ohsu primate research center

thanks foodfight.
Chattel (excerpt)

You can also download a full (500MB) version from our site:
http://foodfightgrocery.com/downloads/Chattel_ONPRC.mp4

Or, you can see it on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/1754071

hormel pig farm...still like bacon?

let them go

Conchita the White Naped Mangabey

Conchita: Special footage before launch of Conchita Diaries following the progress of this critically endangered white naped mangabey. For press release see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ7XsXPelrg and a follow up of her progress see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gcnhIRzQqJM http://www.zsl.org

the case of the missing vans

"on the nights of july 23 and 27, we stole two more UCLA vans from Riverside and Chino Hills and have expropriated the funds for the vans to help animals. So far we've cost UCLA over 150 thousand dollars in vans which is just a start to penalize them for the use of our tax money for gruesome primate experiments. we are all Gods creations and so are the monkeys who we have witnessed and heard screaming out from the hell they endure day after day after day after day. We're not stupid and we know what goes on at our own university and we're sick of it and if we cant leave our studies or our jobs right now the least we can do is cost UCLA money and force them to stop these awful experiments on monkeys being done on our campus..."

full story:

Animal Liberationists "Expropriate" Two More UCLA Vans in Protest of UC Vivisection
author: monkey
Two More UCLA Vans Expropriated by Liberationists as Non-Human Primate Killing Continues
Campus Unwillingly Funds Liberation Activities
Riverside, Chino Hills: In an anonymous communiqué received by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, it's reported that two UCLA vans were stolen from the Riverside and Chino Hills area and that they "have expropriated the funds for the vans to help animals." The action appears to be part of a sustained campaign to force the university to stop torturing and killing non-human primates in their laboratories, where they kill them after injecting them with nicotine, methamphetamines, Botox or other substances. This most recent communiqué comes just weeks after another UCLA van was taken in a similar fashion and another one was set ablaze.

The communiqué reads in part:
"on the nights of july 23 and 27, we stole two more UCLA vans from Riverside and Chino Hills and have expropriated the funds for the vans to help animals. So far we've cost UCLA over 150 thousand dollars in vans which is just a start to penalize them for the use of our tax money for gruesome primate experiments. we are all Gods creations and so are the monkeys who we have witnessed and heard screaming out from the hell they endure day after day after day after day. We're not stupid and we know what goes on at our own university and we're sick of it and if we cant leave our studies or our jobs right now the least we can do is cost UCLA money and force them to stop these awful experiments on monkeys being done on our campus..."

To read the entire communique, click here.
http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2008-08-11_uclavans.htm

A long-running campaign to stop the medically inappropriate and morally reprehensible research using non-human primates at UCLA has seen peaceful and mainstream efforts such as leafleting, petitions, pickets and meeting with UCLA administration fail, as more primates linger and die inside laboratories at large expense to the taxpayer every year. Clandestine, illegal direct actions against primate vivisectors and now a third and fourth UCLA van being attacked is a good indication that UCLA's strategy of trying to get restraining orders against peaceful picketers isn't working in diverting attention away from the atrocities going on behind closed doors at UCLA.

Animal Liberation Press Office comments and quotes include:

"As a former animal researcher, I know the realities of animal laboratories, the horrors that will never be shown on tours or routine inspections. I also know the fallacy of expecting animal research to yield results useful in treating human medical conditions, the fallacy of research data thrown away in the garbage along with the thousands of lifeless and mutilated bodies of once sentient, feeling individuals, individuals who had an expectation to live free from suffering and death." -Jerry W. Vlasak, MD
Press Officer
North American Animal Liberation Press Office

"What vivisectors are doing to non human primates at UCLA is not only immoral and depraved, but scientifically fraudulent. In the 21st century, most Americans do not believe that non human primates should be subjected to cruel experiments." -Camille Hankins
Press Officer
North American Animal Liberation Press Office

"Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because no one cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people
based on laboratory and animal studies" -Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(Food and Drug Administration press release, FDA Issues Advice to Make
Earliest Stages of Clinical Drug Development More Efficient, January
12, 2006)

http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/

weird meat commercial...were they trying to plug it?

Sogrot

"Sogrot" ("Closing" in Hebrew) is a group acting to close down places that abuse animals. Our strategy is to focus on one target at a time and take all legal means to end its activity. We are inspired by actions taken by international group SHAC.

These days an animal experiments laboratory is being built in the basement of the Behavior studies campus of the "Tel-Aviv Jaffa Academic College", where hundreds of animals will find their death each year. The animals that will be brought to the lab are facing injuries such as pain causing, defect casting, burning, shock and trauma producing, starving, drugging and brutal deaths. The lab will be used for research by the lecturer staff and some of the students in the Psychophysiology field.

Animal experiments are an old, cruel, incorrect and immoral method. More advanced and moral methods exist for many years and are used for teaching as well as for research, in many respected institutions all over the world. There is no justification to open a laboratory where cruel experiments on animals will be held.

The chairman of the College, Prof. Nehemia Friedland has admitted that the purpose of the lab is not to explore a certain field, but to encourage the Psychology department lecturers to continue to perform research so that "they will not dry out" in his words. A private available research lab would have been legitimate if hundreds of innocent animals were not hurt in the process.

The head vivisector of the laboratory will be Prof. Ronit Avitsur, a lecturer in the campus for Psychoneuroimmunology. Avitsur has been performing cruel experiments on animals for a decade, that their intention is to intentionally harm the bodies and souls of animals to show a connection between emotional stress and durability of the immune system. Her last research that was published, at the end of 2005, described baby mice that were separated from their mothers during the time of one day to two weeks old. After they grew up they were infected with a virus and their immune system's response was measured. In other researches Avitsur daggers mice in each other in purpose of causing emotional damages and later check the mice's function (for example their healing ability from cuts she makes in their backs).

The head of the Behavior studies campus of the College is Prof. Hanan Frenk, a vivisector that has been experimenting on animals for over 30 years. In the past Frenk built an animal experiments lab in Tel-Aviv University where he performed cruel experiments on animals to study pain. The laboratory was named "Pain Lab" by animal rights campaigners. In 1991 animal liberation activists (ALF) broke in to his lab, caused great economical damage and exposed the awful experiments.

Half a million animals are killed each year in laboratories in Israel after life of suffering. Animals are living creatures, sensitive to pain and are entitled to live their life free from torture and suffering.

christian the lion

gotta love whitney

1001 breaks its promise

besides having horrible service and extremley oversalted food, 1001 STILL has foie gras on the menu, both on the bar menu and the appetizers. i know it was a toss up, should i get the almonds, or the diseased, force fed, tortured, guts called foie gras? she asked me if i had any questions about the menu...i smiled, no i really don't have any questions. i understand perfectly. you wont take people here in portland serously. your owner has lied. you are about to lose the business of superficial yuppies who dine in your oversalted establishment for lack of good taste or knowing better. yes, no need to answer any questions. but thank you for your concern.

local rescue groups

Oregon

Animal Rescue & Care 503-244-9851




Animal Aid 503-292-6628




Indigo Rescue 503-626-7222




Cat Adoption Team (cats only) 503-925-8803




Feral Cat Coalition of OR (cats only) 503-797-2606




House of Dreams (cats only) 503-262-0763




Pawsitively Pitbull (pitbulls only) 503-255-2313




Pixie Project 503-758-3165 www.pixieproject.org




NW Animal Companions 503-244-7936 or 503-286-2411 (Kathie Nelson)




Family Dogs New Life 503-771-5596




NW Bird Rescue (birds only) 503-BIRDMAN




Washington

Second Chance Companions 360-687-4569




Furry Friends (cats only) 360-892-1267




Local Shelters - Oregon

Oregon Humane Society 503-285-7722

Multnomah County Animal Services 503-248-3066

Clackamas County Animal Services 503-655-8628

Washington County Animal Services 503-846-7041




Local Shelters - Washington

SW Washington Humane Society 360-693-4746




Oregon Spay & Neuter Fundraising Information/Coupons 503-286-2411




Dove Lewis Emergency Clinic Westside – 503-650-0855

Eastside – 503-262-7194

dear joe....

-this was sent to the pdx adl website:


---- Forwarded message from JoeMaffei@comcast.net -----
I notice on your website you say things like, you stand up for the
defenseless and things of that nature. Actually, it seems your
quite selective in your standing up. There are far more people in
this country that wear leather than those that wear fur. One has to
ask then, if truly you are not just going after the "soft" targets.
(mostly only old women wear fur these days)

Why is it you are never seen protesting outside Wilson's leather,
or other Leather dealers? Why is it that with all the motorcycle
stores in Oregon that sell a vast number of leather products you
are never seen protesting there? Leather doesn't grow on plants you
know, it is actually just the underside of fur, with the fur
removed. While you do not advocate eating meat of any kind, without
eating cows then I'm sure there would be no killing of them just
for their leather.

By attacking only fur stores, your percieved as nothing but cowards
actually, and yes, terrorists as you speak of on your website. It
is easy for a group of hostile shouting people to scare old women
and shop keepers. One does not even have to wonder why you don't go
after the biggest bunch of animal product wearing groups in the
world.......Bikers. It is because your tactics of "frightening
them" just wouldn't work. In fact, you know full well what would
happen should you decide to show up at a biker rally and start
yelling and screaming and throwing things on them.

You show your true colors when you attack only old women and shop
keepers and not go after the tens of millions of people wearing
leather in the country. Those who pick on people that are weaker or
easily frightened are really nothing but bullies.

When I see stories about your organization wading into a group of a
couple thousand bikers and using your same tactics, perhaps then
I'll have a little more respect from you.


this was my response:

Hi Joe,

first of all i would like to thank you for writing and also add that you really made some very good points. the motorcycle industry grossly overuses leather to a disgusting level and I will push for a few demos to have this attention brought to this matter. I also was a little confused as to your views regarding how little old ladies are the only ones wearing fur. Did you not know that the rap industry has brought fur back to the front of the fasion world? And that fur is now worn in high society also throught the whole gangsta culture? I know you think that we stand on a street corner and scare sweet old people set in their ways, and I can even visualise how this geralization was made. However, let me assure you this is not the case. The few elderly people walking by that I have seen were totally left alone by every single person in our group, usually the elderly people are the ones shouting things at us, which we largley ignore due to the fact that, well they are set in thier ways and we are about educating people willing to learn, not attacking people who have been doing something their whole life and are now in their golden years. In fact I bring my two pomeranians to the protests often and little old ladies seem to love them! I have had nothing but plesant encounters with them and in fact I'm sure they felt the same way. I'm sorry, but we cannot support the fur industry and whether we are perceived as terrorists or not I will continue to stop this. Small animals living in cramped cages going crazy and chewing their body parts off until they are analy electrocuted to death, I don't mean to be gross but this is reality. Finally, Joe, I have also noticed that every single person who finds a problem with us tells us how much better off we would be if we protested something else, whether it be leather, the war, child abuse, you name it. Joe, can I ask you, do you take a stand for things you believe in? If not, please do so. You will encounter alot of opposition. But if you truley feel like you are doing the right thing it will be worth it.

Suzanne

dog zen

listen up yuppies!

Email or call Blue hour and let head chef Kenny Giambalvo and owner Bruce Carey know that Portland wants foie gras gone!
503-226-3394 info@bluehouronline.com

Blue Hour
250 NW 13th Ave
bluehouronline.
com

Foie gras, French for "fatty liver," is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese. The birds are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into sheds. Pipes are repeatedly shoved down the birds' throats, and up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are pumped into their stomachs two or three times every day. The pipes puncture many birds' throats, sometimes causing the animals to bleed to death. This cruel procedure causes the birds' livers to become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds become too sick to stand up. The birds who survive the force-feeding are killed, and their livers are sold for foie gras.

enslaved monkey forced to become a robot.

snake humor

headache relief????

Mass death of bees in Germany: Pesticide approvals suspended
The cause of mass bee deaths has been established: pesticide products from chemical companies Bayer and Syngenta. They have been removed from sale in Germany. We should now pressure Bayer and regulators to remove them from sale elsewhere...

{Posted on the UKIMC) "Bayer must withdraw Gaucho and Poncho from the market worldwide"

The German Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has ordered the immediate suspension of the approval for eight seed treatment products due to the mass death of bees in Germany's Baden-Wuerttemberg state. The suspended products are: Antarc (ingredient: imidacloprid; produced by Bayer), Chinook (imidacloprid; Bayer), Cruiser (thiamethoxam; Syngenta), Elado (clothianidin; Bayer), Faibel (imidacloprid; Bayer), Mesurol (methiocarb; Bayer) and Poncho (clothianidin; Bayer). According to the German Research Centre for Cultivated Plants 29 out of 30 dead bees it had examined had been killed by contact with clothianidin. Also wild bees and other insects are suffering from a significant loss of population.

i bet he'd beat you martha!

why don't you trade spots?

martha, i printed you some calling cards...

[my take on the portland mercury article]

Foie Gras Protests Resume in Portland
Dinner or Diseased Liver?
BY PATRICK ALAN COLEMAN

A hot Friday evening in the Pearl District and the deck at Bluehour is packed with well-scrubbed customers. Suddenly, the buzz of polite conversation is broken.

"Force-fed ducks! Foie gras sucks!"
[thats not dinner, that's diseased liver!]
A loose-knit group of about a dozen protesters from the Portland Animal Defense League (PADL) has begun to chant, demanding the restaurant remove foie gras from its menu.

According to the Larousse Gastronomique, foie gras is "goose or duck liver which is grossly enlarged by methodically fattening the bird." It's been known since classical Roman times and is largely consumed by the French. However, foie gras has found its way to the menus of Portland's most renowned [to a yuppie] restaurants, much to the delight of many consumers who rave about its buttery essence and velvety texture. [gross gross gross]

In response, protesters have set up shop at the corner of NW 13th and Everett, holding signs depicting regurgitating fowl and leaflets describing "cruel farming practices." Their contention is that the liver-enlarging "methodical feeding"—wherein the last weeks of the birds' lives are spent being force fed through a steel funnel—is an inhumane process.

An hour into the protest, Bluehour's patrons have had enough. A woman yells, "Shut the fuck up," and the deck erupts in a cheer; another patron throws water. The protesters remain undeterred.

The last major foie gras protests in Portland happened in 2004, managing to force foie gras from the menu at Higgins. Afterward, the protests faded. Now, though, things are changing.

Courtney Kintz, spokesperson from PADL, says they have been working on the anti-foie gras campaign for months. "There hasn't been any direct action against foie gras for a while," she says, noting that PADL "took up the cause" after noticing an increase in Portland restaurants serving the pricey dish. PADL has created a kind of hit list, which includes big-name eateries like Le Pigeon and Beast.

Chef/owner of Beast, Naomi Pomeroy, whose restaurant is directly across the street from the Portland headquarters of In Defense of Animals, doesn't seem surprised she's on the list. Still, she wonders why PADL would go after a small, artisanal product, produced in the US by only two farms. [um, maybe because we are animal activists and that is especially cruel and inhumane to animals?]

"It's an heirloom product," [tomates are heirloom. carrots are heirloom. duck liver from forcefed ducks in factories? not heirloom.] she notes. "Nobody eats four ounces of foie gras, it's a treasure.[it will be a treasure to put her out of buisiness] There is a certain amount of reverence around this." [and then pink unicorns fly out of magical stones] She suggests protesters are misguided[pictures dont lie] and questions why they aren't picketing restaurants serving factory farm-produced beef, which she says is "causing widespread destruction around the world."[she questions why they dont build a rocket ship and fly to the moon too]

"Trying to persuade all of Portland's restaurants to go vegan is not a winning campaign," Kintz responds. "Micro campaigns are easier to meet."

Protester Justin Kay adds, "It's easier for people to see the connection of one cruel life for a meal." [justin didn't say that! he did say some other things that did make sense, though.]

PADL has had some recent victories. Last month, in response to protests, ten01 and Fenouil, both located in the Pearl, removed foie gras from their menu.

Sources from Fenouil refused to comment on the matter, but Adam Berger, owner of Ten 01 and Tabla, noted that his patrons are speaking out. "Our customers want [foie gras] back," he says. "A lot more than want it gone." [i am sure he is still selling it even though it has been removed from the menu. its a shame that he dosen't realize the dirty tactics his lies are going to create]

Pomeroy says she's noticed some customers who will not eat the foie gras on her prix fixe menu. "I'm happy there are people who are choosing not to eat it," she says. "The point is to regulate your own body. Enjoy yourself and have small amounts of things that you're really appreciating."[is it better just to torture ducks once in a while instead of all the time?]

Chef Kenny Giambalvo of Bluehour isn't bothered by protests. "It's fine," he says, adding that protesters "help me make the right decisions as a business owner." He's toured the farm in Sonoma where his foie gras is produced and feels comfortable with what he saw there. [i feel comfortable screaming at his menu supporters]

Outside Bluehour, protesters continue chanting. Thom, the maître d', has brought water for them. According to Thom, Giambalvo has no plans to remove foie gras from the menu. But how do the patrons respond? Almost on cue, an outdoor table orders two plates.[well i guess we should just pack

The foie gras issue in Portland is one that offers insight into the city's epicurean soul. It's hard to say which way things will go. Will gourmets cling to their fattened liver, or will an enforced guilty conscience make foie gras a culinary footnote? [will they get run out of buisiness because they hold on to ancient ideas of 'gourmet' food?]

Until that question is answered, PADL's Kintz promises more direct action. "We're always willing to stand outside with signs," she says. "And you will be seeing more of that." [thats right bitches!]

Why Animal Research is Bad Science

Did it delay new treatments for HIV?
By Peter Tatchell




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Government enthusiasm for animal research is misplaced. Vivisection is scientifically flawed. It may have seriously delayed the development of new treatments for HIV.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott says animal research is vital for the future of the British pharmaceutical industry.Arguing that investment, jobs and medical breakthroughs depend on it, he
overturned an independent planning inquiry’s refusal to give permission for a new primate research centre at Cambridge University.
Prescott’s backing for vivisection is supported by the science minister Lord Sainsbury, and a by coalition of powerful drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Pfizer. They argue that without these experiments Britain will lose its competitive edge in the development of new medical treatments.

The government is determined to ensure the expansion of animal research, not just in Cambridge but also in a new lab in Oxford. Responding to protests that have the halted the laboratory’s construction, Home Secretary David Blunkett has outlined new legislation to crack down on “animal rights extremists.” These new laws are far more draconian than the statutes against animal abusers. When it comes to acts of violence, Blunkett seems more concerned about the harassment of a handful of researchers than the industrial-scale infliction of pain, suffering and death on over two million living, feeling animals, including nearly 4,000 non-human primates last year.

According to John Prescott and Lord Sainsbury there is no alternative. Animal research is vital for medical progress. But are they right?

Even some scientists are concerned that vivisection is based on the dubious premise that laboratory animals provide accurate models of human diseases and treatments.

They point out that drug therapies can have vastly different effects on different species. Strychnine, for example, kills people but not monkeys, and Belladonna is deadly to humans yet harmless to rabbits. Research findings in other species cannot therefore be automatically transposed to people.
We have witnessed many times the tragic consequences of blind faith in animal testing. The anti-rheumatic drug Opren killed 76 people and caused serious illness to 3,500 others, despite having been declared safe after seven years of animal research.

Likewise, thousands of people with heart trouble suffered adversely after taking the animal-vetted drug, Eraldin. Since then, further experimentation has failed to find a single species that reacts to Eraldin in the same way as humans.
Undeterred, the big pharmaceutical corporations have cynically exploited public fears concerning life-threatening diseases like cancer and HIV to demand more money for animal experiments and to oppose animal welfare legislation restricting their activities.

The battle against HIV provides a classic example of the pitfalls of vivisection. Protease inhibitor drugs have made a major contribution to cutting the death rate; enabling many people with the virus to maintain a more or less normal life. HIV infection has been transformed from a death sentence into a manageable condition.
The initial development of these highly effective anti-HIV therapies was, it appears, seriously compromised by reliance on animal testing. In possibly one of the biggest medical scandals of recent times, there was a four-year delay in the clinical trials of protease inhibitor treatments. This may have contributed to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of people world-wide.

In 1989 researchers at the pharmaceutical giant Merck, Sharpe and Dohme (MSD) were working on a promising protease drug. Development was going well until the scientists decided to test the new therapy on dogs and rats. They all died

According the MSD’s former Vice-President of Worldwide Basic Research, Bennett M Shapiro, the company “stopped development” of its most promising protease inhibitor after it produced “severe side effects” in laboratory animals.
MSD presumed the drug would have the same lethal effect on humans, believing animal experiments provide an accurate model of how protease drugs affect people. The result? Research on a potentially life-saving treatment was halted in 1989, and clinical trials of a new protease drug, Crixivan, did not start until 1993.

This delay is confirmed by one of MSD’s senior researchers, Emilio Emini. Documenting the history of protease research for Washington Post Magazine, investigative reporter Stephen Fried exposed how reliance on animal data caused MSD to abandon its first protease inhibitor:

“It did not take long for the drug to crash. ‘This is not going to work’, the toxicologist said when he bought Emini the news about the eight dying dogs. The rats weren’t doing any better. Merck’s drug had the nasty habit of shutting off the bile flow to the liver. Emini felt that if the animal test results were that severe, it was ‘unethical to even do the study on humans…So there went four years.’”
We do not know whether this original protease drug would have had adverse effects on people with HIV. Drugs causing liver failure in other animals are not necessarily fatal for humans. This first protease inhibitor might have been a lifesaver, like the subsequent generation of protease drugs. But MSD concluded that what kills dogs and rats will also kill people. Development was axed, and vast numbers of people with HIV continued to die.

Did MSD act wisely? Perhaps not. There are huge physiological differences between human and non-human animals. Drugs that are harmful to one species can be beneficial to others. Penicillin, for example, is deadly to guinea pigs but cures many human infections. If Penicillin had been initially tested only on guinea pigs, it might have been discarded and the world would have been deprived of the single most important medical treatment ever invented.

MSD admits that animal studies were not used in the primary research that led to the invention of the follow-up protease inhibitor, Crixivan. Based on the knowledge that HIV is a uniquely human disease, MSD scientists focused on studying the structure of HIV and its interaction with human cells. Designed on computers, the protease drug was safety-tested using non-animal methods.
According to Shapiro: “Animal tests were neither needed, nor used, to explore the ability of protease inhibitors to block the growth of the Aids virus…the target action was already well understood and could be evaluated before the clinical trials using computers, cell culture and biochemical assays.”

This looks like a tacit admission that animal studies were not scientifically necessary for the development of protease drugs, and that for the purposes of primary research non-animal methods were able to provide reliable data.
It was only when MSD decided to further test the new drug on dogs and rats that they ran into trouble. All died of liver failure.

As we now know, there are protease inhibitors that do not have the same fatal consequences for humans. On the contrary, they have dramatically improved the lives of people with HIV.

These setbacks in the development of anti-HIV treatments highlight the scientific flaws of animal-based medical research. Vivisection can produce inaccurate data that is inapplicable to humans.

Instead of backing the expansion of animal labs, John Prescott and Lord Sainsbury might help medical science more effectively by funding the development of alternatives – including cell, tissue and organ banks for testing the toxicity of new drugs, and virtual reality supercomputers to simulate the workings of the human body and the effects of innovative therapies.
A majority of the diseases we suffer are unique to our species. Cures are most likely to be found by studying the physiology of human beings, not other animals.

sarah kramer's photography site

sarah seriously rocks in all kinds of ways.

from wiki:
Sarah Kramer is a vegan cookbook author. She is the best-selling author of How It All Vegan, The Garden of Vegan and La Dolce Vegan. Sarah Kramer has written for publications such as Herbivore Magazine, Veg News and Shared Vision. Sarah owns/runs The Tattoo Zoo with her husband Gerry Kramer and is also a photographer. Sarah runs a popular vegan website/blog at govegan.net

I AM AN ANIMAL: THE STORY OF INGRID NEWKIRK AND PETA

Stick Figure Productions, I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA (HBOR documentary, 2007). Sheila Nevins, executive producer; Mikaela Beardsley, Steven Cantor, Pax Wassermann, producers; Matthew Galkin, producer and director.
Reviewer: Claudette Vaughan


For all those conspiracy buffs out there who follow logos in this age of post 9/11, the Illuminati and New World Order, here’s one for you. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) original logo was the blue bunny’s head. So close in fact is this to Playboy Inc. white bunny’s head one wonders how the similarities could have been missed in the first place…and that just about says it all. When you get down to it that’s why these vampirious organisations were devised in the first place.

PeTA’s modus operandi is identical to that of Playboy Inc’s now. It took a while getting there but it’s all about sex, money, siphoning off the young and marketing to them (sic) exploitation. This is no coincidence. Last week “I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PeTA” aired on HPO television at 8pm and it provided a bird’s eye view at what’s going on over at Norfolk, Virginia.

Twenty-seven years ago People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) was born. Its marketing strategy then was it was prepared to take the world by storm if necessary through a new intense form of activism that demanded that animal abusers, animal eaters and wearers and the biomedical research labs were put on notice.

What happened? PeTA was formed at a time (again no coincidence) when the corporate state was building itself up to be a driver for those who wanted total dominion in the global market for world domination. In business and in war, the Americans have changed the rules, have moved the goal posts, to the detriment of us all and it’s not working.

In “I Am An Animal…” Newkirk came across much the same way as how America is viewed around the globe today – totally un self-reflective and childishly manically egotistical. When Newkirk sacked Chris, that poor and well-meaning undercover worker who hadn’t gotten enough footage for her, it was cringe time all-around and any sympathy for her plight that may have been the case, went right out the door.

You know you’re in trouble when the trailer just after the main program is more interesting (“The Making of Darfur”) than the main program itself.

Ingrid, Ingrid where did it all go wrong for you?

No-body trusts you any longer. Certainly not your co-founder Alex Pacheco who denounced your methods and came out of this doco shining with integrity – shining in remembrance of a by-gone era of unspoken loyalties and unbending will to take them all on for all animals but by no stretch of the imagination is that the PeTA of today.

Those silly silly antics, those naked young women just standing there naked holding their breasts awkwardly and wearing horns, makes you look ridiculous and you know what, I’m sorry to have to say it, but you have no-one but yourself to blame.

And that’s really where the central problem lies. The Cult Of Ingrid Newkirk reigns and like any other cult it’s based around one figure – Newkirk herself.

Following the Hollywood model, either consciously or unknowingly, has been the undoing of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In Hollywood, trash like “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, “Porkys” and “American Pie” -- that movie where the kid masturbates into the apple pie -- is meant to be taken, believe it or not, as “entertainment”. Everything is earmarked for the adolescent but it’s wearing and numbing us all down. The point is this is not a haphazard occurrence, it has diabolical consequences, as does it’s root, and it’s a form of brainwashing.

Sound familiar? Yes, PeTA’s ‘anything goes’ is as unethical and painfully obvious as Hollywood’s is and that’s really saying something. You see, if it was just about PeTA and witnessing the beginnings of their demise as far as serious revolutionary social justice change is concerned, then that would be the end of it, but it’s not just about that.

Something has entered the picture and it’s intention is to bring down the whole of the animal rights movement from within while people are looking away or are looking at naked young breasts from women with glazed over looks in their eyes who have probably convinced themselves they are doing something important for animals. Its rabietic nature is evil itself. It targets children, as PeTA does with their “Your Mommie Kills Animals” charade/propaganda, in exactly the same way MacDonalds targets children. That’s how the Brotherhood in America works. Blaming one another while it’s all the same. Blaming Japanese whalers while you won’t lift a finger in your own country to save a dog.

Perhaps Ingrid Newkirk would have been better off staying in the animal control business from whence she came where she could have euthanased as many animals as her heart desired. To bring that skill over to the animal rights movement, to insert it into the movement, death is death after all, is a diabolical act that destroys an agenda that is aggressively for the love of life, vegan and pro- personhood rights. There’s never any shortage of people on this planet willing to kill animals. How did she keep a straight face when she said she was for “total animal liberation”, I’ll never know. That was an Oscar-winning performance up there with Betty Davis’s “Whatever Happened To Baby-Jane?” or Gloria Swanson’s “Sunset Boulevard”.

When the close-up of Newkirk zoomed in on her explaining why they just had to euthanase a dog she had just rescued after consultation with PeTA’s Dapha Nachminovitch it could have had you weeping in your hanky if you weren’t in receipt of the full facts and figures behind their killing policy. Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA's director of domestic animal welfare, is licensed to administer sodium pentobarbital in Virginia, as I understand it, but is not a vet. Newkirk asks for “the verdict" and Nachminovitch reads notes from somebody’s report, yet if a vet physically examined this dog, we see no sign of it.

Nobody asked Newkirk why she doesn’t rehome animals in any significant numbers. In fact PeTA’s annual re-homing figures are so appalling that local shelters do better than this multi-million dollar organisation that has a declared budget of $25 million to spend and let’s not forget that income tax write off of a state-of-the-art giant freezer to house those dead innocent unassuming bodies in, but you won’t see any of that in this documentary. Newkirk’s opposition to Trap-Neuter-Return for feral cats is legendary while advocating a policy against No-Kill Shelters is a policy that’s in direct contradiction to everything they say they espouse to stand for.

The one success that the international animal rights movement has succeeded in in recent times is preventing Ingrid Newkirk herself from publicly scoffing in the media at No-Kill efforts. As Ingrid herself would say, “It’s another win for the animals.”

I know it suits the media to still portray PeTA as the enfant terrible “radical” of the animal rights movement but it’s not fitting.

The usually tepid Wayne “no surprises here” Pacelle organisation nearly tops the billionaire mark now “for the animals of course” derides PeTA as “shock jocks” in this documentary. Well, that’s rich coming from the Humane Society of America who is in the league of watered-down animal welfarism themselves, whose major talent lies in knowing their way around a corporate boardroom coupled with the in’s and out’s of the latest American marketing strategies.

PeTA is looking tired and strangely pathetic, often menacing these days. Newkirk reiterates that old song of hers that sex and violence is the only thing that turns people on so therefore by inference they have to do things they do, she says, for attention, but by opening that door, by dropping their ethical defenses from out of their itinerary in the struggle for animal dignity, invites those very same forces in. It’s a recipe for disaster and who is going to take seriously a woman who says that in the first place? Newkirk herself blames the edit in a recent interview but could she not honestly gauge that it was coming?

In the kooky, spooky world of PeTA the eerie ghoulish line they have chosen to pursue insists they’re against the fleecing of sheep, right? Yet they don’t seem to mind, one senses, the fine art of fleecing human beings out of their life savings and good will. Frankly, there’s nothing new in taking the ethical guts out of a new movement but PeTA has made a cult out of it and that can’t be good.

A few asides. The cameo appearances of Alex Pachecho, Priscilla Feral from Friends of Animals and Mr Abraham Foxman from the Jewish Defamation League on PeTA’s analogy of the Jewish Holocaust with the animal holocaust stole the show because, get this Ingrid, they oozed integrity. Integrity works (surprise, surprise) but you can’t manufacture it from outside. It’s got to be produced from within.

Another thing: Blaming religion for the plight of animals is hollow rhetoric. Christ Crucified knew what human beings are capable of. The Redemption itself, if you study religion – Christ made not man-made - typifies this.

As for ethics, does this really need spelling out? Arson is not the lesser evil. There’s nothing cool or hip or anything important to be gained at any time from glamourising arson as a doable tool for the animals.

The truth is if I had a daughter she would not be allowed near the PeTA headquarters to volunteer her precious time and resources. She’s not a free resource.

If one looks closely at this documentary the term “animal rights” is never discussed. It’s the same in Australia. It’s just all about just “helping” animals these days. Helping them out. Since America has such a poor human rights record should one really be surprised that rights for animals are not being discussed any longer by the largest “animal rights organisation” in the world. Weird eh? There’s more.

I Am An Animal is also a unintentional look at how the world is being carved up into rich and poor. The charities of the future, and this started in the 70’s, will either abide by the dictate to become multi-million dollar businesses or they will be relegated to a sentimentalist category - “poor but kind” status symbols of second hand opportunity shops with no money forth coming. It’s called New World Order.

As Robert Kennedy said about it before he was assassinated: "We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether “All of us will ultimately be judged on the effort we have contributed to building a NEW WORLD ORDER."

In this context, PeTA is right up there with the big players, unfazed, unconscionable and for the most part, unaccountable, that is for the present moment anyway.

Ingrid Newkirk might disagree with this feature of PeTA’s but just ask yourself one thing: Does George W Bush know what’s going on at that level?

from radio bulgaria

Four Paws project in Veliko Turnovo takes care of stray dogs


For many years municipality-owned companies across Bulgaria have been trying to address the issue of stray dogs. The World Health Organization recommended the ‘castrate and return’ principle, meaning that stray dogs are first caught, castrated, vaccinated and then returned to the same places, where they had been hunted. Bulgaria’s neighbours Greece and Turkey have applied exactly this method. In Greece, in particular, after the dogs have been castrated and returned, environmentalist organizations and the municipalities assume the care of their regular vaccination and anti-parasitic treatment. In Serbia a year ago a law was adopted to that effect. In the south of Italy the dogs are gathered in special establishments, but are not castrated, and the municipalities pay for their care.
In Bulgaria the number of stray dogs has grown to alarming proportions. That is why environmentalists and international organizations launched a process of castrating, vaccinating and returning of the strays in an attempt to curb their reproduction.

Thus, 321 stray dogs have been castrated in the city of Veliko Tarnovo under a project run by the Four Paws Fund of famous animal protection activist Brigitte Bardot. Says vet Marina Ivanova, participant in the project:
“This project has been very successful, indeed. It was also the first one in Bulgaria implemented after the adoption of the new Animal Protection Act. We managed to treat more than 60% of the dogs in our municipality of Veliko Turnovo, and placed the red marks of the Four Paws Fund on the dogs’ ears. According to WHO, the absolute success requires a coverage of 70%, that is why a local team trained by us continues to work on site. We wish to urge pet owners to castrate their pets before they reproduce and the people throw the puppies in the street.”

Inevitably the experts had to deal with a great deal of prejudice when they first began work on the project. “People were simply not convinced that it was the best way for them and the animals,” vet Marina Ivanova says. However, with time many volunteers joined in and the number of helping people increased.
“We received the largest support from the Animal Rights Bulgaria’s local organization that still continues working on site together with the municipality team,” Dr. Ivanova goes on to say. “We had mock pet owners who came to us and tired to lie to us that we had their dog because they did not want the animals to be castrated. But when we asked them to produce some certificates, they could not because those were simply strays. Unfortunately, when a dog bites somebody, suddenly no one comes to claim ownership.”
The principal idea is to reduce the stray dogs’ population by way of castration. “Generally speaking, stray dogs live less than pets,” Dr. Ivanova says. On the one hand they have nobody to look after them, and on the other hand, they are exposed to the hazards of the urban setting. Besides they have the territory guarding instinct that prevents other dogs from entering their territory, and usually the newcomers are non-castrated animals. The castration project includes also a rabies vaccination and anti-parasitic treatment.
“The anti-parasitic treatment and the rhabies shots have to be administered on a regular basis,” Dr. Ivanova explains. “According to the new Animal protection Act, each municipality is bound to accept a programme for managing the street dogs’ population. The law requires that someone care after the animals after they are castrated and released, whether the local environmentalists, or the municipalities themselves,” vet Marina Ivanova says in conclusion.

Written by Darina Grigorova
English version by Radostin Zhelev

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