A "New American Vegan" Winner!

A random draw yesterday afternoon left Marri Lynn the winner of a brand new copy of Vincent Guihan's New American Vegan. As part of the entry requirement for the contest, announced just last week, Marri Lynn included a photo for a favourite vegan recipe of her own, one for wholewheat bread (which was significantly adapted from another). She's given me permission to reprint it here and you can find the ingredients and the instructions on how to make it on her blog, The Supplementary:

Thanks to everyone who entered! I loved your photos and recipes and thank you for the interest you expressed in this awesome cookbook. Marri Lynn's copy will be in the mail by the end of this week.

As promised last week, I'm sharing (with Vincent's kind permission) the recipe from the photos I'd taken which ended up most-requested in comments left, as well as by email. In this case, it was the delicious and gorgeous "Chickpea, Avocado Ceviche".

As it turns out, you can find the recipe here (as well as get an idea of the spiffiness of the book's layout, and of how helpful the additional instructions are for the recipes -- in this case, for the Chickpea, Avocado Ceviche).

You can follow Vincent's writing on his blog We Other Animals and drool over his more food-related posts at veganimprov. You can order New American Vegan through Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and I you can buy it directly from PM Press.

Go out there and get yourselves a new cookbook!

New American Vegan Contest Ends Soon

As posted on Monday, I have a copy of New American Vegan to give away. There've been dozens of entries and there's still time for you to throw your name in to win. Here's what you'll need to do:

To enter the contest you'll need to email a photo of your favourite vegan dish to m.of.the.maritimes @ gmail.com along with a list of its ingredients. Because I am not a wealthy vegan, the contest is only open to folks residing in Canada or the US (i.e. unless you're willing to cover international shipping costs, I can only mail the book to either country). The winner of the cookbook will be drawn randomly from all entries on Monday, April 9. When I announce the winner, I'll post two recipes for dishes pictured above based on requests by email and comments below indicating which recipe you'd love to have most.

Entries must be received no later than Sunday at midnight, AST. A winner will be drawn the next day. What are you waiting for?

A Canadian's Take on "New American Vegan"

Context, Yes!

It's not a secret to anyone who's ever been inside my home that I am a little cookbook-obsessed -- just a little. I will often read them cover to cover and it's not uncommon for me to keep a few of them on my nightstand for bedtime reading. Reading through recipes from a new or trusted cookbook author is a great way to introduce yourself to different taste and texture combinations. A good cookbook will also offer up a bit of introductory information for those who may be new to cooking. What tools will you need? What are some basics with which you should stock your cupboard? It will teach you a little about potentially new ingredients used in the book's recipes and then, if it's a really awesome cookbook, its author will have done what I always appreciate, which is to suggest pairings of different dishes. If it's a vegan cookbook, its author will also (hopefully) spend some time explaining not just why we don't need to use animals to eat delicious food, but why we shouldn't treat animals as things and why we should consider going vegan.

Abolitionist animal rights activist Vincent Guihan's New American Vegan does all of this and more. The little extras in his book leave it rising (far) above most of the vegan cookbooks on the market these days. There are a lot of them and many of these books, sadly, are missed opportunities for their authors to actually educate others a little about veganism and about what it's like to go and to be vegan. Vincent not only shares his own experience going vegan, but provides some pretty useful advice on things like how to entertain as a polite but unapologetic vegan. He also goes over and above most other vegan cookbook authors in conveying to his readers how flexible and forgiving recipes can be -- particularly his recipes. He suggests alternative seasonings for the recipes, as well as substitutes for those harder-to-find ingredients.

This empowers the reader, whether a new or experienced cook, to feel comfortable being creative with the recipes without having to worry about wandering too far off course and possibly ruining the recipe altogether. Cooking should not be a daunting experience; neither should going vegan and learning new ways of approaching meal preparation. I was one of the original testers for the recipes a few years ago and I got hooked even then. I'd been anticipating the book's publication for a while and was thrilled when I first heard that it was finally coming out.

On Feeling Free to Drool

Here are some of the gorgeous and tasty treats I've tried and loved which you'll find in New American Vegan:

Clementine, Kalamata Olive & Collard Salad. A little sriracha, as suggested in the book, really rounded out this already intricately tasty dish quite nicely.

Quick, Rich Borscht. A lover of beets, I'd never tried borscht before; now I have a recipe that's a keeper.

Basic Crackers. Those pictured above are the yummy Pepper Jack variation, great by themselves or with soup, chowder or dip.

Avocado Creton. The smokiness combined with the rich fatty avocado is awesome. It was perfect with the aforementioned Basic Crackers.

Chickpea, Avocado Ceviche. Again with the avocado, because who doesn't love avocado? The cilantro and spices in the recipe are subtle and the lime picks it up just perfectly.

Fiery Illinois Corn Chowder. Creamy with an adjustable spiciness, this chowder is even more amazing topped with a handful of cilantro.

The Interview-ish Part

I contacted Vincent with some questions to weave some of his answers into this exploration of his book and he graciously replied:

MFIoF: When and how did you first learn to cook?

VG: Not surprising for Chicago, the first thing I learned to cook was pizza. That meant learning how to prepare bread dough, the sauce, etc. Pizza is a big deal in Chicago. There are a lot of different ways to make it -- some very inventive, and the toppings and combination of ingredients make it a good place to learn flavour combinations and flavour layering.

MFIoF: How did going vegan impact your time spent in the kitchen and the development of your mad culinary skills?

VG: I spent more time in the kitchen after going vegan. I was a vegetarian for a long time, which although well-intended, was misguided. After going vegan, I spent a lot of time working with more basic ingredients in combination to create the food I wanted to eat. In most respects, it was a liberation of my palate in a move away from prepackaged foods, and more important, away from prepackaged cultural notions of what food should be, how it should look, how it should be prepared. Notions of the 'centre of the plate', eating in courses, and of course, the primacy of animal products in meals are all deeply culturally contrived.

MFIoF: What other sort of activism have you engaged in? Where and how does writing a vegan cookbook fit into your activism as an abolitionist?

VG: Activists approach moral problems differently. In most social justice movements, organizers play an important role with helping people to understand the issues and get started in terms of practical work. There's not a lot of that today in the movement -- just a lot of businesses co-opting donations and volunteers (the free labour of the movement) to do fundraising. I think it's important for advocates to bypass the animal agriculture-welfare complex and promote abolition. My cookbook is a direct appeal to the public to go vegan and work for the abolition of the property status of nonhuman animals. But I think people fear change when they cannot envision who they will be after the change. The cookbook is really meant to speak to the notion of how life goes well as a vegan.

MFIoF: Why did you decide to write a cookbook? How would you describe your cookbook?

VG: It's awesome. Seriously. I know some people in the community may be offended that some vegans aren't prepared to bow and scrape to promote veganism, but I think people who are not vegan are cheating themselves out of a much better life. Veganism is good news for them. I wanted to write a book that would be full of good news for people who were ready to hear it. My book is provides the basis for personal change for anyone who's ready to go.

MFIoF: What advice would you give to new vegans who are first learning to cook, or at least learning to prepare vegan food for the first time?

VG: Keep going. Most people hone their palates licking the boots of the oppressor, so to speak. Eating inferior tasting "foods", thinking that what is least interesting about a dish is the most important. Few things taste as good or look as beautiful as a slice of fresh mango or pineapple. Meat, diary, and other animal products do have flavour and texture. However, it's often the 'garnishes' and the preparation that gives the finished dishes their appeal. Once you understand that animal products tend to be 'canvas' ingredients that absorb the flavour of the rest of the ingredients, the more you understand that it's the other ingredients that have beautiful flavour, colour, texture, etc., that are important. Free your plate. And keep going.

MFIoF: Where's the best place for the interested to snap up your cookbook?

VG: It's at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and I believe you can buy it directly from PM Press.

The Freebies!!

To share the New American Vegan love, I have a copy of the book to give away! To enter the contest you'll need to do the following: Email a photo of your favourite vegan dish to m.of.the.maritimes @ gmail.com along with a list of its ingredients. Because I am not a wealthy vegan, the contest is only open to folks residing in Canada or the US (i.e. unless you're willing to cover international shipping costs, I can only mail the book to either country). The winner of the cookbook will be drawn randomly from all entries on Monday, April 9. When I announce the winner, I'll post two recipes for dishes pictured above based on requests by email and comments below indicating which recipe you'd love to have most.

Now go out and buy this cookbook!

A High Five Is Completely off the Table

More from Vincent Guihan:

Veganism in a Nutshell

What Other Abolitionists Have Been Doing

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a long overdue list of some recent activities in which various abolitionists have been engaging. I'd meant to post a second part to it later that week, but got side-tracked, so I'm going to throw in a few things now, but will then stick to monthly updates.

So?

Prof. Gary L. Francione recently posted an excellent critique of HSUS' "Save a Seal Today" campaign on the Opposing Views website. The fundraising campaign calls for a boycott of Canadian seafood products to pressure the Canadian government to end the annual seal hunt. The message this campaign sends out is that the interests of "cute" seals matter more than the interests of all other regularly exploited sea animals, since HSUS more or less tells us that 1) it's OK to continue to consume all other sea animals as long as they don't come from Canada, and that 2) as soon as the seal hunt ends, it's OK to go back to consuming other Canadian sea animals. Most significantly, though, the messaged conveyed is that HSUS--with its annual budget of $150 million--somehow needs more money.

Read more about it here in the original piece on Opposing Views, and join the discussion.

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Sam Tucker, host of Food for Though Radio (among many, many other things), has been updating a Flickr photo set of images of foods he customarily eats. Of it, he writes:

Whenever I talk to anyone about veganism, one of the most common questions I get asked is "what do you eat?". They assume that by the time you've taken out meat, dairy, eggs, honey and other animal products off your plate, all there will be left to eat is some dry salad and lentils.

I have set this set up to bust that myth, and to prove that there are plenty of delicious foods available to vegans. I use ingredients available here in New Zealand.

You can check out his photo set here: "What This Vegan Eats".

------------------------

Vincent J. Guihan, subject of this somewhat shady and speculative Facebook page, weighed in on the recent buzz over the Slate piece by Christopher Cox proclaiming that it's perfectly justifiable for vegans to eat oysters. In "Of oysters and education: why a rights-based approach to vegan education makes sense", Guihan explains why arguing for veganism using environmental reasons or by focusing on animal suffering (i.e. their treatment) is ineffective, including that

the general secrets are out: we use animals; they suffer because we do; it is typically very bad for the environment when we do. The advocacy problem is that, historically, most people have not really cared enough to change their lives and go vegan in light of these reasons.

Guihan then calls for an emphasis on rights-based abolitionist vegan education, and particularly on community organisation to mobilize the sort of meaningful and long-lasting social change that will really make a difference to all victims of exploitation, humans and non-humans alike. To find out what you can do to help, please visit the Animal Emancipation discussion forum.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Yesterday, Prof. Gary L. Francione wrote on his Abolitionist Approach website about setting up a virtual billboard to "spread the message that nonviolence against our nonhuman brothers and sisters is possible—if we want it". To do so:

Send this message on all your social message boards and ask your friends to send it on theirs. Text your friends and ask them to text their friends. Add this message to your signature line on your emails. Let’s start a friendly wave of creative, nonviolent vegan education.

Today, the remarkably multi-talented Vincent Guihan (who writes the We Other Animals blog and maintains the abolitionist Animal Emancipation discussion forum) created some banners that can be used for this very purpose. You can find them here (along with their HTML code) and re-post or distribute them freely.

Take the opportunity to share your vegan story when you do, or to talk to people about how easy--and right--it is to go vegan!

Montreal's Vegan Day Fashion Show Host Sets Things Straight

Some people have been mentioning here and there on the interwebs that November 1 is World Vegan Day. Of course, I'd like to think that every day should be world vegan day, but I can be a little demanding that way (and after all, we need to set aside days for things like International Talk Like a Pirate Day or World Math Day). Maybe the truth is that something like taking the interests of animals seriously should be an 'everyday' thing and that it doesn't really need one single annual 'day' to be promoted. That being said, World Vegan Day is actually a celebration of the anniversary of the creation of the Vegan Society, which I think is indeed worthy of celebration.

So, I came across an opinion piece this morning by a woman called Nat Lauzon, a writer and radio host. She was writing about how she'll be hosting Montreal's World Vegan Fashion Show on November 1. I figured that this would likely go either of two ways: It would either be an upbeat fluffy pro-vegan piece or be a confessional of sorts. As it turns out, it's mostly just a lot of pro-welfarist assertions mixed in with the--at one point overtly hostile--perpetuation of stereotypes of people who take the rights of animals seriously.

Lauzon starts off with a typical and confusing cred vs. confessional bit. You know the one, where someone asserts that she's made some sort of change in her life that somehow proves that she has some sort of compassion towards nonhuman animals ("[w]hen I was 16 I read a book about how animals are slaughtered for human consumption. Shortly after that [...] I stopped eating red meat") and has some sort of credibility with regards to speaking about animal issues, but then self-identifies as being a hypocrite and self-flagellates mildly for show by expressing that she either a) feels guilty or b) acknowledges that she at least maybe-sorta-almost should. Yeah, that bit. Sometimes, instead of expressing guilt or the sense that there should or could be guilt, it all ends up getting brushed off by pointing out that majority rule trumps critical thinking:

I guess some might call me a hypocrite considering the genesis of my "white meat only" decision. What's the difference between a cow or a chicken being slaughtered? None really, but I've obviously swaddled myself in some form of ignorant bliss all these years. I'll admit it. And I bet I'm not the only one. I think we'd think differently about that slab of meat if it didn't come already cleaned and tidily sealed on a square of styrofoam. When it's all packaged up like that, it looks a lot less...well, breathe-y.

So, she seems to be challenging people to call her a hypocrite, then forgives herself for her self-swaddling and then to emphasize how forgiveable she actually is, points out that she's just like everyone else who tends to disconnect animals from those sterile little packages in which their parts are sold at the store.

Feigning surprise at her non-vegan self being asked to host the event, she then justifies her interest in hosting it as being that the proceeds go to an SPCA fund for a single issue campaign involving puppy mills:

I've seen first hand the cruelty that is often leveled against innocent animals in the name of profit. I've been outraged by the shoddy enforcement of punishment for offenders. So anything I can do to help that cause, I will.

Then Lauzon goes on to justify (vaguely) why the shows organizers would have involved her--a non-vegan--in the first place:

If you think about it, what better crowd would vegans want to attract to such an event than meat eaters? After all, this is the demographic that vegans are aiming to inform!

So, we have it established that in Lauzon's world, cute puppies trump chickens, pigs, fish and any other nonhuman who doesn't moo, and that she, as a meat eater, is just the perfect sort that vegan activists would want to reel in and educate. Or is she?

Lauzon then does that other bit that those in the media who seem to be promoting veganism invariably end up doing. You know that one, too -- the one where the reasons for being vegan are identified as having almost nothing to do with simply and ordinarily taking the interests of animals seriously, in and of itself. She points out that "all" of the pro-veganism arguments are "sound" to her but ignores the very definition of of veganism as put forth by the Vegan Society whose anniversary is, in fact, being celebrated by World Vegan Day. Her arguments for veganism include that veganism makes you feel / look better, makes you healthier, helps the environment and redirects grain from cows to the world's hungry humans. And what of concern for animal rights?

The night is not to shove some extremist animal rights mandate down your throat. No one's gonna throw red paint on you. In fact, it's not even entirely about veganism, per se. It's about cruelty-free alternatives as a general rule. To demonstrate that there ARE alternatives to the way we live. Easy, accessible, beautiful, environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free alternatives! Whether you make the choice to not wear fur or leather. Whether you buy cruelty-free make-up. Whether you replace milk with soy. There are small things we can do every day to make our world a better place for all it's [sic] living creatures. You don't have to change your entire life, just how you think about spending your dollar.

So yeah... It's not even entirely about veganism, per se. It's not even about promoting animal rights, because only violent nutjobs do that, according to Lauzon. Instead, according to its omnivorous host, Montreal's Vegan Fashion Show to mark World Vegan Day is about making "small" changes and getting you to change "how you think about spending your dollar". Choosing to not spend that dollar to support animal exploitation, however, is optional.

For more information on what veganism is or isn't all about, check out these recent blog posts:

• Prof. Gary L. Francione's "Some Thoughts on the Meaning of 'Vegan'" at the Abolitionist Approach website,
  

• Vincent J. Guihan's "Doo00dz, are free range veal, flea circuses, second-hand leather shoes, horseback riding, honey or placenta vegan? What veganism is and is not" at his We Other Animals blog, and
  

• Dan Cudahy's "The Definitions of 'Veganism' and 'Vegan'" at his Unpopular Vegan Essays blog.

What Other Abolitionists Have Been Saying

I've failed to keep up over this past week with many of the online goings of my fellow abolitionists, aside from just trying to keep track of who's been writing or engaging in some sort of advocacy work. I think that this next week will be one delayed reaction after another for me as I catch up on the great work and musings that have been shared online.

For instance, this morning I read Ken Hopes' latest post on his brockway hall blog about definitions or representations of the word "vegan" on things like t-shirts. It's an interesting post that says a lot about how one identifies with veganism and it conveys how the words describing it may indeed very easily become catch phrases that feel a bit lacking to actual vegans. Abolitionist Nathan Schneider also recently examined words and language, albeit in his case, it concerned how we (un)knowingly use speciesist language in everyday life to classify animals as things.

Over at We Other Animals, Vincent J. Guihan has been keeping busy writing about "Vegan" Outreach's Matt Ball, and how he's been parroting the welfarist mantra by referring to most vegans as fanatical and purist. Guihan uses this as a starting point to talk about propaganda within the animal movement and to reflect upon how

[c]onfrontational comments on blog posts, tweets and other media from regulationist advocates, name calling, mud slinging, and other forms of personalizing disagreements are intended to intimidate other advocates. Innocuous seeming enough out of context. But when it reflects a pattern of repetitive behaviour, it equally often reflects a subtle and not so subtle harassment of other advocates.

Guihan goes on to discuss recent attacks on the abolitionist community and how, at the very least, all they've managed to do is sway animal movement' attention from the really important work of promoting veganism and of advocating for nonhuman animals. Guihan engages in this thing called "advocacy", himself, in his most recent blog post in which he lays out how taking down the industry that profits off the cycle of animal exploitation cannot be attempted in any other manner than with an understanding that consumer demand is what drives suppliers to continue providing the general public with animal products. As long as consumers want, suppliers will provide and attacking suppliers for doing so is wrongheaded and ineffective at best.

(A few other recent pieces that I want to highlight are Vegan Examiner Adam Kochanowicz's "How to Reduce Suffering and Other Wrong Questions to Ask" which addresses how the very use of animals--and not how they are used--should be the focus in fighting the exploitation of animals and Gentle World volunteer Angel Flinn's recent essay "All Heaven in a Rage" in which she discusses how speciesism leads us to condemn the killing of some nonhuman animal while shrugging off the killing of others.)

I hope to post (and ramble) about more things that have been written (or said via podcast) by fellow abolitionists over the next several days. Although I feel that I've been missing out by falling out of the loop while on vacation, it's heartening to me that there continues to be so much activity and education on behalf of nonhuman animals.

Using Violence to Stop the Violence?

"The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process." -- Thich Nhat Hanh

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about violence over the past week. I mean, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about human violence--over and above the violent acts humans already commit against nonhumans every single day for the sake of human pleasure. There are some in the animal advocacy movement who believe that the only way to bring about the end of the everyday violent acts humans commit against nonhumans is to, in turn, commit violent acts against those humans. Considering that (depending on whose survey you read) a mere 1.5-2.5% or so of the population of the United States, for instance, self-identifies as vegan and claims to abstain from consuming animals in any manner, this basically means that a few individuals making up an ever-so-tiny fragment of that less than 3% want to put the smack down on the other 97%+ of the population to get them to stop killing the over 10 billion animals in the United States alone who are killed each and every year. (Uh, yeah--good luck with that.)

I won't ramble on about why committing violence to end violence is wrongheaded. Abolitionists like Vincent J. Guihan (over at his blog We Other Animals) have already made clear cases for the common-sense, efficacy and logic in using nonviolence and vegan education to effect change for nonhumans. For instance:

As advocates, our work is not a matter of reaction; it is a matter of transformation. We have to struggle to avoid confusing the wallpaper for the walls. We have to struggle to avoid confusing our work pulling down the walls of the house of slavery and violence with building those walls back up again through violent and confrontational behaviour of our own. We can only “tear the house down” by convincing its other builders to join us, not with threats and idiocy, but creative and nonviolent education that calls them to join us in a life that respects the rights of other persons to be free from violence and slavery.

It baffles me, really, that anyone would truly think that using fear and intimidation will change people's hearts and heads to allow the major paradigm shift that is needed to stop the overwhelming majority of us from thinking of nonhuman animals as things that exist solely for our use and pleasure--as our property.

Prof. Gary L. Francione, who has consistently promoted nonviolent vegan education to abolish the exploitation of nonhumans (you can read a couple of his earlier essays here and here), has also re-emphasized the avoidance of violence by vegans and animal rights advocates in his recent responses and reactions to the more recent calls for violence by a very few in the animal advocacy movement. He's done so in his podcast commentary of a few days ago, as well as over on the Opposing Views website and on his Facebook page, where discussions pertaining to the subject have been ongoing for several days on his Facebook profile page. It's on this Facebook page that Prof. Francione recently revealed that he has invited Steve Best, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso and spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Press Office, to a formal (or even an informal) debate on the use of violent or nonviolent approaches in animal advocacy. Although the conditions surrounding it are still being ironed out (and you'll need to visit Prof. Francione's Facebook page to get the dish on those details), it appears that there is indeed a good chance it may happen sooner or later. Stay tuned for more information!

Update: Although Vegan Examiner Adam Kochanowicz reported earlier today that a formal debate would be held on September 18 and would then appear on the Animal Voices talk show, Prof. Francione has since stated that he and Best will, in fact, be having the actual debate in a one-on-one Skype call with no moderation. There has been no information concerning a potential later broadcast as of this time.

Because Vegans Like to Eat

Here are just a very few things vegan friends have been cooking up this past week or so:

Over at Yummy Vegan Dinners, ms. veganorama has been tempting readers with photos of her Pesto Fettucine and Roasted Eggplant, as well as of Southern Tomato Pie (which I soooo want to try to make sometime soon).

A few days ago, Vincent Guihan posted a recipe for Romano and Romaine Vegan Caesar Salad Wraps on his recently-resurrected Vegan Improv blog. I had this for lunch today, using the optional thinly-sliced onion he suggested (red onion, in my case) and it was simple and yummy on this incredibly hot summer's day.

Earlier today, I stumbled across a vegan cooking blog that grabbed my attention. Amey, at Vegan Eats & Treats, recently wrote about her foray into tofu-making. Her blog's mood is definitely fun and the photos of the meals she makes will leave you fighting the urge to poke around in your own fridge and cupboards to recreate them.

I'd also like to highlight a new cooking blog by an abolitionist vegan friend. It's called Quick and Dirty Vegan and its purpose is to dispel the myth that vegan cooking is complicated and convoluted. In The Divine Miss V's own words:

No more excuses. No more whining about time or skill in the kitchen. It has never been easier to find or prepare a vegan meal or snack, and everyone can do it. Hopefully, cooking newbs will gain confidence and the "aha moment" that they're pretty damn good at feeding themselves and others; and maybe the more advanced among you will appreciate a "day off" from your normal cooking frenzy.

So if you're new to veganism or are looking to take a break from your larger and more self-indulgent cooking projects, do keep an eye on this blog.

After Turning My Head Away from the Internet for a Week

There's so much abolitionist animal rights activity online right now that I'm not even sure of where to start in terms of raving about it in any sort of detail. Two things worthy of nothing right off the bat, however, are that Prof. Gary L. Francione has entered the world of podcasting. In the "Abolitionist Approach Commentary", Prof. Francione has begun presenting a series that explores different issues and aspects of why we need to bring about the abolition--and not the regulation--of animal exploitation. His first podcast is on the myth and misrepresentation of vegetarianism as being a "gateway" to veganism and can be found here. His second podcast examines the issue of "pets" and can be found here. Speaking of podcasts... Vincent J. Guihan has steered his We Other Animals blog in a new direction with WOARadio. You can listen to his very first podcast ("I would throw 1000 ancient redwoods out of the lifeboat to save one kitten") here. Now to catch up with the rest of what's been going on while I've been sidetracked...

What I've Been Reading

The interwebs have been abuzz over the past few weeks with all of the abolitionist animal rights blogging that's been going on, as well as with the discussions that often follow. No mention of the pieces that have been published and circulated widely this week could be made without bringing up the recent essays by Prof. Gary L. Francione on his Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website. His most recent, just from today, is called "Creative, Non-Violent Vegan Education--Easy and Effective". It's a culmination of sorts of several pieces he's written on the topic over the past while, as well as of a request for input he issued using the social networking site Facebook to ask his fellow vegans what they do to engage and educate others about veganism. When there's so much frustrating misinformation being passed around by animal welfarists about how regulating the existing horrors inherent in animal agriculture is the only possible way to have any impact upon the status quo, it's heartening to see that vegan abolitionists who take the rights of nonhumans seriously are plugging away nonetheless, working hard with great energy and enthusiasm to change that status quo.

(ETA: Speaking of things that are heartening: I'd mentioned a few days ago that Vincent J. Guihan, abolitionist and soon-to-be published vegan cookbook author, has resurrected his We Other Animals blog. In the tradition of Twitter's generally well-intentioned #followfriday (or #ff) ritual, I'd like to point out that We Other Animals is a positive kick-in-the-pants blog that every serious vegan abolitionist should bookmark, add to their readers of choice, or at the very very least, visit frequently for updates. Check out today's "The Pseudo-Zen of Regulated Animal Use Activism" if you need convincing from the man, himself, that "thankfully, not everyone is taken in by the absence of thinking". Do it!)

On Consistency

Vincent Guihan at We Other Animals wrote something today that anyone and everyone involved in animal advocacy needs to read. An excerpt:

They'll know us not by our words but by our works,and if our works promote a kinder, gentler slavery rather than an immediate, unconditional and unequivocal end to that slavery, then regardless of what we tell ourselves or others, there is no meaningful difference between "liberation" and "exploitation".

The rest of it is here.

N.B.: For a stellar example of a complete lack of consistency, check out this story about HSUS' "Save the Seals" cocktail reception, held at a swanky DC restaurant called Policy to promote their boycott of Canadian "seafood". Then check out the restaurant's menu, which aside from featuring a wide variety of all types of animal flesh and excretions also happens to feature PEI mussels. (The link to the original story about the HSUS reception was obtained from a tweet by Professor Gary L. Francione. You can follow him on Twitter @garylfrancione.)