Animal advocacy, religious teaching, & cultural insecurity collide in Belgium BRUSSELS, Belgium––Is Belgium moving rapidly to ban slaughter without pre-stunning out of concern for animals, or are prohibitions of the traditional kosher and halal slaughter methods rooted in latent anti-Semitism and Islamophobia? Slaughter without pre-stunning becomes illegal Whatever the political truth is, legal reality […]
The Thanksgiving Turkey as Ritual Scapegoat
in the Carnivalesque Tradition by Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns Human radical abuse of “food” animals cannot be explained by economic efficiency alone. It is also an outgrowth of attitudes humans have had toward nonhuman animals through the ages, rooted in our resentment at being animals, which we project onto them. In his […]
Live animal markets in New York City: a cut-throat business at best
Customs change with waves of immigration NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.––Escaping the Iranian Revolution with her parents at age 6, artist Sara Rahbar as an adult has produced an internationally recognized portfolio on themes often involving human and animal suffering. Yet Rahbar found herself wholly unprepared for the misery she met close to hand on […]
The many faces of Nasim Aghdam, vegan turned YouTube shooter
Social media performer more engaged in self-promotion than in message-focused statement SAN DIEGO, California––Claiming more than 300,000 people had viewed her 60-odd (and sometimes very odd) YouTube videos on vegan and animal rights themes, Nasim Aghdam on April 3, 2018, two days before what would have been her 38th birthday, abruptly multiplied her audience and […]
Kaporos: chicken soup for the soulless?
UPDATE: Opponents of Kaporos will on September 28, 2017 hold a candlelight vigil in Borough Park, Brooklyn, co-hosted by the Animal Cruelty Exposure Fund, Their Turn, NYCLASS, Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, New York Farm Animal Save, New York Animal Defenders, and the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, a project of United Poultry Concerns. […]
Did Holocaust imagery convince my vegan rabbi?
by Barbara Kay Activism in a noble “rights” cause has its satisfactions and its frustrations. It feels good to join in solidarity with like-minded people in spreading a righteous message, but it is difficult to accept the frequent reality that most people aren’t paying attention to it. Urgency & shock tactics When the cause is […]
Who Stole My Religion?
Revitalizing Judaism and applying Jewish values to help heal our imperiled planet by Richard H. Schwartz with Rabbi Yonassan Gershom and Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz Reviewed by Barbara Kay Richard Schwartz, principal author of Who Stole My Religion?, is a rather odd polemical duck. He has two great passions in life: Judaism and environmentalism, […]
Fallen crane & stampede take spotlight from haj animal victims
At least 900,000 animals killed among 24 nations RIYADH, Saudi Arabia––After decades of global controversy over animal transport and slaughter in connection with Eid al Adha sacrificial rites, the animal victims of the 2015 Islamic pilgrimage season went almost unnoticed amid furor over human victims. The start of the pilgrimage season, called the haj […]
The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living & Nonviolence In Early Christianity
by Keith Akers Lantern Books (128 2nd Place, Garden Suite Brooklyn, NY 11231), 2001. 260 pages, paperback. $20.00. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Denver vegetarian advocate Keith Akers, perhaps best known for compiling A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), earned his B.A. in philosophy 45 years ago at Vanderbilt University. Akers turned to computer programming to make a living, […]
Denmark bans slaughter without pre-stunning
COPENHAGEN––Telling the Danish TV2 network audience that “Animal rights come before religion,” Denmark minister for agriculture and food Dan Jorgensen banned livestock slaughter without pre-stunning, effective on February 17, 2014. Coinciding with outrage over the killing of a “genetically redundant” young giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo, the proclamation cancelled within […]