Sorry for taking so long with this, but we’ve finally closed the duck name poll. The winning name is “Marty Gras”!
All of the results can be seen on our website.
Thanks for voting.
Here’s a video of Marty dancing up a storm at Justice Rocks over the weekend.
For the second year, Pivot hosted Justice Rocks, an afternoon of music and social activism in Strathcona Park. As they describe it:
Only in it’s second year now, Justice Rocks is attracting a huge site full of party people — skate demos, a dunk tank, three marching bands, b-boy/girl break off, and a carnie birthday party. Nevermind the full line-up that you can check out here on our webpage!
Holding up the perimeters of the event are dozens of Vancouver City Superheros… folks behind some of the most prolific movin’ and shaking environmental justice, social justice, youth groups and campaigns around.
Justice Rocks is a powerful movement for progressive change. It’s an outdoor dance party, park takeover and full on celebration for the brilliant work we’re doing around here.
We were there representing the animals. Animal rights is a social justice issue too – but the animals are too often left out of discussions of rights and justice.
I love going to this event and seeing all the other groups and hearing about their projects. Being out there on the field you really feel like we all can change the world. That if we all keep working we’ll be able to solve problems of civil liberties, the environment, homelessness, and animal rights.
We talked to a bunch of people and answered a number of questions. It was great to hear how many people are concerned about animals – and how many people are changing their diets to help animals and the environment. It was all very positive. Thanks to Roger and Alissa for helping out at the booth. I also got to meet some people who I’d only known on Twitter and Facebook.
Some of the other groups at the event were BC Civil Liberties Association, Greenpeace, Katimavik, Hope in Shadows, Megaphone Magazine, Wilderness Committee, Gallery Gachet, Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, Youth Co AIDS Society, Forest Ethics, No One Is Illegal, and more. It was a real who’s who of activist organizations in the Vancouver area.
Roger at the LBC booth
Next year, if you have a chance, and you care about any of the issues represented, head on down to Strathcona Park and have some fun, listen to music, watch some dancers, do some dancing of your own, and find out how you can make a difference!
Oh, and our duck was there doing some dancing. He’s not a very good dancer – but he has fun!
I just watched this report from a year ago about building over- and underpasses for wildlife so that they can get from one side of the highway to the other.
A wildlife overpass
When we build highways or towns it very often divides an animal’s natural habitat. These people are trying to come up with solutions that protect the animals and allow for us to live and travel.
How else could we lighten our footprint or enable animals to live within and around our habitat? Is our habitat as important for our survival as particular habitat is for bears, elk, caribou, etc.?
The recent Time article about industrial agriculture has some large-scale “farmers” up in arms about some of the claims. I came across this response today, and was surprised at how little information it really contains. There really aren’t any actual facts in it at all, except that the author considers himself a farmer and that he has a cell-phone. It would have been interesting to see a response that dealt with the claims made in the Time article with some evidence to back it all up.
Free from the cycle of exploitation
I would invite you to check out the original Time article and then read through this post. For now, I’ll just take issue with a few points.
Modern technology enhances individual animal care; for example, I can access whole-health history for each cow from my cell phone. Modern freestall housing keeps our animals comfortable and healthy – protecting them from weather extremes, predators and disease. Also, a veterinarian frequently checks on our herd.
Suggesting that keeping cows indoors for their entire lives, never letting them experience any sort of natural life, is “animal care” is a bit like saying that prisons are a paradigm of individual human health care.
Being able to access health records also is really no indicator of concern for welfare. It only makes sense to maintain accurate and up-to-date records for any piece of equipment, and to dairy farmers cows are really just milk-producing machines, not living beings with any life or meaning of their own.
As a keeper of many animals throughout the years, I’ve had mixed experiences with veterinarians. The American Veterinary Medical Association hasn’t really shown themselves to be concerned with animals in and of themselves, but rather in assisting people who use animals to maximize their profits.
The AVMA has historically been reluctant to adopt a position that conflicts with current practice. Some notable controversial practices that the AVMA has not come out in opposition to are forced molting and gestation crates. They have also approved of such practices as tail docking and ear notching of pigs, and they also approve of battery cages for egg-laying chickens [pdf]. They have consistently positioned themselves on the side of industry, rather than on the side of animals. More information about the AVMA’s positions on animal welfare issues can be found on their website, avma.org.
I’m also struck by the absence of photos or video to back up these claims. What this really indicates to me is an effort to spin words to present a happy picture of content cows happily giving their milk – all the while hiding the calves taken from them right after birth, their milk taken from them by machines, sent off to slaughter when their milk production drops off and they are no longer profitable. Let’s look at the whole picture and let’s really ask the farmers who are producing our food to open up and show us the truth. Let’s stop accepting this sort of hazy misinformation as any sort of answer.
The truth – that’s all we ask.
One of my favorite people, David Eby – who is a tireless advocate for the homeless, the poor, and people on the fringes of society – posted this entry on his blog yesterday about the remodeling of Pigeon Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
In case you don’t know about it, the DTES is one of the poorest postal codes in Canada, with a disproportionate number of marginalized people living on the streets and in run-down single occupancy rooms. Pigeon Park is really just a wedge of widened sidewalk on one corner, with some benches and a couple of trees.
Here’s how David describes it:
There’s this park, a crappy little triangle of a park, located at the corner of Carrall and Hastings Streets in the DTES. Nothing much to speak of. Some interlocking brick, some concrete planters, a large wall of plywood beside an empty building, and several benches.
Such is Pigeon Park.
It is probably, per square foot, the most heavily used park in Vancouver. There’s always lots of people hanging out. Some are drunk. Some are high. Some are not. All are sitting, or standing, or talking, or whatever the hell they want. It’s a park for the people of the Downtown Eastside.
Most other people wouldn’t bother making the connection to the Park’s namesake, but David does:
Everyone knows it’s Pigeon Park, and for a park name, it’s probably the most fitting park name in the world. Pigeons are birds that have managed, despite all odds, to survive in the urban environment. Pigeons are survivors.
Pigeons are also hated. Called nuisances. Fenced out, chased out, kicked when they’re down. Probably a story that, good and bad, sounds all too familiar to many of the folks that use that park.
I love how he brings the story of pigeons in to the story of the park and the people who use the park. Intersectionality in action, eloquently put. His whole post is good, please check it out.
Thanks David, for all the great work!
[Sorry for the lack of posts over the past 2 weeks. Between work and rebuilding our kitchen, I haven't had a lot of time to write. Sorry also for the shortness of this post. I saw David's post yesterday but only got to it today. And I have approximately 7 million other things to do this morning.]
Argument: “All this Veganism stuff can only be adhered to by very wealthy people in a society that is very advanced.”
Response: Fortunately, this is nowhere near true. Unless you are buying a lot of pre-processed fake meats and cheeses–which are pricey, but shouldn’t be a large part of a healthy diet anyway–veganism is actually quite a bit cheaper than the alternative:
Most of the staples of a vegetarian diet are cheap. In fact, most of the world’s people eat a mostly vegetarian diet made up of inexpensive commodities such as beans, rice and corn.If you drop red meat, poultry and fish from your diet, you’ll find plant proteins cheaper than the equivalent amount of animal protein. (Go Vegetarian to Save Money)
Check out the rest of the article from MSN: Go Vegetarian to Save Money, and this one, Recession Flexitarians, which discusses the fact that the current economy is forcing more people to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy.
