Our Compass

Source The Compassion Project , YouTube

Here’s a sneak peak of the documentary The Compassion Project.  Dr. Will Tuttle & Victoria Moran discuss compassion as the highest form of love. Sign up for updates at: http://thecompassionprojectfilm.com/ Like and Share our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CompassionMovie Twitter: #CompassionMovie

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Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

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Have questions? Click HERE

please be

people out there…please be kind…if you need help with anger, please please get that help before you harm another being…don’t let your inner workings destroy the world inside and outside of you.
you have one life, and it is a gift. so make your presence here a gift, not a curse, to others.
thank you to those who already get this and to those who perhaps will.
lives depend on us, what we do or do not do…

treat all others as you wish to be treated,
or you are no more than an expletive,
deleted.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source Bleacher Report
By Andrew Gould

The Tennessee Titans took one step closer to earning their first playoff appearance since 2008 by improving to 8-4 with a Week 13 win over the Houston Texans. Some of their players have credited a vegan diet to better results.

As detailed by ESPN.com’s Cameron Wolfe, linebacker Derrick Morgan and his chef wife, Charity, converted some of his teammates. Charity cooks lunches regularly for several players. DeMarco Murray, Rishard Matthews, Jurrell Casey, DaQuan Jones, Wesley Woodyard and Brian Orapko all hopped on board.

Woodyard called his teammates “crazy with this vegan thing” back in training camp before joining them in August. The 31-year-old linebacker has compiled 99 tackles, his highest tally since 2012.

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Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html

Looking for merchandise? Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE

Source Forbes
By Katrina Fox

I’m the founder of Vegan Business Media, a content, events and training platform providing resources to vegan business owners and entrepreneurs. I’ve been a journalist for 17 years, writing for niche and mainstream media in the UK, US and Australia. I host the Vegan Business Talk podcast and am the author of Vegan Ventures: Start and Grow an Ethical Business, the first book of its kind, which provides success strategies for aspiring and existing vegan business owners. I help vegan business owners and plant-based entrepreneurs across the globe to raise their profile through PR consulting and media training, including my online course and group coaching program Vegans in the Limelight. Originally from London, UK, I now live in Sydney, Australia, and am a regular speaker and MC at local and international vegfests and other events. Send me tips on vegan and plant-based businesses to katrina@veganbusinessmedia.com

Investors are starting to become more discerning about where they put their money. Richard Branson and Bill Gates are among the growing number of high-profile names investing in businesses that seek to do social good.

Many brands label themselves ‘ethical’ because of their commitment to initiatives that include supporting human rights, fair labor conditions and sustainability, but there’s a gap in the environmental, social and government criteria (ESG) that’s used to identify socially responsible companies. At the moment these criteria don’t include animal cruelty, exploitation or abuse.

Cruelty Free Investing, a 501C3 non-profit organization launched today, aims to fill that gap by providing resources for individual and institutional investors and financial advisors to help them make decisions in line with their values.

While many investors prefer to buy shares in mutual funds instead of picking individual stock options, there are currently no mutual funds with a focus on the rights of animals. Cruelty Free Investing, which was founded by former journalist Dave Brett Wasser, hopes that its research will encourage the creation of such funds, which will then be added in a new section on the website.

As animal cruelty and exploitation continues to be exposed in the media, as well as on social media, we are seeing a new generation of investors and finance industry professionals seeking truly ethical options. These include the ‘vegan mafia’, a network of investors from companies including PowerPlant Ventures, VegInvest and Stray Dog Capital; the Glass Wall Syndicate of plant-based investors; and Baleine & Bjorn Capital, headed up by Smarties co-president Liz Dee, as well as financial planning firms such as Humane Investing. The tide is turning. Make sure you’re on the right list.

Katrina Fox is the founder of VeganBusinessMedia.com, author of Vegan Ventures: Start and Grow an Ethical Business and host of the Vegan Business Talk podcast.

to invest in ways
that save this
earth where
we dwell
is the sweetest
and most soft
of sells

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source YouTube, PLANT BASED NEWS

ENJOY THE FILM? PLEASE SUPPORT US SO WE CAN MAKE MORE OF THEM: https://www.plantbasednews.org/supportWatch Vegan 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scsfO…

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FEATURING MOBY, MILEY CYRUS, JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, ED WINTERS, TAL GILBAO, MELANIE JOY, DR OZ, NEAL BARNARD M.D., JAMES ASPEY, SANDRA HIGGINS, KAT VON D, COLIN CAMPBELL, ALAN GOLDHAMER, MICHAEL GREGER, PAM POPPER, LISA KARLAN, CALDWELL ESSELSTYN, CHRIS HEDGES, MICHAEL KLAPER, JOAQUIN PHOENIX, KIM WILLIAMS, JOE ROGAN, ZDOGG, THE DOCTORS TV SHOW, JOE ROGAN, GENE BAUR, RICH ROLL, ROBERT OSTFELD, ANTHONY LIM, MICHAEL DEARBORN, CYRUS KHAMBATTA, TIMOTHY SHIEFF, HELEEN ROEX, ALPHONSE ROEX, MALCOLM MACKAYAND, WOODY HARRELSON, TONI OKAMOTO, BRIAN TURNER, ETHAN BROWN, PAUL KENNAMER, KIP ANDERSON, KEEGAN KUHN, SUSAN LEVIN, JOEL KAHN, NAOM CHOMSKY, BARACK OBAMA, NATALIE PORTMAN, BILL MAYER, RUSSELL SIMMONS, AL GORE, KATIE CLEARY, COLLEEN PATRICK-GOUDREAU, GENESIS BUTLER, CHASE ARMITAGE, PAUL SHAPIRO, SIMONE REYES, KALEL, ANITA KRAJNC, DEREK SARNO, SETH GOLDMAN, TOBIAS LEENAERT, BILL GATES, RICHARD BRANSON, PRINCE KHALED BIN ALWALEED, JEREMY COLLER, CRAIG ROBINSON, DONNY MOSS, MARK DEVRIES, NATHAN RUNKLE, PHILIP WOLLEN, ANNEKA SVENSKA, JASON DERULLO, CHARLIE SHEEN, KYLIE JENNER, NE-YO, DANIELLE BROOKES, LEONARDO DICAPRIO, SERENA WILLIAMS, ROLAND WILLIAMS, PAUL MCCARTNEY, EVANNA LYNCH, BON JOVI, JADEN SMITH, ALICIA SILVERSTONE, LIAM HEMSWORTH, RUSSELL BRAND, ANDELISA ALLEN, STEPHEN COLBERT, EVAN DAVIS, ARDJA STYLES, HEATHER MILLS, THERESA MAY, PAMELA ANDERSON, PIERS MORGAN, KUNTAL JOISHER, TONY HORTON, CARDALE JONES, JAHLIL OKAFOR, KYRIE IRVING, DAMIAN LILLARD, GRIFF WALLEN, WILSON CHANDLER, BEN COHEN, LEWIS HAMILTON, TOM HAYES, AMANDA SOURRY, WAYNE TSIUNG, SIMON AMSTELL, DAVID SIMON, DANIEL BISSONNETTE AND GEORGE MONBIOT PRODUCED BY KLAUS MITCHELL SCRIPT ASSISTED BY MARIA CHIORANDO HEALTH RESEARCH BY BRIAN HERNANDEZ VISUAL SUPPORT BY KADEN ZIPFEL NARRATED BY GREGG LOWE

Apologies to Professor Atze Jan van der Goot and his work, which we could not find to credit during the film. We have now tracked it down: https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Lar… —

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fooled are we not
by the cruel and greedy
tall we stand
and stand up
for
the
needy!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source YouTube
By The Vegan Couple

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5. Best Speech You Will Ever Hear – Gary Yourofsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U0…

6. Farm To Fridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju7-n…

7. Earthlings http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/

8. 101 Reasons To Go Vegan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-F8w…

9. Lucent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KArL5…

10. Land of Hope and Glory (UK ‘Earthlings’ Documentary) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvtVk…

11. Speciesism: The Movie http://speciesismthemovie.com

12. Why Vegetarians Should Go Vegan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5uU…

13. Complete Guide To Vegan Food https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htf5e…

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in our current world of dystopia
those who have compassion
experience vystopia
isolated in the truths
we share.
as we seek out those
who care.
but joy can indeed be found
at all the lives saved,
those precious lives,
still around!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source YouCaring

Brook Katz, a 32 year vegan, activist and advocate, is trying to obtain land to create a unique vegan animal sanctuary. In Florida, he found a huge need to help abandoned animals from being killed by shelters. He voluntarily started what has become the largest animal adoption event in Florida, the annual “Animal Adoption Fair” which has just completed it’s 7th year. He has gotten over 2,000 animals adopted and has been granted his 501c3 status from the government, as a non-profit organization.

Brook works for free with charities creating vegan food for their events. He hosts and caters a FREE vegan buffet/lecture every month turning on thousands of people to delicious and healthy vegan food and the principles behind the vegan way of life. He has authored several vegan cookbooks, and has lectured and demonstrated the advantages of a vegan lifestyle, worldwide.

He has a unique idea that will need the support of the vegan community (as well as others) to make a reality. “Brookhaven Animal Sanctuary”.

His vision is to have a totally vegan animal sanctuary and supporting community. It will be unique in that it will only be accepting animals from rescues and shelters. Brook works with hundreds of rescues and shelters in South Florida and he sees that every one of them have animals that will never be adopted. These animals take up space, food, meds, funding, etc. that most of these facilities can’t afford. His vision is to take all these animals and free up these rescues and shelters to be able to take in adoptable animals; whereby more animals can be saved. These “non-adoptable” animals would be able to live out their lives in comfort and dignity. In addition, the sanctuary would have it’s own hospice with a full time live-in veterinarian. The vegan staff would also live on the sanctuary and he plans to also start a veterinary intern program. (This will provide extra care for the animals while teaching new vets about veganism). The plan is also to make this sanctuary as self-sustaining as possible. (alternative energy, it’s own well, veganic gardens, etc.)

He need’s your help to make this happen. He need’s rural land (10 acres or more) in South Florida. He is asking for donations large and small. Everything will help! All donations made are tax deductible, and will go to the creation of this sanctuary, and to the costs of re-homing animals in South Florida at Brook’s ‘Animal Adoption Fair’ – Animal Adoption Fair. For further information go to www.brookhavenanimalsanctuary.org or www.brookkatz.com or contact him directly at brookkatz@hotmail.com or phone 954-971-4432.

Thank you for your help and generosity.

Please click HERE to donate

Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

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Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html

Looking for merchandise? Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE

more heroes, less zeros!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg1cw2yFsWM

Source NY Daily News
By Jessica Scott-Reid

Tales of farmed animals escaping slaughter, making that last-ditch mad dash to freedom, seem to be able to turn nearly any burger lover into a cow cheerleader, rooting for the animal as he darts through traffic, running for his life. Bystanders don’t want to see the animal hurt, hit by a vehicle or handled too roughly by authorities.

No, unlike the millions of anonymous farmed animals, suffering out of sight in warehouses and slaughterhouses, these escapees somehow become more deserving of our concern and support. They are often given names, like the now famous Freddy and Frank Lee, cows who eluded slaughter last year by running to freedom in Queens.

And they are granted reprieve. Much to the relief of the invested public, once carefully captured, these animals often end up at sanctuaries rather than back on the kill floor.

And such is the case for New York’s latest little asylum seeker, a yet-to-be-named calf who escaped from a Brooklyn slaughterhouse and made a run for it in Prospect Park on Tuesday. The calf will now be granted the amnesty he so bravely battled for, as he too is reported to be heading to a sanctuary.

“Everybody was rooting for this bull,” said one witness. “Nobody wanted to see him go back to the slaughterhouse.”

“We were cheering him on,” said another witness. “I was just hoping they (police) were more gentle with the cow than sometimes they are with people.”

Though most humans claim to love animals, and to be against animal cruelty, it is somehow possible in these cases to deeply desire a happy ending for one animal, while intentionally ignoring the inevitable, violent fate of all the rest. How is it that we can have such an emotional response to one creature, while experiencing zero concern for the herd from which he came?

The answer is because it is just too easy to disregard the connection between one frightened calf, fighting for his life before our eyes, and the plastic-wrapped patty that ends up in our shopping cart. And as long as the consuming public only sees frightened baby cows in the context of courageous tales with happily-ever-afters, and not in the everyday narrative of electric prodding and throat slitting, then beef can continue to be what’s for dinner.

If slaughterhouses only had glass walls, as the saying goes . . .

Thus perhaps we ought to take this moment, as we savor the favorable outcome of this latest sweet story, to stop and think about those cows who instead ended up as dinner, how they too battled for their lives, out of our sight and out of our minds.

Like you or me, farmed animals do not want to die. Far from the archaic belief that cows and pigs and chickens do not have the capacity to feel or fear or fight to live, modern research vehemently proves non-human animals are sentient, conscious and capable of great suffering.

Terrified escaped cows offer hard proof.

So if the story of Freddy or Frank Lee, or our yet-to-be-named little bovine had you hoping and cheering then exhaling with relief, it may be time reconsider that burger. For if only he could have starred in a charming tale of bravery and been given a name, then maybe that cow too could have had his happy ending. Cows, like all animals, are not things, but complex characters deserving of their own life story.

Or, in the words of J.M. Coetzee, “Anyone who says that life matters less to animals than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve.”

Scott-Reid is a freelance writer.






Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html

Looking for merchandise? Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE

We are team bull chicken cow fish
No animals should ever be
Served in your dish

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Care2

Source Care2
By Vera Lawlor ,  About Vera

Recently as I pulled away from a toll booth on the New York State Thruway I noticed what looked like white feathers blowing across my windshield. Sure enough, when I glanced to my right there was a truck bed stacked high with flat crates each crammed full of live chickens. It was about 90 degrees outside and I couldn’t imagine the pain, fear and confusion of these poor innocent birds as they were driven to slaughter.

I thought about the suffering of chickens again when just a few days later I received an “Emergency Care for the Beloved Birds” email alert from Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. This awesome sanctuary located in High Falls, NY is in desperate need of donations to help cover the cost of emergency care for 14 chickens who survived the annual Kaporos ritual that ended last week in Brooklyn, NY.

Kaporos is a ritual celebrated by some ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities on public streets of Brooklyn prior to Yom Kippur. Practitioners symbolically transfer their sins to a young rooster or hen by swinging the bird around his or her head while reciting a passage and then killing the chicken. Many communities choose to use money instead of live birds but a number persist in this cruel practice.

The Use of Chickens in Kaporos Ritual Condemned by Rabbis

“Using chickens not only violates 15 laws and regulations including public health codes, sanitation laws, child labor laws, slaughterhouse regulations and animal cruelty laws, but also several mandates and imperatives from the Torah and Talmud,” said Rina Deych, a founding member of the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos.

According to the alliance, this use of chickens has been condemned as unethical and contrary to the spirit of Jewish tradition by dozens of Orthodox rabbis all over the world. It has been deemed a health hazard by a well-respected toxicologist for putting New York residents and visitors at risk of contracting E. coli, Salmonella and other transmittable diseases.

Despite the protests, the annual ritual continues in New York City. This year an estimated 60,000 baby chickens suffered the trauma of transportation from factory farms to Brooklyn where they spent five days crammed inside crates stacked on the side of the streets. According to the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, an estimated several thousand died of starvation, dehydration, exposure and injury, and their bodies were discarded like trash into garbage bags and dumpsters.

When the ritual finally began, the young chickens who survived and were now weak from lack of food and water were held by their fragile wings—painfully pinned together behind their backs—and swung over the heads of the practitioners. In some cases, the chicken’s bones snapped during this horrific practice.

“Animal activists who were on the streets protesting said it was heartbreaking to hear the chickens peeping in terror and pain,” said Rachel McCrystal, executive director of Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. “These were all babies stacked in those crates on the streets of New York. They were confused and calling for their moms.”

Chickens Experience Compassion for First Time in Their Lives

Activists managed to rescue about 200 chickens. These precious birds are now experiencing compassion and kindness for the first time in their lives at local sanctuaries. Rehabilitation at the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary includes around-the-clock care. These birds were being raised for the meat industry so their bodies were genetically manipulated for faster growth. According to the sanctuary, at between 5 and 7 weeks of age factory farm chickens spend 76 to 86 percent of their time lying down due to lameness and deformity.

“This is the issue we are dealing with now with the rescued chickens,” McCrystal said. “Their legs can’t hold the weight of their bodies.”

Caregivers are working to strengthen the chickens’ legs with physical therapy. Specially designed rubber bands are being used to help straighten their legs. And there are other problems, too. Chickens are tossed or stuffed into crates at the factory farm before being loaded onto trucks. Many birds suffer bruising, broken bones, dislocation and hemorrhage during catching and crating. Once on the trucks, chickens are subjected to further overcrowding, trampling and suffocation; food and water deprivation for up to 28 hours; noise, vibration and motion stress; and often grueling temperature extremes.

Among the survivors now living at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary are Rebecca and Bianca. Rebecca is sick from the conditions she was raised in on the factory farm but will recover. One of Bianca’s wings was severely broken during transportation and had to be amputated. She is doing well following her surgery.

“Bianca is a sweet, spunky and loving chicken who is developing a bond with her caregivers,” McCrystal said.

Bianca had to have a wing amputated after being rescued from the Kaporos ritual in Brooklyn, NY. She is recovering in her stylish Elizabethan collar at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary.

It’s hard to imagine that after the cruel treatment these birds received that they would ever trust humans again. Just how quickly rescued animals do trust depends on the individual animal, McCrystal said. The rescued chickens are already starting to bond with sanctuary caregivers.

“Chickens are like dogs and cats—they enjoy cuddling and sitting on laps and make great animal companions,” McCrystal said. “One of the caregivers took our rooster, Clyde, home for a few nights and he sat on the couch beside her watching ‘Game of Thrones’”

To learn more about The Woodstock Farm Sanctuary or to help with the emergency care of the  Beloved Birds rescued from the Kaporos ritual in Brooklyn, NY visit their website.

 The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is an association of groups and individuals who seek to replace the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement.

Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html

Looking for merchandise? Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE

to atone for ones sins
while committing cruel
and hurtful things
is a contradiction
in itself,
and
a sin!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source LIVEKINDLY
By Katie Pevreall, Co-Founder, Senior Editor & Journalist – Bristol, UK | Contactable via: katie@livekindly.co

A new Netflix series exploring the corruption and concerning practices of the food industry is set to air in early 2018.

Rotten will be available on the streaming site as of January 5th next year and will take the form of a six-part series. The trailer appears to focus heavily on animal agriculture and the fraud and corruption that takes place in the American farming system.

The trailer also alludes to the number of lies and falsehoods fed to the public concerning their food. One expert suggests that consumers have no idea where their food is coming from or how it’s been treated before it ends up on their plates suggesting that fish is frozen and defrosted multiple times before it hits supermarket shelves, all the while being pumped full of additives to keep it ‘fresh’.

‘At your supermarket butcher, the parts from a single chicken will run you more than seven dollars. To raise that bird, the grower was paid thirty-six cents.’ says the narrator. Not only does this show how much people are being charged for their food, but also throws into question the ways in which birds are being raised, and the conditions of workers if farmers can do it for a mere 36¢.

Earlier this year, Netflix released What the Health which has become a widely discussed documentary both from supporters of the documentary and those who seek to discredit it. Food production and food access is an issue on the mind of many today, so it’s possible that Rotten will become the 2018 food documentary that everyone’s talking about.

treat all animals as
you wish to be treated
or you are no more than
an expletive,
deleted!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Piles of dead and rotting piglets are piled up behind a sow, who is wedged into a crate so tightly that she cannot move away from the mess at Smithfield-owned Circle Four Farm in Utah.
 Photo: Wayne Hsiung/DxE

Source The Intercept
By Glenn Greenwald

This article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing.

FBI AGENTS ARE devoting substantial resources to a multistate hunt for two baby piglets that the bureau believes are named Lucy and Ethel. The two piglets were removed over the summer from the Circle Four Farm in Utah by animal rights activists who had entered the Smithfield Foods-owned factory farm to film the brutal, torturous conditions in which the pigs are bred in order to be slaughtered.

While filming the conditions at the Smithfield facility, activists saw the two ailing baby piglets laying on the ground, visibly ill and near death, surrounded by the rotting corpses of dead piglets. “One was swollen and barely able to stand; the other had been trampled and was covered in blood,” said Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), which filmed the facility and performed the rescue. Due to various illnesses, he said, the piglets were unable to eat or digest food and were thus a fraction of the normal weight for piglets their age.

Rather than leave the two piglets at Circle Four Farm to wait for an imminent and painful death, the DxE activists decided to rescue them. They carried them out of the pens where they had been suffering and took them to an animal sanctuary to be treated and nursed back to health.

This single Smithfield Foods farm breeds and then slaughters more than 1 million pigs each year. One of the odd aspects of animal mistreatment in the U.S. is that species regarded as more intelligent and emotionally complex — dogs, dolphins, cats, primates — generally receive more public concern and more legal protection. Yet pigs – among the planet’s most intelligent, social, and emotionally complicated species, capable of great joy, play, love, connection, suffering and pain, at least on a par with dogs — receive almost no protections, and are subject to savage systematic abuse by U.S. factory farms.

At Smithfield, like most industrial pig farms, the abuse and torture primarily comes not from rogue employees violating company procedures. Instead, the cruelty is inherent in the procedures themselves. One of the most heinous industry-wide practices is one that DxE activists encountered in abundance at Circle Four: gestational crating.

Where that technique is used, pigs are placed in a crate made of iron bars that is the exact length and width of their bodies, so they can do nothing for their entire lives but stand on a concrete floor, never turn around, never see any outdoors, never even see their tails, never move more than an inch. That was the condition in which the activists found the rotting piglet corpses and the two ailing piglets they rescued.

Female pigs give birth in this condition. They are put in so-called farrowing crates when they give birth, and their piglets run underneath them to suckle and are often trampled to death. The sows are bred repeatedly this way until their fertility declines, at which point they are slaughtered and turned into meat.

The pigs are so desperate to get out of their crates that they often spend weeks trying to bite through the iron bars until their gums gush blood, bash their heads against the walls, and suffer a disease in which their organs end up mangled in the wrong places, from the sheer physical trauma of trying to escape from a tiny space or from acute anxiety (called “organ torsion”).

So cruel is the practice that in 2014, Canada effectively banned its usage, as the European Union had done two years earlier. Nine U.S. states, most of which host very few farms, have banned gestational crating (in 2014, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, with his eye on the GOP primary in farm-friendly Iowa, vetoed a bill that would have made his state the 10th).

But in the U.S. states where factory farms actually thrive, these devices continue to be widely used, which means a vast majority of pigs in the U.S. are subjected to them. The suffering, pain, and death these crates routinely cause were in ample evidence at Smithfield Foods, as accounts, photos, and videos from DxE demonstrate.

FBI raids animal sanctuaries

Under normal circumstances, a large industrial farming company such as Smithfield Foods would never notice that two sick piglets of the millions it breeds and then slaughters were missing. Nor would they care: A sick and dying piglet has no commercial value to them.

Yet the rescue of these two particular piglets has literally become a federal case — by all appearances, a matter of great importance to the Department of Justice. On the last day of August, a six-car armada of FBI agents in bulletproof vests, armed with search warrants, descended upon two small shelters for abandoned farm animals: Ching Farm Rescue in Riverton, Utah, and Luvin Arms in Erie, Colorado.

These sanctuaries have no connection to DxE or any other rescue groups. They simply serve as a shelter for sick, abandoned, or otherwise injured animals. Run by a small staff and a team of animal-loving volunteers, they are open to the public to teach about farm animals.

The attachments to the search warrants specified that the FBI agents could take “DNA samples (blood, hair follicles or ear clippings) to be seized from swine with the following characteristics: I. Pink/white coloring; II. Docked tails; III. Approximately 5 to 9 months in age; IV. Any swine with a hole in right ear.”

Please read rest HERE

one day the spacemen
saw earth and decided
it would be grand
to perhaps get closer
and/or even land.
they looked down
at our petty, cruel and
quarrelsome populace
and thought why ever
would anyone want
to visit this place.
then closer they looked
they saw a few
who really cared.
and then then knew,
that there was hope
between the pockets
of despair,
and off they went,
back up in the air.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Wikimedia Commons, by Serenity

Source Gentle World, for the Vegan in Everyone
By Light, Co-Founder of Gentle World

Have you ever been driving on a highway and come alongside a cattle truck? Or perhaps you’ve had the experience of going fishing and feeling a pang of sympathy for both the worms wriggling on the hooks and the fish flapping their bodies, in a desperate struggle to return to life-giving water.

Were you saddened when you first found out how many animals in the wild face extinction? Do you remember going to the zoo and watching big cats and other wild animals pacing back and forth in their cages, resorting to insane behavior due to the unnatural limitations of their surroundings? When was the last time you were at a circus, or a rodeo? Did you realize then that the animals had been driven, through cruelty and confinement, to a state of abject terror?

Have you ever experienced the slaughter of an animal, on screen or in reality? Or maybe you’ve seen a documentary on the unbelievably horrific reality that is the life of laboratory animals, tortured by lab-coated sadists. Maybe you grew up on a farm and as a child befriended a cow, or a lamb, or a goat and then witnessed your friend being led to his or her death.

If you’ve ever come across someone abusing a dog, were you tempted to intervene on the dog’s behalf? Perhaps you have experienced the inside of a so-called ‘humane’ pound, and felt tears well up upon seeing the pitiful eyes of the condemned individuals who knew instinctively that they were on death row, awaiting execution by lethal injection.

If you’ve ever eaten lobsters after they were put in a pot of boiling water, can you recall the sound their claws made on the metal, in their frantic and vain attempt to escape? How ‘bout a pig roast? Have you ever been to one of those? If so, I’ll bet your stomach and your heart ached to see the animal recognizably whole.

…

From a different perspective: Have you looked into the eyes of an animal, and seen feelings like your own reflected in them? I imagine you’ve seen movies such as Bambi, Babe, or Charlotte’s Web, and felt a kinship, a siding, with the animals in the film. What have you done with the feelings of compassion elicited from these experiences? What have you done to end the abuse of both wild and domestic animals you loved when you were a child?

Have you forgotten or are you trying to ignore the irrefutable truth that cruelty should be abolished wherever it is found? Are you trying to smother that truth so as not to have to deal with the obvious ethical, morally justifiable course of action? And have you been finding out that the truth cannot be smothered? Truth lives in your conscience, and will remain there until you make the decision to live that truth.

If you’ve seen Earthlings or heard a powerful animal activist speak, or watched any one of countless documentaries that enlighten as well as horrify your conscience, there are only two ways to deal with such information: by ignoring the reality you just became aware of, or by resolving to do what you can to remove your own complicity, which means to stop eating, wearing, and using animals in your own daily life. In other words, to become vegan, and to live with a respect for all life: the animals, and your own.

If they could, every animal in the world would rise up, and with one pleading voice, say to you:

“What on earth are you waiting for?”

Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html

Looking for merchandise? Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE
Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

be not by time
your heart to make
be not by time
a heart to break
be not by time,
broken
take time in hand
a word, softly
spoken
the kindness we
all understand.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Marc Bernstein, Veganism: A Truth Whose Time Has Come

Source Veganism: A Truth Whose Time Has Come
By Marc Bernstein

child is father to the great man he shall become.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

A cowboy leads “rescued” animals down a city street after hurricane Harvey hits Texas. (Free From Harm)

Source Free From Harm
By Lorelei Plotczyk

As we all know, hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria have brought devastation upon so many. As someone with family in Florida, including my Mom, I anxiously followed Irma’s path and was immensely relieved when she only lost a couple of shingles along with power for several days. Many others, as we know, were not so lucky.

Yet even during such nail-biting times and now the tremendous destruction left behind, I couldn’t help but notice that, somehow, a perfect storm had been created for glorifying animal exploitation and ridiculing veganism (of all things).

Although I really wish we didn’t have to talk about this right now, unfortunately, letting these distortions go unchallenged would be a great injustice, both to the animals and those who truly defend them.

Are farmed animals really “rescued?”

A disturbing trend is exemplified by the viral video the above image was taken from, as well as by articles like The New York Times’ “A Flying Cowboy Arises to Rescue Cattle Stranded in Harvey’s Floods” and CNN’s “Texas Ranchers Battle to Save Cattle From Harvey’s Wrath,” all depicting the moving of cattle to dryer ground as some sort of compassionate intervention to save these animals for their own sakes.

But despite appearances and claims – unless, of course, they are being rescued by a vegan sanctuary – farmed animals in situations such as this are NOT being rescued or saved from weather events or fires; sadly, it’s just being made sure they don’t die before they can be further exploited and killed for profit.

Positioning this profit-protecting as “rescuing” or “saving” those you are going to restrain and kill at a later date is obtuse and deceptive if not downright diabolical, and the media and public’s uncritical acceptance of that framing reveals a glaring disconnect. It’s all part of the ludicrous charade required for people to support animal exploitation and slaughter in the total absence of necessity.

The farmers, of course, are all too happy to use the confusion to their advantage. In an Orwellian piece for Farm and Dairy, editor Susan Cromwell has sunk so low as to claim that the fact that so many so-called “livestock” (that word alone speaks volumes) were “rescued” by farmers from the hurricanes not only proves that commodifying and killing sentient individuals is an act of “compassion” rather than exploitation (they give them bedding and hay, tho!), but that animal activists are the true dangerous hurricane, metaphorically speaking.

I kid you not.

Not surprisingly, this spot-on comment left by Free From Harm’s founder Robert Grillo has since been deleted/censored from the article’s comments section:

Are we really to believe your assertion about farmers “rescuing” their animals from Harvey and Irma, that the real “victims” are those who artificially breed, exploit and kill baby animals for profit? Are we to hail exploiters as heroes for rescuing their “livestock” because they view them as nothing more than valuable commodities they can’t afford to lose? Are we to conflate real compassion, altruism and empathy with financial self-interest? Everyone knows that these animals have a price tag on their heads and will soon be sent off to slaughter by these same “compassionate rescuers” where they will be shot point blank in the head, have their throats slashed and then have their bodies hacked up into “edible” body parts. You are shamefully and dishonestly propping up an industry built upon violence and killing as some kind of rescue mission.

When we trust the ones doing the direct exploiting on our behalf, it’s the desensitized leading the disassociated. It’s a very convenient dynamic, allowing them to profit while consumers enjoy the results and absolve ourselves of responsibility and moral consequence. When it comes to justifying needless exploitation and killing, apparently nothing is too ridiculous and absurd for otherwise savvy people (including reputable journalists) to believe.

And where is the journalistic integrity and responsibility in accurately covering such stories? Journalists hold the power in either informing or deceiving the public about news stories. Rather than getting at the truth and the facts, they’ve conflated rescue with financial self-interest. It flies in the face of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, particularly these two principles:

• Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story.
• Never deliberately distort facts or context, including visual information.

If they were truly being rescued, these animals would be destined for sanctuaries, not slaughterhouses.

Please read rest HERE

first one needs to save ones soul
to see all as equal
part of the greater whole
to no longer use, exploit
or abuse..
this would be
the greatest news!!!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

Source Free From Harm Blog, YouTube

A live recording from Free from Harm’s director and founder, Robert Grillo, at the Animal Rights National Conference in Washington D.C. on Sunday August 6th, 2017, as part of a panel of three other presenters. His focus is on a non-linear, non-qualitative approach to looking at our impact and drawing inspiration and lessons from other successful activism efforts.

how far we are from
where we should be
but keeping on going
is our reality.
so stand in our way
so no and such
we will rule the day
thank you
very much!!!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGQh5NHb-fM

Source YouTube, Plant Based News

Animal Rights March London 2017: On the 2nd of September 2017, 5000 #vegans marched through the streets of #london calling for an END to all animal exploitation.

The March was conducted by uk activist group Surge Activism, HeartCure Clothing and supported by groups all over the country. The march culminated with motivational and inspirational speeches from Earthling Ed Joey Carbstrong among others. This march is the biggest of its kind in recent years.

Part 1 Intro & Ed (Earthling Winters) Speech more to follow.

More speeches and other coverage to follow…

Thanks to Jeff Knecht for his bus footage give him some love here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Egce…

Filmed at the Animal Rights March London by Calin Wynn & Robbie Lockie | Edited by Robbie Lockie

Follow Earthling Ed here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVRr…

Support Heart Cure Collective here: https://www.heartcureclothing.com

The vegans in the march where around 5000 people. In London the vegans marched for the animals. The activists where marching in London the numbers of vegan activists there where was considerable. Earthling Ed, Joey Carbstrong and a number of other people spoke at the Animal Rights March in London 2017. The day vegan activists where marching for the animals in London.

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Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

PETA: http://www.petacatalog.com/catalog/Literature-39-1.html 

Looking for merchandise?  Action for Animals has a very good selection : http://store.afa-online.org/home.php?cat=284

Have questions? Click HERE

we are challenged by
what is new
something different
perhaps hard to do
but changing for
the better
is the test
being kind
is the
best!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson