Passion for Compassion

The Process of Ending Force Feeding for Good

If foie gras is a natural process, then there should be no use for the 16 inch steel pipe… right?

Jason Halvorson: Animal Rights Warrior

Ottawa has seen many restaurants drop the foie gras from their menu with the Ottawa Animal Defense League‘s anti-foie gras campaign. Go Jason and friends! Stop the force feeding.

Nathan Runkle: Founder of Mercy for Animals

Nathan founded Mercy for Animals when he was only 15 years old and it is now an national organization with 25 000 supporters. He recently overcame a brutal attack this December that was evidently anti-gay related. But more importantly, Nathan recently orchestrated some extremely effective undercover investigation into egg farming. An interview with him about this mission can be found at:

http://strikingattheroots.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/nathan-runkle-on-the-quality-egg-crackdown/

“The birds at Quality Egg are kept in battery cages that are stacked three tiers high. Each cage, as you know, is the size of a file-cabinet drawer. At this facility, they confine four to six birds per cage, so each bird has less space than a notebook-size piece of paper on which to live. We found birds suffering from broken bones, uterine prolapse, untreated infections. There were birds who were trapped under the wires of their cages, many of them left to die of starvation or dehydration; dead birds left to rot and decompose with birds still producing eggs for human consumption. Our investigator documented 49 separate incidents of live birds being thrown away into trash cans and left to suffer there, sometimes for three days. He also witnessed employees dumping dead birds on top of live birds in trash cans so that these birds were left buried, sometimes two feet under the bodies of dead birds, to suffocate or to be crushed by the corpses.“

We are so fortunate to have Nathan as an animal activist. Compassion for all.

Blood Money

When innocent animals are under attack…

…what do we do?

Shortly after the police intervention, the officer asked us to turn off our cameras claiming that it was illegal to record audio of someone if they don’t know they’re being recorded. Well now you know, I told him. No, he said, because we didn’t have his official permission. What if he did something illegal? I asked. How could we display this in court? He changed the subject and told me to focus on what we were doing… Is this a law in the US? Sounds like bunk shit to me.

*Le Pigeon sells a foie gras “jelly donut”. Sick.

Since when is a terrorist one who reveals terror?

This next video takes place at the home of vivisector, Dr. Eliott Spindel. Spindel collects millions in public funds to conduct experiments on primates, electroucting them, violating them, and experimenting on their babies. Animal testing is inaccurate, excessive, and wasteful, and most importantly – it is mental and physical torture for sentient beings who spend their entire lives in cages fearing what will happen to them next. Spindel gets to go home, they don’t.

Jane Goodall calls primate research “a very black mark against humanity“.

What will it take for people to put themselves in place of the animals?

Because reincarnation can be a bitch…

Ir-resistable

Join the Resistance

@ the Vancouver Anarchist Bookfair

A two day gathering of different types of anarchists. From those who are anti-prison, to anti-Olympics, to anti-factory farming (me). I was able to interview a few interesting subjects before the paranoia set in and someone questionnd the camera. Hey – anarchism is not a secret club. It’s my understanding that this is the first Vancouver Anarchist Bookfair and it truly brought a smile to my face. Food Not Bombs was there, as was Spartacus Books. How cool.

You May Already Be An Anarchist

(an excerpt from Fighting For Our Lives: An Anarchist Primer)

If your idea of healthy human relations is a dinner with friends where everyone enjoys everyone else’s company, responsibilities are divided up voluntarily and informally, and no one gives orders or sells anything, then you are an anarchist. The only question that remains is how you can arrange for more of your interactions to resemble this model.

Whenever you act without waiting for instructions or official permission – you are an anarchist. Any time you bypass a ridiculous regulation when no one’s looking, you are an anarchist. If you don’t trust the government, the school system, Hollywood, or the management to know better than you when it comes to things that affects your life, that’s anarchism, too. And you are especially an anarchist when you come up with your own ideas and initiatives and solutions.

As you can see, it’s anarchism that keeps things working and life intersting. If we waited for authorities and specialists and technicians to take care of everything, we would not only be in a world of trouble, but dreadfully bored – and boring – to boot. Today we live in that world of (dreadfully boring!) trouble precisely to the extent that we abdicate responsibility and control.

www.artfactpress.com

www.adbusters.org

www.no2010.com

Extra, Extra

VICTORY!!

Crave has made the decision to remove the foie gras from their menu!

(averting a demo that was to occur at their West Vancouver location this Saturday)

I worked as a server at Crave Beachside from August-November of 2008. Although I made a lot of great friends there, I quit due to the fact that they served a foie gras mayo with their poutine (which I obv. didn’t notice when primarily scanning the menu…) When I informed the manager of why I was quitting, word eventually got back to Wayne Martin, chef and part-owner of Crave, who then berated me in front of the kitchen about my make-up being tested on animals (NOT), about how many foie gras farms I’d been to (I’d go if they weren’t in Quebec…), and then making the statement that foie gras is: “the same as a fat person.” The next day, Wayne Martin found a reason to fire me prematurely, sending me home in the middle of a shift.

Since this debacle, I attempted to get Peta’s help in communicating with Crave, who refused due to, I’m guessing, political reasons. I then turned to Liberation BC, who already had their eye on Crave, and this ignited many letters asking that Crave remove the foie gras from the menu and explaining why it is one of the most inhumane forms of animal farming in existence. The letters went unanswered, management not wanting “these types” of people (compassionate?) as customers anyway, but eventually, when the time came for a demo at the newly rennovated Crave Beachside, the news spread that Crave had made the decision to remove the foie gras from its menu at both Crave Beachside and Crave on Main. {For now we won’t touch the foie gras and veal still on the menu at the fine-dining, foodie cousin restaurant, Fraiche, up the hill}, but this is a smart move for Crave. Thank you, Crave, no matter what your reasons were behind removing this item from your menu – this is one small step for animal rights, and giant step for animals. Also thanks to Liberation BC for your patience and persistence.

Now… onto the other “gourmet” restaurants! So far as I know, a long steel pipe is not a piece of cutlery~

The Exiled Prince

Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, is bargaining with the American feds for (hopefully) a 5 year prison sentence for selling seeds to American customers. The Canadian government made the decision to extradite Emery, even though they collected taxes on Emery’s sales.

*This article was taken from CBC, although I give them NO credit anymore after they ran an article recently purporting that the commercial seal hunt was a native hunt. Don’t even get me mothafuckin started!

Marijuana activist Marc Emery says he plans to drop his fight against extradition to the U.S. and plead guilty to one charge of drug distribution in a Seattle courtroom next month. Emery’s extradition hearing in Vancouver was adjourned on Wednesday so his lawyer could negotiate a deal with the U.S. district attorney in which Emery could spend up to eight years in jail for one charge, while two other more serious charges are dropped, he said. “I will be making a guilty plea to one count of marijuana distribution this summer, and then when I’m sentenced the U.S. district attorney is going to be asking for five to eight years in a federal U.S. penitentiary,” he told CBC News on Wednesday. After the guilty plea, Emery expects he will be sentenced in August or September and is hoping he will eventually be transferred to a Canadian jail. Joint U.S.-Canada bust This is not the first time the marijuana activist has said his lawyers are cutting a deal with U.S. prosecutors. In July 2008, Emery said he had made a deal in which he would serve a minimum of five years in jail, but he later blamed Canadian authorities when the deal fell through. The marijuana activist is facing drug charges for selling pot seeds to U.S. customers, after his Vancouver-based mail order business was busted in a joint operation involving both U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies in 2005. He’s been fighting extradition ever since, but on Wednesday he said he now realizes it’s a fight he’s not going to win. “Ultimately my lawyer is convinced that the Canadian government has never refused an extradition request from the United States and it’s not going to start now,” he said. “Sometimes you have to face up to the reality of what’s going to happen, and under this scenario I may be free out of prison in two or three or four years,” he said. Without the deal, Emery said, he would be facing much more time in jail. “This is a preferential arrangement to the not-so-good-arrangement that would see me spend 10, 20, 30 years in a U.S. federal penitentiary, foreseeably the rest of my life, and that doesn’t give a person a lot of hope,” he said. Prepared to do time “The DA wants to paint me as a large player providing a lot of marijuana to people, and we’ll bring up that it was only seeds and it was totally transparent. It was done in Canada out in the open for 10 or 12 years,” he told CBC News during an interview at the busy downtown Vancouver hemp store he still operates. “I didn’t keep any of the money — $4 million. I gave it all away to activist groups around the world, so my motives are unusual, so that does mitigate in sentencing,” said Emery, who frequently ran in provincial and federal elections as the leader of the Marijuana Party. But the man who once spent more than two months in a Canadian prison for passing a joint to an undercover officer is now preparing for a much longer stay in a U.S. prison. “You’ve got to keep busy in jail. You’ve got to be reading, in my case writing. I’ll be learning Spanish, French. You’ve got to have projects,” he said.

Days of War, Days of Love

“I’ll take that camera, and shove it right up your ass.”

This next video turned out strangely avant-garde:

Masked Vigilantes, a Burgundy Tie, and Chirping Birds at the Tennis Court.

And a snipit from Fuel laters…

Freeganism: When Anarchy Becomes Mainstream

Guess what was on Oprah the other day??

That’s right – dumpstering. Even the Christians are doing it.

Freeganism: this growing grassroots subculture is made of people who have decided to live outside consumer society. Freegans say our culture’s emphasis on buying the newest products—and throwing away perfectly fine older things—is a waste of the world’s resources. Instead, they focus on buying less and use only what they need. One of the main ways freegans do this is by salvaging food and other goods from the trash.

Three years ago, Madeline was an executive living in New York City earning a six-figure salary. After a six-month period of conversion, she says she became a freegan who gets almost all her food from what other people throw away. “I started thinking about what I was consuming,” she says. “I started looking at how much I was consuming and how consumerism is really driven by corporations who make lots and lots of money by getting us to buy things.”

Madeline’s lessons in freeganism included a “trash tour” of New York. These tours show interested people just how much perfectly safe, edible food can be found that has been thrown away. “I thought, ‘Well, why not?’ I just wanted to see what’s there.” Now Madeline routinely takes people in New York City on trash tours.

In her New York City home, Madeline prepares a meal for Lisa made from salvaged food. Her kitchen is stocked with the sort of things you’d find in many kitchens in America—fruit, vegetables, milk, bread, eggs and even cut flowers. All of which, she says, came from the trash. Madeline estimates she spends roughly $10 to $20 a week on things she can’t find in the trash.

The food she’s eating is far from gross. “It’s not toxic waste,” she says. Much of the food is still in its original packaging and has been discarded largely for cosmetic reasons, not because of poor quality. She shows Lisa how cartons of eggs are regularly thrown away when there’s one broken egg—even though there are 11 perfectly good ones remaining. Fruit is often thrown away when it has only minor dents, she says.

“Once you know what you’re doing, in approximately one hour, you can gather food that if you were paying retail price, [it would cost] between [$100] and $300,” Madeline says…

This is all very Grapes of Wrath. I’m wondering when they’re going to start locking up the garbage.

Still wrapping my head around the dumpstering thing… given all the other surprises you could find.

Fear of the unknown…

Hurt

Hey Hotnesses! Got a new tune for you on

NML RADIO!

Remix of a remix: Budoka’s RMX of Johnny Cash doing Hurt. Little dnb in there for the junglists. Cash did it better than Reznor, and Budoka does it even a little better.

This one goes out to all the force fed duckies with steel pipes rammed down their throats to appease the fat-hungry foodies. Boo-urns : (

(So sorry to show you this… only watch if you can guarantee you won’t fall into a depression…)

Why are you doing this? The restaurants ask us.

Because it hurts to know this is taking place.

Junk in tha Trunk

A friend of mine once referred to her derriere as a cottage cheese buffet (not that that stopped her from mooning people out the school bus window.) Following is an article I wrote on cellulite for “Swag Magazine”; I put it in quotation marks because it’s a fake magazine that only exists in the owner’s mind. Enjoy ladies!

What is more famous than celebrities these days? Celebrity cellulite. From Mischa Barton to Britney Spears, celebrity thighs and butts are finding their way onto magazine covers – exposed cellulite super-imposed, circled in white, and pointed to with arrows. In a world not only meticulous about size and shape – texture, too, has taken center stage in the requirements for perfection. So who wants to see all this cellulite blown-up and zoomed in on? The media is appealing here to the many people who love to bust typically glossed-over celebrities for their imperfections in order to see them as regular, flawed people. But unfortunately, instead of making readers feel better about themselves, the result of this cellulite hunt is a white circle around our own thighs and butts. Hilariously referred to as “hail damage” or “mattress phenomenon”, cellulite is an appearance of dimpled skin caused by collections of fat cells that bulge through the mesh of the connective tissue beneath the skin. Appearing most commonly on the upper thighs and buttocks, cellulite can also be visible on the upper arms and stomach, but is not necessarily related to being overweight. “I don’t care how skinny you are,” Cindy Simonelli from Dermal Laser Centre comments. “Everyone has it.” Well, maybe not everyone, but most women – up to 95%. So – if so many women have cellulite, then why has it become a universal secret shame? With women showing more skin in the media these days, posing in bikinis and sometimes naked for photo shoots, a new window has opened for close scrutiny of areas that were previously covered up. Then of course there is airbrushing to thank for our collective forgetting that women are not poreless and Barbie-plastic smooth. Or maybe it’s because men, in comparison, rarely suffer from cellulite. Whereas women have thinner skin than men (physically – not emotionally…) when women’s fat cells expand they burst through their connective tissue; men’s outer skin is thicker and obscures surplus fat. Elements that can contribute to cellulite besides genetics are: smoking, fatty foods, lack of exercise, poor circulation, hormone changes, stress, and caffeine. Except when caffeine is rubbed onto the skin, it can reduce the appearance of cellulite… Or can it?

With names like Fat Girl Slim and WonderBod Jiggle Gel, many cellulite creams these days contain caffeine, thought to increase blood flow and drain water from fat cells. Another popular ingredient often found in cellulite creams is Retinol, which is supposed to penetrate the skin and increase collagen production, making the skin thicker and hiding the fat (however high of amounts of Retinol can cause the skin to redden and peel). Some creams also contain DMAE – an anti-oxidant found in our fishy friends that stimulates the muscles to contract and become firmer. But the bottom line is: there is a lack of evidence to show that any of these ingredients can reach the fat through the skin. It has been difficult to measure the results of cellulite creams without standardized testing, but the general consensus among doctors is that even if the creams do work, the results are very temporary, lasting from minutes to hours, and at $25 to $75 a bottle, uncertain results can be are a waste of money.

Another option for cellulite reduction is Velasmooth, which – in cellulite’s continual quest for the limelight – was recently performed on famewhore Kim Kardashian in her reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” after comments made by Paris Hilton (aka Wonky McValtrex) surfaced comparing KK’s behind to a trash bag full of cottage cheese.  Velasmooth combines gentle light and radio frequency energies with mechanical rollers and vacuum suction. The heat and light shrinks the size of the fat cells, while the rollers and vacuum stimulate blood vessels to increase circulation to the local area and increase the metabolic process. The downside? An initial treatment package costs just under $3000, with monthly follow-up sessions priced at around $150 a pop. But according to Cindy Simonelli from Dermal Laser Centre: “it does work.” Having administered the treatment to clientele ranging from women in their mid-twenties to women in their sixties, Simonelli has seen many happy clients leave her clinic. “I have seen patients lose several inches,” she remarks. Velasmooth is not painful, but may leave the skin feeling slightly warm and red for a short time. It is often used in preference to the more controversial cellulite treatment on the market – Lipodissolve (otherwise known as mesotherapy.)

Evolving in France in the 1950s, Lipodissolve is now available in North America, though it is not yet adequately tested or approved. Using a series of medicated injections, Lipodissolve is thought to melt away localized areas of fat. The ingredients in the injections vary, but usually include: PCDC (a soybean extract and bile derivative – um… yuck!), alpha lipid acid, enzymes, plant extracts, and multivitamins. Some injections also include anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, and hormones. The need for regulation within these ingredients is one reason why the American Society of Plastic Surgeons is concerned. The other cause for concern: where does the fat go? A question that 100 000 North American patients have been willing to overlook as long as the fat is gone. But at $375 to $1500 per treatment session, and four to eight treatments to notice results, Lipodissolve is not only expensive, but can be uncomfortable for those squeamish about needles, and can leave bruising for up to three weeks. Not to mention the horror stories that have been linked to the process – infections similar to flesh-eating disease, tissue death, and allergic reactions, making a little junk in the trunk seem not so bad. “I looked like I was eight months pregnant,” Annette Clark told ABC news after a Lipodissolve session on her stomach provoked an allergic reaction that left her waking up in an ambulance.

For those seeking a more natural cellulite treatment, there is lymphatic drainage massage. Lymph is a clear, slightly yellow fluid that circulates the body carrying white blood cells and antibodies to tissue and organs to help maintain the immune system. Lymphatic drainage massage is a technique that uses light pressure and gentle rhythmic strokes to increase lymphatic flow and help rid the body of toxins and fat by drawing fluid to the capillaries and causing the puckering of the skin to subside.

But maybe the most effective treatment in fighting cellulite is simply building muscle. We all saw the toned female athletes in the Olympics last summer wearing tiny  bodysuits, so it’s safe to say that the swimmers, volleyball players, runners, and gymnasts are keeping their cellulite in check. Muscle creates a firm base that makes fat lie flat, and also increases metabolism, burning more calories than fat. Squats and lunges are especially good cellulite-busting techniques as they activate larger muscle groups.

With all the recent obsession with cellulite, if perfection and imperfection are  equally as fascinating, then perhaps one is not better than the other.

Update: Veganism is great for the badunk-a-dunk.

And that is the first time I have ever typed that word!

Triple ‘Threat’

It was an action packed Sunday evening as the Vancouver Animal Defense League  visited Lumiere and FUEL to demonstrate against their choice to sell force fed animals, followed by a home visit to a key supporter of the fur industry: Rick Corcoran of Fairmont Hotels. The response of passerby was supportive and curious – about animal abuse and also about the choices of some activists to wear masks… After water guns filled with milkshakes were shot at us out of vehicles, after an egg was thrown, and glass shattered from a story above, the choice to cover up becomes more clear.

~

ONE

Just another Manic Sunday as Lumiere closes its patio, draws the blinds, and turns up the music.

TWO

FUEL insists that its foie gras farms are humane. Is any force feeding humane? They say the protesters are “confused”. How could we be more clear? Maybe FUEL would like to volunteer to experience force feeding so they can decide first hand whether it is torture. This would be evidence they could not deem biased.

THREE

Won’t You Take Me

…to Funkytown?

Commercial Street Style

If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh?

Do animals have a sense of humour?

How do you graph the evolution of a laugh? Researchers tickled babies and six different kinds of apes, quantified their giggles, and found that the patterns fit a classic evolutionary tree.

Those patterns hint at the ancient origins of human hilarity and suggest that other social species – including apes, dogs and rats – really, truly laugh as well.

“What we can say is that laughter goes back at least 10 to 16 million years,” said University of Portsmouth primatologist Marina Davila Ross, one of the researchers behind the study published online today in the journal Current Biology. “It could go farther than that.”

A prominent researcher in the specialized field of animal laughter, Jaak Panksepp of Washington State University, said it definitely goes farther back than that. “I personally think that a credible laughter concept can, and already has been, extended to mammalian species as lowly as the rat,” he told me in an e-mail.

For years, Panksepp and his colleagues have been documenting the high-pitched vocalizations that rats make when they’re tickled by human handlers – and they insist that such vocalizations reflect “laughter and social joy.” But some skeptics have said it’s too much of a stretch to classify those sounds as true laughter.

The research conducted by Davila Ross and her colleagues – Georgia State University’s Michael Owren and Elke Zimmermann of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany – appears to support the case for animal laughter. The scientists charted a spectrum of tickle-induced vocalizations from three human infants and four species of great apes in captivity, plus the less closely related siamang ape.

Eleven auditory variables were measured for the 25 experimental subjects – variables such as the length of the vocalization, the in-and-out breathing patterns and the vibrations of the vocal cords. All those numbers were fed into a software program that looked for relationships between the data points. Then the computer constructed a phylogenetic tree (that is, the ”family tree”) that fit the data best.

The resulting tree turned out to reflect the widely accepted evolutionary relationships between the species. The siamang was way out on its own branch. Chimpanzees and bonobos were closely related to each other, and to humans. Gorillas branched out a bit lower on the tree, and orangutans were lower still.

“It’s an interesting pattern,” Davila Ross said. The human babies had a distinctive pattern of laughter: a haa-haa-haa, with regular voicing, on the exhale only. But the researchers could see the roots of that pattern in the chimp vocalizations: typically, a fast hee-uh-hee-uh-hee, using an in-and-out airflow.

Listen to the tickle-induced laughter from five of the species that were studied, as captured in audio clips from the University of Portsmouth:

• Human
• Chimpanzee
• Bonobo
• Gorilla
• Orangutan

The researchers were surprised to find that some of the apes could extend their exhalation to as long as 10 seconds during laughter. “That’s something that was thought to be present only in humans,” Davila Ross said. “It’s certainly an important part of speech – that we can produce a continuous vocal flow without having to stop, inhale, and say a few more words again.”

In their Current Biology paper, the researchers say “one can conclude that it is appropriate to consider ‘laughter’ to be a cross-species phenomenon, and that it is therefore not anthropomorphic to use this term for tickling-induced vocalizations produced by the great apes.”

Laughter around the animal world
Panksepp said the paper “provides a minimalist, highly conservative interpretation of the exciting findings.” He’s been focusing on rats, but other research suggests that dogs make a particular kind of pant that could be considered laughter. The “dog-laugh” accompanies play behavior, and when other dogs hear the sound, it appears to reduce stress (like a good joke among humans).

One of Panksepp’s research colleagues, Northwestern University’s Jeffrey Burgdorf, said rat laughs seem to have a similar effect … on rats, that is. “These animals like to hear them,” he told me. “They press a bar to hear these vocalizations. … Every time they vocalize, it’s rewarding to them.”

Burgdorf sees the evidence of that in the rats’ neurochemical response as well. Laughing, or even hearing laughter, leads to the release of dopamine and opiates that make the brain feel good.

The more socially oriented a species is, the more likely it is to exhibit laughter (or, more technically, vocalizations associated with tickling or play). Rats laugh, but not mice. “Mice are solitary creatures,” Burgdorf said.

OK, so what about cats? Could purring be considered laughter? “My gut says that it is, but you can’t show it empirically,” Burgdorf said. If researchers find that a cat’s purr is associated with the brain’s feel-good chemicals, that might support the case for feline laughter. But really, the bottom line is that there’s a wide spectrum of vocalizations linked to animal pleasures.

“Invertebrates make vocalizations, but they don’t have neuroanatomical homology to humans,” said Burgdorf, sounding thoroughly like the neuroscientist he is. Translation: Just because a bee buzzes, that doesn’t mean it’s laughing at you.

Evolution of laughter
The latest research doesn’t speculate on what drove the evolution of laughter. “It could be that there are social factors that have had an impact on evolution,” Davila Ross said. “There could be side effects of the evolution of vocalization and speech.”

The apes were recorded during tickling sessions at seven European zoos, and Davila Ross acknowledged that laughter in the wild could be different from laughter in captivity. “Even if you compare one zoo group with another zoo group, there are differences,” she said. But the researchers tried to minimize the potential for human influence by tickling infants and juveniles rather than adult apes.

Vocalizations associated with pleasure could serve as positive signals to other members of the species during social interactions. “It probably came from mating vocalizations, which are examples of positive social interactions,” Burgdorf said.

Burgdorf said he’s interested in laughter not so much to find out how it evolved, but to find out how it can heal. If there’s a link between particular types of vocalizations and the neurochemistry of feeling good, then animal studies could lead to better mood-lightening medicines.

Studying animal laughter certainly lightened the mood of Davila Ross and her colleagues: “When watching the apes play with the caretakers, it was contagious,” she said.

These Are the Breaks

break it up, break it up, break it up

Er-Cher

Baby

Flintsicle

On and Off, On and Off

Dawn of A New Era’s 1st Vlog

Fur – What Is It Good For?

Trailer for the film The Skin Trade, discussing how humane it is to raise an animal in a cage no bigger than its own size, electrocute it, then rip its skin off. Megan Halprin considers this process: “Canadian”. Maybe we should feature the act in Vancouver’s opening ceremonies next year..?

more about "Fur – What Is It Good For? ", posted with vodpod

The “Terrorist” Speaks

Government repression, activist assassination, best friends paid to spy by the FBI, black faxes, and why this is not the time to STFU.

more about "The "Terrorist" Speaks", posted with vodpod

Let Live: Becoming the Media and Getting Creative

Let Live chat, featuring Vancouver’s very famous Glenn from Liberation BC!

more about "Let Live: Becoming the Media and Gett…", posted with vodpod

Let’s Live

If you aren’t comfortable with just being comfortable, head on down to Let Live in Portland, Oregon this month from June 26th to 28th, an animal rights conference that addresses all angles of living in a less human-centric world.

Here is what Let Live is about in their own words:

“Animals belong to themselves, not to us. They should not suffer in our systems of food, science, entertainment and fashion. Instead, they should live free of the tyranny we put upon them. But they cannot claim this freedom alone. The Let Live NW Animal Rights Conference is a grassroots forum for people who want to help. Through an open, respectful, and friendly environment this conference will provide an opportunity for attendees to learn skills and strategies to become better advocates for the animals, no matter ones experience level in activism.

This conference is for first-timers, experienced activists, and anybody in between who hopes to make a real difference for animals and build a stronger, more effective community and animal liberation movement. This conference is for anybody who wants to live and let live.

“Let Live” is taking place in Portland, Oregon, June 26th-28th, 2009. It will be held this year on the campus of Portland State University in the Smith Memorial building.”