The Grumpy Vegan notes with interest a posting on the Research Defence Society blog trumpeting the announcement of an award going to Hard Cash Productions for the pro-vivisection BBC2 documentary, Monkeys, Rats And Me: Animal Testing. It turns out that Hard Cash Productions was established by David Henshaw in 1992. Three years earlier Henshaw wrote Animal Warfare: The story of the Animal Liberation Front, which has to stand out as one of the most biased, sensational and exaggerated books of its kind. Nice to see the pro-animal research people once again relying upon emotion to make their case.
Thought for the Day
There are many signs that the public is awaking to the fact that there is such a thing as food-reform. The reception of a new idea of this sort is always a strange process, and has to pass through several successive phases. First, there is tacit contempt; secondly, open ridicule; then a more or less respectful opposition; and lastly, a partial acceptance. During the third period, the one at which the Vegetarian question has now arrived, discussion is often complicated by the way in which the opponents of the new idea fail to grasp the real object of the reformers, and pleasantly substitute some exaggerated, distorted, or wholly imaginary concept of their own; after which they proceed to argue from a wrong basis, crediting their antagonists with mistaken aims and purposes, and then triumphantly impugning their consistency or logic. It is therefore of importance that, in debating the problem of food-reform, we should know exactly what the reformers themselves are aiming at.
Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) Excerpted from “The Humanities of Diet” (Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914), serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library. Learn more Henry Salt.
Vegan Film Comment
When I was about 8 years old, I found my cat LICKING photos that we had left out on the desk. My father said, “He probably likes the taste” then went on to explain about gelatin used in film. It’s knowledge i’ve taken for granted for years, and was exceptionally happy to purchase my first digital camera 5 years ago. I have been a happy vegan using digital photography, purchasing my own photo paper that does not contain gelatin.
I’m glad that you posted this! I wonder how many vegans didn’t know about film! And in response to the writer’s wonderment at why “vegan” is mentioned and not “vegetarian” is probably because vegans pay more attention to the non-food products they use as well. Not that vegetarians are ignorant of the animal products around them, their “food” choices don’t always spill over into their general consumerism.
Reader comment in response to this post.
Animals and Politics–the Labour Local Government Way
Here’s a link to the Labour Animal Welfare Society and their Local Authority Animals Charter. You can download the charter, which has nine sections addressing a variety of animal issues. Back in the mid-1980s when the Grumpy Vegan worked for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, he introduced the Animals Charter for first time ever to a local authority — the London Borough of Islington — which adopted it. Here’s what the Islington Council says about it today. After Islington’s adoption of the Animals Charter, one of the first steps the council took was to redirect funds from its pest control budget to help local groups trap, neuter and return feral cats. This work continues to this day.
Stallwood Animal Rights Archive Update #5
The Grumpy Vegan has catalogued more than 500 books from the Stallwood Animal Rights Archive on LibraryThing. The next update will be made when he’s reached 600 catalogued books.
Thought for the Day
This is not the sense in which I am about to speak of the “humanities” of diet. I have not been fired by the Spectator’s enthusiasm for the rescue of some “neglected quadruped,” nor have I any wish to see eviscerated Elands hanging a-row in our butchers’ shops. On the contrary, I suggest that in proportion as man is truly “humanised,” not by schools of cookery but by schools of thought, he will abandon the barbarous habit of his flesh-eating ancestors, and will make gradual progress towards a purer, simpler, more humane, and therefore more civilised diet-system.
Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) Excerpted from “The Humanities of Diet” (Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914), serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library. Learn more Henry Salt.
