Aug 06 2009
George Harrison’s music helps animal sanctuary
If you like good music and helping animals at the same time, here’s an opportunity. Continue Reading »
Archive for the 'Culture' Category
Mar 05 2009
Animal law and art showing violence against animals
The weekend is upon us and here goes a suggestion of links for some thoughtful reading. The Missouri has a great article about the growth of animal law in academia and how cases of cruelty are being handled these days. It says:
Lewis & Clark opened the first Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter in 1992. Today it has branches at more than 115 law schools in the United States and Canada. In 2000, nine law schools had animal law studies. Today, about 100 do.
It’s a very though-provoking article for anyone interested in how animal rights activism is progressing in the courtroom.
Last year an exhibition in San Francisco that included video work showing animals being bludgeoned to death was shut down. The French artist Adel Abdessemed refused to reveal the context of the footage and so it remained unclear whether the damage done to the animals had been staged for the camera, which anyone with a hint of mercy in their blood would not condone. Now, the same artist had an exhibit suspended in Italy, for similar reasons. Doris Lin from the Animal Rights blog on About.com writes about the case.
The thing is, were an artist to deal with the theme, say, of rape, would he feel entitled to reproduce a real situation for show in a gallery? Surely not - if he or she did attempt that, he wouldn’t even get started because no gallery would touch such material. It’s not about censorship, it’s about common sense. The same principle should apply to animals. Real violence should only be shown in documentary form, with the context very clearly marked. Otherwise it’s just sheer exploitation.
Jan 26 2009
Japan dolphin movie wins Sundance award
The documentary The Cove , which is, among many other things, about the annual massacre of 23,000 dolphins in Taiji, Japan (there’s a sequence of gruesome imagery included in Earthlings) has won the audience award at the Sundance festival which folded on Saturday evening.
Jan 17 2009
Vegetarian dogs live longer and human vegans speak out
I came cross this instigating post from Today.com stablemate Realnoooz about dogs living longer on a plant-base diet.
Today, I received a newsletter from an health advocate, Frederic Patenaude who mentioned that one of the oldest living dogs, named “Bramble,” had been a vegan. I was a little curious, because actually most animals and dogs are carnivores. Then I found that there are quite a few animal lovers and veterinarians who recommend a vegetarian diet as it seems to increase the vitality and even the intelligence of these pets. Now this particular dog Bramble was a “chocolate labrador” from Britain who lived to be 189 human years, or 27 dog years, as the saying goes. (Guiness World Records)
Realnoooz makes some recommendations in terms of nutritional supplements and to get more information and more links go directly to the post here.
Back to human vegans, Eric Prescott, of An Animal Friendly Life fame is interviewed by Animal Voices radio about his documentary featuring vegans making a positive statement about their chosen diet, “I’m Vegan”. The objective of the film is to dispel myths and stereotypes about vegans, despite the cultural currency the term has been gaining. In terms of format, “I’m Vegan,” is described as a “series of short documentary profiles that aim for long-term impact as an online series normalizing veganism…intended to serve as a form of ongoing advocacy.” You can find the interview here.
