Tag Archives: animal rights

Personal Secretary Ferial Govashiri, Sept. 12, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

TONIGHT!
CLARK UNIVERSITY
950 MAIN ST.

WHO: Ferial Govashiri, President Obama’s former personal aide

WHAT: Lecture, sponsored by the Clark University Speakers’ Forum

WHEN: Tonight, Monday, April 24

WHERE: Jefferson 320, Clark University Campus, Worcester

Ms. Ferial Govashiri will reflect on a decade of her career alongside one of the world’s most powerful leaders, and will speak about the importance of identifying your passion and working hard to achieve your goals.

Govashiri is an Iranian-American political aide who has served as the personal aide to United States President Barack Obama since 2014.

She worked on then-Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, beginning in the summer of 2007 in his Chicago headquarters in the department of Scheduling and Advance.

Govashiri went on to work in the White House after the election. She is an active member of the Iranian American Women Foundation and has spoken at conferences on their behalf.

For the first five years of the Obama administration, Govashiri worked on the National Security Council (NSC), first as a Senior Advisor to Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor and then as the Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff and the Director of Visits at the NSC.

She helped plan the President’s foreign trips as well as foreign leaders’ visits to the White House.

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IT’S TIME TO END CANADA’S BLOODY SEAL SLAUGHTER

By Danielle Katz

This year marks Canada’s 150th birthday, but as it prepares to celebrate, a dark cloud hangs over the festivities: the bloodbath that takes place off the East Coast every year.

I’m talking about Canada’s commercial seal slaughter, which began earlier this month. As you read this, baby seals are likely being shot to death or bludgeoned with hakapiks, deadly hooked clubs with a sharp metal tip.

Canada’s commercial seal slaughter is the largest mass killing of marine mammals on Earth, and it has become a stain on the country’s international reputation.

If we want this year’s to be the last one, every kind person must rally.

Thanks to sustained activism by PETA and others, we are close to ending it, but that’s little consolation to the tens of thousands of baby seals who will still be killed this year.

Sealers object to calling these animals “babies,” of course, but that’s exactly what they are. Many are slaughtered before they’ve even eaten their first solid meal or learned how to swim. While sealers are not allowed to kill “whitecoats,” the infants with the iconic fluffy white fur, they are permitted to do so as soon as the fur is shed, when the pups are only about 3 weeks of age.

Most are killed when they’re between 3 weeks and 3 months old.

These babies are defenseless and have no escape from the violence that rains down on them. Eyewitnesses have seen weeks-old pups shot in the face and wounded pups left to choke on their own blood as sealers rushed to attack the next fleeing victim. This horrific spectacle is repeated again and again on Canada’s ice floes every spring, and for what? For fur, a frivolous product that no one needs or even wants.

All major markets for seal fur have closed, including in the U.S., the E.U. and Russia. Effective April 1, Switzerland became the 35th country to ban imports of seal-derived products. And despite a marketing blitz that has cost Canadian taxpayers millions, China—where PETA Asia is active—has shown little interest in buying seal skins or meat.

In desperation, the industry is now trying to revive the trade in seal penises, dubiously marketing them as aphrodisiacs.

One by one, Canada’s excuses for continuing to defend the slaughter are disappearing. The commercial East Coast slaughter is not a subsistence activity but rather an off-season venture that enables a few small fishing villages to earn some pocket change.

When you factor in costs such as deploying the Coast Guard for several weeks each year to break up ice and rescue stranded sealers, flying delegations around the world to try to fight bans on seal fur, activist surveillance and funding the seal-hunt bureaucracy, the seal slaughter actually costs Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars every year.

And while commercial fishers have long scapegoated harp seals for diminishing cod populations, a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada says that the evidence for this claim is lacking. To the contrary, cod and seal populations have both grown over the last 10 years, according to John Brattey, who believes the seals actually prefer eating other types of fish. “We often find that seals are blamed for a lot of things,” he says.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tackled many social issues since taking office. Now, he has another opportunity to offer help to others who desperately need it: baby seals.

Please take a moment to urge Prime Minister Trudeau to lift the cloud darkening Canada’s anniversary celebrations by ending federal subsidies of the commercial seal slaughter. (Visit PETA.org to find out how.) Then use your social media accounts to help spread the word and get more people involved. Together, we can help make 2017 the year that this cruel massacre is brought to an end.

Animal Issues

2016 was a good year for animals

January 3, 2017 admin

Rose rescued Cece in 2016 … pic: R.T.

The Worcester Animal Rescue League on Holden Street is where Rose got her Husky-Mountain Feist cross “Jett,” the late great Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever “Bailey” and beautiful brindle greyhound-lab cross “Grace.” All homeless dogs that needed to be rescued!

If you can’t adopt a homeless cat or dog – do the next best thing: VOLUNTEER on behalf of animals. There are infinite ways to help! A good place to start is WARL (open to the public 7 days a week, noon to 4 p.m.)! To learn more and see their dogs and cats up for adoption, CLICK HERE! – R.T.

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Lots happened in 2016 besides the election

By Jennifer O’Connor

Most Americans are still feeling a bit frayed by the divisiveness of the presidential election. It’s easy to feel jaded and worn out, and many commentators are happy to see the end of 2016.

But while it was easy to get caught up in the more lurid headlines, a ton of uplifting things happened in the past year, particularly for animals used in the entertainment industry.

Let’s begin with elephants. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has been forcing elephants to travel and perform for more than a century, pulled the animals off the road in May. They will no longer be chained up and hauled around in fetid boxcars. When a circus as big as Ringling makes a decision like that, you know the days of performing elephants are numbered.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore also made a precedent-setting decision: It will send the eight dolphins currently in its possession to a coastal sanctuary. Animal advocates around the world have called on aquariums and theme parks to stop exhibiting marine mammals—and this is the first step. Protected sea pools afford dolphins and orcas room to move around and some degree of autonomy and self-determination. They’re able to see, sense and communicate with their wild cousins and other ocean animals — and they finally get to feel the tides and waves and have the opportunity to engage in the kinds of behavior that they’ve long been denied.

SeaWorld is starting to see the writing on the wall. In May, the corporation announced that it would stop breeding future generations of orcas, who would have to spend their lives in cramped tanks. But kind people everywhere are calling on the corporation to release all its animals into coastal sanctuaries. As the public’s condemnation of captive marine mammal displays continues to grow, there’s little doubt that protected sea pens are the wave of the future.

Travel giant TripAdvisor recognized the trend towards compassionate tourism and stopped selling tickets to most excursions using animals for entertainment, including cruel “swim with dolphins” programs, elephant rides and tiger photo ops. Since many facilities dupe visitors into believing that they’re helping animals, many vacationers unwittingly support cruelty by patronizing them. But by informing travelers about the dark underside of these excursions and refusing to offer them, TripAdvisor’s new policy will have a very real impact on animal exploitation in tourist traps.

Nearly a half-dozen roadside zoos — where animals suffered in filthy, ramshackle cages — closed their doors in 2016. Families are turning their backs on exhibits in which bears are confined to concrete pits and tigers pace in fetid pens.

But progress for animals hasn’t been limited to the U.S. In Argentina, a judge found that Cecilia, a chimpanzee languishing in a Mendoza zoo, isn’t a “thing” but rather a sentient being who is “subject to nonhuman rights” — and ordered that she be sent to a sanctuary. Countries as disparate as Norway and Iran banned exotic-animal acts.

Argentina passed a ban on greyhound racing, sparing countless dogs a short, grim life in the “sport.” India’s Supreme Court upheld a ban on a cruel pastime called jallikattu—in which bullocks are raced and often struck with whips and nail-studded sticks to make them run faster. And the annual Toro de la Vega “festival” — in which a young bull is chased through the streets of Tordesillas, Spain, and stabbed with darts and spears — was banned.

While 2016 was a good year for animals, there’s always more to be done. We all have the power to spare animals pain and suffering in the year ahead—and beyond—simply by making kind choices about what we do for entertainment.

Animal Issues

As our nation mourns, remember that love conquers hate

June 21, 2016 admin

By Mitch Goldsmith

Like the rest of the nation, and as an openly gay man, I am stunned and heartbroken by the carnage in Orlando. While we as a society debate the factors—anti-gay sentiment, misguided fundamentalism, all-too-easy access to assault weapons—that led to the deadliest mass public shooting in American history, as President Obama rightly noted, “We know enough to say this was an act of terror, and an act of hate.”

Members of the LGBTQ community know what it’s like to feel the sting of mindless intolerance and hatred simply because of who we are. And for many of us, this experience of irrational bigotry informs our advocacy—not only for gay and transgender rights but also for the rights of others who are oppressed, including individuals of other species.

While our country mourns and discusses ways to prevent future outbreaks of such violence, if any good can come of this tragedy, I hope that it will engender continued progress against biases that harm so many of us who are perceived as “different,” including animals.

Animals’ lives are as important to them as ours are to us. They experience fear, love, grief, joy and pain just as we all do, though often their feelings are dismissed as unimportant. Billions of animals are slaughtered, experimented on, shot, poisoned, beaten, shackled, drowned and dissected. This happens routinely, despite the availability of kinder options.

If we truly reject violence, as we all say we do, we must reflect on the torment that animals are forced to endure every day, out of sight, just because they are deemed “different” from us and therefore easy to exploit. And then we must also act. By choosing to eat a vegan meal rather than a meat-based one, buying shampoo from a cruelty-free company or going to a concert rather than the circus, we can easily make a difference. These may seem like simple actions, but our day-to-day choices matter. How we go about our daily lives can perpetuate injustice, or help bring about fairness and tolerance.

I’m not the first person to make this connection, of course. Leaders of social justice movements have historically recognized that the liberation of one oppressed group is linked to the liberation of all the others. The best way to end bigotry is for social justice advocates of all stripes to work side by side.

Steven Simmons, a respected PETA staffer and gay rights activist who died of AIDS in the mid-1990s, wrote, “It’s time for us to end this hierarchy of who has the right to live, who deserves not to suffer, who should be respected, [the idea] that there’s a limit to the amount of compassion that we can have for our fellow creatures.”

It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and it’s worth noting that after his passing, as the concepts of gay rights and animal rights began to spread, his widow, Coretta Scott King, became an outspoken LGBT advocate and a vegan.

Members of the LGBTQ community have fought long and hard to overcome the violence, hatred and prejudice directed at us just because of who we are, and the massacre in Orlando reminds us that there is still much work to be done. But as a society, we must not limit the scope of our concern. Those of us who sincerely want to foster a climate of compassion and peace must have the courage to speak out and stand up against all forms of violence.

Animal Issues

Why this feminist would ‘rather go naked’

March 15, 2016 admin

Ingrid

By Ingrid Newkirk

Is it odd that a feminist like me, from back in the bra-burning ’60s, champions racy protests featuring women wearing little more than body-paint markings that mimic a butcher’s diagram? Some might raise an eyebrow, but this March, National Women’s History Month, let me explain why I believe that supporting women’s rights and stripping for a cause go together like Gloria Steinem and miniskirts.

With feminism, as with all social movements, each generation has its own battles to fight, and while respect is certainly owed those who helped society evolve to this point, today is a new day with new issues to grapple with. I relate best now to the third-wave feminists who are sick of second-wave feminists—ever so ironically taking the place of repressive fathers and husbands—demanding that women cover ourselves up and “behave.” How dare we expose our bodies to prying eyes! But dare we do, with more feminists daring to do something more important: to challenge the idea that breasts are to be kept covered like a dirty magazine.

At PETA, which is awash with “uppity women” like me, we’d rather go naked than wear not only fur but leather or wool—any skin. We see animal liberation as a logical part of a philosophy that rejects violence to, and the exploitation of, those who are not exactly like oneself in some way or another. We reject prejudice on the basis of any arbitrary factor such as skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion or species. For surely there is something fundamentally wrong with moaning about freedom for yourself while denying it to others.

We are all of us composed of flesh and blood. We have faces and feelings and a beating heart, as did the pigs and chickens and other animals who were killed and decapitated for nothing more than a fleeting taste. What is done to them would be the same if it were done to us. And that’s the point of provocative PETA campaigns such as our “All Animals Have the Same Parts” protests featuring those aforementioned butcher’s diagrams. The scantily clad women who stand out in the cold know that people will stop and stare and that many of them will have never thought about animal rights before. That’s the power of their protest.

Instead of attacking the (naked) messenger, who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to strip, I ask people to put that energy and outrage where it belongs—into taking action against those who would abuse and exploit the most vulnerable among us. Women’s rights and animal rights go hand in hand. If you reject violence against women, you can’t in good conscience eat bacon and drink milk. Why? Because mother pigs—sows, who are smart as the dickens and who love their precious babies as dearly as any human mother loves hers—are confined to metal crates so small that they can’t even turn around and they develop painful ulcers from the constant pressure of lying, nearly immobile, on the unyielding cement floor. Because terrified, crying calves are torn away from their devoted mothers right after birth so that humans can steal the milk that was meant for them. Because factory farm and slaughterhouse workers, who have grueling, dangerous, soul-crushing jobs, often take their frustrations out on female animals by sexually assaulting them—sometimes in their terrifying last moments. The video is on our website and is hard to watch.

I have seen slaughter, have seen pigs beaten and loaded into the trucks on their way to it, and have been disturbed by the unmistakable sorrow and fear on their faces as they rattled down a highway for the first and last time ever. It’s the same look that you or I would have. We all feel pain and fear and long for the freedom to live our lives. We’re all the same.

With one significant difference.

Unlike the pigs and turkeys and fish and cows, I have choices. I can choose to walk away from meat and eggs and dairy products and continue enjoying my life, opting instead for healthy, humane vegan foods. If you haven’t done that yet, please, come join me. Women unite for animal rights!

InCity Voices

Why Pope Francis’ visit brings one Catholic animal rights advocate hope

September 28, 2015 admin

Lilac on the road, with Rosalie and Jett, 9/28. Pope Francis urges humans everywhere to respect the sacred in all fauna and flora …

By Christina Matthies

By the time you read this, millions of Catholics (and indeed, people of all faiths) will have seen Pope Francis during his historic first-ever visit to the United States. The Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will have just passed. And the city of brotherly love will be preparing for an infusion of loving kindness when His Holiness the Dalai Lama visits in October.

Three very different traditions and yet at their core, the message is the same: To honor the holiness inherent in ourselves, we should strive always to choose empathy over self-interest, compassion over cruelty and being of service over being served. And as we learn more about the other animals who share the Earth with us—that they, too, communicate with one another and build complex relationships, mourn their dead, and can suffer from pain, fear and grief—we must not overlook our treatment of them as we try, again and again, to live up to these ideals.

As a Catholic, I hold tightly to my faith in God and know that He has watched over me and my family in our toughest moments, and as an animal rights advocate, I know He watches over all of us. So I was heartened when Pope Francis declared in his encyclical on caring for the environment, “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity.'” I hope kind people will be inspired by his message and realize that we can care about and help both humans and other species at the same time. We don’t have to choose one over the other.

Although I express my faith through Catholicism, it is far from unique in asking us to extend our empathy to all beings. All the world’s great religions teach love and compassion for animals and even require those who are sincere in their faith to act with compassion in their dealings with animals.

The Buddhist text the Dhammapada teaches, “All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others.. Then whom can you hurt?” According to the Prophet Muhammad, “A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.” The Jewish Tanakh (what Christians call the Old Testament) reminds us that “a human being has no superiority over an animal” (Ecclesiastes 3:19).

So why do we continue to tear animals away from their families and homes and confine them to small cages or tanks for our archaic notions of entertainment? Why do we burn and blind them in cruel experiments even though astonishing non-animal research methods such as organs-on-chips supersede animal use? Why do we abuse and kill them for food and skins when vegan options are plentiful?

For animals, these are not merely rhetorical questions. Our answers have very real consequences for the orcas, elephants, pigs, chickens, rabbits, foxes, mice and so many others whom we exploit for our own ends. Mother pigs are smarter than our canine companions and love their precious babies as dearly as I love my two children. Rats giggle when they are tickled and will risk their own lives to save other rats. Crocodiles surf ocean waves for fun. Intelligent, complex orcas have their own language and customs that they pass on to their young. Fish live in complex social groups, develop cultural traditions, cooperate with one another and can even use tools. Their lives are as dear to them as ours are to us. The choices we make—about what to eat, what to wear, what to do for entertainment—matter.

If we say that we believe in love and compassion, that we believe the most fundamental teachings of the world’s great religions, then we must practice what we preach by avoiding choices that hurt animals. The message of kindness applies to all.

Animal Issues

Back to School: 10 animals your kids should copy off of this school year

September 16, 2015 admin

Respect your fellow animals!! Jett, Lilac and April. (pic: R.T.)

By Michelle Kretzer

It’s time for students to heave a collective groan and start hitting the books again. While PETA doesn’t condone copycatting, there are many brainy animals who would be great cats to copy from if your kids found themselves seated next to one. As hundreds of studies have shown, other animals can understand cause-and-effect relationships, form abstract thoughts, solve problems, use language, make tools and more — just like us.

For example, in algebra class, your kids should buddy up with a dolphin. These math-minded mammals rely on complex nonlinear mathematics to navigate the vast ocean and find food.

For help with sociology, hire a rat for tutoring. Empathetic rats will free their restrained cagemates, even if it means they will then have to share a mound of chocolate. So they’ll have no problem helping your kids learn about patterns of behavior in social groups.

Would-be broadcasters who sign up for speech classes will find a whale of a class partner in a sperm whale. These whales use different accents to identify members of their extended family and whales from other regions of the world.

Bees could be a huge help in political science. When a decision affects the whole hive, they put it to a vote. So no matter which side of the aisle students’ political beliefs fall on, bees can help them understand the democratic process.

In physical education, blackpoll warblers should always get picked first. Every fall, these tiny birds make the 1,700-mile trip from New England to the Caribbean without stopping. So if your children have to run laps, thinking about a blackpoll warbler’s grueling trek will make them feel a whole lot better about it.

College students struggling with engineering courses should try to sit next to a beaver. The dams these natural builders make increase water supplies for farms, help prevent erosion and improve fish and wildlife habitats. Scientists are even starting to turn to beavers for tips on dealing with climate change.

In psychology, students can never go wrong studying with an elephant. These highly intelligent animals have complex social structures and relationships so intimate that they flirt with one another and even argue about directions. Elephants will likely always be up for a rousing “Mars vs. Venus” debate.

For language arts classes, baboons are a student’s best bet. These clever monkeys can tell whether a group of letters is a real word or just gobbledygook—and they might even help out with that Grapes of Wrath paper that went awry.

For help studying for just about any other class, encourage your kids to get chummy with goldfish, who have longer sustained attention spans than we do. In a study done by Microsoft, goldfish were able to concentrate for nine seconds, while humans managed to do so for only eight.

And if your kids are looking to make some new friends this school year, help them get in good with crows. When a girl named Gabi started feeding crows in her garden, the birds recognized that they’d made a friend and started waiting for her to get off the bus. They also expressed their thanks by leaving her gifts, including a pearl-colored heart, an earring and a tiny piece of metal with the word “best” printed on it. The crows have even found and returned objects that Gabi’s family lost outside.

But perhaps the most important thing we can learn from other animals is compassion. Once we learn more about animals’ intelligence, needs and interests, we begin to recognize that it is our duty to treat them with respect for who they are — rather than what they can do for us.

Animal Issues

Next Sunday! PET ROCK! ANIMALS AND MUSIC AND SO MUCH MORE!!

September 5, 2015 admin

At Becker College! Learn, love, donate, ADOPT…

Schedule of events:

Emcee: Peter “Zip” Zipfel

12:15 p.m. Chuck and Mud

1 p.m. The Ed Sullivans

2 p.m. Roomful of Blues

3:30 p.m. Hero Awards presented

4 p.m. Just for Kicks

CLICK HERE to see their website and learn more about this GREAT FAMILY FESTIVAL – all for the love of animals!

InCity Letters, InCity Voices

From an InCity Times reader: My little Sweetpea!

August 17, 2015 admin

Rescued: Sweet Sweetpea!!!

Last May while looking at the plights of homeless and abused animals on facebook, we saw a pair of little white adorable pitbull mix puppies that had been rescued by Second Chance Rescue in New York City.

We contacted them with questions about the dogs, who looked very thin and lost – and were sad to hear they had been rescued from irresponsible kids who were selling them on craigslist at only 2 weeks of age, and they were both very ill with pneumonia and other serious health issues.

After 6 weeks in the Animal Clinic of Harris Court in Flushing, NY, only one puppy was healthy enough to be adopted.

Their wonderful Kelcy agreed to meet us halfway in Wallingford in mid-June to pick up the sweet little “Sugar,” about 10 weeks old, who we then named “Sweetpea.” She is now a year and a half years old and is incredibly sweet, super friendly and extremely affectionate.

She comes to work with us every day, meets lots of people (and dogs) and absolutely LOVES everyone! She has incredible energy and is very playful and healthy .

From now on, she will only know love, comfort and kindness.

Kathy Lewis
Worcester

Green Island Grrrl, InCity Voices, Rosalie's Blog

Get beautiful for your Valentine! Great, inexpensive pretty-my-eyes …

February 13, 2015 admin

… cheeks, etc cosmetics – ALL CRUELTY-FREE! ALL available at your local TARGET, CVS or WALGREENS! Support companies that support animals! – R.T.

From PETA.ORG:

… read this list of vegan, cruelty-free makeup products that you can find at your nearest drugstore or Target, and start stocking your makeup bag the compassionate way:

1. Use a NYX Concealer Wand for under-eye circles, blemishes, or uneven skin complexions.

2. Physicians Formula Brightening Compact Foundation powder is great for all-over facial applications.

3. Bring out those eyes with a funRunway Eyes palette, by Milani.

(Note: Only the Designer Browns,Couture in Purples, and Backstage Basics palettes are vegan. Other Milani vegan items are clearly marked.)

4. But don’t use it without applying someeye primer from Jordana first.

5. NYX has 27 beautiful shimmery shades of powder blush to choose from.

CLICK HERE to see more make-up not tested on animals – or using/harming them in any way!

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ICT editor Rosalie Tirella buys her makeup at Walgreens or Target stores. All cruelty-free. Here she is, yesterday, sporting her Wet ‘n’ Wild mascara (cruelty free brand, which you can’t see cuz of her sun specs) and Elf powder blush and lipstick – always CRUELTY-FREE and amazingly affordable ($2, $3, $5)! Both cosmetics companies have lots of great products for older broads like Rosalie! And don’t worry! She is wearing a faux fur hat cuz it’s freaking cold out there!

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Yes, Virginia! There’s plenty of cruelty-free cologne out there …

February 10, 2015 admin

… for the hemp-lovin’ men in your life this Valentine’s Day! All natural men’s cologne … no animals cruelly “tested,” mutilated or killed to create/make these great boy Valentine’s Day gifts! … From PETA.ORG. – R.T.

CLICK HERE to see all the goodies! Click on product name to learn more/ rush order for Val Day …

– R. T.

The following article originally appeared on VeganBeautyReview.com, and has been updated with new products.