Words Always Worth Remembering

Of Cows and Music

Maybe you've already seen the recent YouTube video (above) of band members from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, entertaining a group of cows in the French Alps. The video, showing Steve Call and his Dixieland Band playing tunes for a group of music-loving cows, instantly went viral, now approaching a million views. To be certain, it is a delightful video, but it is by no means unique. Below are other videos, posted long before the BYU jazz band performed for French bovines, showing similar results when musicians wander out to farm pastures.

The next few videos show cows enjoying the handiwork of accordionists.

And a violinist...

And yes, even a little classic hard rock...

Dairy farmers have apparently understood for years that cows love music, so music has become an important part of numerous dairy operations, as the next few videos show.

I was thrilled to see the video of cows in the French Alps enjoying a jazz music performance go viral. The other videos posted above of cows loving music boast only a few thousand views at most.

I'm not sure the viral video is going to necessarily convert any viewers to veganism. It never ceases to amaze me when I hear people say how adorable it is to see cows savoring music, then those same people turn around and devour steaks and hamburgers and pot roast.

Sadly, so many people possess an incredible capacity for denial. They can somehow adore cows and eat them at the same time. Indeed, dairy farmers - as one of the videos points out - play music to calm their cows in order to increase productivity.

Also, there might be some animal rights purists out there who insist that appealing to human compassion by showing animals enjoying music is a form of speciesism. People have no right to exploit or harm animals, they argue, whether or not those animals enjoy human music.

Hard to argue with that logic. And yet... And yet... Part of what it means to be sentient means to be aware, and awareness comes in many forms. We can be aware of pain. We can feel what it feels like to suffer. But we can also be swept away by the beauty of images and scenery and music. These videos show that we are not the only animals who love music. Cows love it, too. That's not the main reason we shouldn't eat them. But it's yet another item to add to a long and growing list of reasons why it's criminal to mass murder these extraordinary beings.

Imagine eating meat from a being that once savored music. How could you possibly do it?

Food For Thought - Vegan Food, That Is!

From the wonderful folks at Evolve! Campaigns.

This video speaks for itself...

... there's nothing really for me to add.

Vegan Odds and Ends

Above: Anne Hathaway is transitioning to veganism. Take the leap, Anne! You won't regret it!

Watching What You Eat & What You Spend: The wonderful website Care2 Healthy Living offers Six Helpful Tips on how to eat vegan on a budget. Being vegan need not be prohibitively expensive. The tips are all excellent ones. Stuff I never thought of before. I won't give it away - you should read the story. Check it out here.

Campus Vegans: Thumbs Up - big time - to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, for opening a 100% Vegan full-service cafeteria. Imagine that: A vegan cafeteria! I'd give anything to have one of those where I live. Best of all, it is refreshing to see this development happen in Texas, which has a reputation for being a state full of meat eaters. If it can happen in Texas, surely we can make it happen in other parts of North America. (Source)

Recommended Reading: Vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier will be holding a big book launch in New York City on September 14 for his new book Thrive Foods. Sounds like a wonderful book. Here's a description:

Vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier presents his new nutrition guide, Thrive Foods, that features 200 Plant-Based Recipes for Peak Health and recipes from chefs at award-winning restaurants. (Source)

Celeb Vegans: The lovely and talented Anne Hathaway recently told an interviewer, "I'm trying to transition into being vegan, so I'd cook vegan dishes." (Source) Jump in, Anne! The water is fine once you get used to it. We need you on our side. We've lost a couple of vegan celebrities in the last several months. We could use some new high-profile converts. Best of all, you'll eat better knowing that you aren't harming any sentient beings.

Kudos to Ke$ha!

When I'm driving alone in my car, I usually listen to one of the Sirius XM Satellite stations that plays the music from my youth in the 1970s and 1980s. But when I'm chauffeuring my son and his buddies, they prefer the loud dance music and hip hop. I've heard plenty of Ke$ha songs and I have to admit, I've never been blown away with her wild and crazy tunes about partying all the time and brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels and "hittin' on dudes... hard!"

But I just read that Ke$ha (actually, her real name is Kesha Rose Sebert - she's the one who stuck a dollar sign in her name where the 'S' should go, not me) has just been named the Humane Society International's (HSI) first Global Ambassador. In that capacity, she'll be lobbying on behalf of animals. She'll be a voice for the voiceless. One of her first actions will be to encourage her fans to sign petitions to stop animal testing. Right on, Ke$ha!

Smart move, too, on the part of HSI. The organization picked a singer who an reach out to young people like my son, who might otherwise not have much interest in animal welfare issues unless a high-profile celebrity with whom they're familiar speaks out on the topic.

The best part of Ke$ha's acceptance of her job was when she said in a written statement (and I've got to bold this), "I take this opportunity incredibly seriously because we are ALL animals."

We are all animals. Where have I heard that before?

Right on, Ke$ha! Welcome to the movement. As Ke$ha told the press, "One of the main underlying sentiments of my music is to respect all living creatures just as they are."

If more people shared Ke$ha's attitude about animals, the world would be a far saner, more humane place. (Source)

Rule Number 1: Always check the ingredients list!

It ain't easy being vegan.

Oh sure: Defenders of the lifestyle who are trying to win over new converts insist it's easy. But it really isn't. It literally boggles the mind when you consider how many types of food contain animal products of one sort or another.

I'll give you a frinstance. Amy's-brand soy cheese pizza, on sale in the frozen-foods section of our supermarket. Soy cheese pizza!?!? Right? How can you go wrong?

Check the ingredients. What? You're kidding me. Amy's frozen soy cheese pizza contains milk ingredients. Huh?? A soy cheese pizza, sans meat, that contains milk ingredients? Why? Why? WHY?

Oh, Amy's. You got my hopes up there for a moment.

Frinstance Number Two: Earlier tonight I ordered a tofu dish at a newly opened Chinese food joint down the street. I just assumed that a tofu and vegetable dish would be safe.

Turns out this was mapo tofu and I had no idea that the dish is made with minced meat, often pork or beef. I got it home and before I even tried it, I noticed those little teeny, tiny bumps in the sauce didn't look right.

I Googled mapo tofu and discovered the bad news. I called the Chinese food joint. They confirmed the bad news.

I feel ghastly. My stomach is still twisted up in knots. The moral of the story: Always check the ingredients. Don't be afraid to ask someone in the restaurant if their dishes contain meat. When in doubt, do not buy it.

I've even taken to bringing a magnifying glass with me to the supermarket. Yeah, I look like a dork checking ingredients. But who the hell cares?

I really beat myself up over that mapo tofu. I won't keep beating myself up, though. We learn from our mistakes. We try our hardest not to repeat them. In my past life, I never checked the ingredients lists. The fact that I do it nearly all of the time - but occasionally I slip up and forget - means that I should probably call it a night with the self-flagellation.

But it does mean we vegans have to be ever vigilant. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," said Thomas Jefferson. We vegans know the meaning of those words firsthand.

We understand that eternal vigilance is the price we pay for our own liberty, for severing ties with a lifetime of denial and reckless consumption.

Oh yeah. One more thing. "God damn you, mapo tofu! God damn you to hell!" Seriously. Who the hell puts minced meat in a tofu dish?

There. I feel slightly better.

The Ones That Got Away... (or the Cult of the Escaped Animal)

In Germany, a cow named Yvonne has become something of a folk heroine. The six-year-old dairy cow has been on the run since May, hiding out in the dense Bavarian Forest, and her plight has captured worldwide attention.

Authorities have tried to capture her. They sent a bull out with the hope of luring her back to captivity, but the scheme failed. They tethered her sister, Waltraut, to a tree in the forest, but Yvonne didn't take the bait. They put up a reward of £9,000 for her capture. Millions have been following her plight in newspapers. An animal psychic made news when she said that the escaped bovine has been in contact through mental telepathy. "She said that she was fine," the psychic reported, "but didn't feel ready to come out of hiding." (Source)

Animal sanctuary workers are also pursuing Yvonne. As Michael Aufhauser, founder of a sanctuary called Gut Aiderbichl, which is actively involved in trying to rescue Yvonne, explained: "Day and night, we have up to seven people on the search for the cow. We are even using an infrared camera, two four-wheel drive Jeeps and a quad bike, but no luck so far." (Source)

No question about it: Yvonne has become an animal celebrity. And her fame speaks to an element of our culture that is both encouraging and maddening.

On the one hand, it is heartwarming that when people see an animal fleeing death, many feel instinctively sympathetic toward the fugitive.

But it is also maddening - deeply, deeply discouraging - because of the public's tendency to pay attention to the plight of only one animal (or a handful of animals) while ignoring the suffering and murders of billions of others.

Earlier this year, Gary Francione wrote a brilliant blog post about his very issue. In a February 25 blog post titled "And What About the Four Other Dogs?", Francione wrote about a puppy in Oklahoma that was euthanized with four other dogs, yet somehow survived deadly two lethal injections (one of which should have killed him). In doing so, the puppy became a national celebrity, a "miracle canine." When the story hit the news, hundreds of offers to adopt him came pouring in from all over North America. The story went out around the world - on Google News, over the Blogosphere, on Twitter - and generated widespread interest in the puppy's plight.

Francione's commentary on the puppy raised one of the most important issues confronting animal rights activists: The tendency of the masses to zero in on the suffering of a few representative animals, while ignoring the horrific violence carried out against the billions.

You hear it all the time in stories about farm sanctuaries. A pig escapes. Or a chicken escapes. Or a cow escapes. Or some horses narrowly survived terrible abuse. Or a cat or dog got loose from an animal shelter. The animal ends up at a sanctuary and people speak about it as if it's a "miracle" or an "amazing" feat that the animal got away.

Francione's observations on this issue are profound. They are worth quoting at length:

Many people think that when an animal escapes death in this fashion, it is some sort of divine sign. These sorts of events ironically reinforce our view that because there is no divine intervention for all the other animals that are killed at “shelters” or in slaughterhouses, then this is the way things ought to be for those other animals. They are killed as part of the “natural” order.

My guess is that if God exists, s/he is as concerned about the four other dogs that were killed on Friday by the Oklahoma officer, the millions of others who are killed in “shelters,” and the billions who are killed for no better reason than that we are so selfish that we think that our palate pleasure justifies depriving another sentient being of her or his life.

And whatever God’s view of the situation, I suggest that our reactions in these sorts of situations should compel us to think about why we engage in the injustice of animal exploitation at all rather than thinking that only the “lucky” animals who escape our institutionalized injustice matter morally.

Eloquent. And powerful. Once again, Francione hits the nail on the head.

Here's a theory: I think that many (by no means all, but a hell of a lot of...) human beings cannot cope with gazing down into the abyss. We build our walls of denial high to avoid having to glimpse the piling stacks of corpses. Historically, people have done the same thing during genocides. That's why genocides have occurred in places like Nazi Germany and Pol Pot's Cambodia in the 1970s and Rwanda in the 1990s without any intervention from the global community for the specific purpose of halting the mass murder.

Even to this day, we cannot always cope with assembly-line killings. Think about cinematic representations of the above genocides. There have been films about the Holocaust (Schindler's List, The Pianist, Sophie's Choice), Cambodia (The Killing Fields) and Rwanda (Hotel Rwanda). They're all about people who make it out of the murderous cauldron alive. No wonder a colleague of mine who teaches about the Holocaust once said, "Just once, I'd like to see a Holocaust movie where all of the main characters are put inside of the gas chamber and murdered and then that's the end of the movie. That would be the most accurate representation of the Final Solution, but Hollywood won't go there."

It's not exactly fair to blame Hollywood. Hollywood makes movies that people want to see, and powerful studio execs do their demographic homework. They know what consumers want. No, Hollywood isn't to blame for widespread denial. The inability to grasp the profundity and finality and totality of death rests with the public, whether it has to do with the popular culture or the animals they consume.

Which brings us back to Yvonne the dairy cow, a global folk heroine, an animal being cheered on by millions who otherwise have no interest in animal rights. Many of those who sympathize with her eat hamburgers and drink milk without thinking twice about it, yet they root for a "plucky" cow who's on the lam.

Therein lies the problem.

More Words of Wisdom: The Spirit of Veganism

There's really nothing else to add.

Going Vegan With Ellen!

Thank you to my daughter, Madeline, for pointing out that Ellen DeGeneres now has a vegan website, called Going Vegan With Ellen.

It is a stunningly beautiful Website, with great looking recipes, articles, tributes to vegan celebrities, links and a promo for the wonderful folks at the Gentle Barn animal sanctuary in Santa Clarita, California. With advocates like Ellen in our corner, we keep growing and gaining new converts.

Right on, Ellen! Thank for the inspiration!