The Grumpy Vegan wonders if the campaign against fur is becoming more like the war against drugs: a lost cause.
According to Gallup’s annual “moral acceptability” measure, updated in May, Americans have inched to the right on a handful of the 15 issues rated, including divorce, use of animal fur in clothing [up from 54% to 61% in one year], gambling, and embryonic stem-cell research. Public opinion about the moral acceptability of the other items is essentially unchanged, with no significant increases in support for traditionally liberal positions.
In the early 1990s, Operation Rescue picketed our home because they disagreed with Bruce, my partner, a Presbyterian minister. It was a Sunday afternoon and it was a very scary experience. Our children were quite frightened. I don’t know where Dr. Tiller got the courage to face such bullies and terrorists for so many years; I mourn his death.
A must read!The local Hastings weekly newspaper, The Observer, carries a report about Tressell’s Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
A classic novel based in Hastings has turned into a surprise bestseller. According to industry insiders, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell has enjoyed a huge upsurge in sales. And experts believe this could be a direct result of the recession, as readers flock to snap up more radical reads. Sales of the book received a boost last year, following a star-studded Radio 4 serialisation of the work that featured Bill Bailey, Timothy Spall, Johnny Vegas, Paul Whitehouse and the MP John Prescott in a cameo role. This year, in the midst of dire economic forecasts, the book is still confounding expectations, peaking at number six in the Amazon Movers and Shakers list.
What’s amusing is that Tressell ridicules the local newspaper in the socialist novel as The Obscurer. Sadly, the newspaper’s reputation hasn’t improved one century later! The novel is set in Hastings or Mugsborough as it is depicted in the novel. We went on a walking tour of Hastings last summer to see where Tressell lived and worked and wrote The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Tressell is also featured at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.
. . . testimony provided to the Committee by USDA officials made it clear that despite new enforcement guidelines and intensified inspection efforts, not all origins of animals are or can be traced. The USDA simply cannot assure that stolen or lost pets will not enter research laboratories via the Class B dealer system.
With the promise of a free vote on hunting from the Conservative government a YouGov poll has revealed that 56% of the public think the Tories are the ‘nasty party’ on the issue of hunting, with 70% of the public believing the Conservatives are wrong to commit parliamentary time to the hunting issue.
Kim Stallwood is an independent scholar and author on animal rights. His forthcoming book, Animal Dharma, explores what it means to care deeply about animals. Starting in 1976, he has held leadership positions with some of the world’s foremost organisations in the UK and US, including CIWF, BUAV, PETA, The Animals’ Agenda, Animals and Society Institute and Minding Animals International. A vegetarian since 1974 when as a student he worked in a chicken slaughterhouse. A vegan since 1976. His evil twin is the Grumpy Vegan.
New Book!
Kim Stallwood's forthcoming book explores what it means to care deeply about animals and discovers how we can live peacefully with ourselves and others by proposing four key values: truth, compassion, nonviolence and interbeing.
