Perspective of an old warrior Spending over a half-century in social justice movements, much of it consulting, I have formed some conclusions that did not come down from the mountaintop, but merely represent the perspective of an old warrior. Were I to identify the most pernicious characteristics I have encountered among justice-seeking activists, regardless of […]
Joe Keller gave Jim Mason the pictures that started the war on factory farming
Editors’ note: “You give me the pictures and I’ll give you the war!” newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst reputedly instructed a staff artist who failed to find fighting in Cuba at the outset of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Joe Adreon Keller (November 21, 1947––October 13, 2021) gave Animal Factories co-author and Animals’ Agenda magazine […]
An Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature by Jim Mason
Reviewed by Merritt Clifton 193 pages, paperback. $20.00. Lantern Publishing & Media, www.lanternpm.org The slimmed-and-trimmed 2021 edition of An Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature, published 28 years after the first edition, is dated only by author Jim Mason’s new introduction, in which he acknowledges the many changes in the world occurring […]
Making a Thanksgiving place for Tofurky
Eventually live turkeys joined the feast. But not at first. Chloe Sorvino, food and drink editor for the business magazine Forbes, marked Thanksgiving 2020 by looking back 40 years to the invention of Tofurky in 1980, by then-nature educator Seth Tibbott. Described as a “turkey alternative,” blending tofu and wheat with a wild rice and […]
Can killing an animal be compensated for by the creation of a new animal?
by Karen Davis, PhD, president, United Poultry Concerns (with afterword by Merritt & Beth Clifton) There is a line of thought in moral philosophy that says “yes” to killing an animal, so long as the animal lived a pleasant life and the method used to kill the animal is humane – quick and painless. This […]
Plane crashes & slaughterhouses: who suffers more?
Helpless in a cage by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns On January 8, 2020, passenger flight 752, headed from the Iranian capital of Tehran to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, killing all 176 occupants, including 167 passengers. The jet continued flying for […]
“Meat-eating is never neutral”: Mary Midgely, 99
Author of Animals & Why They Matter NEWCASTLE ON TYNE, United Kingdom––“The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral,” wrote Mary Midgely on page 27 of her 1983 opus Animals & Why They Matter. “To himself,” Midgely observed, “the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There […]
Tom Regan, 78, made the case for animal rights
Evolved from butcher to leading advocate of vegan philosophy RALEIGH, North Carolina–– Animal rights philosopher Tom Regan, 78, died on the morning of February 17, 2017. “He had taken pneumonia last week,” longtime family friend Bernard Unti told ANIMALS 24-7. “The family was all with him,” including Nancy, Regan’s wife of more than 50 years, […]
Fierce critics Ann Cottrell Free & Henry Spira goaded HSUS to mature
Part III of The five muckrakes whose ideas built the Humane Society of the U.S.; see also Did Cleveland Amory write to Ann Landers? Yes! Very likely no president of the Humane Society of the U.S. ever looked forward to telephone calls from either Ann Cottrell Free or Henry Spira, nine years younger, who emerged as a […]
Why Fish Feel?
Rediscovering long submerged origins ALEXANDRIA, Virginia––The Showing Animals Respect & Kindness booth in the main hallway at the late July/early August AR-2015 conference was a crowd-stopper. Featured were one of the SHARK drones, one of the most powerful lenses outside of top-secret military use mounted on a tripod, and SHARK founder Steve Hindi, with fellow […]