Peter Gøtzsche, author of Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime

Mad in America has posted video of an interview with Peter Gøtzsche, Cochrane Collaboration cofounder and author of the new book Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Health Care.



In the video, he discusses psychiatric drugs in particular:



The title alone hints that he’s not going to soft-pedal the harms caused by the pharmaceutical industry. Indeed, he calls for prescriptions for psychotropic drugs to cease entirely.

Howard Brody observes that Deadly Medicines

features Forewords by two heavy hitters, Richard Smith, former editor of BMJ, and Drummond Rennie, long-time deputy editor of JAMA. If you read between the lines, the two editors both convey more or less the same message—this guy comes across as a raving lunatic, but it would be a shame if you were put off by that tone, because he actually has something important to say.

Here’s Gøtzsche talking about what led him to write the book. If, like me, you can’t afford it, you can at least read the chapter on psychiatry here.

“If they want to watch, let’s give them something to watch.”

Will Potter wrote last week at Mother Jones about MIT doctoral student Ryan Shapiro:

According to the Justice Department, this tattooed activist-turned-academic is the FBI's ‘most prolific’ Freedom of Information Act requester—filing, during one period in 2011, upward of two documents requests a day. In the course of his doctoral work, which examines how the FBI monitors and investigates protesters, Shapiro has developed a novel, legal, and highly effective approach to mining the agency's records. Which is why the government is petitioning the United States District Court in Washington, DC, to prevent the release of 350,000 pages of documents he's after.

It’s a fascinating article, which also links to a short video of an appearance by Shapiro at the Animal Rights National Conference last year.



He talks about some of the documents he’s obtained revealing the FBI’s operations at that very event. I’ve transcribed what follows (with a few ellipses), both because I think it’s inspiring and because his analysis is solid. In response to the FBI’s spying and attempts to disrupt the movement, he advises,

at this conference, we should be as open and as welcoming as possible. It’s important to remember that the FBI wants us divided. It wants us to be suspicious of each other… The FBI is explicitly interested in spreading false rumors about good activists being agents, so that we don’t trust them, about newcomers being snitches, so that we don’t let them in the movement. So that we’re divided. So that we can’t grow as a movement.

So yes, if the FBI shows up at your doorstep, shut your mouth.* But at this conference we should have open arms for everyone. And honestly, if the FBI wants to hear about the horrors of factory farming, let them hear. If the FBI wants to read vegan literature, let them read. And if the FBI wants Josh Balk’s new business card to find out where he’s working now, he’s more than happy to give it to them. I spoke to him last night.

So, if suspicion isn’t the lesson that we should draw from these documents, what is? I’d suggest that what these documents speak to is the true historical significance of this conference in particular and of the animal rights movement more broadly. Clearly, the FBI believes so. Along these lines, as a quick aside, in my FOIA lawsuit against the FBI, the FBI just this week asked the court for a seven year delay in processing any of my Freedom of Information Act requests because, they argue, my academic research itself constitutes a threat to national security. Yes, just asking questions now about the FBI’s understanding and handling of the animal rights movement is now understood as a security threat. Clearly, they are taking this movement seriously. And even more illuminative is the fact that the FBI is here at this conference, every year, year after year, wasting their time, wasting their money,** going through our trash. I mean, it really just speaks to how seriously they take us, how truly significant we are.

And in this context, I think it’s important to remember that the FBI first became especially interested in investigating this conference based on information provided by the animal industry groups – AMP, FBR,... These groups know better than anyone just how important we truly are. These groups know better than anyone what kind of a threat we truly pose. A threat to their bottom lines, to their abilities to do business as usual, their ability to continue torturing animals for profit. These groups are running scared, and they’re running to the FBI. That’s what the FBI is doing here.

So, if there’s a lesson to be learned from these documents, I think it’s this: Let’s live up to how important the FBI and the animal abuse industries believe us to be. Let’s live up to how threatening they fear we can become. Not in terms of some animal rights terrorist bogeyman that they’ve concocted, but as a powerful social movement advocating for justice, compassion, and liberation for all sentient beings. If there’s a lesson to be gained from these documents, it’s that we need to be as united, dedicated, and effective as our opponents dread. Let’s use the presence here of the FBI as a reminder to get out there and truly kick ass for animals. Because, honestly, if they want to watch, let’s give them something to watch.

It’s often said that these agencies are wasting resources pursuing and harassing the animal rights and other justice movements instead of the truly violent and terroristic people and groups who genuinely pose a threat to people’s lives and freedoms. And this is true to the extent that threats of this sort are their concern. At the same time, though, they are concerned – consciously or not – with the perpetuation of the status quo: of white male supremacy, religious privilege, and corporate power. Their targeting of civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, indigenous rights, nonhuman animal rights, workers’ rights, migrants’ rights, consumers’ rights, electronic freedom and privacy, anti-imperial, environmental, peace, and other activists and movements; trade-deal protesters; whistleblowers; lawyers; scientists; writers; journalists; artists;… hasn't been a silly diversion from their “real mission.” It’s part of the fabric of their operations, and reflects a recognition of the real threat these people pose to the powerful. Not, as Shapiro notes, the threat of the “terrorist bogeyman,” but the promise of change - from a society based on violence, exploitation, and greed to one founded on democracy, respect, and the fulfillment of needs.

* I feel compelled to supply this tag and this post in particular as a PSA.

** It’s not actually their money, but public money.

Honduras election observers

Adrienne Pine at Quotha has links for observers of the Honduran election, which is tomorrow.

For the best & most complete info on election observation over the coming days keep focused on:

1. Website: http://www.hondurassolidarity.org

2. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hsnelectionwatch

3. Twitter: http://twitter.com/hsnelection

4. Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz5yEwgyCWgMIKp632-ujcw

5. Email: hsnwatch@hushmail.com

(There are already efforts to intimidate some election observers.)

She also shared this video of a short teleSUR documentary, “Los votantes golpeados” [in Spanish]:



Especially impressive are the LIBRE candidates and social movement leaders, whose message is clearly that the resistance and struggle are ongoing, encompassing but also transcending this (and any) election.

Hope in Honduras

Adrienne Pine writes from Honduras of the atmosphere of hope in these days before the election:

Among all the black humor and terror, there is an incredible amount of hope right now in Tegucigalpa. It's palpable, in the central park, in cafés, on the streets, in my classrooms. It feels to me like there are equal amounts of hope and terror, with one gaining as the other loses ground, and then reversing direction. But my interlocutors tell me I'm wrong. They tell me it's all hope (though they then often fall back into talking about their perfectly legitimate fears). Whoever came up with the LIBRE party name after Andrés Pavon stole the previous one for himself really was a genius. Because when people I know come up to me to exclaim that on Sunday they are finally going to be LIBRE/libre (as several did today), they are talking about so much more than the party.

It reminded me of a quote from Erich Fromm I posted a while back, and which seems worthwhile to feature again here:

To believe in power that exists is identical with disbelief in the growth of potentialities which are as yet unrealized. It is a prediction of the future based solely on the manifest present; but it turns out to be a grave miscalculation, profoundly irrational in its oversight of the human potentialities and human growth. There is no rational faith in power. There is submission to it or, on the part of those who have it, the wish to keep it. While to many power seems to be the most real of all things, the history of man has proved it to be the most unstable of all human achievements.

“The American standard” – arrogance and contempt in the CRPD ratification debate

Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 138 parties have ratified, but the US refused to do so again last year. There’s a major push right now for ratification from a broad spectrum of groups. This is largely heartening, but the arguments with which ratification is being promoted in the US reflect an arrogance and contempt that will undoubtedly undermine it if it does happen.

I was first alerted to this framing by a post by Tina Minkowitz at Mad in America. (I’ve been writing about her reports from the UN for a while now.) Minkowitz, one of the drafters of the CRPD and who supports full ratification of the convention, pointed out recently that many of those urging ratification are using rhetoric and promoting measures (such as reservations, understandings, or declarations, or RUDs) that basically entail the homeopathization of the treaty in the US. They’re also employing a false and damaging narrative about how ratification, while having no effect on domestic practices, will provide an opportunity for the US to export its so-called gold standard of disability policies to other countries. To make matters worse, advocacy communities – those who are being listened to, at any event – are going along with this narrative:

All the proponents of CRPD ratification who are allowed a voice in these discussions are in agreement that the US ratification is aimed ONLY at giving the US greater influence over other countries and over the development of customary international law, and NOT at improving the enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities in the US itself. This is astounding. It is hard to imagine any self-respecting group of people that would work so hard for a treaty about their own rights, and yet argue that it won’t apply to themselves but instead is only meant to help their government promote the national ‘brand’ (as per Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge).

Minkowitz’s post describes some of the arrogant and contemptuous arguments from the politicians involved. Sadly, you see these arguments discussed uncritically and even supportively in “progressive” media outlets. This series of remarks from an article yesterday at ThinkProgress, for example:

• “The CRPD’s failure on the Senate floor then was a ‘rough day for a lot of us who support the treaty’, Kerry said during his testimony, noting that he heard regret afterwards — even from those who had voted against the treaty — about the message it sent to the disabled around the world.”

• “The executive branch, Kerry promised, is ‘100 percent prepared, as we have been’ to work with Congress on various proposed reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) that could be added onto the treaty.

Kerry’s promise was in response to the concerns Ranking Member Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) put forward in his opening remarks. ‘I think the ratification of this treaty really rests solely on the administration’s willingness to ensure that this treaty has no effect on domestic law’, Corker said.”

• “‘I am still convinced that we give up nothing, but get everything in return’, Kerry said. ‘Our ratification does not require a single change in American law and isn’t going to add a penny to our budget’. Instead, he said, it would provide leverage to get other countries to raise themselves to the standards the United States set forward in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which the CRPD is based on.

• “‘There are countries where children with disabilities are warehoused from birth, denied even birth certificates, treated as second class citizens every day of their lives’, Kerry said, adding, ‘Moments like this clarify for me the work we must do to export our gold standard – the American standard. I hate seeing us squander our credibility on this issue around the world’.”

• “A slew of officials have been making the rounds in recent weeks, each insisting on the need for the treaty to help raise other countries to the standards the United States prides itself on when it comes to supporting people with disabilities.”

• “‘You know, if the ADA and the protections afforded to persons here were extended internationally, then these disabled vets or other Americans with disabilities would have, again, the same horizon, unlimited horizon, that their able-bodied American counterparts would have’, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power told Politico on Wednesday. ‘So there’s a real core interest here for our people’.” [I have no idea how this is supposed to make sense – SC]

• “Advocates disagree with the notion that the CRPD strips any measure of sovereignty from the United States. ‘This treaty is empowering people with disabilities around the world, and asserts that the family is the central unit of society, and that it’s in the best interest of children with disabilities that society protect and support families’, Morrissey told ThinkProgress. ‘So I think this treaty actually advances our sovereignty by bringing U.S. leadership to the world table. We’ve done so much on disability in this country and we really can be a world leader.’”

• “‘This treaty is not about changing America’, Kerry told the committee, summing up the administration’s pitch. ‘This treaty is about America changing the world’.”

Or this, from Ted Kaufman at HuffPo:

• “You don't have to listen to one Democratic voice to make the strongest possible case for ratification of CRPD. Former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year, said, ‘Ratification is an opportunity to export to the world the very best we have to offer. This is a chance to use our rich national experience in disability rights -- which has gained us the respect of the world community -- to extend the principles embodied in the ADA to the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide who today have no domestic protection. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by playing the role the world expects of us’.

These ideas are completely contrary to the purpose of international instruments, as Minkowitz argues in her statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

The United States has been admired as a leader in the field of disability rights because of the ADA. However, the ADA is not the gold standard for comprehensive protection of human rights of persons with disabilities without discrimination in all aspects of life. That mantle belongs to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

…It is…disturbing to witness not only the numerous RUDs of unprecedented number and scope, but the intent of the RUDs as apparent from their content and from the statements of both Senators and witnesses in the Foreign Relations Committee hearings. It appears that the intent and effect of the RUDs taken as a whole is to preclude any necessity for action by the US to bring its own law into compliance with international standards that it would claim to ratify. Ratification on these terms violates the core principle of international law that domestic law does not excuse a government from complying with its international obligations1, and its corollary that states parties are expected to conform their domestic law to the requirements of a ratified treaty2. The United States cannot escape this obligation by declaring that its law fulfills or exceeds the requirements of the treaty.

…To reject this central obligation or seek loopholes to avoid it does a sad disservice to persons with disabilities, and is not in keeping with the purpose or principles of the CRPD.

It’s bad enough to refuse to ratify, but to “ratify” in this manner and with this obvious agenda is to display not just arrogance but contempt. (The cheering acquiescence of so many independent advocacy groups to this imperialistic rhetoric parallels that of some international human rights organizations responding to US foreign intervention.)

Reading about this debate brings to mind a recent article by Noam Chomsky, “Why the Rest of the World No Longer Wants to be Like U.S.” Chomsky describes:

In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the leading establishment journal, David Kaye reviews one aspect of Washington's departure from the world: rejection of multilateral treaties ‘as if it were sport’.

He explains that some treaties are rejected outright, as when the U.S. Senate ‘voted against the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012 and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1999’.

Others are dismissed by inaction, including ‘such subjects as labor, economic and cultural rights, endangered species, pollution, armed conflict, peacekeeping, nuclear weapons, the law of the sea, and discrimination against women’.

Rejection of international obligations ‘has grown so entrenched’, Kaye writes, ‘that foreign governments no longer expect Washington's ratification or its full participation in the institutions treaties create. The world is moving on; laws get made elsewhere, with limited (if any) American involvement’.

While not new, the practice has indeed become more entrenched in recent years, along with quiet acceptance at home of the doctrine that the U.S. has every right to act as a rogue state.

…Whatever the world may think, U.S. actions are legitimate because we say so. The principle was enunciated by the eminent statesman Dean Acheson in 1962, when he instructed the American Society of International Law that no legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its ‘power, position, and prestige’.

Mano Singham posted this morning about the possible effects of the Snowden revelations in impeding the US government’s ability to behave with this sort of hypocritical arrogance and contempt on the international stage.

“without judgement, endorsement or agenda”

There’s a campaign by PETA to get the SeaWorld float removed from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I haven’t written about it primarily because I didn’t think it had any chance of succeeding – a prediction which has since been confirmed. (I also don’t care for parades, so I tend not to take much interest in stories about them.)

There’s a new AP article about the controversy. PETA’s protest and petition are getting a lot of traction due to the release of Blackfish,* but there’s essentially zero chance that Macy’s will remove the hideous float from its lineup. They’d like to present this refusal as merely consistent with a general entertainment-focused, apolitical policy:

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade stands as a unique American event solely devoted to entertainment. The Parade has never taken on, promoted or otherwise engaged in social commentary, political debate, or other forms of advocacy, no matter how worthy. Its mission has always been about entertaining millions of families and spectators. While it is understandable that such a widely embraced event can sometimes feature elements or performances that some people may find disagreeable, Macy’s intention is to provide a range of entertaining elements without judgement, endorsement or agenda. While we cannot control external forces that wish to impose their own perceptions on the Parade, we will remain steadfast in following the guiding core of a decades old mission, celebration and entertainment for all.

This is of course bogus. The parade’s official partners are corporations and it’s long been a platform for corporate displays of good will – a celebration of the status quo and consumerism. This is endorsing an agenda. Their suggestion that SeaWorld is dedicated to entertainment is making a judgment: that the suffering and rights of animals are trivial. There’s nothing magical about entertainment that removes it from the spheres of morality or politics.

But the inconsistency stands out. The AP article describes how the SeaWorld float is one of two controversial issues related to this year’s parade. Singer, vegetarian, and animal rights activist Joan Jett had to leave the South Dakota state float (for another which I think is still undisclosed) after complaints from the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association. It appears Jett herself made the decision to leave the float in the face of this. But why didn’t Macy’s insist to these “external forces that wish to impose their own perceptions on the Parade” that they wish to proceed “without judgement, endorsement or agenda”? Why are they not stating publicly in response to a trade association that finds Jett's appearance “disagreeable” that their “goal is to entertain” and that this is Jett’s “goal as well”?

Regardless of the float outcome, the publicity will not be good for SeaWorld or the fearful “cattlemen.” So it’s a victory in that regard.

* Independent of what happens with the float, SeaWorld is feeling it. Their stock price has fallen, they’re resorting to gimmicks to draw people in, celebrities are speaking out,** and even their CEO has sold a chunk of stock. Additionally, PETA “has submitted a formal complaint urging Florida State Attorney Jeffrey L. Ashton to investigate the park and pursue felony charges for alleged violations of Florida’s anti-cruelty statute.” SeaWorld is plainly on the losing side of history; now it’s a matter of whether its decline will happen quickly or slowly.

** Fortunately, an actor named Jason Biggs was there to provide the obligatory violent misogyny.

What do I think of Ricky Gervais’ idea?

Amanda Just asks what people think of Ricky Gervais’ renaming hunters “cunters,” reminding us to “remember, he’s English. The word is used more frequently on that side of the pond.”

Of course, I think it’s witty and very helpful. Here in the US, I just don’t hear people called cunts often enough, so I appreciate this clever new deployment. It’s not at all harmful to women, and linking women to cowardice and murderousness doesn’t perpetuate misogyny in any way. And anyway, misogyny has nothing whatsoever to do with the oppression of animals, so we certainly don’t want to deny ourselves the opportunity to make tactical use of it.

In fact, I think we should expand on this brilliant idea and start using similar slurs for other exploiters and killers of animals: trappers could be Jappers, for example, and we could start referring to fagtory farming. It’s a totally fun and productive way to promote an ethic of compassion and care, and won’t put potential activists off of the animal liberation movement in the slightest.

I also think we should remain silent about, and join if possible, campaigns of threats and harassment against women who hunt. There’s really no danger there. Just good activism. I know King Juan Carlos was also threatened with rape and called a whore when his hunting pictures were made public, so it can’t be about women. Gervais’ “spot the typo” was original and super funny. The animal liberation movement can’t go getting all soft and sympathetic and PC.

I can’t wait to try this cheese.

I came across a link the other day to an article in Food & Wine about “the science and craft behind” Kite Hill’s artisanal vegan cheeses. They’ve been created by a team of culinary and scientific experts which includes biochemist and PLoS cofounder Patrick Brown, as part of his project of “trying to the maximum extent possible to eliminate animal farming on the planet Earth.”

Apparently, they're sold exclusively at Whole Foods, and for the time being only on or near the West coast (and one store in OK), but the site claims that they'll be available at Whole Foods nationwide within months. Can’t wait to try them.

“There Is No Way I Am Taking My Children to Free Birds This Weekend.”

“The patriarchal perspective views ethics as a means of social control, and animal liberation as a matter of taming our ‘naturally’ exploitative dispositions toward animals. This view ignores the taming of compassion and outrage that proceeds every day as part of the business of exploiting animals. In this society people are domesticated, trained through external rewards and punishments, through myths and lies, through instilled fear and ignorance, to disconnect from animals, especially from those animals designated ‘game’, ‘livestock’, or ‘guinea pigs’.

So animal liberation is not so much a taming of ourselves as it is a refusal to be tamed into supporting anthropocentrism….” – Brian Luke

Part of this weekend’s Our Hen House podcast was a discussion of the movie Free Birds (I wrote about an evangelical review of it earlier). The hosts of the OHH podcast – who, unlike me, have seen the film – have an intelligent exchange about the negatives (inaccurate history, a missed opportunity to expose children to veganism combined with apparent product placement, confusing storylines) and potential positives of the movie. They talk about how its potential to provide a moral learning experience* probably depends on the context in which it’s viewed. If children see it with others who will listen to their concerns and can inform them about ethical alternatives, it’s possible that it could be an awakening. If they see it with people who treat it solely as light entertainment and mock or dismiss concerns about turkeys, that’s much less likely.

They also discuss an article in Slate by Dan Kois: “There Is No Way I Am Taking My Children to Free Birds This Weekend.” Kois recognizes the movie’s potential to lead people to rethink the morality of eating turkeys (and possibly other animals), to consider “that the things they eat have lives and dignity, and maybe you should consider eating plants instead.” Precisely because of this recognition, he’s determined – even as “a parent trying to raise ethical children,” as someone who recognizes that “there are way more great reasons to be a vegetarian than there are to be a meat-eater” and who would support his children if they became vegetarians – to keep them from seeing it:

[T]here’s another, darker part of me that can only think of how much I do not want Thanksgiving to culminate in my children’s realization that I am serving them the hero of the movie they just watched—a movie that is about that hero’s quest to stop his species from being killed and eaten by humans. Nor do I want Thanksgiving dinner to be a litany of tears as my children watch their parents slice up lovable Reggie (voice of Owen Wilson) with an electric carving knife, place his flesh upon a platter, and devour it with gravy and stuffing.

…Now, I love Thanksgiving! But there are a lot of people to please and a lot of food to cook, and two loudly protesting children do not easily fit into that. Should I take them to Free Birds, I fear my older daughter is likely to steal the turkey and throw it into the woods, and her sister will sit bravely at the table, sad tears streaming down her face as she forces herself to eat a single bite of poor Reggie. I’ll be forced to face my own hypocrisy, which is no one’s idea of a fun Thanksgiving. It’s already tough enough to explain why we watch enormous men give each other concussions on the TV!

Forget it, Hollywood. Make a children’s movie extolling vegetarianism in May, featuring cows, or in August, packed with a cast of adorable Pacific salmon. Heck, make Chicken Run 2: Attack on Tweedy’s Farm. But don’t blow up our Thanksgiving. It’s complicated enough as it is.

Coincidentally, just before reading these articles about Free Birds, I’d read Brian Luke’s excellent chapter** in Animals & Women (1995), “Taming Ourselves or Going Feral? Toward a Nonpatriarchal Metaethic of Animal Liberation.” Luke suggests that traditional animal rights approaches are premised on the assumption that humans’ inherent, “natural” tendencies toward other animals are callous, hostile, and violent, or at least that our emotional connections to animals are inconstant and undependable. So those who promote these approaches (he’s discussing chiefly Peter Singer and Tom Regan) tend to think of a positive ethics toward other animals as one that tames those natural “uncaring dispositions” and base instincts*** through rational rules that form the basis for projects of social control.

Luke argues, in contrast, and quite correctly in my view, that “the supposition of human antisociality toward animals is very dubious.” Our acceptance of the oppression, exploitation, and killing of nonhuman animals is not a natural inclination but is produced through our ongoing socialization into the system. In fact, he rightly suggests, the existence of such gargantuan and expensive efforts at concealment and indoctrination attests to our caring about other animals. If we truly lacked sympathy, this elaborate factory of compliance wouldn’t be necessary. “Suppose,” he asks,

as do James Serpell and Andrée Collard, that compassion for animals is a natural, normal, and healthy part of human life. We would then expect institutions of animal exploitation to protect themselves from compassionate human opposition through an array of unnatural, abnormal, and unhealthy mechanisms. This is exactly what we find. [citations removed]

Luke describes “highly developed mechanisms for forestalling the development of sympathies for exploited animals as well as powerful mechanisms for overriding (i.e., preventing us from acting on) any sympathies that might remain.” Ag gag laws are currently the most vivid political incarnation of “an industrywide effort to dim our awareness of the suffering behind animal farming,” which also includes euphemistic language, manipulation via advertising and public relations, and “educational” efforts to convince people that the consumption of animals and their secretions is necessary for human health.

Mechanisms to subvert or override our compassion and moral agency, both rewards and punishments, abound in the culture. Socializing children so they’ll consent to the system is extremely important, and this happens at all levels, including in families themselves. Parents offer ideological rationalizations for consuming animals in the form of religious myths or other false claims about animals. They ridicule children who conscientiously choose not to eat animals, treating them as selfish and disruptive. They force their children to eat meat. (It’s noteworthy that atheists who strongly object to the religious indoctrination of children are generally quiet about their socialization to participate in the system of animal exploitation.) They tell other parents, as A. Breeze Harper recently described, that exposing children to the truth about the suffering involved in animal exploitation is unnecessarily “traumatizing” them.****

All of this political and cultural work “shows that human resistance is always a potential threat to the continuation of the animal exploitation industries…. In fact, sympathies are so dependable that every institution of animal exploitation develops some means of undercutting them.” (Of course, these techniques for subverting our sympathies have effects that bleed over – sometimes literally – into our relationships with other humans.)

Animal liberation, then, isn’t a matter of “using reason to override some innate indifference to animals” but of “overcoming institutionalized barriers to the expression of our deep connections with animals.” It’s an act of dissent, in which we develop as moral agents through the “freeing of caring agency” from the bounds of social programming. In allowing our relationships with other animals to be guided by “knowledge, integrity, and moral self-determination” rather than accepting the habits and myths of the culture of exploitation, we reclaim our autonomous moral agency. Animal liberation is human liberation: rebellious, self-determining, and expansive.

It’s interesting to read Kois’ article - presented to the readers of Slate presumably in an attempt to garner understanding and support from others in the dominant culture (which it has) – in this light. His decision and rationalization offer a great illustration of how difficult it is, even for parents who recognize the indefensibility of eating animals and are concerned with their children’s moral development, to break free of the patterns that perpetuate the system.

I believe that Kois does want his children to become autonomous moral beings – he suggests he would be proud if they did become vegetarians, and there are hints of pride also in his description of their hypothetical responses to seeing the movie. But when it comes down to it, he regards their moral awakening and hypothetical acts of resistance as unacceptably disruptive, to the point that he thinks it necessary to avoid their even being faced with the knowledge that could potentially lead to such choices. His story sadly illustrates Luke’s point: that our sympathy for other animals is by and large the default condition, that this is recognized and feared by those who benefit from the system of animal exploitation, and that the system can only be sustained through the deployment of diverse mechanisms to interfere with the development of our autonomous “caring agency.”

We often play our roles in maintaining oppression unconsciously. Because Kois is so thoughtful and honest about his motives, he calls attention to all of the many ways we obstruct children’s moral and political growth and movements to end oppression. I hope Kois continues to think about and question his choices, and changes his mind about denying his children this possible realization. If nothing else, I hope his making his concerns public leads some others to reconsider similar decisions.

(As I was completing this post, I noticed that Vegan Feminist Agitator had also written about Kois’ article. I’ll close with her conclusion, aimed primarily at other parents but applicable to anyone:

When we raise our children to believe that their values are adorable and endearing but ultimately burdensome and naive, we impose upon them cynical notion that is as much a fallacy as it is profoundly unfair. We do the same thing to ourselves and each other when we are so frightened of change and the unknown that we limit ourselves and one another to these tiny little boxes. Why should it be like this? Compassionate living is expansive and empowering…. [W]e need to be modeling every day that we can live joyful, abundant lives as people guided by principles, that it is not at all a sacrifice, so we can help to empower those who are intimidated by the idea of change. Yes, there are growing pains when we venture outside of our comfort zone, but a life hemmed in for fear of expansion is one that is far more painful. We need to tell the world that there is nothing to be afraid of when we choose to live in alignment. Don’t settle for or encourage anything less.)

* This is true despite the fact that, as they note, the turkeys aren’t portrayed as turkeys but as little humans.

** As usual, I do have some criticisms, particularly related to some of the arguments about medicine.

*** I’ll have a good deal to say about this in the near future.

**** Related to this, artists depicting animal suffering are told that their works are too disturbing for a “PG-13 society.”

Free Birds, reviewed by evangelicals

Feeling down after reading the “Twelve Reasons” post, I was relieved to stumble on this review of the new movie Free Birds by the Christian outfit MOVIEGUIDE.

I have no problem with sociopolitical film reviews as such (in fact, I’m quite fond of them). But what’s funny about MG’s is how earnestly literal they are. Movies shouldn’t be “the ax for the frozen sea within us,” encouraging compassion, moral questioning, and awareness of other perspectives. They're seen as purely didactic, and their messages either promote conservative Christian dogma or subvert it. So MG tots up the “Christian” elements, swearwords, and sexual acts to determine how well a movie performs as a celluloid sermon or, on the other hand, pollutes vulnerable minds.

Here’s their summary of Free Birds:

Light mixed pagan worldview with strong revisionist history regarding the pilgrims mixed with some biblical virtues that include sacrifice, hard work, the importance of standing for something bigger than oneself, and making peace, one pilgrim also says, “Thank God,” the turkeys perform a symbolic ritual over their dead chief where some loose leaves swarm together into the air, as if his soul is ascending heaven, there’s also a reference to “the great turkey” which in the end turns out isn’t a divine being, evolution is briefly suggested; no foul language but “shut up,” “buttocks,” and “son of a gun” are said; some light slapstick animated violence, such as the pilgrims try to shoot the turkeys, and they send their dogs on them, and there’s a tense scene that includes fire; no sexual content, but a light kiss between turkeys; no nudity; no alcohol use; no smoking or drug use; and, one character acts selfishly, but learns his lesson in the end.

I think it was the “light kiss between turkeys” that got me. (Could have been “mixed pagan worldview,” or the mention of a suggestive reference to evolution alongside “foul language,”* sex, drugs, and violence.**)

The very idea that turkeys might have a point of view, from which humans – Americans! – look like terrifying killers is anathema:

One of the main issues with FREE BIRDS is regarding its revisionist view of history. Though the movie does begin with a comical disclaimer stating its fictionalized version of the actual events, it still may confuse young children. The very fact that the movie sets up the pilgrims as the villains is not only wildly outlandish, but also disrespectful. To make mockery of the men, women, and children who starved, suffered and died to build this country shows poor taste in MOVIEGUIDE®’s opinion. The movie doesn’t portray all the pilgrims as evil, only the hunters, but the rest are only shown as spineless sheep who bend to the evil hunters’ every command. Though it’s likely the filmmakers only intention was to entertain children with a admittedly clever plot, it should never be at the expense of damaging a child’s education or perception of America’s heroes.

But here’s the part I liked best:

Also, for a movie about Thanksgiving Day, FREE BIRDS fails at conveying a message of thankfulness. Instead of being thankful for what we have and for what God has provided for us and our country past and present,*** the children seeing this movie might demand a vegetarian replacement of the traditional turkey meal. FREE BIRDS had many opportunities to teach positive lessons of gratitude, but it never did.

For primarily this reason, Free Birds “merits a caution for susceptible children” – those whose capacity to care about the suffering and deaths of others hasn’t been entirely deadened. The film is dangerous, in other words, in that children might be led to question the bogus Christian justifications for killing our fellow animals, see them sympathetically, and wish not to eat them. They might be inspired to act as moral agents who want to avoid causing suffering. How un-Christian.

I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m almost tempted to recommend it on the basis of this possibility alone. So much of our culture is dedicated to indoctrinating people to subdue or ignore their sympathy with other animals and to rationalize exploitation and killing. A work that has the potential to activate sympathy and encourage children to stand up for those who suffer and are killed has to have something worthwhile about it.

* I’ll resist the obvious pun.

** Calling the humans’ attempts to kill the birds “light slapstick…violence” is pretty much what I’d expect, as was the inability to appreciate any other violence (which appears in the trailer itself).

*** Incidentally, MOVIEGUIDE also awards the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays (“The primary purpose of the prize is to further the influence of moral and spiritual values within the film and television industries. Seeking to promote a spiritually uplifting, redemptive worldview, the Kairos Prize was founded to inspire first-time and beginning screenwriters to produce compelling, entertaining, spiritually uplifting scripts that result in a greater increase in either man’s love or understanding of God”); the Epiphany Prizes for Inspiring Movies & TV (“for those popular, entertaining movies and television programs which are wholesome, uplifting, inspirational, redemptive, and moral…to encourage filmmakers and television producers to create movies and television shows that help increase man’s understanding and love of God”); and the Chronos Prizes for Inspiring Screenplays by Established Filmmakers (“designed to help established filmmakers who have made successful faith-friendly and faith-based movies and television programs and screenplays. It intends to reward successful established filmmakers who endeavor to create stories that are compelling, entertaining, inspiring, spiritually uplifting, and increase man’s love or understanding of God”).

These awards are all funded by the Templeton Foundation, who also think gratitude should be instilled in the masses, along with other important character traits.

Honoring turkeys

Ashley Capps at Free from Harm shares “12 Reasons You May Never Want to Eat Turkey Again.” It’s heartbreaking, but no one should turn away from it. Facing this reality squarely is something we owe to the turkeys and to ourselves.

I was struck hardest by her discussion of “humanely” raised and slaughtered turkeys (#10), which involves two videos from very different “humane” operations. Capps writes,

I don’t know what’s worse: the near pathological indifference to suffering displayed by the “humane” farmer in the previous video, or the sham piety displayed by this farmer, and the fabricated narrative of cosmic inevitability she imposes onto the turkey’s slaughter in order to feel okay about it: “They know — this is what they’re here for, is this amazing feast,” which is to say, Killing this turkey is something that had to be done, of course. Except, of course, that it didn’t. It bears repeating: decades of scientific evidence have irrefutably demonstrated that humans have no biological need to consume meat, milk or eggs. When we have plentiful access to plant-based foods, and a choice between sparing life or taking it — there is nothing remotely “humane” about inflicting violence and death on others just because we like the taste of their flesh and secretions. Notice, too, the disingenuous maternal rhetoric: “I love these turkeys…they’re good babies…I’ll miss them a lot.” This is humane-washing at its best, and willful self delusion at its worst. Watch the video, then answer me this: what kind of person would do that to any creature they truly cared for and loved?

Even before I became a vegetarian (and then vegan), I found this rhetoric about “thanking” the turkey for its alleged sacrifice and the like ridiculous. I don’t believe that anyone genuinely believes what they’re saying when they claim that the animals they’re killing know and accept that’s it’s their purpose to die so humans can eat them - that they’re collaborators in their victimization, offering themselves up to be killed. I don’t believe they really hold that killing and consuming someone is consistent with loving them. I don’t believe they honestly feel they’re honoring animals by cooking or serving them in a certain way or enjoying their consumption. It’s embarrassing that people actually say these things publicly. Such pitiful attempts at justifying violence are unworthy of reasonable and compassionate people. We love, respect, and honor others by refusing to participate in and fighting against their oppression and exploitation.

Meanwhile, back at Scienceblogs…

I recently checked in on Scienceblogs, for little reason other than curiosity. My preferred blogs there left for Freethought Blogs and other networks some time ago, and the whole Pepsi fiasco left a bad taste, so I haven’t dropped in there much over the past few years. (I still do like EvolutionBlog and The Pump Handle, so I may have to add them to my feeds…)

Anyway, looking back in I noticed that the front page headline was “The Downfall of Bora Zivkovic,” which struck me as a little melodramatic. The description also sounded maybe a bit too gleeful, especially at the end: “Bora, a former ScienceBlogger and cheerleader for the trustbusting that occurred here in the midst of Pepsipocalypse, also resigned from his role as Blog Editor at Scientific American.”

Yes, he was a “cheerleader” in that,* and he was right to be so. I was reminded to look back at a blog I’d noticed a while ago and which looked like a space for open corporate and military advertising and public relations: “USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog.” Typical recent posts include “‘Science in Fiction’ Kavli Science Video Contest!,” [UPDATE: see below] “LOCKHEED MARTIN SEES FESTIVAL AS CRITICAL TO INSPIRING FUTURE ENGINEERS” (a guest post by a Lockheed Martin representative),** “Northrop Grumman Foundation Sponsorship Encourages the STEM Message!,” and “GOOD and U.S. Air Force Call for Contributors to ‘Mind of a Quadrotor’ Project” (a guest post by…the Air Force).

Probably the worst is last month’s “Chevron’s Fuel Your School Program Supports Public Education Projects!”:

This fall, Fuel Your School makes it easy for local communities to help generate funding for public schools in 19 markets [note: not districts, but markets - SC].

From Oct. 1 through Oct. 31, 2013, the Fuel Your School program will donate $1, up to a total of nearly $7.1 million, to help fund eligible classroom projects when consumers purchase 8 or more gallons of fuel at participating local Chevron and Texaco stations in 14 U.S. markets.

…Chevron’s Fuel Your School program can make a big impact for public school students and their future. Be sure to tell everyone you know – friends, relatives, even the cashier at the grocery store – about fueling up at a Chevron or Texaco station during the month of October. Also, go to Facebook and “like” Chevron Fuel Your School.

So much to hate. Where do I begin? It’s using public schools to market to children.*** It’s exploiting and naturalizing the defunding of public education to get access to children and encourage people to buy gas to help schools. It’s Chevron. This is the same network that hosts Deltoid, and it’s now providing a platform for Chevron’s image promotion?

Atrocious.

UPDATE 11-23: I had confused the Kavli Foundation with the Kashi company. In my defense, I mix up names regularly. Anything from kasha to kevlar would have been vulnerable there. :)

* You can look through the “archive” section of their blog list to see all of the great bloggers who’ve left, many at that time.

** An excerpt: “…Lockheed Martin’s 60,000 technologists, scientists and engineers work hard every day to defend global security, push the boundaries of scientific discovery and deliver essential services to citizens. They do this because the United States—and the world—face complex challenges that call for innovative solutions….”

*** Check out Stephen Colbert’s bit last night about Toys “R” Us’ anti-nature advertising to children:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

The Ghosts in Our Machine

By all accounts, this is a wonderful film. Here’s an interview with Liz Marshall, the director, and the woman at the film’s center, photographer Jo-Anne McArthur. Ashley Capps describes The Ghosts:

The film explores the lives of individual animals living within, and rescued from, the mechanized prison of our modern world. Through the heart and lens of acclaimed animal photographer McArthur, we become intimately familiar with an unforgettable cast of animal subjects. Each story and photograph is a window into global animal industries: Food, Fashion, Entertainment and Research. The film asks the question: Are non-human animals property to be owned and used, or are they sentient beings deserving of rights?

…Jo-Anne writes: “I’m a story-teller by nature, and the camera is a great tool for story-gathering. After a few years of shooting random stories … I learned that I could use this amazing tool, the camera, for social change, and I could also combine my two loves – taking photos, and helping animals – to help make the world a better place.” This means that in her photos, Jo-Anne doesn’t just document cruelty to animals, she helps viewers connect with the animals by showing them as individuals, with individual faces, bodies, and stories.

…[E]ven when we don’t get the full story, we connect with the animals as individuals through the powerful personalizing details McArthur carefully emphasizes: the breath-taking eyelashes on a doomed veal calf; the intimate gesture of a spray-painted pig in a slaughter truck resting her head on the back of another pig; the mix of bravery and terror in the eyes of a caged raccoon as she uses her body to cover the babies she is so desperate and helpless to protect....

Following a successful fundraising effort, The Ghosts in Our Machine opens tomorrow in New York (Ernest Hardy at the Village Voice calls it “utterly engrossing”) and Los Angeles, and later in San Francisco and Chicago. Here’s some information about the theatrical openings, surrounding events, and how you can support the film.

Media coverage of Pavlo Lapshyn, the far Right in Europe, and secularism

In a recent post about the far Right in Europe, I discussed the sentencing of white supremacist murderer and terrorist Pavlo Lapshyn. The threat from movements of the far Right comes not only from the actions of individuals in their ranks but from sympathetic and even encouraging responses from governments. It also comes from distorted public views of these actions, and those views are powerfully influenced by media coverage (or the lack thereof). Steve Rendall at FAIR describes the imbalance in US media coverage of the murders of Mohammed Saleem and Lee Rigby:

This story of terrorism hardly registered in US news media. According to the Nexis news database, Mohammed Saleem and Pavlo Lapshyn were mentioned in just 10 US newspaper and news wire stories, most of them brief Associated Press and States News Service wires (e.g., Associated Press, 10/25; States News Service, 19/25). The New York Times was alone among major newspapers, running a detailed report on October 23.

Saleem’s story can be contrasted with that of British Army Sergeant Lee Rigby, murdered by Islamist assailants in a London street a few weeks later. Rigby and his killers, Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo, were mentioned in 570 US newspapers and news wire stories.

There's more than one reason for that. Rigby's killers stayed at the murder scene and were videotaped talking about killing the soldier. But it's hard to deny that one reason Rigby's story got [more] than 50 times the coverage of Saleem's is that it fits a false and damaging media narrative about who are the perpetrators and who the victims of such horrific acts.

This neglect is one part of the problem. Another is the reluctance even to acknowledge non-Muslim terrorism, especially when the victims are Muslims. Steve Rose suggests that the refusal to call Lapshyn’s intent and actions what they plainly were provides

further proof that terrorism is an empty term, a label reflexively applied when the perpetrator has a specific religious identity. As a result, supporters of the English Defence League can continue to claim, ‘That all the terrorists at the moment are Muslim’, which is another falsehood.

Until we stop dehumanising Muslims to feed the illusion of our own moral and cultural superiority, we will not learn from this tragedy. Nor will we reflect on our own capacity for terror on those we oppose. Nobody has the monopoly on terrorism. It has no nationality or religious faith, it crosses borders and cultures.

Yet, like any fundamentalist, Lapshyn's utopian vision was built on the aggressive removal of the 'Other'. He hoped his campaign would cause Muslims to ‘leave’ a section of Birmingham. In isolation, that idea is closer to the mainstream than many admit.

Public acknowledgment of rightwing violence and campaigns of terror is badly needed. In one incident, last week in France, someone painted Nazi graffiti outside the home of Abdallah Zekri.

Earlier in October, a heated conflict surrounding the slaughtering of conscious animals as part of the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, the “Feast of the Sacrifice,” led to the burning of a mosque in Gdansk, Poland.*

Zekri and others are making the connection between the campaigns against Muslims and those against Jews, past and present (it helps when the racists make it so obvious). The Jewish community in Gdansk issued a statement associating the mosque attack with Kristallnacht, the 75th anniversary of which is in a few days:

Representatives of the Jewish community of Gdansk, Poland, said the torching of a mosque had “frightening connotations” of the Nazi-inspired Kristallnacht pogroms against Jews.

The association was inescapable, three of the city’s Jewish leaders wrote in a statement Thursday. “On the eve of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, during which synagogues were burned in the Free City of Gdansk, the burning of the mosque must bear frightening connotations,” the statement said.

Unidentified individuals started the fire early Wednesday morning. It consumed the mosque’s door and some of the equipment, resulting in damages to the tune of $16,000.

“In the face of this cowardly act of barbarism, Jews of Gdansk cannot stand idly by,” wrote the authors of the statement, Michal Samet, Michal Rucki and Mieczyslaw Abramowicz. “We express our deep indignation against the attack on the temple and the sadness of the fact that it took place in Gdansk.”

There are other disturbing developments. Last week, (alleged) secularists held a joint event with Catholics protesting the construction of a mosque in the French city of Metz:

The demonstration was initiated by Génération Patriotes and enthusiastically supported by Résistance Républicaine. You might think this is an odd alliance, as Résistance Républicaine is a front organisation for Riposte Laïque, a militantly secularist group, while Génération Patriotes is fiercely religious. The one claims to be advocating a hardline version of laïcité, while the other aggressively upholds the Christian heritage of France.

However the French far right has been redefining laïcité to incorporate the promotion of Christianity, precisely in order to facilitate unity in inciting hatred of Islam. The forthcoming Résistance Républicaine demonstration in Paris has been called to defend laïcité ‘and our other traditions’. In addition to supporting the 1905 law which established the separation of church and state, it has adopted the slogans ‘Hands off Christmas!’ and ‘Hands off our Christian holidays!’

Fortunately, the Metz event seems to have been about as well attended as a Washington ex-gay rally, but again, the danger doesn’t just lie with the campaigns themselves but with the responses of the powerful and the shaping of public attitudes. The key insight in Pitt’s post is the recognition that “the French far right has been redefining laïcité to incorporate the promotion of Christianity.” (Something similar seems to be going on with…whatever the hell this is.)

I don’t think he has it quite right, though, when he suggests that this redefinition is being attempted “precisely in order to facilitate unity in inciting hatred of Islam.” That’s part of it, but the other aspect is that they’re confident that their religion, as the historically dominant one, will come out ahead to the extent that this view of religion as national tradition – and therefore deserving of public privilege and power even in a nominally secular society - comes to hold sway. Their confidence isn’t misplaced. There are a number of examples in the US and Europe of this sort of cooptation of secularists, who willingly or unknowingly participate in campaigns that tend not only to foster hostility and even violence toward Muslims but also, often, to expand the influence of rightwing Christianity.

There are of course plenty of real religious secularists. But there are also many religious people on the Right who want to use an ersatz secularism to promote both anti-Muslim bigotry and their own religion and its role in government. Genuine secularists should make it clear that our secularism is universal and that secular policies should be developed and applied without partiality to any religion, including when it’s defined as local tradition or heritage.

* I oppose the slaughter of animals in this or any religious ritual, as part of a general rejection of hurting and killing animals. I don’t, as should be well known to anyone who’s read what I’ve written over the years, believe that people should be given a pass or legal exemption on the basis of religion. Causing suffering and killing animals for religion should end just like causing suffering and killing animals for other human purpose.

Focused campaigns such as this, though, are often useful to opportunists looking to exploit the situation to stoke prejudice against marginalized people and spread racist tropes about how barbaric and primitive they are. Further, many who join these campaigns lack a comprehensive understanding of the scale and realities of factory farming and its links to halal slaughter. In voicing our objections, animal activists have to be cognizant of the cultural context into which our protests fall and their possible effects within that context.

Here’s a good example of how to address the issue without furthering bigotry, from treekisser and the very funny Vegans Must Be Stopped:

treekisser:

Today commences the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, during which millions of sheep, goats, camels, and other animals have been or will be ritually slaughtered for the occasion. (http://huff.to/19LhGk0)

The concept of sacrificing another being, in this case by slitting the throat of a fully conscious animal, always boggles my mind. Setting aside my personal distain for organized religion, it just doesn’t seem logical. Taking someone else’s life is their sacrifice, not yours. If you believe a magical person in the sky requires you to spill blood to prove your devotion, spill your own.

To the millions of animals mercilessly slaughtered today, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the pain you experienced while your life bled away. I’m sorry for the fear you endured while witnessing family members be killed in front of you. I’m sorry humanity’s superstitions have manifested themselves in a way that costs the lives of so many human and non-human animals every day. Rest in peace.

(**Because this is the internet, and the internet breeds miscommunication and misinterpretation, I should clarify that this is not an anti-Islam post. I’m equally saddened by the 45 million turkeys being slaughtered this month in preparation for Thanksgiving).

EDIT: Based on the comments left so far, apparently I need to clarify a few more things. When I refer to superstition and believing in a magic person in the sky, I’m referencing all religion, not Islam. I realize their are nuances of all religions that I don’t understand, and I don’t pretend to. My overarching point is the sadness and futility of all the lives lost as a consequence of religion/tradition. Today, the focus is on Eid Al-Adha. Next month, you’ll see my same level of outrage regarding slaughter in preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For tradition, for religion, for superstition, for taste preference, for holidays, for sport, for culinary adventures, or for fashion, I will never be okay with needless killing.

To think you had the nerve to actually get people to think about the concept of the killing of animals for ritual purposes in the name of religion is most upsetting. Where does such an outrageous appeal for peace towards sentient life have a place in religion? You should be ashamed of yourself.

Also don’t tell us that you have the same problem with other cruelty caused by other religions as people will not believe that because they will simply not want to, and that should be good enough for you.

I’ll have you know that chopping the head off an animal is an incredibly humane thing to do. Just look at all the people telling you so, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all of these people saying so, have had their heads chopped off, so they know exactly how little pain is involved in the action. They’re not just speaking out of their ass. It’s very scientific.

It’s much more humane than just not doing it in the first place. I hope when somebody non-consensually kills me, they do so in such a peaceful manner.

Also, as other people have mentioned, they give the meat to the homeless, because as well all know that homeless people cannot and will not ever eat plant based foods, so that would just be ridiculous to give them that. Almost as ridiculous as purposely breeding a creature with the pre-meditated reason of killing them, when you can just use that land to grow crops.

I can only hope that you have thought about your actions here. When it comes to disrespecting beliefs that are based on religion, you should be quiet.

I hate it when people give me shit for committing cannibilism under the name of my God, Zandabar, the Underwater Peanut Butter God. I know all of these people who want respect for their actions based on religion, would completely, in turn, respect my religious beliefs and not criticize me in any way, especially when they know nothing of my religion, and my God and I can justify my actions by merely saying My god says it ok, so shut your mouth,

If any of you are upset by my actions under the name of my religion, let me just say that when I do what I do, I make sure to give blessings, show praise, talk about miracles, and a add a bunch of other flowery, theatrical, meaningless, and empty words to justify my behavior, since I can plead ignorance to independent thought.

Day of the Dead assortment

First, vegan DOTD cookies (these are from last year, but they’re cute so who cares?):

(Thank you, you-know-who-you-are, for the link. :))

Second, Death in Paradise:



Beautiful scenery, entertaining stories, a recurring character who’s a lizard, and a fun soundtrack – what’s not to like? I’m disappointed to learn, belatedly, that Ben Miller is leaving during the third season. :(

Third…the Dead: