Descartes Award #2

by Kim W. Stallwood Posted on June 17, 2006

What a difficult spoonful of sugar to swallow! I have to accept the contemptible Descartes Award for failing to recognize that sheep -- like humans -- take medicine. Bah!
The Grumpy Vegan lives in Baltimore and in a neighborhood, Canton, which abuts (well, almost) the Johns Hopkins University and its medical school.

In 1888 Hopkins appointed William Osler to be the university’s first physician-in-chief and professor of medicine. He is of interest to us because he wrote, “The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from other animals.”

Well, at least Osler got it right when it comes to identifying humans as other animals. But he gets it wrong about taking medicine.

On June 12 The Washington Post picked up on the scientific journal Animal Behaviour. It reports on research with sheep at Utah State University in which their feed was spiked with different substances to induce different kinds of discomfort. The research showed that the sheep preferred food with the proper antidote to correct the affliction they had been given. Furthermore! Five months later the sheep made the right decision again!

Isn’t animal research clever? If they had asked me I would have told them that the cat who rules our home, Emmy, picks certain plants in the garden to eat to induce vomiting. But we were never asked. Sob. Sob.

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Beyonce and the Fur Protest

by Kim W. Stallwood Posted on June 17, 2006

Fur doesn't add to anyone's beauty.
The video of the PETA activist challenging Beyonce’s use of fur, including her fashion label, is a good example of where the line can be successfully drawn between a protest where the media’s frame is the anti-fur message and not an anti-animal rights message because of the way in which the message was communicated. My lasting impression is one of a polite and respectful activist attempting to engage a celebrity who is uncomfortable with being challenged by something that she and her entourage clearly know to be problematic.

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PETA Persuades Polo to Stop Using Fur

by Kim W. Stallwood Posted on June 11, 2006

This could be outlawed in the U.S. if we saw animal protection as a mainstream political issue.
On Thursday, June 8 Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. announced it will be ending its use of fur starting with the holiday 2006 season. Congratulations to PETA on this accomplishment.

This is a good example of what I term as Stage Two in my five-stage analysis of animal protection as a social movement. Stage one is public education (protests and publicity educate people about fur). Stage two is public policy (companies like Ralph Lauren adopt pro-animal position). Stage three and four are legislation and litigation respectively. Stage five is public acceptance.

In the fight against fur, we’re clearly still in stage one and two and inactive in stages three and four. Yes, there have been various attempts in these latter stages but the movement’s focus is primarily on changing public opinion. In other words, we continue to frame fur as a cruelty-free lifestyle choice issue and not as a public policy or legislative issue. The best example of stage three and fur is Britain’s 2003 law that banned fur farming as a moral issue.

To make fur farming illegal in the U.S. the animal protection movement must expand its vision from a preoccupation with framing fur as a cruelty-free, lifestyle choice issue to also one of public policy, namely legislation. Until this has been accomplished, the case against fur will be sidelined as a personal choice issue when legislation is what’s really needed.

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An Ethical Bank

by Kim W. Stallwood Posted on June 10, 2006

Sporrans are no longer a moral place to keep your money.
For most people the concept of an ethical bank is one that is beyond their imagination. A bank exists to look after your money and make more money for them with your money. Right? Ethics has nothing to do with banking – other than the way in which a bank operates with its customers and everyone else who may be involved with it.

An alternative viewpoint is provided by Britain’s Co-operative Bank. The Guardian reports that it declined about $15 million worth of business for a variety of ethical reasons, including to a company that makes “sporrans from fox pelts and a shoe firm that trims high-heeled boots with sable.” Additional moral issues include poor labor practices and global warming.

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