Browsing: Culture

Culture
1

For more than a decade and with many others, I have been trying to think through the multiple entanglements between human and non-human joys and suffering. Our thinking about human issues necessarily involves thinking about animal issues. Similarly, considering animals expands our understanding of the world around us including some of the most pressing issues at hand, such as climate change, food justice, racial violence, and colonial legacies of dispossession and environmental degradation.

Books
0

Would you believe dog treat sales in the U.S. were $2.6 billion a year in 2013? Unfortunately, today most American dogs are overweight, likely due to too little exercise and copious amounts of high calorie food. It doesn’t have to be that way. My two dogs compel us to take more walks and move around. Of course they get fired up over food and frequent dog treats. But by making a variety of healthy, delectable biscuits you can spare dogs the troubling ingredients found in most commercial treats, and the icing on the biscuit…you can also save money.

Art
0

…
Swim deep, little seal
Man is here
Here with his nets and his clubs
Your ballet of grace means nothing to him
Dive to the sunless sea and do not return…

Animal sacrifice
1

For some Abolitionists, all campaigns focusing on particular animals – in this case chickens used for Kaporos – frustrate the ultimate, worldwide goal of Abolition, Animal Rights, and Veganism. My organization, United Poultry Concerns, promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. This makes us a “single issue” or “single class of animals” organization. Does our focus on chickens and turkeys hamper efforts to liberate all animals from all forms of oppression everywhere on the planet?

Art
0

When I walk in the woods,
I am at peace.
I am at home.

And, yet,
Sadness is always there
Because I know
In every thorn patch,
Every hillock,
Every thicket,
Hide living beings,
Shy and fearful
Of me and my fellow man….

Art
0

He arrived one day
And claimed a corner of the yard.
The whirling dervish tomcat bully
Tried his usual tricks
But he just wearily hissed
And stayed
Curled up tight
On his bed of leaves
For over a day…

Animal sacrifice
1

…the temple authorities of Gadhimai Temple made the announcement that the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of animals, held every five years, would be permanently canceled. The world’s largest animal sacrifice had finally come to an end.

Africa
0

In any discussion of ecotourism the dangers of “greenwashing” must be explored. Greenwashing is the use of misleading advertisements to suggest that an activity is good for the environment when objectively it is not. Wildlife theme parks, underwater hotels and motorized tours into fragile ecosystems strive to portray themselves as environmentally positive (or neutral) but they are not. True ecotourism builds environmental awareness while emphasizing human rights and local control over resources and development. It is not solely about animals but also about the humans who live there, and have lived there in the past, often for thousands of years.

1 … 29 30 31 32