Friday Food: Mushrooms Madagascar, Mango Cupcakes, Rosemary Bread

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Food and Recipes, Friday Food

Published November 06, 2009 @ 02:48PM PT

From mango cupcakes to "beefy" stews to spicy noodle dishes to savory breads, there's a lot to love in this week's roundup:

Cocoa Macarons from Madcap Cupcake (photo at left courtesy Marika of Madcap Cupcake)

Polenta with White Beans, Braised Kale, and Roasted Pears from Vegan Dad

Parsnip Rosemary Bread from Rants & Recipes

Mushrooms Madagascar, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Pears and Fennel from What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway?

Celery Root Soup from Happy Herbivore

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Ethical Hunting Awards That Ignore the Actual Victims

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Hunting, Wildlife/FreeLiving Animals

Published November 06, 2009 @ 07:56AM PT

This one is just begging for commentary: For the 13th year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is accepting nominations for its annual "ethical hunting award." What, I first wondered when I saw the headline, does that even mean? When I read about last year's winner in a brief AP piece published in the Chicago Tribune, I learned that at least last year, the "ethics" that won someone the award had absolutely nothing to do with how or why or whether the person killed an animal, but rather was about how he treated a fellow human while hunting: "An 18-year-old Rhinelander hunter won last year. He helped a sobbing young female hunter alone in the woods trail, field dress and retrieve a 17-point buck she shot but couldn't find."

I almost don't know what to say. The great almost-tragedy in this scenario was that someone wasn't going to get her trophy antlers, bragging rights, and meat if she didn't find the animal she'd shot. The animal who had been shot, who had fled in fear and pain to die a slow death, was incidental in the story. The celebrated ethical behavior had nothing to do with the ethics of hunting.

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There Is No Such Animal as "Seafood"

by Stephanie Ernst

category: Marine Life

Published November 05, 2009 @ 02:53PM PT

I've probably said this before, but even if so, it bears repeating periodically: there is no such animal as "seafood." There are lots and lots of kinds of fishes and lots and lots of kinds of crustaceans and lots and lots of other aquatic animals. But last I checked, we haven't named a single one of them "seafood."

And even though their world looks different from ours, and they don't function in all the same ways we do, they're far smarter than most people assume. And their deaths -- whether from being gutted alive, from being boiled alive, from ruptured organs through decompression, from panicked suffocation, or via any other means -- are full of suffering, fear, and intense pain.

And causing them that suffering and killing them for so-called seafood dishes is as unnecessary as killing pigs for "pork" or chickens for "chicken" and eggs or cows and calves for "dairy."

Fishes and other water-dwelling animals aren't seafood. They're animals.

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Photo by Flickr user laszlo-photo

In the Blogs: "Stupid" Animals, "Kind" Veal, Thrill Killing, and More

by Stephanie Ernst

category: Animals in the Blogs roundups

Published November 05, 2009 @ 07:51AM PT

There are around 20 posts here. I know that's a lot, but they're well worth reading.

Animals Are Stupid from Ari Solomon at Huffington Post

Kinder Side of Veal? from Animal Place Sanctuary

Crimes Against Nature from the ALDF Blog

In Defense of Limited Individuality from That Vegan Girl

Our Fear Is Special? from Primate Freedom

Price So Right: Bob Barker Donates $1M To Establish Animal Rights Professorship from SuperVegan

Food Critic Murders Baboon: Needed Fodder for His Column from Nancy at Care2

How the Concept of Instinct Shapes Our Attitudes About Nonhumans from Brockway Hall

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Marginalization in the Mainstream, Commiseration in the Community

by Stephanie Ernst

category: Activism and Actions

Published November 04, 2009 @ 04:35PM PT

There are occasional days when, as an animal rights advocate, all you feel capable of doing is burying your face in the pillow and screaming out your frustrations. And such days are why it's important for vegan animal rights advocates to seek out and maintain supportive community, whether face-to-face or online or both. When too often, it seems like most of our fellow humans are plugging their ears, rolling their eyes, patting us on the head, or altogether dismissing us (and by extension, the animals for whom we speak), it's good and necessary to have compassionate community to reach out to, to know and feel connected to people who get it, people who can commiserate with us and then encourage us and get us back out there.

We still live in a world where no matter how big the news, no matter how important or meaningful the story, no matter how great the injustice, when the news, story, or injustice has to do with nonhuman animals, even comparatively minor human stories take precedence, and the nonhuman stories are flashed and forgotten, if not simply buried from the start. We still live in a world where if you care too much about someone (or some group) who isn't human, and you believe that someone has rights, you're called sentimental, and your intellect and priorities are questioned, even if that same intellect and judgment were respected before you outed yourself as a vegan and animal rights advocate.

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The Good, Bad, and Baffling: Cat Declawing in California and Elsewhere

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Companion Animals, Politics and Law

Published November 04, 2009 @ 06:26AM PT

I've got good news -- at least if you're a domestic cat in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and some other California cities, that is. But there's no shortage of bad (and baffling) news too, on the very same front. First, the good: last night, San Francisco's proposed ban on declawing cats won 9 out of 11 votes from the city's supervisors; on Monday, the Public Safety Committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to ask City Attorney Carmen Trutanich to draft an ordinance banning the practice; and in late October, the Santa Monica City Council passed a ban.

But the United States and Canada overall are still embarrasingly behind other countries in this area, and despite progress in California, a veterinary "welfare" organization in the state just managed to pass a law that will make it illegal for municipalities to pass any further such bans as of January 2010. The people behind the bans? Actual advocates for cats. The people behind the law to stop the bans? The California Veterinary Medical Association, a chip off the good ol' un-animal-friendly American Veterinary Medical Association block.

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Botox Kills Animals Even Better Than It Kills Wrinkles

by Stephanie Ernst

category: Animal Testing and Vivisection

Published November 02, 2009 @ 03:08PM PT

The BUAV has released details of a recent undercover investigation inside a UK animal-testing laboratory. Among the findings was the realization that the lab is poisoning 74,000 mice per year specifically for what grand purpose? Botox testing. During the investigator's time in the lab, these tens of thousands of animals were being used in LD50 toxicity tests -- LD50 refers to the dose of toxic substance required to kill 50% of those animals tested.

After the researchers injected the mice with the botulinum toxin, the tiny animals "became increasingly paralysed, eventually gasping for breath and suffocating to death. The degree of suffering is appalling. No pain relief was provided for the mice."

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