Trump appointee DeJoy puts animal advocates, factory farmers, cockfighters, & captive bird-shooters all on the same side of the fence WASHINGTON D.C.––Changes to U.S. Postal Service policy and practice implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, appointed in May 2020 by U.S. President Donald Trump, on August 21, 2020 improbably aligned animal advocates, factory-style poultry farmers, […]
Protecting purity from pollution, or protecting pollution from purity?
The Golden Age, Garden of Eden, and Thanksgiving Myth of Origin by Karen Davis Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns (See also Turkeys: Sympathy, Sensibility, and Sentience and The “Thanksgiving” turkey: object of sentimentality, sarcasm, & sacrifice.) “The question before us is, which images of the universe, of power, of animals, of ourselves, will we represent […]
The “Thanksgiving” turkey: object of sentimentality, sarcasm, & sacrifice
Each year a litany of sarcasm accompanies the sentimentality of Thanksgiving by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns “Nothing so unites us as gathering with one mind to murder someone we hate, unless it is coming together to share in a meal.” – Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, p. 33. The […]
Turkeys: Sympathy, Sensibility, and Sentience
Plus Social Dancing and Driving Off Predators by Karen Davis, PhD, president, United Poultry Concerns Turkeys express social sympathy An emotional behavior in turkeys that has been said to “defy logic” is “the great wake” they will hold over a fallen companion. In one episode, cited by A.W. Schorger in The Wild Turkey: Its History […]
Fair Oaks Farms stepped in the same crap as the rest of the herd
Cell phone videocams open factory farms to public view Ignoring 30 years of warnings by leading U.S. agribusiness educators and pundits has at last visibly begun to cost the livestock industry consumer confidence, as evidenced by the explosive growth in sales of plant-based protein foods and steeply declining dairy, meat, and poultry consumption among younger […]
More Than A Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality
by Karen Davis, Ph.D. Lantern Books (One Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003), 2001. 192 pages, paperback. $14.95 c/o https://www.upc-online.org/merchandise/book.html Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Looking back nearly 30 years to 1990, the two most significant animal advocacy events of the year were––as expected––the first March […]
No apology from Olbermann for selling turkey sandwiches
Apologized for asking Twitter followers to make turkey hunter’s life “a living hell,” but made point of pitching pit bulls KILN, Mississippi––Sports announcer, broadcast journalist, and political commentator Keith Olbermann, 60, on March 27, 2019 apologized “unreservedly” for calling upon his Twitter followers two days earlier to make the rest of Hunter Waltman’s life […]
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 […]
Disease linked to cockfighting menaces California poultry industry
Gamecocks carrying Newcastle disease to domestic flocks killed millions in 1971 and 2003 LOS ANGELES––The billion-dollar-a-year California poultry industry is betting the farm that state and federal authorities can get a two-year series of outbreaks of Newcastle disease under control before it becomes the biggest threat to profits in decades. An outbreak discovered in […]
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 […]