This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Update on the PETA Apology
2. Science Magazine: "Smoking Gun" Proves Reality of Global Warming
3. New Book on Judaism and the Environment Published
4. Summer Veggie Conferences & Festivals
5. Two New Important Online Newsletters
6. Conservative Political Leader Indicates Why Conservatives Should Care About Animal Cruelty
7. Veggie Pride Manifesto
8. Are We Consuming the Planet?
9. Stopping the Slaughter of Seals in Canada
10. Breakaway church spreads vegetarian message. Any Synagogues Interested?
11. Petition to Stop Expanded Horse Racing in Israel
12. Dog Saves Abandoned Newborn Baby in Kenya
13. Quotes on Dietary Connections to Health
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, information re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsements by JVNA, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in.
As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. Update on the PETA Apology
I have long viewed part of my role and that of the JVNA to be to try to serve as a bridge between animal rights groups who sometimes are insensitive to religious groups and teachings and Jewish groups who sometimes are not doing enough to address animal suffering, health epidemics, and environmental threats. This is a difficult task, especially at times like this, but I think it is an important task, and I hope that people will be understanding and be patient as we try to obtain the most effective approach.
I have been wrestling with how to best respond to the PETA apology.
A sing from the musical “South Pacific indicates that one has to have a dream in order to have a dream come true. Well, as difficult as it is, my dream is a reconciliation that would enable JVNA and others to work cooperatively with PETA and other animal rights groups in addressing abuses of animals on factory farms and other negative effects of animal-based diets. While I and many in the Jewish community differ with PETA in terms of some of its philosophy and tactics, especially with regard to its "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign, I believe that there is a possibility of finding common ground and working together.
Although it is not commonly known, PETA has made statements and taken actions that have been very positive re the Jewish community. They acted very sensitively and respectfully in the recent Postville slaughterhouse controversy. They have indicated that shechita, when properly carried out, is a superior method of slaughter and they have praised Jewish teachings on the proper treatment of animals. They have also produced a "Judaism and Vegetarianism" DVD and a booklet, "A Jewish Case for Vegetarianism." They are giving out free copies of the booklet in quantity to all who request them.
I am planning a special issue of the JVNA Newsletter that would consider the PETA apology and how best to respond. It will include statements both for and against the recent PETA apology (which was included in last week’s JVNA special newsletter), and related material. Please consider submitting a statement by Sunday 2PM, Eastern Time. Do you think that PETA’s apology is adequate? Do you have any suggestions on what PETA might do to reconcile with the Jewish community and other groups and/or what JVNA might do to help promote a reconciliation, or at least to get the Jewish community to play a more active role in reducing animal abuse and other negative impacts of animal-centered diets, even if there is no reconciliation? As indicated, we are dealing with a very difficult, sensitive situation, but I think we should try to use our wisdom and creativity to seek the best possible solution.
Meanwhile, below is an article on the PETA apology by the Religious News Service. The article is significant because it has been sent to religious editors throughout the country.
As indicated, we are dealing with very sensitive issues and I apologize if I offend anybody in seeking ways to work together in making people aware of the many benefits of vegetarianism.
The next item (#2) in this newsletter re threats of global warming shows why our efforts to find ways to more effectively promote vegetarianism in Jewish communities and others is so important, and why we must persist in spite of many obstacles and frustrations.
Religious News Service (RNS) Article on the PETA Apology
Religion News Service
May 6, 2005 Friday 4:03 PM Eastern Time
SECTION: DOMESTIC
HEADLINE: RNS Daily Digestc.
PETA Belatedly Apologizes for Comparing Animal Slaughter to Holocaust
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has apologized for a controversial exhibit and ad campaign in which it compared the slaughtering of animals for meat to the atrocities of the Holocaust. The organization sparked a heated debate in February 2003 when it
Launched the "Holocaust on Your Plate" exhibit, which displayed images of concentration camps juxtaposed with photos of animals being led to the slaughter. Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's president, released a letter Thursday (May 5) apologizing for the exhibit, following a decision by the organization to omit another reference to a Holocaust-linked Yiddish song in a more recent ad campaign.
Newkirk's letter was publicized on the observance of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the letter, Newkirk explained that the "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign was "designed to sensitize people to different forms of systematic degradation and exploitation, and the logic and methods employed in factory farms and slaughterhouses are analogous to those used in concentration camps."
"By showing how humans were treated 'like animals,'" she continued, "it was never our goal to humiliate the victims further -- instead, we hoped to shed light on the process through which any living being can be reduced to an interchangeable, disposable 'thing.'"
Newkirk added that PETA is "deeply sorry" about the pain that the Campaign caused, and she hopes to work with Jewish groups in the future to promote the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which led the public outcry denouncing the 2003 exhibit, responded to the apology with guarded optimism. "We welcome the apology," said Ken Jacobson, the ADL's associate national director. But, he added, "It's very late. There's a lot of damage already done."
-- Holly Lebowitz Rossi
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2. Science Magazine: “Smoking Gun” Proves Reality of Global Warming
Environmental Defense
"Smoking gun" evidence has been found proving that global warming is real, is happening and that immediate action is required to stabilize the planet's climate, according to a new study in the prestigious journal Science Magazine.
Unless we act now, the study warns global warming could spin "out of our control."
Conducted by researchers from NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and Columbia University, the "smoking gun" study finds that the Earth is out of "energy balance" -- meaning that the planet is absorbing more heat from the sun than it is emitting back into space.
The study warns that the planet's oceans are hiding the full extent of the warming that we can expect by absorbing up to 90% of the heat that has been trapped by greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
Environmental Defense scientist Bill Chameides explains:
"The atmosphere is not that hot yet because the oceans mask the full extent of the warming that we can expect. Even after we stabilize emissions, the atmosphere will warm for many decades as it catches up with the ocean."
Translation: some future warming is already inevitable -- though action now can help manage the problem.
James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the lead author of the study, says, "This energy imbalance is the 'smoking gun' that we have been looking for.
There can no longer be substantial doubt that human-made gases are the cause of most observed warming."
In response to the threat of global warming to the planet, Environmental Defense Action Fund has mobilized a massive national campaign to support passage of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, the most important global warming legislation ever introduced in Congress.
Donate now to support our campaign:
Environmental Defense
SNIP
Thank you for you support.
Sincerely,
Fred Krupp
President, Environmental Defense Organization.
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3. New Book on Judaism and the Environment Published
Thanks to JVNA founder and first president Jonathan Wolf for this important message forwarded from Canfei Nesharim, an Orthodox Jewish environmental group:
What does the Torah say about protecting the environment? Compendium of Sources in Halacha and the Environment, Volume One.
With articles on: Bal Taschit: Do not waste; Tzaar Ba’alei Chaim: Treatment of Animals; Nature in Tefilla; On Conserving Water and Netilas Yadayim; The Unity of Creation; Ecology and Spirituality. Including Source Sheets for Learning Sessions; Bibliography of Jewish Law &the Environment. Available June 2005 from Canfei Nesharim. Cost: $10.00 (inquire about reduced community rate) For more information and to order your copy: compendium@canfeinesharim.org or call: (212) 284-6745
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4. Summer Veggie Conferences & Festivals
Forwarded message from Robert Cohen, the NotMilkman:
If you are able to, try and plan on attending one of the four great 2005 summer conferences & festivals. Each one is a visit to the Garden of Eden. You'll be physically and intellectually nourished on all aspects of vegetarianism. I urge you to make plans to take off a week or even a long weekend to hear America's most informed and inspirational speakers. Your attendance can add years to your life, and will return dividends on your investment of time and dollars.
My #1 Recommended Conference (I [Robert Cohen] will be there!)
American Vegan Society
Where: The Farm, Summertown, Tennessee
When: August 10-14
Contact: (856) 694-2887
Website: http://www.AmericanVegan.org
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North American Vegetarian Society Summerfest
[I, Richard Schwartz plan to be there for part of the conference, and to give some talks.]
Where: Johnstown, PA
When: June 29-July 3
Phone: (518) 568-7970
Website: http://vegetariansummerfest.org
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FARM Animal Rights Conference
Where: Los Angeles, CA
When: July 7-July 11
Phone: (888) 327-6872
Website: http://www.ar2004.org
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Rawstock
Where: Sebastopol, California
When: August 26-29
Phone: (707) 829-0362
Website: http://www.rawstock.us
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Robert Cohen
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5. Two New Important Online Newsletters
Forwarded message from Lana
a. The VegE-News e-newsletter
The VegE-News is a new monthly e-newsletter featuring current news stories of interest to vegetarians. This is a free publication produced by two long-time vegans who want to help people stay abreast of the animal, health and environmental aspects of vegetarianism and veganism. The newsletter features brief summaries of current news stories with links to full stories. You can view a sample and sign up at http://www.vege-news.com. Please be sure to include "JVNA" under vegetarian organization in the optional information section.
b. The Green Challenge e-newsletter and website
The Green Challenge quarterly e-newsletter is chock full of ideas for eco-friendly living. Its aim is to provoke thought and inspire action with lots of pactical info and links. A delicious vegan recipe is always included. Here's a link to the spring issue where you can sign up:
www.greenchallenge.com/html/newsletter/2005_spring.html
The Green Challenge website introduces everyone to the impact of our everyday choices on society and the global environment. Along with entertaining quizzes, hundreds of ideas for an environmentally friendly home, there's a Green Gourmet section with scrumptious vegan recipes. TheGreen Challenge makes it easy to think globally and act locally. (website: greenchallenge.org)
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6. Conservative Political Leader Indicates Why Conservatives Should Care About Animal Cruelty
Forwarded message:
There is a great cover story in The American Conservative called "Torture on the Farm: Why Conservatives Should Care About Animal Cruelty". Unfortunately, many conservatives view vegetarianism as a "liberal" issue, and this article shows this is not the case. The article can be read at http://www.cok.net/files/scully050523.pdf, the beginning section is included here.
-------------------------
Cover Story
[c r u e l & u n u s u a l ]
Fear Factories
The case for compassionate conservatism—for animals
By Matthew Scully [He has been a speech writer for President Bush.]
http://www.cok.net/files/scully050523.pdf
M a y 2 3 ,2 0 0 5
T h e A m e r i c a n C o n s e r v a t i v e
A FEW YEARS AGO I began a book about cruelty to animals and about factory farming in particular, problems that had been in the back of my mind for a long while. At the time I viewed factory farming as one of the lesser problems facing humanity—a small wrong on the grand scale of good and evil but too casually overlooked and too glibly excused.
This view changed as I acquainted myself with the details and saw a few typical farms up close. By the time I finished the book, I had come to view the abuses of industrial farming as a serious moral problem, a truly rotten business for good reason passed over in polite conversation. Little wrongs, when left unattended, can grow and spread to become grave wrongs, and precisely this had happened on our factory farms. The result of these ruminations was Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. And though my tome never quite hit the bestseller lists, there ought to be some special literary prize for a work highly recommended in both the Wall Street Journal and Vegetarian Teen.
When you enjoy the accolades of PETA and Policy Review, Deepak Chopra and Gordon Liddy, Peter Singer and Charles Colson, you can at least take comfort in the diversity of your readership. The book also provided an occasion for fellow conservatives to get beyond their dislike for particular animal-rights groups and to examine cruelty issues on the merits. Conservatives have a way of dismissing the subject, as if where animals are concerned nothing very serious could ever be at stake. And though it is not exactly true that liberals care more about these issues--you are no more likely to find reflections or exposés concerning cruelty in The Nation or The New Republic than in any journal of the Right—it is assumed that animal-protection causes are a project of the Left, and that the proper conservative position is to stand warily and firmly against them.
I had a hunch that the problem was largely one of presentation and that by applying their own principles to animal-welfare issues conservatives would find plenty of reasons to be appalled. More to the point, having acknowledged the problems of cruelty, we could then support reasonable remedies. Conservatives, after all, aren’t shy about discoursing on moral standards or reluctant to translate the most basic of those standards into law. Setting aside the distracting
rhetoric of animal rights, that’s usually what these questions come down to: what moral standards should guide us in our treatment of animals, and when must those standards be applied in law?
Industrial livestock farming is among a whole range of animal-welfare concerns that extends from canned trophy-hunting to whaling to product testing on animals to all sorts of more obscure enterprises like the exotic-animal trade and the factory farming of bears in China for bile believed to hold medicinal and aphrodisiac powers. Surveying the various uses to which animals are put, some might be defensible, others abusive and unwarranted, and it’s the job of any conservative who attends to the subject to figure out which are which. We don’t need novel theories of rights to do this.
The usual distinctions that conservatives draw between moderation and excess, freedom and license, moral goods and material goods, rightful power and the abuse of power, will all do just fine.
As it is, the subject hardly comes up at all among conservatives, and what commentary we do hear usually takes the form of ridicule directed at animal-rights groups. Often conservatives side instinc-tively with any animal-related industry and those involved, as if a thing is right just because someone can make money off it or as if our sympathies belong always with the men just because they are men.
I had an exchange once with an eminent conservative columnist on this subject. Conversation turned to my book and to factory farming. Holding his hands out in the “stop” gesture, he said, “I don’t want to know.” Granted, life on the factory farm is no one’s favorite subject, but conservative writers often have...
[read the rest at http://www.cok.net/files/scully050523.pdf]
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7. Veggie Pride Manifesto
Forwarded message from FARM (Farm Animal Reform Movement)
Come to the 5th Veggie Pride!
Join us in Paris on May 21st 2005 at 2pm in front of the Centre Beaubourg (Centre G. Pompidou, Paris 4e; metro Rambuteau or bus 11). [May 21 is a shabbat, but I thought you would still be interested in learning about this event.]
Come and march with us!
See the full English section on the Veggie Pride website: http://www.veggiepride.org/en/.
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The Veggie Pride Manifesto
Veggie Pride - festival of vegetarian and vegan pride
Our aims:
To declare our pride at refusing to have animals killed for our consumption
To refuse to rob sentient beings of their sole possessions, of their very flesh, of their very lives; to refuse to take part in a concentration camp system which turns their short lives into a perpetual torment; to refuse to do all of this for the mere pleasure of the palate, for the satisfaction of a habit, of a tradition: To refuse to do such things should be just plain decency.
However, history does show how difficult it is, when barbarity is the social norm, simply to say No.
We wish to declare our pride at saying this No.
To denounce vegephobia
Instead, they want us to feel ashamed. Vegetarianism is concealed, ignored, mocked, marginalized and even defamed.
Vegetarianism challenges the legitimacy of the confinement and slaughter of billions of animals. Just by existing it breaks the law of silence. This is the reason behind vegephobic mockery and hatred.
Of course vegetarianism is tolerated when it is the harmless sort that claims to be no more than a private choice, a matter of distaste for meat or of concern for personal health or the environment. But woe betide us if we openly challenge the barbarous order!
At first we are laughed at. Caring about chickens and cows is supposed to be ridiculous. Laughing at a disturbing idea is a way to get rid of it without having to find logical arguments against it.
But if we do not give in, the laughter turns sour. At first they found us funny, now they call us monsters. We are traitors to the human species since we would limit its rights. We are unworthy parents for not teaching our children the joys of dead flesh. If we care for animals we must be Nazi sympathizers since Hitler too loved dogs. Our ideas are those of an intolerant cult since they are different from what others believe.
We are called terrorists or satanists; accused of worshipping nature or of breaking its laws. No argument is too farfetched when it comes to misrepresenting our ideas, putting us to shame and symbolically rejecting us from society.
We refuse to apologize for our compassion. We are proud to declare that we are vegetarians. We are no longer willing to feel shame for refusing to kill. We are here, we are well alive and thinking and will speak out.
To proclaim our existence
All over the world we are millions of humans saying No to this carnage. Few civilizations have actually taken for granted that eating animals is justified. But when do you hear about those debates? Mentions of vegetarianism are systematically missing in textbooks and biographies.
"The man who eats meat or the hunter who agrees with the cruelties of Nature, upholds with every bite of meat or fish that might is right." - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel prize in Literature.
By stepping forth we also prove that it is possible to live without meat. We live without eating cows or pigs, chicken or fish or prawns. And we are as alive and healthy as anyone else, despite those media-promoted "specialists" whose science consists in denying the facts. Neither vegetarianism nor veganism (which rejects all animal products, including milk and eggs) has any particular negative effects on health - indeed, current studies tend to show the opposite!
There is no spell that says that to live one must kill. We are not obliged to do so, neither individually nor collectively. Animal husbandry does not provide food, since farm animals eat much more than their dead flesh can render. Despite this, massive public funding supports animal farming and fishing.
To defend our rights
No rights are granted to the animals who are raised and killed for food; but we who stand on their side do have rights, in principle. We are determined to exercise our rights in full, because they are our rights, and because they are theirs - the only rights that they may today, indirectly, enjoy.
We have the right to receive decent meals at school, at work and wherever meals are served to groups of people. We have the right to raise our children without forcing upon them the products of the slaughterhouse.
We are not willing to have our taxes used to support the raising and killing and the fishing for the tastes of others.
We are no longer willing for our actions and our ideas to be systematically silenced. We no longer accept that the only public voices should be those of the corporations and intellectuals who defend the consumption of flesh.
We demand an open debate.
"We are the mirror of your guilty consciences
and this mirror will no longer hide"
Faced with images of heaps upon heaps of animals "destroyed" for BSE or foot-and-mouth disease, we alone felt no shame. We were not shameful for ourselves. But we felt shame for all others.
Above all, we were sad. However much we insist on asserting our pride in saying No to barbarity, this brings us no satisfaction. The animals are slaughtered by the billions. They are held to be dumb, their cries do not count. We shall speak out for them until the massacre halts.
We are animals and stand in solidarity with all animals! [While Judaism has very strong teachings on compassion toward animals, it believes that only humans are created in God’s image.]
Practical information about the protest
The Veggie Pride demonstration is open to all who don't eat animals. If you have questions about this restriction, please check out our Frequently Asked Questions.
2.30 pm: Departure of the protest
We request slogans and banners to be only about vegetarianism or veganism for the animals, excluding other arguments (health, environment...). Since the Veggie Pride is a march of individuals who express their pride of being veg for the animals, we request that no logo or name of organisation appear on the banners and posters.
4.00 pm: Arrival at the Fontaine des Innocents. End of the march and preparation of a "happening" symbolizing the ocean of suffering and death imposed day after day on animals.
4.30 pm-5.00 pm: The happening. We need a hundred volunteers to take part in it. Each will receive a mask and be asked to stand still while a sound track plays animal screams, excerpts from the Manifesto and other texts related to the industry of death.
5.00pm-9.30pm: Public lecture of texts about what is done to animals and our refusal to take part in it. Videos will be played on television screens to show the public the realities of animal husbandry and slaughter. Organizations for animals and vegetarianism will hold tables.
9.30pm: End of the Veggie Pride.
The march and the happening are notified to the authorities, in accordance with the law.
You can sign the Manifesto! Even if you cannot come to the demonstration, you can show your support publicly to the Manifesto (the text above). It will also be possible to sign it at the demonstration itself.
Help us advertise the Veggie Pride. You can download our flyers on our official website. Do not hesitate to spread the word!
We hope to see you on the 21st of May!
The Organization Committee of the Veggie Pride
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8. Are We Consuming the Planet?
Forwarded message from Dan Brook:
Published on Friday, May 6, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Is It Worth Eating an Australian - or Even a Canadian?
by Steven Laffoley
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0506-32.htm
Is our addiction to super-sized consumption worth eating an Australian - or even a Canadian?
Well, maybe.
Listen:
Outside of Bangor, Maine - on a long road trip to Boston - I pulled into a coffee shop and ordered a large cup of my favorite addiction. I was expecting a generous cup - a sizable snort of get-up-and-go. But what arrived was not just a big cup of French Roast, nor even a giant mug of black java. No, what arrived was a bucket of coffee. I was incredulous.
Later, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I stopped at a family restaurant for dinner. And as with the coffee, what the waiter placed in front of me was an exaggerated indulgence: a plate piled impossibly high with food. Again, I was incredulous. But looking around, I was amazed to see that all the plates were similarly piled high. And stranger still, the food was being eaten - all of it, every bite.
Later still, as I neared my destination in Boston, I looked around with greater care. Not only were the cups of coffee oversized, and the plates of food oversized, but so were the cars, the trucks, even the houses.
And while staying at my friend's place, I read in Time magazine that designers were actually incorporating the growing girth of Americans into their work: the clothes were now oversized, door frames oversized, even furniture oversized - right down to the seats in the movie theatres. I felt I was suddenly a traveler in Gulliver's land of the giants.
When I gently broached the subject of wide-eyed-consumption-without-limits with my friend, suggesting that perhaps moderation might be in order, she suggested that moderation was un-American, an attack on freedom of choice.
I couldn't help thinking back to the words of … George W. Bush. When searching for the right words of comfort after September 11, he urged his fellow Americans to buy more.
Maybe my friend was right: moderation was un-American.
Back in Canada, high taxes - if nothing else - kept jumbo-consumption at bay. Or so I thought. When I returned home, I started looked around with greater care. To my horror, I watched people at the fancy new movie theatres sitting in new over-sized chairs with new buckets of Pepsi washing down new grocery bags of popcorn. And I surveyed the new jumbo-sized houses being built on the outside of town and realized that the age of the super-sized had arrived in Canada.
SNIP
Look: we are eating the planet, the whole damn thing, right down to the
last blade of grass.
… we first need to acknowledge our problem:
We eat too much. We buy too much. We want too much.
We are the super-sized people in my science fiction story, busily eating our way through the Earth, busily expanding our jiggling girth and growing our wider mouths. And we do see moderation as an attack on our freedom.
And frankly, we just don't care.
Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. You may e-mail him at stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca or steven_laffoley@yahoo.com
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9. Stopping the Slaughter of Seals in Canada
Forwarded message from Mary Pruss:
Below are links that can help you get involved:
First, go to: www.seashepherd.org/seals/seals_what_you_can_do.html this site has a ton of great information....who to write, what to say, email addresses,etc.
If nothing else, please write your State US Senators and tell them to support Senator Carl Levin's Resolution 33 to stop the seal hunt. Also, write to the Canadian Prime Minister and to Geoff Regan of the Fisheries Dept.....these are the 2 men who have to power to end this hunt.
Another good site with lots of info is:
hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/protect_seals_what_you_can_do
(At this site there is a link to find your State’s US Senators email addresses. It is called the Legislator Look Up Tool and you just click on it).
Next, go to: www.ifaw.org
click on Speak Out Now Against Seal Hunt
click on Take Action
this will take you to a page where you can write a letter and add your voice to the over 10,000 already there (this is easy and goes very fast)
Also, go to: www.protectseals.com and sign the Pledge (easy and fast)
Finally, go to: http://babyseals.care2.com/
Click on CLICK TO HELP (add this site to your desktop and click once a day)
then please go to their Petition page and sign, it's at the bottom where it says something like Tell Them You Do Care.
Most importantly, pass this along to as many people as you possibly can. It is going to take good, caring people speaking out to end this brutality and stop the suffering of these defenseless babies. Thank you....with all my heart!!!!!
Jane
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10. Breakaway church spreads Vegetarian Message. Any Synagogues Interested?
Forwarded message from Animalconcerns Community
A breakaway church has opened its doors to anyone interested in vegetarian living, with a two week crusade followed by lessons on vegetarian cuisine.
"To stay healthy eat the right food," says Frank Abel, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church at Simbolo, which broke away from the mother mission because it wanted to uphold the church's original message about a healthy, vegetarian diet.
Today many are looking for advice and teachings for a healthier life, regardless of their religion. As Frank Abel puts it, "Let us put aside religious beliefs or associations; the right diet helps you stay healthy and able to live longer."
Complete with talks on the human body and comparisons between a vegetarian diet and cooking with meat. Participants learned during the first week how to move into a vegetarian lifestyle using fruit juice preparations for healing and soothing the system.
full story
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11. Petition to Stop Expanded Horse Racing in Israel
Forwarded message from CHAI (Concern for Helping Animals in Israel)
Please help stop the proposed huge expansion of horse racing in Israel. SIGN THE PETITION (see link below).
Racing currently exists in Israel in a very small way, without betting. However, the government is now supporting plans to legalize gambling, including betting on horseracing. They are supporting the construction of at least two large, professional tracks where an estimated 2,000 horses will be used initially in this new industry.
The Israeli government is supporting the import of this cruel industry in the hope of economic gain in the form of gambling taxes. The welfare of the horses has not been considered. Because protection for horses in Israel is practically nonexistent, the terrible abuses to which racehorses are subjected in other countries will almost certainly exist in Israel too.
Experience in the U.K. and the U.S. shows that thousands more horses are bred than are raced, the rest killed. Every aspect of a racehorse's life involves cruelties, from beginning a harsh training regimen before their bones have hardened so they are vulnerable to fractures from excessive weight being placed on them, to being drugged so they can be forced to race even when injured. The injuries they sustain include bleeding in the lungs, chronic gastric ulcers, and fractured limbs. When not racing, horses are confined to a stall for up to 23 hours of the day, deprived of the herd contact and freedom of movement that would enhance their physical and mental health. Except in the case of champions who are used for breeding, when a horse can no longer race, at as young an age as four, they are killed or sold from one owner to another in a downward spiral of abuse. For more information on the cruelties of horse racing, read the petition (see link below).
Concern for Helping Animals in Israel (CHAI) has filed a formal protest with Israel's Ministers of Finance, Agriculture, and Education/Culture/Sport. Among our current initiatives, we are also filing a challenge in Israel's the Supreme Court. The signatures on this petition will support our protest. Please sign and encourage others who care about the well being of horses to sign as well.
To add your name to this petition, please go to:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/398531952
THANK YOU FOR SIGNING AND FOR SPREADING THE WORD!
TO LEARN MORE, GO TO www.chai-online.org
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12. Dog Saves Abandoned Newborn Baby in Kenya
Carried Baby From Forest to Her Litter of Puppies
By RODRIQUE NGOWI, AP
NAIROBI, Kenya (May 9) - A stray dog saved the life of a newborn baby after finding the abandoned infant in a forest and apparently carrying it across a busy road and through some barbed wire to her litter of puppies, witnesses said.
One Lucky Baby
The stray dog found the infant, clad in tattered clothing, in a poor neighborhood near the Ngong Forests in the capital of Nairobi, Stephen Thoya told the independent Daily Nation newspaper.
SNIP
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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13. Quotes on Dietary Connections to Health
Message from the NonMilkman Robert Cohen
Vegetarians are Unhealthy for Health Care
Vegetarians are unhealthy for a health care system which relies upon diseased people for cash flow.
"Type 2 diabetes mellitus is less likely to be a cause of death in vegetarians than non vegetarians."
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1988
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"Mortality from coronary artery disease is lower in vegetarians than in non vegetarians."
British Medical Journal, 1994
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"Breast cancer rates are lower in populations that consume plant based diets."
American Cancer Society Cancer Facts and Figures,
1994
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"Vegetarians have a lower incidence of hypertension
than non vegetarians."
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1994
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"Incidence of lung and colorectal cancer is lower in
vegetarians than in non vegetarians."
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1994
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"Vegetarian diets low in fat or saturated fat have
been used successfully as part of comprehensive health
programs to reverse severe coronary artery disease."
Journal of the American Medical Association, 1995
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"Vegetarian diets have been successful in arresting
coronary artery disease."
American Journal of Epidemiology, 1995
"Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions...
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1997
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Modern health care seems more to be about insurance costs and cash flow than good health. It can be argued that the cure for what ails society's financial, health, and spiritual failings is the adoption of a plant-based diet. Scientific data published in peer-reviewed journals supports that conclusion.
Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com
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