On Human-Nonhuman Relations

David Nibert: Entangled Up In Blue

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:08:00 +0000

I have the pleasure to present the 29th On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast featuring Professor David Nibert, best known in the animal advocacy movement as the author of Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation and now Animal Oppression & Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism and Global Conflict.

In a wide-ranging interview, we talk about themes in both books, David's new concept of "domesecration," the history of other animal oppression and the role it has played in the oppression of humans and the growth of the capitalist system, David's commitment to non-violence, and a couple of "movement issues."

ENJOY

Policing Contemporary Social Movements (Roundtable Discussion) Sociological Assoc of Ireland.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:45:00 +0000

Roundtable Discussion: Policing Contemporary Social Movements. Chair, Aogan Mulcahy (UCD). Vicky Conway (Uni of Kent), Historical Reflections on the Policing of Protests in Ireland, Shane O'Curry (Irish Network Agaisnt Racism), Policing, the Criminal Justice System and Racism, Hillary Darcy (NUIM), Policing Corrib Gas Protests, Roger Yates (UCD),

Criminalizing Protests about Animal Abuse. Sociological Association of Ireland, 40th Annual Conference, Sheraton Hotel, Athlone, 10-12 May 2013.

I had the pleasure of taking part on a roundtable discussion of policing social movements at the 40th Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland on 11th May 2013.

I gave some details and finding from a paper I wrote in 2011, "Criminalizing protests about animal abuse.
Recent Irish experience in global context," which was published in Crime, Law, and Social Change (55).

Thanks to Paul Ryan and Aogan Mulcahy for facilitating my attendance at the conference.

Will Kymlicka lecture and Q&A - "Animal Rights, Multiculturalism, and The Left"

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:58:00 +0000

Will Kymlicka (Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Queen's University Canada) presents his lecture entitled "Animal Rights, Multiculturalism, and The Left" at the 2012-2013 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Podcast 28 - Ruth & Marcus from The Species Barrier

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:43:00 +0000

In this podcast, I turn the tables and interview Ruth Dredge and Marcus Dredge, hosts of The Species Barrier Podcast and Radio Show.

We talk about their show, their guests, the vegan movement, and more....

On Existing with Co-Inhabiting Horses

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:08:00 +0000

Always great to be invited to contribute to Jordan Wyatt's excellent podcast, Co-something Something Something.

This is a recent, and mercifully short, clip about "horse burgers."

John Deed Unchained

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:29:00 +0000

Two episodes of Judge John Deed by producer, director, and uncompromising animal advocate Gordon Newman have appeared on YouTube. Both take a critical look at the pharmaceutical industry and MMR vaccines.

Silent/Passive/Obedient

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:26:00 +0000

Podcast 27 with Special Guest, Poet Dominic Berry

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:38:00 +0000

I'm delighted to welcome Dominic Berry as my special guest for On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast 27.

Dominic explains his views on veganism and describes how he became vegan after years as a vegetarian. He also talks about his fine work for Vegan Ireland when he visited Dublin in November 2012 for World Vegan Month. I ask Dominic about his third and most recent book of poems - a brilliant children's book entitled Dommy B Vs The Dragon Who Hates Poetry.

He also speaks about the vegan and poetry scene in Manchester, England, where he lives with his partner, and he talks about some of my favourite adult poetry of his which explore themes of being gay, "coming out" as a vegan, and gendered power relations.

While in Ireland, Dominic was extremely gracious with his time (and energy) and we filmed him perform in several location around Dublin, including Temple Bar, Cornucopia Wholefoods Restaurant, and University College Dublin (please scroll down below the embedded player for links to videos of Dominic's Irish performances, and his visit to Eden Farm Animal Sanctuary.)

or L I S T E N H E R E

Dominic Berry Performs in Temple Bar, Dublin.

Dominic Berry at Cornucopia.

Dominic Berry at Eden Farm Animal Sanctuary.

"Time Travellers" at UCD (to 400 first year sociology students).

"Princess" at UCD (to 200 second year sociology students).

Vivisection: Still a trickier question

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:28:00 +0000

The Warwick University Debating Society hosted and filmed (see below) a January 2013 debate on animal testing. Panel: Home Office expert Dr Judy Mac Arthur, emergency physician Dr Adrian Stallwood of Animal Aid, Dr. Andrew Knight, animal researcher Prof. Mike Barer, and Understanding Animal Research representative Mr. John Meredith. The proposal was, "This House Would Ban Animal Testing" - the motion was defeated.

In the second chapter of his 2000 book, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog, "Vivisection: A Trickier Question," Gary L. Francione spells out the problems in opposing animal experimentation in deeply speciesist societies. Francione suggests that this particular use of other animals is just about the only use of animals that is not transparently trivial. Why would a society largely in favour of devouring other animals for dinner when there is no need to so do ban experiments on other animals which it believes will bring progress in human health and be a great benefit to humanity in general?

Francione writes

...those who support vivisection claim in effect that their use of animals, unlike that for food or hunting, entertainment, or fur, is truly necessary: they claim to use animals only when there is no feasible alternative, whereas there is virtually always a feasible alternative to our other animal uses (2000: 33)

We need not spend time debunking these beliefs here - we are simply registering that they exist, and acknowledge that they are probably widespread. These social facts beg the question as to why animal advocates have for many years focused a lot, and sometime the most, of their campaigning fighting against vivisection, when the real problem, the real issue, the issue that annually exploits trillions of beings-other-than-human-beings is cultural speciesism.

We may all have our own pet theories about that. For example, vivisection does look (perhaps) more like torture than other standard and routine uses of nonhuman animals; people can oppose vivisection (like hunting or circuses) while still consuming other animals; and/or (in the case of Britain at least) the "revitalisation" of the animal advocacy movement in Britain was led by two organisations, The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), which was radicalised in the early 1980s, and Animal Aid, formed in 1977, but which also received a huge boost by the events at the BUAV. The mandate of the BUAV was to campaign against animal experimentation only, while Animal Aid had a wider remit but have regularly focused on vivisection and, indeed, their long-standing logo is of laboratory animals cuddling one another.

It seems to me that this January 2013 video, featuring a representative from Animal Aid, raises the same issues that were raised in the year 2000: isn't vivisection a trickier issue? - why do animal advocates, on the face of it, choose to focus on the hardest thing to get rid of?

Note: As far as I heard (and there are some sound problems in the video's Q&A section), no-one made a particularly strong moral case against vivisection. For example, do you hear the term "animal rights" used - or "other animals are rights holders," or "animal rights violations"? This is the sort of approach that would be used by rights-based animal advocates. For example, see Tom Regan's 2007 chapter "Vivisection: The Case for Abolition," here.

One of the speakers against the motion, clinical microbiologist Mike Barer, declared that he did not eat meat, suggesting that he may be a vegetarian. If that is the case, that really does support Francione's position - but not as much as what happened in terms of the first questioner in the Q&A section.

The first person to ask a question was essentially making Francione's point - or part of it - asking why the total focus on vivisection when there are billions of other other animals being killed for their flesh. Did the representative of Animal Aid take the golden opportunity (which was offered by the chair) to put the use of other animals in vivisection in context of animal use in general - no.

Oscar Horta - Why Animal Suffering is Overwhelmingly Prevalent in Nature

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:29:00 +0000

Oscar Horta - Why Animal Suffering is Overwhelmingly Prevalent in Nature from tier-im-fokus.ch on Vimeo.

Speaker: Oscar Horta, University of Santiago de Compostela
Moderator: Adriano Mannino, Universities of Bern and Basel, Activist at tier-im-fokus.ch and giordano-bruno-stiftung.ch. Date: August 8th, 2012. Location: Univiersity of Zurich. Organization: tier-im-fokus.ch, Hochschulgruppe Frei Denken. Camera and Cut: Daniel Olivier Sutter.

C’mon Feel The Noize: A Case of Momolisation.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 22:32:00 +0000

Three years ago a special person came into our lives in the shape of Momo the deaf cat. Her “owners” were threatening to have her killed and it looks like she was confined in their “utility room” for most of the time.

So we took her in. I had no experience of deaf cats and, for some reason that most people seem to think is odd when I tell them, I expected her, being deaf, to be virtually mute - and very quiet. Turns out that I was wrong on both counts.

Now, we all know that a chief characteristic of cats is their ability to move around very quietly. Accounts on the internet* describe cats as “super stealthy,” with a “slow ability” to be light on their feet. Cats, then, are “masters of stealth,” with their ability to move around “almost imperceptibly.”

Cats are digitigrades (humans are plantigrades), meaning that they walk on their toes most of the time. Their pads are designed to act like shock absorbers (and they are super-sensitive to temperature changes and the slightest movement), again reducing the noise they make when they move around. Many accounts will say that cats are simply “hard-wired” to move silently. This is not a learned behaviour but, quite straightforwardly, a matter of instinct. They have an in-built instinct to “creep” it is claimed.

So, cats move around quietly and they do so because they “just do” – it is a hard-wired characteristic.

Not Momo! Because she is deaf, she does not hear the noise she makes, for example, jumping off a windowsill, so she tends to land heavily. Since we agreed to look after Mo, three other cats have come to us, all young, and two in need of bottle feeding.

For the youngsters in particular, then, Momo became their main socialising agent and, guess what, they all stomp around the apartment like big-footed elephants! Even when we are downstairs, and the moggies are upstairs, we have no difficulty knowing where the cats are, and especially when they are on the move. When they are play-fighting, and practice their “hunting skills,” i.e., a time when they are supposed to be the quietest of all, you’d swear that a herd of stampeding wilderbeests were on their way down the stairs.

It seems to me, therefore, in line with the revelations that are coming thick and fast from academic disciplines like cognitive ethology, that this is an example of animal behaviour that is principally learned and is not necessarily hard-wired. It suits a specieist society – and one or two animal advocates, unfortunately, to have a reductionist view of other animals, ascribing what other animals do to the fact that they “just do it” and just do it because they must.

These kittens socialised by a deaf adult cat seem to suggest that moving around silently is something they learn from their parents and/or their main socialising agents.

* I found one interesting internet announcement: cat burglars do not steal cats, the meaning of the phrase is that human cat burglars attempt to move around quietly - like cats do. This seems to beg the question as to who exactly ever thought that the meaning of “cat burglar” was someone who steals cats?

Lisa Kristine: Photos that bear witness to modern slavery

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:11:00 +0000

For the past two years, photographer Lisa Kristine has traveled the world, documenting the unbearably harsh realities of modern-day slavery. She shares hauntingly beautiful images -- miners in the Congo, brick layers in Nepal -- illuminating the plight of the 27 million souls enslaved worldwide. (Filmed at TEDxMaui)

Lisa Kristine

On the Moral Baseline of Our Movement

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:58:00 +0000

In this recently published podcast interview, the one-and-only Ronnie Lee outlines his involvement in a new public education initiative, EVE (Encouraging Vegan Education). EVE is a grassroots mobilisation concentrated on forging change on a cultural level. As Ronnie explains, if ordinary people continue to exploit and use other animals in the ways that they do, and if they continue to hold the speciesist attitudes towards them that they currently hold, then little will change. If ordinary people do not change, things for other animals remain the same.

As mentioned in the interview, Ronnie Lee will always be remembered within the animal advocacy movement as the co-founder in the 1970s of the direct action phenomenon, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). However, Ronnie suggests that the ALF could only ever have hoped to play a small role in the liberation of other animals from human tyranny due to the cell-structure of the “organisation,” which tended to keep things small-scale, and – were the ALF to have become a mass movement as he (and I) once thought it would – the state would have crushed it just has they have recently cracked down on the activities and activists of SHAC.

Apart from what Ronnie said about the ALF and its role, what he – and what interviewer Carolyn Bailey – said about veganism being the moral baseline of the animal rights movement caught my attention, and it is those remarks that are the basis of this blog entry.

In the show notes, Ronnie is described as speaking about “the long history of veganism within the animal protection movement.” When Ronnie talks about “the long history of veganism within the animal protection movement,” he’s referring to the fact that, even from the 1970s, at least in the case of Britain, there was a steady increase in members of the animal movement becoming dietary vegans as individuals, although few of them “campaigned for veganism,” and fewer still in any consistent sense, or in a sense that veganism was at that time integral to campaigning or campaign claims.

It seems to me, then, it is wrong to suggest that veganism had been established as the movement’s moral baseline earlier than it has been, although I think the 1970s and 1980s can be said to have marked the time of its initial inception. It needed a determined effort to “push” veganism centre stage, as it were and, as Ronnie states very clearly in his interview, it certainly wasn’t central in those days.

Before we try to locate when this baseline position for veganism emerged, and the extent to which it is established within the animal movement, what exactly does it mean to say that “veganism is the moral baseline”? There seems to be some dispute or confusion as to what we should regard this phrase to mean within a social movement context, so this is my attempt to articulate its meaning.

A fairly standard definition of the word “baseline” indicates that it is, “an imaginary line or standard” and “standard of value.” The word is synonymous with words such as “criterion” and “touchstone.” It seems to me that we can take “veganism as the moral baseline in the animal rights movement” to mean the value placed on veganism as an integral part of what standing for animal rights means (it is hard to stand for someone while deliberately exploiting them) and, in terms of movement claims-making, appeals to the philosophy of veganism would be central in all that is done and claimed for and about other animals.

In my presentation at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg in September 2012, I suggested that we might think that it is within the rights-based section of the animal movement that the moral baseline idea for veganism makes the most sense. That is to say, if one believes that other animals are rightholders, and that what humans do to them routinely and systematically are rights violations, then being vegan yourself, and integrating the advocacy of the philosophy of veganism into one’s campaigning activities, seems logical and necessary - and precisely because it would seem odd and contradictory to stand for the rights of those one is directly exploiting.

So, leaving that last point rather hanging, when was veganism established as the moral baseline of the animal (rights) movement - and why does it matter?

Credit where it is due, I have always accepted and acknowledged the crucial role law professor Gary Francione has played in bringing about the concentration of veganism in the animal movement. I think that grassroots campaigners, without vegetarian and flesh-consuming subscribers to consider, have taken to the vegan moral baseline in the fullest sense. Moreover, if veganism can be said to have been developing to any extent as the moral baseline “before Francione,” then it would have been in the grassroots part of the movement - and the grassroots of most social movements have traditionally been regarded as that movement’s backbone.

However, I would claim that Francione, more than most, worked to bring veganism to be seen as an integral part, and an integral logic, of the animal advocacy movement from the 1990s onwards. He has been critical of the “vegetarian first,” and “vegetarianism as the gateway to veganism” arguments, while fully accepting that people may not be able to “turn vegan” overnight or all at once. There is a lot of acceptance of inevitable incrementalism within Francione’s position on human-nonhuman relations which is often ignored or downplayed.

The “push” towards establishing veganism as the moral baseline began in the 1990s - in the sense of being absolutely integral to campaigning and to claims-making – and that indicates why it is important to acknowledge its recent origins and not attempt to do what Ronnie and Ms. Bailey did in Ronnie’s podcast: imply that philosophical veganism has been central within the animal movement for much longer than it has been. Ronnie is perfectly correct to suggest that many and probably most of those early campaigners he rubbed shoulders with were vegans - but he’s also right to acknowledge that they did not campaign for veganism in the senses that we see it campaigned for now. This means, I suggest, that veganism was not the moral baseline back then – far from it: that move, that flowering, that flourishing, has been in very recent years.

The idea is so new that the amount of references to veganism on Facebook alone makes it easy to forget how new it is. Moreover, even now, not all sections of the animal advocacy movement embrace the idea, or are ever likely to, not even all in the grassroots movement; and certainly not in the national corporations who continue to have good business reasons to fudge the issue with use of terms like “veg,” “veggie,” and “veg*n.” Thankfully, the latter term, which I have always hated, seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years.

As late as 1996, Gary Francione, the person I am suggesting was instrumental in establishing veganism as the movement’s moral baseline, was still self-identifying as a vegetarian, and there is no mention of veganism in his 2000 book, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or The Dog? Q&As taken from the book are still featured on Francione’s web site and mention vegetarianism rather than veganism.

THAT’S HOW NEW AND RECENT THIS “VEGANISM AS THE MORAL BASELINE” IDEA IS!

By 1996, many campaigners Ronnie knew – and many campaigners people like Kim Stallwood, myself, and my sister Lynne knew – were self-identifying vegans, and had been so for 10, 15, or 20 years – but that fact does not mean that veganism was regarded as the moral baseline in the 1970s or 1980s. Those early campaigners were within a movement that did not campaign for veganism, and did not include veganism within its routine claims-making until many years later – until “after Francione.”

If I am right about this – and so, hello Donald, again! – we could and should recognise the newness of veganism being our moral baseline, central to everything we do, and we should take heart that this incredibly new thing has really taken off in the last few years. Now, we are in the position to much more reliably test out how the idea of veganism “plays” within the public imagination. We need to keep going with our new idea and, as Ronnie Lee says, continue to encourage vegan education. We do not need, for whatever reason, to imagine that veganism was the moral baseline of the movement for longer than it actually has been.

Podcast source.

The Messy Business of Regulating Atrocities.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:16:00 +0000

The latest from Hillside Animal Sanctuary.

Outraged, many of our supporters contacted Waitrose in disbelief after watching our short film (below) showing the appalling conditions endured by RSPCA Freedom Food accredited pigs at May Farm in Norfolk. The pigs were being sold by Waitrose as pork, produced under what they claim are 'the highest standards of welfare and animal husbandry.' Our film documents the appalling conditions at the farm from 2007 right through to 2012, despite being reported to the RSPCA on more than one occasion, and even featuring on ITV's 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald'

Waitrose has now responded by stating they have 'not taken any pork from May Farm since June 2009' Yet Dalehead Foods (also known as BQP, who own the pigs) state on their website that their farms 'are all specifically producing for Waitrose' meaning there was nowhere else they could be going!

Waitrose claim 'All Waitrose pork comes from British farmers, and we know every one of them personally' You might take this to mean that they are checking the welfare of the animals but it would appear not!

And Waitrose and Dalehead Foods (BQP) certainly do appear to have the same website writer...

The Dalehead (BQP) website says 'All of our pork comes from a dedicated group of farmers based predominately in East Anglia'
Compare this to the Waitrose website, which states 'Essential Waitrose pork comes from outdoor bred pigs reared by a dedicated group of farmers based predominantly in East Anglia'

So for Waitrose to state they haven't taken any pork from May Farm since June 2009 seems a little far fetched! If they had doubts about the welfare of pigs on RSPCA Freedom Food accredited May Farm, why did they carry on taking pork from all the other RSPCA FF farms as they clearly weren't capable of assuring acceptable conditions? Further, as the problems on May Farm were first disclosed in 2007, why did they carry on using the farm even up to the summer of 2009?!

We also caught Waitrose out last year...

In 2011, both Sky News and Channel 5 broadcast a Hillside investigation which uncovered evidence of free-range ducks being swung by their necks by farm workers. The ducks were being farmed by Gressingham Foods and then sold on the shelves of Waitrose as a high-welfare, free-range product. Waitrose's planned visit to the farm, which could have been used as a genuine opportunity to check on the welfare of the birds, was known about several weeks in advance, rendering it completely meaningless.

Hall Farm launched their own inquiry, saying: "We take matters of animal health and welfare very seriously and are extremely concerned by the footage we have been shown." Surely they knew what was going on on their own farm!! Gressingham (Green Label) said they were upset by the film, and had suspended the farm workers. Yet, when the RSPCA was asked if a prosecution was forthcoming, they said they couldn’t find out who the farm workers were!! This was despite stating "This is absolutely shocking footage and the RSPCA has very serious concerns about the level of cruelty inflicted on these ducks. The footage shows appalling behaviour in regards to the catchers who are seen swinging live ducks by their necks and throwing them at other ducks. This is undoubtedly a criminal offence under the Animal Welfare Act (2006), which makes owners and keepers responsible for ensuring the welfare needs of their animals are met and that they are protected from pain, injury, suffering and disease.” So who was paying the farm workers if nobody knew who they were??

Waitrose make a lot of claims about the welfare of animals destined for their shelves, but the reality appears to be that they do very little to actually check on the 'high welfare' conditions they are promoting. Their description of pigs 'transferred indoors to bright, airy straw bedded sheds, with natural lighting and fed a natural, cereal-based diet' highlights the differences between their bold claims and the grim reality...

"Princess" by Dominic Berry

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:02:00 +0000

Performance poet Dominic Berry visited Ireland to help with Vegan Ireland's World Vegan Month celebrations.

I took the opportunity to have him perform two poems to students at University College Dublin (UCD). This is his second poem, "Princess," which is about gendered power relations. The moving (and disturbing) poem was performed before 200 second level sociology students on 26th November 2012.

Go time travelling with Dominic Berry

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 06:09:00 +0000

Performance poet Dominic Berry made his first ever trip over to Ireland to help Vegan Ireland with their events and celebrations in World Vegan Month 2012. I took the opportunity to invite Dominic to perform at my university, UCD, in the last week of an Introduction to Sociology module - well, students had endured 20 hours of lectures from me at this stage, so I thought that they deserved a break.

Although Dominic was the guest of Vegan Ireland, I asked him not to recite any of his vegan poems and, rather, choose those with a greater relevance to sociology. This is his excellent recital of "Time Travellers," delivered to an audience of between 300 and 400 students.

An Interview Wot I Did

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 05:51:00 +0000

I stumbled upon this video of an interview I did in 2011 with the Vegan Society NSW which has never appeared on the On Human-Nonhuman Relations blog site.

I speak about social change, becoming vegan, my "Sea Shepherd days," animal rights and animal welfare, and the philosophical mess of the animal advocacy movement (is it worth sorting that out?).

Beyond Unreason ("Caveman" "analysis" of research on vegetarian men)

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 10:15:00 +0000

On foot of research such as THIS, George Hook, of Newstalk Radio in Ireland, featured his "thoughts" on the matter on 23rd November, 2012.

Could "analysis" (and comments from listeners) get more shallow and crass?

One interesting part was on the "Hitler was a vegetarian" myth. Was that story put about by "the Allies" essentially as black propaganda in order to attack Hitler's masculinity and, thereby, reduce his significance in the eyes of his enemies?

Atheist Ireland & Vegan Ireland in Discussion (FULL)

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:43:00 +0000

Available in full as one video for the first time.

The Essential Marcuse by Andrew Feenberg

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:31:00 +0000

Herbert Marcuse

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:28:00 +0000

Herbert Marcuse was a leading member of the "first wave" of the Frankfurt School.

Dr. Milton Mills on the Correct Diet for Human Animals

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:08:00 +0000

The major causes of death in Western countries are cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Abundant medical research linking these diseases to dietary and lifestyle factors, guidelines advanced by the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the Surgeon General, among others, counsel Americans to sharply reduce animal foods consumed and replace them with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. In effect, they are recommending a more plant-based diet, which begs the question: Are humans designed to eat meat?

Milton Mills, M.D. has an extensive background in nutrition research, focusing on the role nutrition plays in the development of chronic diseases. He is a graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine and is a practicing physician in the Washington, D.C. area. He also serves as the Associate Director of Preventive Medicine for the health policy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He has lectured extensively throughout North America and is a Nutrition Health Education Video Spokesperson for the Discovery Health Channel.

Filming and editing by Dr William Harris M.D. on November 12, 2005 at McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, Hawaii
Sponsored by: Vegetarian Society of Hawaii http://www.vsh.org
Category:

China Strains to Satisfy Growing Demand for Meat

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:19:00 +0000

This report from Mary Kay Magistad is part of the "Food for 9 Billion" series, a NewsHour collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting, American Public Media's Marketplace, Public Radio International's The World and Homelands Productions.

Watch China Strains to Satisfy Growing Demand for Meat on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The Incredibly Messy Business of Regulating Atrocities

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 11:23:00 +0000

Temple Grandin thinks that gross rights violations can be monitored and regulated by video.

Talk and Q&A following showing of "Behind The Mask"

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:44:00 +0000

I was recently invited to give an address on animal rights and direct action at an event in Sligo, Ireland (November 3rd 2012) where the film Behind The Mask was the main feature.

I spoke briefly, in the context of an "activist past" and academic present, about a few relevant points, such as the gender balance in the movement (see THIS book on that), the use of arson, and the raw data that was edited into the film Unnecessary Fuss.

Before my talk, animal rights activist Tina Cubberley spoke about her rights-based position (which is straight-edge veganism) and she recited three of her "Anti-Speciesist Action" poems. [Please scroll down for those.]

[The sound on some parts of the Q&A is low - but I think most is audible.]