48. Andy Lally, race car driver

Tony LaRussa. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_La_Russa_May_2008.jpg by SD Dirk

Tony LaRussa. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/n29qw33 by SD Dirk

49. Tony LaRussa, former Major League Baseball manager

SCIENTISTS

50. Marc Bekoff, ethologist, professor (v)

51. Patrick O. Brown, biochemist, professor (v)

52. T. Colin Campbell, biochemist, professor (v)

53. George M. Church, geneticist, molecular engineer, professor (v)

54. Thomas Edison, inventor:

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

55. Albert Einstein, physicist:

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Brian Greene. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Greene_World_Science_Festival.jpg by Markus Poessel

Brian Greene. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/mzlyhzy by Markus Poessel

56. Brian Greene, theoretical physicist, professor (v):

“I would ask… why the vast majority of people are not vegetarian. I think the answer is that most people don’t question the practice of eating meat since they always have. Many of these people care about animals and the environment, some deeply. But for some reason—force of habit, cultural norms, resistance to change—there is a fundamental disconnect whereby these feelings don’t translate into changes of behavior.”

57. Leonardo Da Vinci, Renaissance genius:

“My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.”

DOCTORS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

58. Neal Barnard, physician, author, clinical researcher (v)

59. Michael Greger, M.D., called as expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial (v)

60. Dr. Mehmet Oz, physician, television personality

Albert Schweitzer. from Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/ngefbjw by The German Federal Archives

61. Albert Schweitzer, physician, theologian, philosopher:

“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”

62. Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, writer (v)

WRITERS

63. Lord Byron, Romantic poet

64. J.M. Coetzee, author, winner of the Nobel Prize

65. Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World

66. James E. McWilliams, writer, professor (v)

“I became a vegan the day I watched a video of a calf being born on a factory farm. The baby was dragged away from his mother before he hit the ground. The helpless calf strained its head backwards to find his mother. The mother bolted after her son and exploded into a rage when the rancher slammed the gate on her. She wailed the saddest noise I’d ever heard an animal make, and then thrashed and …dug into the ground, burying her face in the muddy placenta. I had no idea what was happening respecting brain chemistry, animal instinct, or whatever. I just knew that this was deeply wrong. I just knew that such suffering could never be worth the taste of milk and veal. I empathized with the cow and the calf and, in so doing, my life changed.”

67. Rainer Maria Rilke, poet

68. Matthew Scully, author, journalist, speechwriter for George W. Bush (v)

69. George Bernard Shaw, playwright:

“Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.”

70. Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, a very early expose of factory farming

Isaac Bashevis Singer. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Bashevis_Singer_crop.jpg by MDCArchives

71. Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature:

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they’re the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.”

72. Leo Tolstoy, writer:

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”

FOOD PROFESSIONALS

73. Karyn Calabrese, chef and restaurateur (v)

74. Chloe Coscarelli, chef, author (v)

75. Rory Freedman, author of Skinny Bitch (v)

76. Richard Landau, chef and owner of Vedge restaurant in Philadelphia (v)

77. Isa Chandra Moskowitz, chef, writer (v)

Ani Phyo. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phyo_ani_portrait_164_print.jpg by aniphyo.com

Ani Phyo. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/lwpzhe3 by aniphyo.com

78. Ani Phyo, nutritionist, television personality, writer (v)

79. Tal Ronnen, chef, owner of Crossroads gourmet vegan restaurant in Los Angeles (v)

POLITICAL LEADERS

80. Cory Booker, U.S. Senator

81. Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, all-around genius:

“Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.”

82. Mohandas Gandhi, spiritual and political leader:

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

83. Al Gore, philanthropist, former Vice-President of the United States (v)

84. Dennis Kucinich, former American Congressman (v)

85. Jose Mujica, President of Uruguay

BUSINESS LEADERS

86. Michael Eisner, former CEO of The Walt Disney Company

87. William Clay Ford, Jr. executive chairman, Ford Motor Company (v)

Christine LaGarde. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lagarde,_Christine_%28official_portrait_2011%29.jpg

Christine LaGarde. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/l4aa3c6

88. Christine Lagarde, director general of the International Monetary Fund

89. Biz Stone, Twitter founder (v)

90. Steve Wynn, entrepreneur, casino owner (v):

“The notion that you need animal food as protein is one of the great conspiracies of bullshit by the government. Did we not all grow up saying we had to have four glasses of whole milk a day for healthy bones? It’s ridiculous. It’s liquid cholesterol.”

ANIMAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES

91. Gene Baur, president and co-founder of Animal Sanctuary (v)

92. Karen Davis, writer, animal sanctuary founder (v):

“We are told we are being ’emotional’ if we care about a chicken and grieve over a chicken’s plight. However, it is not ’emotion’ that is really under attack, but the vicarious emotions of pity, sympathy, compassion, sorrow, and indignity on behalf of the victim, a fellow creature—emotions that undermine business as usual. By contrast, such ‘manly’ emotions as patriotism, pride, conquest, and mastery are encouraged.”

Gary Francione. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gary_Francione.jpg by Gary Francione

93. Gary Francione, law scholar, professor, writer (v):

“We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defence of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.”

94. Melanie Joy, professor, writer (v):

“It’s just the way things are. Take a moment to consider this statement. Really think about it. We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it’s the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors towards animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don’t even know why.”

95. Howard Lyman, former cattle rancher (v):

“I have seen a lot of animals die. And I will tell you that once you go into a slaughter plant, once you see what is happening there, it’s branded on your soul. You are never gonna walk away from that again. I can tell you vividly the memories I have of the looks of the animals at the time when they were killed.”

96. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, writer, educator (v):

“We are not encouraged, on a daily basis, to pay careful attention to the animals we eat. On the contrary, the meat, dairy, and egg industries all actively encourage us to give thought to our own immediate interest (taste, for example, or cheap food) but not to the real suffering involved. They do so by deliberately withholding information and by cynically presenting us with idealized images of happy animals in beautiful landscapes, scenes of bucolic happiness that do not correspond to anything in the real world. The animals involved suffer agony because of our ignorance. The least we owe them is to lessen that ignorance.”

97. Tom Regan, philosopher, professor (v)

98. Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of PETA (v)

Jill Phipps. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JillPhipps.jpg

99. Jill Phipps, animal rights advocate (v)

(crushed to death by truck while protesting on behalf of animals)

100. Captain Paul Watson, environmental activist, President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (v):

“If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.”

I’ll leave with one last hero, Saint Francis of Assisi, the “patron saint of animals,” and the saint who the current Pope honored by taking his name. It’s not clear whether he was a vegetarian, but he was definitely a hero for animals. He said this:

“Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission – to be of service to them whenever they require it… If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

March 6, 2014 by Michael Lane

THE KILLING OF A GIRAFFE: ONE MONTH LATER

Marius. Photograph by Keld Navntoft/AFP/Getty Images

When I first heard about the killing of the baby giraffe Marius in the Copenhagen Zoo I thought it was a joke. It seemed like some absurd satire about an evil zookeeper, something I could have seen on Funny or Die: a healthy two year-old giraffe is lured away from the other giraffes by his veterinarian caretaker with a piece of rye bread, only to have his brains blown out, and his lifeless body skinned, sawed into pieces, and fed to the lions. All of this was done in full view of hundreds of people—including a lot of children.

And they filmed it.

So who’s running things over there at the Copenhagen Zoo, Ted Nugent?

No, it’s actually a man named Bengt Holst. His official title is “Director of Research and Conservation.” The “research” involved in this act, according to Holst, was showing children how big the giraffe’s heart was and that a giraffe had the same amount of vertebrae as a human, “and so on.”

The “conservation” part of his title—well, based on his own words, to conserve sometimes you have to not conserve.

I’ve looked over the zoo’s website and I will say that there seems to be a certain consistency between their callous treatment of Marius and their overall philosophy. Their mission statement has only a few mentions of animals, and the language is bloodless, with no mention of animal welfare or ethics except in one example, describing how they are caged: “…high standards and quality regarding the keeping of animals and the standard of animal enclosures… good architecture and design add to the value and quality of the experience.”

They certainly care a lot about their cages. And the “quality of the experience” they are referring to, if the way they dispatched their baby giraffe is any example, is obviously the human one, not the animal one.

The closest their mission statement gets to acknowledging animals as living beings is their last paragraph in their mission statement, “Be actively involved in the international efforts to preserve animal species and habitats and thereby contribute to the conservation of the biodiversity.”

More bloodless language. Keep in mind, the “conservation” zoos supposedly practice always begins with the kidnapping of a wild animal from its natural habitat and its enslavement behind bars—usually for life.

So the Copenhagen Zoo’s mission statement has very few mentions of animals—you know, the point of visiting a zoo—and the section ends with this statement:

“All of these activities must be based on science.”

Holst has given many interviews by now. From what I can gauge the “science” involved in the killing of Marius consisted of an autopsy aimed at children so they could learn the “vertebrae” and “big heart” facts—facts which of course the children could have looked up in a book or online, rather than witnessing the assassination of a healthy young giraffe.

Holst has also said that this live killing and dismemberment “helps increase the knowledge about animals but also the knowledge about life and death.” Surely he is not saying that blowing a giraffe’s brains out, carving it up into chunks, and throwing it to the lions is how life and death works in nature?

The other aspect of the “science” Holst refers to, and the key to why Marius was killed, is the breeding programs the zoos utilize.

Since zoos keep so few animals (mainly because of space), the gene pool of the captured animals is very small. Inbreeding has to be avoided—otherwise unhealthy animals could be born.

Some zoos will practice contraception, sparing the animal’s life. Or they’ll sell them to circuses or less savory animal “attractions,” transactions that the zoos try to keep secret since it is known that animals in these other venues have even worse lives than in zoos.

Keep in mind that this is an artificially narrow gene pool created by the zoos themselves—the ones capturing, enslaving, and breeding very small numbers of formerly wild animals.

In the end, many zoos—particularly European ones, but zoos all over the world, including in the United States—will just kill healthy animals for the sake of the standards of the gene pool. The figure in Europe alone is 3000-5000 healthy animals killed per year.

Usually not in the open though.

Zoos are always trying to uphold a compassionate-toward-animals image, because it keeps the families coming to visit and paying their money. This is why the killing of Marius is so startling and revealing.

Many people were outraged after watching the documentary Blackfish, in which we saw the consequences of kidnapping and enslaving an orca whale named Tilikum—how to SeaWorld, the life of the whale and the safety of the trainers who were hurt or even killed by this abused animal seemed to pale in comparison to SeaWorld’s desire to uphold the image of their “fun” theme parks—and the desire to make money.

Marius and every other animal confined in zoos are seen no differently. With zoos, instead of whales in bathtubs we have giraffes in prison cells. Tilikum and Marius are products, useful as long as keeping them around makes economic sense. Tilikum has been largely banished from performing (without SeaWorld admitting any wrongdoing or addressing the issues), and Marius was shot because his existence was inconvenient.

When I was a kid I visited zoos on several occasions. What child wouldn’t be excited to see a “wild” animal up close? I think every child visits a zoo with an innocent curiosity and a natural desire to observe and maybe even bond with an animal. Certainly as a child I had the expectation that the veterinarians at the zoo cared for the animals and loved them.

Looking back on these visits, I can’t ever remember one animal that was doing anything but lying down, looking dazed and lethargic. They were never close enough to touch—which is what I was thrilling to do, to touch a “wild” animal—and they sure didn’t seem to want to be touched.

They didn’t look happy at all.

The killing of the baby giraffe Marius might just be a watershed event, in that it exposes the lie that zoos really care about the welfare of animals—Holst himself has said, “we can’t be led by emotion,” in the pursuit of “science.”

Of course Mr. Holst doesn’t want us to use emotion when thinking about animals in zoos. Because emotion leads us to feel compassion, and points us to considerations of ethics and morality.

But even putting emotion aside, does blowing a baby animal’s brains out and sawing the carcass up in front of children even make much common sense? The Copenhagen Zoo is so desperate to justify this cruel act they won’t even admit it was a bonehead move on a public relations level.

For me as a boy of six visiting those zoos years ago, I knew that something wasn’t right with the animals. I couldn’t put my finger on it, I couldn’t articulate it, but I knew.

I am betting most of the children who were at the Copenhagen Zoo that day knew there was something wrong about carving up a baby giraffe and pulling its heart out.

You’re right, Mr. Holst, the children did learn a lot that day.

They learned that zoos are horrible places for animals.

February 7, 2014 by Michael Lane

TOWARD NOT EATING ANIMALS

From Wikipedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2pigs.jpg
By Titanium22

I got sober from drugs and alcohol in 2000. In the process of recovering I realized that from then on spirituality was going to be an important focus of my life—that it had to be, since the connection to a Higher Power was necessary to keep me sober and alive.

I didn’t realize that recovery would connect me to myself as well, to what was really inside me.

During the early part of my recovery I realized that spirituality could be an open field to play on. I grew up around Catholicism and I didn’t feel like it was that way at all when I was young. I realized that my Higher Power could be one of my own understanding—that I had a lot of room to explore.

So I started exploring. One day I was reading a passage written by a Buddhist monk that was addressed to people of the West. I came across this section where he wrote (I’m paraphrasing):

Can you be a spiritual person if you are participating in the cruelty and suffering of animals by eating them?

This is the first time that it really sunk in that there was a possible connection between spirituality and not eating animals.

Months after I read this passage, I was talking with a friend of mine, and she mentioned that she had become a vegetarian. When I asked what had sparked her conversion, she said it was her cat. Her cat? Yes, she couldn’t look at her cat after eating a plate of meat. She felt guilty.

I thought about my own cats. Through my drinking years, my cats were probably my one shred of connection with anything remotely spiritual. I adopted my cats Bandit and Hooper in 1995.

Bandit on the left, Hooper on the right.

Girlfriends came and went, guy friends came and went, cars came and went crashing, my job came… and almost went three times, because I showed up to work drunk or didn’t bother showing up at all.

The one constant was the drinking. And the cats.

No matter how drunk I got I still fed them. No matter how depressed, I played with them. No matter how many times I was hungover and late for work, I was early (and sober) for vet appointments. No matter how many times Bandit had to meow at me to turn that thumping AC/DC off—which I would blast at two in the morning—he seemed to forgive me. My neighbors sure didn’t.

No matter how self-loathing, self-destructive, self-pitying I was… they crawled into my lap, purred, and loved me.

I realized they were not just pets. They were family. And they had carried me through. What love I had to give was given to them. What love I could receive was through them.

What spirituality I had was given to me was through taking care of them.

When I awakened from the nightmare of drugs and alcohol, although it wasn’t in my consciousness, I think deep down I was aware of this bond that had been formed.

What these two little animals had done for me.

As I recovered, grasping for my own image of what a spiritual life would look like, I realized that my empathy for all animals (and humans, for that matter) was deepening. That caring for animals was going to be one of the core principles in this spiritual life I was trying to live now.

I was told that in order to recover from drugs and alcohol I had to have a complete psychic change.

I think this was starting to qualify as one. I think I wanted to become a vegetarian.

But was it even possible to not eat meat? That was the thing. I wasn’t sure. Which, in retrospect, was silly—alcohol was the biggest obsession of my life for almost 20 years and I wasn’t drinking anymore.

For the first time, I thought about what I was eating. I thought about if I even really liked the taste of meat. This is not a silly question. Looking back, I hated the taste of alcohol—all of it, from cheap beer to hundred-dollar-a-bottle whiskey, from my first drink to my last. That’s the truth. People talk about how refreshing beer is or wax poetic about wine—I don’t get it. I drank to get drunk, to wreck myself, and booze was always hard to get down.

Was it the same for meat? I liked a good burger from time to time. I liked pepperoni on pizzas. But did thinking about this stuff make my mouth water? No. The inherent flavor of meat—the taste of the flesh itself—was that something I enjoyed? I didn’t think so. If I ate a steak I wouldn’t enjoy it unless it was doused with spices, external flavorings.

Raw meat absolutely repulsed me. I had a hard time buying it at the grocery store.

I was starting to think it was possible to quit meat—to realize that the flesh itself wasn’t really something I needed or even wanted.

I joined PETA but wasn’t interested in watching any of the graphic videos they sent me. That stuff was too extreme. On the other hand, I was interested in the founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk. She was obviously a person who cared deeply about animals, a kindred spirit, and I was interested in what made her decide to do what she was doing. HBO broadcast a documentary on her life and her work called I Am an Animal and I decided I’d try to watch it. I figured I could fast forward through any of the “rough” parts.

One of the images I recall was video of an adult cow in a slaughterhouse. I realized I had never seen what the inside of a slaughterhouse looked like. The cow was terrified as it was shoved out of a door onto the floor of what looked like a warehouse.

From Wikipedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calf_with_eartag.jpg
By Dave Young from Taranaki, New Zealand

I held my breath. I didn’t fast forward. I couldn’t look away.

The cow was wounded, flailing. It was trying to get to its feet but it couldn’t because the floor was a lake of blood. I could see it screaming.

I saw a monkey held down in a lab. I couldn’t tell what were the monkey’s limbs and what were restraints or electrodes. Its whole body looked stretched out and pinned. The monkey screamed as it was prodded with something.

From Wikipedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mink_in_the_park.jpg
By qmnonic

The other scene I recall was on a mink farm. The face of a tiny, ferret-looking mink was in close-up in the foreground as a man’s boot came into frame. This man stepped on the mink’s skull first with one boot, then brought up the other one. The rodent struggled, the bones of its skull crunching under the man’s boots, blood gushing out of the mink’s nose. The film then cut to a different mink being skinned alive—I could clearly see the animal’s mouth opening to scream with each stab of the knife.

As I watched this… out of me came this sound. It was a howl that shook the room. My cats fled in terror and I could only imagine what my neighbors thought. Nothing that’s come out of my lungs has ever been that loud, lasted that long, or come from so deep a place. Then I burst into tears.

The next day I was a vegetarian. Over time I have become a vegan. I have never looked back, and could not live any other way.

I know now that this was a profound spiritual experience. The only comparable experience I have ever had is my moment of clarity about my alcoholism—a sort of “burning bush” that some, but not all, alcoholics experience. My burning bush was a voice in my head: If you keep drinking, things will get worse.

A simple truth perhaps. One that the whole universe was aware of—I was the last person to find out. But for me it was a thunderclap of wisdom. This was a thing that I knew to the core of my being—it wasn’t just a fact, it was a part of me.

There’s knowing in your head and there’s knowing in your soul. This was knowing in the soul, and this is the same place as my howl for the animals came from. The deepest place there is.

In both of those moments I knew I had to change. That I must.

In both of those moments, I discovered connection again. To a Higher Power, to myself.

And to animals.

November 22, 2013 by Michael Lane

JFK

“Every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude towards the possibilities of peace…”

—President John F. Kennedy, excerpt from speech at American University

I believe that the fundamental guiding energy of the universe is love, and that peace is a close second—if it’s not a form of love itself. I believe that when we stand up for animals we stand up for love and peace, and we stand against the destructive, nihilistic forces of the universe—I will not call them “energies” since I believe they are basically the opposite of that, they are more like energy vacuums—those of war and violence, hatred, and greed.

For this reason I believe it is important to honor the slain President John F. Kennedy, a man who ultimately stood for peace and love. He was struck down 50 years ago on November 22, 1963, a dark day for America and for the world, as well as for love and peace.

Right before President Kennedy was murdered, he delivered a commencement speech at American University that was all about peace and love. Keep in mind that this was delivered at the height of the Cold War, when the “Communist menace” engendered fear, hatred, and paranoia throughout the country, and many in Kennedy’s military and cabinet believed that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. Here are a couple of excerpts:

“What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.”

“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”

The Warren Report, the shoddiest, most cynical document of omissions, distortions, and lies in the history of American justice, its day-to-day “investigation” led by one of President Kennedy’s greatest enemies, former head of the C.I.A. Allen Dulles—is somehow all these years later still being propagandized as the truth by the mainstream media machine.

What does this have to do with animals?

I believe that those of us who do stand for love and peace yet turn away when it comes to the truth of what is on our plates, when we close our eyes to what goes on in the factories and laboratories that are shuttered in the dark, desolate corners of our country, where beings of love and innocence are daily brutalized, tortured, and murdered in the millions, their cries of help falling on deaf ears—this is of the same stuff as our looking away from the truth of the Kennedy assassination. In both instances, love and peace are dishonored.

JFK funeral procession, Washington, D.C.

Most of us with common sense and a willingness to pursue the facts know that the assassination of President Kennedy was political and not carried out by a lone nut, and we know that factory farming and laboratory testing is savage and inhumane (not to mention bad for our collective health). Yet to look closer at these truths, to really look, then we have to look at ourselves, we have to look closely at two pillars of our very existence: what we eat and what we believe.

We must open our eyes to the consequences of not confronting violence, hatred, and greed, we must open our eyes to what rushes in to fill the vaccuum left by our apathy and fear: perpetual wars, perpetual need, perpetual division, the bleeding away of our rights, the endless suffering of both humans and animals.

We have to look at what kind of society and what kind of democracy we live in, we have to look at what our lives really mean.

And we begin by looking inward, as President Kennedy says.

I believe to live lives that truly honor love and peace we must do this. There is just no other way.

“Black Jack,” riderless horse, JFK funeral procession