The spider at the daycare

When my partner went to pick up our kid yesterday at daycare, two daycare teachers accosted him at the doorway.
"How long have you been vegetarian?"  they asked.
"Um, 20 years I think.... working on vegan options too."

One woman responded, "I've been vegetarian a year."  The other said, "I went vegetarian six months ago!"
It was quite exciting to hear.  These are good steps.

They started the conversation because they wanted to talk about what had happened earlier in the day--about how a spider had been discovered in the daycare and the teachers and the children conferred about what to do with it.

I think someone suggested killing it, when my kid said, "No, don't.  I don't think that is o.k.  I don't even think it's o.k. to kill animals to eat them."  This is our usually very shy, not very talkative kid.
The daycare teachers were impressed.  It was agreed not to kill the spider.

We have noticed that our six-year-old kid is loud when it comes to her ethical eating.  There were free hotdogs (groan) after her soccer game on Saturday and she exclaimed very loudly at the grills, "I'm vegetarian! Can I just have a bun please?!"

Reward for the Apprehending the Murderer of Turtle Conservationist

https://www.facebook.com/captpaulwatson/posts/10151651414055932

Ah: a mother duck asks for help and receives it. Other animals speak with us all the time. We just don't listen enough.

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2013/06/07/watch-mama-duck-asks-for-help-police-rescue-babies/

An intrigue of kittens. I posted this before, but I'm not sure it was a list of 99!

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/99-strange-collective-animal-names

99 collective animal names!

Some differentiate birds in flight from when they're on the ground.

It's really quite breathtaking.   Our language showing a deep and ancient sense of the meanings and mysteries of animals.

Six Horrifying Things about Pork

http://mobile.alternet.org/alternet/#!/entry/6-horrifying-things-about-pork-everyone-should-know,51b024ccda27f5d9d0d85227

Food safety and slaughter laws: a total joke.

http://mobile.alternet.org/alternet/#!/entry/usda-inspector-general-food-safety-and-humane-slaughter-laws-ignored,51a64023da27f5d9d0d19c2a

I wonder what the "Center for Food Integrity" will say about this at its strategy meeting on the campus of Hamburger University....

Lots of glossy websites don't really hide the corruption, you center affiliates.

Manitoba Pork back in the news, whining about people who oppose trapping pregnant female pigs for life.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/farm-council-drafts-policy-on-treatment-of-pregnant-pigs--209816481.html


Oh, the sows are aggressive.  Oh, the cages are the greatest because we can just cull the sorry fuckers who get sick.   It's all about numbers and exporting the flesh.

Thanks for the soil saturated with liquid shit, hog "farmers."

These industrial operations disgrace the name farmer.

"I don't want animals to die. I want them to stay standing up."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/luiz-antonio-vegetarian-where-meat-comes-from_n_3366242.html

This is just great.

veganelder: Who would have thought...

veganelder: Who would have thought...: that horses like to play ghost. See the lumps and bumps? If we go to the other side we'll see who's lurking there.    It&#...

Smithfield bought by Chinese corporation. Hell for pigs.

http://www.earthintransition.org/2013/05/for-pigs-a-match-made-in-hell/

It's unbearable.
Industrialized pork production is simply hell on earth.

Not that industrialized flesh production of any kind is any better.  It's a matter of trying to stay sane for me.  That is to say that I was once working on a committee that helped wild animals too. Our meeting agendas were pages long.

We'd look at legislation surround the bear hunt up here.  (I remember insisting that the word "kill" be used instead of "dispatch."   If we can't change the violence, then at least keep the goddamn language clear.)  We'd look at banning elephants in circuses.  We'd move on to banning cat and dog fur on clothing, and so on.
It was horrifying.

Seeing what elephants go through. Oh my god.  Or bear baiting??  Jesus.

Then, I'd get to work on the caged pregnant pigs.  And caged hens.

Then, one day, I thought I might die of sorrow.  (Yeah, all you haters reading this, you can call me an "emotionalist" while you "Feed the World.")

So, I picked pigs in cages to work on
I think everyone should pick one animal and advocate for the species.  Bunnies, say.   Or, whales.
Or even just one kind of whale.  Turtles.  Song birds.  Puppies in puppy mills.  Iguanas.

Maybe at birth one could be assigned a totemic animal.  You would be tasked with understanding that animal and how to protect it from suffering. How to protect its habitat.

How to fight for their right not to be caged for life, indoors, in sunless, noxious buildings.